Page 31 of Saved By the Marines (Soldiers Of Misfortune)

How were they moving so fast? It felt like I was being hunted. Making a split second decision, I changed my course and darted off to the side, hoping to throw them off my trail.

It gave me only moments before I heard the heavy footfalls behind me. A man’s heavy breathing was soon distinguishable even with the blood pounding in my ears. It felt like he was breathing down my neck.

A body slammed into me from behind, sending us sprawling to the dirt. I fought with every ounce of strength I had left. I’d somehow landed on top of the man, but as I raked my nails over the exposed skin on his neck he cursed and rolled me beneath him.

Hands captured my wrists, pinning them to the ground above my head and a heavy leg was flung over mine, keeping them still. Even with my vision adjusted to the darkness, I couldn’t see more than a shape of the man looming above me.

“If you do this I’ll come back and haunt you every day until you die,” I snarled at him. Everything had come to a head inside of me and I was like a feral animal, ready to fight to the death. Terror clutched at me, fear rising that it was Crazy Town lying on top of me and he was going to slice me from limb to limb with that awful knife of his.

A deep chuckle sounded and then my heart stopped in my chest. “You’re such a little brat.”

Holding my breath, my brain froze. Could I dare to hope? “Jasper?” I choked out.

“Yeah, Little One. It’s me.”

Sobs tore out of my chest as he released my hands and rolled over until I was cuddled close to his wide chest. The scent of the ocean rolled over me as I buried my face in his neck and cried. I wished I could be stoic about my rescue, but I’d been terrified out of my mind over the last almost twenty-four hours and there was no holding back. Wrapped in his warm arms, I knew one thing for sure. I was safe. Somehow they’d found me. The relief was overwhelming and it didn’t matter that I was lying in the arms of a man who hated me, I took comfort in him.

He let me cry it out and it wasn’t until I was reduced to hiccups that he finally shifted me until he was sitting up and I was sitting sideways in his lap. I wiped my arm over my cheeks, wiping the wetness from my skin. I didn’t even want to think about how dirty I must be after running around out in the wilderness and sleeping in the dirt.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I finally asked in a soft voice. The last thing I wanted to do was start a fight, but I needed to know.

His breath gusted over me, moving my hair with the force of it. “You seriously think I’d be anything other than nice right now?” He didn’t snap at me. In fact, he sounded tired.

“You hate me,” I responded, voice trembling a little. I hated my weakness, but was willing to give myself a break. I’d just been through hell. Even as I said the words, I snuggled closer. He was putting off warmth like my very own space heater and the night had cooled enough that I was cold.

He was quiet for so long I didn’t think he was going to respond. His chest vibrated against my ear when he did. “I don’t hate you.”

“You called me a brat.”

“At first I thought you were. Then I started watching you and seeing who you truly were. You’re kind to everyone-”

“Except you.” My chest warmed at his praise.

He chuckled and brushed a hand over the back of my head. “Except me,” he agreed. “Though I deserved it.”

“Why?” I didn’t need to expand on that. He knew I was asking why he’d been treating me so terribly if he didn’t dislike me. This wasn’t the time or place for this talk, but I needed it. All the fear, all the terror that I had been repressing was coming out now. If I didn’t have this talk now, I might never stop crying.

“You make me fucking ache, Little One.”

My eyes widened and I glanced down.

He must have felt me shift in his lap because he laughed again. “Not there. Well…yeah there, too, but I meant here.” He cupped the side of my head and pulled me against his chest.

His heart thundered in my ear and I blinked back tears. That had to be the nicest, most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me before. “I kissed Wolfe,” I blurted out, then mentally smacked myself in the forehead. Why was I so awkward around hot guys?

He barked out a surprised laugh, making me jump in his arms. I pulled back and peered into his face.

“He never mentioned that.” There was an accusatory note in his words, but he was smiling.

“You’re not mad?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about us, Bailey.”

“Like what?” I countered.

He hesitated. “That’s a talk for another time, not while you’re freezing to death out here.”

I fisted my fingers in his shirt, the material soft beneath my fingers. If we got up from here that meant this was over and he might go back to being a dickhead to me. “Tell me one thing I don’t know about you.”

---