That ends now.
Bailey’s fingers press firmly at my temples before sliding back through my hair. “How do you know you love me?” she asks softly.
“How do I know?”
“Yeah.” Her hands don’t stop moving, soothing. “Doesn’t it seem soon? Fast? Unlikely?”
I hum, a smile touching my lips. “I don’t know that there’s a prescribed length of time it takes, Bailey. There’s not some magical benchmark or test you need to take to see it. Sometimes I think you just know.”
“You just know,” she repeats thoughtfully, worrying her bottom teeth between her lips.
I kiss her stomach again. “My pain disappears when I’m with you. I get to be a new version of myself when I’m with you. I sleep. I laugh. I have something—someone—to look forward to at the end of the day. I feel … ” I peer back up at her again, swallowing as I run my hands up the column of her spine. “I feel whole again with you.”
Her palms cup my neck while her thumbs brush over the high points on my cheeks. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
My hands squeeze at her hips, and I know I’m overwhelming her. That I need to lighten the mood. That she’s too young and I’m coming on too fucking strong.
So I land a playful slap on her ass that rings out in the shower, then I tease, “You say ‘yes, sir’ and let me rinse the conditioner out of your hair.”
She bursts into a fit of nervous giggles as I stand and flip her around into the spray, watching the creamy-colored water cascade down her back until it runs clear. I wait, and I watch, and I wait some more while she tries to get her bearings.
When she steps out of the water, I take a fistful of her hair, tipping her head back to me, and murmur against her lips, “I didn’t hear you, Bailey.”
“Hear what?” Her eyes glisten with excitement, and I know she’s pretending not to know what I’m talking about.
“Do you know what brats get?”
She bites down on her bottom lip, but she’s not worried. She’s trying not to smile. “Hopefully spanked.”
I groan and let my eyes fall shut as I rub my lips over the apple of her cheek. “You’re going to be the fucking death of me.”
She chuckles and turns her face into mine as she whispers, “But what a way to go. Am I right?”
Then she kisses me, and I let her. Because she’s not wrong.
This would be the way to go.
I wake with a start, shooting straight out of bed, practically shoving Bailey off of me as I go.
A glance at the clock tells me it’s 3:26 a.m., which is a refreshing change from 2:11. We must have either slept or fucked through that one.
“What’s wrong?” I hear the alarm in her voice and sneak a quick glance at her over my shoulder. She’s on her knees in the middle of the bed, both hands held flat over her chest, likely over her pounding heart.
Something is off. It feels like a spider is crawling up my spine. Call it what you want—a sixth sense maybe. One that has saved my life countless times in the field.
I hold one finger up to Bailey, signaling to her to be silent, as I approach the large window facing the river out back.
I hear it then. Clumsy footsteps. A soft, “Ow!” Followed by, “Shut up! Someone will hear you!”
I roll my eyes. He fucking shouted it. Of course someone is going to hear them. You wouldn’t need to be special ops to hear these idiots coming. I pull the curtain back an inch to see two dark figures on my back lawn. With a shake of my head, I turn and stride toward the door.
“Bailey, stay here. On the bed.”
“What’s wrong?” she repeats, apprehension in her voice.
“Gonna go have a chat with your brothers,” I grumble, not bothering with a shirt as I storm out of the bedroom.
“Beau!” she whisper-shouts with such ferocity that I turn to take her in. It’s a good thing I didn’t go searching for my shirt because she’s wearing it. Hair all wavy and bed-mussed, looking so tiny and swallowed up in that plain white tee.
I quirk my head, waiting for her to say what she needs to say.
She sighs and licks her lips before offering a quiet but borderline tearful, “Be careful.”
I give her a salute and a wink, which only earns me a watery smile, and then I’m heading down the hallway, straight for my gun safe.
Don’t have much use for them now, save for target practice or if I ever happen upon something in my backyard that wants to kill me. But I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t need to shoot a bear or a cougar to stay safe.