The Fallen One (Falcon Falls Security, #6)

by Brittney Sahin

“The guys on the team call me Dom. And the bad guys call me the devil.”

“Just happy to have a hand in saving the girl who plans to one day save the world.”

“Ask me to stay. To give up this job, and I will.”

Because that’s who I am—who I officially am. I’m the devil. The fallen one.

Mom always said to be with a man who gave you security, not butterflies. To which I’d responded, “Why can’t he give me both? Why not be with someone who makes me feel like I can fly, but then know he’ll be there to catch me if the wind abandons my sails?”

“You saved me again,” she murmured. Opening my eyes, my heart in my throat, I rasped, “I’ll always save you.”

Here I’d been thinking that organ of mine, caged protectively within my rib cage, only functioned to pump blood. Yet, her words practically stopped it from doing even that.

He always told me the most precious thing we had in life was time.

“A kiss won’t corrupt me, but if your lips don’t touch mine . . . you just might kill me.”

“I need to know if what I’m feeling is real, or if I’m imagining it. Please. Help me understand,” I begged, my voice saturated with thirteen years of guilt and longing for this man. “Of course it’s real.” The tight strain of his jaw became more prominent. “It’s so real I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a very long time.” “What’s that?” I asked, breathless. He angled his head while tightening his hold of my hands, and the words came out slow, firm, and deliberate: “Lose my control.”

He claimed my center with his tongue. Owned it with his mouth. Captured my soul with his achy need for me that went beyond sex.

That alone should’ve let her know I wasn’t the good man she thought I was. Because I’d let the world burn for just one more minute with her.

How could I help this man see his soul was worth saving if he was so hell-bent on sacrificing it for me? “I do know I want you.” My voice broke, and at the feel of his chest heaving from deep breaths, I added the promise, “No matter what.”

Orgasm oxytocin was great. But Carter holding me like I was his whole world, well, it was a whole other level of amazing. This man could easily be more than just my world. He could be my entire universe.

Then her words came back to me. “What if that guy was just a temporary placeholder while you found your way back to being who you really are?” Could she do the impossible and bring me back into the light?

“What if one group wanted us to help create an EMP weapon?” I squeezed her hand, encouraging her to keep going with that thought. Her eyes fell shut as she acknowledged the truth I felt in my damn bones. “And the other one already has a weapon . . . and they’re worried I can stop them from using it.”

“Maybe that girl isn’t your weakness after all. I may have had that wrong.” Another curveball. Where was she going with this? “Rebecca, that woman was your weakness. But Diana, maybe she’ll turn out to be your strength.”

“Don’t be the devil again. Be the man you were with Delta. That’s the guy I want to roll with on this. I’m a father now, and if we don’t stop whatever may go down, my wife’s and son’s lives could be at stake. I need a Tier One operator at my side, not a man criminals fear.”

“That girl in there deserves to be happy, and my guess is you’d make her that way. You owe it to yourself to be happy, too.”

“Yeah, well, just because I need the old you back for this mission, doesn’t mean your persona as an intimidating motherfucker everyone fears has to change. And no one, and I mean no one, would touch that man’s girl.”

“I want to be a better man for you. Maybe for me, too.” Eyes slowly journeying to my face, he added, “I’d say what I’m feeling for you is too soon, but it also feels like a decade too late.”

Forget a prince waking a princess with a kiss, this man made me feel like an immortal with one.

“Here I am, trying to be a changed man, and it’s an angel attempting to provoke the devil to come out and play.”

This man was so much bigger than me and larger than life. Yet, he made me feel like I wasn’t just the center of his world but his entire galaxy.

“The thought of you dying in any way, shape, or form is something I can’t ever allow myself to picture happening. I wasn’t thinking about her. Just you.”

“Music is usually what inspires my best ideas, but apparently your kiss just did instead.”

“And, Carter,” she whispered, “I don’t want to talk down about the dead, but . . . Rebecca didn’t deserve you, but you deserve Diana.”

“I didn’t know,” he said, his hoarse voice catching on a shuttered sob. “I didn’t know it could be like this.”

“Karl’s why Rebecca is dead. He’s why Craig set up the meeting between Rebecca and Andrew, which led to her death.” “Why would he do that?” I hooked my fingers through the empty belt loop of his jeans, urging him closer. He lifted his head, letting go of a heavy breath. “To prevent Rebecca from finding out his family killed hers.”

“Wait, that means your job isn’t why she died.”

Now that I knew what it was like not to be consumed by so much hate and anger, to feel what it was like to be on the other side with Diana, I just wanted out. I wanted the peace she gave me. I wanted it so damn much it hurt. The tightness in my chest made it hard to breathe, hard to move, hard to speak.

“Diana Dominick.” She wiggled her fingers, studying her wedding ring. “Feels like that name’s always been mine, like it was written in the stars.”