Roar (Military Bad Boy Billionaire Romance) (Soldiers of Fortune Book 4) (13 page)

And then I’m roaring through the Nevada desert like a bat out of hell on my bike with the rest of the Club thundering around me. I’m seventeen, done with school, done with the world, and ready to die young. There’s a police siren drawing nearer on a cold night in Seattle later, and Jacob’s pressing the last of the take into my hands and telling me to run. I’m in the desert, scared out of my fucking mind with a rifle in my hand and a flag on my chest and no Goddamn idea in the world what I’m doing here.

“Stay with me, son; stay with me.”

William Archer’s hand on my arm is firm, his voice level as he drapes a cool cloth over my eyes. I’m not in any of those places; not Afghanistan, not Seattle holding a bloody rag to the hole in my friend’s side, not screaming in the backseat while my parents die.
 

I’m safe, I’m here; I’m
home
.

Here with the the demons, the drugs, and the desperate need for death.

*****

P R E S E N T

We’re wrapped in towels later, sprawled on the bed watching the sunset over the rooftops through the open balcony door, when the burner phone pings from the side table of the hotel room. I glance down and make a face; Sasha, of course, looking for a meet.
 

Perfect fucking timing.
 

“Oh, is that
Sasha
?” Peyton says. She’s being sarcastic, but there’s also that dark look clouding her eyes.

I arch a brow at her; “Easy, tiger. I’ve gotta go meet with her.”

“Of
course
you do.”

I frown; “Fine,
we
need to go meet her.”

This time it’s her turn to smirk and raise a brow; “Now?” She grins; “No way, I’m not putting clothes on.”

“Fine with me if you come like that.”

She grins and turns her face up to kiss my chin; “Go meet your psycho ex-girlfriend  and let me know what she has to say.”

I shoot her a look; “
Not
, my ex-gi-“

“Oh, take the joke, Connors.”
 

*****

“Does she know what she’s getting into?”

I narrow my eyes at Sasha; “
No
. For fuck’s sake, of course she doesn’t.”

The black-haired women shrugs subtly as she sits back in her chair holding her dark Turkish coffee in both hands with the cigarette dangling from her fingers like a scene right out of narcotics anonymous. Habits, man; we just exchange one for another.

“I think she does,” Sasha says; “I think you need to give that girl more credit.”

I glare at her; “I give her plenty of credit, but
credit
doesn’t keep my best friend’s kid sister from getting killed.”

“Oh is that what she is to you?” She smirks; “She’s just ‘your best friend’s sister’?” My jaw tenses and Sasha’s blood-red lips curl into a cheshire grin; “You really are
not
a hard man to read, dear.”

“Let’s move on.”

She rolls her eyes; “Fine. What are they after, Bryce?”

I shrug; “Money? The fuck if I know or care, I just want to get Logan back.”

She sighs and places her coffee on the table; “Well it’s
something
, darling. They don’t kidnap people like that friend of yours for
nothing
.”

I wish to God I’d never found those fucking stones in that God-forsaken jungle.

“It’s what you found in the jungle, isn’t it?” I freeze, and the stillness of my movement is all a predator like Sasha needs to pounce; “Oh it
is
, isn’t it!” She laughs, a brittle sound, and leans over the table towards me; “You ranted about it that last night before you left, you know. We had that horrible yellow Afghani junk, and you
swore
it was your last hit. And then you couldn’t stop talking about ‘the golden ticket’ you’d found in the jungle.”

I can feel my blood run like ice in my veins, even if it does appear that she never guessed exactly what it was I was raving about; “It was nothing, Sasha. Some archeological dig that Benson and I came across on patrol; old pottery and shit.”

Sasha says nothing, but holds my gaze. This woman’s a shark, and she knows blood in the water when she smells it.

“I have to get back. Is there anything else?”

She spreads her hands and shrugs; “Not unless you want to start telling me the truth it seems.”

I tighten my jaw as I stand, pushing my chair back.

“You going to get her hurt for those secrets of yours, dear.”

I turn back, narrowing my eyes at her and feeling the fury rising inside of me; “
What?
”

Sasha just rolls her eyes and looks away; “Oh, it’ll just be another person getting hurt after hurricane Bryce comes through.”

“You just don’t know when to stop with the fucking claws, do you, Sasha.” I growl out, my hand tightening on the edge of the table.

“Oh, Jesus, Bryce, do you even
know
what it was like with you, back then?”

“You were using too,” I say quietly, an edge to my voice; “How’s the view from up in that fucking tower?”

“Oh
please
! I wanted to get
high
, Bryce; you wanted to
die
.”

The silence that descends over us like a frost is enough for both of us to know she’s right.

“Make sure she knows what she’s doing, dear,” She says quietly.

“She
doesn’t
.”

“Well make sure she
does
, or she’s going to get hurt.”

I’m out on the rooftop terrace of the hotel later, wrapped in a blanket and drinking tea as I stare out at the skyline. All cities are lit up at night, but there’s something extra magical about this place; this place between east and west and bridging old and new. Istanbul glows at night, as if lit by millions of candles and lanterns hung from ancient walls and flickering off of history.
 

There’s the smell of chai and other eastern spices on the wind, and the broken, mournful wail of the criers singing prayers from the minarets of mosques drifting across the evening sky. All of it combined brings the whole scene firmly into the past as the moon glows bright across the dome of the Hagia Sophia up on the hill. Basilica, Mosque, and now museum; the building has gone through so many phases, and changed in so many different ways as it’s made it’s way through the ages.

Not totally unlike Bryce and I, I guess. What was once cold and broken became whole, and loved; at least for a time.

And now? I frown and sip the tea in my hands, knowing that we’re both still figuring that out.

I want to say it’s nothing, that what
was
is in the past, and whatever happened tonight is just a lingering aftershock of that. I want to push the events of earlier from my lingering thoughts and just
move forward.
 

Except I know that’s impossible. I suppose it’s not just Bryce that has addictions, because for better or worse, he’s apparently mine.
 

And frankly it terrifies me.

Because I know that it’s fear that keeps me from seeing where this may go. It’s fear that kept me from facing it all a year ego when everything shattered like it did. Fear of the things unknown, or maybe more-so the fear of what
was
. Fear of knowing deep down in my heart what my head kept me from saying. The world is a broken place, and love is a myth, and those two truths have kept me alive and kept me going through all the shit in my life.

So why is it that it’s starting to sound like a tired, broken record in my head the more I say it? Why am I so afraid of it all?

The door to the roof deck opens behind me, and I turn as he steps out of my thoughts right in front of me. And right then, I know I’m done.

I’m done being scared.

“Sorry that took so long, we just had to-”

I silence him with my kiss, my arm wrapping around his neck, my body melting against his, and my lips searing themselves against his with everything that I have. This is me letting go of it all; letting go of my baggage, and my fears, and my regrets, and letting my
heart
make the choice it needs to make.

He kisses me back, fiercely and forcefully, his hands running up my back and hugging me tightly to him as he opens his mouth to mine. I’m falling into him, feeling the heat and safety that his arms bring me, the magnetic spark and draw of him pulling me closer, like he’ll never let me go.

But he does, suddenly, taking a breath as his eyes search mine; “Hang on, hang on.”

“No,” I whisper, leaning back into him, but he pulls back again.

“Peyton, you can’t just-” His jaw tightens; “
We
can’t just go back to this, not after-” He looks away; “Before, I was a mess; I was broken.”

“I was lost.”

He turns to me, his eyes boring into mine; “You fixed me, and-“

“And you
found
me,” I whisper.

“I can’t let you do this,” He growls, his eyes wild as they bore right into mine; “I can’t let you make this mistake again.”

“You’re not the boss of me.” I say quietly, leaning closer. I can feel the heat, and the animal in us both that comes roaring out like this at the touch of the other. I can see the fire in his eyes, and feel the burn within my body.

And in that moment, I don’t care that I can’t forget him.
 

I don’t care that I can’t resist him

I don’t care that I can’t let him go, because right there, I know;
I don’t want to.

We crash together as one again, our mouths hungry, our tongues fighting as we moan into each other. Hands slide over skin, memorizing and relearning curves and muscles and limbs.

Bryce groans and pulls back for a second, nipping at my lip, his hardness throbbing against my leg; “Goddamnit, what about Hugh?” There’s something teasing in his voice, something challenging; “What about you ‘being his’?”

I blush and look down, biting my lip; “We-” I look up into those eyes, and I’m lost; “We broke up three months ago.”

He growls, and I feel a shudder run through me at the blazing fire in his eyes. His hand runs up my neck into my hair, and he gently pulls on it. I moan as he leans into my exposed neck, his lips against my ear sending shockwaves right through to my pussy. I’m panting, whimpering for him as his lips
just
brush against my earlobe; “In that case,” He growls lowly; “Tonight I’m going to make you
mine
”

Oh, fuck.

He pushes me back against the stone parapet of the roof terrace, tugging the blanket from my shoulders and letting it pool around our feet as his hands slide up my sides. I’m barely wearing anything - just a thin t-shirt and panties, and I’m suddenly nervous about someone seeing us, or coming up to the roof.
 

“Wait, let’s-”

“I’m not waiting another second with you,” He groans into my lips, and suddenly he’s darting away from me to the door back down to the hotel and jamming a metal garden chair against it. I’m giggling at how fast he solves that little problem, but then I’m moaning as he’s right back at me, his presence surrounding me, his scent filling my nose, and his lips trailing over my skin. He yanks the shirt from my head, his eyes dropping to my chest right before his lips do. I gasp as he wraps his lips around one pink pebbled nipple, running his tongue over it as he presses the hardness in his pants against me.