Page 6 of Wolf
He nods knowingly. “I fucking know. I guess I should be grateful that someone out there let me have some closure by allowing someone to find herbody.”
“That’s true,” I answer as he moves behind his weaponagain.
“I just wish I saw it coming, that’sall.”
“Metoo.”
“Ready to go again?” he asks, finally letting it go, at least fornow.
“Yeah.”
We spend another hour practicing. When we’ve used up the time slot, we dismount our weapons and start to wrapup.
“I’ll look you up when this job is finished,” I tell him as we walk back to ourvehicles.
“See you on the flipside.”
“Take care ofyourself.”
This is the life we signed up for. Live for God and country. Follow orders. Kill on command. Dieyoung.
3
Thorne
The first time I see my newest pet project from the edge of the woods near her house, I can’t take my eyes off her. A barely legal, sexy as fuck little redhead, and her grandma. Having to watch someone who’s so easy on the eye is a gift. Little Red—my nickname for her. I’d like to believe it’s good karma. A lot of the tougher grunt work has been coming my way the last few jobs I had. But then again, I completed these missions successfully. Still, this assignment will help balance out myportfolio.
Ihope.
Rose Adams is my type to a tee, a real pleasure to watch in her naturalhabitat.
Physically, every one of her qualities were made for me. Red silky hair. Bright green eyes. A pouty mouth. Lush curves. Big tits. A small waist. One hell of a view from theback.
That first day, I observe her helping her grandmother in their flower garden. I pay attention to every curve on her body through the thin t-shirt and Daisy Duke shorts that she’s wearing. The swell of her breasts and the imprint of her pussy are on full display when she bends over to tend to some seedlings. It’s heaven and hell watching her. I’m in heaven picturing my hands on her hips as I fuck her, but I’m in hell too, knowing that little fantasy can never happen. I have to adjust my cock a few times in my civilian camo pants as I take herin.
In the evening when she goes to waitress tables at a strip club, I only have eyes for her. The uniform she wears is a short dress that fits her like a second skin, and high heels that show off her legs and can bring any man to hisknees.
But the longer I keep my eyes on her, the more I realize this girl is not just a sexy package. She walks into a room and nothing escapes her. When she’s not at her grandmother’s side, her eyes betray the sadness she carries around day in and day out. She’s been through a lot in her short years. But in spite of that pain playing on her pretty face, she doesn’t miss a thing going on around her. She seems to be able to anticipate things going on around her long before they can affecther.
I just have to hope she isn’t anticipatingme.
Another thing that intrigues me about her is that she’s fiercely protective of her grandmother. There’s a night that they’re sitting to dinner where the older woman loses her balance. Before the elderly woman has a chance to hold onto anything, Rose is at her side, supporting her weight, making sure nothing happens toher.
As I watch her, I wonder where her parents are, and the pit in my stomach makes me groan as I’m reminded of my own. They’re long passed away now, but the closeness I had to them as a child was gone before I hit my teens. My chest tightens and anger rises in me again, as though I’m reliving the day they sat me down and told me I wasn’ttheirs.
They were never my birth parents, afterall.
I wasadopted.
They adopted me, and yes, I had their unconditional love all during that time. But for a kid to find out he isn’t his parents’ flesh and blood at the age of eleven or twelve, it’s life-altering. It fucking twists you up inside and does permanent damage, if it isn’t handled properly. It does something to you. It shakes your core belief system, and makes you question every fucking thing after that. You think everyone is lying to you, and sometimes, you can’t be sure if you’ll ever trust yourself or believe another human being everagain.
My knuckles go white around my scope as I recall that I spent the next few years lashing out at the world, rebelling against everything. They passed away during my teens, long before I could deal with it like a man, long before I could thank them for giving me something so many troubled kids never had—twelve damn good years and a childhood where I could really just be a kid with no worries. Every so often, the guilt hits me hard. I’ve been back home to Lafayette to visit their graves a few times. It’s fucking hard to stand there, looking at their headstones, knowing we didn’t patch things up before they died. That’s all my fault. I was an ungrateful fuck, a little brat, and I wish someone had knocked some sense into me so I could appreciate what I had before I lost itall.
Some movement at the side of Rose’s house pulls my attention back to the job, but I relax when I see it’s Rose grabbing something from her car. So far, her routine is predictable. There’s no real rhyme or reason I can see on why I was assigned to these two people, but I don’t question myorders.
Fuck.
Thatass.
