A thick sigh leaves her lungs.
She braces her hands against my chest, pushing up and looking at me strangely.
“I don’t understand. How?”
“Haven’t figured that part out yet. I’m working on it.” I smile wryly, looking down at her, bathing in her heat.
Fuck, her skin feels deliciously warm, even while we’ve been talking cloak and dagger secrets, fears, guilt.
She’s so close—we didn’t even turn the lights on—and it’s an alluring effect.
She’s all blue shadows and mellow highlights in the faint slip of light spilling in from the porch. My eyes ignite the rest of me a little more with every second they’re glued to her.
“Listen, your ma’s in Idaho, right? I can start by calling an old buddy from the SEALs who lives in the area and putting him on watch. No one will get near her with him on guard.”
“You...would?” Her eyes start to well up again. “You’d do that for me?”
I’m starting to think I’d do anything for this woman.
Especially when it seems like her pride might be slipping just enough to let me.
“Hey. No looking at me like that. I’ve got you and we’ve got this.” I can’t resist, then, touching my fingertips under her chin, stroking the soft skin there. “How much do you know about Navy SEALs?”
She hesitates, a half smile pulling at her lips.
“Not a lot, really.” Her gaze flicks over my face, puzzled, luminously wet in the dark. “I know I’ve never seen one who isn’t gorgeous. It’s like they sculpt the good looks into you.”
Shit, here we go.
Don’t think a girl’s ever called me gorgeous before.
I clear my throat, ignoring the weight below my belt, my cheeks burning under my beard.
“They train a lot into us, yeah, but I think the best they can do in that department is honing our physiques.” I offer her a small smile. “Anyhow, during SEAL training, they put you through pure hell. Every hardship’s made with a precision designed to break you. And you will break.”
“Did you?” she asks with a slight gasp.
“I did. Everyone does. That’s the point. The bigger question is whether you break and fall apart—or do you reforge those shattered pieces into something newer and stronger? Something that can withstand more, hold together in the next round, till they can’t break you the same way. It’s brutal. Mental, physical, soul...it tests everything in you.”
For me, it was simulated waterboarding.
I still remember it. The terror, how deep it ran. The panic of being suffocated by the incessant flood, dousing my face for hours.
Then the defeat, the realization that there was no way to stop it, no way to shut it down, no way to save myself.
Just this yawning hopelessness like it would never end, that I’d always be a human body set on fire by water, and even if I gave up, I’d still keep drowning.
No reason to give up, then.
If I was going to drown, I’d drown all the way through to the end till I became a hoarse, screaming mess, driven half out of my mind.
“That sounds pretty intense. And kinda depressing, honestly,” she whispers. “Some things, you don’t get to come back stronger. You don’t get second chances.”
I know exactly what—and who—she’s talking about.
She isn’t wrong when the wrong brush with Paye and her crew could be fatal.
Still, she’s missing the hopeful part.
“Here’s the thing—you always have a way out,” I say, the memories taking hold of me hard: the knifing stab of ice-cold water, the searing pain of the sun overhead, salt water and sand in my mouth, the scream of my body, the voice barking drills, the smells of the men around me with their pores radiating not just sweat, but suffering and determination. “There’s a bell. When you get that deep in tactical training, there’s always a bell during every exercise. And when you hit your breaking point, when you can’t take anymore, when you’re ready to tap the fuck out for good and give up on the idea of being a SEAL forever...”
I gather her closer against me.
She stares at me in wonderment, nodding and asking for more.
“You ring that bell, Fliss. You ring it and then you walk out. It’s over. Done. You’ve quit. They broke you, and you just can’t take anymore. There’s nothing wrong with ringing that bell before you drown or lose your sanity for good. Nothing wrong with knowing your limits. It doesn’t make you a lesser person. It just means you weren’t ready—and you were never fit to go it alone.”
She’s looking up at me with understanding dawning in those clear, pretty eyes.
I think she knows what I’m asking even before I do.
“What I want to know, Fliss, is this.” I pause, searching her face. “Are you ready to ring that bell? Are you ready for help? Or are you ready to hand that gold over to Paisley Lockwood and hope she’ll go away for good?”
There it is.
That pride, that defiant flash in her eyes, that glint that tells me she might be afraid, but she’s not broken. There’s a difference, and that difference tells me this beautiful woman will fight with everything in her to the bitter end.
“No,” she says, soft but firm. “I’m not giving up. She killed my father because she blames him for Kurt Lockwood’s chickens coming home to roost. She killed him with her own bare hands.” Her pretty red lower lip juts out stubbornly, her jaw clenched. “I can’t rest until I stop her.”
“Then we’ll stop her together,” I promise, gently raking my thumb against that strawberry lip. “We’re both in this, Fliss. I won’t leave you shouldering it alone.”
Her mouth trembles, her eyes darkening.
“...no one’s ever promised me that before.”
“And I’m damned glad I’m the first.” I smile. “Even if you deserve so much more.”
I’m suddenly painfully aware of how lithe her body feels against mine.
How the rising heat trapped between us builds like an underground caldera, this vicious slow burn on my skin.
How she looks at me like she can’t see anything else.
How her lips part, her tongue darts over them, and—fuck yes—I’m riveted.
“I think I want more, Alaska,” she whispers. “Enough to make me forget tonight.”
I nearly groan with the electric shiver bolting through me, a charge lighting me up like a million volts, and she’s the current hooked into my veins.
“You gotta be clear. Tell me what you want, Fliss. What you need. I need to hear it from your mouth.”
“Kiss me,” she says, already leaning toward me, those inviting full lips shaping the words that rip me open and send half the blood in my body straight to the bulge seething between my legs. “Kiss me, Paxton Charter, and don’t you dare stop.”
17
All That Glistens (Felicity)
For the first time in all my years, I get what it means to be a dirty liar.
And I, Felicity Randall, am absolutely filthy.
I haven’t just been lying to Alaska this whole time.
I’ve been lying to myself.