Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4)(59)

“So you kicked his ass.”

“After the fact, yes. I never suffer fools gladly.” Much less ones that send others to die to cover their own ass. Getting kicked out of the military while that useless piece of shit retained his position had made a huge dent in his belief of the greater good. Nowadays he preferred to choose his causes.

“That must not have won you many friends,” she murmured.

“No, it didn’t, but it showed me who had my back. James, for example.” Jack had been injured, not up to fighting it out if push came to shove, when he started disobeying orders and improvising. James had stood by his side come hell or high water. Up until then, they had not been the greatest of friends, both being the alpha type.

“Ah, now I get it. That’s why he can do with you what he wants.”

“He doesn’t do with me what he wants,” he grumbled, not sounding that convincing, even to himself.

“Right. If you’re not in the military, then…” Elle asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“You know what a mercenary is?” A private security contractor sounded better. Less…bloody. But he didn’t feel like dressing it up for her. Let her start running away from him. It would be doing them a favor, seeing as he was unable to do it.

He’d moved from spec ops to black ops. The government used private contractors for that, and the agency didn’t seem to have issues hiring people with tattered backgrounds as long as they got the job done. On the plus side, when he fought for money, priorities changed and he took the jobs he wanted. And obeying orders from superiors was relative, especially when working alone.

“You are a mercenary?” she asked, her eyes round.

“Yes.” He’d been one for several years.

“I thought the government didn’t hire mercenaries.”

“For military operations outside the US they do.” They just weren’t called mercenaries; they were called private security contractors. Some of them were on a military contract; others were State Department funded. They were not allowed to carry out combat operations, but they frequently did. Getting intel and results was a nasty, ugly business and the government didn’t like its men getting their hands dirty. At least not the men who could be linked back to them.

“So that’s what a free agent means,” she pondered, taking it all in stride.

“I sell my services to the highest bidder.” A war whore, was how someone had put it.

She had the balls to snort. “No, you don’t.”

“You just said you knew nothing about me.” And now she was defending him? After he confessed to killing people and being a mercenary? No self-preservation skills on her whatsoever.

“I don’t know the particulars, true, but you are not a slime ball. I’ve met my share of those. You have your code and you’re an overbearing Neanderthal, yet in your world money doesn’t trump morals. Manners, on the other hand, don’t rank that high either.”

Jack froze for a second and burst into laughter.

She was right again. He carefully chose the assignments he took. He had more money than he could spend in a lifetime, more than Ronnie could spend either. And manners meant shit to him.

“Why did you stop writing to me?” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “After I came back.” Once he’d resurfaced, he hadn’t gotten a single message from her.

Her smile was all-knowing. “Aw, don’t tell me you missed my e-mails?”

He didn’t answer. “Since we’re on the subject, why did you write to me at all?”

“You were gone and I thought you could use some sort of connection.”

“Now the truth?”

She laughed. “All right. I knew my e-mails would piss you off enough to want to come back in one piece and spank me.”

That sounded more like his Elle.

“Then you dropped by for Max’s wedding and you looked so…gone, I realized it was going to take more than a few e-mails to get you back in one piece. So I stepped up the pace.”

“A few e-mails? By that point I’d gotten well over a hundred.” After that, one popped into his inbox every single day. The constant flow, ironically enough, had kept him sane.

She snuggled against him, leaned her head on his chest and shrugged. “As I said, a few. What were you doing?”

“Trying to shoot down Exxum’s extracurricular business. We dismantled some of his infrastructure, but he got away. Why did you stop writing to me, pet?” he insisted after a long pause.

“You came back.”

“I didn’t spank you.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he felt her smile. “I’m sure you’ll try.”

The hectic day had taken its toll, and in spite of everything, she soon began to relax and sound drowsy. “What do you think is Maldonado doing in Boston with Exxum?”

He had no clue, but if Maldonado had known about Elle, they would have never made it out of there as easily as they did.

“You called her ‘sweetheart,’” Elle whispered.

“What?”

“Marissa. The woman at the fund-raiser. The one you so shamelessly flirted with. You called her ‘sweetheart.’”

He circled her in his arms. “‘Sweetheart’ means nothing to me. It’s not personal. I call all of them ‘sweetheart’. Much easier than remembering the names of insubstantial and inconsequential women Alex flirts with.”