Ice (Elite Forces #1)(18)

I contemplate my answer. Do I tell him or not? If I do, I risk the  chance of him opening his mouth to Jade, letting her know he knows. Or  worse, telling someone of rank that could ruin my career and hers. If I  don't, he'll go after her. He's a man like me, who goes after what he  wants, and we both know he wants her for more than a quick fuck. She's  the only one who is blind and can't see it.

She sees him as her friend. A friend whom, thank god, I stopped before  they fucked. Before he used that fuck to get under her skin. The  difference between Harris and I is, I went after what I wanted the first  chance I got. Where he's had years to tell her how he's felt about her.  Years he wasted. He fucked up.

This woman lying in my arms, sleeping on my shoulder, is right where she  is meant to be. With me. I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail to  make her see it. I may have fought hard on every mission I've been on,  every deployment I went to and I know damn well she'll be worth the  fight.

There is nothing I will fight harder for than her. I need her as much as  she needs me. And I'll be damned if a man who isn't man enough to tell a  woman how he feels about her will stand in my way.

"You want the truth, Harris? Here's the truth. She's mine." I growl the  words through a whisper, hoping she doesn't wake up. He's somewhat  shocked, but his expression is angrier than anything.

"It's funny how she doesn't seem to acknowledge that herself." He leans  closer, making sure I hear him. "She's not something that I'll walk away  from, and she's sure as fuck not someone I'll let get into something  that's going to hurt her. Let me ask you, Commander, why exactly was  Jade's back full of bloody scrapes and scratches?" I look toward the  stewardess coming down the middle aisle, not wanting to get into it with  him. Why can't he just understand that I'm not fucking around here?

"What Jade and I do is none of your fucking business."

"That's where you're dead fucking wrong. If she gets hurt, I feel  obligated to find justice in who wronged her. If you're some fucked-up  asshole who gets off on making people bleed, you just need to walk the  fuck away from her. Consider it saving your own life."

"That's not how it is." I look down to her sleeping peacefully on my  shoulder. Christ. I really don't give a shit what his opinion of me is.  It's her I care about. Her opinion matters. She has to know I want more  than sex with her. I've told her this.

"Look, I have nothing but respect for you as a leader and a soldier, but  Jade is not an area I'll settle on. She deserves happiness. If you're  what causes that, then you'll have my full support, but if I see one  fucking tear in her eye that you caused … . Be prepared to meet me for  your day of reckoning."

"I can work with that." Because the last thing I want to see is another tear escape her gorgeous eyes.

"And don't fucking claim her like a piece of property. She's a human  being, a strong one at that, who can make her own decisions. And until  she tells me she's taken, I'll be right beside her, just being me."

I want to like the man who went to battle with me to take down one of  the most notorious terrorists of all time, but this guy is choosing to  go to war with me now.

"Harris, don't kid yourself, you don't stand a chance in a war with me.  I'll ruin you. I'll make you disappear into the depths of hell on a  fucking mission you'd rather die than finish."

"And I'll climb out of that hell to come find you if you so much as put  another fucking scratch on her porcelain body." We may disagree on who  should hold her at night, but we agree on Jade's safety. I want her  happy too, and I will do my best to make sure she recovers from the  nightmares she's bound to have." I swallow hard and take in the words  he's saying. If she comes with me, I'll do everything in my power to  make sure she's not hurt.

"I can respect that," I say truthfully.

"Good. I'm glad we could see eye to eye." He sits back finally, looking  straight ahead at his monitor, and stuffs those earbuds in his ears.  Keep them there, asshole; and you will stay the hell away from her.





CHAPTER NINE


JADE


The jolt of the plane landing wakes me up. I'm incredibly warm and  definitely not sleeping on a soft pillow. No, what I'm lying on is hard,  but damn, I'm right where a part of me wants to be though. His smell  gives him away. He's all man. Rough, rugged, and tough man that's easy  to feel safe near. When I open my eyes, I see one of my legs is curled  up underneath me, my inured arm is sprawled across his chest, and my  head is lying on his shoulder. God, he feels good with his arm wrapped  around me, caging me in tight to his body. I go to move, my body aching  to stretch. I'm pulled tighter into him. My mind wonders how I went from  falling asleep on Harris's shoulder to Kaleb's.                       
       
           



       

"Hey, sleepyhead." His voice is raspy. He must've fallen asleep too.

"Hey." I jerk out of his hold, realizing what I've done. My eyes dart to  Harris, who is sleeping. I hope he missed just how sprawled across  Kaleb I was. I roll my neck around and stretch my legs out the best I  can, trying to regain feeling in my limbs from this long flight.

"Those must be some killer pain pills. You were out and you snore." They  must be. I still wonder how I went from Harris to him. Kaleb chuckles  as he stretches his arms over his head, those tattoos pulling taut when  his muscles flex in his upper arms. Right now, I don't care how I  shifted my body in my sleep. He's a distraction. One I'm not sure if I  want to eat off of, or choke on.

Shit. I would love to finally get a close-up of every one of those  tattoos. I wonder if he'll ever tell me the meaning behind them. And  don't even let me forget about those damn abs. His thin t-shirt doesn't  leave a damn thing to the imagination, not that my mind will let me  forget them. They're hard, defined, and bulging through his t-shirt, and  I can still feel the ripple on my fingertips from when I was sprawled  across him like a desperate magnet.

In spite of sleeping for the most part of the flight, I'm still  exhausted. All I want to do is go home, take a long, hot shower and  sleep for days. Then wake up and figure out what in the hell I'm going  to do with my time off. I need a distraction, anything to help me keep  my troubled mind off of that boy.

"He's right, you do snore. Loud." My head swings around to Harris.

"What the fuck ever. Like the two of you don't." I roll my eyes at him.

"I will the minute I hit my bed, that's for damn sure." JJ leans  forward, stretching. He looks worse than I feel, which says a lot,  because I feel like shit.

"Won't we all." Harris looks at me, then to Kaleb. The way he glares at  Kaleb has a red flag instantly waving in my face. Something happened  while I was sleeping, I can feel it. The tension between these two has  hardened. Damn them. I'm not in the mood for whatever kind of bullshit  these two have going on between them, and if Kaleb said anything about  what happened between the two of us, he'll wish to god I didn't save his  ass, because I will kill him myself. Even though it will be a long time  before I even think about having sex with another man, there could  never be anything between the two of us. We're entirely different.

I'm not a prude, that's blatantly obvious by the way I let him fuck me  in every hole he could, but we aren't even on the same page when it  comes to sex. The cheeks of my ass clench together when I think of the  way he roughly took what he wanted, his demanding ways making me submit  to him. God, I'd be lying if I didn't love every minute of it. The way  he touched me, fucked me like he could never get enough.

I need to get the hell away from him and have some me time. I could hit  the clubs with my girlfriend Mallory. Anything to make me forget him.  It's been way too long since I've done something for myself, but when  the Army is your life and you've done nothing but train for the past few  years to set goals to fulfill your dreams, going out is the last thing  on your mind. I haven't had time to myself in I don't know how long.

"Let's get out of here." Kaleb extends his hand out to me as soon as the  airplane comes to a stop. He helps me stand, and I stretch more,  holding my sore arm tight against me. The pain has faltered some,  leaving me with a slight discomfort, but it's nothing I can't handle.  The pain pills will help. I drop his hand the minute I step out into the  aisle, making him frown.

"Just go," my cranky ass tells him. I watch him and chastise my stupid  hormones the entire way off the plane, all the way down the hallway.  Stupid woman. Why did you taste the forbidden? He's ruined you for a  long time.

"You're riding with me." He grabs my hand again like we're a damn couple  as we walk through the airport after saying goodbye to JJ and Harris.