Serving the Soldier - Part 3 (An Alpha Military Romance) (2 page)

Finished with his breakfast, he placed his fork gently on his plate and continued to watch me, his expression totally serious.

“I’ll let you stay for another day or two. But I’m telling you this right now. If there’s one more attack, you
are
leaving. You understand?”

I understood the logic, and believe me, I was no adventure seeker, no adrenaline junkie, and I didn’t thrive on danger. I didn’t want to be hurt or killed. I nodded. “Understood.”

With that, he rose and left the table. I watched him go but this time, at least for this moment, his nakedness didn’t elicit any sexual reaction in me. To say I was troubled was an understatement. While the thought of those terrorists making another attempt on Jax’s life frightened me, not only for him, but for myself, I didn’t really want to leave.

I gathered up the plates, shaking my head. What the hell was I thinking? I was out of my league and in over my head. I was a nurse! This was so totally beyond anything I had ever experienced in my life. I should’ve run from the house screaming right this minute. Instead, I carried the plates to the kitchen sink and set them carefully inside.

This life that Jax led was so different from anything I had ever experienced. Exciting. Dangerous. No doubt about that, but it also made me feel alive. It intensified my feelings, my appreciation for the calm, serene, and peaceful life I had led to date. It also made me wonder about my feelings for Jax. I admired his strength and his ability to protect me, even though he was still recuperating from nearly devastating injuries. I also had enjoyed our physical contact, but could I quantify us as lovers? Not really. Then again, additional opportunities to make love with him had not yet cropped up. If they did, I had no doubt anymore that I would take advantage.

***

By midafternoon, neither Michael nor any of Jax’s former buddies had shown up at the house. I had prepared a gumbo, which now sat in its pot on the back of the stove, on a very low simmer. I had also cooked up a pot of rice, also on the back of the stove. If and when they came, it would be easy enough to heat them up for serving.

After I had cleaned up the kitchen, I ventured upstairs to my room. As I passed his office, I noticed that the door was closed. I paused outside of it for several moments and then placed my ear against the door to see if I could hear anything. Nope. I knocked.

“What is it, Angie?” His voice sounded muffled through the door.

“Later on, I need to put some more ointment on your incision and replace the bandage, okay?”

“No need,” he said

I frowned at the door. “Jax, I’m already ashamed to admit that I should’ve done it last night after our little adventure. You could’ve pulled a couple of stitches, or at the very worst torn open part of the incision. We’re going to do it this evening, whether you like it or not.”

He remained silent for several moments and I was just about to repeat myself when I heard him mumble a reply.

“Fine, but after the others leave.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Do you know when they’re coming?”

“No,” came the single syllable reply.

I stared at the door a moment, frowning again, and then continued to my room. I closed the door and headed for the bed. What had I expected? Had I expected him to invite me in? I didn’t mean anything to Jax other than the fact that I was his nurse and we had gotten a little close and personal. Just because it mattered to me didn’t mean that it mattered to Jax and I had to remember that. No strings. No commitments. He had made that perfectly clear.

Still, we had made love on the beach last night. Didn’t that mean anything to him? It had been so hot, so passionate, so… sexy… at least to me. That gave me pause. While it might have been something really special to me, maybe it was normal or… shit… boring to him. After all, he seemed to be quite sexually active while I rarely had the time, and my former sexual partners were not nearly as stimulating as Jax.

I continued to stare up at the ceiling, growing grumpier as the minutes passed. So I’d had sex with him. So he walked around naked. What did it mean? It was painfully obvious to me that it meant more on my end of the spectrum than it did on his. Come to think of it, did he have that Swedish girl in his office at this very moment? Was she sitting on his lap, pumping up and down on his cock right now?

Stop it! I flung my legs off the bed and walked over to the window, staring down at the glistening swimming pool below. What the hell had gotten into me? Jealousy? Impossible! Still, these feelings of mine made me wonder if I was falling for Jax, not just as a good protector, and even more so as a lover, and as a boyfriend. A mate.

“Stop being so foolish!” I said to the window. “You’ve only known him for a couple of days!”

I was being foolish. No, more than foolish. I was being downright stupid. I needed someone to talk to. The only problem was, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I certainly couldn’t tell Nancy what was going on. Not only could I possibly—
probably
—lose my position here, but she would likely end up calling the police, and then they would get involved, Jax would get upset and his buddies probably even more so.

I wandered back to the bed and sat down, feeling as if I’d been swept into a maelstrom of feelings that I had never experienced before. What a conundrum! I was getting so far ahead of myself,
I
even found it ridiculous. But then again, deep down, perhaps it was because I wished it to be so.

That gave me another thing to consider. I wasn’t getting any younger. The guys I had dated before I met Jax couldn’t even compare in the slightest way to his masculinity. He was totally and completely an alpha male, through and through. He had a magnificent body, he was a superb lover, and he had charisma. Not to mention that he was brave, calm under pressure, had a good sense of humor, but at the same time could also be serious when he needed to be.

“Oh God,” I sighed. Was I falling for Jax Andrews? Just what I needed.

I laid down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what he was doing there in his office. Was he still naked or had he actually put some clothes on?

I must’ve dozed off because the sound of male laughter suddenly jolted me awake. I lay on my bed, my arms crossed behind my head. For a minute, I just listened to the sound of the laughter and felt a slight surge of envy. It had never been particularly easy for me to make friends, and my job and the erratic hours left little time for socializing with the few that I did have.

I heaved myself off the bed and decided I better go downstairs, hoping that Jax had not felt obligated to warm up the gumbo I had prepared, nor set the table and everything else involved. I shouldn’t a fallen asleep in the first place.

Wearing a pair of snug but not overly tight capris that ended just below the knee and a white, sleeveless linen top, I took a quick glance at myself in the bathroom mirror, straightened my hair, and then left my room. I wandered downstairs in my bare feet. Not exactly my usual nurse’s uniform, but Jax certainly didn’t seem to mind.

I heard voices carrying from the kitchen and ventured down the hallway. I felt a little nervous intruding, but then straightened my shoulders. Rounding the door, I nearly bumped into the back of one of the biggest men I’d ever seen.

“Oh!” I gasped. “So sorry about that, I wasn’t expecting anybody to be standing right there.”

The man was even taller than Jax. Short cropped black hair, heavy black eyebrows, and a rugged face, which at the moment sported a black eye, a split lip, and a grin. I stared up into his dark brown eyes as he bent down, hands on his hips, and pretended to inspect every aspect of my face.

“Jax, is this your new nurse? Or is she someone you haven’t told us about?”

I schooled my expression. “Hello, I’m—”

“She’s my new nurse,” Jax said, sitting at the kitchen table with another man. That one was also sitting, so I couldn’t see how tall he was, but he was very broad in the shoulders, with a square jaw, what looked to be a boxer’s broken nose, and huge, bulging biceps. His hands rested on top of the table, folded as if he were saying grace.

“Angie, I’d like you to meet Jakob Frisch, the goliath hovering over you at the moment, and this is Henry Reston.” He gestured toward the far side of the kitchen near the garage door. “You remember Michael.”

I was just beginning to offer polite smiles to Jakob and Henry when I turned my head to find Michael leaning casually against the door leading into the garage. “Hello Michael, it’s nice to see you again.” He nodded and I turned my gaze back to Jakob. “Nice to meet you,” I said, holding out my hand. To my surprise, he took it gently in his. My hand nearly disappeared. His skin was warm and rough. He turned my hand over, bent even lower and kissed the back of my hand. I lifted an eyebrow.

“Jax gets all the luck,” he muttered, accompanied with a wink.

I stepped past the huge bulk that was Jakob and nodded at Henry, who was watching me with curiosity. His gaze strayed from me to Jax and back again.

“Pleased to meet you, Angie,” Henry said. “You just ignore all of these guys, who don’t have the manners of pigs.” I gasped in surprise and then realized he was teasing. “If you want the company of a gentleman, might I suggest myself,” he said, leaning back in his chair and placing his hand against his chest. “I, unlike the others gathered in this room, know how to treat a lady like a lady.”

I smiled and watched as the others engaged in a round of teasing, accompanied with good-natured insults. I didn’t know what else to call it. I had never been around so much testosterone in my life. Every single one of these guys was a magnificent example of the male physique. I tried to keep my cool as I stepped toward the stove where the pots of gumbo and rice still sat on the back burner.

“Are you guys hungry?” I asked, trying to keep the atmosphere as a low-key as possible. I knew that Jax, and most likely the others, would most certainly notice if I appeared nervous, so I had to appear perfectly at ease. That turned out to be more difficult than I would’ve imagined. I hadn’t grown up with brothers and didn’t have much experience hanging around a bunch of guys, and certainly not guys that looked like this.

“We’re always hungry,” Michael said, still leaning against the garage door frame, arms crossed over his chest and legs crossed at the ankles. Like Henry, his gaze traveled from Jax to me and back again.

Did he know? I wondered.

While I made myself busy setting the table and reheating the gumbo and the rice, I listened as they joked around, flirted with me, and then laughed when my face flushed red with embarrassment. There was really nothing I could say, so I didn’t even try. I knew there were teasing, trying to get a rise out of me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I decided to accept it in good humor and laughed along with them when the heat of my face burned so deep that Jakob burst out laughing.

“Okay, okay you guys, leave her alone. She’s going to pop a vein if we keep teasing her.”

I turned and shook my head. “It’s okay. I can take it.” I glanced at Jax and saw him smiling. I didn’t see him smile very often, and it was amazing what a difference it made. Too bad he didn’t smile all the time. It completely transformed his persona from a man who had seen too much of war and violence to one who knew how to enjoy the little things in life. I shook myself out of my reverie, thinking that Jax was who he was. He was a soldier. Special Ops, as were the other men in this room, or at least I gathered. As far as I was concerned, they had the typical look of Special Forces, but then again, I could have been wrong.

I served the guys, giving a look to Michael, who still stood by the garage door, and gestured for him to sit down. I returned to the stove, placing the pot back on the burner. “You guys help yourself to seconds if you want. There’s plenty.”

“You’re not joining us?” Henry asked.

Jakob tsked-tsked.

I smiled. “No, I’m not hungry and you guys have things to talk about.”
Liar
, I said to myself. “I’ll be up in my room if you need anything.” I realized how that sounded, especially when I saw the grin that passed between Henry and Jakob. Again I felt the heat of a blush and amended my statement. “I mean, just holler, and I’ll be down.”

Jax nodded and the four of them focused on eating. Not much conversation as I left the kitchen and headed up the stairs. My curiosity got the best of me and I paused at the top of the stairs, wondering if Jax could tell I was still on the landing or if I had ventured further toward my room. I walked to my room and half closed the door, then once again changed my mind. Staying close to the walls, I tiptoed back to the landing. He would have to leave the kitchen and walk down the hallway and look upward and over his shoulder to notice me standing there, so I didn’t think I would be caught eavesdropping.

More shameful behavior on my part. Now I had resorted to eavesdropping!

Before long, the topic of conversation turned from food to the attack on Jax and me. Jax described the incident verbatim, not leaving anything out, even complimenting me on how I’d handled the SUV as it left the road. For some reason, I felt a veritable surge of pleasure and pride. He had complimented me!

“That’s why I called you guys,” Jax said. “We needed to have a powwow.”

“You didn’t notify the police?”

“Hell no,” Jax said. “The minute they stick their noses into it, they’d call the Feds and this will turn into a cluster—”

“We all came in one vehicle, but we were all watching.”

That had sounded like Michael.

“No one followed us,” Henry added.

“So what happened to you, Jakob?” Jax asked.

“I got jumped two nights ago as I was leaving a titty bar,” he said. “Three punks all dressed in black. They were wearing sweatshirts with hoodies so I didn’t get a good look at their faces, but I took care of them.”

“Not before they got in a few strikes of their own, eh?”

That sounded like Henry’s voice.

The men continued to talk, musing over who might be responsible and trying to figure out how they could identify their attackers without getting into trouble with the law. I stood at the top of the stairs for quite some time, realizing, and not for the first time, that I had no idea how these men lived, nor anything about their shared experiences.

They talked about violence, death, and dying as if it were an everyday experience. Of course, I was familiar with death and dying, but mostly with people who died of natural causes. Very rarely had I come across traumatic death, even in my early hospital career.

The idea that Jax and his friends talked about their attackers as “something to be dealt with” left me feeling a little frightened and more than a little out of my realm of experience. What exactly were they talking about? Were they talking about hunting these people down and… killing them? If they were terrorists, that was one thing, I supposed. I didn’t like the sound of terrorists on American soil any more than anyone else. I didn’t understand such fanaticism in the name of religion.

At the same time, how could they so calmly talk about hunting these people down and “dishing out what they deserved” as Jakob put it? How in the world could they do this and not get into trouble with the police? These were combat soldiers and yes, as combat soldiers, and more specifically Special Forces, this is what they were trained to do. However, they were not on foreign soil, but American soil. In this country, hunting people down, stalking them, and arranging for their death was murder. Wasn’t it? I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, more confused than ever.

Did I want the people who had been in that car the other night to come back and hurt me? Of course not. At the same time, I was concerned with the legalities of what Jax and his friends discussed in the privacy of the kitchen. I had no business standing here, no business listening into their conversation. I couldn’t help but think that what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. Then again, I wasn’t one to stick my head in the sand or turn a blind eye to injustices in the world.

Injustice. Those people had tried to kill me and Jax. They had apparently already succeeded with another one of Jax’s squadron and tried twice more with the others. When would it stop? Even more importantly, who would stop them if not for Jax and his squad members? I frowned, wondering if any such actions against their attackers would be condoned by their squadron leader or upper command. I didn’t think so, but then again, I didn’t know those people either.

The voices in the kitchen grew quieter, and although they still talked among themselves, I could no longer so easily hear what they discussed. I decided I should return to my room and mind my own business for a change. I made my way quietly back into my bedroom, eased the door shut and then sat down on the bed. Seconds later, I laid down, staring up at the ceiling. I had no idea what was going to happen. In fact, there was no way to anticipate anything.

I had to stick to my job. I was a nurse. I was here to do a job, not to get involved in international affairs, terrorism, retribution, or murder. My eyes widened as I stared up at the ceiling. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Angie?” I asked myself. I received no reply, not that I was expecting one.

***

I woke up in the middle of the night. My vision blurry, I couldn’t quite make out the time on the red digital readout of a small alarm clock on my bedside table. I wasn’t sure what had woken me, but after tossing and turning for several minutes, I decided that I would go down to the kitchen, perhaps get a glass of water or even heat up a small glass of milk to help me get back to sleep.

I made my way downstairs, still half asleep, my thoughts once again roiling with terrorists and Special Force soldiers, and try as I might to get it out of my mind, making love with Jax on the beach. Perhaps that’s what was disturbing me; I had crossed a line. I had developed feelings for my client. This was so unusual I didn’t even know how to deal with it. I got to the bottom of the stairs, rounded the staircase, and made my way down the short hallway to the kitchen. I entered without bothering to turn on a light as I intended to turn on the small light on the range hood.

“Up kind of late, aren’t you?”

I screamed and jumped, spinning around so fast I almost lost my balance. I cast my gaze wildly around the kitchen and then saw the dark shadow at the kitchen table.

“Jax?”

“You better hope so.”

I nearly sank to my knees. My heart pounded so bad, first with fear and then with annoyance. “Don’t scare me like that! You just about gave me a heart attack!”

He rose from the table and padded toward me on bare feet. Before I knew, it he had closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. His embrace instantly calmed me, but this wasn’t right… I couldn’t…

“Feel better now?” he asked.

He placed a gentle kiss on the top of my head. Endearing. Charming. Too sexy for his own good. I placed my hands on his waist and realized that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. I slid my hand down his waist to his hips and realized that once again he was naked. I shook my head. “I should be used to this by now,” I sighed. I tried to turn away, but he didn’t seem inclined to relinquish his grip.

“Used to what?”

“You running around naked all the time. For Pete’s sake, I think the only time I’ve seen you with clothes on is when your friends are here or when we went to the doctor’s office.”