Protecting the Future (SEAL of Protection Book 8) (19 page)

They were both lost in the moment of being together again after a long, terrifying separation. “You’re the love of my life. I adore you, Summer.”

Summer arched into Sam’s arms, not feeling one iota of embarrassment about her body and what Sam was doing to it. Everything they did was natural and loving. “I love you too, Sam Reed. Always and forever.”

“Always and forever,” Mozart repeated, making love to his wife as if it was the first time all over again.

D
ude strode into his house
, dropping his bag on the floor without a thought. He needed to see Cheyenne. After hearing all she’d been though and realizing how close he’d come to almost losing her, all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms.

“Shy!” he bellowed, trying to find her.

“For God’s sake, Faulkner, hush! I just got her down!” Cheyenne scolded as she popped her head out of their bedroom.

Dude felt his breath stutter and his heart literally stop beating for a moment. Seeing Cheyenne upright and healthy looking brought it home to him that she really was all right. He’d half imagined he’d find her in bed, pale and sickly. He should’ve known. His Shy wouldn’t let anything keep her down for long.

He headed for her, and she must’ve seen something in his eyes, because she backed away from him as he entered their bedroom. She backed up until her knees hit their bed and she sat down hard.

Dude didn’t stop, but came at her until he was over her with his hands on the mattress at her hips. He leaned over and took her mouth without a word. Loving that she immediately submitted to his kiss, Dude felt himself grow hard against her.

It was still way too soon to take her the way he really wanted and needed to, though. She’d had his baby not a week earlier, and had been through hell in the process. Dude breathed through his nose and tried to calm himself down. There’d be time later to tie her to their bed and make her explode over and over before burying himself in her heat.

He pulled back. “We aren’t having any more babies.” It wasn’t what he thought he was going to say, but as soon as he said it, it felt right. There was no way he was going to risk her life again. No fucking way.

“Faulkner, I’m fine.” Cheyenne put her hand on her husband’s chest and stroked him, trying to ease his worries.

“Don’t care. No more babies.”

Cheyenne decided to let it go for now. After seeing Taylor, she knew she wanted more. She’d just have to give Faulkner time to get to know and love Taylor. He’d want a son, she knew it. They’d just have to keep trying until that happened.

“Do you want to meet your daughter?” Cheyenne asked Faulkner gently.

He blinked. It was obvious he’d been so intent on seeing her and making sure she was all right, he hadn’t even remembered he
had
a daughter.

“Christ. Yeah,” he whispered.

“Help me up,” Cheyenne told him.

He did and she kept hold of his hand and led him over to the crib in the corner of their room. Taylor was sleeping soundly. Cheyenne watched as Faulkner leaned over the crib to look more closely at the baby.

“Can I pick her up?” he asked in an awed whisper.

Cheyenne held back the laugh that threatened. “Of course,” she told him. “Just be sure to support her head.”

Dude reached for his daughter and put one hand under her head and the other under her back. His hands were so big just one covered her entire back and most of her butt as well. He lifted her up and cradled her to his chest. He looked around and brought her over to their bed.

He gently put her down and started unsnapping her onesie. He knew Cheyenne was watching him carefully, but he didn’t let it deter him. He pulled one arm, then the other out of her clothes and eased the material down her little body and off. He un-taped her tiny diaper and moved it to the side.

Dude couldn’t believe how small and perfect the little human was, lying on the bed where she was conceived. He leaned down and nuzzled her little foot. Then he ran his pinkie, which still looked huge, up her leg to her waist. He marveled at her still-healing belly button.

“An outie,” he breathed, looking at Cheyenne for the first time.

She smiled and simply nodded.

Dude turned his attention back to his daughter. He put his finger in her palm and felt his heart clench when she immediately clutched it tightly. He looked over her face. Her button nose, the little patch of dark hair on her head, her tiny perfect ears. Her lips pursed and she squirmed a bit as he watched.

Cheyenne appeared next to him and handed him a soft, fuzzy blanket. “Better wrap her up so she doesn’t get cold. You don’t want to wake her up.”

Dude held the blanket and looked down at his daughter. He wasn’t sure how to swaddle her. “Help me?” he asked Cheyenne.

He watched as his wife made quick work of wrapping up their daughter until she resembled a small burrito. She held her out to him. Dude took her and looked down at the little miracle resting in the crook of his arms.

Cheyenne sat next to him on the bed and said, “Faulkner Cooper, meet your daughter, Taylor Caroline Cooper.”

Cheyenne never thought she’d ever see her big, bad, dominant, overbearing, controlling SEAL of a husband cry, but sitting next to him, watching as the tears fell from his eyes and landed on the blanket holding their daughter, was a moment she knew she’d never forget, and would hold dear for the rest of her life.

J
ess leaned
against Kason’s car at the Naval base. She’d had the balls to call Commander Hurt and demand to know when her husband would be home. He must’ve felt some remorse about the entire situation and how they’d all been declared MIA, because he told her they should be heading home by early evening.

Jessyka had taken a taxi to the base to wait for him. She didn’t have the patience to wait at home. She wanted to see him as soon as possible, and if that meant she took her ass to him, then so be it. It wasn’t the most practical thing she’d ever done in her life, but she didn’t care.

She’d taken Sara and John out to eat first. They’d stuffed themselves with chicken fingers then played on the playground at the fast-food place. Then she’d taken them to the park on the Naval base and let them run around even longer.

She’d even forgone their usual nap, not caring they had reached their limit and were grumpy as hell. After the taxi had driven around the parking lot until they’d found Benny’s car, Jess had strapped their sleepy bodies into their car seats she’d brought with her, turned on a kids’ movie on their tablets, and they were now sleeping the sleep of full and extremely tired toddlers.

Benny walked quickly toward his car, wanting nothing more than to get home to Jess and the kids. He wasn’t paying attention, something that could get him killed if he’d been on a mission, but in the middle of a public parking lot at the base, he wasn’t too concerned. He’d reached into his pocket to fish out his keys when he heard a feminine voice say, “Hey.”

He looked up and gawked. What the hell was Jess doing here?

He didn’t care. He surged forward and snatched his wife up in his arms, twirling her around and around, loving her laugh ringing through the parking lot. He lowered her until her feet hit the ground.

“Where’re the kids?”

She gestured to the car behind them with her head. Benny turned and looked, seeing his son and daughter sleeping soundly in the back seat, the slight breeze ruffling their hair from the open windows. He turned back to Jess and lowered his head.

She met him halfway and they made out in the parking lot as if they were back in high school. Finally, when Benny felt Jess’s hand move over the front of his jeans, he knew he had to pull back. It seemed that Jess was the horn dog in their relationship, and he loved it.

“It’s great to see you, Jess. It’s
so
good to see you.”

“Are you all right?” Jessyka asked, fingering the bandage on the back of his head.

“Yeah, you know how hard my head is.” Jess smiled at him. “You should’ve waited at home. I’m sure it was a pain in the butt to lug those two all the way out here.”

“I couldn’t wait. I wanted to see you as soon as possible. The extra twenty minutes it would’ve taken you to get home would’ve been twenty more minutes I’d’ve had to wait to see you.” She cleared her throat before continuing. “And I have something I wanted to tell you.”

Benny stiffened. It was never good when a woman said she wanted to talk. To be fair, Jess hadn’t exactly said those words, but that’s what he heard. “What is it? Is everyone okay? The girls? Oh shit, the other kids?”

Jess soothed Kason by running her hands down his shirt. “Everyone’s fine. It’s nothing like that.” She watched as he let out the breath he’d obviously been holding.

“Then what is it? What was so important that it couldn’t wait until I got home?”

“I’m pregnant.” Jess didn’t mince words.

“What?”

“Pregnant. It looks like you have the most determined sperm in the history of mankind. Of course, I’m not really surprised, considering they belong to you, but still. We were going to wait, but I guess that plan is shot to hell.”

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been telling you.” Now Jess started to get nervous. Kason hadn’t said much. Maybe he was upset?

“Fuck, woman. I love you so much it’s not even funny!”

Jess smiled even as Kason was kissing her again. He obviously wasn’t upset.

Benny pulled back from his wife, and looked her in the eyes. “I love you. I love that I’ve knocked you up again. I know it’s hard on you to have so many young kids in the house, and I’d already decided to hire a nanny to help you out, but you should know, I plan on keeping you pregnant as much as I can. I want as many kids as you’ll let me get away with. I want a huge family, full of laughter, smiles, drama, tears, toys, shit on the floor, arguments over who gets to use the bathroom, and general mayhem. I know I can’t bring Tabitha back, and I can’t ever take away that hurt, but I love that your womb was made for my sperm.”

Jess rolled her eyes. Kason could be such a dork, but at the same time sweet too. “As long as it’s safe, and we have healthy kids, I’m not adverse to a big family. But Kason, don’t think I’ll be like that huge family on television where the mom is having kids into her sixties or whatever.”

“Deal.” Benny smiled huge and leaned in to Jess to whisper in her ear. “And I love how horny you get when you’re pregnant. Bonus for me.”

“Kason!” Jess scolded even as he brought her to him again.

“I’m going to take you home, put our kids to bed, then fuck you until you can’t walk.”

Jess simply shook her head. She loved this man. He was her everything.

J
ulie snuggled
up next to Patrick on the couch. “Is Penelope all right?”

Patrick tightened his arm around his wife. He knew she’d need to know about the kidnapped sergeant, and she’d been very patient and hadn’t asked. He carefully worded his answer so as not to break his security clearance.

Hell, who was he kidding? He’d already broken it, he just hoped not to smash it into smithereens.

“She’s good, Julie.”

“Did she…” Julie stopped and cleared her throat and tried again. “Did she handle the rescue all right?”

Patrick’s heart about broke at the question. He knew Julie still had feelings of guilt over how she’d acted when
she’d
been rescued by the team. She’s mostly worked through them, but it wasn’t surprising that this mission brought her insecurities back to the surface. He nodded, then pushed Julie until she was lying on her back on the couch and he moved up so he was hovering over her.

“She was scared, but she was fine. The guys took care of her. But, Julie, it’s going to affect her. No one can go through what she…and you…went through and not be affected. You’ve talked about this with Dr. Hancock, everyone deals with things differently.”

Julie bit her lip and looked away from him. Patrick put his hand on her cheek and pulled her lip away from her teeth. “Look at me, honey.”

When she lifted her eyes to him, he continued. “I love you. You can be all take-no-prisoners one minute, and the next you’re sitting in a room full of teenagers trying on prom dresses, giggling and laughing. Let it go. You’re here. You’re mine, and I’m not letting you go.”

She nodded up at him. “Okay, Patrick. Thank you. I try not to compare myself…but sometimes it’s hard.”

“I know, but you were with the girls this week and it was all good.”

“Yeah, it was. I finally feel like they’ve truly forgiven me. I was happy to be there for them and that I could help out when they were so worried.”

“Good. Now…there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about…”

“Yeah? Is everything all right?” Julie looked into Patrick’s eyes worriedly.

“Everything is fine…except we haven’t been able to spend much one-on-one time together recently. But after this mission, the guys have been given a mandatory two-week convalescence leave. And although I command two other SEAL teams, I’ve also been granted those two weeks as well…” His voice trailed off as the smile crept across Julie’s face.

“Really?” she breathed. “Two whole weeks?”

“Yup. Think you can take the time off from the store?”

“Hell yeah. I own the thing, I’m sure I can manage to sneak away. Oh, Patrick, I’m so excited to spend time with you!”

“We’d better get some sleep,” Patrick told her with a smirk.

“What? Why?”

“Because tomorrow we’re going to be busy packing and doing last-minutes errands. I’m sure you’ll have instructions for your staff.”

“Packing? For what?”

“We’re headed to Hawaii the day after tomorrow.”

Patrick smiled and sat up as Julie screeched and wiggled out from under him on the couch. “Oh my God! Are you serious? I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii!”

“I know.”

It was as if he hadn’t spoken. “I have a million things to do! I need to—”

Julie’s words were cut off before she could get going. Patrick swung her over his shoulder and strode for their bedroom door. He knew if he let her get all worked up now, she wouldn’t get to sleep for hours…and he had plans.