As much as I want to set the pizza on the bed, strip Sierra naked, and just savor every inch of her, I don’t. She is more to me than sex. I want to know her inside and out, and right now, with me leaving, and leaving her here, I need her to know that. And so we sit on the bed, eating pizza, and I make sure we talk about everything but monsters and killers. Movies. We both love super heroes. Books. We both love to read. Christmas.
“What do you do for Christmas?” she asks.
“I was overseas for about five years, but since I’ve been back, the Walker women come over here and put up a tree.”
She smiles. “I like them. I like that they do that for you.”
“I have to buy a baby shower gift and Christmas gifts. You have to help me with all of the above.”
“I’d like that,” she says. “The baby shower is soon. If I do go shopping, do you want me to just grab something?”
“Yes. Please grab something.”
“What is your budget?”
“Make it good. Spend whatever you want to do that. What about your Christmas, Sierra?”
“My mother and father made the holidays fun. They went big. Decorations. Food. It was fun. After my father died, it was never the same.”
“When did he die?”
“The year I met Devin. Some professionals, like myself, might say I was looking for a male figure in my life, and it contributed to why I was susceptible to him.” She waves a hand. “I don’t want to go there. Your mother? Do you remember her?”
“Yes. I do. I remember her being good and sweet, always working for charity organizations and having me help. I remember my father yelling at her. Talking down to her. And yet she’d get up the next morning and try to make someone in need smile. Unfortunately for you, I’m more like my father than my mother.”
“That’s not true, Asher. You are nothing like your father.”
“I can be. Not to you, Sierra, but when I want to hurt someone, I’m good at it. And I want to hurt Devin Marks. I’m not going to feel regret when I do, either. Which means you might wake up one day and see me as just another version of Devin, but I’m still going to do what I’m going to do on this.” I shut the empty pizza box and I stand up. “I need to pack a bag.” I turn and walk toward the bathroom. Before I ever get in the door, Sierra is in front of me, her hand on my chest.
“You’re nothing like him. You’re nothing like your father.”
“You don’t know that part of me.”
“I do,” she assures me. “I feel it in you. I know that you can be hard. I know that you can kill, but that’s not the same as living for those things.”
“What the hell do you think I did in the SEALs, Sierra? I killed. I lived for the next mission that would set me up to kill again.”
“You take that part of yourself and choose how you use it and you use it to help people that can’t do what you do. That is not Devin. That is not your father. You are amazing. Harvard. SEALs. Singer. I heard you sing. You are amazing.”
“A singer who watched his friend overdose and went to Harvard because I let my father bully me into it.”
“You were young and yet you still excelled. You still did your own thing. I saw you with him. You could have his money, but you have all you have because of you. I love that about you.” She takes my hand and pulls my arm forward. “I want to know what every single one of these tattoos means to you, Asher.”
For the first time in my life, I want someone to know what they mean. For the first time in my life, I wonder if I’m worthy. If I’m wrong. For the first time in my life, rather than saying “fuck you” to my damn father, I want more. I want her. “I’m all yours, Sierra. What are you going to do with me?”
“I can think of a lot of things,” she says. “Right now though, there is this.” She lowers herself to her knees and just like that, I’m rock hard, adrenaline surging through my body. My good intentions to leave sex out of tonight’s equation have gone right out the damn window. She strokes my cock through my jeans. Oh fuck. I need to be honorable here.
“Sierra.”
She unzips my pants and looks up at me. “You can say please or you can say stop. Your call.”
“Please. If you expect any man to be foolish enough to stay stop, I’m here to tell you that—”
She pulls my cock out of my pants and I breathe out. “Okay. Did I say please?”
She laughs. “Twice now.”
“Please again.”
This time when she laughs, she does it while closing her lips around my erection, her tongue stroking the underside and then pretty much everywhere she can reach. And then she is sucking me, and sucking me some more, and I really think this might be love. She’s the perfect woman. Really damn perfect, as proven by the fact that she won’t stop when I try to get her to stop.
She sucks me all the way through the quake of my body, and I do what any good man should do. When it’s over, I strip us both naked and lay her on the bed where I thank her. I kiss her nipples, I lick them. Then, I lick and kiss a path all the way down to her belly and beyond until I’m suckling her clit, stroking a finger through the wet, slick core of her body. And I make damn sure that I don’t stop licking and stroking her until she quakes just as hard and good as I did.
Then, and only then, do I move up her body and kiss her while settling beside her, my cock hard between her legs. “I’m going to remember you on my lips, every minute I’m gone,” I promise, before pressing inside her for what becomes a slow sway of our bodies. I make love to her and I can’t say I’ve ever made love to a woman. I fuck. That’s what I do, but that is not what this is.
A long time later, she falls asleep, naked and pressed to my side, while I lay awake, replaying every touch we’d shared, my protectiveness of her, even possessiveness, growing with each passing moment. That damn recording she’d played for us all is now in my mind, my plans for Devin Marks expanding just like my feelings for Sierra. When I finally slip into a light sleep, it’s two in the morning. My alarm goes off at three. I ease Sierra off of me, and she snuggles deeper under the covers.
By three-thirty, I’ve showered, dressed and I sit down on the edge of the bed, and caress her cheek. “Sierra.”
She blinks awake and sits up, her hair a wild mess I made right about the time I was kissing her nipples and then her belly. “You’re already leaving?”
“Soon.”
She throws off the covers, exposing her naked body and appearing comfortable enough not to care. “I want to walk you out.” She scoots off the bed and hurries across the room, her naked backside ensuring I’ll leave her this morning hard as a rock, and guaranteed to have sweet dreams on the plane.
I pull on the thin black leather jacket I’ve set on the bed, and then grab the small duffle I’ve packed. “I’ll meet you downstairs, Sierra,” I call out, because if I follow her, we’ll both end up naked, and Luke will be waiting on me.
Heading out of the bedroom, I walk down the hallway to my office, flipping on the light as I enter. Returning to my thinking spot, I open the drawer inside the table and grab the burner phone there, dialing into the voice system to discover four replies. That makes seven of us on board, counting me, Luke, and Adam. And the seven of us can do a lot to fuck up Devin Marks’s world. I stick the phone in the pocket of my jacket, and make my way back to the door. I reach the stairs and start down them to find Sierra already downstairs and standing at the coffee pot.
She turns at my footsteps and abandons her cup, rounding the island to meet me on the other side. I set my bag down on a stool, and we step to each other. “Can we just go back upstairs and back to bed together?” she asks, her hand flattening on my chest. “I don’t want you to go. I have a really bad feeling.”
I stroke a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll be back soon. I have Luke with me and our SEAL mate, Adam, is joining us in Dallas.” My hands settle on her hips. “Jacob is coming over to stay with you. He’ll take you to the Walker offices to work on the Ju-Ju file around ten.”
“Do I really need him here? Isn’t the building secure?”
“I’m just being cautious,” I say. “And Kara wanted to be here, but she needs to be at your apartment early to make a showing in case anyone is watching.”
“I thought Jacob was watching Ju-Ju, or Terrance, or both?”
“We have Ju-Ju and Terrance well covered. I trust Jacob and he’s going to be in the Ju-Ju meeting today anyway, so this makes sense this morning, but tonight I need you to stay with Julie. She’ll be alone and Jacob lives in the building.”
“I’d rather stay at home or—I mean—here. At your home.” Her gaze drops to my chest.
I cup her face and tilt her gaze to mine. “This is where you live now, Sierra. I want you here. I want you to want to be here. I don’t know how many ways I can say that to you.”
“For now. I’m staying here for now. Right now, you’re riding the high of being a hero. I’m riding the high of you. We don’t know where this will land when it’s over.”
I don’t expect the punch to the chest those words deliver, but the line she is drawing is clear. “Right,” I say. “I guess we don’t. I guess we’ll see. I’m going to give you your freedom. Then you can decide where you want to be.”
The doorbell rings and I release her. “I need to go.” I reach for my bag and head to the door.
“Asher.”
I stop in my tracks and when I turn around, she’s in front of me, hugging me and pushing to her toes. “I had a moment of panic over how fast we’re going and how hard I think I could fall for you. He can kill me. You can hurt me. I just—I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave, but if you decide you want me to leave—”
I cup her head. “You belong with me now. You’ll see.” I kiss her. “Don’t leave. Don’t go anywhere alone. Promise me.”
“I promise. Please call me when you can.”
“I will and call me if you need me, but don’t worry if I don’t answer. It only means that I’ll call you the minute I safely can. You have an army here to protect you.”
I release her and walk to the door, opening it and greeting Jacob, who is stoic and cold, which makes him the perfect man to place with another man’s woman. “Take care of her,” I say, before walking down the hallway and stepping into the elevator. The doors shut, and I’ve left Sierra in my apartment with another man while I go after the man who is technically her fucking husband.
I head downstairs and Luke’s Escalade is pulled up to the door of the apartment. I climb inside and shut the door, and my mind replays that recording of Devin Marks plotting Sierra’s killing all over again. I think of Kyle and Myla, and the way Alvarez will always haunt them, dead or alive. There was no body, no proof that he’s dead and thus they can have no real peace. No closure. I won’t let that happen to me and Sierra. I will not only end this, and Devin Marks decisively, but with absolute closure.