Broken Protocol Read online

  “I...I know there are things you won’t tell me.”

  “Can’t,” he said, jerking a glance at me over his shoulder.

  “Fine. Can’t tell me.” He waited for me to continue, likely expecting me to yell or berate him because he wouldn’t give up the details, but I was calming, liking the way he looked at me, liking the fine angle of his muscular back. His waiting stance ready for an attack as he watched me was irresistible. I licked my lips, my chest heavy for a different reason now. “But...the people who killed Lincoln...do I...know them?” Cruz nodded, jaw flexing like he anticipated a question he couldn’t answer. I tried anyway. “And you can’t...”

  “The less you know, the safer you are...”

  Typical agent response. They always did that, kept me out of the loop because they believed the concept of truthful disclosures somehow threatened my life. It was agent bullshit they used to protect Lincoln when he stepped out on me. I stood then, ready to do battle, wanting Cruz to understand why I felt I had a right to know. “He was my husband.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” He followed, standing in front of me, hands in fists at his sides. “You think there’s a day that passes where I’m not reminded of you and him and what you built together...without...”

  My heart quickened, and I had to cross my arms again to keep from touching him. “Without you?”

  He didn’t often get angry. Cruz had a way of controlling himself, keeping his emotions in check, but from the way he frowned, how tight he gripped his hands into fists, I realized he had forgotten his training, forgotten everything but how me and Lincoln together had made him feel.

  He’d heard us argue. He’d heard us...make up. I’d never realized how much all that had affected him until this moment.

  But I couldn’t take all the blame. Maybe I carried a torch while I was married. Maybe that was wrong of me to do, but I had tried, hadn’t I? I waited as long as I could.

  I waited, and he never came back to me, not when it mattered.

  Not before it was too late.

  My throat felt tight and a tremor began working in my fingers, but I stood close to him, chin lifted, voice calm when I finally spoke. “What did you think would happen?” I said, trying to not let his hard stare and the glint in his eyes make me topple. I wasn’t wrong, was I? “You...you left.”

  “Yeah,” he said, the words coming out angry and sharp. “And you didn’t wait.”

  A million instincts crowded in my mind. I felt crushed by the weight of him. His accusation stung, and I damn well didn’t deserve it. “How the hell can you say...”

  “You were supposed to wait.” His voice carried, and Cruz lost complete control of his senses. The fear that had come to me just before we left the townhouse, the same fear I tried keeping back as we drove to this cabin, came back with vengeance. It was strong, it fought for dominance against the burning love I felt for Cruz. He was angry now, growling under his breath as he turned, looking around the room like he needed an outlet, something that would take the force of his rage and found it quick, grabbing the small wooden chair near the kitchen and flung it against the wall. “You didn’t wait!”

  Fear felt heavy, real and threaded into every quickening beat of my heart. I was scared of him. I knew he’d never hurt me. I knew I didn’t need to fear him, but his temper was raw, naked and somewhere deep inside me, I hated him for it.

  It wasn’t my damn fault.

  “No,” I said, my voice louder than the clatter of wood splintering against the floor. “I gave it two years.” He moved away from me, giving me his back, but turned easily when I touched him, pulling on his shoulder until he faced me fully. He was angry. I was angrier. “You don’t get to play the victim here...”

  “Victim...”

  “You heard me.” I stepped back, catching the redness on his cheeks as it began to fade. “I was alone for two years. You never...” A flash of memory came to me, the nights on my own, all the times Jasmine tried to get me out of our apartment and into something that resembled a social setting. Thinking on how desperate I’d been then, how determined, convinced he’d return for me made me nauseous. I’d been so pathetic. Blinking, I checked my anger, making my voice level again. “You said you would call or write. You promised you wouldn’t forget about me.”

  “Lia, where I was.” I didn’t back away when he stepped in front of me but did move my face away from his hand when he reached for me. “The...the situation I was in, there was no time for...”

  “The people you loved?”

  I had my answer the second I asked my question. Cruz had never admitted he loved me. He never spoke a single syllable that resembled anything more than affection. But I’d felt his love for me in every touch he placed on my skin, in every drugging kiss that went on for days and days.

  But he’d never once said the words. From the return of the steely expression on his face as he looked down at me, I realized he still couldn’t say it. This time when he reached for me, I was too hurt, still too mad to move away from him. Cruz took advantage, pulling me to his chest, arms tight around my shoulders. “If I could take it back...you have to know...”

  “You can’t. The past, it writes who we become. It reminds us of the mistakes that made us who we’re meant to be.”

  “That what I am?” he asked, pulling me back, making me look at him. “A mistake?”

  I wanted to say yes. I wanted all the terrifying things I felt about him—how consumed with him I’d been at twenty, how close I came to being the same at thirty, I wanted all of that to be a mistake I buried deep inside my heart and forgot existed. I wanted so badly to believe I didn’t love him.

  But I couldn’t. It would be a lie and when it came to Cruz, I couldn’t lie to myself or him about what he’d meant to me. What he still meant to me.

  “You know that’s not what I think.” He didn’t respond. There was something haunted, something old casting shadows in his eyes and I wanted to know what he thought. I wondered if he’d ever tell me about all the things that kept that distant, secret fear in his dark eyes. I brought his hand to my face, liking how his palm felt against my cheek and willed him to look at me the way he had this morning. “I waited two years. It was the saddest time of my life.”

  “But not the loneliest.”

  “No,” I said, wondering why he didn’t see the truth. He’d been there. He’d caught glimpses of the life I led with Lincoln while the world took notice. “The loneliest was living in the White House where my husband forgot what little shelf he’d placed me on. Then he took away the best...”

  “He was right to do that.” It pained him to admit that. The muscles around his eyes drew tight and Cruz let his voice soften, like the words tasted bitter. “You know he was.”

  I knew nothing of the sort. Lincoln had been my husband in man’s eyes, but to me, to anywhere that it mattered, I’d always belonged to Cruz Solano. “No,” I said, reaching for his face, loving the way his eyes rolled up when I touched him, how he seemed to revel in the smallest attention I gave him. “It didn’t feel right to me. It felt...like death. I mourned you. Sometimes it feels like I never stopped mourning you.”

  “I’m not dead, mami.”

  Cruz watched me, eyes in a squint, focus guarded but clear and I lifted to my toes, moving his face close to whisper against his mouth. “Prove it.”

  He was not a man to taunt. Cruz knew what he wanted and right then, after I threw down a challenge, he seemed to have every intention of accepting.

  The cabin was cold, and the only light came from the dimming fire, but I still made out the silhouette of his face, the movement of his neck as he stretched, like he needed to ready himself for the battle he was able to do.

  To my body.

  “I’ll prove it, mami,” he said, taking me without warning, dipping down to grab the backs of my thighs and pulled my legs around his waist. “You want proof? I’ll show you how fucking alive I am.” Then Cruz covered my mouth with his, let his tongu
e devour me, guided my movements with his hand cupping the back of my head.

  He didn’t bother with seduction. There was no need for it. Cruz kissed me, possessed me with the strength of his tongue against mine and the deep guttural noise that told me he was taking everything I had and had no intention of holding back. When I thought I couldn’t stand how fiercely he kissed me, how tightly he held me against his hardening cock, he redoubled his effort, laying me to floor, my legs still around him, abandoning my mouth to tease my neck and skin just about my breasts.

  I wore a button up shirt, a woman’s simple Oxford and Cruz made quick work of destroying it, lifting off of me long enough to pull apart my shirt, buttons flying around me as he tore down my bra.

  “Dead men can’t do this,” he said, cupping both my breasts in his hands, teasing my nipple, alternating between each one with licks against the dark skin and his teeth against the hard peaks. I ached from his touch, and my body wanted more, needed more of him. This felt like hunger. It felt like something ancient and old that was right in front of me, but I couldn’t quite reach. “Can a dead man make you feel like this?” He sucked my right nipple into his mouth and reached for the zipper of my jeans, pulling it down, before he slipped two fingers inside me. “Can a dead man make you ache like this, beautiful?”

  Cruz proved his point, going deep, fingers inside me, my pussy humming and throbbing from the way he teased me, from how he rubbed against my body, filling me, getting me ready for something that would bring me closer and closer to the edge.

  And then, when I believed I could not take anymore of his teasing, when I was sure my nipples would be raw and deliciously bruised from how he sucked them, Cruz leaned up, watching my face, finger and thumb between one peak as he doubled his efforts between my walls.

  It was his face I saw as I felt the hum of sensation begin in my feet and move upward, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I couldn’t look away.

  “Don’t close your eyes, mami. I wanna see you come. I want to watch what I do to that beautiful face when you lose control.”

  I obeyed because only Cruz got that from me. I obeyed because just then he made me feel alive. He nodded as I arched my hips up, wanting to get closer to that touch, to the edge I saw coming toward me and then, Cruz moved his hand from my nipple, kept working my pussy, then stuck two of his fingers in my mouth, nostrils flaring as I sucked him.

  “Fuck,” he said, moving his fingers faster just as I fell over that edge, coming so hard a gush of wetness flooded around me. “Mami,” he said, breathless, so turned on that he barely took a breath, darting toward me, covering my mouth again, kissing me hard and wet and long, then stronger as I reached for him, unbuttoning his jeans to hold his beautiful, long cock between my fingers. “No,” he said, holding my wrist, pulling my hand away so he could turn me, taking hold of my jeans to tug them down my body while he pulled off his shirt with one hand, then shifted my legs apart.

  “Don’t...don’t be easy,” I told him, looking over my shoulder as he settled behind me. Cruz held his dick in his hand, stroking and when my words registered, he licked his lips, grunting low.

  “I won’t.” He leaned forward, kissing my back, guiding himself inside me in one slow, searing drive.

  And then, in every thrust, in every grinding movement, my man showed how alive he was.

  THIS FAR UP THE MOUNTAIN, in woods this thick, there was no way to tell what time it was. Around us, the cabin had grown cold, the embers nearly cooled and I shuddered against the chill, turning to the sound of Cruz’s low, soft snores as he slept. He was beautiful, even in the dim light. There were sharp ridges around his face and a long, straight slope to his nose. Cruz didn’t often smile and the effect of that shown in the barely-there lines around his eyes. It made him look rugged, wise.

  I could have stared at him all night, watch the soft rise and fall of his chest, stare for hours at the perfect contours of his chest and the deep ridges of his stomach, but I was cold. He was tired, exhausted from the work of getting us from Waterford and showing me how alive he was. For all the heat and passion he worked up between us, for all the anger we both felt that morphed into raw desire, Cruz had settled, still inside me, his forehead against mine as our breaths panted against each other. When he spoke, his voice was soft, his tone reverent.

  “You belong to me. I belong to you. There’s no running from that. Not anymore.”

  It felt good to have someone say that, to have them mean it and I knew, without any further explanation that Cruz Solano had told me he loved me.

  I pulled away from him and he didn’t stir. Cruz carried a soft, contented smirk on his face and it reminded me of the kid I’d met back at Loyola, the same one that told me I was beautiful and won me over with a devious smirk and a promise we could disappear. Sometimes, when he was still and silent, like he was now, I saw so much of that kid and I loved him even more.

  Nothing could wreck this. Nothing could strip away what we’d spent the past two days, the past sixteen years building together. I knew that deep in my bones and I believed he did, too. I hoped we always would.

  Naked, I crossed to the bag Cruz had brought for me, freezing and wanting something warm aside from him to wrap myself in. The fuzzy socks worked well, as did the long pajama bottoms with little gold Quidditch snitches in the fabric along my thighs and around the knee. They’d been a gag gift from Roni last Christmas and they were comfortable. I paired the pjs with a large Loyola hoodie I always kept with me, then turned to the fireplace, hoping my skills at fire starting hadn’t disappeared behind the ridiculous serving you endured living as a First Lady in the White House.

  The embers were nearly cold but puffed to life a bit when I placed two logs cross ways in the center of the hearth, blowing against the ash, hoping it would light. When nothing happened, and another chill ran up my spine, I grabbed small sprigs of splintered wood for the kindling and dug around in Cruz’s discarded jeans for the lighter he’d used to set the fire when we’d first reached the cabin.

  The Zippo was cold to the touch, but caught, flaming around the kindling to catch and I slipped a few more pieces into the center, stuffing the lighter back into Cruz’s jeans pocket as the fire began to roar to life.

  It came to life quickly, the flames growing, the smoke funneling up the chimney, but I only noticed the unlocked phone screen peeking out of the back pocket of Cruz’s jeans. The face on the screen was familiar. It was one I loved, one I’d dreamed of for years since I was twenty.

  On the sleeping bag to my right, Cruz slept like the dead, snores getting louder, telling me he wouldn’t wake. There was something whispering against my mind. It sounded like an accusation. It sounded like a warning and the fear that had begun the night before when Cruz kissed me, bubbled to life higher than the fire in front of me when I picked up his phone.

  It was impossible not to look. It was impossible to believe.

  Several text messages popped up on the screen, each one bringing a flash of similar images. No name accompanied the messages, but they were all from the same number with a D.C. area code. The images were clear, as vivid as the night itself. The blood. The fear on my face as I stared down at my husband. He died in front of me right there on that stage. The red, white, and blue balloons were frozen in the images, anchored above the stage, bookending the banner that announced Senator Hill’s re-election campaign which Lincoln had been trying to drum up support for. I couldn’t remember what happened to Hill during the shooting, but I had a vague recollection that his aide had pushed him out of the line of fire.

  But none of the details mattered to me. Not when the pictures stared back at me, not when one final image crossed the screen with a final message that made the phone shake in my hand.

  Does she know who you really are?

  Bile curled around the back of my throat and I fought the urge to vomit. It seemed that everything I thought I knew, all reality I was certain of, fractured as I stared down at that picture.

  The
image was clear but blurred as moisture filled my eyes. That bile rose thick and I swallowed down the taste as I focused on the picture of Cruz Solano, the only man I’d ever loved, looking down at me and Lincoln from a rafter above the stage with a gun in his hand—the same make and caliber I knew had killed the president, and the sickening glimmer of guilt darkening the beautiful features of his face.

  —End of Part Two—

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  EDEN BUTLER IS AN EDITOR and writer of Romance, SciFi, and Fantasy novels and the nine-time great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum.

  When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque ancestor, Eden patiently waits for her Hogwarts letter, writes, reads and spends too much time watching rugby, “Doctor Who” and New Orleans Saints football. Currently, she is imprisoned under teenage rule alongside her husband in Southeastern Louisiana.

  Please send help.

  Social Links:

  G o o d r e a d s

  www.edenbutler.com

  You can subscribe to Eden’s newsletter for giveaways, sneak peeks and various goodies that might just give you a chuckle.