Chapter 9 Hot Stick of Beef

Wren

He glanced at the towel and left the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Carefully, I lowered my sleep pants. That didn't hurt too badly. As I slowly lifted my blood-stained shirt over my head, tiny shards of glass scraped my skin before they tinked on the floor.

Alright, so I did need Magnum to help me with this. He didn't seem like he was going to take me to the hospital or wait for a doctor. He wanted it done now, and he wanted to do it himself.

Looking in the mirror, I cringed at my embarrassingly wide bra straps and simple white cotton underwear. I didn't expect anyone to ever see them, and now Magnum Beaumont, commando for hire, was waiting for me on the other side of the door. He'd probably seen some fancy lingerie in his extensive life experience.

Well, I wasn't going out there with my bra showing, so I had to remove it. I hid it under my clothes and grabbed the towel. It scratched against my bare chest as I wrapped it around me. This was so awkward, but Mag seemed very methodical about his first-aid. Plus, we were family according to him, so it wasn't sexual. I mean, he was very sexy, but it wasn't sexual between us. Right?

When I opened the door, he was standing there shirtless as he wiped the dust and debris from his neck. Holy smokes, the man was flawless from head to toe. Beautiful dark brown skin with pale gray and black tattoos etched on his massive chest and strong arms, rows and rows of stone-like abs, and thick muscles at his hips that disappeared into his low-slung pants. His tattoos and scars were on full display. I'd seen some of them before, but it was still shocking to see him without his shirt. For the first time, it was easy to imagine him as a Navy SEAL, brave and rugged, running toward danger as he'd done tonight.

He'd known someone had broken through the door, and he'd sprinted toward it as fast as he could without any fear or hesitation.

Mag looked up and caught me gawking at him from the doorway of the bathroom. The corner of his mouth turned up, and his eyes sparkled. He knew the effect he had on women and he liked it. No fair taking advantage of me when I was out of my element going through some serious things.

"There's glass on the floor in the bathroom."

"I'll clean it up," he answered softly.

"Okay."

"Lie down on the bed. I'll check your back." His voice was quiet and deep.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked to the bed. I carefully climbed up and lay face-down on the black chemise bedspread. I held the top of the towel in a deathgrip as he approached me. He bent a knee and placed his first-aid bag on the floor next to him, his gaze going straight to the cuts on my arm. I couldn't hold back my wince from the burn as he brushed out the glass and cleaned it with the hydrogen peroxide .

"The shock is wearing off and you're starting to feel it." The tenor of his voice was intoxicating. Calm and serious, rumbling through the quiet room.

"So you've been through an explosion before?" I asked him to break the intimate silence between us.

He chuckled softly. "A few. I'm one lucky fucker to even be alive."

"Have you ever seen anyone die in an explosion?" That vision tonight felt so real. I truly thought Magnum had died and fallen to the ground. Luckily, it was just my brain playing tricks on me.

His hands stopped moving, and he tilted his head as he shifted his focus to my face. "I don't talk about it. Brings up a lot of old shit."

"Maybe telling me will help."

He'd completely removed his hands from my skin, and his voice softened like he was reaching deep for a memory. "When I first joined the Navy, I was just sixteen years old. I lied about my age to enlist."

My chest fluttered with a warm, pleasant feeling, surprised that he was sharing. "You did?" I didn't even know you could do that. He was just a teenager.

"Yep, and they sent me to Afghanistan straight out of RTC and A-school, basically a year of training. I got assigned to a route clearance unit. We were stopped at a checkpoint run by locals who were supposedly friendly. I didn't trust them, but I couldn't say anything as a grunt. I was in the second tank. My commander was in the lead."

"Okay. I have a mental picture of it."

"The third tank in the convoy exploded. "

I gasped and my heart sank. "Oh no." I peered up at him over my shoulder.

"Then the first." His face was solemn, and he was shaking his head, looking down. "It was bad. That's why I can say this one was small when you've seen the size and damage from something like that. There were pieces... We lost the leaders of our team in that explosion. All of a sudden, I was the highest in command of that unit, and I had to supervise the clean up and exfil. Next day we were back at it with me as commander at seventeen years old."

"That's crazy." It was a sad topic, but I really liked the way Magnum was speaking conversationally to me.

"I was angry after that. Got in a lot of fights. Almost got kicked out of the Navy. But then I decided to make it up to them. Everything I did was for them. Always watching, learning from those who'd come before me, trying to be worthy of my trident. Because I'd survived, it was on me to make their deaths mean something."

Wow. When Mag finally shared, he was good at expressing himself. "I think I get that. It's kind of similar with the bakery, on a much smaller scale, of course, but I feel like it's my duty to carry on the traditions of my grandfather to honor him." I thought of my parents too, who died when I was young. It wasn't my fault, but I still felt obligated to comply with everything to somehow make up for the lives they never got to live.

Mag started working on my arm again. He gently wiped a cut, placed some ointment on it, and then a small bandage. "When you were hurt, I took it as another failure on my part. "

I turned to my side to look up at him, holding the towel at my chest. "But you were there."

"Wrong door." His lips quirked, one side up, the other down, in an adorable childlike manner.

"You couldn't have known what door they'd come to. They came to the back door last time."

"Mmm-hmm." His gaze was on my arms, looking to see where else he needed to mend.

"It's not your fault. You did the best you could with the system."

"Shoulda pushed for the doors right away, not allowed the wait till Monday."

"It's hard to get custom doors done on a weekend."

"Yeah." His face was so sad and heart-breakingly human, I reached out and touched his hand with mine. We'd been doing a lot of touching with the first-aid anyway, so it didn't seem too odd.

"You're like me. I'm a perfectionist too. Everything has to be right or I blame myself, but if you look at it from a different perspective, like mine of you, I just think you're amazing. I thought everything you did was great, and you also covered me when the explosion happened."

"Barely got to you in time." I recognized the grief in his eyes. I'd seen it in my own many times.

"I could say it was my fault for leaving my room, for not going to the police about Kenny, for not having enough money for proper door locks. Do you blame me for all that?"

"No."

"I don't blame you for anything that happened, and I'm sure none of the families of the men who died blame you. Sometimes bad things just happen. Like my grandfather's illness. Nothing we could've done." I was telling him that, but did I really believe it myself? If I did, would I be putting my whole life on hold to run the bakery in his absence?

"Right. Lower the towel. Let me check your back."

I lay back down with my front on the bed. The towel was stuck beneath me, and I waited to see what he'd do. After a few moments, he reached out and tugged. I lifted up a little and he pulled it down. I'm sure he got a look at my side boob.

He brushed my hair over my shoulder and focused on a cut up high near my neck first. Then he threw a leg over and straddled me just below my bottom. I could swear he leaned down much deeper than he needed to as he pulled the towel to my waist. He mumbled something about, "Just checking."

Oh my God. Magnum's heat radiated from him like an energy field. I felt that magic tingling sensation that had surprised me when our lips met at the wedding and when his hips smashed mine to the wall in the hotel. Whenever he touched me, my libido ignited, and I lost control of my thoughts.

With his massive muscular frame on top of me, it was like flames emanated from between his thighs, and I felt them like a caress on my backside.

He could've easily spread my legs with his knees and lay down fully on top of me, pressing his hard cock to my bottom. What a naughty, nasty image I'd conjured, but also so hot. I started to grow wet between my legs just thinking about it. I might've let out a small whimper, and I think I heard a hum of approval from him in response .

By the time Magnum pulled the towel down to the top of my panties, I was fully absorbed in the fantasy. Like what if he just did it? What if he took my hands and locked them over my head as he pressed me into the mattress with that big beautiful brown body?

My hips wiggled of their own accord. The pressure was building and it needed release somehow, some way. The comforter was thick and pillowy as I dug my hips into it.

Magnum stopped moving. My breaths came short and fast and my whole body felt like it was on fire as my core contracted with delicious spasms. My cheeks burned with humiliation on how turned on I was and he hadn't even really touched me. All he'd done was straddle me and slowly lower the towel.

God, was I so hard up that a tiny bit of attention turned me into mush? Gavin touched my back all the time, and I'd never reacted like this. In fact, Gavin had never made my belly clench with need like Magnum had just done.

Magnum let go of the top of the towel suddenly and cleared his throat. He moved backwards and lifted the bottom edge. "Legs all good." His voice cracked.

Then he was gone. He'd dropped the stuff he was using on the floor next to the bed and left the room. Through the doorway, I could see him staring out the window in the living room. He propped his hands on his hips and his feet fidgeted back and forth. "I think you're okay now," he murmured with his back to me.

I giggled and slid the towel back up over my breasts. Did he know what I was thinking? Was it that obvious? Maybe I should've worked harder to hide it, but it was awkwardly funny too.

The man who had no problem with explosions turned into a teenage boy when he saw my white panties and some side boob. Did I really have an effect on him? He'd probably seen hundreds of gorgeous women naked.

I'd never thought of myself as attractive in that way and always dressed modestly to disguise my curves. I had larger breasts than most Asian women, and I was lucky to have a round ass thanks to my addiction to ice cream. I liked to run for exercise, so I was in good shape, but still, nothing that should've made him nervous.

He pulled out his phone rather abruptly and started punching at it as he kept most of his body turned toward the window. Did he have a boner or something? Why couldn't he face me?

Someone took his call, and he started talking low with lots of codewords and military lingo I didn't understand. I got the impression he was making plans for tomorrow, or today, since it was after midnight. The clock on the nightstand said it was 1:13 am. An unlucky number.

I closed my eyes and tried to collect myself. I figured we were staying here for the night, wherever here was. My happy place had been attacked. My routine was shot. I didn't even have any clothes. My husband was still missing, and my brother-in-law was a tempting hot stick of beef.

Pop-pop-pop-po . The sudden crack of four fast gunshots clawed at my brain, digging to get into my memory.

My heart raced and my bones chilled as I struggled to control my breathing. Pain on my arms distracted me. I didn't even realize I'd been doing it, but there were new marks from my fingernails. I clenched my fists, willing myself to stop, but my nails found a way to dig into my palms.

Darn it. I forced my hands under my hips and held them still with the weight of my body.