Page 32 of Gilded Desires

Fuck. Me.

He’s asking all the questions I don’t have answers to. None of us do.

“You’re not afraid of her not being able to walk away. You’re scared shitless you can’t.” I drink in the way our girl drapes her leg over Rush’s hip. His possessive hold on her even in his sleep. “We all are. Even Rush.”

Aziel re-hooks the end of his towel and I give him an option to consider.

“How about this? We help Raja, do as our CO commanded, and see how we feel about our rule after a couple of times with Belle on stage. Maybe we can make a relationship work.”

“Fuck the rule, man. That no relationship shit is done for me.”

Aziel tosses his coffee over the deck, his face turning a ghostly pale, and memories of his near-death skitter across my memories. I know because I see it when he’s stressed and it’s one of the reasons our commanding officer has ordered us to take some downtime.

My gut clenches and I have to remind myself that Aziel didn’t die on that mission. That he isn’t dead now. He’s just frustrated and scared.

His voice is rough with emotions when he speaks again. “I can feel you’re thinking the same as me, but you always have a hard time letting go of control. One thing is for damn sure, though, brother. You can’t hide from what happened tonight with Belle. We’re all tired of death.”

Aziel pauses, dragging my gut through the trenches of darkness we’ve shared with his sudden silence.

He takes his eyes off Belle to look at me with remorse seemingly eating him from the inside out. His next words punch me in the gut, but I can’t say I didn’t see them coming.

“I want out. The question only you can answer is do you want out, too? The CO knows this last mission was rough on us and our time is coming to an end anyway. I’m going to ask for my papers.”

“And Rush? Have you already talked with him?”

“Not yet. But I’d like us both to do that.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Aziel tracks my gaze to see the same thing I do—a piece of heaven waiting for us in my bed.

“I want the peace you see on Rush’s face right now. I want to wake up to more than your ugly fucking mugs seven days a week. I don’t want to worry about not coming home. We are not getting younger. We wait much longer and we’ll end up like my uncle and his friends. Old bastards with no one to love them.”

“Damn it.” His expression is a bleeding reminder that life can go by in a flash and when you finally look up it’s all over. I curse harshly. “Fuck. Okay, I hear you, man. I hear you,” I gruff out a laugh.

Glory and honor shouldn’t be a motivator in life. The first years of our military service were just that. Wild adventure, travel, and knowing you made a difference. Hero shit you never got to write home about.

Now, just a few years short of forty I’m having a hard time justifying my need for adrenaline rushes. Especially when I can get that right here with my brothers and one lovely Belle.

I track Aziel’s movements across the deck and back to bed where he tucks in behind Belle. And I kid you not, her breathing grows easier and from the looks of it there’s an upward tilt to the corners of her lips.

I never thought I would see the day a woman held the possibility of making us completely whole, but she’s in my bed with my brothers right now so I know it’s real.

Those two let emotions drive them. Hell, maybe I do too. But more times than not it’s usually in the opposite direction.

We grew up on the same street, went to school together, went into the military together and became SEALS together. I know what they want, what drives them. And they know me. We forged a bond long before the military. Shedding blood together and for one another only made that connection stronger. Maybe it’s what holds us together.

A year back Aziel nearly died while working to take down a cartel leader. A really nasty piece of work who sold anything that could turn him a profit. Sugar, avocados, women, children, men. And drugs. Lots of fucking heroin, fentanyl, and a new drug that has hit the streets. Some designer shit that is still killing people called Euphoria.

It took us nearly losing one of our trio to learn our connection went deeper than just friendship.

It goes soul deep. And if you ask me, it is the only reason Aziel pulled through though he flatlined three times after taking a direct hit from an exploding IED.

It should have killed him instantly. No way in hell do I think it was sheer luck that he didn’t die. The doctors and nurses are full of shit in that department.

It was us. Rush and me.

I watch my brother in the arms of our woman and give a silent prayer that he’s still among the living. It’s the millionth one in the time since that day.

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