It's Always Been You (30 page)

Travis froze, and he probably would have let it go if Nate hadn’t pulled Caitlin close again. She jerked her head to the side, laughing, and Nate’s lips landed on Caitlin’s throat. Right on that pulse that Travis loved to kiss.
 

It was Emily who realized the problem, for his face must have morphed into something scary. And as his assistant yelled “Nate”, Travis had already dropped his plate and pulled Caitlin from his friend’s clutches. Vision hazing with red, his fingers encircled Nate’s neck.

“What the fuck, Blake?” Nate choked.
 

Travis dropped his hand and leaned in. “Study. Now.”

“Travis . . .” Caitlin tried to placate him, but he ignored her and strode to his office.

“Would you mind explaining what that was all about?”

“Think,” Travis snapped as he walked behind his desk. Better to put the table between them until he could calm the fuck down.

“Because I kissed Caitlin?” Nate said incredulously. “Jesus, Travis, I mess around that way with Bee all the time and you always laughed.”

“Bee is not my wife,” Travis shot back. “Cat is. And I don’t like another man’s mouth ever touching her.”

Shaking his head, Nate said, “I kissed her on the cheek.”

“Once, I can overlook, but you kissed her on her neck. And
that
,” he spat. “is too intimate.”

Nate sighed, “That was an accident. I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable is not what I’m feeling right now,” Travis snarled. “I was this close to punching your face.”

“You need to calm down that shit temper of yours.” Nate spread his hands on the edge of the desk, leaning in, and glaring at Travis. “Now is not the time to spread your anger around.”

“Then stop pissing me off!”

“Shit, Travis, do you know how ridiculous you sound right now? If you playfully kissed one of my girlfriends, I’m not going to strangle you.”

“That’s not my thing. I don’t maul women the way you do.”

“Damn you!” Nate’s eyes flared at him. “I don’t maul women. There’s nothing wrong with being affectionate to close friends.”

“If you saw me do the same to Sylvie, wouldn’t you react the way I did?”

Nate’s eyes suddenly cooled. “Leave her out of this.”

“She’s the only woman who’d probably—”

“This conversation is over,” Nate interrupted. “Now, we can do this the easy or the hard way. Caitlin is mine to protect. You can’t stand me showing my face around here, I’ll take her to a safe house. You decide.”

Travis glared at Nate for his choice of words, but his friend’s face had drained of all emotions. Travis felt a twinge of guilt for bringing up Sylvie. Somehow he knew Nate was not over her, and his frequent change of girlfriends was an attempt to find what he’d lost.

“I’ll drop it,” Travis conceded.

*****

Caitlin sank down and ground her core against his shaft and ruptured in a million pulsing sensations. She vaguely heard Travis growl. He clenched her hips and pumped her up and down on his cock. And then she was flipped on her back as he always finished on top, but instead of plowing into her at a frantic pace like he usually did, he was gentler. Taking his time to move inside her, he rained tender kisses on her face before sensually engaging her lips and suckling her tongue. Finally, he raised his head slightly, a deep-throated groan rumbled in his chest as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. After a series of shallow thrusts, he plunged deep, stilled, and emptied inside her.
 

As his breathing slowed, he rolled to his side. They were facing each other. He hugged her close, an arm cocked, crease of the elbow under her chin, the other arm under her head looping back to the front, and his chin resting on top of her head. It was almost like a chokehold embrace and yet amazingly sweet. “Never let you go,” he whispered.

“Um, Travis,” Caitlin murmured. “I can’t sleep this way, you might strangle me in your sleep.”

Her man huffed, as if offended that she would think so. He shifted on his back and nestled her in the crook of his arms. “Better?”

“Uh-hum.” However, after fifteen minutes of trying to sleep, Caitlin decided to take care of the stickiness between her legs. Usually, Travis did this for her or carried her to the bathroom to wash up. Tonight, it appeared he had no intention of doing this.
 

Guess it was too much to expect all the time. Caitlin shrugged inwardly. No big deal. She started untangling herself from their entwined limbs when Travis’s grip tightened.

“Where’re you going?”

“I need to wash up.”

“No. You’re not washing me off you tonight.”

Caitlin laughed softly, thinking Travis was kidding, but when he didn’t loosen his hold, she asked, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack,” Travis murmured. “Go to sleep, babe.”

Her husband had reached a new level of caveman. What’s next? Pee circles around her? “Sorry, buddy. No can do,” Caitlin quipped and tried again to escape. She heard an exasperated sigh, found herself under Travis again, her wrists manacled by an iron grip on either side of her face.

He loomed above her. “I’ll only fuck you all over again.”

“Travis, what the hell? Let me go.”

“No.”

“What
is
wrong with you?”

He ducked and nuzzled her neck. “Just want me all over you, babe.”

“I’m serious. I’m not sleeping with your cum between my legs. It’s dis—”

“I swear, Cat, if you say it’s disgusting, I’m going to smack your ass.”

“—tracting. It’s distracting,” Caitlin
was
going to say disgusting, but she had some self-preservation left in her.

“Nice save,” Travis murmured against her lips. Obviously, he knew what she was really going to say. He finally relented, picked her up from the bed, and carried her to bathroom.

“So how long have you been friends with Nate?”

After Travis dutifully cleaned her between her legs, they attempted to return to sleep to no avail. Caitlin put a halt to Travis’s attempt to have sex again, and even said no when he offered to go down on her. Instead, she channeled their insomnia into something more useful—getting to know more about her husband.

“High school,” Travis said. “First year. Nate just moved into town with his dad. They were our neighbors.”

“What happened to Nate’s mother?”

“She died when Nate was ten. Car accident. His dad never remarried. Nate’s dad, Uncle Lawrence, and my dad hit it off immediately. Nate and I were still sizing up each other.”

“Teenagers.”

Travis chuckled, “Yeah. We were both on the football team so we were cool with each other, but we didn’t hang out much. Nate liked to cause trouble, and one time got into deep shit with a junior who was rumored to be a member of a local gang.”

“What did he do?”

“He fucked the guy’s girlfriend.”

“Dumbass.”

“Yup. You have to understand male teenage hormones, babe. Anyway, the gang was waiting for him after school, and the guy he fucked over came up to him and confronted him about stealing his girl. Turns out, it was the girl who came on to Nate and told him she had already broken up with the guy.”

“Don’t tell me they had a brawl in school.”

“No. I heard the guy tell Nate where to meet him, calling him chicken shit if he didn’t show up.”

“I wouldn’t think Nate was one to back down,” Caitlin murmured.

“Yep, Reece’s got balls.”

“Then what?”

Travis sighed, “I couldn’t, in all good conscience, let the poor guy go by himself.”

“Oh, God.”

“We both got our asses kicked. We got beat until our eyes were shut, and we had a couple of cracked ribs.” Travis was laughing.
Laughing
.
 

“Nuts,” Caitlin muttered.

“We became best friends after that.”

“I would hope so,” Caitlin shook her head. “So what did you boys do? Chase girls in high school?”

“Uhm, I think that would be a negative.”

Caitlin flopped onto her belly and propped up on her elbows. “Now, you’re trying to make me believe you and Nate left the girls alone?”

“You asked if we chased girls.” She caught the flash of his grin in the dim light. “We didn’t. They chased us.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “Of course. Between you two, you probably had pussies falling from the sky. So do you remember your first love?”

Travis leaned in and said, “You.”

“Be honest, Travis.”

He crossed his arms behind his head and stared at her. “That’s the truth, babe. There were so many girls, none of them were serious. I dated them, but I just wanted to fuck, so it didn’t seem fair to lead them on by pretending I wanted a relationship. My junior year, I didn’t even date high school chicks any longer. College girls were more interesting, and less likely to cry when I didn’t call them.”

“Oh, God, you were such a jerk.”

“I was a teenager,” Travis fired back. “I always made sure they knew the score. My priority was becoming a SEAL. I knew the training itself was brutal. I had no time or focus for a relationship.”

“You can’t have me believing you were a monk when you were a SEAL.”

Travis laughed, “Monk? No! I hooked-up, sometimes it was a one-night stand, sometimes it was the same girl for the entire duration I was home. It depended on if the woman was willing and if I was attracted to her. I may seek her out again when I was on my next break, but there were no promises of commitment.”

“You went to SEAL training directly from high school?”
 

“No. My dad wanted me to get my degree first, so I went to college and graduated with an economics degree in three and half years.”

“Overachiever.”

“I had lofty goals.”

“Yeah, you married me, a girl you met at a bar.”

Travis unfolded his arms and dragged her on top of him, sealing his mouth over hers in a firm kiss. “That was fate, babe,” he whispered, his voice laden with tenderness. “Never had a relationship in my life, and in one night, it just hit me. You took my breath away, and I handed you my heart. I was a goner.”

“Hmm . . .
 
You say the most romantic things,” Caitlin murmured. “No wonder you got me to marry you in six weeks.”

“Had help, babe,” Travis admitted. “I may not have had relationships before, but I knew what my parents have, and I swore I’d have that, too. Maybe that was why I didn’t want to jump from one relationship to another. When I fell in love, I would make the effort to win the woman I love, making sure it was going to be forever. I’ve got a dad who loves my mom to distraction. All I did was ask his help to teach me how not to screw this up.”

“What if you weren’t convalescing and you only had two weeks? Would you have sought me out again on your next break?”

Travis gave her a firm squeeze. “You’re not listening. I was gone for you after one night. I would have never left for my deployment if I wasn’t sure you knew that you were mine and no one else’s. Fuck. I didn’t even wanna think what I would have done if I only had two weeks to convince you to marry me. You’d probably run from me, screaming that I was a psycho.”

“You’re right.”

Travis chuffed indignantly. “You were crazy about me, too.”

“If you say so Trav—” She squealed when he dragged her under him and silenced her insolent mouth with a plundering kiss. After a few minutes, his kiss gentled until finally he pulled away and finished by kissing the tip of her nose. He fell on his back again and tucked her to his side.

Caitlin grinned; then a yawn escaped her. “How come Nate’s not a SEAL like you?”

“We did go to BUD/S together, but his old man got sick, and he had to take care of him for a couple of months. Shame really. He joined the Army Special Forces instead. He quit after one tour because he got recruited into the CIA paramilitary division.”

“You had additional training to be in SEAL Team Six?”

Travis nodded. “To be a DEVGRU operator you have to pass the Green Team selection process.” He exhaled deeply. “Attrition rate is high. Fewer than fifteen percent active-duty SEALs successfully screen for it, and those who actually pass training are in the top 1% of the SEAL community.”

“Wow,” Caitlin whispered in awe. “You’re that badass?”

Travis chuckled, “I’m sure I’ve gotten rusty.”

“Not from what I’ve seen,” she muttered as she played with the hair on Travis’s chest. “Do you miss being a SEAL?”

Travis was quiet for a beat. “I miss the brotherhood and the mission to clean up the shit in this world. I loved being a SEAL, and then I lost some friends at the same time I had that injury that had me questioning my beliefs. You restored my faith in the mission, babe, but I also started hating being away from you.”

“Oh, Travis . . .”

“Don’t feel guilty, Cat. I just found something . . . someone I loved more than those ugly guys I served with,” Travis said with a hint of amusement. Then his tone turned serious. “It takes its toll on you—war, killing, collateral damage. We may be the toughest sons of bitches on the planet, but there is a danger to losing our humanity, especially when there is no one back home to keep you tethered. I had a taste of that when I thought I had lost you.”

“You scare me, Travis.”

“What?” Travis shifted his hold on her and tilted her chin up to look at him.

“Remember when we got ambushed on Route 7?”

“Yeah?”

“You became someone I didn’t recognize. I can’t explain that look in your eyes. And then again when you fought Ashe and the other MC guys . . .
 
you were this . . . stranger.” Caitlin wanted to say killing machine, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words.

“Sorry, Cat,” Travis whispered. “I just disappear into this zone where I have to neutralize a threat. I’m still there
 
. . . inside . . . I’m still there. But I have to operate with no empathy, because if I have to kill someone whose intent is to kill me, hesitating is not an option.”

“I know,” Caitlin said. “I guess I freaked you out, too, the one time you saw me black out and go on a rampage.”

“God, Cat. I was so pissed at what was done to you.” Travis shuddered against her. “That the agency would experiment . . . never again, babe. I’ll never let them get their hands on you.”