Page 68 of Seeking Vengeance
Taser stopped laughing immediately. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t push me. I’ve got the scars, and Shane still has nightmares.”
Wait. Wings? T-Man? They knew each other?
“Hey, I think she’s coming around,” Taser said. “I’m outta here, dude. Good luck. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Try not to level my cabin in the meantime, will you?”
Nicki didn’t hear him leave—Taser was the original spook—but she sensed that he had gone.
Sean lifted the corner of the cloth, and she found herself staring into two beautiful crystal-blue eyes that crinkled when he smiled at her.
“You okay?”
She blinked. “You know Taser,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Sean sighed. “Timothy? Yeah, I know him. We went through BUD/S together, ended up in the same SEALs unit. Haven’t seen him in years. Now, I’m thinking I should have shot him when I had the chance.”
She blinked again. “You knew? About me? About the Chameleons?”
“No,” he answered honestly. “It was Ian who figured it out. I didn’t know T was involved until negotiations began.”
“Negotiations?”
He put the cloth to the side and pushed a lock of hair from her face. “To get you back.” He spoke as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Where were you hurt?”
Nicki blinked again. “Hurt?”
“That prick Marscone. Where did he get you?”
“How did you—”
“Mick picked up traces of your blood in the bedroom at the house.” At Nicki’s look of disbelief, he shrugged and added, “He’s a genius.”
Nicki’s hand went to her abdomen. Sean lifted her top, his face hardening when he saw the red line beneath her navel, extending from one side to the other. He seemed to grow right before her eyes, getting larger, harder, meaner. But when his fingers traced the scar, his touch couldn’t have been gentler.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered huskily. “I should have protected you. I should have known.”
Nicki was floored. He was blaming himself for what had happened? One look into his eyes, and the pain she saw there confirmed it. In that moment, she lost the few remaining pieces of her heart, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was being given the opportunity of a lifetime. She sure as hell wasn’t going to waste it.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?” He looked at her with tormented eyes.
“Yes, I will marry you.”
Sean’s eyes darkened to that lovely sapphire she loved so much, the color that told her he was feeling especially strong about something. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
* * *
Sean’s heartexploded in his chest—or felt like it did—so powerfully did her words affect him. He hadn’t realized until that point just how unsure he was of her answer. If she had said no, it wouldn’t have stopped him from trying that much harder to get her to see the error of her ways, but it was much easier this way. She was hiscroie, he was hers, and they were meant to be together.
Suddenly, she was in his arms. He needed to feel her, to hold her, to possess her until she was incapable of forgetting to whom she belonged. She’d said yes, agreed to become his wife. There would be no take-backs, no second thoughts.
She kissed him back so passionately that it stole his breath away. His hands tangled in her hair as she replaced the breath she’d stolen with her own. When her heart pounded forcefully against his chest, his rose to the occasion and matched hers, beat for beat.
“Mine,” he growled, dropping down to press kisses along her jaw, nipping at the delicate skin on her neck and delighting in the little whimpers that escaped her.
