Seal of Honor(93)

Audrey ignored the question, instead answering with a couple of her own. “Where’s Bryson? Is he okay?”

Chloe wasn’t the type of sister-in-law to drop in unannounced. She wasn’t even the type to drop in announced. Five minutes ago, Audrey would have bet her life savings that Chloe would never see the inside of her home, yet here she stood on the porch, staring warily at Gabe.

Jeez, was today the day for unexpected visits or what?

“I wanted to talk to you,” Chloe said.

“You couldn’t do it over the phone?” Gabe asked.

Her too-plump lips pressed together. “No. I couldn’t.” Then she looked him over with a critical eye. “You’re one of the men that rescued my husband.”

He inclined his head. “I am.”

“What are you doing here?”

Audrey opened her mouth to say it was none of Chloe’s business, but Gabe spoke over her. “I live here.”

It gave her a little thrill to hear him say it. So what if he technically didn’t have any of his belongings here yet. Just the fact that he said it with that note of finality in his voice made her go all warm and gooey inside. He lived here. With her.

Chloe harrumphed. “Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”

“We’re busy,” Gabe said and Audrey’s face heated.

Oh God. The last thing she needed was for Chloe to report to her brother that she was shacked up with some man, doing the sorts of things that keep healthy men and women busy in the middle of the night. Chloe would make the situation into the apocalypse and Gabe into Lucifer, and Bryson would go on one of his brotherly rampages before she had a chance to ease him into the idea of her having a live-in lover.

She nudged Gabe in the side with a soft, reprimanding, “Gabriel,” but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Unless this is an emergency,” he said, “I suggest you try back in the morning.”

Something flashed in Chloe’s dark eyes, but she dipped her head before Audrey was able to identify the emotion. Anger, maybe. Chloe did tend to have a short fuse, and having someone so succinctly tell her off wasn’t something that happened often to the overindulged woman. Certainly wasn’t fear. A person had to be intelligent to be afraid of the likes of Gabe, and her sister-in-law wasn’t known for her brains.

“Chloe, it is late and I’m tired. I’m sure you are, too, if you just arrived.” Audrey tried to keep her voice soft, soothing them both. “As long as Bryson is okay, there’s no need for this right now. Come back in the morning and we can talk or whatever over breakfast, okay?”

Chloe hesitated. “Alone.”

“Hell no—”

Audrey cut off Gabe’s protest with a finger against his lips. “Yes, alone. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Even after the door shut, Audrey kept her finger pressed to his lips. The expression in his gold eyes faded from pissed off to mulish, then flared with heat as he opened his mouth and sucked her finger inside.

She laughed even as sensation sparked from the tip of her finger and zinged through her blood to her belly. “Didn’t you get enough earlier?”

“I’ll never get enough of you, woman.” After one last swirling lick, he released her finger and moved to the window, still in warrior mode, full of that deadly catlike grace. He parted the curtains. Chloe’s headlights splashed over the hard angles of his face as she backed out of the driveway.

“I don’t like her.”

Audrey let out a huff of laughter. “C’mon, hon. She’s a pain-in-the-ass, but she’s harmless.”

“I don’t know about harmless. There’s something about her…” He backed away from the window and moved his shoulders as if trying to shake off a cold chill. “It’s out of the ordinary for her to visit, right?”

“I’ll say. I honestly didn’t think she even knew where I lived.”

“Yeah, about that. I don’t like out of the ordinary.” After picking up the gun he’d set on the foyer table, he gave her a quick kiss. “Go on to bed. I’ll check out the grounds, make sure we’re secure, then be in.”

She caught his face in her hands. “Careful, Gabriel, your paranoia is showing.”

“Probably.” His faint smile never touched his eyes. “But humor me. Lock yourself in the bedroom until I come back, okay?”

Audrey watched him slip out the front door and fade into the night. She sighed and moved toward the bedroom to follow her SEAL’s orders. She supposed this was something she’d have to get used to, though she planned to ease away his constant fear of attack. That was no way for anyone, even a former SEAL, to live. Everyone needed a refuge, some place untouched by the outside world, where he can let down his guard. This was going to be Gabe Bristow’s haven. She’d make sure of it.