Page 25 of Finally

Topher slept most of the way home from the wedding, which left me with a lot of time to think. I’d been trying to keep a professional distance between myself and him ever since I’d lost control and sucked him off in the hallway of his home. God, I’d been such a needy bastard, not even bothering to take his clothes off or let him lie down on a bed. Instead I’d dropped down to my knees and worshipped him with my mouth the way I’d dreamed about so many times. He’d tasted even better than I’d imagined, but between my own emotions and the look in his eyes as he gazed down at me afterward, I’d panicked.

After I took off to my room like a scared little rabbit, I’d managed to settle down enough to crawl into bed. With the taste of Topher still on my tongue and his scent still tickling my senses, I’d taken hold of my cock and brought myself to a release so powerful, it had me fighting back a scream. I was embarrassed about the way I’d treated him, but I couldn’t find it in me to regret what had happened. The attraction I’d felt for him all those years ago was too strong to simply disappear just because he’d decided he no longer wanted me, and ever since he’d shown back up in my life, that attraction had only grown by leaps and bounds. I knew I couldn’t allow myself to go down that road again, however. Losing him once had been hard enough. Going through that kind of pain again might destroy me completely.

I’d spent the next week treating him with the same cool respect I treated all my clients. But as the wedding drew closer, I knew I’d have to take him with me. I couldn’t very well leave him home alone when he’d had threats made against him, and everyone I would’ve trusted him with was already going to be at the wedding. Finally, I’d asked him to go with me, convincing myself on the way there that I could do it. I could keep my distance from Topher and still keep him safe.

Of course, that all started going to hell the moment he’d called me out on my behavior. I immediately felt bad when I realized how it must have felt for him to be there, among strangers, and the one person he knew was refusing to talk to him. Then Nolan had opened his damn mouth, and nearly told the rest of the guys that I’d referred to my client by his nickname. While he didn’t know the history between Topher and me, Nolan was a smart guy, and he’d figured out that there was something going on. I’d recovered pretty quickly, but I knew he wasn’t going to let up until I finally gave him some answers.

Seeing Topher with my friends, laughing at their jokes and listening intently to their stories, had filled me with a strange sense of pride. I loved my friends. They were the most important people in my life, and for some reason that wasn’t altogether clear to me, I wanted him to know them. I also wanted them to get to know Topher and see what an incredible man he was, although I knew it made no difference in the long run. As soon as he didn’t need my protection anymore, he’d send me packing.

I let out a weary sigh. Trying to keep my distance from him was exhausting. Especially when all I wanted to do was hold him the way I’d held him tonight as we danced. I’m sure he thought I was just trying to be nice when I’d asked him to dance, but the truth was, I really wanted to. There were so many things I thought of doing with him when we were kids, things that never happened because it ended before we could. Dancing had been one of those things, so when the opportunity presented itself, I seized it.

Holding him in my arms brought back feelings that I’d never felt with anyone other than Topher Brooks. Yearning, love, and a sense of home. I wanted to trust those feelings. I wanted to hold on tight and never let him go, kissing him until we both were breathless. But how could I when I’d been burned before? Besides, there was no future for the two of us. The reason he’d left me, while it had crushed me, made perfect sense and that reason hadn’t changed. It never would.

Topher roused from sleep when we were only about thirty minutes from home. The look on his face was adorable as he searched his surroundings, blinking his eyes a few times as he tried to wake up. He covered a yawn with his hand then gave me a sheepish look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep the whole way. You should’ve woken me.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. I could’ve kept you company or something,” he responded.

His innocent words caused warmth to bloom in my chest. My hands tightened around the steering wheel as I fought the urge to reach across and run the backs of my fingers down his cheek. “It’s fine. You obviously needed the rest.”

“Yeah, but so do you. You haven’t been sleeping,” he pointed out.

My head jerked in his direction. “How do you know I haven’t been sleeping?”

Topher shrugged. “You’ve got dark smudges under your eyes and you’ve been drinking more coffee than usual.”

I bit back a smile as I realized how closely he’d been watching me. Almost as closely as I’d been watching him. In the privacy of my own head, I could admit that not all of it had to do with security. I wondered if he had any idea that he’d just given himself away, but the sleepy look on his face told me that he probably didn’t. “I’m used to getting by on little to no sleep. It’s something they train you for in the Marines. We had to be prepared for anything at any time, especially out in the field.”

Topher turned his head to look at me as I offered the first piece of personal information about myself. I could tell he was being cautious as he asked, “What kind of work did you do?”

“I was Force Recon, or FORECON as we call it. I specialized in intelligence gathering, search and seizure and raids behind enemy lines,” I explained.

Topher shivered beside me. “Sounds dangerous.”

I nodded. “It could be at times, but I had a great team and we were good at our jobs,” I answered proudly.

“Why did you quit? Being a Marine was all you ever talked about as a kid.”

I took a deep breath. It was still painful to talk about. I’d been happy being a Marine, proud of the fact that I’d made something of myself when no one had ever expected me to. Well, no one but the man sitting beside me. Maybe that’s why I thought it was okay to open up to him. “I didn’t quit. I was injured and forced into an early retirement,” I explained.

“What happened?” Topher asked quietly. “Wait, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s okay,” I assured him. “I was in Iraq. My team and I were keeping tabs on a prominent member of Al-Qaeda. He’d been holed up in his compound for several weeks, but we’d been able to listen in on some of the meetings he’d had with other members of the group. Meetings where they discussed the murder of thousands of people like you and I would talk about the weather,” I said with a shake of my head.

“Anyway, our job was to stop them. We knew we had no choice but to kill him and as many of the others as we could before they could put their plan into action. So, we started putting together a plan of our own. We gathered enough intel that we knew exactly who was staying in which rooms, which of them had families staying with them, and even what they’d had for dinner. We memorized the layout of the property so that we’d be able to conduct the raid under cover of nightfall, and then we waited. A few days later, when there was no moon overhead, we made our move.

“We picked the guards off fairly quickly and silently so we wouldn’t alert our intended targets, and then we made our way into the main house. Of course, you can’t plan for every eventuality, like someone needing to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I was making my way down a long corridor when a man stepped out of the bathroom. He saw me and gasped and I fired off a round, but not before he shouted out to the others. Next thing I knew, there was gunfire ringing out all over the place. I couldn’t even keep track of which was friendly and which was enemy fire.” I glanced over at Topher, wondering if hearing all this would be too much for him. His skin looked pale, but that could’ve been the way the lights were shining from the dash. Either way, he was listening intently, so I continued.

“Then someone opened fire in the hallway, and I dove into a nearby room, only it wasn’t empty, and its occupant was waiting for me. I found myself in a standoff with the man, and for the first time in my career, I thought I was going to die. We stood there, me screaming in English and him in Arabic and neither of us willing to give in. I couldn’t. I knew if I did, I was a dead man and I suppose it was the same for him.

“My buddy, Tank—his name was actually Theo, but he was built like a tank so that’s what we all called him—he’d managed to take out the guy in the hallway and then came looking for me. Tank walking through the door was just the distraction I needed. As the man’s eyes darted to the doorway, I fired several rounds into him. He was dead before he hit the ground, but his gun went off and I was hit in the leg. The bullet nicked my femoral artery and I probably would’ve died there in that house if it hadn’t been for Tank’s quick thinking. He applied pressure and made sure I didn’t bleed out before one of our choppers showed up to get me to a hospital.”

Topher gasped. “Oh, God! I had no idea. You could’ve died and I never would’ve known. I could’ve lost—”

“Hey, hey, hey. I’m okay. I’m right here and I’m okay,” I said soothingly, reaching over to take his hand. His hands clamped down hard on mine and I could feel him trembling. I was surprised at how upset he was. I knew some people found it upsetting to hear war stories, but this was more than that. He seemed genuinely upset over the fact that I’d nearly died. Of course, he is, idiot. Even though he couldn’t love you back didn’t mean you two hadn’t been friends once upon a time.

“I’m sorry. I guess I shouldn’t have told you all of that,” I told him regretfully.

“No, I’m glad you did.” I shot him a skeptical look and he rushed to explain. “No, really. I’m glad you felt comfortable telling me that. I just hate that that happened to you. When you would talk about joining the Marines, I always pictured the training part of it more than the actual combat. I never thought about the danger you’d be putting yourself in. I guess that was pretty naïve, huh?”

“No, it’s not naïve. That’s what most of us want for the people back home—to feel safe and be able to go on about their lives without worrying because we were there to keep them safe. It’s part of the job we signed up for and other than that last part, I loved it. I loved everything about being a Marine and it tore me up to have to leave my team. Fortunately, I met Micah not long after I moved back to Chicago and I became a part of another team.”

“They’re a great group of guys and it’s obvious how much you all mean to each other. You’re a family,” Topher said.

“Yeah, they’re pretty amazing,” I said, smiling as I pictured my friends.

Topher squeezed my hand and I looked down, surprised to see our fingers still entwined together in his lap. I’d forgotten that we were even holding hands, and God help me, I didn’t want to pull away. Looking back at the road, I steered with one hand the rest of the way to his house.

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