Man of Honor (Battle Scars #3) - Diana Gardin Page 0,62

perfect bliss lives.

For the next minute, the only sounds in my office are the breaths we take as we try to gather ourselves again. Finally, I let Mea go and she slides down my body, waking me up again to the sweet way her body sculpts against mine. I can’t let her go far, sandwiching her in my arms between my body and the wall. She’s tiny in the space before me, making me feel like the Incredible Hulk as I tower over her.

“Well, that’s not exactly what I had in mind when I decided to bring you lunch.” She lifts a finger to trace my lips, which makes me remember her words on a dark night in the Challenger.

“Don’t put your fingers where they don’t belong if you don’t want them to end up wet and hot.” My tongue darts out to lick her finger and she smirks, her eyes darkening.

“I like wet and hot.”

Groaning, I pick her up and deposit her back on my desk while I retrieve my clothes and dress hastily. She dresses slowly, not taking her eyes off me in the process. Between us, electricity sizzles as we both replay what we just did over and over again in our minds.

I’m never going to look at my office the same way again. Mea has christened it her spot now, like so many other places in my life she’s taken over.

As I finish buttoning my coveralls, I finally notice the aromas coming from the bag on my desk. “What’d you bring? Now I’m starving.”

She pulls a spread out of the bag, hot deli sandwiches, pickles, chips, and fruit. We divvy the food up between us, and while I sit on my desk chair to dig in, I hate the thought of her being all the way on the other side of the big piece of furniture. So I pull her into my lap, situating her on one side so we can both enjoy the lunch she brought.

“You haven’t heard anything from that bastard, have you?”

It’s how I always refer to her father. He doesn’t deserve the title, and I refuse to give it to him. He will forever be “the bastard.” I can’t stand the haunted look that appears in Mea’s eyes whenever she talks about him, but I can’t risk her not telling me if he attempts to contact her.

Ever since she told me what he did to her…that night in particular it took every ounce of self-control I had not to hunt him down and peel his skin off, bit by bit, just so he could feel an ounce of the pain he inflicted on his daughter. I always knew…there was something underneath every smile, every carefree look, every laugh. The nasty demon known as her father has been hiding just under the surface, haunting her. For years.

When I’m alone, it’s harder. There’s nothing stopping me from finding him, except the fact that Mea would know. And she’d worry about me. If I can spare her one more second of worrying in this lifetime, I’ll do it.

But if he ever decides to attempt to walk back into her life or make contact with her in any way, he’s a dead man. I’ll use every single connection I’ve made over the years as an army Ranger and through the Night Eagle Security team to make sure he never sees the light of day again. And sacrificing my own freedom to make sure he never hurts her again?

It’s nothing to me.

She gives a quick little shake of her head. “Nothing.” Pulling the corner of her bottom lip into her mouth, she nibbles on it, pulling my focus there for a second while she’s lost in thought. “I don’t know what I expected, Drake. I mean, it’s a good thing, right? That he hasn’t found me? But it wouldn’t be hard. I changed my name, but he knows that they would have sent us to live with Aunt Tay and Uncle Wes. They were the only relatives we had.”

I stay silent, listening to her vent her worries. But I’m glad I made sure she stayed close to me during lunch. The contact is comforting for me as well as for her.

“Do you know that Mikah and I had never even met our aunt and uncle? My father alienated my mother from her own sister.”

Shaking my head, I lace my fingers through hers and lift our joined hands to my lips. “Men like him…they have to control it