The Midnight Hour - Brenda Jackson [65]
Deciding that talking would be a way to ward off the sexual currents in the room, she decided to ask him about their two friends. "Are Trevor and Ashton CIA agents?" she asked, knowing they weren't.
Drake leaned against the desk. "No, they're former Marines, Recons. We use to do a lot of top-secret missions together."
"Are they still in the marines?" she asked as she sat down on the edge of the bed she would be sleeping in. Alone.
"Ashton is. He's made it up the ranks to colonel. Trevof got out of the marines, but is in the reserves, so he still gets to see some action every once in a while."
She nodded. "Are they married?" Back when she knew them, they swore they would remain bachelors forever. She watched as Drake pulled out a chair from behind the desk and sat in it and rebooted the laptop. She also watched as he placed his pistol on the desk in front of him, within close range. She had placed her gun in the nightstand that separated their beds.
A smile touched Drake's features. "Yes, Ashton and Trevor are both married to some pretty feisty women who manage to keep them on their toes. Trevor's wife is Corinthians and Ashton's wife is Netherland, but we call her Nettie."
Tori smiled. "Corinthians and Netherland. Those are un-1 usual names."
"Yes, but then it takes unusual and very strong women to deal with Trevor and Ashton."
"Any children?"
"Yes, and I happen to be the godfather to their four children collectively."
Tori raised a brow. "Four?"
Drake chuckled. "Yes, four. Trevor has a little boy who celebrated his first birthday a week ago and Ashton has triplets, all boys."
"Triplets? I bet they keep her busy."
He chuckled. "They do and they're only four months old."
Tori nodded. She wondered if Nettie was breast-feeding and if so, how on earth she was managing. Tori had decided to go the breast-feeding route and couldn't wait. She was definitely looking forward to motherhood.
Then the room got quiet and she noticed Drake staring at her. "What do their wives do? Does either work outside the home?"
"Yes. Nettie owns a big restaurant called Sisters and although Ashton goes out on assignment, the military allows him to spend the majority of his time at the marines office there. He just so happened to be in Iraq when I got shot a few months back."
Tori could only assume that Drake was talking so freely about what had happened to him in Iraq since practically everyone at the Agency had known about it. So there was no reason to pretend otherwise. "In that case you were blessed."
Drake gazed at her and slowly nodded in agreement. "Yes, I was."
Silence covered the room as they stared at each other and for a moment time seemed to drift away. She tried not to concentrate on the broadness of his shoulders and how his muscular chest tapered to a flat, firm stomach. She recalled the many times that same stomach had been naked and pressed up against hers while he'd made love to her over and over again, and the feel of his chest hair when she ran her fingers through it.
Tori began to feel hot, turned on. She also felt panicky, like she was slowly losing control. She felt her defenses lowering as her world began tilting and for a brief moment, when sanity flowed from her brain, she was Sandy Carroll and the man across the room looking at her like he wanted to eat her alive was Drake Warren, the man she loved and would always love. He was the man who'd wanted to marry her, give her his children and take her to live with him forever on his family homestead in Tennessee-Warren Mountains.
"Drake," she said, her voice sounding hoarse. She wanted to tell him about the elaborate, state-of-the-art plastic surgery that had been performed on her face and other parts of her body that had changed her face but not her heart. She wanted to tell him about the baby, their baby and how much this pregnancy meant to her.
She also wanted him to know how the memories of what