Delta: Retribution (6 page)

“Oh. You’re a… like a truck guy or something?”

“I can deal with any good set of wheels that make a fun time out of escape and evade. I guess the Charger’s okay. It can gun it and all. But… a car and a house make me feel antsy, that’s all. Anyway. What’s the deal with your new digs?”

She’d already fessed up about being home alone with nothing to do. “The job’s to blame.”

“Too simple, Marlena. Something else is there.”

“You’re right, but I don’t want to get into it.”

“Fair enough. Are you still jumping when doors shut and cars drive by?”

She sucked in a breath. “No!”

“Right.”

“Well, I’ve been by myself. No cars or doors to make me jump.”

“It’s not abnormal after the shit show you were pulled through.”

She sighed. “I don’t want to think about it, much less talk about it.”

He didn’t say anything, and they sat there. She twirled the phone cord around her finger and leaned against the wall. There was a nice level of comfort knowing he was there. If a door slammed, maybe she wouldn’t jump. Then again, she was supposed to be alone, so if a door slammed, she should jump. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” His low voice made her shiver. “I shouldn’t have left you earlier. I shouldn’t… be saying that. Hell, Mar. I have to go.”

“Wait!” Wait, what? A man ditching her shouldn’t be such a surprise except that it was, and deep down, it felt as though maybe he needed her that moment more than she needed him. “Trace?”

Seconds floated by. “Yeah?”

Her dad would bet against her. Brian would shake his head and say that no one needed her. Marlena closed her eyes and shook her head.
Fuck Brian, that piece of shit dad
. “I don’t want to be alone tonight either. But I’m not good for much. I’m just—”

“Meaning what?”

“I’m too tired to jump you in bed, and I’m too jumpy to be good company. I need to get out of my house. I just—”

“One eleven Mason Brick Drive.”

She would’ve expected nerves or anxiety. Anything but the calm that made her feel free from her personal demons. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

***

Walking around barefoot and in jeans, Trace drained a beer and stared at his cell phone. The smart move would’ve been to call her and say he couldn’t keep his eyes open. That maybe another time would be better, like when she was raring to go and wanted to strip down naked. But that wasn’t in the cards tonight. They hadn’t been home from South America more than twenty hours. Sure, she said she’d dozed. But after what she went through, she probably needed an Ambien and a few days of sleep.

Headlights hit his driveway, and she was there. Damn, if there wasn’t a stirring in his chest. He opened the door and watched her get out of her car then went outside. “Red car, red hair. Suits you.”

She scoffed but then put too much assurance into her voice. “Absolutely. Power color.”

Something didn’t jibe, but he didn’t care. “Red’s sexy. No idea about power colors. Like I said, it suits you, Cinderella. Come on.” He took her small hand in his and led her up the stairs. “This is it. Looks decent, feels like a jail cell.”

As she took in the room, he took her in. Pajamas. A cotton T-shirt and flannel pants with little water skiing panda bears in Santa hats. If outside in the dark, she’d been sexy, inside… this whole look… it was cute.

She caught him looking. “What’s that half-smile, half-frown thing? If you don’t like my jammies, too bad.” She twirled in a circle. “I’m—hey, are you watching one of those
Bourne
movies?” And just that fast, she plopped on his couch, tucking her legs under her butt.

The girl liked thriller spy flicks. Add another point in the cool-chick column. Nothing she did was expected. “Want a beer?”

“It might put me to sleep.”

He tilted his head. “You’re dressed for it.”

Her eyes raked over his bare chest. “I…”

“I’ll get you that beer.” Because for once it felt like he should think of someone besides himself for a change. The woman could barely stand. The clothes she wore served as a sign to stay away. But he just couldn’t. He needed a freakin’ barrier. “A beer and a blanket.”

A minute later, he had a cold one in her hand and a blanket over her legs. He sat in the middle of the couch and pulled her close to him. She smelled like sugar, and it might’ve been his death sentence, sitting there with her all cute and smelling like the first time he’d had her. Mouth watering, he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on Matt Damon blowing shit up. It didn’t work. Instead, he heard the IED blasts that stole his brother away from him. A growl roared up; his eyes shot open. He was ready to tear the walls down and—Marlena was asleep, nestled between the arm of his couch and his bare chest. Her just-opened beer was balanced loosely in her hand. God, she was beautiful.

Trace set her beer on the coffee table and scooped her up in the blanket. Without thinking, he headed toward the bedroom and laid her in his bed, crawling next to her. Marlena sighed softly but didn’t wake. “I don’t know what to think about you, Cinderella.”

He curled around her sleep-lax body and kissed her sugar-scented hair. If he were ever to be normal, if he didn’t have a wicked fight brewing deep in his chest to retaliate for Michael’s death, then that moment might have been his heaven.

***

Marlena woke surrounded by hard warmth. She wasn’t in Mr. Romatar’s compound, this wasn’t her bed… The night before flashed in her memory. The last thing she remembered was sipping a beer and snuggling next to Trace. Slowly, she turned over, and there he was—rugged, and inches away from her. In his bed. Her stomach surged into her throat.

“Morning,” he whispered.

Unsure of the right thing to say, she sat up. “I should go.”

The heavy weight of his arm flopped over her and pulled her tight. “You should not.”

He couldn’t possibly want her to stay. Right? Instead of voicing that, she lay straight as a spike and stared at his ceiling.

“Marlena.”

“Hmm?”

“Go back to sleep.” His morning, gritty voice raked over her senses.

“I’m really okay. I should get—”

Trace took her face in his hands and leveled her with the softest kiss she could imagine. His full lips brushed over hers; his tongue teased. She melted against him, needing that reassurance and hating that one kiss, and she was a mess.

“Now can we go back to sleep?” His phone rang. “What the fuck now?”

Hand slapping all around his nightstand, he finally found it and answered. The alarm clock read six in the morning. Who would call so early?

“Got it,” he said to the caller after a few seconds. He rubbed his face and sat up. The blanket slipped off him, and even through his jeans, she could see that he had a hard-on. “Don’t mind me.”

Trace stretched and crawled out of bed. Every muscle in the man’s body was carved. Corded. Holy moly, she might pass out. Had she ever seen something so ruggedly handsome? And the tattoos… A work of art. That was the only way to describe him.

“We’ve got a job, and I’ve got to run.” He dropped his jeans and walked toward his closet.

Holy moly
? More like “Holy butt cheeks.” Marlena sucked a breath, fell back on the bed, and covered her face with a pillow. “Trace, you are too much to handle.”

She heard his laugh then peeled back the edge of the pillow.

“I thought that about you last night, and seriously, if something wasn’t very time-sensitive, I’d give the boss the finger and stay here with you. Santa-bear jammies and all.”

CHAPTER NINE

Delta hit jobs hard. Trace loved that. Just like when he was on his SEAL team, they worked nonstop, pushed their operations to the brink of no return then sidled back home. But there was that catch again: home. He itched to get back to Afghanistan, itched to scour the desert for answers and find his brother’s missing personal effects. There hadn’t been much to bury after the IED had hit. All he wanted was his brother’s goddamn dog tags.
Shit
. Trace rubbed his hand over his face. Without thinking, he hit the only number he had programmed into his phone.

Marlena picked up on the second ring. “Hi.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

“No one else has this number.”

That made him feel good, possessive, as though no one else should have that number. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to catch up on missed chapters. Turns out when you can’t tell your professor you were abducted by international terrorists, you don’t get a free pass on missed classes and notes.”

He laughed dully. “Sucks.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Where did you go? What’d you do?” Marlena asked.

“You know. Same old.”

“Rescued another one-night stand. Super stud, huh?”

That time, he laughed genuinely then hated himself. He was on the phone; Michael was dead. Trace had been kicked off his SEAL team—that would’ve destroyed his brother—and he was flirting with a pretty girl that he’d been excited to call when he got home.
What. The. Hell
. It was wrong.

“Trace?”

The bare walls closed in on him. He moved to the couch. The fabric scratched at him. “I think I have to go. Call you later, Mar.”

His heart beat faster, and he tried relocating to the bed, the hallway floor, the living room. No matter where he went, he itched to escape. The easiest fix would be to crack a bottle of something with a burn. Maybe he would drink the incoming headache away. But that could be a rabbit hole, starting trouble he didn’t need with Delta.

Though… if that happened, maybe he would come to blows with Jared or Brock. It’d feel good to get knocked around and throw a few punches. He balled his fists, needing to do something.

Trace dropped to the floor and counted off stomach crunches. After one hundred, he gave up counting, tore off his shirt, and kept going until sweat poured off him and his muscles screamed.

A bell rang as he growled through the last sit-up. He fell back, breathing hard.
What the hell? Doorbell. Hello
. He wiped his brow with his shirt and popped up. It wasn’t the Middle East. There were no war zones here. Just suburbia, where people rang doorbells, trying to sell crap Trace didn’t need. He swung the door open.

“Hey.” Marlena stood with a six-pack in hand. “Surprise. Can I come in?”

Her eyes raked down his half-naked body. Warmth flowed in his veins. It was the kind of heat that had nothing to do with killing himself with calisthenics. And God, she looked good—the way her shirt clung to her breasts. The way her pants covered her hips. It brought a vivid, instantaneous memory of his hands holding those hips while she rode him until she moaned.

“Yeah.” He took a step back. “Sure.”

She walked past him as if she owned the place and threw down her purse. Then she headed toward the kitchen and stowed the beer—minus two longnecks—in the fridge. “Here.”

“Thanks.” All he could think about was Marlena naked. Naked and climaxing on his cock. That didn’t seem like a good conversation starter.

“You sounded… off.”

Not sounded. He
was
off. Everything was disjointed, mostly because of the routine of life and picket fences surrounding him. But some of it was Marlena. He couldn’t place his finger on it, but when she came to mind, he felt a hole in his chest as though she were something he should have but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. His thoughts were so jacked.

“Trace?” She put her beer on the kitchen counter. “If there’s some kind of problem with showing up unannounced, clue me in. Actually, now that I say that out loud”—she smiled, laughing—“it does sound a little much.”

“No. It’s fine. Just… Four quiet walls make me a little claustrophobic. That’s all.”

“That why you’re drenched in sweat?” Her nose wrinkled.

Shit
. “Yeah, guess so. Was planning to work out until I dropped, at least that was my plan.”

“I have a cell phone again.” She wiggled it in her hand. Her eyes ran over him then shot across the kitchen. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

He did not want her to go. At all. Pressure built in his chest. “Give me a minute. Lemme shower off, and we’ll drink some beer.” There was hesitation hanging between them. “Be back in a minute. Don’t leave, Cinderella.”

Without waiting, he turned and headed for the bathroom. Leaving her while he showered was a risk, given they’d been in this exact situation before, and it hadn’t ended well. Quick as he could, he ran shampoo through his hair and a washcloth over his body, ignoring the fact that his dick was semi-hard.

Maybe she was on his couch. No way he was lucky enough to get out and find her in his bed. It didn’t matter. Anywhere he could lay her down and relieve the stress ratcheting up in his chest. One good kiss. One wild fuck. That would help.

Dressed and heading toward the kitchen, he knew it before he saw: The kitchen was empty. The couch couldn’t have been more pathetic. She was gone.