Cole: The Wounded Sons, Leah Sharelle [the reading list .TXT] 📗

her eyes. My recollections were more feelings than visual, like when I grabbed her hand, a memory washed over me. Memories of her fingers dancing over my back, twisting through my hair. It was damned maddening, not to recollect anymore, and embarrassing.

Oaklee thought I forgot deliberately, like having sex with her was a non-event or something fucking stupid. I had to set her straight on that before we went any further.

“What do you mean, you don’t remember much about that night? Are you saying you were too drunk and woke up the next morning with no memory of what we did?” The question was a reasonable one to ask; her tone, however, told me that I needed to tread carefully with my answer. It seemed to me, forgetting and deliberately ignoring it was just as bad in her view.

Sitting down on the coffee table in front of her, I rested my elbows on my knees and bent closer to her. I wasn’t as tall as the other men in my team or the Club. I levelled out at just on six foot, Oaklee wasn’t short, at least five-seven, five-eight, but her slender frame made her tiny somehow.

Sighing, I took a moment to decide how I was going to go about explaining myself. I wasn’t used to this kind of thing, defending my actions. My actions were my own, and I owned them, but this was different and not in the battlefield. This time my actions hurt a person’s heart, and that I did not like.

“Oaklee, first you have to know I would never have had sex with you and intentionally ignored you the next day. I am not a prick, nor do I get off hurting a woman.”

“Soooo, it was the alcohol?” she asked, looking at me with so much interest, her question genuine.

“Partly, yeah, I drank a lot that night, more than I ever have in my life. Part way through the night I changed from beer to spirits, something I rarely do, but the occasion called for something stronger,” I admitted, shaking my head.

“Occasion?”

“What, if anything, did I say to you that night? I mean before we got into bed together.”

Pursing her pouty lips, Oaklee looked cute as she thought hard. My dick twitched in my pants as another blurry snippet of those lips nipping at mine entered my mind.

“Oh! I remember, you said you wanted me to help you forget, you had me up against the wall in the hallway, you had just kissed the breath out of me.” A blush crept over her cheeks, but she didn’t sound upset that I had manhandled her or kissed her, in fact the pulse at the base of her throat sped up at the memory.

Suppressing a groan of annoyance for not recalling that scene and because my dick was throbbing in my pants, I reached for her hands so I could hold onto something before I did something stupid like grab my dick and frighten her.

“Yeah, that’s why I was drinking so hard. That day I got back from a deployment that took the life of one of our own.”

“Deke, right?” Oaklee whispered softly, one finger tracing over my thumb so gently I could have imagined it.

“Deke Williams, or Signal, as he was known on missions.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why was he known as Signal only then?”

A smile ghosted over my lips at her interest, she should be grilling me about taking our night and turning it into a nightmare for her, but instead, she was interested in Deke’s mission name.

“We all have one, and we use them when on missions rather than our given names. It is a security measure, so the other side can’t find personal information on us,” I explained as simply as I could.

“What is yours?” I knew that was coming, and fuck if I didn’t want to tell her, but that was not possible. Around the Club, sometimes Gabe called Bastian Ammo and vice versa, Bast letting a few Tanks loose, but we tried not to use them unless we were in deployment mode or at the base.

Shaking my head, I ran a finger down the length of hers. “Can’t tell you that, baby, all the names are secret, but mine more so than the others due to my role in the team. Suffice it to say, if that information got out, it wouldn’t be good.”

“So, don’t ask what your role is either?” Oaklee surmised quickly.

“I’m afraid so.”

Blowing out a breath, Oaklee narrowed her eyes at me in concentration.

“Okay, well, I am going to go out on a limb and assume that you and the team were there?”

“No, just me,” I clipped harshly, too harsh to talk to Oaklee, but the woman was too smart for her own good.

“Can you tell me?”

“A little bit, yeah, do you want to hear it? It is the reason I got so wasted I forgot I had sex with a beautiful woman and made her think I didn’t give a shit.” Holding my breath, I waited for her to either tell me to continue or shut the fuck up. Either way, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Oaklee surprised me by digging her nails into my skin, expelling an annoyed growl.

“Hey!” Pulling my hand back, I inspected the white indent of her long nail on my thumb. “Easy, Temptress.”

“Then don’t piss me off.” Taking back my hand, Oaklee held it again and gave me her green eyes. “I asked, didn’t I? Now stop focusing on the night for a minute and tell whatever you can.” I wished that the lighting was better out here, so I could see the sincerity there that I could hear in her voice.

How the hell have I not seen how amazing this girl is until now? When Dad warned me to stay away, at the time, I thought nothing of it. Oaklee had not been on my radar at that time, yeah I thought she was pretty, and I liked how she watched me, but I didn’t