It's Always Been You (17 page)

If Foster was honest with him, Ben would stand by him. He could do that. He could use the power of his position to make a difference instead of throwing everyone out of the army.

“I started using on the weekends,” Foster whispered. “I just… I just needed to not feel so tired all the time.”

“What are you doing?” Sorren asked, his voice rough and quiet. Steady.

“Adderall.”

“Jesus,” Ben whispered. Meth—Adderall—was a fucking epidemic around Fort Hood these days.

“I… I don’t want to use but I don’t know how to stop,” Foster said. “And since Sloban…”

Ben saw the confusion flicker across Sorren’s face. “Sloban was addicted to meth. He killed himself a few weeks ago when the army denied his disability.”

Reza had been there when it happened. No one had been unaffected by Sloban’s death.

Foster, though, had taken it worse than most.

“Do you believe me?” Foster whispered.

Ben searched for an answer. Because he honestly didn’t know. He wanted to believe him. He’d known Foster for too long. He knew what kind of soldier he was.

Sorren spoke up, cutting into whatever piss poor answer Ben could scrounge up. “It doesn’t matter if he believes you or not, Foster,” Sorren said. “He’s got to uphold good order and discipline.”

Foster looked back at Ben. “If I self-refer, can I go to rehab like Sarn’t Ike?” There was hope, bleak and faint in his eyes.

Ben didn’t look at his first sergeant. He knew what the right answer was. He knew what the smart, army answer was—throw the kid out and let him worry about it on his own.

But Ben had never been that kind of commander.

“Let me make some phone calls,” he said quietly.

Relief washed over Foster and the shaking in his limbs was visible now. He approached the desk and took the pen Ben offered. His hands trembled as he signed the first of two documents—the no-contact order and the counseling statement.

Then he saluted weakly and left.

“We need NCOs checking on him all weekend, Top,” Ben said softly.

“Already did the roster,” Sorren said. He started to follow Foster out, then paused by the doorway. “That was a hell of a risk, sir.”

“I know what you’re going to say, Top,” Ben said.

“No, I don’t think you do,” Sorren said. He closed the door behind him.

In the silence of his office, Ben felt the weight of command settle around his shoulders again, a little heavier and a lot, lot colder.

“You awake, sir?”

Ben blinked at the phone that was somehow still in his hand and squinted. He was slouched down on his couch, a half-empty beer tipping dangerously between his legs. He hadn’t even changed out of his uniform before he’d fallen asleep.

But he’d been asleep. Actually asleep instead of floating in the dead space between sleeping and waking that usually left him more tired than anything. “What time is it?”

Sorren mumbled something that sounded like “goddamned sissy” but Ben couldn’t be sure. “It’s barely ten p.m. You need to get up and meet me at Ropers.”

Ben frowned and sat up, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Why?”

“Because Wookie just sent me a text and if we don’t get our happy asses down there ASAP, we’re going to have half a platoon in jail by morning.”

Ben blinked as his first sergeant’s words sank in. Then a slow smile spread across his lips. “So we’re going to break up a bar fight?”

“That’s the short answer. How long before you can meet me?”

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“Hurry up. I need you there to give out direct orders and shit.”

“What, I don’t get to get my hands dirty in the fight?” That wasn’t any fun, and fun was in short supply in Ben’s life these days.

“If I do my job, there won’t be a goddamned fight,” Sorren snapped.

Ben stretched and grinned at getting under Sorren’s skin. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Top. I’m on my way.” He tossed the rest of the beer in the trash, glad he’d only had the little bit.

The night was definitely going to get interesting. He pulled on a pair of jeans and an old t-shirt and headed out, wondering just what he was going to have to explain to his battalion commander in the morning.

* * *

Olivia set the wine glass down on her coffee table and happened to catch a glimpse at her watch. Approaching midnight.

“Lovely,” she said to the stacks of files next to the wine. The wine had failed to do its job of unwinding her, which meant that she was wide awake and looking with irritation at the state of the packets in front of her.

The fact that these were the packets deemed “closest to completion” by the new company commanders was annoying at best. Missing required documents. Counseling statements that looked like they’d been written by fourth graders.

Olivia wasn’t sure what was worse: soldiers who were doing really stupid things or the fact that they thought they were smarter than their sergeants and getting away with the stupid things.

They hadn’t counted on Olivia, however. She was halfway through the stack from Sean Nichol’s company she’d brought home with her. Inside each file was a detailed note about what Nichols and his first sergeant needed to do to correct each packet.

She paused, taking a deep breath, and flipped open Escoberra’s folder once more.

Two new counseling forms had been added to the file since the last time she’d looked at it. Both from First Sergeant Sorren. She frowned and looked at the dates.

Why did these stand out? There was nothing out of the ordinary with these two forms but something nagged at her. Something didn’t feel right. Not at all. She jotted a note to herself to follow up with these the next day at work and set the folder aside. Once the final paperwork came through from Child Protective Services, she’d advise Ben on what he should do.

Sadly, she could guess. Without a formal charge against him, Ben was going to let the man walk. And the more she trusted Ben, the more she doubted her own convictions.

She’d been so sure about Escoberra, but Ben’s loyalty was unwavering.

She sighed, wondering at the kind of loyalty that could make him overlook what happened to Escoberra’s daughter. She couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that there was something else she was missing.

She wished Ben didn’t have to deal with all of this. She should have had a paralegal to do the bulk of this work for her, but the paralegal had popped hot for methamphetamines a week prior to Olivia being sent down to the unit. And because no one at division had been able to find her an under-utilized clerk and everyone else was short staffed at the moment, it meant Olivia was doing her own admin work.

She supposed she should sleep eventually. She lifted the glass of wine to her lips once more. Her cell phone lit up on the coffee table and she reached for it. It was never a good sign when the phone rang close to midnight. It didn’t matter if it was the middle of the week or a weekend: midnight calls were never about someone delivering flowers or chocolate. They were always steaming piles of bad news and requests for legal opinions.

“Major Hale. How can I help you, sir or ma’am?”

“Major Hale, this is Captain Teague.” He paused. “Why do you sound like you haven’t been sleeping?”

She smiled at the sound of his voice. Her blood warmed at the memory of his mouth on her, the feel of his skin against hers. “Because I haven’t,” she said. She probably shouldn’t be thinking about him naked when he was probably calling her for work. “I assume you wouldn’t be calling in the middle of the night unless you had an issue?”

He made a sound and she narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out what was going on. “I was having trouble sleeping.”

She sipped her wine, letting the cool liquid slide slowly down her throat. “And you assumed I would be having the same trouble?”

“I was kind of hoping that if you were asleep, your phone wouldn’t ring and wake you up.”

“I’m a lawyer. I get called in the middle of the night all the time. I hear my phone when it rings.”

“Oh.” He sounded vaguely disappointed.

She laughed quietly. “It’s okay. What are you doing up?” She tucked her feet up beneath her.

“Calling you.”

“Because?” It was strange, this quiet flirting in the middle of the night. She didn’t know what was going on with him but it felt good. A peaceful balm to soothe the relentless fatigue that haunted her sleep and kept her working until she collapsed from exhaustion.

“Are you done working for the night?”

She looked at the pile of papers in front of her. She’d made a decent dent in them tonight. “I’ve done enough.”

“Want to meet me for a drink?”

“I’ve already had a drink,” she said. Her throat went dry, thinking of where this conversation was going.

“You’re not driving?”

“Not tonight, no.” She took a deep breath. “But I could use some company.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” His voice turned husky.

“Yeah?”

“Does that make me the creepy guy you avoid in the ops office?”

She closed her eyes and slid down into the couch. “Only if you’re actually parked outside my house right now. That would be creepy.”

A long pause. “So is it okay if I just pulled in?”

She laughed, running her fingers through her hair and glancing toward her front door. “Seriously?”

“Maybe. You haven’t answered the question.”

A slow heat unfurled in her belly. Was he really outside her house?

“What happens if I say no?”

He cleared his throat and she imagined him dragging his hand through his hair. “No, me being in your driveway doesn’t make me creepy or no, me being in your driveway does make me creepy?”

She tapped her bottom lip for a moment. “No, you being in my driveway right now does not make you creepy.”

More silence.

“Good. Then you should really open your front door right now.”

She licked her lips, looking at the closed front door. Her breath caught in her throat just then. “Really?”

She rolled off the couch and padded to the front door, then paused. She was wearing a ratty t-shirt from Banana Republic and a pair of comfortably worn sweat pants. No bra.

He’d seen her in less. A lot less. But it felt incredibly daring and brazen to open her front door like this. Her nipples tightened with the idea that she had only to say the word and he could be in her space. Touching her. Chasing away the ugliness of her job with a few hours of dark, sensual pleasure.

She could open the door as is and let him see her exactly how she was right then.

Or she could keep him standing on her front step while she ran back into her bedroom and tried to find something that even remotely resembled sexy.

And then she remembered that the only thing she had that fit that description was a plain white tank top.

His voice from the phone distracted her, reminded her that he was waiting on her. “Holy crap, please don’t tell me she hung up on me,” he mumbled.

“No, I’m here,” she said.

“Are you going to open the door?”

“I’m not really dressed for company.”

“Neither am I.”

Now
that
sparked her curiosity. She flipped on the outside light and opened the front door.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding.”

He
really
wasn’t up for company. He was sporting a fat lip and holding a bloody tissue to it. There was blood splattered on his t-shirt and a hole ripped in the shoulder. His knuckles were scraped and bloody.

And he was grinning like he’d just had the time of his life.

“What in the world happened?” She ushered him into the house and closed the door behind him.

“Funny story,” he said, wincing as the words split his lip again. Blood oozed from the cut and he dabbed it with the napkin. “Do you have some ice?”

* * *

“So there we were,” he said, lifting the towel-wrapped ice away from his lip. A tiny speck of blood was the only hint that his lip was still bleeding.

Olivia sat against the edge of her couch, her feet curled beneath her. She balanced a fresh glass of wine on her knee and rested her head against her hand. “You look terrible,” she said.

“Do you want to know what happened or not?” He tried to look disgruntled. He was pretty sure it didn’t work because she laughed at him.

“Please enlighten me,” she said. “I’m dying to know what happened.”

“Really? Should I make some stuff up to make me sound heroic and sexy? Something that would get you to crawl over here instead of sitting over there?”

Her lips twitched as she sipped her wine. “Start with the truth and we’ll go from there.”

He grinned, then caught himself because the pain ripped through his bottom lip. “Ow. Don’t make me smile.”

She laughed quietly. “You’re being a baby. It’s just a fat lip.”

Ben took a deep breath and tried to take a sip of his own wine from the unsplit side of his lip. It was awkward at best and he gave up rather than embarrass himself further. “Went to Ropers to try to get a bunch of our guys home before they got arrested. Couple of guys from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment decided they didn’t want to end the night peacefully.” He looked at the towel again. “You should see the other guy.”

“And no one got arrested?”

“Nope. I told the cops I was the company commander and was trying to get my guys out of there without causing any trouble. He gave me ten minutes. Needless to say, we got everyone into cabs and sent on their way in six minutes flat.”

Olivia grinned, running her fingers through her hair and resting her head in her hand. “So you and your first sergeant kept everyone out of jail and all you have to show for your heroism is a fat lip?”

“Pretty much,” he said. He lowered the towel. “Does it look really tough?”

“It looks like it hurts,” she said. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and Ben’s throat tightened. “If I kiss it, will that make it better?” One side of his mouth felt like it was the size of a golf ball and throbbed like a bastard. He’d eat his damn shorts if it made her crawl onto his lap. He touched his fingers to his lip gently, watching her watching him. “I think that would help,” he murmured.

She didn’t move for a long time. His entire body tightened as she leaned over and set her wine glass down. Ben went very still as she crawled across the couch. She nudged his leg over and slid up his body until she straddled him. “Such a hero tonight,” she whispered.

She threaded her fingers through his hair. He framed her hips with his hands, wincing when his shoulder protested the movement.

“What happened?” Her fingers traced over the tear in his shirt.

“Collided with a soldier’s head.” Her touch was cool against his skin. His lungs were tight. “Your sympathy is making me feel so much better,” he murmured.

He tipped his face, giving her access to his damaged lip. She brushed her lips gently near the swelling. He closed his eyes as she touched him, loving the feel of her fingers on his body.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” she whispered.

“Hurts.”

She made a sound, something sultry in her throat, then pressed her lips gently to the side of his mouth. His pulse quickened beneath her touch.

He loved that she was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. There was something sexy about her comfort. The worn cotton shifted beneath his palms as he ran his hands over her thighs. She wiggled and pressed her body against his aching erection.

A groan escaped him before he could stop it. She leaned back. “Did that hurt?” she whispered.

He shook his head, meeting her gaze. “No.” He gripped her hips, pulling her closer. Loving the pressure of her body against his erection. “You feel good,” he whispered, pulling her down.

Her lips brushed against his. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Not kissing me is causing unimaginable pain,” he said against her mouth.

She nipped his bottom lip at the farthest spot away from the swollen split. “We wouldn’t want that.”

She traced her tongue over the seam of his lips before kissing him, a gentle stroke of her tongue against his. She kept the pressure soft, her lips barely caressing the swollen bottom lip.

It was Ben who deepened the kiss. Who turned the moment from something light and teasing to something dark and sensual. He urged her closer, moved her hips against his cock, needing the friction, needing the connection blocked by their clothes.

Her fingers slid down his chest and danced beneath the torn t-shirt. They were cool against his fevered skin. He ached. Dear lord but he ached. He leaned up, still kissing her, twisting to yank his t-shirt over his head, breaking the kiss only when he absolutely had to.