CHAPTER 6
Gage noticed how pale Alexa was when he entered their home. She was busy in the kitchen making a salad for their dinner.
“Hey,” he called, “we got done a little early on that unexpected mission.”
Alexa lifted her head and smiled a little as Gage closed the front door, locked it, and then turned, sauntering into the cozy, L-shaped kitchen. “Good. Did it turn out all right?”
Gage nodded. “Yeah, tempest in a teapot. Wyatt’s handling the rest of it.”
“It will be an hour before we eat. Is that okay?”
Gage came over, noticing a slight trembling in her hands as she cut into the head of lettuce. He leaned over, kissing her cheek. “Everything all right, baby?”
Alexa felt herself break inside. She put the knife aside as he slid his arm around her waist, standing there like the bulwark he’d always been to her. “I can’t fool you, can I?” she said, giving him an apologetic look.
“When you love someone, you become attuned to them,” Gage said simply, kissing her temple. “What happened?” There was turmoil in her eyes, and Gage, trained to be sensitive as a sniper, knew that Alexa often kept secrets from him. He knew she worried that he’d get tired of her behavior and one-day walk away.
He snorted—as if! Getting a firsthand look at PTSD and the pervasive damage cortisol did to someone only made him more committed to Alexa. There were times, though, when he wondered if she really believed that he was there for the long haul.
Wiping her hands on a towel, she moved out of his loose embrace, pulling a bright yellow ceramic bowl over for the chopped veggies. In as few words as possible, she told Gage what had happened earlier that day, watching for any signs of disappointment in him.
Gage leaned against the counter, his arms across his chest as she shared what had happened when the utility man had come to read the farmhouse’s electric meter. His mouth tightened as she finished. She was worried that she’d overreacted to the strange man who had suddenly popped up out of nowhere.
“Did you see him drive in?” Gage asked.
Shaking her head, Alexa whispered, “No. I should have looked, but I focused on that jacket I saw come past the window and I just . . . well . . . I overreacted as usual, Gage.”
He nodded and walked over to her after she’d put the bowl of salad into the fridge. “Come here,” he said, pulling her into his arms. She crumpled against him and allowed him to support her. She slid her arms around his waist, clinging to him like a frightened child.
“You did the best you could. Your brain probably thought it was Rasari or one of his men coming to get you.” She nodded, her embrace tightening as he guessed the truth. Alexa had left that out of her explanation, and Gage knew she was humiliated by her overreaction, but she couldn’t help it.
“I . . .” Alexa stumbled, her voice strained, her cheek pressed against his chest. “I . . . panicked. I thought he was a hit man from Rasari either coming to kill me or kidnap me again.” Alexa loathed feeling vulnerable 24/7. When would this end?
Gage embraced her a little tighter.
“And then I realized I hadn’t locked the front door, Gage. How stupid is that? My imagination blew up after that, and I was standing here in the kitchen, literally frozen in place. I couldn’t move. I knew the gun was in the locked cabinet in our bedroom closet, and that I should run across the living room and get to it, get a pistol out to protect myself. But I couldn’t think straight! I knew in some part of my brain what to do, but I was frozen. It was awful.” She pressed her face deep into the folds of his shirt.
“Did you know that when a fawn is lying in a field, hidden, and a predator comes by, the fawn freezes?” Gage asked, kissing the shell of her ear. “Freezing is one way that your mind works to save you.”
“I-I didn’t think of that.”
“It’s a survival mechanism,” he said quietly, easing Alexa away from him just enough to meet her confused gaze. “Your brain selected freezing instead of running for the gun cabinet. That’s all.”
“I couldn’t move, Gage. I felt trapped. I felt like that hit man was coming through the door and he’d see me.” Her voice became hoarse. “I-I thought he’d just grab me, put me in flex cuffs, and haul me out of here. I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking those things. I just couldn’t . . .”
“It’s all right to feel that way, baby . . .”
Just Gage’s low, calming voice helped Alexa stabilize, and she saw the patience in his shadowed face, felt his confidence in her, helping her to ramp down from her out of control feelings. “I hated myself, Gage. I hated that I was so scared I couldn’t move. I’ve been a damned combat pilot! I never froze on the job, ever!”
Gage nodded. “When we get fractured, we aren’t who we used to be. I know from the time I lost my sister and dad. I changed, too.”
“Did you ever get back to the real you?” she asked, her voice a ragged whisper.
How badly Gage wanted to tell her that everything would be all right. But it wouldn’t be. There was such hopelessness in Alexa’s widened eyes that he tried his best to reassure her.
“Every time we have a life event, it changes us,” he told her, holding her stricken gaze. “But it doesn’t mean we’re weaker. Sometimes we just have to break in order to become stronger. I know it seems illogical, but it’s what I’ve found for myself, Alexa. It took me years to paste myself back together again. It was painful, and it was slow. In time, I saw a pattern in my healing process. I’d have good days, and then I’d cycle down and have two or three bad days, where I questioned my sanity and wondered if I’d ever get better. Then the good days would come back and give me hope, and I’d see a glimmer down at the end of that long, dark tunnel.”
“Didn’t you get tired of all that cycling up and down?”
He smiled a little, his fingers grazing her hair. “Sure. All the time.”
“How did you get through it?”
“I concentrated on helping my mom. She was my focus. I just put everything I was feeling on the back burner.”
“My therapist, Becka, doesn’t want me to do that.”
“Well, our cases are different, Alexa. I was in shock. You’re experiencing PTSD. Now shock, as I understand it, can be like a mild case of PTSD, but eventually, most people work out of it. The older I got, the less cycling I experienced. My focus and concentration, although impaired, was not affected as yours is right now.”
“Becka says it will get better with time,” Alexa said wearily. “I just can’t concentrate like I used to.”
“That’s the cortisol effect,” Gage informed her. He saw fewer shadows and less terror in her eyes. Alexa was one of those people who could be talked down when the cycle was right, and at those times she responded readily. Gage was convinced that this ability would help Alexa heal faster than he had. And he hadn’t had anyone to talk him down.
Alexa clung to him, needing him desperately, and eagerly surrendered as he lowered his mouth to hers. She opened her lips, offering to give all that was within her while taking his love and the hope he offered her every single day. She relaxed as he did this again, absorbing her love, her pain, her trauma, and dissolving it with his tongue, his probing lips.
She was immediately lost in the delicious heat of his mouth caressing hers. She enjoyed kissing Gage as much as he enjoyed kissing her. Gage was always attractive to her, even during her down days. Now, as she was pulling out of them, she was hungry for his male scent, his taste, the moistness of his breath as he claimed her mouth. It was such a relief when Gage made the world go away, feeding her hopes for a better one. He pasted together the fragments of her fractured self, offering her the love that would help her heal those chasm-wide cracks within herself.
Easing away from her wet, soft lips, Gage murmured, “Let me help you get dinner on the table. I have some ideas I want to talk to you about later.”
“Of course,” she whispered, still caught up in the promise of his kiss.
He smiled a little and led her over to the table, pulling out her chair. “Have a seat, and let’s talk while I put the food on the table for us.”
Alexa gave him a wry look. “This is your fault, Hunter. You kissed me and threw me into another world, a wonderful one. And I don’t want to come back.” She watched him preen beneath her softly spoken compliment. Alexa knew she needed to tell Gage more often how much she loved him, how grateful she was for his care. This man possessed such humility that he was quiet about his accomplishments, which were many. He always gave others the credit instead of himself.
“I’ll gladly take the fall on that one,” he said with a grin. Soon enough, Gage had brought the chicken and salad to their kitchen table. As he sat down at her elbow, he said, “Becka, Tal, and I were wondering where your favorite place for a three-month vacation might be.” He placed half of a baked breast onto her plate, knowing that if she did it herself, it would be a tiny amount, and he wanted her to eat more than that. Using a ladle, he poured over a fragrant white gravy on the poultry.
“I know we talked a little bit about this after Dara left, but I was too upset still to give you some ideas. I love the Florida Keys,” she said. “I love the ocean, the warm waters to swim, snorkel, and scuba dive in. They have beautiful undersea coral there. Have you ever been there?”
“Not to Florida,” Gage said, spooning the salad on her plate. “I’ve been to the Pacific Ocean, and I went through boot camp at Parris Island in South Carolina, and swam in the Harbor River that empties into Atlantic Ocean while there. But I never set foot in the Atlantic itself.”
“My family has a winter home in Key Largo, Florida. It’s a beautiful two-story white house on Island Drive. The John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is about five miles from our house. As kids growing up, we kayaked, snorkeled, found lots of shells, and had tons of adventures just playing along the shore.”
“Sounds nice,” Gage said. He noticed Alexa was eating a little bit more. Maybe he could get her to regain her lost weight when they took the three-month sabbatical.
She met his gaze. “Could you come with me? Can Tal really afford to have you gone for three months, Gage? Or maybe you can fly in to see me some weekends,” she said hopefully.
Gage heard the concern in her low voice. “We’re on the same wavelength. I talked to Tal about that this afternoon,” he said, sopping up the white gravy with a piece of bread. “She says I can’t be out of touch because Artemis is ramping up hiring in all departments. But,” he continued, giving her a hopeful look, “to resolve that issue, she’s having Human Resources go through the resumes of current snipers looking for a job with us. Tal is asking Wyatt to take care of the daily work while I’m gone. But the resumes of snipers will be sent directly to me for consideration. One of them will be hired and act as a liaison for Mission Planning in my absence. But if things get dicey, Wyatt can always Skype me and I’ll work with him from Key Largo, when necessary. That means if you want my mangy hide along for those three months, you can have me. How do you feel about that?” He gazed into her widening eyes, seeing hope bring them to life again.
Gage would never have insisted upon going if Alexa didn’t invite him. He knew that sometimes people wanted to be alone, but Gage felt she needed company right now. There would be other times when she might want alone time—later, when she was stronger. Right now, she was devastated by her kidnapping by Rasari. The predatory monster was never caught, nor were the men with him. So it ended in a cold trail, much to everyone’s unhappiness. He was now safely in Malgar where he could not be touched by first-world countries that wanted him. It just compounded Alexa’s initial wound, deepening it, tearing up what healing she’d already begun.
“I want you with me.” She reached out, gripping his large, callused hand.
He managed a relieved grin as he curved his fingers around hers. “Yeah, I want to be with you too, if it feels right, Alexa.”
Her cheeks flushed pink, sudden light coming to her hazel eyes, hope and a flicker of humor in them.
“But I don’t know how to kayak or snorkel. Maybe you can teach me—if you’re up to it,” he teased.
“Oh, I’d love to!” she grinned, suddenly feeling a ton of weight sloughing off her shoulders. “You’ll pick it up so easily, Gage, so don’t worry about that.”
“Well, what should I worry about? Those nasty gators down in the Keys?”
“Hey,” Alexa gave him a broad smile. “No worries. We’ll be in Coral State Park, and the rangers there know where the big ones live. They know their movements, and the gators are most active at dawn and dusk. You and I would be in the water during the day, not at night, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about it.”
“Well, just between us, I’m going to strap a Ka-Bar knife on my lower leg whenever we go into the water.”
She chortled, giddy with excitement. “That’s my man! Ever the guardian.”
“Yep,” he declared, delighted that Alexa was so enthusiastic about the idea. Gage loved his woman, and he wanted nothing more than to see those golden lights back in her eyes, just as they were right now. Everyone who loved her had begged Alexa to take a sabbatical, and he was sure their support had helped her make the decision.
“I’m going to fly us down there in my Stearman biplane,” she said, releasing his hand. “I need to get to Andy, my mechanic, over at the airport to make sure he’s got the inspections up to date before we take off.”
Chuckling, Gage saw her dive into her food as if not even realizing she was eating. Alexa was now eating with gusto. He actually wished he’d put more on her plate in the first place. “Do you snorkel for fish, spear them, and bring them back to eat?” he wondered.
“We can’t do it in the park, but there are bays nearby that are available. My dad is usually the chief spear fisher, and I’m rusty, but maybe we can learn together. I love fresh fish. There are lobsters around, too. And we can buy shrimp at a local fish market.”
“I was pretty much raised on meat and potatoes,” Gage admitted. “But I’m willing to stretch my taste boundaries.”
Aglow, Alexa said, “This will be so wonderful! I feel so much better, Gage.”
“Good,” he murmured, hopeful that this vacation would help relieve Alexa’s symptoms. “I think this will be good for both of us. Things have been hectic since we met in Afghanistan, and three months of downtime could be just the right remedy for both of us.”
After dinner, Alexa asked Gage to sit with her at her Mac computer’s big screen in their home office. She brought up a map of Key Largo and then pulled up some photos she’d taken several years earlier of her parents’ two-story white home with green shutters. Gage sat next to her, their thighs touching as she deftly brought up photos of the nearby state park. Excitement surged through her as she described what they were seeing, and he savored this special time with her.
She turned and gave him a wicked look. “By the way, have you ever made love in the ocean?”
“No,” he said. “I never really thought of it.”
“It’s like when we use our huge shower, Gage. The ocean is deliciously warm, clear, and beautiful. I know a nice little spot near a mangrove area that’s perfect for it.”
“Sounds good to me,” he agreed, his eyes sparkling.
She chuckled. “You perk up every time sex is mentioned, Hunter. Why am I not surprised?”
He laughed with her and rubbed her shoulders. They felt remarkably pliable, with no tension in them. Just maybe these three months would help release Alexa from the prison of her fears.
Gage was hooking into her excitement about going to the Keys for her sabbatical. “You know, I don’t think about sex as ‘sex’ when it comes to you,” he confided. “I ‘make love’ with you, baby.” He saw the flush in her cheeks deepen, and the look of yearning in her eyes told him she had, for now, come back to him.
“Thank you for that,” Alexa whispered, touching his rugged, unshaved face. “I’ve never been as well loved as I have by you, Gage . . .”
He felt an erection stir. It always happened when Alexa used that smoky voice of hers after she became aroused. Tonight could be the night, he thought. Such times might happen once a week since her PTSD had taken over their lives. Her therapist had warned them that sexual needs were often suppressed in the process, and she’d been right, but Gage didn’t love Alexa because they had sex together. It was only one of the delicious gifts that came with loving her.
He looked at his watch. It was ten p.m. “Want to go to the shower and show me how to swim with the fishes?”
Her response was immediate, her eyes narrowing, her lips parting. He could hardly wait to release his swelling erection from his jean’s imprisoning zipper.
“I think I’m ready for a nice, long shower with you, Hunter.” Her voice was low and husky.
Gage didn’t waste a minute. He stood and pulled his chair away from hers. “Come on, baby, we deserve this . . .”
*
Moonlight was peeking through the dark blue winter drapes in their bedroom. Gage settled Alexa’s damp, warm body against his. She made a low purring sound, snuggling against him, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm thrown across his torso. He liked that she slid one long leg around his, getting as close to him as possible.
“Comfy?” he growled against her hair, holding her tightly against him, inhaling the fragrance of her favorite rose scented soap.
“Mmm, I’m more than comfy. You give me the best orgasms, Gage. I don’t know how you do it . . .” she grinned.
He threaded his fingers through her damp hair. “Well, you definitely returned the favor, Ms. Culver. You had your game on back there in the shower.”
He felt her shake with silent laughter. Alexa was so loving when she let herself be fully vulnerable with Gage. In fact, since meeting her, her love was helping him to truly open up to a woman in ways he’d never known. And, more than ever, Gage was coming to appreciate their time together after making love. That was when the most important issues came up for them to explore.
“Gage?” she asked him tentatively.
“Hmm?”
“I . . . I really want to be to carry your baby,” she said quietly, then waited for his response.
He held her close, feeling her heart against his ribs and the pillowy softness of her breasts. Frowning, he tried to choose his words carefully. “What about your PTSD symptoms?”
“I know,” she sighed sadly. “I talked to Dara about it. I asked if the cortisol symptoms would go away if I were with child, and she said no, they wouldn’t.”
“So you’d still have the up and down cycles?”
“Yes. And Dara said that when a woman is pregnant, she’s already got a lot of things going on hormonally. Everything is accentuated, especially the emotions. That would be multiplied with the influence of the cortisol when PTSD symptoms arose. I’d be even more sensitive. I would cry more easily . . . things like that . . .”
“That would be pretty difficult, wouldn’t it, given your PTSD?” he said softly.
“Yes. And we’re talking physical sensitivity, too. I can’t control the cortisol. Becka explained that the hormone is like a faucet you can’t turn off.”
“Baby, I worry about you,” Gage turned on his side and intently studied her shadowed face. He saw the hope in her eyes and didn’t want to bring her down. “I know how important it is for us to start a family. Why don’t we take this three-month sabbatical and see how you respond to it?”
“That sounds like a good idea.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “I’m so damned wishy-washy emotionally, Gage. It drives me nuts.”
A wry smile tugged at one corner of his mouth as he leaned over, pressing a light kiss on her pouting lips. “You’ve always wanted to carry babies,” he pointed out. “And you’re going to be an incredible mother, just like your own. Dilara raised you kids right, and you’ll do the same for the new generation coming into the family.”
Gage had a burning desire to create a baby. He yearned for a family of his own again. Nothing was more important to him. His whole life had been interrupted when he was thirteen, and he’d never told anyone, except Alexa, how he longed to have children around, to be a father, as his heroic father had been to him and Jen. He silently prayed that he and Alexa could create a beautiful little girl.
More than anything, Gage would like to call her Jen, after his sister, whom he still loved so much that some days he could hardly bear the grief over her loss. If they had a daughter, he felt it would help him finally heal from that open wound.
Closing her eyes, Alexa tipped her chin up to meet Gage’s warm, loving mouth. She hummed, arching her back, pressing her breasts wantonly against him. She felt his cock, which rested between them, hardening and thickening. Sure, they’d already made love in the shower, but just talking about becoming a mother to his children, made Alexa’s whole lower body ignite with the possibility.
“Gage . . . what if . . . what if I went off the Pill while we’re in the Keys?” She opened her eyes, looking deep into his blue ones. “Would that bother you?”
Pressing himself against her soft, rounded belly, he groaned as she allowed her hand to languish around his cock, stroking it lightly, setting him on fire. This woman could turn him on in a heartbeat! Her strong fingers massaged his erection and he felt his balls tighten, pulling against his body.
“Let’s talk about this tomorrow morning,” he groaned. He knew that he was going to love Alexa right now, and he found her more than ready as she allowed his hand to cup her ass, his fingers trailing down that curved crevice to encounter her damp, wet curls below. He breathed in her musky scent and found himself spinning out of control, feeling as if he were losing his ability to think.
It was like being hurled into a cauldron of raw animal hunger—and this wasn’t the first time. There was an ancient part deep within him that wanted to take her hard and fast, mate with her so she would conceive. No more words, just action, making their mutual dream come true.
Alexa quivered, giving a little cry as he lightly stroked her entrance with his fingers, easing into her, feeling her violently react in the best of ways to his slow, teasing intrusion. He liked feeling that quiver rippling through her. It told him she was hot and eager. He loved those days, like up on the crown of that hill when they’d gone hiking, when he felt like a caveman as he made love to his woman.
All he knew was that her sexy fragrance triggered an ancient inborn part of himself, the animal that lurked in the background, that charged ferociously through him when he slid his hard cock into her beautiful, tight, wet channel.
She was so natural and loving. Despite going through the PTSD with her, Gage no longer worried about their personal sex life. At first, he’d been concerned that Alexa would consider him just another man, like those who had assaulted and injured her. Becka had been worried about it, too. But somehow their love had remained pure and fostered a healthy connection between them, no matter what else was happening.
Rolling over, covering her, his cock resting against her belly, Gage took her hands and eased them above her head. Alexa gave him a languorous look, raising her hips, inviting him inside.
“You know, you’re a very dangerous woman,” Gage muttered, running his hand down to her breasts, teasing a hardened nipple. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and her breathing grew ragged as he continued to run his thumb back and forth over the hard nub. She couldn’t lie still beneath him, hips twisting, wanting him, little pleading noises filling her throat, begging him to enter her.
And he was ready. Oh, so ready! Gage liked foreplay time like this. All they had to do was enjoy one another on a purely physical level. Alexa had climaxed twice in the shower, and he knew she had another climax or two yet to come.
He slid one hand down her flank and then released her wrists, kneeling between her opened thighs, running his hands lightly up and down them, listening to her beg him to please her with whimpers, to move inside her.
Finally, he’d found a woman who held nothing back. It was heart-to-heart, body-to-body, with their souls melting into one another just as they were doing right now.