That was the best he could do. He did need her close. He didn’t open his eyes because he couldn’t. He knew sleep was going to overtake him very soon. He wanted to make certain Ezekiel knew to watch out for her. He hoped he’d said enough, that she knew they were better together than apart.
Amaryllis came around to the other side of the bed. “You know I’m going to get into trouble with the nurses, don’t you?”
“I’ll protect you,” he promised. He thought he smiled, but he couldn’t tell, he was too tired.
She climbed up onto the bed and lay on the sheet, fitting her body next to his, like a glove. She felt good. Right.
“Screw Whitney,” he said softly, turning his head so he could press his lips to the silk of her hair. “I’ll always have this. I’ll always have you. I love you so much, baby.”
“I love you, Malichai. Go to sleep, honey, I’ll watch over you.”
Nice, brother. I’m proud of you.
Sometimes Ezekiel didn’t know when to leave it alone. The burn of tears was back just because he was too damned emotional. Now it wasn’t about his leg. It might be later, but thanks to Whitney and his games, this was all about keeping Amaryllis. She would have gone. She would have traded her life for his leg. He saw that clearly on her face, read it in her mind. She loved him that much. Who would ever be that stupid, that selfish, to trade that kind of love for a body part?
Malichai drifted off to the sound of machines and the scent of Amaryllis’s hair. One arm was around her waist, the other, his hand was on his hip, feeling the pain all the way down his nonexistent leg. He let go of that reality and just hung on to Amaryllis.
“Is he asleep?” Ezekiel asked.
“He appears to be,” she answered softly. “It’s hard to say.”
“I hate this for him. Thank you for loving him enough to make that offer, but stay for him. He needs you with him. Especially now more than ever. He needs to know he’s worth it to you to stay with him in spite of the fact that he doesn’t have a leg.”
Amaryllis stroked a light caress along Malichai’s rib cage. “I’d give him anything, Ezekiel,” she admitted. “Anything at all. Owen was this larger-than-life adversary that I couldn’t overcome. Maybe Whitney and Owen had conditioned me not to be able to best him, certainly I couldn’t use my venom on him, but still, I should have been able to pull the trigger of a gun, yet I froze. I did every time that I faced him. Even when Malichai needed me to shoot him. I failed him then and I promised myself I would never do it again.”
“You know that Whitney plants shit in our heads, right? Most likely when he chose Owen as his golden boy and he knew you women had poisons that could kill his number-one protector—or him—he made certain you couldn’t kill either of them. That would only make sense, Amaryllis, or he would have been dead a long time ago. Had you talked to Malichai about it, he would have explained that to you.”
Amaryllis looked around the room. “Are there cameras in here? Audio?”
Ezekiel shook his head. “We made certain of it. We clear it out three times a day just to be certain. What are you worried about?”
“One of the girls I escaped with, a girl by the name of Coral, showed up at the bed-and-breakfast. She asked to stay with Marie. I like her, but I can’t be certain that Whitney didn’t get ahold of her and send her back for a reason. You know the games he plays. If I recommend her to Marie, she’ll be treated like family. Marie’s that way. If not, she won’t get the job. I’d hate that, because she looks like she really needs it.”
“You want us to check her out?” Ezekiel was cautious. This was the first time Amaryllis had made an actual request of the team. They would have checked out the newcomer anyway. They’d all but adopted Marie and her daughter, Jacy, as their own, so anyone working for her on a long-term basis was going to come under scrutiny, but having Amaryllis ask was a huge breakthrough.
“If you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Ezekiel said. “We’re going to have to be here for a while. We can’t move Malichai back home until he’s ready for that. He’s got to go through his care here and then therapy and finally home care. It’s a long process. He’ll need you to be strong for him.”
“Are the others going back?”
“Yes, they need to get back home,” Ezekiel said. “Bellisia, my wife, will be staying. She’ll help Cayenne and Trap with the babies. Drusilla is healing fast and will be ready to travel soon. Trap wants to get them home. Cayenne doesn’t like the nurses telling her what she can and can’t do with her own little ones.”
Amaryllis frowned. “Like what? I wouldn’t like it either.”
“She makes the most beautiful lacy webs and hangs them for privacy, like curtains. If she puts them around the babies at all, the nurses rip them down. Cayenne has been good about it, but Trap can see that her patience is wearing thin. He can’t tell them to leave the webs alone because to them they see a giant spider somewhere close, not beautiful lace curtains.”
“I see. That could be bad.”
“That’s why it’s good Bellisia is staying. She isn’t the closest to Cayenne, but she’ll help the situation. Zara is the one who kind of throttles everyone back. She’s more like Nonny in that way. She has this kind of gentle mediation thing she does, and everyone just gets along, especially the little ones. Cayenne seems to react very well to the way Zara mediates as well. Bellisia is more of an ‘in your face’ kind of girl.” He grinned when he said it.
Amaryllis couldn’t help smiling. “You like that.”
He shrugged. “She’s a little spitfire. She’s my little warrior. She’ll stand up for anything or anyone she believes in.”
“What’s Shylah like, Draden’s wife?”
“She’s harder to explain. She’s kind. Very compassionate. And she’ll drop you in two seconds if you’re her target. Pepper is Wyatt’s wife and she’s the nicest woman you’ll ever want to meet. She was scheduled for termination along with the triplets, Wyatt’s little girls. Pepper can get brain bleeds around violence, although she will back us up and protect the babies fiercely if need be. She has something on her skin that if touched, can make someone crazy for her, so there’s a continual sexual thing that she has to counteract all the time. It’s a difficult life for her. Nonny’s been a great help there.”
“And Cayenne?”
“You met her. She was raised in a tiny cell. Never had a family, raised only on rations. Used only to train in situations of life or death. She wasn’t treated very well ever by anyone. Trap was the one who got her out, got her clear. She came back and helped Wyatt and Pepper get the little girls clear, but none of us knew if it was because she felt bad for the girls or if she was repaying Trap. Then she disappeared. Rumors started about a thief robbing some bad people of money on their way home from the bars. They never could remember much. Trap became convinced it was Cayenne. He was right.”
“How terrible for her. She must have been so frightened.”
“I guess she was. We were all a little afraid of her. She was lethal, Amaryllis. She knew how to use her silk and her venom, and she didn’t hesitate. She could paralyze and she could kill. Naturally, Nonny felt bad for her. She would have taken in every lame duck in the swamp that needed a home if Wyatt had let her. But it was Trap that found a way to bring Cayenne in.”
“It couldn’t have been easy.”
“No, especially because Trap didn’t trust anyone either. He’s on the autism spectrum and everyone he’d ever loved had been ripped away from him—murdered. Many of his family members by his own father. It has always been easier for him to retreat into his head and just push others away with rude behavior. If someone does act as if they want him, it has always turned out it’s for his money, which he has plenty of. Cayenne had to rely on him for everything, and that in turn made him a better man. He had to learn to adjust, to talk, to give her his best. He made a
lot of mistakes in the beginning and he still makes them, but he makes them only once and then he doesn’t again because she’s his entire world.”
“I saw that. It looked like she thought he was her world.”
“She does think he’s her world, that’s for sure,” Ezekiel said. He sighed and stood up, stretching. “This is going to be a very long, hard road, Amaryllis. It won’t be easy for Malichai. I believe this is the one thing he’s always feared.”
“He’s strong. Nonny whispered that to me when we were out in the waiting room. She said he’s strong and that I needed to be as strong or stronger for him. I am and I will be,” she said resolutely. “You don’t have to worry, I’ll stand with him.”
Ezekiel came to the other side of the bed and leaned down to brush his brother’s cheek with his lips and then he cupped the side of Amaryllis’s face. “I know you will. I’m counting on that. We all are.” He turned and walked out of the room.
Amaryllis stared up at the ceiling, grateful her heart wasn’t hooked to the monitor the way Malichai’s was. It would have been beating a million miles an hour, not because she was going to stay with a man whose leg had been amputated, but because she had considered leaving before she’d talked to him and she would have missed her chance to be loved for the rest of her life by an extraordinary human being.
20
I’d sure like to know what kind of hardware you have in that leg, because this is bullshit, Malichai,” Jerry Lannis said, wiping the sweat from his forehead and downing half a bottle of water while he studied Malichai’s face.
Malichai raised an eyebrow. “It’s not my fault you haven’t been training. I run hills every day while you’re kicking back trying to get your woman to rub your back or some such fool thing.”
Jerry spewed water out his nose. “It’s not my fault that your woman kicks your ass if you don’t run. The last time you were lagging behind on time I half expected her to come out onto the road and flog the skin right off your back for being lazy. You’re right, mine does like to pamper me.” He flashed a little grin and wiggled his eyebrows.
“In any case,” Malichai said, “we’ve got another half hour on this run. I’ve got to swim after this. You going with me or backing off for the day?”
Swimming was a chore for Jerry at times. He was still getting used to his new arm prosthesis. He pushed himself in spite of Malichai’s teasing. Malichai knew he went through periods of depression because he would call and Malichai would meet him somewhere to talk. If they weren’t in close vicinity, they’d talk on the phone. They’d made that pact with each other. At Ezekiel’s insistence, Malichai had consulted with a counselor and that counselor had told him to have someone he trusted he could talk to.
There were more than fifteen hundred soldiers who’d lost limbs in Iraq or Afghanistan. Ezekiel wanted his brother to not only have the best physical care but have the best mental health care as well. That meant leaning on those soldiers who had carved this path before him. They’d already suffered depression and knew that downward spiral. Malichai wanted those same advantages for Jerry and he’d reached out to him and his family. The two stayed close through their recoveries.
Malichai usually trained every day with his team or Amaryllis unless Jerry was visiting. He and his family lived near the Washington base, but his wife wanted to relocate the family to a different state once Jerry was out of the military. She felt that seeing his friends continue without him was even more depressing for him. Training with Malichai seemed to boost his spirits, and she wanted him closer.
Malichai was all for that. They’d found a home in New Orleans that they loved, but before they purchased it, Malichai wanted them to experience the humidity and heat. Washington had rain and a different climate altogether. New Orleans had rain and heat. The owners had agreed to rent to them for a couple of months to see how they liked living there before they actually purchased.
“I think I’ll swim with you. I’m trying to get this arm to work for me. My daughter thinks it’s the coolest thing ever. She wants one.”
Malichai laughed. “I’ve found that the children make things seem much simpler and uncomplicated. I like being around them. I thought we could use Trap’s pool.”
Jerry’s face lit up. “Do you think he’d mind?”
“Trap couldn’t care less. We’ll have the lanes, but the kids might be in the shallow pool. They know better than to get into the deep pool, especially if any adult is training, but they’ll watch. Just so you’re warned. They have opinions.”
“I should have brought my kids.”
“I told you to. Amaryllis enjoys visiting with Denise, and your two girls would have fun with the little vi— with Wyatt’s daughters.”
“Why do you call them that? The vipers? I’ve heard you refer to them like that before.”
They jogged up the hill together and along the trail in the swamp. Malichai was grateful the tree branches had closed around them. He couldn’t help looking around. “Never say that out loud. Pepper might hear you. Those three little munchkins bit hard when they were cutting their teeth and we would tease them. Pepper didn’t like it. We still slip up.”
“I’ll be careful,” Jerry agreed as they made their way through the swamp along the path that led to Trap and Cayenne’s home.
The water felt good on Malichai’s skin and he stayed swimming long after Jerry went home. He swam lap after lap. Jerry was right, the hardware in his leg was revved up, the best that could be given to him, so that he could still run and jump with blurring speed. He didn’t have the stealth he’d once had, but he was working on that. His hands were every bit as steady, so he couldn’t complain.
Much later, Amaryllis joined him, swimming with him, and he appreciated the sight of her in a small bikini he’d talked her into buying and wearing when they were alone. She wasn’t that girl who showed off her body, but for him, she did. The children were gone, and no one was around but the two of them and the royal blue triangle was cut to curve right up her cheeks, revealing how perfectly shaped she was, riding the center and curving downward and low on her hips. He loved looking at her from the back just to see that view.
Then there was the delicious side view she gave him. He loved her generous breasts. She had them and he could look at them all day. More than once, in the hospital, when he thought he might go insane with phantom pain and itching, she had suddenly given him something else to think about, revealing the sexiest bra beneath her top, all lace with her nipples peeking through at him. Because she was actually very modest, and he knew what it cost her, he appreciated it all the more. He also bought into the distraction more.
She’d let him buy that top, nothing really but strings, beautiful royal blue rolled cord to frame her rounded breasts, with a tiny scrap of material barely managing to cover her nipples. When she was wet from the pool, the way she was now, she might as well not be wearing a thing. She looked like a wild temptress rising out of the water and turning to wade toward him with her deep-sea blue eyes and that beautiful, generous mouth of hers. He was a lucky man and he knew it.
He reached out and caught her by the straps of her top and pulled her into him. She immediately looked at their surroundings.
“We’re completely alone, Amaryllis. I wouldn’t want another man looking at you. Trap is in his lab, which means Cayenne is as well. Everyone else has gone home. It’s us and this pool. I can turn the lights off.” He made the suggestion gently. He wasn’t going to push it one way or the other. He was a little more adventurous than she was, but if she wasn’t comfortable, he was fine with taking what they had indoors. Everything they did was beautiful and sexy to him.
“I would very much like you to turn the lights off,” she agreed, even as she shrugged her shoulders and one strap slid down.
His breath caught in his throat. That small movement had taken those cords right off that round curve, so her nipple stood o
ut starkly, begging for attention. He couldn’t help himself. He had to touch her, his thumb strumming her nipple gently before he forced himself to turn away, climb the stairs and hit the light switch, plunging them into darkness.
The pool itself was still lit with a dim, opalescent light. That light quickly turned to a pinkish, almost radiant light spilling upward from beneath the water. Amaryllis looked down at the light display and then up at him, laughing.
Malichai laughed. “That’s so Trap. He’ll probably have unicorns galloping on the bottom of the pool before Drusilla is two.”
“It is beautiful,” she pointed out.
“You’re beautiful,” he corrected, dipping his head, his mouth finding her bare breast while he removed the little complicated corded bikini top. Her breast was cool from the water, but full and sexy, her nipple a tight, responsive bud in his mouth.
He tugged with his teeth and rolled with his tongue, using his fingers on her other breast. He loved waking up to her. Loved going to bed with her. She made him laugh all the time. Amaryllis was so perfect for him. When she had her mouth on his cock, it was pure heaven. No one could take him there like she could. When he was moving in her body, her tight sheath clamped down around him like a silken fist, she could take him all the way to paradise.
There in the water, he wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her, as he untied the cord at her hips and let her bikini bottom float away. She immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, tilting her hips to his eagerly. He loved that about her as well. She might not go for public displays of affection the way some of the other women did, but she never said no to him. She was always ready for him, looking for ways to be with him.