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“What happened?” I voiced the roaring question in my mind. “Over there.”
I pointed to his scar, and he tensed.
His features hardened, and all the friendless, if you could even call it that, left his body.
“None of your business. Thanks for the shower.” He turned to leave my apartment without so much as a look back. I couldn’t even get a ‘you’re welcome’ out before the door slammed.
What an ass.
I wondered why he was so touchy about his scar. Maybe I had crossed a line and brought up a memory he had long wanted to forget.
Great, now I feel like a jackass.
5
NATHANIEL
We were cleaning off our gear after a house fire, and my mind started wandering back to a certain brunette with toned legs and a smart mouth.
I scrubbed my boots hard, trying to work her out of my mind.
She was not meant to be back here. She was not meant to be in my city and wreaking havoc like this.
She was in trouble, and she didn’t even know it. How my little brother had handled her all those years, I don’t even know.
“Are you even listening to me, Nate?” Xander’s voice brought me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“I was talking about your new neighbor, Amelia.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“I told you that she’s off limits.”
He held up his hands, dropping his cleaning equipment. “I’m not saying I don’t want to put the girl in my bed and have my way with her. I would love to have her ass up, face down but—ow! That hurt you, asshole.”
“Good.”
He rubbed his shoulder where I had thrown a brush at him.
“I bruise easily. What will Kesha say when she sees me all purple and blue.”
“Kesha?”
His lips split into a sly smirk, and I nearly hit him again.
“Do you ever take a break from women?”
“There are just far too many in this world not to love. Who am I to deny them some good old sloppy toppy?”
“Sloppy toppy?”
“Becca, this college senior, told me it means good, down, and dirty—”
“Finish that sentence, and I will cut your dick off in your sleep.” I did not need to know what that word meant. I was too old to learn things like that, and so was he.
I was only 31, but the things I had seen while away had aged me at least ten years or more.
Going into war zones and taking on bullets, shrapnel, and death was not for the faint of heart. I watched children get gunned down in front of my very eyes. I watched women forced to give birth in hospitals that were being bombed.
