Page 46 of Made for You
This can go to a person’s head, though. Especially when many of the support systems in place at whatever military base or compound are made to prop up the confidence, skill, health, and welfare of the warriors. Nutritionists, trainers, special training ops that doubled as borderline luxury vacations… it sounds ridiculous on one hand, but in another way, it makes sense. And when you’re the guy training to infiltrate some far-off reach and kill bad guys or rescue American hostages and literally take a bullet for the president or some other head of state—it’s not just for the Secret Service, folks—you start to believe it’s becauseyouare necessary and chosen and at times, invincible.
I’d reflected on that mindset more than once in the last year or so since I’d left active duty. I’d inched away from the action the last two years of my career, but for a solid ten years prior to that, I’d been EMU, and I’d been the best. An elite soldier in one of the most illustrious fighting forces ever to have existed.
And yet.
And yet, since leaving, I’d come face-to-face with my humanity, my mortality, and my struggle to do simple things more than I liked to admit. The transition hadn’t been easy, but all things considered, I had no regrets about how I’d handled going from demigod status to regular-guy land.
There are always small moments where I think about this odd shift—going from escorting the President through a war zone one day to tripping over the cobblestone on my front walk the next. The glare of that change could burn a little sometimes, but I hadn’t felt it like that in a while now.
No, lately, I’d felt this welling sense of gratitude for the shift. The systematic deflating of my ego, of my sense of self-importance waning, had only brought me closer to reality—or at least, my new reality. I didn’t need to feel superhuman anymore. The mission set ahead of me wasn’t one that required a sense of exceptionalism that would keep me sharp, focused, and steeped in the belief that I could accomplish whatever task my government had asked of me.
What I needed now more than ever was the ability to get down into the realities of life with Ki, and I hoped soon, with Nikki.
Having a brilliant, beautiful woman I couldn’t stop thinking about sitting in my living room when I got home amounted to no small thing. It hit me in the gut, stealing my breath and causing an ache in my heart. The scent of cookies greeting me, an occurrence I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced, made me oddly homesick.
It couldn’t have been for my childhood. My mom hadn’t struggled as much when I was younger, but she’d never been the cookie baking type. Or, maybe she would’ve been, but she’d always had to work.
Setting my keys down, I took in the evidence of a used kitchen—a large mixing bowl drying in the rack by the sink, a wooden spoon and metal beaters next to it. A tray of cookies on the stove, about half of them gone. Everything else had been tucked away save a small grocery bag of what I guessed were ingredients sitting at the end of the counter closest to the door.
My heart thudded a slow, heavy beat like this all meant something. The scent-memory effect had addled my brain, apparently, because the fact that Nikki had made cookies with or for Kiley felt like something oddly close to heartbreaking, but in a curiously good way.
What is this?
“Oh, hey, I didn’t hear you come in.”
Nikki’s soft smile only heightened the effect of the moment, as did her quick rise from the couch and movement toward me like she was glad I was here. Like she’d been waiting for me to come through that door—looking forward to it.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” I said, my voice a low rasp.
She blinked, startled by my tone, maybe. “How was your afternoon?”
Gazing at her as she approached, I could hardly remember anything before the moment I walked in. My mind had slowed and stuttered to a stop when I’d come through the door, a sense of rightness andhomehitting me so completely, I was making a fool of myself now.
“Good. Fine.”
She tilted her head and reached for my hand, the contact with her fingers sending delight shivering through me. “You sure?”
Now that she’d made contact, I took the liberty to tug at her hand and pull her closer, into a hug. A breathy chuckle slipped out against my neck as though I needed one more thing to solidify the visceral overwhelm of the moment, and her arms wrapped around my torso.
“Seriously, Bruce, are you okay?”
The slight edge of alarm confirmed just how oddly I’d been acting, but I couldn’t pull away from her just yet. I didn’t want to break the closeness between us to talk or try to explain my thoughts. So I tucked my face into her auburn hair and let my lips graze against her neck as I said, “I’m fantastic.”
Her body moved with her chuckle, then deflated with relief. “I thought something was wrong.” She held me tighter, evidently not immune to the moment.
Slowly, so slowly, I brushed my nose and lips along her skin, the tender place behind her ear, savoring the soft huff when I pressed a kiss just above her shoulder. One more second of this, and then I’d pull back and we’d move on to the talking.
Her hands slid into my hair and she leaned to the side, the beautiful sweep of her collarbone and shoulder more exposed now. And instead of moving away, I set out on the trail she’d laid before me, one press of lips to skin, one flick of my tongue, a failure to resist letting my teeth edge into her just a bit before soothing over it with another kiss.
My hands were steady at her waist, but the small gasp she made, the way she urged me closer with those fingers in my hair, had all my usual logic oozing into the floor, trampled by the bonfire of need that’d risen up in me since I’d crossed the threshold into this house.
So I moved, sliding my hands over the curves of her to her hamstrings and lifting right as she read the action and hopped. A feral sound loosed in my chest, approval for her response and maybe an unleashing of something, too. She sat on the edge of the counter and I stepped between her legs, meeting her eyes for long enough to send fire into my veins before I nipped at her mouth, barely brushing the beautiful arches of her top lip with my own.
“The only thing that’s wrong is that I can’t stop thinking about you.” My voice was low and gruff, and my body hummed with barely leashed desire.
Her nails scraped along my scalp, and her mouth tipped up into a smile. “I’m not sure that’s a problem—only if you say it is.”
I chuckled low and it sounded a bit sinister. Still, something in me felt this moment was weighty—with all the wanting, yes, but with a gravity that meant things I couldn’t decipher right now with her scent mingling with the sweetness of the cookies and her hands urging me closer.
