I'm Only Here for the Beard (The Dixie Wardens Rejects MC #4)(20)

I shivered.

"Let me guess," I said slowly. "The man said stuff about me and Sean freaked out."

Imogen nodded. "Sort of. He got all quiet first. Then when he tried to go into the bathroom, and you showed, the man's eyes went all creepy like and Sean told him to 'be careful.'" She stopped. "You know the rest."

I didn't bother asking what was said by BB. It was likely vulgar and it was best that I kept myself ignorant.

"Do you remember four years ago when Sean got pissed over that man stealing his seat in the bar, and then one thing led to another and Sean punched the guy like he just did a few minutes ago?" Tommy Tom asked Truth at my back.

I turned my head and studied Tommy Tom.

"It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen," Truth nodded. "One single punch to the jaw, and the man was out exactly like that. It's good to see he didn't lose his touch when he left the Marines."

I looked at Tommy Tom in confusion.

He noticed and started to explain.

"Sean used to be one of those Body Bearers for the Marines. They called him Beast while he was doing that. He was freakin' jacked," Tommy Tom explained. "He's actually slimmed down a lot since he got out of the Corps."

The man was bigger?

Jesus. He was already hard as a rock everywhere. I couldn't even begin to imagine what he looked like bigger.

"What's so special about being a Body Bearer for the Marines?" Imogen asked.

A man piped in that was beside us.

His biker patch said 'Griffin.' 

"Because those guys are fuckin' beasts," Griffin said from where he was leaning against the wall in the hallway. "All other branches of the military use eight pall bearers for a funeral service. The Marines only use six. They carry the casket at elbow height, and they lift it to eye level and hold it there before it's lowered into the ground. They're not allowed to breathe out of their mouths. They're in perfect presentation at all times. Normally, that means they're out in the heat and sunshine, full fucking dress uniform."

That did sound hard.

"They really are pretty fuckin' awesome. And well respected. They train in a goddamned basement for hours a day to make it look perfect when they were at a Marine's funeral."

That sounded depressing, and actually kind of dedicated.

Hell, I was lying. That showed a lot of dedication.

Dedication that I sure as hell didn't have.

I didn't work out.

I should, but I didn't.

Why? Because working out made my boobs bounce so hard that they hurt, my legs shook, and my head throbbed.

Why work out when it hurt that much?

"Oh, shit."

I turned my head in the direction of the 'oh shit' and found Tommy Tom staring at something straight ahead.

My eyes automatically went in that direction to find Sean, his arms crossed and his jaw clenched, staring down at a woman with a blank expression on his face.

The woman, however, didn't have a blank expression.

She was talking animatedly to him. Her arms were waving, and she was poking him in the chest every so often.

"Who's that?" Imogen asked, stopping at my side.

I moved until I was nearly touching the glass that was separating the inside from the outside, and watched.

"That's his ex-wife," Truth grumbled. "She's the one that left him while he was deployed."

That was enough to get me moving.

One second I was inside and the next I was outside, heading in the direction of Sean with an angry scowl on my face.

"I don't know what the big deal was. We were eighteen."

I stopped at Sean's back.

The woman apparently didn't see me because she continued spewing her mouth.

"That was over fifteen years ago. Working on twenty," the woman continued. "And, honestly, I was scared. I didn't know if you were going to make it home and that scared the crap out of me."

Sean didn't say anything still.

So I chose that moment to wrap my arms around him from behind, locking my hands together right under his pecs.

The woman stopped mid-sentence as she saw my arms wind around Sean, and I smiled into his back.

Sean's massive hand-the same one that I'd seen put an IV into a six-week-old baby only four days before-wrapped around my wrist and held on tight.

I nuzzled my cheek against his back wondering if it would be okay to do this while naked, and waited for the woman to continue her rant.

She didn't.

Instead, the silence surrounded us, and I sighed.

Moving from where I was, I walked around the left side of Sean's body.

A, because the woman was standing to his right. And B, because Sean didn't let go of my wrist, forcing me to walk one way only.

"Hello," I said with false cheer. "Who are you?"

The woman, a blonde in her mid-thirties, stared at me with annoyance on her face.