Rome (Marked Men #3)(28)

She didn’t say anything else, just disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard the shower go on. I found my shirt wadded up in a pile with my boots and finished getting dressed. I smelled like sex and day-old booze. I smelled just like Rule used to smell all the time. The wayward thought of my brother had me absently searching for my phone and my keys. I should have given Brite better instructions before getting tanked yesterday. Not that Cora seemed in any hurry to try and rake me over the coals, but this had all the hallmarks of a situation that could go slanted in a heartbeat and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something I was forgetting.

Not sure what to do with myself in the outrageously girly room, I decided to brave the wild and go in search of a glass of water and maybe some painkillers for my head. The house was tiny and cute. Cora’s eclectic style was on display throughout. The couch was purple, the rugs were polka dot, and I assumed the massive flat screen and game systems had to belong to Jet because they were the only things in the living room not splashed with color. I found the kitchen in the back of the house and cringed inwardly when I saw it wasn’t empty.

Asa was at the little table drinking a cup of coffee and seemingly ignoring his sister, who was grilling him about something. Both sets of amber eyes got wide when I walked into the room. Asa lifted an eyebrow and Ayden blinked like she had no idea who I was. I felt an embarrassed flush start to crawl up my neck and cleared my throat. I wished to God I could remember what, if anything, I had done last night.

“Uh, hey.”

I gratefully accepted the mug of coffee Asa handed to me and propped a hip up on the counter while they continued to stare at me.

“Is that your truck outside?” I liked Ayden’s voice. It was tinted with just a hint of the South and all soft and smooth. I liked those long legs of hers in her running pants, too, but Jet was like a brother to me, so there was no way I would ever admit that aloud.

“Yeah. I needed a DD and Cora decided to be it.”

“You spent the night?”

I didn’t like the third degree, I was used to being on the other side of it.

“Yeah, well, I blacked out in her bed, so there really wasn’t a choice.”

I could see Asa doing the math in his head that Cora hadn’t been on the couch or anywhere else this morning.

“Interesting.” Asa just chuckled and didn’t say anything, for which I was eternally grateful. There was just something about the way he looked at you, something about the way he sized you up, that was unnerving and unsettling.

“What’s interesting?” Cora came in the room smelling clean and fresh. I tried not to notice I had left whisker burn all along her jaw and throat.

Ayden made a face and handed her a banana. “That you had to take care of the supposedly responsible Archer last night.”

Cora frowned and moved past me back toward the living room. She had on black shorts with a wide waist and a black-and-white-striped top that was missing most of the back. The only thing holding it up seemed to be a giant bow in the back; her rib tattoo with all its winking jewels was totally visible.

“We all have bad days. I need to get my car, are you ready?”

I nodded and handed Asa back the coffee mug. We exchanged a little nod, like he understood the potential for this to be the most awkward thing in the world, and I gave Ayden a small little grin. She lifted her eyebrows back at me and took my spot against the counter. I knew as soon as we left they would be picking apart what my stay-over meant.

I noticed Cora seemed to be moving a little more slowly than her usual hyperkinetic way. I wanted to ask her if I had hurt her, she was so much smaller than the girls I normally went to bed with, but we seemed to be on the same page about leaving the deed in no-man’s-land and I didn’t want to rock the boat. She fished my keys out of her bag and threw them at me.

“I left your wallet and phone in the glove box.”

“Did I do, or say, anything out of hand last night?”

I needed to know if I owed her an apology for anything … well, for anything besides devouring her like she was my last meal.

“No. You were just sad, really sad.”

I didn’t know if that meant I was feeling sad, or that I was sad as in she felt sorry for me. There was no way I could look her in the eye ever again if that had been a pity f**k. It was too good, too intense, and if she just felt sorry for me, I would never be able to look myself in the mirror as a man again.

“I got a phone call from the desert yesterday. It was bad.”

I pulled into the traffic and headed toward Broadway. I needed to find out if I had made an ass out of myself to Brite and the gang at the bar as well.

“So you said. You also mentioned that you being home makes you somehow responsible for what happened, which I hope you know is nuts. People whose job it is to fight a war have a high risk that they may end up injured or killed, you should know that. You being here or there makes no difference in the matter.”

I sighed and tightened my hands on the steering wheel. “It doesn’t matter. When I was deployed my brother died, when I’m here men in my unit die. I just can’t get away from it and yet somehow every single time I manage to scrape by just past death’s door.”

She looked at me out of those odd eyes, compassion in the blue one, censure and warning in the coffee-colored one.

“That’s too much for one person to try and carry around all the time, Rome. You can’t be responsible for everyone or feel guilty all the time for being one of lucky ones.”