Page 81 of Fighting Temptation (Men of Honor 1)
Little does she know it was her who saved me that night, not the other way around.
Leaning up she presses a soft kiss to my mouth. Before she can move away I flip us over so she’s underneath me and kiss her hard, deep and slow. When I pull back we’re both breathing heavily. Sliding my hand up her smooth thigh I grab her hip and rest my forehead against hers, “I’ll always protect you Julia.” And that was the fucking truth. I might not be able to give her everything she deserves, but I am more than capable of giving her that.
She smiles, “I know.” Cupping the back of my neck she brings my mouth to hers again for a quick kiss. Tracing my lips with her finger she looks at me sadly, “Are you going to resent me later for asking you not to go?”
I shake my head, “No baby, it’s not something I have to do, and I wasn’t sure I was going to do it. That’s why I never told you. Seeing you hurt like that,” I shrug, “it just made the decision that I was struggling with easier to make. To be honest I’m surprised as fuck that the Admiral asked us, we’re not his favorite people.”
“How did it happen Jax? I mean, you don’t have to go into details or anything, but I’m curious how you guys were held captive for so long. Didn’t the Navy know where you were?”
Blowing out a heavy breath, I roll off her and bring her with me so she’s draped across my chest. Staring up at the ceiling I think about how much to share with her, “The rescue mission we did, it wasn’t sanctioned. Actually we were ordered not to go. We had just finished a mission that we were sent to do in Iraq. We were there for 2 weeks, learning the territory that we needed to cover and coming up with our plan of action. In that time Cade would leave in the evenings. Wherever he was going had him tied up in knots when he came back. Some nights he came back, I don’t know… maybe relaxed and happy? Then other times he was moody and restless. Sawyer and I didn’t have a clue what the fuck was going on with him…”
“He met someone,” Julia states, interrupting me.
I look down at her in surprise, “How did you know?”
She smiles up at me, “Because he’s a lot like you.”
Huh, well fuck if that isn’t a little true. “Anyways, moving on Miss-Know-It-All,” she giggles at my teasing, “the day before we were supposed to come home Cade was moodier than usual. Something went down the night before in his room. That’s when Sawyer and I realized he was seeing someone, which was a big deal because the guy never sees the same girl twice.” After I say that it strikes me again how similar he and I really are. I clear my throat, “Anyways Sawyer and I decided to take him out for a beer at a local bar we had gone to a couple of times, to try to talk to him. In the middle of our beers a kid came running in. Screaming, crying and yelling at Cade, half in English, the other half in Arabic. Pretty much all we could figure out was, ‘He took her, he took her.’ Cade understood more than we did and seemed to know the kid from somewhere. When the kid finished Cade went fucking crazy. I have never seen him like that. Don’t get me wrong, the guy is lethal, but in a calm way. Anyways, to make a long story short, turns out the girl he was seeing was an American. She was there on a mission trip with her church. Cade got into it, the week before, with some local asshole who was harassing her. As it turns out that asshole was part of some pretty serious shit. He took the girl to punish him. Cade took off half-cocked and ready to shed any blood he had to, but I held him back. Told him we would go to the Admiral and get back up, more resources, he agreed. But when we went to the Admiral, he said no, told us that it wasn’t our problem and we were to have our asses ready to ship out in 10 hours. We fought with him, tried to get him to reconsider but he wouldn’t. Sawyer and I knew Cade wasn’t going to leave her there and we sure as fuck weren’t going to bail on him. The three of us always stuck together through everything.” I shrug again, “So we loaded up with what weapons we could and the kid said he would take us to her. But it was a fucking set up, the kid led us right into an ambush.”
Julia gasps, “Why would he do that?”
“He didn’t have a choice, he was forced to do it. He was the son of one of our captors. Things are different there, boys are raised to start killing from a young age and they follow however their fathers see fit.” I go quiet for a moment, my stomach sinking with dread thinking about what ended up happening to that poor fucking kid.
“So in the end the Navy finally found you guys?”
I laugh sarcastically, “No, we fucking got out on our own. With help from someone on the inside. The only reason why we were honorably discharged was because we made the fucking Navy look good. They didn’t want it outed that we were ordered not to help another American, so disclosures were signed and the three of us walked away with a big settlement.”
“Did you guys get the girl out?”
My chest tightens as bile fills my throat, thinking about more than one American girl, “Ya, but… not before she was hurt.”
“Oh no,” Julia hugs me a little tighter, “Why isn’t Cade with her now?”
I shrug, “I don’t know and he doesn’t like to talk about it.”
