Warrior (First to Fight #1)(72)
She smiles softly. “Of course she is,” she says around a yawn. “Did she tell you that she called me, trying to convince me to take you back?”
“She did?”
Livvie nods.
“Was she convincing enough, or do I need to grovel?”
She levels a pensive look at me and narrows her eyes as though deep in thought. The moment seems to suspend for an eternity. “We’ll save the groveling for later, but first I want you to tell me what you were hiding from me. All of it. Otherwise, we’re never going to work, Ben. Secrets,” she sighs, “secrets don’t do anyone any good. And whatever you’re holding inside, I just know it’s eating at you. Let me help you,” she pleads.
I swallow thickly. “Logan was looking into that guy for me. My friend? From my convoy that I saved but was critical…I was having Logan take a look, to see if he had any luck, because I sure haven’t. I need to know that he’s all right somewhere. I just need to. All of my guys can’t be gone.”
He pauses and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it. I just couldn’t. I feel like he’s one more person who I turned my back on. The things I’ve done…it’ll be a long time before I ever come to terms with what happened, if ever. I can’t promise you that I’ll ever get over the things I’ve been through, but I can promise I’ll try. Every day, I’ll try. For you. Because the only thing that got me through the worst of it was imagining coming back to you. Seeing you.”
Livvie lifts a hand and cups my cheek. “Thank you for telling me. I hope you know that I’m here for you, whatever you need. All I want to do is to share my life with you. I want you to be the one by my side. And I want to be there for you.”
I press a kiss to the palm of her hand. “Thank you.”
I look up from the laptop in surprise as the doorbell rings. After the kidnapping, I wanted to give Olivia some time away from everything. I couldn’t think of a better place than my—our—lake house.
“Who is it?” I ask as she peers through the peep hole.
“Logan. Were you expecting him?”
I set my laptop down on the countertop. “Yeah, I forgot to mention that he’d be coming by. He wanted to check on us, but I told him to wait a few days so that we could unwind. You don’t mind, do you?”
Livvie smiles, reminding me of the fact that we haven’t touched in what feels like f*cking years. Now I’m regretting letting him come over. “Of course I don’t mind.”
Logan enters the living room, his watchful eyes falling on Olivia and I see him smile for the first time in a long time. “Damn, girl,” he says, “you look good even all wrapped up in bandages.”
She blushes and pulls him into a hug. “It’s so good to see you, Logan. I‘m glad you came by.”
“I had some time,” he says, shooting me a sly look. We’d both known that he wouldn’t be getting any commendations for looking the other way when I beat the shit out of Mason Smith. As it turned out, he would be on unpaid suspension for a long time—if they even let him back on the force, but Livvie didn’t need to know that yet. I wasn’t going to keep it from her—I didn’t want to keep anything from her anymore. But, she deserved a break.
“Why don’t you come say hi to Cole? I think he’s gotten bored with us.”
“How’s the little guy doin’?”
Livvie picks him up from the playpen and brings him over to Logan. “Much better.”
“I just wanted to check in and make sure y’all were doing okay,” Logan says.
“We’re doing great, thanks to you. And you’re more than welcome to come by any time. We’ll probably be here for a while.” Livvie looks to me and I nod.
“I’ll be taking you up on that.”
Logan slaps me on the back and offers Olivia a smile. Which was more than she’d offered me in the past few weeks. Not that I didn’t understand.
After they were released from the hospital, I managed to convince her to come with me to the lake house. Ever since she’d been focused on Cole. If he wasn’t in her arms, he wasn’t far away.
That night I rock Cole to sleep as Olivia finishes her shower—and I try to distract myself with something else, anything else. So I take to singing cadences—songs we’d use to keep time during PT—to help him sleep. I hope to hell he can’t understand anything I’m saying and that Olivia doesn’t happen to overhear. Military men can be…colorful.
As I lay him down to sleep, I brush a hand over his eyebrow and smooth down his blankets. “Sleep good, little man.” I rest my hand on his chest and feel the reassuring beat of his heart under my palm. “I love you,” I tell him, like I tell him every night. Every chance I get.
I hear a sound behind me and find Olivia wrapped in a towel in the doorway. Fucking Christ. My eyes feast on her bared flesh. I can feel myself grow instantly hard. I’m damn near frozen to the spot, barely able to breathe.
When she drops the towel, my heart leaps into my throat. She smiles, backing away and I follow, like I know I always will. If it takes years to convince her of that fact, I’m determined to make sure she knows it.
Her skin is pale in the darkness and she takes measured steps toward my bedroom. My feet thud heavily with each labored step. I find her slithering onto the bed, her ass round and firm right in front of me. I reach the foot of the bed and slide my hands over the softness of it, unable to resist touching her. She lowers down to the bed and I hover over her on all fours.