A deep voice intruded on their slumber. “Wake up you two, the plane is ready to go.”
Jayde and Tyson woke up. They were lying on their right sides. Tyson had his left hand resting with hers, showing their identical rings to the man who had awoken them.
Jayde still hurt. Having only made love a few times before she met him, he’d worn out every one of her muscles. The sex she’d had pre-Tyson was nothing like it was now; he made her totally involved as opposed to being merely “there.” The hiking they had done earlier had helped to fatigue her, but it was the intensity of their lovemaking that had really done her in. As she looked over her shoulder, she noticed what seemed to be all of the men standing around the bed grinning at them. She gasped and shrank closer to Tyson with embarrassment, pulling the blanket up over her face. She hoped they would all just disappear. How would she ever face them again?
“Get out, guys,” Tyson grumbled. He looked down at Jayde’s darker body next to his tan one and the glare he’d been sporting turned softer and gentler.
“Well come on now, Cade, we were concerned that she might have killed you when you came in and didn’t leave for a few hours. Then again, I think we can see that you would’ve died a happy man.” A round of male laughter filled the room.
“Out!” Tyson yelled.
“Okay, only since we see your clothes all over the room. The plane is ready to go.” The last sentence was a bit more sober. But they all filed out of the room, shutting the door behind them.
“Come on, let’s get dressed,” Tyson said as he climbed out of bed, seemingly totally at ease with his nudity. Jayde inched to the edge, holding the blanket around her like a shield. Tyson arched an eyebrow at her action. “What are you doing?”
“Going to the bathroom,” she said as she picked up her scattered clothing. Jayde wouldn’t look at him as he stood there putting on his boxers and then his pants.
“And the blanket is…what…part of your outfit?” he asked.
“Something like that.” She backed into the chair and stumbled, barely managing to recover the blanket before it dropped to the floor.
“You do realize that I have seen you naked already?” Tyson reminded her as he strode towards her in nothing but his pants.
“That was different,” she protested as she tried not to become aroused by the way his pants hugged his lean hips—tried and failed.
Tyson stepped on the edge of the blanket and crossed his arms over his chiseled chest as he shook his head. “Don’t think so.”
Jayde kept backing up but couldn’t get to the bathroom since he was on the corner of the blanket. “Do you mind?” She nodded in the direction of his foot.
“Not at all.” He just looked at her and blinked his hazel eyes. “Go on and get dressed. I’ll wait here.”
“Can you get off the blanket?”
“I could but I don’t want to. Why are you so embarrassed?” Tyson wondered.
“I don’t know, I just am. Will you close your eyes?”
Tyson knew it would take longer than a few days to understand his woman, but he decided to grant her a brief reprieve. “Sure.” He shut them almost all the way and it took all of his willpower not to grin as he watched her drop the blanket and bolt for the sanctuary of the bathroom. God, his wife was a beauty. His wife, he didn’t think he would ever get tired of saying that.
“Are you ready in there?” A voice came through the door.
“Almost, she’s just in the bathroom,” Tyson answered as he tugged his shirt on over his head. “Come on in if you need to.” He sat on the bed and put on his socks and boots as his best friend on the team entered.
Scott “Harrier” Leighton was tall and extremely muscular with blond hair and blue eyes. With a quick glance at the bathroom door he turned back to his friend. “I have to say, Cade, we were very surprised with the news of your marriage.” He pulled the chair up beside the bed and straddled it, facing his friend.
“It was quick,” Tyson admitted.
“How long have you known her?”
Two and a half days. Blinking away his thought Tyson answered, “Long enough Harrier, why the ques-tions?”
“Because I was the one who picked up the pieces with you after Carrie. You do remember your words to me, right? ‘I will never be that involved with a woman again.’ And she was only a fiancée. You married this one. Carrie was only four months ago; sure you aren’t just on the rebound?”
“Jayde saved me down here in Belize. And it was over long before it ended with Carrie, you know that. Hell, man, I hadn’t even slept with her in a little more than a year.”
“So you married Jayde out of gratitude?” Harrier’s eyes glanced towards the door, content that the shower was still running.
“No, that was how we, well I, made it out. We had to renew our vows or I was going to be back in in-terrogation and this time it wouldn’t have been just the uncomfortable shackles and high heat that they hit me with.”
“And once you’re back in the States? Don’t take this the wrong way, but there is the color difference.”
“So?” Tyson’s voice grew dangerous. “What about it?”
“I’m just saying. What do you really know about her? Her family?”
“I will do whatever is necessary to protect her,” Tyson said. He should have known Harrier didn’t mean anything bad about color. His friend was in love with a stunning black woman himself, just hadn’t managed to convince her they were meant to be yet.
“Meaning, you are going to help her get set up somewhere in the States?” Harrier paused. “Does she know what you do?”
“She knows about the counterterrorism unit. That’s it.” Tyson looked at the bathroom door.
“You know what is best for you, so if you are happy, then so am I. All I am going to say is this: Carrie has been hanging back around. She told all of us how much she misses you and realizes what a mistake she made. Apparently, that guy she was with has started to hit her.”
“Is she all right? Has she left him?” Tyson was a staunch defender of women. Regardless of his past with Carrie, he would still protect her against a man who beat her.
“She says she is waiting for you to come back home…” Harrier paused again. “Then she will leave him.”
“I have to get her away from him.”
Harrier nodded solemnly, then a grin crossed his handsome face as he put up one booted foot on the bed frame. “Sounded like you were having fun in here,” he quipped as he shoved his foot, bringing the loud squeak the metal frame made to Tyson’s attention.
Tyson smiled and nodded. He hadn’t realized the others had heard them. “Don’t tell Jayde; she would be so embarrassed.”
“Not my place to say anything. But I can’t vouch for the rest of the men,” Harrier said with a grin, and Tyson knew full well he’d already ordered the men to keep their mouths shut about it.