American Made (Against the Tides #2) (14 page)

“I’m fine,” he says, keeping his back turned to me.

I call him a liar and he shrugs me off. I don’t have to ask what’s wrong because I already know. It has slowly grown more obvious over the past few weeks since he told me what was going on with Ariana. He’s worried and I can’t blame him. I’d be just as worried if it were Emerson. As I’m grabbing my bag, Knox disappears without saying anything so I just check out and head for my truck instead of waiting for him.

I walk with my head down, checking messages on my phone. I’ve been waiting to hear from Emerson all day since she has the next two days off from training, but there’s nothing from her. She’s done nothing but eat, sleep, and breathe this training course they’ve had her doing since Rush told her the position was hers. I miss her, my cock misses her, but I keep my mouth shut and cheer for every new accomplishment she hits. There aren’t many people that can go through what she has and made a comeback like she is.

“Has it been so long since you’ve seen me that I’ve become invisible?”

I lift my head, not even bothering to try and hide my smile. I toss my bag into the bed of my truck and walk around to where Emerson is sitting with her legs dangling off the tailgate. I run my hands up her legs and step between them.

“What?” She laughs. “No hello?”

“Sorry. Just had to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.”

Emerson tosses her head back and laughs again. Dropping my head, I skim my nose along her neck and breathe her in. When I reach her mouth, she opens for me, letting her tongue slide along mine. I groan. Tasting her does nothing but remind me how long it’s been since I’ve touched her.

“It hasn’t been that long,” she whispers when we finally pull apart.

“A week is too long for me to not be able to touch you.”

She grins and lets go of my arm so she can run her fingers over the material covering my dick. All thoughts of anything but sinking into her perfect body vanish from my mind as my cock springs to attention.

“I’ll make up for it, I promise.”

I shake my head, trying my hardest not to lose my shit and take her right here in the middle of the parking lot. “You’re killin’ me, Emerson.”

“Why, baby, what’s wrong?”

I grab her hand, pinning it against the tailgate and I crowd her. “I want nothin’ more than to rip these jeans off you, wrap these perfect fuckin’ legs around my waist, and fuck you ‘til you lose your voice from screamin’ my name.”

Pushing me back, Emerson slides off the tailgate and steps away from me. I watch her, wondering if I said something to insult her but when she turns back and smiles at me, I see the fire burning in her eyes.

“Better keep up or I’m startin’ without you.”

Slamming the tailgate shut, I jump into the truck and follow her back to her house. My cock throbs the entire ride because I can’t stop thinking about everything I plan to do to her. When we pull into her driveway, she doesn’t even bother pulling into her garage.

I jump from the truck, rush around to where she’s sliding out of hers, and pin her against the side of the truck. I kiss her like I’m never going to get the chance to do it again as she claws at my shirt. I’m sure the neighbors are loving the show we’re putting on in her driveway for them, but since I don’t feel like stopping because we’re being arrested, I pick her up and carry her inside without pulling away from her mouth.

Stepping down into the kitchen, I make it as far as the island before realizing that we’re not making it past that right now. I set her down and make quick work of my shirt before pulling hers over her head. 

“So,” I say, slowing my pace once her jeans hit the floor. “I must’ve heard you wrong back there. I swear I heard something come out of that pretty little mouth about startin’ without me.”

I grab her thighs and quickly yank her toward me. She laughs until I rock my hips, dragging the rough fabric of my jeans against get pussy. Her eyes drift closed and she moans softly.

“I better be mistaken.”

“Got you to hustle up, didn’t it?”

Her eyes meet mine and the fire burning in them makes me forget about what I was talking about. Running my fingers down her thigh, I let my thumb sweep over her clit and follow the same path with my mouth.

Emerson lets her head fall back and the ends of her hair graze the counter. Just like I hope she will, she lets herself forget all the stress she’s under and focuses on what I’m doing to her. It doesn’t take long before she’s dragging me up her body and begging me to take things further. I love the way her fingers dig into my skin, the way my name falls from her lips, and how it seems like her body was built to fit mine perfectly as I thrust into her.

By the time we’re finally done we’ve made our way around the kitchen, across the hall, and end up on the couch. I drag the blanket off the back of her couch and drape it over her naked ass.

“We’re not puttin’ clothes on until we have to go back to work,” Emerson mumbles against my chest.

“Works for me,” I laugh. “We’ve got the last week to make up for.”

I skim my fingers along her spine as I try to slow my breathing. The longer we lie here, the more comfortable it feels. I’ve never been the type to stick around, it was never comfortable. It was never this.

“You all right?” Rush asks, nudging my shoulder after I lock the weapons cage back up. 

“Bullshit! It’s complete fucking bullshit, Reid.” I take a deep breath and try to ignore the yelling coming from the office behind us.

I blow out the breath and turn toward Rush. “What’s that about?” I ask, ignoring his question when the yelling continues. Miles, the explosives expert on the team, storms by us. If looks could kill, well… I’d be in a body bag alongside the twenty year old I just had to shoot because he was holding a doctor hostage.

“Don’t worry about it.” When he realizes that I’m lost in my thoughts, he grabs my arm and forces me to look at him. “Talk to me, Emerson.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just been a while since I’ve had to do anything like that.”

That’s a lie…
That
is something I’ve never had to do
.

Reid steps out of his office, motions for us to follow him, and disappears around the corner. I shrug Rush off so I can follow him and when I step into the conference room the tension is suffocating. I have no doubt that the reason Miles is pissed off has something to do with me. He’s hated me since the day I showed up, fondly nicknaming me Ice Queen by my second day. I think I’d understand it more if it wasn’t only him that was hostile toward me for taking the position on this team.

Rounding the table, I drop down in my chair and toss my hat onto the glossy surface. As Reid and the rest of the team start the recap of what happened, I get lost thinking about what I just had to do. It fells different than what I did overseas. I know it shouldn’t, but it does and that confuses the hell out of me.

“I had it
under control
, Reid!” Miles yells, thankfully pulling me from the hellish replay my mind was putting me through. “Rush didn’t have the shot, I get that, but I had the situation under control. There was no reason to make the trigger-happy, new girl, Alpha sniper when I had it—”

“Under control?” Rush says, cutting him off mid-sentence. “There
was
no
under control
in this situation, Miles.”

“I had it!” he screams back. “There was no reason to let
her
take that shot!”

“What the fuck is your problem with me?” I snap, standing up so fast that my chair flies back and hits the wall. Slapping my hands against the table, I lean toward him, never letting my eyes leave his. “I get that I’m a new member on this team and that you guys are a family. But why is it that out of everyone in this room
you
are the only one that has a problem with me? Is it because I’m a fuckin’ woman?”

Miles stays quiet and doesn’t move. I know he’s trying to prove that I don’t intimidate him and that’s fine. I’m not trying to intimidate him, I just want answers. This is a team and we can’t work correctly together if we have issues like this.

“Sit down, Hollis.” When I don’t respond to Reid, Rush barks out my name. Grabbing my chair, I drag it back to the table and sit down. I haven’t been here long but I know that disobeying orders isn’t a good career move. “Now… we all know that there was no getting that kid under control. He was sick. He was dying. He had no hope of getting better, and he didn’t want to go through that. As hard as we tried, there was nothing else we could do. As hard as it was, it was a judgment call I had to make to keep that doctor alive because the subject kept escalating. I’m sorry if you don’t agree with my call, Miles, but it was just that: my call.”

“Still shouldn’t have been her to take the shot,” Miles growls and as much as I try to remember that I was told to be quiet, I can’t.

Shoving to my feet again, I quickly make my way to where he is sitting and spin him around. I wrap my hands around the arms of his seat, squeezing while I get in his face. The voice in my head is yelling at me to sit the hell back down because this won’t help anything, but I ignore it. 

“Would you rather it have been you, Miles? Did you want to be the one to take that kid’s life today? To be the reason that he doesn’t get to go home tonight, or that his parents don’t get to spend another day with him? Do you? Because I honestly didn’t.”

“Could’ve fooled me. You took that shot without even hesitating. You took away any chance that he had to make the most of what time he had left.”

“Because that’s what I’ve been trained to do!” I yell. There isn’t more than two inches between our faces, but he doesn’t even flinch. “When you spend year’s doin’ this and knowin’ that half a second could mean the difference between the rest of your team comin’ back to base breathing or in boxes you learn not to hesitate! An order to shoot is a fuckin’ order to shoot!”

Pushing out of the chair, Miles forces me back so he can stand toe-to-toe with me. Around us everyone is telling us to stop but by the look in his eye I can tell neither one of us is done yet.

“Does it feel good?” he asks quietly, his eyes narrowing. “Is that why you got out of the military and immediately applied for this? Was it because you missed being the person to take a life?”

Just the fact that someone could think that makes me want to vomit.

“You’re completely fucked in the head, you know that?”

“It’s the only reason that explains why you would fight as hard as you did during your entrance exam to get a spot that could’ve been filled internally.”

Anger flashes in his eyes, telling me everything I need to know but he isn’t saying. He wanted the position but they gave it to me and that’s why he’s pissed off. He’s baiting me. I know it but I still can’t stop.

“Were you in the military, Miles?” I ask but don’t bother waiting for an answer. “Never mind, I don’t need you to answer because there is no fuckin’ way that anyone who has been through what I have, would say the shit that just fell out of your mouth. When you got to go home at the end of the night, I was in a camp full of people puttin’ their lives on the line to protect yours. While you were havin’ beers with your buddies, I was watchin’ mine get blown up. I spent years earning the respect of the guys I served with so I wouldn’t have to deal with assholes like you who thought they could do a better job just because they had a dick! I don’t do this to kill people, Miles. I never have. I do it to protect them. I’ve killed more people than I care to admit to, but if you think for even a second that killin’ terrorists is the same as an assisted suicide of a sick kid, you’re wrong.”

By the time I’m finished yelling I’m shaking because I’m so upset, but I finally realized what the problem is. The difference—that’s the reason I’ve been so stuck in my head over
this
shooting. 

Meeting his eyes again, I take a step back and swallow hard. “People willing to kill other people with no remorse are a hell of a lot different than a scared kid who can’t handle fallin’ asleep every night wonderin’ if he’ll wake up in the morning.”

“Not if they’re willing to take someone’s life to get what they want.” Realization washes over his face when he thinks about what he just said.

“And you just proved our point. Think about that before you come at me again for takin’ a job you think you can do. There’s a reason you’re in charge of explosives and I wouldn’t dare tell you I could do a better job because I know I couldn’t. But if you can hit a seven-inch target from the same distance I can and not let your person feelings affect your judgment when given an order, I’ll step aside and gladly let you feel like a fuckin’ monster every time you take a life you wish you could’ve saved.”

Instead of standing there and waiting for him to come up with another reason I shouldn’t be doing this, I walk away. I ignore Reid yelling for me to stop and keep heading toward the locker room. Halfway there, I hear Rush’s voice bellow above everyone else’s, making the room go silent.

“I know that somewhere in that thick fuckin’ skull of yours you know there was no talkin’ that kid down, Miles! You tried, Reid tried, and nothing worked! Taking your anger about not getting what you want out on her is bullshit and you know it. Everyone in this room knows you’re pissed off because you were passed over and she was hired. Just like we all know that’s the reason you were riling her up just now but you can just fuckin’ stop. Even if you manage to wear her down and get her to quit, you still won’t be considered. You’re an explosive expert, not a damn sniper, deal with it!”