Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56278 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56278 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Right there in the firelight, he looked like something out of this world. The bulk of his combat days had been replaced by sleeker muscles, but he was still as sturdy as this cabin. His ass, his thighs, his legs, his entire back, his shoulders…arms… He had a single tattoo on his body, and it was a large grayscale piece that ran vertically along the right side of his back. Two dog tags entangled with heavy shadows of distant explosions. The tags held the dates he and Chris had lost their biological parents, their baby sister, and Arthur and his wife.
“Don’t forget to brush your teeth, kiddo.”
“I won’t, Sir.” Oops.
CHAPTER 3
February 20th, 2021
Wade Winters
No messages since last night. Quin would’ve let me know if something was wrong with Chris. So in this instance, no news was good news.
I returned the phone and yawned—
What the…?
I squinted in the darkness and flicked on the lantern on my bedside table, and my heart took a hit at what I saw.
“Kayden,” I whispered, my voice rough with disuse. Christ, he couldn’t sleep in the damn doorway. I dragged myself out of bed and shook him gently. “Kayden, you can’t sleep on the floor.”
He made a sleepy noise that didn’t sound entirely free of hurt. No fucking wonder with floorboards as a mattress.
“Get up, blue.” I hitched my hands under his armpits and hauled him up.
“But, ohhh,” he whined. “You weren’t supposed to know.”
Uh-huh, because God forbid anyone saw him vulnerable.
I was sure he had it all figured out. He’d sneak back to the couch before I woke up or something.
I sat him down on the bed and cupped his cheek.
He rubbed at his eyes and admitted the storm had scared him “a little.”
I…got stuck on the words on his T-shirt.
Fucking hell. Best stuffie ever?
“And then Tundra and Prince ate the treats and left again,” Kayden mumbled.
What? Was he talking in his sleep now?
It didn’t matter. I went to the other side of the bed and straightened the sheets, and I retrieved two more pillows from the armoire.
“You’ll bunk with me,” I told him, clearing my throat.
Careful, man.
I was going to be careful. Just because I had reacted…too strongly…to his kink revelations last night didn’t mean I was going to treat him differently. He would notice and twist it somehow. My mental war was mine to fight.
But it didn’t help that he let go of his adult filters in my presence. Was he even aware of his behavior changing? Because I was.
“Come here.” I couldn’t shake the image of him curled into a ball on the floor in the doorway, as if he’d been scared to actually enter the room. He should’ve woken me up.
He complied but wouldn’t make eye contact, and that wouldn’t do. When he reached me, two blankets hanging off his shoulders, I stupidly cupped his face in my hands and made him look up.
I should create distance, not close it.
“It’s okay to be scared.”
“Nooo,” he complained. “I don’t want you to think I’m lame.”
“Never have, never will.” I forced myself to take a step back, and I gestured to the bed. “Get in. We can discuss this in the morning.”
He huffed and pouted to himself.
Adorable.
He crawled under the covers and buried his face in the pillows.
“Don’t tell Chris.” His voice was muffled.
I suppressed a sigh and returned to my side of the bed. He had a skewed impression of Chris sometimes. We’d both worried about Kayden. The last thing Chris would do was make fun of him. Yeah, he could be tactless and crass, put his foot in his mouth easier than I could, but he was a good man. Who was currently in Colombia, trying to intercept the men coming for him instead of waiting for them to reach US soil.
He wasn’t alone, I reminded myself. He had the Beckett brothers with him on the ground, not to mention Quin and Payne in command at home.
After getting under the covers myself, I flicked off the light again and let out a breath.
Chris would be fine. As would Kayden.
I lay there on my back, staring up at the ceiling I couldn’t even see, and acknowledged I might be in way over my head.
Kayden wasn’t too difficult to handle. He was too fucking easy—for me. As long as I didn’t let my mixed emotions get in the way.
I knew how to get through to him, and it wasn’t rocket science. It was just patience and understanding, two things he hadn’t experienced enough from others in life.
Even I had failed, simply because work had taken me away for months at a time, removing any progress we’d made while we’d been under the same roof.
I remembered when Quin had brought Kayden home. It hadn’t really made the news. Yaya had taken in countless foster children for as long as I could remember, and Quin had followed in her footsteps. He’d focused on boys with troubled pasts, and often because social workers had noted possible sexuality-related issues. He’d wanted to help them lose their anger and realize there was still safety in this world—and that they weren’t alone. Some kids had stayed for a few months, some for longer.