Elite Metal-ARE-epub (16 page)

No one would miss him if he disappeared. He shrugged to himself, flinching at the sound of the wailing child squirming in the arms of the woman sitting next to him.

For a guy almost 6’4” a coach seat was small on a good day, and today was
not
a good day. Bumped from an earlier flight—a first class flight—his day had taken a nosedive.

And getting booted probably wasn’t for any good reason either. Maintenance or overbooked or someone had a hangnail, whatever the fuck reason didn’t matter. What it all boiled down to was he was on the last flight out of California headed to Colorado and he wasn’t about to spend the night in the damn airport.

Colorado.

Home?

Not even close.

Where he parked his bike?

That worked.

Another agonizing shriek lit up his eardrums and he scowled at the little bugger.

A tiny human shouldn’t have the ability to be so loud. The volume seemed to echo on the plane as though it was full of kids trying to break the sound barrier, but that wasn’t accurate at all.

There was only one.

One kid.

Making all that noise.

And of course it was parked right next to him.

Every so often when the kid finally had to stop to suck in a breath he heard two things—a soft voice shushing and something akin to a lullaby.

Watching them out of the corner of his eye from behind sunglasses, he ground his teeth together when the baby opened its mouth again and let out a fresh cry. Watching probably wasn’t the best description. Glaring? Yeah. More his style.

He wanted to offer something to help or at least shut the kid up, but he didn’t have a fucking clue what to do.

Ask him how to defuse a C-4 bomb? Done.

Need to know how to wire a multi-story building to detonate simultaneously through a remote phone call? He was your guy.

Or at least he used to be.

He glanced over at the kid’s mother again, willing her to look up at him. Maybe he could glare right at her, but she was whispering to the baby. She was hidden behind a veil of pretty brown hair, rocking the kid slowly back and forth.

There wasn’t much space she could move nor could she even stand up because they’d had turbulence from the moment they took off and the seatbelt sign remained red. No one out of their seats, not even the flight attendants.

Throughout the flight she’d tried talking, feeding, patting, bouncing, singing, and trying to use one of those plastic bee-bee…pookie…whatever the hell people called those suck on things for babies.

Nothing worked.

After a couple hours, when he was ready to deplane at thirty thousand feet he finally turned to offer to put a muzzle on the kid. “Anything I can do?” came out instead which made him scowl harder.

Brown eyes the color of molasses glanced up at him. They were filled with tears and he wanted to comfort her.

He didn’t comfort anyone.

Ever.

He was fucking going soft over some chick and her screaming kid.

Great.

His brothers from his team would have a field day with that.

She nibbled her bottom lip. “No. Thank you, though.”

Awareness rippled through him with the force of a hurricane at the sound of her voice.

You should be
… The words sat poised on the tip of his tongue so he opened his pie hole and let her have it. “No problem.”

What the fuck?

Then she did something beyond stupid. She smiled.

Blood rushed to his cock, reminding him, in a very real way exactly how long it had been since he’d had a woman beneath him. She glanced away so quickly he wondered if the spark of connection existed only in his head or if it had actually happened.

She could have said anything after her first four words. Could have told him to screw off or said something to him in German.

He didn’t have a clue.

Without trying to speak to her again, which had nothing to do with the fact his mouth had gone dry and he didn’t have a clue what else he would say to her, he grabbed ear buds from his carryon bag. He shoved them in his ears, into his droid and turned the music up until it rattled his skull.

He closed his eyes to help him relax.

She smelled pretty.

Not fucking helping.

His eyelids flicked open and he caught sight of her hair again.

He wanted to touch it so he crossed his arms, and clenched his hands into fists.

Touching the soft strands wouldn’t be enough. He wanted to fist a handful while he had her cuffed to his bed and stare into her chocolate eyes as he sank inside her for the first time.

He already knew what she would sound like—her gasp, moaning into his mouth as he took her. All of her.

Fuck.

The plane descended, falling sharply, and wicked arousal licked up his balls.

It didn’t have anything to do with the small hand latched onto his knee.

Not. At. All.

“Sorry,” she offered in way of apology along with another flick of her gaze up to his. And a grin. She smiled at him. Again.

Did he say anything to her when she let him go?

No.

He grunted though.

He rolled his eyes, knowing exactly why he hadn’t gotten laid in more than ten months. He wasn’t smooth or refined. He liked beer and steak cooked over a charcoal grill. Action movies were awesome and he didn’t go to
the club
on Saturdays to play golf.

There was only one club he wanted to belong to but he couldn’t. A motorcycle club. Was that too much for him to ask? Apparently.

He’d been told it could draw too much attention.

So he rode. But solo.

Always alone.

He clenched his jaw, already tired of—everything.

The plane touched down and he glanced past the woman and looked out the window. The mountains of Colorado were visible in the distance.

It wasn’t home. Never would be. But it was a place for him to rest his head.

That was enough, or so he kept telling himself.

“Here for business or pleasure?”

He glanced at the woman next to him, and her eyes focused on him. He realized all of a sudden that his music wasn’t playing and it was blissfully quiet. The baby had stopped crying. Finally.

He tugged his ear buds free and wound them up to keep from staring at her. The last thing the chick needed was being intimidated.

“Vacation.” Technically he didn’t lie to her. Technically he wasn’t in the military anymore. A former Marine. They’d been disbanded almost two years prior. Funding was cut and Uncle Sam no longer had the moolah to send them to far corners of the globe to do their dirty work.

That was the reason they were given. But they all knew it was a lie. That last mission…

The ink on his back tingled as he thought of his lost brothers. Never forgotten.

Never.

He pushed buttons on his phone so he didn’t focus on the woman who still hadn’t looked away.

It was completely dead.

Great. Another awesome thing he’d have to deal with when he got to his apartment.

He looked at the woman, but her focus was no longer on him. He’d waited too long and she was patting the baby’s back. She’d lifted him—or her up on her shoulder. The baby’s cheek rested on the top, its little mouth opened slightly in an “O”.

A wave of wistfulness hit him out of nowhere.

He wanted to see how soft the baby’s cheek was, wanted to palm its little head and feel the little wisps of hair sticking straight up.

She wore pink. He glanced down and the bag the woman had stuffed beneath the seat in front of her was pink too.

A little girl.

“An ear infection.”

He blinked up at the woman.

“She has an ear infection. Hence all the crying.”

“Oh yeah. Gotcha. Yeah.” Which actually translated to,
that means two shits to me, lady.

Looking away seemed the only option as they taxied to their gate.

He stood as soon as the fasten seatbelt sign went off, tossing his carry on over his shoulder.

The woman next to him struggled to get the bag out of the seat in front of her, while still holding the baby.

He bent down to grab the strap for her, sucking in another lungful of her light perfume. Fuck she smelled good.

The bag had unfortunately gotten caught some time during the flight and he couldn’t get it loose. Not without getting down on his hands and knees between the seats, which he would not fit between.

“Can’t get it. Caught.” He put his bag down in the seat he’d just vacated. “If I hold the baby can you get it?”

What.

The.

Fuck.

“Sure.” She leaned forward, cradling the baby’s head and handed her to him. Just like that.

Boom. He held a tiny human. A little girl. Asian decent maybe.

She wiggled in his arms for a second. Let out a little mewling cry as if she were really going to let it fly again. But he resettled her in his arms, held her close, and started rocking her back and forth. In no time at all her little face relaxed and she went limp in his arms, completely asleep again.

He had no clue where any of his actions came from and looked down at the woman expecting her to chastise him for something he did wrong.

Tears tracked down her cheeks as she brushed them away.

“What? Did I do something stupid?”

“Nothing. You’re a natural. Have kids of your own?” she asked before getting the bag unstuck.

“Fuck no.” Cussing in front of a baby. Classy. “I mean, hell no. Dammit.” He huffed out a breath and closed his eyes determined not to make a complete fool of himself.

She laughed and patted him on the arm as she stood up, and shouldered the diaper bag. After moving to the aisle, she took the little girl from him with expert ease. Somehow the baby never woke up.

“Any other bags up here?” He tried to act somewhat civilized which had nothing to do with the fact he missed the weight of the baby in his arms or how the woman’s touch burned a path along his flesh. He even motioned to the bins above her head, as if she didn’t already know what he meant.

“No, this is it.”

“Don’t babies normally have a lot of crap?”

She tried to smile again, but it never reached her eyes and she was instantaneously miles away. “Not anymore.” That’s what he thought she said, but one of the flight attendants made some kind of announcement at that exact moment.

Her subtle perfume reached him one last time as she pulled her hair out from under her shoulder strap. He’d never wanted to bury his head in a woman’s hair as bad as he did right then.
So pretty.

“Thank you.”

He looked up at her wondering if he’d completely lost his mind and said it out loud. “For what?”

She glanced at his pants, his camo pants, and his camo bag, which he’d shouldered again.

“Your service. Whatever you do. I thank you.”

His dog tags burned his skin beneath his shirt. He nodded, unable to utter the lie he’d become. He wasn’t military anymore. Nothing but a cast off. Dead. Invisible in plain sight.

The baby’s arm fell limp with sleep off of the woman’s shoulder. Before he knew what he was going to do he reached up, running his finger along the skin on the back of her hand.

She was so tiny. Her little fist opened, latching onto his finger with a decidedly firm grip.

There he stood.

A man no one knew existed, and his heart beat in his chest for the first time since he’d lost his brothers.

The pretty woman moved forward as people deplaned, unknowingly pulling the baby’s hand away from him.

It shocked him how much he wanted the simple touch back.

As she adjusted the bag on her shoulder he noticed there was no wedding ring, nor any indication she’d ever worn one.

Relief washed through him and he had no clue what the hell to do with his reaction.

As they paused, he gripped the strap of his bag tightly to keep for reaching for the little girl’s hand again.

People at the front of the aircraft moved again. He thanked his lucky stars, convincing himself the pain in his stomach was because he was hungry, not because he ached seeing them walk away.

Soon enough they were out in the terminal walking toward the exit doors. He slowed his pace so it didn’t seem like he was following her.

Because he wasn’t.

Mostly.

She ducked into the bathroom and he happened to feel the need to look at an extremely colorful, way over-priced airport t-shirt he would never buy nor wear.

A few minutes passed and the woman emerged from the bathroom. Her eyes were red as if she’d been crying and upset by something. Someone. He narrowed his gaze at the other women walking out behind her.

He wanted to throttle anyone who would harm her. Either of them.

No one acted as if they knew her, and neither did the woman. She looked tired which he hadn’t picked up on earlier. Weary down to her bones, but she kept walking.

He expected her to walk to baggage claim, still waiting for a mountain of suitcases with the baby crap surely she had for the little girl still asleep in her arms.

Instead, she strode outside and walked toward the parking garage. All the lights were on and he hadn’t realized how early it got dark.

So he was being a gentleman, walking her to her car. She just didn’t know it.

Definition of a stalker, dumbass.

Unable to help himself he kept a safe distance from her and…

Nothing.

He rolled his eyes and headed off in the opposite direction of his Harley, which he was so ready to open up on the highway and blow the wistful bullshit out of his head.

Then he stopped dead in his tracks.

He was single.

She seemed single.

It wasn’t too long ago when he used to know how to actually talk to a woman to get her out of her panties, and he was pretty sure he could remember how to do that for the right person.

The chick slowly moving away from him, digging in her purse surely for her keys could definitely be the right person.

He wouldn’t know unless he actually cut the silent and deadly act and went and talked to her.