4-Bound By Danger by SE Jakes Read Free Book Online Page B

real chance to say goodbye to, it was a relief to finally realize that he was ready to move on, that he could actually feel something for Sawyer without guilt or reservation.
    He threw more cold water over his head when Jace left the immediate area, and he approached Sawyer as the doc put a bucket down in front of him. His SEAL’s face was dusty but otherwise unmarked.
    “Jace all right?” Rex asked.
    “He got some bad news from home.” Sawyer finished getting his boots off, sand pouring out of them. The sand didn’t come off his feet as easily, and while Rex watched, he eased them into the bucket of water to soak off the dried blood and hissed at the burn of the salted water. “Motherfucker.”
    Rex shook his head. “What’s the bad news?”
    Sawyer glanced over his shoulder, the look on his face telling Rex he was breaking a confidence.
    “I’ve got to know, Sawyer—I won’t say anything to him if I think he’ll be all right for the rest of the trip.”
    “He will be, Rex. Don’t take this away from him now.”
    Rex crossed his arms and waited, and finally Sawyer spilled. “He’s seeing some guy—CIA—and he got killed on an op.”
    “Name?”
    Sawyer glanced up at his CO and something unreadable flitted across his face for the briefest of seconds. “I only know him as Tomcat.”
    “Get to the doc to bandage those feet. You’re training today.”
    “Yes sir,” Sawyer muttered under his breath, and Rex was pretty sure the boy cursed him as he went to walk away.
    It only served to make him want the kid more. Dammit.
    And then Sawyer called out to him, “You saved our ass today. Thanks,” before Rex walked off, and Rex bit back a smart answer and simply nodded and accepted the compliment. He’d been at it a lot longer; his instincts were honed thanks to too many tragedies the rest of his young team hadn’t seen yet.
    Tomcat. Yeah, he knew that name, as he ran in those same rather small circles of elite operators they all leaned toward. Joint missions between the branches had happened long before the public knew about them, allowing connections between warriors who might’ve simply existed in a vacuum with no support. They’d also hung out after hours with other Doms they both knew, as they tended to run in the same circles as well.
    He made a call to Damon, who’d be the one to give a message to a dead man. Damon picked up after several rings, and Rex said, “Tell your friend his boy just died a little with him.”
    “How did you hear?” Damon asked. They’d been friends for fifteen years—he wouldn’t bother lying.
    “Sawyer and Jace are good friends. And now Tomcat’s going to let Jace swing in the wind?” He and Damon had spoken about Rex’s attraction to Sawyer before. Actually, it was Damon who’d noticed it at a party and had been on Rex ever since to do something about it. Just because he was all happy and shit, everyone had to get matched up. Asshole.
    “You’re assuming too much,” Damon said.
    “I’m assuming this is a CIA stunt—and I’m betting Jace suspects the same.”
    “I’ll tell you what Tomcat would say—don’t say a fucking word, and Jace is better off without him.”
    “All you former Deltas are the same.”
    “Don’t start with me, Mr. Unrequited Love.” And then Damon’s voice softened. “It’s what we signed up for, Rex. Jace knew what—who—he was involved with.”
    “Maybe we need to treat our own a little better.”
    “Who are you really talking about?”
    “Fuck you and that CIA fucker.” Rex hung up on Damon, even though none of this was his fault. Being back here, in the field, was bringing back memories, none of them good.
     
     
    In his new apartment that was an hour away from the MC club and ironically much closer to where Jace lived, Tomcat, the dead man, stared at the television and the Clint Eastwood Western marathon he’d been watching.
    His old phone had been taken from him as evidence, but he still held the one he’d