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“Are you stocking a battlement?” Alice laughed later that day, shaking her head shallowly as I showed her another stash of pepper gel. Her movements might’ve been stiffer than usual, but at least she was smiling. We had pepper gel in every vehicle, and after last night, I’d ensured she had one in every purse and gym bag, as well as on her keychain, insisting she take one running. Gel would be more effective than her canister of pepper spray and had less of a chance of coming back at her on the wind.
She didn’t seem to understand the lengths I’d go to to keep her safe yet. She would.
“Focus, Alice. I never want you feeling so scared for your safety that you send your body into shock like that.”Helpless. That’s how it felt watching her fight an invisible battle buried in her mind. Not even money can buy answers if they don’t yet exist.
Dr. Eastman hadn’t had much in the way of encouragement. Much like Alice had warned me, the study of migraines was evolving slowly, and I wasn’t even open to considering someexperimentalmedication.
To see my fierce girl crippled in that kind of pain was a hell I didn’t know existed until she voluntarily fell into my arms. I might not be able to make her brain avoid short-firing, but I could equip her to function through her fear. That was what we learned first as Seals. Powering through the kind of terror that gripped your marrow.
I hadn’t slowed down to think too hard about when and how she becamemine. The devil on my left shoulder told me the moment she’d sauntered into our offices in that tight dress and fitted blazer with stars in her eyes. But the guy on the right? He kept reminding me she hadn’t chosen me—this—beyond appeasing her conscience. Maybe our kiss during the ceremony tricked the chemicals in my brain into thinking I had some claim to her beyond that, but that’s all it was: a trick.
Her words were on an ever-present loop in my mind.Why didn’t you ask?
To her, I was still the asshole that signed her paycheck.
Her amused sigh brought me back into the moment, focused on those grey eyes as she said, “I am focused. Pepper gelis everywhere, and window breakers are on the keychains and in the center consoles of every car. First aid in every glove box, with a comprehensive kit in the mud room.”
Throat aching, I nodded. Ollie and I ordered everything we could get our hands on to have in the house for her, but I didn’t want to combat crippling headaches if we could just avoid them. If fear was her trigger, we could take steps to dismantle it.
“Good girl. Now, come on.”
“Comewhere? Greyson, your tour has been thorough.”
Her irritation was welcome if it meant she was prepared. Was it a little overboard to show her all my emergency exits in this house? Hopefully. However, with my involvement inThunderstrike, she needed to know a plan for each scenario.
I slid my hand against hers, threading our fingers and trying not to focus on the way her breath hitched.
Okay. Coercing a woman I found positively breathtaking into an arrangement like this was likely my least intelligent move to date. But as she wrapped her fingers around my hand, I found I didn’t very well care.
Because she just…fit. Here. In my house. Where my doctors fussed over her labs, and my staff was frantic to ensure the cartoon princess had whatever she needed.
They already loved her—this doe-eyed, silky-haired, brilliant brunette now rolling her eyes but following me, nonetheless. As we came around the corner, she smiled at Marianne, one of the housekeepers, and I watched her entire face relax the moment we were out of sight. She was still in pain and trying to hide it.
“Greyson,” she groaned. “Where are we going now? I’m exhausted. It’s Paxton’s party day, and I want to nap before we get ready.”
Stifling my smile, I said, “I have someone I want you to meet.”
As if on cue, a cheery baritone barked, “Hart! Where the fuck are you?”
Her eyes flicked to me, and I grinned, calling back, “We’re coming. Hold your fucking horses.”
“Oh shit,” she giggled, “he is human.”
“What?”
“Didn’t know you could swear,” she noted dryly, a silent smirk threatening her lips. Her humor could so easily be mistaken for indifference, but I was starting to get a feel for it.
“Oh, come on.”
“Mr. Serious all the time,” she said, puckering her lips and pinching her brows as she dropped her voice mockingly. I was still shaking my head as our hallway dumped us back into the foyer.
“This asshole?” Retired Captain Jackson—A.K.A. Jax—Reynolds was standing in my living room in unlaced motorcycle boots, his blond hair slicked back, hands casually stuffed in his back pockets. Fucker had gotten bigger while I was stuck behind a desk. “Nah, he’s acrack-up.”
The thing that won me over about Jax was the fact that he always had something sarcastic to say, even in the shittiest of situations. The more time I spent around Alice, the more I thought the two of them would hit it off.
“Motherfucker,” I said by way of greeting, grinning as I slipped my hand from Alice’s and opened my arms. He immediately came in for a hug, clapping my back as I did the same.
“Pinman, how you been?” he asked, pulling back. The guys closest to me had given me the nickname after the surgeons put me back together with pins, plates and rods. Jax shot that trouble-making smile in Alice’s direction as his eyes did a far too thorough scan for my liking. Alice was not the kind of stunning that could be missed. “I hear congratulations are in order. Though I’m a little chapped, I wasn’t cool enough to be invited.”