Roar (Military Bad Boy Billionaire Romance) (Soldiers of Fortune Book 4) (2 page)

I bite my lip, trembling and not trusting myself to even open my mouth in that moment.

His hand reaches out to the curtain, but I don’t shriek and I don’t move as he slowly draws it back. He’s naked; hard and ready for me, with his eyes blazing as he drinks me in; “Tell me you weren’t thinking of me
just now
, and I’ll leave it, for good.” My heart is roaring and racing like a river as he steps into the shower. My arms are still haphazardly covering myself, but it’s almost like his mere presence has me dropping them slowly to my side, baring myself to him. His eyes roam over my water-dappled skin, over the pink points of my nipples, down my body as I blush.

He steps into the shower with me, his voice dark and low; “But if even one of those things isn’t true,” He steps even closer, his body practically touching mine as his hand reaches out to cup my chin and lift it towards his face. It’s everything I have not to whimper or moan right then at the feeling of his touch; at the feeling of that spark that lights the fire; “If even
one
of those things isn’t true, Peyton,” He whispers deeply, leaning closer; “Then there’s no fucking way I’m letting another Goddamn second pass by without kissing you.”

“Looks like a storm’s coming,” My brother grumbles, looking up at the dark clouds rolling down over the New York skyline in the distance. He cracks his knuckles loudly and I wrinkle my nose.

“Gross, Logan.” I hate when he does that.

“Sorry,” He grins. Quinn rolls her eyes at me as if to say “yeah, tell me about it” and leans back into him.

The smile that crosses my face isn’t altogether dissimilar from his, which makes sense considering we had the same mother. The thought makes me smile even more, watching him and his soon-to-be bride snuggle against each other in the cold of the March afternoon.

Yeah, cold, slushy and grey, with rain on the horizon; heck of a day for a ground-breaking ceremony.
 

But for once, things are actually
good
. I mean, everyone’s here in Long Island City for the start of construction on the new headquarters for the Archer World Health Foundation, and we’re all, well,
good
. Hell, my brother and Javier are even talking, which is sort of mind-blowing given the history there.

“Hey.”

Well, everything is
basically
good.

I turn, keeping my face the neutral stoney blankness I always do around him; “Hey.”

Bryce nods, his chiseled jaw and his piercing blue eyes about as neutrally stoic as mine. Silence descends between us. This is pretty much about the extent of our conversations over the last year; ever since-

Well, since we stopped all that.

“You know,” He arches an eyebrow at me, as if reading my thoughts; “Someday we may even have a real conversation again.”

I want to grin. I want to crack a smile because that’s just
what
he does to me. But I can’t do that. I have to stay stoic and cold; I have to let this die, no matter how long it fucking takes.

“Yep, someday.”

Bryce nods again, his bright blue eyes looking
right
into mine; so deep that I wonder if he can tell how much effort it’s taking for me to keep up the bitch attitude I’ve kept around him for the past year. He clears his throat; “So, where’s, uh, what’s-his-fuckin-name.”

Don’t take the bait, he’s baiting you.
And of course, it’s working.

“
Hugh
couldn’t make it.” I say icily, my mouth small and my eyes narrowing at him. He grins; of
course
he grins.

“He wanted to, really, he just had something come up.” I am
not
telling Bryce about my breakup. For one, because I’m over it anyways, but also because it’s got
nothing
to do with him.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
I've been through this a hundred freaking times in my head, and we're past this. What happened was a long,
long
time-

Ugh. I need to extract myself from this conversation.

Bryce makes a fake-pout face; “Aww, shame. I
really
wanted to meet the guy.”

“No you didn't.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I set my jaw; “I have to go,” I say, turning to push away from him.

“Yeah, I hear three feet from wherever I’m standing is the best spot.”
 

I feel his hand on my elbow, and I whirl around, quickly pulling my arm back; “People are watching, Bryce,” I say quietly, my eyes looking everywhere but his.

He rolls his eyes; “They’re watching a backhoe dig frozen dirt, and besides, we’re just talking.”

“Not anymore.” I turn before he can say anything else, and I can practically
feel
his damned grin at the back of my head, but I push my way through the small assembled crowd anyways.

“You alright, kid?”

Literally anyone else in the world who called me that would get a knee to the groin. Logan gets a pass; “I’m good, just tired; little stressed.”

“Yeah, Bryce is good with that sort of thing.”

I freeze, quickly trying to swallow the lump that forms in my chest; “Uh, what?” My whole body goes rigid as I study Logan’s face for a sign that he knows the truth.

Of course he doesn’t.
I’d be disowned or something, and Bryce would probably be head-first through a high-rise window.

Yeah, relationships with that hanging over its head do
splendidly.

Logan shrugs; “You know, I mean he’s good at helping with things like stress; getting you to slow down, stripping it all away.”

I groan and turn away to hide the guilty blush on my face. Yeah, Bryce is good at stripping
everything
away from me; inhibitions, baggage…

My panties.

Jesus, relax
.

“Yeah, he’s-”

I’m still searching my brain for something to say, when something catches my attention; something crossing the grey morning sky and silently approaching the groundbreaking ceremony.
 

That’s funny, I didn’t know there were any news stations covering this with helicopters.

The helicopter is coming in low;
very
low, actually. Fast too;
really
fast. And then suddenly, I’m not thinking of anything to say anymore, because I’m too busy wondering why the heck guys in black are rappelling out of the copter.

There’s a flash of light and then suddenly a bang goes off. There’s a feeling of weightlessness, and after that, I’m not thinking of anything except why I’m falling.

People are running and screaming as I hit the ground, and I’m trying to figure out why I’m even there in the snow, and why there are security guards with guns-

Except they’re not security guards at all.

Oh my God
.

An explosion rocks me, and I’m screaming as I watch Hudson double over next to me. Hands snag around my body and start yanking me away, and I’m twisting to fight only to see that it’s Bryce with a hard look in his eyes.
 

It’s like slow motion as I turn back and scream as I watch men in black swarm over Logan. He’s roaring like some kind of animal and throwing fists left and right, but there are six of them that bring him to the ground. I’m screaming at Bryce, trying to wrench myself from his grasp, but he he holds me tight; so tight that I can only watch as a black bag goes over my brother’s head before they start dragging him away towards the chopper.

And I’m still screaming.

…Still screaming.

A single, glistening drop of rain trickles down the outside of the window of the hospital room. It stutters and and then speeds up, hitting other droplets along the way as it meanders down the glass before falling away from my view. My eyes focus instead on the grey metal of the city beyond, my brow knitting and my teeth grinding together.

The room behind me is still the expected chaos in the aftermath of something like this, and my back isn't turned because of callousness, it’s because I need to remember to breathe.

And I need to let the rage build. I need to steel my frame and close my eyes and let the hurt and the pain inside boil and bloom into something else; something I can work with. I learned a long time ago where blind rage and anger gets me, and it's nowhere good, and nowhere productive. I need to focus the rage right now; I need that fuel. It’s the alchemy inside that’s going to turn that into something focused; something I can use.

Because this shit ends
right now
.

This time, we're a shade past the pale; they've taken things too far this time. Letting Benson and his Blackriver shit-heads off after the whole thing with Javier and Chelsea was a mistake. We turned our backs on the wolf; we let our guard down.

And now we're paying for it.

I grit my teeth as I take a final calming breath and turn around;
He's gonna be fine; they're both going to be fine.
I repeat it twice in my head, feeling the rage and the hurt spike inside as I look over the scene in front of me. My family in pain, my friends suffering. Yeah, this ends now.

Hudson’s going to be OK. I mean the guy's a fucking brick-house, and the doctors pretty much said as much after they took the bullet out of his side and patched him up. Of course, and rightfully, that doesn't mean Reagan isn't still still curled up next to him in the hospital bed, crying and holding his sleeping form tight.

Quinn is- well, I'd say she's a mess but it's nothing you can see on the outside. She's as quiet as I am, sitting in a chair across the hospital room with a frozen look on her face that honestly looks a hell of a lot like mine.