_2016_05_13_16_27_46_462

“Guess,” he said, and kissed her again, softer, sucking her lower lip between his own. She moaned and ground against him, and that pulled a moan from him. Her hands slid down his chest, starting for his belt, and, Yes, he thought, God yes, he wanted it, both of them wanted it, fast this time, a reckless reclaiming of each other, and then later they could take their time, could spend the whole night taking their—

Reclaiming. Unbidden, an image of Natalie astride him flashed through his mind. Shannon’s fingers tugged at his pants, pulling them away from his belly as her other hand slid inside the—

“Wait.”

Shannon laughed. “Yeah.” She kept moving south, and God did it feel good, right—

No. He caught her wrist.

Something sparked in her eyes then. “What’s wrong?”

He set her down and ran a hand through his hair.

“Nick?”

“I need to tell you something.”

Shannon stood at the kitchen counter, not looking at him. Her fingers spun an untouched glass of bourbon. Her tri-d entertained itself, tuned to the Holdfast’s pirate news station, the volume muted.

“It wasn’t planned. It just happened. I’m—”

“Don’t,” she said sharply. “Don’t say you’re sorry.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“She deserves better than that.”

“I agree.”

“I get it,” she said. “You guys have history. And you and me, we never talked about . . .”

No, he thought. No, we never did. I was busy taking down one president and serving another, trying to protect the world. You were fighting a revolution and freeing children from slavery, not to mention saving my life.

“I wish we had,” he said. “Talked about it.”

Shannon shrugged noncommittally, still not looking at him. “It’s almost funny. I didn’t know until Natalie came to see me.”

“Didn’t know—wait. Came to see you? When was this?”

“Couple of weeks ago. After you died.”

“Ah.” He hadn’t known that. When Todd was hurt, and Cooper was beaten and ready to quit, it was Natalie who had propped him up. She had cleared his head, kicked his ass, and sent him off to fight for their children’s future. It must have been afterward that she visited Shannon. He could picture it easily. Another woman might have come to insult or threaten, to warn her off. But Natalie would just have felt Shannon deserved to know he’d survived.

At which point, Shannon had split from John Smith, then boarded a plane and arrived just in time to save his life.

The women in his life were amazing.

When the gods really want to mess with you, they give you too much of a good thing.

“I understood you cared about each other,” Shannon continued. “But until Natalie showed up at my hotel room, I didn’t know that she’s still in love with you.”

He hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s true.”

“It is,” she said, the same way she might tell him it was snowing.

“I didn’t mislead you. We’ve been done since the divorce. But I think everything that’s happened, it’s maybe changed the way she feels. Made her wonder if we deserve another shot.”

“What about you?”

“I . . . she’s the mother of my children. I’ll always love her.”

“Like I said, I get it.” Shannon sipped the whiskey. “I’m a grown woman, Cooper. Not some schoolgirl with a crush.”

And there it was. She’d called him Cooper.

“Shannon, I—”

“I’m sure it’s confusing.”

He wanted very badly to agree, but he’d been with women enough to know how very bad an idea that was. Somehow he kept himself from nodding.

“I’ll tell you what, though. You better not toy with her. She’s a good one.” Shannon took a breath, then another sip of whiskey. “Want a drink?”

He stared at her, feeling a tearing in his chest. Everything had taken on momentum, a slippery sort of velocity that seemed out of his control and headed for a wall. He knew that he could stop the crash. All he needed to do was say, firmly and clearly, that he chose Shannon. That he would always love Natalie, and didn’t regret last night, but that it was a farewell. That what he wanted was Shannon, period.

Seconds ticked by. On the tri-d, the image shifted, the footage of President Ramirez replaced by a sea of marching men.

“You see this?” Shannon asked, her voice tightly controlled. She opened a cabinet, took down a glass, and splashed bourbon in it, the bottle shaking only slightly. “They keep replaying the same loop, but I can’t seem to turn it off.”

“Shannon—”

“Here.” She pushed the drink to him, tapped it with her glass. “To the New Sons of Liberty. Tough bastards, I’ll give them that. Audio on.”

Cooper started to protest, but caught himself when he saw her look. There’s only one way to end this, and that’s making your decision, right now, and meaning it.