Delta: Revenge, page 11
Except maybe Sophia wasn’t just any girl. Shit. Javier burrowed his knuckles into his eyes and then downed a gulp of black coffee. It didn’t matter. They had a job to do here, then they were off to the next op. That was the lay ahead in his world, what he’d signed up for, no matter how eye-opening last night had been.
***
The second day in which Sophia watched the four men walk out the embassy gates and disappear into the city, she grabbed her binoculars and searched for where they might go, what they were contracted to do.
A knock hit her bedroom door with a muffled, “I’m coming in.” Janny waltzed in without waiting for a response. “You and those damned binoculars. Bet you’re not looking at the village people this time. I’d say there’s a fine piece of Delta ass walking his fine fanny out of here—”
“Janny!” Sophia put them on the desk. “I was just—”
“Lordy, I’d be watching those sweet behinds too, honey.”
“For real, Janny.”
“Pfshh.” She tossed her hand. “So, you gonna give me the lowdown on that sexy piece of sweet-sounding man candy, or do I have to take a page out of his book and interrogate you?”
“There’s nothing to—”
“Don’t tell me we’re gonna go the waterboarding route, because I’m not in the mood to clean that kind of headache up.”
Sophia dropped to the bed she’d recently made—after taking a moment to realize that her pillow had a hint of Javier’s scent on it—and she covered her face with her forearm. “I slept with him.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Oh my God, you heard us?”
“No, child. But the second he walked in, all growly alpha bossy, and chased you up the stairs, there was no doubt someone was having a sleepover.”
Sophia groaned. “Wasn’t the first time.”
“Coulda guessed that too.”
“He’s sweet.”
“Now, that I wouldn’t have guessed.”
Sophia propped herself up on her elbows. “Right? And he was. So dang sweet.”
“Alright then. Badass can do sweet. Mark that down in the pro column.”
“He works with my brother, Colin. Javier and I… were together shortly after my wedding went the way it did. He had a lot going on, and I needed the distraction. We both needed to forget the world around us and just feel nothing.”
“Nothing but an orgasm.”
“Janella!”
She shrugged. “I speak the truth.”
“Yeah, I guess you do.”
“So last night?” Janny sat on the foot of the bed. “No life-altering disasters, and you two hooked up again.”
“He doesn’t like that I’m here. I’m pretty sure that his initial intention in storming my room was to lecture me all the way back to the safety of the States.”
Janny rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that.”
“I—”
“Nuh-uh. Neither of us believes that.”
Sighing, Sophia stared at the ceiling. “I think…”
Janny waited a few minutes then gave up. “You think what?”
“He’s the guy that I’d want to fall for. Strong, protective.” Or maybe she’d already fallen before she even hooked up with him. Colin used to tell her stories, and he had so much respect for his teammates. They were all heroes, doing what they could to save the world. How could she not fall for a type like that? Then when she met Javier—the accent, the tattoos, the muscles, and the looks? There was no chance she’d not have a thing for him.
“Oh, Lordy. Put that in the con column. Honey, there’s no way a man like that domesticates. There just isn’t. I’ve seen my fair share of Rambo boys come through these doors and leave. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have my own sleepover or two, but they leave. They always do. Those boys are made of a different fabric than we are.”
A sad curl of agreement made her stomach drop. “I know.”
“Can’t have a man who doesn’t come home.”
“I know.”
“Can’t want a man that won’t need to come home.”
Sophia turned her head. “What does that mean?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “A man that fine will never lack for companionship, and given who he’s running around with, he’s talented at something. The world’s always at war, and he’ll always have a job. Not at home.”
The truth was going to give her early wrinkles. Sophia’s forehead furrowed, but then she studied Janny’s face, knowing there was something about her friend that she should have learned long ago. “Why are you here, Janny?”
“‘Cause I wanted to know the juicy details, none of which you have shared yet.”
“No, I mean in Honduras.”
Janny’s face went taut for a moment, but she smiled sadly, turning it around on Sophia. “Why are you?”
“I totally used my dad to post me here.”
“Those are the logistics. But why?”
Sophia bit her lip. “Because I’m fighting for something that is a basic human dignity that all people should have. I can’t imagine going home when this exists out there.”
Janny’s eyes went soft. “I had a son. He never came home.”
That hit Sophia like a grenade. “God, I didn’t—”
“I don’t share it. This place isn’t where we lost him. But this is the best I could do to dedicate my life to what he died for. I cook. I clean. I bleed red, white, and blue for my baby. I can’t leave this life. But, child, you can. No one wants you rotting away in this place.”
“I’m not rotting.”
“You’re not living.”
“I’m working for something I’ve become very dedicated to.”
“True.” Janella patted her shin. “Enough of that. The juicy bits, please.”
Sophia’s cheeks heated as she laughed. “Javier—”
“Did I mention how sexy that name is?”
She raised her brows. “Agreed. And he is very, very talented.”
“And?”
Sophia smacked her lips together. “And that’s it. No kiss and tell. Just that he can deliver.”
Janella playfully smacked her knee. “No fun.” Then she stood up. “Alright, I’m off to do my thing. Try not to perch in the window all day long. You’ll catch a sniper round in the brain.”
“I won’t.”
“Yes, you will. When you’re not looking at a fine piece of soldier ass, you’re checking the scene, so keep tabs on whatever you’re really here doing.”
Sophia shook her head, staying mum.
Janella pressed her lips together and smiled. “I know all.”
She probably did.
Janella pushed off the bed and headed out. Sophia glanced at her binoculars and notepad but decided to reach for her bookshelf. At least she could quietly read, undisturbed. But as she looked at the cover of the current romance novel she was reading, it was clear that her favorite heroes—the brooding, tall, dark, and deadly soldier type—were all played by Javier in her mind.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The closer Delta drew to the gates, the stronger the pressure in Javier’s chest grew. The guys made small talk around him, always with their eyes up and watching for danger, but he didn’t have anything to say. All he wanted to do was scan the perimeter, but instead, he wondered what had caused him to spend the night. He hadn’t wanted that. Yet he wouldn’t have budged under threat of mortar fire.
The gates swung open, and his eyes bounced to Sophia’s bedroom. There she was, and that tension in his chest jumped. Javier readjusted his gear.
“Your girl’s got her eye on you.” Grayson nodded his head upward as though Javier hadn’t already noticed.
He grumbled.
“Nothing wrong with having a nice girl,” Grayson said.
Another grumble. Grayson had two nice girls, a wife and daughter. Both smiled when he walked into the room. They laughed and joked alongside Grayson, who lived the American dream. Javier didn’t have a dream so much as he had a life purpose, and it didn’t involve a homestead and family.
Brock cleared his throat. “Not sure someone who gets his therapy through street fights and tattoos is a man who’s going to make that woman happy.”
“Fuck you,” Javier said. “If I wanted a nice girl, I’d have a nice girl.”
Ryder put his hand on the embassy’s front door but turned before he pushed through. “You had her last night. Spent the night with her.”
“I know what I did last night.” He shouldered past Ryder, who gave him a good-natured, albeit hard, pat on the back.
Even if Javier wanted a girl and place to call home, his life was on a collision course with the Primeiro Comando. He wouldn’t want those people anywhere near Sophia—or near anyone special.
They went down the hall to drop gear, and Janella was already hollering for them to head to chow as soon as they were ready. It was late, and the residents likely already had dinner. Sophia was awake, that much he’d seen in the window.
Hell. Screw food. He was showering and heading up there. One thing cleared his mind, and that was pain. Tattooing and street fights were his go-to activity for alleviating his mental stress. Except that right now, he didn’t crave that adrenaline burst, that addictive bite of a needle or force of a punch. What he was jonesing for was sweetness.
Javier hit the shower, thinking about life in Honduras. He was here short term. He had no idea how long Sophia was here for. He had the Delta training hell that Brock had forced him through when he transitioned from fighter to mercenary-soldier and joined Titan. Sophia had what, exactly, that would keep her safe?
After a quick soap, shampoo, and dry off, he pulled on clean clothes and didn’t bother heading for grub.
“Sleep tight,” Ryder laughed as they passed in the hall.
Not giving a response, Javier bound up the stairs and headed to Sophia’s bedroom. He took a breath, trying to calm his ass down, then knocked. His pulse pounded, lungs slamming in his chest as though he’d run a marathon. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t run up stairs. It wasn’t an athletic issue. It was a Sophia Cole issue. His damn heart was racing as if he were readying to go to blows in a fight.
The adrenaline he craved was an addiction. But that she was making that jolt of excitement run through his veins? It was trouble that he couldn’t stay away from.
The door cracked, and his heart punched it up a notch. Holy hell. Better than the anticipation of that tattoo gun or a right hook that he absorbed on purpose, Javier wanted her lips on his skin, her fingers sinking into his back, the noises she made, and the way her tight pussy clamped on his cock when she came.
“You okay?” she asked in a way that killed him.
“Am now.”
Opening the door farther, she stepped aside, and he walked into her bedroom, sweeping his arms around her. Damn. She smelled good. Felt soft. His mouth watered, and his cock hardened. He had an instinctual need when it came to her.
“I saw you guys come in.” Her cheek was pressed to his chest and her arms wrapped around him, not in a worried way but more as if she needed him too.
“Saw you looking.” His lips dropped to the top of her hair, pressing a kiss. “Liked that you were looking. Even if you shouldn’t.”
She tilted her head back, and her cheeks blushed. Her grin made him want to smile, which totally screwed with his head, and he couldn’t get enough of the feeling.
Her hands knotted in the back of his T-shirt. “Glad you guys are back safe.”
“Glad it’s done.” He dropped his face, forcing her to meet his gaze. Her eyelashes fluttered, and he put heat into a kiss. Her mouth opened, and her tongue touched his, slow and sexy. Her lips on his were the definition of welcome home. “And I’m back here with you.”
An angelic expression softened her features. “What’d you do?”
He shrugged. “Nothing worth talking about.”
“Oh.”
Despite all the lines he’d thrown down over his life and all the ease he normally found talking to women, this wasn’t like that. The other night, he’d charged in and gotten in her face. Now he had no excuse, just a simple desire to hold her.
She sat down on the edge of her bed, nodding as though giving him permission to join her. It never occurred to him that this type of situation would be different than other interactions of the down-and-dirty variety. But now that he was here, not on a mission to get in her face or with a smooth line ready that could walk the pants right off her, he was almost ready to clown himself.
“What’d you do?” he asked.
“Read, mostly.”
“What’d you read?”
She giggled. “Romances.”
That caught him off guard, and he laughed with her. “Alright, then. Didn’t see you as the Fabio type but—”
“No!” She laughed harder. “Not 1980s bodice rippers.”
“I had no clue there are different types.”
“Like the action-packed, supersteamy kind.”
He rolled his lips together, amused and not sure he was ready to admit his curiosity about what made a book supersteamy. “What else did you get into?”
“There’s drama in the village, but I don’t know what about.”
“Oh, yeah.” He could’ve told her that and assumed she was prying for info, but he couldn’t give it to her.
“Yup.”
“And how do you know about that if you haven’t been sitting in your window?”
She shrugged. “I may’ve sat in my window.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, I bet.”
“Probably nothing.”
Shifting on the bed, she dropped her eyes as though she didn’t know what they were there to do, and the truth was, he wasn’t in a familiar spot either. “You came up to hang out?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
She gave him the evil eye, half joking, half scowling. “To get some?”
“No—well, yeah, if that happens. But no, not why I came up here.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Shit.”
“What?”
Javier pulled his hands away. “You’re beautiful, Soph. You’re sweet and unlike anyone I’ve hung out with.”
“Oh, um—”
“I always have the right thing to say, but with you… there’s something that throws me off my game.”
She blinked, innocent eyes widening in surprise. “You don’t have to have game with me, Javier.”
Only a few inches separated them on the bed. He needed to respond, but instead, he simply studied the slope of her cheeks, the grace of her neck. He knew what she tasted like and what she screwed like, and he wanted more of that and the simple truths of statements like there didn’t have to be game. With her, it wasn’t a woman in a bar dying to go home with him and just having fun. It wasn’t taking his pick from the groupies that stalked the dark corners of the underground to nab themselves a battle-hardened street fighter for the night.
He scooted closer, scooping his arm around her side to move her next to him. Instead of kissing her, he palmed her cheek, swiping his thumb to her lips and back up again.
“I’m just me,” she whispered against his thumb. “I think we met under… very honest, raw circumstances.”
Javier had had nothing but cold revenge in his heart that day. He hadn’t been able to breathe for the disappointment until Sophia walked in and caught him in the middle of dejection. And she’d hugged him. She hugged him—the girl who had a shittier day—and at that moment, he felt warmth. Her smile, the sound of her voice, and the carefulness of her touch had made everything right.
“I wasn’t honest with you, Sophia.” His throat stung, not wanting this to end. “Your brother told me not to go near you.”
She pulled him into her arms, and unready for that reaction, he tensed until he breathed in her lavender scent and absorbed the tenderness in her hug.
“Javier.” She pulled back enough to kiss him, doing so harder than he expected and hungrier, too. “When my lips are on yours, everything is okay.”
Yes. It was true. He kissed her back as he laid her down, threading his hands into her hair. This wasn’t even about fucking her but was just the relief that ran through him when she said shit like that. He felt the same calm after getting new ink or after walking away, in the quiet night, as the winner of a bare-knuckle brawl.
They kissed and then stopped and stared until her eyes started to drift. Their fingers were tangled together, and he shifted to give her his bicep as a pillow.
“I grew up too fast. And angry,” he said while staring at her ceiling. “I’m good at what I do, but Colin is a marine just like our team leader. US Marine. Grayson, American Army. Ryder, Australian Special Forces. But I’m foreign. I’m a fighter. I’m just… deadly.”
She didn’t move. “You also have a good heart.”
He blew out a breath, not believing that he was mentioning any of this. “Probably not.”
She pivoted to her side, and her hair brushed his skin. “Why do you say that?”
“I want to hurt someone. A group of somebodies. They hurt my sister, and I want to hurt them back. I want blood.”
They stared forever, and he was sure this was the moment that sweet, innocent Sophia would kiss his cheek then kick him out.
“I’m sorry for whatever happened to your sister.”
And…? But nothing more came. He chewed the inside of his mouth then picked up his arm and pointed to the scrolling letters. Revenge.
Sophia glanced at what he showed her. “I hope you get it.”
He wrapped the arm inked in a promise for blood around the most understanding woman he’d ever met and didn’t want to let go.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Javier woke up with his arms still holding Sophia. Hours had passed, and he’d never let her go. He checked his watch and listened to his stomach remind him he’d skipped dinner. Food would be available by now, but instead of sating that need, he turned to his priority.
Trailing his fingers over the edge of the comforter, he brushed strands of hair away from her sleeping face. “Morning, Soph.”
