Page 30 of The Story of Danny Rose

“Really?” The hope in his eyes—I wanted to bottle it up and keep it with me.

“Really,” I murmured. “You make all the difference. If I saw you after a rough assignment, I wouldn’t have to worry about feeling alone in my stress, because you know exactly what it’s like.”

He sobered and nodded. “The night terrors are the worst for me.”

For me, it was the anxiety that sometimes arose before I went to bed. But I’d had my fair share of night terrors too.

“Do you have a lot of those?” I wiped my hand on the sheet behind me and just hugged him to me.

“Not anymore—not like before. Sometimes.” He yawned and closed his eyes. “This might sound weird, but regular deployments were way worse than Special Forces missions.”

That didn’t sound weird at all because I felt exactly the same. “I’m with you. Less destruction and mayhem when you’re part of a small unit.”

“Exactly.” He shifted his head toward me and rested our foreheads together. “By the way, the twins are total voyeurs.”

I grinned. “I guess I was too distracted by my boy to notice.”

His cute grin was back. “You say all the right things, don’t you?”

I rumbled a laugh and smooched him because I could.

CHAPTER 6

“Can someone carry me upstairs?” Reese groaned.

I chuckled and pulled into my parking space. We could deal with Danny’s motorcycle later. It was strapped securely in the bed of my truck for now.

“All right. Vacation’s over, boys.” I climbed out to the sounds of their bitching.

It wasn’t my fault. They’d fucking asked for more training.

Danny had initially been a little wary of teaming up with the twins, primarily because after the haze of lust wore off, you were sometimes very aware of what you’d just shared with a crowd. But Reese was fucking shameless, and he’d eyed Danny up and down and proclaimed he had a type now. Then he’d turned to me and said he wanted to be a Daddy like me one day.

He was joking, I was sure.

Either way, it’d broken the ice, and Danny had relaxed some more.

Three days of competitiveness between the boys had followed, and I’d been all too happy to give them assignments.

After grabbing our bags, we left the garage and took the elevator up to my apartment.

Danny slipped his hand into mine, and I gave it a squeeze. He was a little nervous, I could tell. It was just one of the many contrasts about him that reeled me in. The strongest, most capable fighter on a field. But now, someone had claimed him.Ihad claimed him. He wasn’t going back to his apartment in Kentucky, at least not for the next foreseeable future. He’d be staying with me, and I wasn’t letting go.

In my head, I’d decided he could consider himself my property for a year. It was roughly the time I estimated it would take for him to graduate as a Hillcroft operator. And then… Well, I didn’t wanna think about it. I knew what kind of work waited for him in the future.

“I propose we sleep with open doors,” Reese said, stepping out of the elevator.

I snorted and dug out my keys.

Yeah, River and Reese were voyeurs, all right.

Something told me they weren’t completely new to the concept of BDSM, but that was their business. As long as nobody was uncomfortable with the recent changes, I wasn’t gonna worry. The twins could watch all they wanted.

“Fancy building,” Danny noted.

“It’s all PMCs who live here, I swear,” Reese chuckled. “River and I sat in the little park out front one day and had lunch, and everyone who came and went fit the same profile. Male, one duffel, fairly nice car, windows sometimes tinted.”

I smirked to myself and opened the door.

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