He stopped in the middle of the room. Phoebe. His hands were shaking. His heart racing. He wanted to walk away from her so she didn’t have to see him, didn’t have to know how this affected him and made him turn into a reactionary moron who hadn’t even thought about the consequences of running in here like a madman.
He looked up and hundreds of eyes were watching him. He was supposed to be a ghost, someone who clung to the sidelines and no one noticed, but he’d just made himself a massive target. He’d placed them all in danger because he couldn’t control himself.
He turned, knowing he had to get them out of here. She would be furious. He plastered a smile on his face that utterly belied his need to scream and roar and berate himself. “Hey, I was looking for you.” Yeah, they would believe that. “Heard you had some trouble.”
Erin was standing beside Phoebe with a frown on her face. “We took care of it. Looks like you’re having some trouble, too.”
“Back off,” Phoebe said under her breath. “We’ll deal with this upstairs.”
He turned and suddenly was taken back to that moment he’d been placed on an airplane to go from Ramstein AFB back to the States after he’d been found. He’d been in the hospital for weeks, and then they’d come for him. Five MPs. They’d been there for his “protection” his CO had claimed, but that hadn’t been how it felt.
He’d felt like a prisoner, like a man no one trusted.
As Simon and then Theo took up places on either side of him, he knew what it felt like again.
He walked forward toward the elevators, his gut in a nasty twist. He’d fucked up and it was going to cost him everything.
They got into the elevators and the silence was damn near devastating.
Phoebe’s head went down, avoiding the cameras this time. “I know. Ten, I will handle it. I don’t care. Yes, I’ll let him know.”
“Jesse,” Simon began.
Phoebe turned, her eyes flashing. “You will wait until we get upstairs and then you will wait until I’ve had my talk with him. Is that understood?”
So Phoebe was going to deliver the dressing down. Yeah, that was the icing on the cake. That was the final fucking blow. He was going to lose his job and her in the same moment.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he began.
“Be quiet,” she ordered.
The doors opened again and they marched out toward the suite. Ten was standing there waiting when they walked in.
“Do you have any idea what you just did? Every security team here is trying to figure out who you are. You have put every single one of us in danger,” Ten said, his voice as cold as ice.
Phoebe got right in her brother’s space. “I told you to stand down.”
“You don’t run this team,” Ten shot back.
“I don’t care. He’s mine and I will take care of him. You and everyone else will back the fuck off. I’m going to do this in private. We’ll deal with fallout later and that is my final say. Unless you want to fire me, you will let me deal with this my way.”
Ten scrubbed a hand through his head and stalked off.
Phoebe’s hand found his. It seemed a little cruel of her, but he was numb. He allowed himself to be led off. She walked right to the bedroom they’d shared. She wouldn’t be sharing with him anymore. She led him inside and then turned and locked the door.
Jesse stared ahead, not wanting to look back at her. “I know I fucked up.”
She moved around to stand in front of him, and there were tears in her eyes when she reached for him, her hands cupping his face as she stared up. “I will not let him hurt you. Do you understand me?” She wrapped her arms around him and suddenly he was held tight. “I won’t ever let him hurt you. God, Jesse, he’s here. I talked to him, didn’t I? That’s what Ten said. It was the only reason you would do that. I won’t let him get near you. I promise. You’re safe, Jesse. You’re safe.”
It took him a moment to take in her words, to understand that he wasn’t being rejected. He was being pulled close. Her feminine body offering protection and comfort to his masculine one. He’d fucked up and she was promising to take care of him.
She was crying for him.
He let go, not of her, never of her. He let go of the idea that it was wrong to cry. He wouldn’t do it in public or with his friends. But he could with her. She was safety and affection and acceptance.
A shudder went through his body and he let himself cry because he’d thought the nightmare was over, because it had never really gone away until this moment when she began to take some of the burden from him.
He laid his head on her shoulders, finally safe in her arms.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Phoebe sighed as she stepped out of the room the next morning. Ten was on her immediately, as though he’d waited all night for the chance. He might have. He might have paced outside her bedroom door all night long, waiting for the shot at taking a hunk out of her flesh. He’d probably listened, trying to hear if they were fighting or fucking.
They’d done neither. She’d held him and then they’d gone to bed, his head on her breast, his arms wound around her.