Cry Baby

 

Six Weeks later

 

He fucking lied.

That’s what he did. When he said he’d be okay and he’d deal with it like a deployment, all of it. One. Big. Fucking. Lie. He missed her, to the point of distraction, and with his team on a mandatory leave while Hawk faced medical review, and So “Big Boss” Ji-sub’s—Glitz’s cousin—onboarding. None of it mattered at all. Cry Baby paced his home, the darkness wrapped around him and moonlight filtered in. A silver cast colored his black comforter slate gray and he glared at it.

“I don’t feel like sleeping.”

He forced himself, for the thousandth time, to not search out his phone and send a message. She’d told him she’d have to go radio silent when she went deep under to clear out her missions, and she wouldn’t get any messages. He’d sent one a day, just so she knew he loved her and thought about her. Small voice messages, his way of keeping them connected. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to know that she was okay, that she still loved him.

God, he’d turned sappy and whiny, and he didn’t even know when it happened.

If he told his team about any of this, they’d be calling him Cry Baby for a whole other reason. He paced back out of his bedroom, too agitated to go to sleep, and too exhausted to do anything else. He passed by his sofa and stopped. A small black box rested on the arm, and he knew he hadn’t put it here. He scanned his home, senses on alert, but he couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. So, where’d the box come from? He approached it on silent feet before he lifted it up, and realized it was a mini music player. Confused, he searched out his headphones and plugged it in.

“Day One Without You. I’m in Senegal, around amazing spices and color, people that I am eager to know and understand. The air smells different here, heavy almost, and damp from the afternoon sun. I wish you were here. I love you.”

He swiped a big hand down his face and closed his eyes as he soaked up her voice. It filled him, touched the hollow places she’d left behind when he’d been separated from her.

“Day Two Without You. It’s taken longer than I expected. The rebellion forces I’m tracking have moved, and the access to their financial support seems to be drying up. Their threat, however, can’t be ignored, so I can’t come home just yet. But I will, soon. I promise.”

He scrolled through each voice message, listening to her adventures and frustrations. Like him, she’d made a message for every day they were apart. When he got to Day Thirty his heart kicked up a notch.

“Day Thirty Without You. I’m in the States now. The urge to catch the nearest flight and race to your side is so strong I thought I’d have to bunker down in my hotel room and never move. But I’ve been accepted, and, if things go right, won’t be too far from you. Please wait for me. You’re Vixen.”

“Day Forty Without You. It’s a very long flight from Virginia to California, and I’m so very tired. But they have me meeting up with my contact here. She’s wild, with color stripped hair and crazy leggings, but I love her to pieces already. She’s got a picture of Snake, Goddess—how awesome is that? —and a little boy on her desk. I wonder if you know how close I am now?”

He swallowed. Only one woman fit that description, and would have a picture of Snake on her desk with Kondo, and that would be Jayla, Kondo’s surrogate aunt. Wait, Jayla? Jayla was CIA. His heart pounded.

“Day Forty-one without you. I can’t go see you just yet, had to set up shop. But you should really make some more room in your closet. I can’t fit any of my things in there. Oh, and I tossed out the jackets in the main hall closet, because, hey, I needed a gear room.”

He pounded to the main hall closet and wrenched the door open. He didn’t know what he expected, maybe for her to leap out and strangle him with kisses, or something. Instead he came face to a face with a closet covered in weapons and hanging gear.

Where the hell was I at for this? he wondered.

“Day Forty-two, and I’m with you. Could you turn around now and kiss me?”

He whipped around and she was there, in black jeans and a white tank top. He never fucking heard her, but he didn’t care. He slammed into her and jerked her into his arms. He paused long enough to note her twinkling eyes and then he sealed his lips to hers. God, she tasted of sugar and it went straight to his head. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he ground his pounding cock against her cloth covered pussy. How he’d missed her heat and the taste of her on his lips. The way she clawed at him and screamed his name.

Hell, he missed the way she could throw a mean uppercut and could laugh with his teammates. He missed and loved every part of this woman and he’d never let her go. When he finally let her up for air she smiled.

“Did you miss me?” she asked.

“Want me to show you how much?” he asked, and punctuated the question with a roll of his hips.

“Mmmm, but first I need to get the rest of my stuff out of my car, that I parked two streets down.”

“What?” he asked.

“Well, I didn’t want you to see it when I got in, and it was cute watching you strut around the house in a huff. You picked up your phone twenty-seven times in two hours. Adorable. And I didn’t wear any of my perfume and wore scent masking spray—yuck—just for this occasion. Anyway, I’d like to bring the rest of my stuff, then we can have awesome, hot, hard I’m back sex. Deal?”

“I’m going to paddle your ass when we get back.”

“It’s against the law to hit a CIA agent, didn’t you know? I’d have to report you, sailor.”

His head spun. “You joined the CIA?”

“I love being a spy, but I love you more. Taking a job with them, with C’s recommendation of course, allowed me to have the best of both worlds. I may be gone sometimes and can’t tell you, but I’ll always come home.”

He held her close, overcome with emotion.

“Baby, you can do whatever you want, just one thing?”

“Yeah?”

“Become Mrs. Alvarez first.”

She rolled her eyes. “Where’s the bended knee? The flowers? Maybe some violinists playing?”

“I’ve got a AT22 Integral Suppressed just three inches from your right hip, rafters in my bedroom strong enough to take two tons of weight for the sex swing, and a battered SEAL’s heart in a killing machine of flesh and blood, how about that?”

She trembled against his body and licked her lips. “The best proposal ever. Forget my car, we can get it later. Take me to bed right now.”

“I love it when you get bossy like that.”

“You’re going to end up on the floor with your wanker hanging out for the neighbors to see if you don’t do what I asked.”

He didn’t argue anymore. He took his Vixen to bed.

 

 

THE END