Free Killing Honor by S. M. Butler Page B

her jaw, her ears, her neck… anywhere I could reach her skin.
    “I love you,” she said. “I love everything about you. Secrets or no, I missed you so fucking much.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, dripping and disappearing into her hair. I wiped them dry, but more followed, more than I could keep up with.
    “Please don’t cry,” I whispered to her. It broke something inside me to see her cry. But that made it worse. A torrential downpour started as soon as I said it. Her body shuddered as sobs wracked her. I flipped us so she laid her head on my chest. I wasn’t sure how long we lay there like that. She buried her face in my chest while I ran my fingers over her spine, over and over. I didn’t have any words for her. I couldn’t make the last two years just a dream. So I just held her.
    ~*~*~
    Brody
    SEAL Team Thirteen was a classified secret, even more so than SEAL Team Six had been before the Osama Bin Laden mission. Supposedly, I should have felt honored to be part of the team, and I supposed in a way, I did. But since coming home, it was just getting to be a hassle.
    I couldn’t tell Devyn anything. It was easier to keep secrets when I hadn’t seen her. And now I went home each day, after reviewing security footage and personnel files on the Giroux operation, and seeing the crap his people did, and had to look my wife in the eyes and lie to her.
    The good thing about it was that it didn’t seem like anyone had seen my face after that last mission. Or at least, no one had survived to remember it. We hadn’t been able to identify the men and the woman who had attacked us during the Cadence Long rescue.
    “Battles!” I blinked. Chris Hardy tossed a pencil at me, hitting me in the forehead. “Heads up, dumbass.” Around us, the guys laughed, but I wasn’t in the mood for jacking around.
    “What the fuck, Hardy?” I growled and threw it back at him. Hardy ducked, grinning like an idiot, and the pencil fell to the floor.
    “You’re dreaming over there. What’s up with you?” Hardy’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
    “Nothing,” I spat, looking away from him. “I’m fine.”
    Murphy slipped into the seat next to him. “How’s the wife and kids doing?”
    “They’re fine,” I grumbled. I didn’t want to talk about my family. I was irritated enough that I’d made Devyn cry.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Your face.”
    “Asshole.”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “Look, usually when I ask about the family, you pull out that fucking phone and start showing all the pictures.” Murphy pointed to the phone sitting on the table. “So, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
    I didn’t want him to be, but the jerk was right. I had the Proud Daddy Syndrome, or at least I had it at one time, before I came home. I’d loved showing off the girls. “It’s just an adjustment. That’s all.”
    “What, were you expecting newborns or something? Babies grow, man.” Hardy plopped his feet on the conference table.
    Dick.
    “I know. You guys wouldn’t get it, okay?” That was an unfair generalization, and I knew it. But luckily, neither Murphy or Hardy were the type to take offense. Murphy shrugged.
    “Fiiiine, we’ll butt out.” Hardy rolled his eyes. “You big baby.”
    Murphy let out something that was almost a chuckle, if it were anyone but Murphy. I wasn’t sure what it was. Hardy said it was just the way Murphy was, and I supposed he would know, seeing as how they’d been best friends since diaperhood and all.
    I’d have liked to think that was how Devyn and I would have been if we’d met when we were much younger. Not that Hardy and Murphy were a couple. They’d have kicked my ass for even thinking it, if they’d known.
    “Murph, get a hold of your other half, huh?” I shot at him.
    Murphy frowned, but there was a slight remnant of a smile on his face. “He does what he does, Battles. I’m not his keeper”
    “Yeah, that’s the problem.” Dylan Urban said as he walked in with a stack