Page 38 of Seal of Honor
“Two.”
“Older, younger?”
“Both younger.”
She smiled a little, thinking of Bryson, and couldn’t help but draw comparisons between her older brother and Gabe. If the situation demanded it, she had no doubt Gabe would and had killed. Bryson wouldn’t take your life if you crossed him, just everything that made your life worth living. Both men were also cocky know-it-alls in their own ways. Both were fiercely protective. Inflexible. Domineering. The biggest difference was in their attitudes. Bryson tried to play nice, he truly did, and he was careful to never be rude even as he cut you down. Gabe didn’t bother.
Knowing how difficult growing up with Brys had been, she almost pitied Gabe’s little brothers. “Bet you bossed them around all the time.”
He made a noncommittal sound. “I don’t get along with Michael, my middle brother. He’s too much like our father. He even married an ice queen of a woman who is so much like our mother, it’s frightening. And my youngest brother, Raffi? Nobody bosses him around. He’s… uh, free-spirited. You’d like him. He acts on Broadway.”
Something changed in Gabe’s demeanor when he spoke of his youngest brother. Audrey couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but he… softened. “Tell me about him.”
“Where to start?” Gabe stayed silent for a moment, then gave a quiet laugh. “I’ll never forget the look on The Admiral’s face the day Raffi announced he was not going into the military. I believe he said something like he wanted to dance and sing and act and he was going to drama school in New York, fuck you very much.” Pride filled his voice. “Priceless. Our old man looked like he was going to shit monkeys.”
Audrey picked up another strip of burlap, held it in place with her thumb where the last one ended, and lifted his foot to continue wrapping. “Raffi sounds like my kind of guy.”
Gabe’s smile dropped into a dark scowl. “Yeah, well, don’t get any ideas. He’s gay.”
“Even better.” When his frown deepened, she smothered a laugh and finished bandaging his foot, tying the burlap in a tight knot to keep it from slipping. She bent over and placed a gentle kiss on the knot. “There. All done.”
She looked up to find him staring at her with an odd expression on his face. “What, Gabriel? Nobody ever kissed away your pains as a child?”
“No. My mother wasn’t exactly…” He trailed off and seemed to struggle with an inner demon for a moment, then shook his head. “Uh, yeah, you know what? I won’t even make excuses for her. She sucked as a mother. She never should have spawned once, not to mention three times.”
Emotion rose into Audrey’s throat and it took two swallows to choke back the automatic denial that popped to mind. If his mother never had children, he wouldn’t be here now. With her.
Good lord, was that really how he felt about himself? That he never should have been born? What a way to go through life.
“That’s a shame,” she finally managed. “Every child should have someone to kiss their injuries better.”
That odd expression of his turned shuttered, unreadable. “Thank you, Audrey.”
Her heart swelled, which was just plain stupid. A thank you, especially a grudging one, was nothing more than an expression of appreciation, even when coming from a man who rarely said the words. “Any time.”
Kicking off her boots, she crawled up on the feedbags and stretched out beside him. They lay together in silence, listening to the chatter of the guerrillas by the fire. She could make out bits and pieces of the conversation—bawdy observations about her body, crude challenges issued toward Gabe, speculation over how much money they would get from the United States government for two captives, and how they planned to spend said money. As if they would see any of it. She wanted to shout to them that their leaders were playing them for fools, the rich using them to line their own pockets, while they spent their days marching through the jungle, living off blocks of sugar and white rice.
Did they hold her brother in a camp like this? Maybe he was even somewhere in this camp. Had they forced him to march for miles through the jungle? He wouldn’t last long if they had. Bryson never had been a good outdoorsman, hated camping or anything even remotely rustic. Her lovely little hut on the beach in Quepos, Costa Rica had appalled him so much last year that he’d immediately gone out and bought her that awful condo in the tourist trap section of town. Unable to see past the hut’s lack of comfortable amenities, he just didn’t get it. Didn’t get her. But he tried to help her the only way he knew how, and God love him for that.
Tears welled. As much as they didn’t see eye to eye, she still loved her big brother. He had to make it through this. She’d try harder to see things his way, she would. Just as long as they both made it out of this hellhole of a country alive…
CHAPTER 13
“Audrey,” Gabe said very softly next to her ear, drawing her out of her thoughts. She hadn’t felt his body shift toward her, but there he was, crowding her personal space, big as the mountain she’d compared him to earlier. His hand traced lightly down her arm, dipped to follow the curve of her waist, and finally settled on her hip.
His breath tickled her ear. “I have another injury that needs kissing.”
She smiled into the gathering dark. “Do you?”
“Mm.” He rolled her over and propped himself up on one elbow, bending down until his mouth hovered millimeters above hers. “Right…” He bussed his lips over hers, caught her lower lip in a gentle tug that she felt all the way to her womb. “…here.”
“Your injuries seem to be peculiarly localized,” she teased, even as her fingers wound through his dark hair, pulling him closer. The heat of his body was a stark contrast to the cold Andean air, a comfort she had never thought to find here.
Gabe’s reply was a soft, husky chuckle that vibrated against her cheek. “Mm. Very localized.”
He claimed her mouth in the same take-charge way he did everything else, obliterating all but the need to feel more of him. No fear. No worry. Even the pain in her blistered feet faded. For a moment, it was just her and him, a man and a woman enjoying each other.
His tongue met and danced with hers, lighting up nerve endings in places she’d forgotten existed. His hand tightened on her hips, drawing her against all that hard muscle of his chest, and her fingers snaked into his hair, hugging him closer still.
