Micah’s eyes blinked open to the sound of the shower turning on.
Sam wasn’t in bed with him.
He rolled to check the digital clock on his nightstand. It was almost eight o’clock. At night. Damn. He’d slept all day. He never did that. Then again, last night had drained him both physically and emotionally. He had needed the recovery time.
Apparently, Sam had, too, if she was just waking up.
Stealing into their large master bath, he managed to relieve his bladder and rinse his mouth with Listerine without Sam seeing him then quietly opened the shower door and snuck in behind her.
“Good morning.”
She jumped then relaxed before leaning against him. “Good morning.” She tilted her head back so he could kiss her.
As he did, he saw her engagement ring sitting on the shelf in the corner.
He picked it up. “This should be on your finger.”
She took it from him and gently set it back on the shelf. “Not when I’m showering. The soap dulls the shine.”
“We can always have it polished.”
She shrugged. “I know, but I like keeping it as shiny as I can.”
He took her lilac-scented shampoo from her and poured some in his hand. “Turn around.”
With an impatient sigh, she did as he asked. He rubbed his hands together, spreading the shampoo between them, and then began gently massaging it into her hair.
“This wouldn’t be you coddling me, would it?” she asked, tilting her head into his hands.
“Sshh, female.”
“Micah—”
His hands bunched into loose fists, pulling her hair. “Sh. Just enjoy it.”
Her shoulders relaxed as she gave into him without another word. He rubbed her scalp, working the shampoo into her hair. Dollops of suds fell to the shower floor, and the air filled with the fragrance of lilacs.
“I love that scent,” he said.
“My shampoo?”
“Mmm, yes. It reminds me of the first time I saw you.”
“You mean the night I saved your ass.”
He chuckled and guided her into the falling water to rinse away the suds. “I thought you were an angel.” He’d told her this before, but he never tired of remembering. “An angel sent to save me.” He scrubbed soap up and down her arms. “And you did. In more ways than one.”
After he washed and rinsed her, he picked up the engagement ring again and held it out in front of him as he lifted her left hand.
After sliding the ring back on her finger, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, right over the ring. His lips brushed against the diamond. “There. Back where it belongs.”
She smiled and gazed down at the ring as he released her hand. “And it’s still shiny.”
He slid his arms loosely around her waist, planting a chaste kiss on her lips.
They stood like that for a few seconds, letting the water shower over them.
When he’d given her that ring, he’d promised he would marry her. She’d told him she wanted a human wedding, and he’d vowed he would give her one, even though it held no bearing on how he felt about her as his mate. After all, once a male vampire found his mate, not much could separate them. There was no such thing as divorce among vampires.
Oh sure, arranged pairings could still be dissolved by royal decree, but for someone like him, who had formed a biological link to his mate, there would be no such dissolution. He and Sam were bound to each other forever.
“Why do you want a human wedding when you’re not human anymore? When there’s absolutely no chance I’ll ever want to leave you?” He wasn’t questioning her, only her reasons.
In only a few months, he’d come to know Sam in a way no one had ever known her. Not just because he could see inside her mind and piece together her past to discover who she was at her core because of what he found there, but because they were connected in a way that went beyond the physical.
Theirs was a spiritual connection. One that defied logic and felt preordained by a higher power.
Even so, some things about her were beyond his comprehension. Particularly, her reasons for doing and wanting some of the things she did. Like the nursing position. He fully supported her in her choice, but she’d wanted to go after the job on her own, without telling him. Her independence was important to her even as she coveted her relationship to him.
He could make assumptions and educated guesses about why she behaved this way based on what he knew about her, but sometimes hearing her own words, spoken straight from her heart, was the only way for him to be sure.
She shrugged. “It’s just something I’ve always wanted. You know, the white dress, the standing before God, friends, and family and declaring that this is the man—or male, in your case—I’ve chosen to spend the rest of my life with. I want that with you. The ceremony. The reception. The cake. The honeymoon. I want to do it right for once.”
She’d been married before. To that jackhole Steve. He could see in her thoughts that she was thinking about their wedding day. How it had been planned hastily before her deployment to the Middle East. How she hadn’t even had time to buy a proper dress and order a cake. They’d run off to Vegas and said, “I do” in some little Elvis chapel. They didn’t even have time for a real honeymoon. They’d spent the night of their wedding in a cheap Vegas hotel room.
That’s where Micah disengaged from her memories. He didn’t need to see what Steve had done to her on their wedding night.
Not that it mattered now. She hated Steve. She didn’t want to think about those days any more than he wanted her to think about them. She regretted everything about her relationship with that asswipe.
“Your wedding to Steve was a mistake, Sam.” He wasn’t asking or trying to point out the obvious. He was simply paraphrasing what he saw in her thoughts.
“I know, but . . .” She let out a quiet sigh. “I got it all wrong with Steve. We rushed into it. I didn’t really know him—obviously.” She gave voice to everything he’d seen in her mind. “We ran off to Vegas and had a shotgun wedding that really didn’t mean anything. We had no friends with us to witness the ceremony. My parents weren’t there. I didn’t even have a proper wedding dress.” She issued a tender snort. “It’s not that I need a huge wedding that takes months to plan or the perfect dress with a mile-long train. I just . . .”
He plucked the words from her mind. “You just want to do it right this time. You want the fantasy wedding all human women dream about.”
She nodded and swept her wet hair off her forehead. It stood up in blond peaks for a moment before starting to fall again as water droplets weighed it down. “I do want to do it right. I want to stand in front of our friends, dressed in white, holding a proper bouquet, and take real vows.” A gentle smile touched her mouth. “Vows that mean as much to me as they do to you. Vows from the heart, you know?”
“And you also want to wash Steve completely out of your past.”
Her gaze penetrated his. “Yes.”
“Why?”
She drew in an agitated breath. “Because I don’t like how it feels knowing I messed up so badly with him. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but in my head, marrying you would wash the slate clean and erase that whole horrible time with him from my past. It’s like that part of my life isn’t closed, yet, and it feels like failure. Like if you and I don’t get married, Steve’s still in there. Inside me. Always in the way. And he’s laughing at me. Laughing because he got the last official crack at me since he was my husband.”
“But I’m your mate, which is a much stronger bond than that of a husband.”
She sighed, growing visibly upset. “I know it’s all just semantics, but I can’t get past it.” Her delicate eyebrows bent in harsh angles as old demons haunted her eyes. “He’s the biggest mistake I ever made, and sometimes it feels like his dark cloud is always going to be hanging over me. I just want him gone, you know? Just . . . out of my life. Out of our life. And . . . it just . . .” Her growing agitation felt like pinpricks on his arms.
“Okay, ssshh.” He pulled her into him and tucked her cheek against his shoulder, gently rocking her. “I’m not criticizing. I just wanted to hear your reasoning, that’s all.”
Her fingers curled against his back, but the tension began to ease out of her shoulders.
He’d known for a while that Steve’s memory still haunted her. She still hesitated to go out in public. Still grew squeamish about using the credit cards he’d given her for fear Steve could use them to track her down. She’d lived a secret, hidden life for barely a year, but that had been long enough to leave an influential mark on her habits, just as Steve’s abuse had left its invasive mark on her freedom, as well as the scar on her stomach from where he’d pushed her onto a glass table, causing it to break and pierce her pristine flesh.
Then, instead of taking her to the hospital, where his abuse would have been exposed, he stitched her up at home. It didn’t matter that Steve was a surgeon. Sam had deserved proper medical care and for someone to discover what that asshole had done to her.
She exhaled against his wet skin. “I’m sorry to burden you with my problems when you’ve already got enough on your plate.”
“Burden?” He frowned and pushed her away so he could look into her eyes. “Baby, you’re not a burden. Nothing about you is a burden.”
She shook her head and dropped her gaze. “But you just found out that your dad is still alive, that you have a brother, and that Rysk and Argon are your ancestors, and . . . you’ve just got a lot more important things to worry about right now than me and my silly Steve issues.”
Wedging his finger under her chin, he forced her to lift her head and meet his gaze. “Let me make one thing explicitly clear. There is nothing—and I mean nothing—more important to me than you.” He solemnly held her gaze. “And your issues with Steve are not silly.”
As tough and independent as Sam was, it was easy to forget she needed someone to hold her up from time to time.
“He will never hurt you again.” He looked her dead in the eye as he said it. “I will never let him or anyone else hurt you ever again.”
And if a wedding was what she needed to know he meant it, a wedding he would give her.
“You have a serious hero complex.” She said the words in jest, but the gratitude that shone from her expression made his heart swell.
“Get used to it.”
“Bossy.”
“Only because I love you.” He reached over her shoulder for his body wash.
“Oh, is that what it is?” She stepped backward into the water to rinse off any lingering soap and shampoo.
Micah quickly lathered himself up then rinsed.
“No more thinking about Steve,” he said, reaching around her and shutting off the water.
“I’ll try.” She pulled their towels off the warming racks just outside the shower and handed one to him.
“No trying. Only doing.” He gave her ass a light swat.
She leaped away from him, covering her bare bottom. “Hey!”
He briskly dried himself then wrapped his towel around his waist and returned to the bedroom to get dressed.
“I was wondering . . .” she called from the bathroom.
“About?”
“This black ops team you’re going to put together.”
He buttoned up the fly on his jeans. “What about it?”
“Are you going to need someone with medical training on your team?”
Micah froze with his shirt halfway over his head.
“You know, like a nurse or—”
“No!” He tugged his shirt down and marched to the bathroom. “Absolutely not, Sam.”
She’d been rubbing lotion over her arms and abruptly dropped her hands to her sides. “What?”
“You’re not going to be part of my team.”
She crossed her arms and cocked her head. “Why not?”
“It’s out of the question.”
Her eyebrows popped. “Out of the question? Are you saying you won’t need someone with medical training on your team?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“You’re forgetting that I was an Army medic, Micah. I’ve seen combat. I’ve seen danger. I know how to take care of myself.”
He slashed the air in front of him with both arms, pushing them in opposite directions like he was throwing open a set of heavy drapes. “If I need medical personnel on my team, I’ll choose someone else. Not you.”
Her mouth fell open and she gave him a look like he’d just accused her of cheating on him. A moment later, she whipped off the towel she’d wrapped around her and threw it at him as she stormed into the bedroom.
“Am I not good enough to be on your team?” She yanked open the top drawer of her dresser and pulled out a pair of underwear.
“That’s not what I said.”
But she wasn’t hearing it. He’d stepped on her temper and she was on a war path. “I can save your life from drecks, drag you back to my apartment”—she jabbed her index finger at him—“and carry you over my shoulder, I might add”—she shoved the drawer shut—“and provide medical assistance to you, but I’m not good enough to provide medical backup for your team?” She pulled on her panties with enough aggression it was a wonder she didn’t rip them in half. “It’s not like I’d be in the field with you, Micah.” She tugged the drawer back open, whipped out a bra, and blew past him to the closet. “I’d be in a medical unit away from the danger, ready to provide emergency assistance if and when it was needed. That’s what I did in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was my job. And I was damn good at it.”
Hangers scraped loudly over the rod. A moment later, she reappeared, holding a pair of jeans and a peach-and-cream peasant blouse.
“I’m not asking for special favors, and I’m not saying I won’t need training. I know I do. But you won’t even consider it. Why is that, I wonder?” She tugged on the jeans, beat her chest dramatically, then finally stopped to pointedly meet his gaze. “You big he-man. Me? I’m helpless. Is that it?”
“Sam, you’re preg—”
Green fire erupted in her eyes. “So help me God, if you tell me I’m pregnant as if it’s a reason for me to shrivel up into a bedridden sissy one more time, I’m going to pack my things and get my own place for the next nine months so you won’t be tempted to lay a hand on me. Do you understand me, Micah Black?” She practically shoved herself into her blouse.
“But—”
“No, Micah! Not another word. You can deal with it and get with the program that pregnancy doesn’t make me a weakling or get up close and personal with your hand for the next nine months. Those are your options. You decide what it’s going to be.”
She pushed him aside, marched past him back into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her, leaving him in dumbfounded silence.
He’d heard pregnancy hormones could cause wicked mood changes worthy of hell’s demons, but dayum! It’s one thing to hear that it could happen and another to witness it in the flesh. Hell, forget witnessing, he’d just experienced the phenomenon full force.
Typhoon Sam had torn through the bedroom and shredded him.
She had made a valid point about working together, though. She was trained for combat, so it wasn’t like she’d be a liability. Not like an untrained doctor who wasn’t used to the field. But this was his mate he was talking about. His pregnant mate. Every instinct he possessed demanded he keep her safe, and keeping her safe didn’t include taking her anywhere near the field, where she could get hurt or worse.
Okay fine, she wouldn’t actually be in the field, but she’d be involved. She would be close to the action just by being on his team, even if she was tucked safely away inside some medical bunker far from the actual bloodshed.
The question was, could he function knowing she was there? Or would she be too much of a distraction? Would he feel safer and more comfortable knowing someone he trusted with his life was ready to provide him with medical care should he need it, or would he prefer medical aid from someone he wasn’t emotionally attached to, and who wasn’t emotionally attached to him? He just didn’t know. He wouldn’t know unless he gave it a try.
She would be working at AKM, anyway, and wouldn’t it be easier to ensure her safety if she were on his team rather than in the new underground facility, especially if the drecks had a mole on staff?
Whether he ultimately added her to the team or she stayed on AKM’s official payroll, she would need training first. He wouldn’t allow her to even take a test drive on the team without receiving proper training from the AKM medical staff.
The bathroom door slowly opened, and Micah prepared for another round of destruction.
Instead, she gingerly stepped out, her face red, and her brow curled upward over nose. She shamefully met his gaze then threw herself at him, burying her face against his chest.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean all that. I don’t know why I said it.”
He grinned and wrapped his arms around her, flattening his palms against her back. Jesus, her hormones were flowing like the Great Flood inside her. “It’s your pregnancy hormones.”
“Seriously?” She pulled back and frowned up at him.
He nodded. “I can feel them. You’re buzzing like a beehive. A very busy beehive.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Lots of honey.”
“Only I’m not as sweet.” She chuckled then groaned as she dropped her forehead against his sternum. “I’m not even a month in. Am I going to be like this for the next nine months?”
“They’re just words, Sam. You didn’t hurt me. And you’re wrong. Your honey is very sweet.”
She groaned again and shook her head against him.
He rubbed his hands up and down her back and kissed her hair. “We’ll get through it.” He hugged her close and rocked her side to side. “But you made a good point.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No—”
He pushed her away and kissed her to shut her up. When he broke their lip-lock, all she could do was stare at him in stunned silence.
“Maybe I need to rephrase myself,” he said. “I’ve reconsidered your offer.”
“You have?”
“Yes, but I can’t promise you anything. Complete your training, and then we’ll have a trial run. We’ll see how it goes. Right now, I don’t know if having you on the team would distract me too much to do my job or reassure me that I have someone I can trust ready to take care of me if I should need medical assistance.”
“You don’t have to do that, Micah. I was out of line.”
He kissed her again. “It’s too late. I’ve already made up my mind.”
She bit back a smile. “And your word is final, huh?”
“Yep.”
Her smile turned into a sexy smirk. “And what if I change my mind after I have the babies?”
“Then we’ll figure it out then, but for now, get ready to bring your A game, Mrs. Black, because I plan on giving you a tryout when the time comes.”
She sighed impatiently. “How many times do I have to tell you that just because you put a ring on it doesn’t mean you can call me Mrs. Black? Until we’re married, I’m Ms. Garrett.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to do something about that.”