Penance (Long Slow Tease, #2) (28 page)

Danielle loved Collin and they were engaged to be married for fucks sake. He was her collard slave. Something Wyatt wished
Michelle would do for him someday. The thought of wearing her collar, it was an obsession for him. He wanted to earn that right more than any military medal.

They were getting
closer to their destination and he needed to talk to Michelle before they arrived, so he turned down the radio and glanced over at her. She looked gorgeous in her jeans and dark brown t-shirt with her hair pulled back in a casual ponytail. Hell, she looked beautiful all the time but somehow putting her in normal, everyday clothes only highlighted how stunning she really was. Since he’d been feeding her as much as he could these past few days she was starting to regain her weight, but her cheekbones were still too prominent for his liking. She must have felt his gaze on her because she turned to him and the way her eyes warmed as she smiled made his heart ache.

“Let’s get some ground rules down. You can talk, but nothing about what happened in Chicago. We’ll discuss that later. Right now
, I just want us to be a guy and his girl, got it?”

She cleared her throat, then nodded. “Got it. Where are we going? This isn’t the way to the therapist’s office.”

“Nope, you’ll see Lisa again tomorrow.” He turned back to the road, slowing down as they hit some traffic coming into the outskirts of Houston. “I did a lot of thinking while we were apart, and I realized that there was something missing in my life. A sense of purpose.”

“What do you mean?”

The edge of panic in her voice caught his attention and he gave her a reassuring glance. “Nothing to do with you. Trust me, I know my purpose with you. I’m talking about that feeling of helping others, of doing something that mattered while I was in the Marines. Yeah, there was a ton of bullshit that I never want to have to deal with again, but I missed the sense of family I got from the military, and the feeling that I was making a difference. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, I can. I kind of miss it as well. Like you said, not the bullshit, but there wasn’t a doubt that I was making a difference every day.”

“Right. So I started to think about what I could do to help regain that feeling, what I could do that would make me not only feel like I was making a difference, but give me that sense of belonging that I was missing.” He merged into the freeway traffic and enjoyed the hum of the big engine of his truck as he accelerated. “I also thought about what your dad had said when we were talking with him and decided to check out of there were any military charity groups in the area. I ended up hooking up with an organization called ‘The Front Line’. Do you remember your dad talking about them with us?”

“
Vaguely.” Her brows scrunched down as she frowned. “Refresh my memory.”

“They’re a group of former military members, and some of their famil
ies, that go into disaster situations as part of the first wave of responders. Everything from earthquakes, to fires, to cleaning up after hurricanes. They also help out in the local area with doing things like rebuilding homes for military members that have been handicapped due to their injuries, making them wheelchair accessible and shit like that. But they also help out war widows by doing home repairs and a bunch of other shit. Basically if there is a need they try to fill it.”

Michelle leaned over and brushed her fingers over his cheek, then tucked his hair behind his ear. “Is that where we’re going now?”

“Yep.” He stole a glance at her, finding her watching him carefully. “I hope you don’t mind, but I kind of volunteered you for it. See, I figured that part of being a balanced person is feeding our soul, and I think that for you and me, our souls get fed by helping others. Marshall, the guy that was in your dad’s office with us, and I worked with Front Line up in Chicago. Good guy for a trust fund baby. He’s working for them full time now and he’s found a girlfriend that volunteers with Front Line as well. Those two are so sweet together it would give you a toothache to see them, but since I set them up I guess it’s all right.”

She laughed softly. “You were playing match maker?”

“I prefer to think of it as pussy purveyor.”

“That makes you sound like a pimp.”

“Okay, how about love guru? I can’t help it that these young guys look up to me.”

When she didn’t say anything he stole another glance at her, and alarm filled him at the sight of tears running down her cheeks.

“Aww, fuck, sweetheart, please don’t cry. I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

She placed her hand over his mouth. “Hush, I’m not sad, I’m just…I’m so damn proud of you.”

“What?” he mumbled against her fingers.

“You are so much more than people give you credit for, myself included. I get so wrapped up in myself, in my own
bullshit that I forget the world around me. But you, even when…things happen you still manage to think about someone other than yourself. You’re…you’re amazing and I love you so very much.”

He held her fingers to his lips, kissing each one as his heart ached. With his throat closing up in a most unmanly fashion he tried to lighten the mood.
The last thing he wanted was to have the guys at Front Line see him tear up like a girl. “You even love me when I’m running your sorry ass?”

She laughed, a pure
, clean sound that helped lift some of the lingering shadows in his soul. “Even then – though I must admit, I keep wishing for a shark to leap out of the ocean and maul you.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a very nice person.”

She said it in a joking tone, but he was so attuned to her that he could hear the sorrow beneath her words. “If you keep that shit up I’ll draw out your orgasm denial for another day.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“You bet your sweet ass I would. I told you, my rules, my way.”

She jerked her hand from his and crossed her arms, “Yes, Master.”

The fuck you in her tone couldn’t have been more clear, but instead of being insulted he laughed. “I like it when you call me that, baby. Maybe I’ll make you call me Master in front of the other volunteers.”

Her shocked gasp only made him grin wider. “You wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know, I’ll have to beat the other guys off with a stick when they get an eyeful of you. Might help reinforce you’re off limits if you kneel next to me.”

She slugged him in the arm. “You better not because that’ll put me at the right height to punch you in the nuts.”

Laughing, h
e turned into the parking lot of the Front Line foundation. The building they used was an old National Guard armory, but the outside had been painted with a series of murals done by a local art college. The image on the front of the building was one of massive impressionist style tropical flowers against a sky blue background. It wasn’t exactly rough and tough, but it wasn’t meant to be. Wendy, one of the founders of the Austin branch of the foundation, had told him that painting the building camouflage green wouldn’t change who they were and what they did anymore than having flowers on the outside that made people smile did.

“Ready?”

“Wait, what am I doing here? I mean what have you told them?”

“Just that I had a friend who
is a doctor and she was interested in checking the foundation out. They practically salivated at the thought of having a doc with field experience on staff. We have a bunch of nurses, EMTs, medics and corpsman, but it’s always nice to have a heavy hitter for going into situations with the potential for serious injuries.”

She sat up straight and smoothed her hands on her jeans. “Sounds interesting. I’m not promising anything but I’d like to check them out.”

“There is one thing I need to tell you.”

“What’s that?”

“Your dad is one of the major contributors to the foundation.”

“Shit.”

“Wait, they don’t know you’re his daughter. All they know is that you’re a friend of mine.”

“Just a friend?”

He laughed at her suspicious look. “Come on, they’re waiting to meet you.”

Chapter 15

Michelle slipped her hand into Wyatt’s and gave the bubbly young brunette that was making calf eyes at him a look that
made it clear he belonged to Michelle.

Kelly
, a volunteer with the foundation, looked down at Michelle and Wyatt’s hands with a slight frown. “I’m so happy to see you again, Wyatt. I had such a good time with you learning how to fix that broken door and I swear I’ve never had more fun rehabbing a house.”

The obvious flirting tone in
Kelly’s voice rankled Michelle, but Wyatt, bless his heart, seemed oblivious. “I was just glad I could help. Is Wendy here? I told her we’d be stopping by.”

It was all Michelle could do to keep from laughing at
Kelly’s disgruntled look. “Yeah, she’s in her office. Need me to show you the way?”

“Nah, I remember where it is. Thanks for your help.”

Giving Wyatt’s hand an extra firm grip Michelle followed him down a hallway off the main foyer, glancing at the pictures of various groups of people at building sites, what looked like backyard barbecues, and a few where they were obviously in some kind of disaster situation. By the time they reached the frosted glass door that led to what she assumed was Wendy’s office she had to admit she was intrigued.

After giving the glass a brief rap with his knuckles, a woman’s voice called from the other side, “Come on in.”

Wyatt opened the door to reveal a severe looking woman who was probably in her sixties with silver hair in a no-nonsense short pixie cut sitting behind a battered desk stacked high with papers and a computer sitting in the corner. Deep lines bracketed her eyes and mouth, but when she smiled at Wyatt her face lit up and she went from super intimidating to somewhat intimidating. There seemed to be an invisible mantle of authority that hung over the woman and Michelle would bet her trust fund that Wendy had been some kind of high ranking military official.

The other woman wore a pair of faded jeans and a faded t-shirt that had bleach stains and paint splotches all over it. “Wyatt, so good to see you again. And this must be
Dr. Sapphire.”

Wendy extended her hand and gave Michelle a good, firm handshake. The other woman had
calluses on her palms and short, well-kept nails. It might seem odd, but Michelle could tell a lot about a woman by her hands. In this case she’d guess Wendy was a woman used to working, and she was married for a long time if the worn gold band on her ring finger was any indication. The silver-haired woman had a good energy about her and Michelle immediately relaxed.

“Nice to meet you,” Michelle said with a smile.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Sapphire.”

“Please, call me Michelle.”

She gestured to the two mismatched chairs in front of her desk. “Have a seat.” Wendy gave Wyatt a knowing grin. “So this is the young lady who stole your heart. The girls are going to be crushed.”

Wyatt laughed and ran his hand through his hair. “I told them I had a girlfriend.”

“Yes, but there’s taken and then there’s
taken
. You, my friend, are
taken
.”

Michelle couldn’t help the burst of pride that filled her. “That he is.”

With a laugh Wendy sat back in her chair, the springs creaking as she examined Michelle. “So Wyatt tells me you served together?”

“Yes,
ma’am.”

Wendy made a shooing gesture. “Please, call me Wendy. I’ve had enough ‘yes
ma’am’ and ‘yes sir’ to last me a lifetime.”

Michelle gave her a brief rundown of her military experience as well as her medical background. Through it all
, Wyatt kept throwing in praise for her and by the time she was finished she couldn’t help leaning over and giving him a kiss on his cheek. He wore some kind of cologne or aftershave that had an almost woodsy scent to it and she lingered for a moment, taking in his scent before leaning back and smiling at him.

“What’s that for?” he asked with a grin.

“For being my number one fan.”

Clearing her throat, Wendy tried to hide a smile as she pulled out a folder from her desk. “Yep, definitely taken. Michelle, we’d love to have you with us if you’re game.”

“What would I be doing?”

“With your medical background I’d like to train you as part of our first responders team. If you like, I can put you
with the same team that Wyatt is on.”

“What would I do?”

“Whatever is needed. We aren’t big on set roles. While you will have certain duties and a protocol to follow, we deal with so much different shit that it would hamper our volunteers to have too many rules to follow.” She pushed the folder across the desk to Michelle. “Take a look at the forms and paperwork inside and think about it. This is a time commitment so we don’t want anyone to join up not knowing what they’re getting into.”

Flipping through the documents, Michelle quickly scanned them. “Do you have a pen?”

Wendy titled her head and her expression became serious. “Are you sure?”