Page 28 of Deception and New Direction (Ranger Shield Security #3)

JACK

She was drunk.

She had clearly had a good time celebrating her birthday, and I was happy for her.

“ If you keep smiling at me like that, I’m gonna need a life alert button,” she said to me, her voice slightly slurred, so I knew she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

We had just gotten into my car to head back to the house when she spoke up again, slightly louder than she likely intended. “ Oooh can we stop and get a burger on the way home, and maybe a milkshake?”

“Didn’t you eat at the party?”

“Well, yes, but I only grabbed a few things, and they were appetizers, so they don’t really fill you up,” she said and then hiccupped.

“Whatever you want,” I told her.

“I like when you say that,” she giggled. “ Remember that is always the correct answer.”

She was funny when she was sober, but there was no filter when she’d had a few drinks, which in turn made her even funnier, and I told her as much.

She didn’t wait until we got home to eat, instead choosing to annihilate the food in the car.

When we managed to get home, I let Dash out but told her to come find me after she was finished getting ready for bed because I wanted to give her a birthday present.

She turned to look at me and almost had a sad and guilty look to her face. “ Jack , you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“I know, but I wanted to,” I told her. “ Now , go get ready for bed, and I’ll be right back.”

I came back inside and grabbed the small box I had picked up the day before off my dresser.

She walked into the room behind me, and I handed her the box.

“What is it?” she asked as she looked at the box skeptically.

“Open it,” I told her.

She lifted the lid of the box to see the small greyhound charm I had gotten her.

“You can add it to the necklace you have with your pink boxing gloves,” I told her as she stared down at it silently.

Ruthie wore a necklace with a small pair of pink boxing gloves in the center. Inside those gloves was a tiny tracking device. Archer had given it to her after she moved here in case something happened to her.

Admittedly, even though the boxing glove necklace was for her safety, it burned a little knowing that Archer gave it to her. I wanted something of my own that she could wear around her neck.

“Thanks, Jack ,” she said, and I could hear her voice choking up.

She pulled off her necklace and slid the new charm onto it. “ Will you help me put it back on?”

“Yeah.”

She turned to give me her back so I could put the necklace back on, and then I brushed a small kiss to her neck.

“Happy birthday, Ruthie . Was it a good day?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning around to face me with a goofy smile. “ There’s one thing that could make it better.”

“What’s that?” I asked her.

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but we haven’t had sex in a bed yet,” she said, grinning up at me and putting her hands on my chest. “ I feel like it’s your duty to rectify that mistake, you know, because it’s my birthday and all.”

She bit her lip as she stared up at me with lust-filled eyes.

“Oh really?” I asked her, feigning ignorance, and she nodded slowly back at me. “ I guess it is partly my fault since your body is so addictive I can’t seem to think straight enough to bring you into the bed.”

I kept my hands where they were as she smiled up at me and moved her arms so that they were wrapped around my body.

“How drunk are you right now?” I asked, because I was not about to take advantage of her and not have her remember it the next day.

“I’m sober now that I ate all that food, and I’m fully aware of what we’re about to do,” she responded.

“Oh yeah, and what are we about to do?” I asked her, now pulling her in tighter to me and putting my hands on her hips.

“You’re about to apologize for the huge grievance of not taking me to a bed properly and accepting your punishment for this egregious offense.” She smiled, causing me to laugh.

“I guess I need to rectify this atrocity immediately by giving you multiple orgasms. Right now,” I said and picked her up and carried her the few feet to the bed.

The instant we hit the bed, there was a lot of groping from both of us. Clothes came off quickly and mouths were all over each other.

I pulled back to grab a condom before this got out of hand too quickly.

“I love looking at you all laid out for me like this,” I told her as I looked down at her on her back in my bed. “ You are so damn beautiful, Ruthie . And mine.”

“If you want me to stay yours, then you should do something instead of just staring at me,” she replied, causing me to chuckle.

“Love that sassy mouth of yours,” I told her honestly.

She stared up at me, a bit perplexed, but she was still tipsy enough to not hold back what she was thinking. “ I thought men liked agreeable women.”

“Ruthie, I don't want a woman who's gonna just do everything I tell her to do,” I informed her. “ I want a woman with backbone. A woman who's gonna make life interesting. You're agreeable in the moments that matter. Like right now.”

I leaned down and took her mouth, making love to her with my tongue while my hands roamed all over her spectacular body.

“A partnership isn't one sided,” I said, kissing my way down her body, wanting her to understand that I was in it for the long haul. “ It's give and take. If you give in to every request I make or fold every time I ask for something, that's not a partnership. That's a dictatorship.”

I continued kissing the soft skin of her ribs, chest, and stomach. “ Plus , I like tussling with you. I imagine the makeup sex with you is beyond worth it.”

“I can fight with you right now if you want to find out,” she joked, and I laughed.

She started stroking my arms and letting her fingers roam around my tattoos.

“Every time I see your arm muscles flex, it reminds me of how good those arms felt holding me up against the wall a week ago,” she whispered, her face flushed as if she were recalling that memory.

I got even harder thinking of fucking her against that wall and how good she’d felt.

That was it. I couldn’t wait any longer. I slid inside her all the way, taking in all the small noises she made as I moved in and out of her in long, slow pulses.

“God, Jack , you feel so…damn…good,” Ruthie moaned as she arched her back, taking me even deeper.

God, this woman felt better every single time I had her. The sheen of her sweat glistened over her skin, and I loved knowing I put that there.

Minutes rolled by as I took her body stroke after stroke, and built up a need in both of us.

“Jack,” she whispered, begging for more as her body trembled with need.

“What do you need, gorgeous?” I asked her, needing her to tell me.

“I want to be on top,” she said, running her hands up my chest.

I fell on the bed and rolled us over, her on top. I had to position us carefully because I didn’t want to hurt her foot, but damn if it didn’t make me even harder just thinking of her riding me.

Ruthie may have moments where she held back or hesitated in what she said or did, but sex was not one of those moments. The instant she was on top, she became uninhibited. She knew what she wanted, and she took it. That was such a turn-on.

I stared up at her and realized she had never looked sexier than she did right now as she bounced up and down on my cock. This was the Ruthie I knew. The one who took what she wanted unabashedly and enjoyed herself doing it.

Watching her bounce on top of me was making it difficult for me to hold back. I could tell she was close, but I needed to get her there.

“Let go, beautiful,” I told her as I reached down and rubbed lightly at her clit, and she did, falling over the brink.

She cried out as she pulsed around my cock, squeezing me like a vice.

I let go as well, releasing everything I had inside me before she collapsed on top of me.

I didn’t think I’d ever tire of having sex with this woman.

“I saw fireworks…and angels…maybe even a supernova,” she mumbled quietly. “ Shit , did I say that out loud? Forget I said that.”

I wouldn’t, but I nodded to let her think she’d gotten her way.

“Sweet mother of Kraken ,” she whispered aloud as my brain cells slowly returned.

I chuckled, and I could feel her breath on my neck. “ I see you’re back to not swearing.”

“What I say during sex doesn’t count,” she countered.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.” My laughter continued.

“Correct answer,” she replied, only making me laugh a little more.

I continued to lie there with her at my side while my heart rate returned to normal.

She started to run her fingers over the scars on my chest. “ Will you tell me about what happened?”

I didn’t like talking about it. Honestly , I never wanted to talk about it. But Ruthie never tried to get too personal with me. She always had barriers up when it came to me, so I needed to take advantage of this moment with her.

“We lost men during a special ops assignment that went bad in Jalalabad , Afghanistan . The explosion killed two of our men and injured two more—including me. Wade was our staff sergeant and had been given bad intel for a targeted raid on an HVT Safehouse .”

“What’s an HVT ?” she asked softly.

“Sorry. Military code for High - Value Target . I can’t go into too many details, but it was suspected that a high-profile terrorist commander was staked out at this warehouse.

The intel wasn’t all bad, because the man was definitely there, but the safehouse was also a makeshift bomb factory producing IEDs . ”

She inhaled deeply next to me, and I was about to stop, not wanting to upset her, but she asked me to keep going.

“We ended up walking right into a trap. We expected the site around the warehouse to be booby-trapped, but we hadn’t planned on him blowing the whole building up as a suicide mission when he realized we’d made it past the traps on the perimeter.

We lost two good men that day, and I got these scars.

” I put my hand overs hers which was still resting over my scarred chest.

“Does Ellie know?” she asked.

“I haven’t told her but I know she and Wade have talked a little about his time over there. She hasn’t said anything to me about it though, so I don’t know if she knows all the details.”

She nodded against me then spoke quietly again. “ Thank you for sharing with me.”

I’d had to talk about this to my superiors once I had arrived at the hospital after the mission had gone bad. I’d again had to talk about it with the mandatory PTSD counselor after I was on leave.

Telling Ruthie was now the third time I’d spoken about it. Surprisingly , it wasn’t as uncomfortable this time, and I credited that to the beautiful woman nestled into my side. I had every intention of keeping her there.

As a man, it should have felt too soon, but it didn’t. I knew I loved her.

I just needed her to come to that same realization.