Killian
"How'd it go?" Sebastian asks as soon as I answer my phone.
"Fine," I growl…though I'm not at all sure that's an accurate assessment of how my meeting with Liberty Connor went. Not only is she intelligent as all hell, she's a knockout, with glossy mink brown hair that's dyed blonde at the tips, bottomless honey-colored eyes, pouty red lips, and a killer body. Her lush curves are a wet dream come true. A rough son of a bitch like me could get lost in a woman like Liberty Connor and not regret a second of it.
Too damn bad she's slept with my brother.
I pace around my office at the reminder, pissed all over again that he got to her before I could. I want her. My dick hasn't gone down since she looked at me with fire in her eyes and her teeth sunk into her pouty bottom lip. Grown men who command troops of their own don't even look at me like she did.
I'm damn good at reading people though, and Liberty is an open book. She may want me to think she's a fierce lioness, but she's a harmless little lamb. I guess it's a good thing Sebastian got to her first. A girl like her needs someone who can be soft and sweet…and that damn sure isn't me. I'm thirty-six, set in my ways. I've spent most of my adult life in the military, grinding the challenge out of even the toughest of men.
I don't date. I don't do love. I'm not that kind of man. It's been years since I've been with anyone. But the filthy shit I want to do to Liberty Connor runs through my head in a loop. I want to see my marks in her skin, see how much she can take before she breaks for me. A big part of me wants to protect her too, keep her safe from whatever put that sadness in her eyes. She tries hard to hide it, but I saw it. And I fucking hate it.
"Fine?" Sebastian chuckles. "So it was that bad, huh?"
"You didn't mention that you'd slept with her," I mutter before I can stop myself. I make another circuit around my office, glaring at the boxes still sitting in the corner, waiting for me to unpack them. I've been stateside for the last six months, but I'm still living out of boxes here and at home.
Sebastian laughs so hard I consider hanging up on him. "You think I slept with Liberty? What the fuck gave you that idea?"
"She likes you." Why do I sound petulant?
"You've spent too much time in the desert," Sebastian says, still laughing. "I've never slept with Liberty. We've never even dated."
Well…shit.
I rub the back of my neck, feeling sheepish and an overwhelming sense of relief. She's not off limits. Fuck. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing right now. Even if she hasn't slept with my brother, she's too good for a man like me. My hands are stained with the blood of the men I've killed for my country.
"She's a good girl, Killian," Sebastian says as if reading my mind. "She's different."
"What does that mean?" I growl, not liking the sound of that at fucking all.
"It means she's a friend," he says, his voice firm. "She's not the kind of girl who sleeps around. And despite your opinion of me, I don't either."
"I never said that," I object, pulling the phone away from my ear to glare at it.
"You didn't have to say it," he mutters. "You accused me of sleeping with her like it's something I do regularly. I don't. It's been…" He pauses like he's thinking about it. "Shit. It's been two years since I got laid."
"Jesus." I stare at the phone for a long moment and then expel a heavy breath. How'd I manage to piss both him and Liberty off in the space of a single afternoon? "I don't think about your sex life. She just seemed to like you and I made a wrong assumption."
"You're jealous."
"I'm not fucking jealous," I lie, even though I'm definitely fucking jealous. Which I have never been in my life. But I felt possessive of her the second I set eyes on her. The feeling has only grown in the hours since.
Sebastian snorts. "Whatever you say. My point is, she's had a rough life. She's got up more walls than you do. Even if I had wanted to date her, it never would have happened. I actually admire her, and she's been a big help to me. Don't make me regret referring you to her."
"Fair enough," I mutter, though I really want to demand that he tell me who made her life hard so I can find and eliminate them, and then I want to tell my brother to fuck off for telling me what to do. Which is odd in and of itself. Sebastian and I don't fight. We rarely argue. Growing up, it was the two of us against the world.
We both joined up as soon as we turned eighteen. Sebastian got out years ago, but I liked the order the Marines brought to my life, the routine. There was never much of that growing up. Our father was rarely around, and our mother was too preoccupied with the socialite life to spare much attention to her two young sons. By the time she died and our father remarried, we were teenagers, capable of looking after ourselves.
I've never been jealous of Sebastian. Hell, I've never been jealous period. But Liberty already has me turned inside out and upside down. I shouldn't have demanded that she work here. The demand popped out before I could call it back, though. Simple fact is…I want her in my space, not in Dominic Alessi's. Not in my twin brother's. In mine.
I glance around at said space, wondering what she'll think of it. We converted an old hospital to meet our needs. My office isn't fancy, but it's more than big enough for me, the carpet is new, and the paint fresh. A handful of books are aligned neatly on the shelves lining one wall, and stacks of paperwork are ordered just as neatly on the corner of the ornate desk.
A desk I had brought in for Liberty sits off to the side. The rest of the room is full of unpacked boxes and equipment I haven't had time to find a home for just yet. The rest of the place is in a similar state. We hit the ground running as soon as I had boots on the ground, but a project of this magnitude takes time, energy, and a helluva lot of work.
Two wings of the hospital have been converted into housing units for the men, with kitchens and common rooms in each wing. Their bedrooms aren't fancy, but they are private. Soldiers like the ones we'll be serving don't expect fancy anyway. They've been in the most hellish sorts of places, sleeping in conditions not conducive to rest. Here, they'll be able to rest easy while they reacclimate to life, surrounded by men who know exactly what they've been through and what's still ahead. And there is still so much shit ahead for each of them.