“Tyrant,” I muttered.
“Friend,” she whispered as Laila grabbed the TV remote and she and Ryker began arguing over what movie to put on. “One who’s glad to finally be able to see the real you.” Olive leaned close. “And if you’re wondering why you don’t feel guilty about your father, it’s because you’re a good person, one who’s had to make a lifetime’s worth of tough decisions, and this one wasn’t any different. You did what you had to do, and you’re not going to look back and analyze every eyelash twitch.”
I released a breath, touched to the core. All these years I’d done my level best to keep everyone out, and . . . I hadn’t succeeded in the least. They knew me with or without the walls.
Then she gave me the death knell. The one that made my eyes sting. “And you’re not going to feel guilty because we won’t let you. We love you, Ava.”
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“What?” She frowned, even as Dan, all too familiar with my outbursts by now to react, simply squeezed my hand.
“I don’t know how you assholes made a place in my heart,” I told her. “But I’m damned glad you managed.”
“Don’t be too happy,” Dan said. He jutted his chin toward Laila.
Who had just come to an agreement with Ryker about which movie to watch.
It was Christmas-themed. It was a Christmas-themed romantic movie.
In the middle of summer. In a room of secret agents.
I gestured to Dan to come close, leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Spoiler alert,” I breathed. “I like it when the guy and the girl get their happy ending.”
“I heard that!” Laila crowed.
“Good,” I said.
And I decided that if this was the result of my walls falling, of me failing to keep everyone at a distance—a brightly lit room full of friends and a man I cared about deeply—then I could deal.
I grabbed Dan’s shoulders and hauled him close.
Then I kissed him until my head spun.
Yeah, I could deal with that, too.
Twenty-Seven
Central Georgia
Dan’s cabin
18:36hrs local time
Dan
“How did I let you convince me to deal with this humidity again?” Ava muttered, sitting up on the blanket I’d spread out for her. She poked a finger under the calf-high cast and began scratching. “This is going to smell like death when we get back to headquarters.”
“A little sweat never hurt anyone,” I said.
“Says you,” she said, still grumbling. “I’m the one who’s melting over here.”
“Come melt over here,” I said, still prone on the blanket, my head pleasantly full after the trio of whiskey-lemonades we’d drunk.
The sun was finally descending, taking the worst of the heat out of the air.
But the humidity was still intense, making our skin sticky, even in the shade of the trees.
“Fine,” she said, rolling toward me. “But it’s at your own peril.”
Two weeks from that night in Ava’s room, a little more than three since her injury, and she was finally more mobile. Her stitches were out, her antibiotics finished, and her cast had been cut down, replaced with a waterproof version fresh from Fred and his team.
She was hobbling around.
And going nuts being confined at headquarters.
So, when I’d floated the idea of spending a week here at the cabin, under the guise of me needing to check on the property—even though I’d had to pay for a vacation for my caretaker to get the place to ourselves—I’d hedged my bets.
She’d accepted without hesitation.
Thus, my plan to get her alone was successful.
“Too bad the peaches are all harvested,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was an early season.”
“How’d you become a peach farmer?”
“Stupidly,” I told her.
She laughed, pressed her body along my side. “Tell me.”
“I was driving by after a mission, saw the For Sale sign, and figured I was nearing thirty and it was time to buy some property.” I shrugged. “The trees were pretty. The house was decent. So, I put in an offer.” A roll of my eyes. “I had no clue how in over my head I was. I’m hardly ever stateside, and now I owned a farm? Ridiculous.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Six years.”
“Well, the trees look to have survived.”
“Thanks to Hank.”
She propped her elbows on my chest. “Who’s Hank?”
“The caretaker I hired about two weeks after realizing the actual size of this place.”
“Smart.”
I shook my head. “Necessary after a stupid purchase.”
She brushed a kiss to my cheek. “Probably,” she agreed. “But I am fond of this place.” A smile. “I would like to experience it when it isn’t a thousand degrees.”
“Just a little hyperbole there.”
“Shut it, you,” she said.
“It’s shut,” I countered.
We lay in silence for a few minutes, the temperature lowering to something less in the vicinity of Seventh Circle of Hell and more to actually comfortable. But then Ava shifted and stretched back onto the blanket, her arms above her head.
My eyes drifted to her breasts, mouth watering.
We’d done very little kissy-facing as Laila called it, mostly because the team had been hanging out together and because I’d been forcing myself to not pounce on her like the starving beast I felt like.
I fucking loved her body.
But she’d been injured.
Was still healing.
So, though I’d held her every night since she’d woken in the infirmary, I hadn’t allowed my brain to even consider anything more than that and the occasional kiss.
She moaned softly, and my eyes caught on the shimmering skin at the base of her throat, the way her lips, plump and tempting, parted as she breathed slowly and steadily. How her breasts lifted and fell in time to her breathing, the slightest jiggle visible in the V of her T-shirt.
Fuck.
Still. Healing.
“Mmm,” she said, stretching for another moment before shifting to her side and propping her head on her hand. That V gaped . . . and I suddenly had a problem with my shorts fitting properly.
“I need more whiskey,” she said.
I started to sit up, reaching for her glass. “I’ll go in the house and get you—”
The skies opened up.
Without warning, in that uniquely Southern way. I hadn’t noticed the clouds coming in, the already-darkening evening sky hiding their approach.
She gasped.
Then smiled, slow and sexy and plumb full of heat, and reached for the hem of her T-shirt.
“Ava,” I warned.
“I think it’s a sign, don’t you?” she asked, tugging it up, the already sodden material hitting the blanket next to her with a soft plop.
I inched back, my fingers itching to touch.
Still. Healing.
As evidenced by the bright red marks on her abdomen.
Her hand went to the button of her shorts.
“Ava.”