“Yeah, well, we’ve seen some shit.”
Shit like one too many drone strikes on innocent people. One too many bombs dropped on fucking schools or villages back in Afghanistan. After that last one, where we all almost died, we snapped. I guess we all broke in different ways.
Which is why we’re here, in some God-forsaken part of the world playing soldiers for hire, because there’s just no going back home after you go AWOL from the Marines during active duty.
Javier nods. “Seems like it. I’ve seen some shit too, amigo,” he shakes his head. “But Papi, you got that cold hard cowboy look on your face like I’ve never seen before.”
I force out a laugh and sip the beer. “Well, I guess we all get the shit we carry from wherever we come from.”
“Yeah? And where’s that, Irish?” Javier clinks his beer against mine and peers at me curiously. “Where’d you come from?”
“Hey, wake up, Irish!” Javier snaps his fingers in my face, startling me from my daydream, and his grin widens as he sees the bottled up hate behind my face. He narrows his eyes as he leans in closer, as if daring me to hit him. “Don’t fucking forget, buddy, you get to win this one tonight, comprendes?
“Yeah, fuckin comprendes.”
His eyes narrow again and he looks quickly at the girl still standing there and jerks his head for her to leave.
“Listen, Logan,” he hisses at me after the door closes behind her. “Don’t get all soft on me.”
“I’m not, fuck off.”
Javier nods slowly. It’s the same calculating look I first saw in Ghana, back when he was teaching me to fight. Back when he knew who I was, which consequently means he still knows who I am. Not Logan Dempsey, billionaire finance manager at Archer Holdings. Not the man working to rebuild the future from the wrongs of his past, brick by fucking brick. No, he knows who I really am, which means he owns me.
And I fucking hate feeling owned.
“Don’t go forgetting our arrangement, Logan.”
“I’m aware of it.” I growl out.
He chuckles. “Aww, now don’t get all mad like this is my fault, Papi.” He spreads his hands wide. “I’m a businessman, and you were just too good a business opportunity to let go of!”
Years ago, back in the jungle, he’d mentioned wanting to figure out what made me “burn” inside. What made me snap and made me a demon in the ring.
…I guess neither of us could have predicted that it’d be him.
“Now don’t get all sore about it Irish, get mad. Get mad, get out there, and you hit that motherfucker.”
I can hardly stand afterwards, and all I’m barely aware of is pushing Javier away and stumbling back to my dirty changing room. The girl is there, of course, and she’s taking her top off, but I’m pushing her out the door too. It’s not just the pain - which is real - either. It’s the fact that through the whole fight, I’ve had one face in the back of my mind, keeping me standing, keeping me sane, and keeping me from fading out. One perfect, beautiful, untouchable face of the last girl on Earth I should be thinking about. I realize suddenly with a sobering thought that there’s only one place I want to go right now.
Chapter Ten
Quinn
Long, hot baths are supposed to be relaxing. They’re supposed to de-stress you and wash away whatever burdens you’re carrying with you as soon as you step into that glorious sudsy water. And yet somehow, despite the tea-lights, the stupid lavender bath-oil that Chelsea got me for my last birthday, and even the glass of wine in my hands, I’m still tense.
And I’m still tense because I can’t stop thinking about Logan fucking Dempsey.
Yikes, okay, I certainly don’t need to use the word fuck and his name together in the same thought. Nope, not at all.
Whatever that little encounter on the plane was, whether he set that up or if it was just plain happenstance, it doesn’t matter. Either way, I can’t get the lingering thought of it out of my head.
Because just that brush of a touch, the heat of his body close to mine in the tightness of that plane, and the way his eyes burned into mine had me thinking about that night. That first night full of heat and anonymity. Yes, he’s a rich, entitled, pompous ass, but God would I be lying if I tried to tell myself it hadn’t been amazing. Like, mind-blowingly amazing.
And then before I know it, I’m letting myself sink down a little further in the heat of the tub and letting my thoughts wander to that illicit, forbidden place where the memory of that night is stored. I’m thinking of the way his hands ran over the curve of my hip and up to my back, teasing the skin there with his fingertips. The way he was so primal with his need for me, and yet so teasing in the way he brought me to a damn boiling point before he touched me there.