The Executioner (Professionals 10)

Not because she planned to gouge Brandon Adams in the eye with it.

Oh, no.

Because she really had it out for the previously unforeseen concept of a somewhat harmless wolverine who really couldn’t do any damage to anything more than your average livestock animal.

For someone as badass as Shawn clearly was, it was endearing to see her so paranoid about something the size of a terrier.

“Okay. The coffee isn’t quite cutting it,” she declared a while later, letting out the fifth yawn in as many minutes. “I need some more sleep.”

“Okay. I’ll clean up, lock up, and then be up,” I said, grabbing our empty bowls.

Something I said had her turning back and stiffening, her arms crossing as she shot me a hard look.

“There’s only one bed, isn’t there?” she asked.

“Well, I am only one person, love,” I said, nodding, enjoying her reaction.

See, Shawn was clearly having a battle with two sides of herself.

One of them wanted to keep hating me. Because I’d drugged and kidnapped and held her hostage once. Because she wanted to view me as silly and spoiled and selfish.

The other, though, was having the same sorts of confusing thoughts about me that I was having about her.

It was more than the sex. Though, yeah, the sex was amazing. But it was something other than that.

I got her reservations.

I was no more experienced or comfortable with those new feelings either.

I just didn’t have the scapegoat of the aforementioned drugging, kidnapping, and hostage situation to use against her. I was sure if I could find a single thing unlikable or uninteresting about the woman, a part of me would cling to it like a life preserver. Because, in a way, I felt like I was steadily being pulled under in foreign waters with no idea how the hell I would ever be able to surface again.

That said, once I stopped panicking, I realized that the water was actually pretty nice. Warm. Exciting.

Did I have any experience with it? No. Did I have any idea if there were sharks in the water, or if I was steadily heading toward a dangerous waterfall?

No.

But I’d found over and over in my life that sometimes the best things were the unknowns. It was why I liked to travel so much, why I liked meeting new people. You never knew what was going to be something amazing.

I was willing to take the risk.

Maybe I would find something I really liked.

Someone I really liked.

So far, I was pretty sure I’d spent more time with Shawn than any other woman who wasn’t a close friend or coworker. And we’d spent approximately all that time sober.

I liked her.

And the more time I spent with her, the more I liked her.

That said something, didn’t it?

I’d promised myself a long time ago that I was always going to do what felt good, what felt right, what brought me some joy, some light in the darkness.

Even if whatever that thing—or person—was, scared me, or challenged me, or held the potential to be something lasting, something that would completely change the trajectory of my life.

It was a lot.

And I think I was a little more prepared than she was to process all the new feelings and sensations and questions this whole situation brought up.

Sure, I’d had cold and distant parents who, I was convinced, only had me to carry on the family legacy after they were gone. But I’d managed to cultivate friendships and bonds that taught me about family. And I’d been lucky enough to see many people I cared about find love and fall happily into it. So the situation might have been new for me, but it wasn’t a foreign concept either.

The more I thought about the idea of finding the right woman, the more I liked it. Not to settle down, per se. I didn’t believe I would ever be the settling down sort. But it would be nice to find someone to go on adventures with, someone to share memories with. As it stood now, once I was done exploring some country with a random woman for a day or two, I never again had someone to talk about that experience with. I guess a part of me had never stopped to think how empty that felt, how it sort of disconnected me from the world more than exposed me to it.

I thought that Shawn would be a really interesting traveling partner. So long as there was coffee wherever we went and she didn’t have to suffer the indignity of eating too many vegetables. She was easy-going and not overly particular. She settled into the cabin with its bare-bones luxuries with the same ease as she had the over-water villa with all the bells and whistles. I liked that. More than I thought I would.

I could see myself laughing and exploring and bickering and fighting and fucking our way through countless countries across the globe.