The country was doing something. We were taking out the bases where the men who’d killed my parents trained. Even if it was too late, it was something. I wouldn’t watch vengeance on television.
If I’d had a sense of duty before, it had been hidden. My girlfriend at the time was shocked. She’d thought I was crazy. Rich surgeons didn’t sign up for the military. That was for white trash and brown people.
Needless to say, that relationship went down in a sputtering flame from a hundred and ten stories above.
I never looked back.
* * *
In the dark living room, with the streetlights casting edges in blue, I waited for Greyson to come home. We had much to discuss.
The tricky part was explaining things to her as the man she’d married, not the monster I was.
I knew my face was somehow different to her when I was like this.
So I unscrewed the bulb from the front hall.
I knew my voice sounded different, because I could hear the hardness as well as she could.
So I wouldn’t speak.
Damon swirled desperately in the shadows, so real I was sure I could touch him, but I didn’t move. Not when she came up the stoop, carrying a binder, or when she opened the door. Not when she flicked the light for nothing or when she pulled off her coat and dropped her stuff on the chair to try the light again.
I stood.
When she turned and saw my silhouette, she jumped like a colt, then smiled when she realized it was me. “The light’s busted.”
I took her hand and put it over my lips. She let it linger there, and I slid my mouth to the inside of her wrist and kissed the soft flesh, letting my lips linger over the throb of her pulse.
“You’re not mad,” she said.
I shook my head to say no and ran my tongue over the inside of her arm, pushing away the sleeve of her blue dress.
“Good. We should talk.”
“You talk.” The words left my mouth like frozen stones. I wanted control, but I’d spent too much time talking. Too many words gave her space to hear the voice of a man disentangled from his love.
“I’m not sorry about last night,” she said. “I wish I could be there for you every time, but sometimes I just can’t.”
“Mm-hm.” I nodded into her skin. My lips ran up her arm to her shoulder, her neck, kissing the curve of her jaw. A wet sigh drifted from her, and her body lost its rigidity.
“Caden,” she whispered.
She reached behind her and unzipped her dress. I pushed the neckline apart, over her shoulders. It fell into a puddle of fabric at her feet. The swell of her breasts in the lace bra, the curve of her belly over the panties. The shadow where her thighs met.
“Take it,” she said. “Show me what you need.”
She’d understood me and, in doing so, made the first crack in the crust I’d put around my emotions. I was hard. Raging. All the plans I’d drawn up while I waited for her were wiped away to be replaced with harder, more precisely cruel ones.
I tapped her lower lip with my index finger and she opened her mouth. I put two fingers along her tongue to the back, pushing against her barrier until she opened her throat. She bent under the pressure, and Damon hissed.
That was it. I had it. I had her.
I spun her and grabbed her from behind, pressing my erection against her. I hooked my finger in her underwear and snapped it. She got them down to her knees with me still holding her against me, and I wedged my hand between her legs. Throbbing and wet. The temptation to get her off quickly and feel that first bite of satisfaction was in the muscles of my hand.
But the other hand wanted more. The other hand wanted to bring her to the edge of death and back again. Collar her with my body. Restrain her most basic bodily function.
My hand on her throat, I tightened just a little.
“Caden.” She put her hand over mine. I didn’t whisper or speak. I didn’t move either hand. I just held her against me, waiting. “Breath play. You want breath play?”
I’d heard of it when a kid in my class hanged himself jerking off, but we called it something different. She was a psychiatrist with hundreds of patients telling her their deepest, darkest secrets. I couldn’t do anything she hadn’t heard in session. I nodded into her neck.
I waited. I could stand a “no.” There were plenty of ways to control her, myself, and the act, but owning her life for even a second was the ultimate, and my cruelest self craved it almost as much as I craved her pain.
There had been something to Ronin’s observation, but maybe it wasn’t either/or. Maybe I needed both.
She put her weight backward, arching her neck. I felt her swallow against my palm, felt her body take in breath and release it. She didn’t answer, and still, I waited.
Finally, she spoke. “I trust you.”
I rubbed her clit mercilessly and gently tightened my grip on her larynx.
She jerked. I tightened and rubbed, keeping her still by those two points and the pivot of our hips. As I held her tight, she fought, grabbing my wrist, twisting away. Strong as a soldier, she flung herself away, but still I held her by the clit and the throat.
She pulled my arm. She was scared. That wasn’t what I wanted. She needed to trust me.
“Shh,” I whispered because it didn’t engage the ice in my voice. “Shh.”
With a short nod, she stopped resisting. That wouldn’t last. Not as I kept her windpipe closed until her face was bulging red. Her body writhed. My hand taking her clit over and over as the physical reaction resumed. She kicked and twisted, knocking over the end table.
Then some of the fight went out of her. I didn’t let up the pressure on her nub, but I let go of her throat. She went stiff, coming with a cry and a jolt. Her sucking breath turned into an orgasmic cry. Limbs limp against me, she came and came, toes pointing, hips jerking, spine rigid, eyes rolled to the back of her head.
We bent over the back of the couch, my body curved to hers. We breathed together.
Fuck. I did that. I’d held her life in my hands. Cathartic to say the least.
“Is he gone?” she asked.
“Mostly. Are you all right?”
“Yes. That was…” She closed her eyes and rested her cheek on my arm. “The most intense orgasm I’ve ever had.”
I knew I could speak when guilt wound its way into my heart. I pulled back a little, steadying her on the sofa. My stomach was wet.
“Shit,” I said. “I came.”
She smiled. “Was it good for you?”
I laughed, or more accurately, the part of me that wasn’t capable of laughing allowed the capable part to laugh because it would soothe her. The time between changes was the most uncomfortable, and it drove my unquenchable thirst for her.
“We’re not done.”
* * *
My fingers in her cunt, I had her upper arms tied to the top of the headboard with clamps and latex tubing, leaving her ass six inches from the sheets. She had to use her feet to take the pressure off her arms, and the discomfort she endured for me made me want to see her racked with orgasms. She was close to her fourth of the evening. Her eyes were drooping. Her body jerked when I removed my fingers and put them in her mouth.
“Suck yourself off.”
She did it. There was no lipstick left. All the mascara had slid down her cheeks in blue rivulets. She sucked weakly. This would have to be her last one.
Good. I was almost free of the lockdown. Then I’d let the guilt walk right through me, hand in hand with the fear that I’d hurt her or worse.
Wedging my hips under her, I pushed inside her, getting my saliva-slick hand under her chin. “You want to come?”
“Yes.” Her throat was shredded from my cock.
“How bad?”
“Bad. Please, I want to come so bad.”
Thumbing her clit, I fucked her, timing it so we came together.
That last act of control and release opened me up to what I’d done when I was too cold to feel my lov
e. When I was a monster in a man’s body.
What had I done?
* * *
She was in my arms, sleeping. Tomorrow we’d take stock of her bruising. We’d carve new boundaries and make new rules. The mostly sane man she married would be awake and verbal in the morning, and he’d agree she could say no for whatever reason.
Tomorrow, remorse would fill me like a bucket and Damon would reappear louder and stronger, sooner than ever before.
What I’d done was simple.
I’d agreed to a risk to save her from this nightmare.
Drowning in the gray soup of sleep, I knew I’d made the right decision.
Chapter Eighteen
GREYSON
I was woken at four in the morning when a bus with squeaky brakes stopped somewhere on Columbus. I lay still for a few minutes, letting the warmth of the sheets and the sound of Caden’s breathing soak into my senses.
All of the familiar aches were present, along with complete sexual satisfaction. I turned onto my side and tucked my hands under my cheek. He looked like himself again. Even with his face slack in sleep, I could tell he was back.
My Caden.
My captain.
We’d get through this.
Something had happened. I didn’t know if it was a breakthrough or the first step in a thousand, but something.
Five days since he’d needed to hurt me. If it was more, or even five again, we’d know.
In four days, we’d know if we could change the course of this thing. Maybe stop it in its tracks. Hope fluttered my heart, and I knew I wasn’t getting any sleep.
I slipped out of bed, went to the bathroom, and put on a big T-shirt to go downstairs for a glass of water.
Most PTSD treatments involved sensory or mental exposure to the seed trauma. Caden hadn’t landed on exactly what he needed to be exposed to, and I’d thought whatever Ronin was working on would let us circumvent the trauma that either didn’t exist or that Caden wouldn’t admit to.
That was down the shitter obviously, as was any help from Ronin.
But we had this. I was sure of it.
I rinsed out the glass and went through the living room to the staircase. Caden’s jacket was piled on the floor. I picked it up by the collar and shook it out. An envelope came out partway.
The army seal was in the corner.
Probably a pension notice or something. I hung up his coat and took the letter to the second floor, where he kept his office. I didn’t turn on the light. I knew what was there. Bookshelves with thick medical texts. A glass-topped desk with a computer. A phone. A leather chair in the corner.
I was about to leave the envelope on his desk, where he’d see it, when something I’d noticed before jabbed at me. There was no sending address or stamp.
Why would that be?
If the army had sent him something, it would be via mail, with a canceled stamp and a sealed flap. This flap wasn’t sealed. The only way he’d get an open, unmarked envelope from the US Army was if he met with… who? Where?
Why?
I couldn’t even imagine.
Prying into my husband’s life wasn’t a habit, but I wasn’t snooping to see if he was cheating on me or spending money he shouldn’t. I expected garbage. A fundraising flyer or a mentor request.
My expectations were lies I told myself to cover for the fact that I had no business opening that envelope or sliding out the paper. Leaning into the window to catch the light from the streetlamps, I opened the single page. It stretched like arms folded in anger slowly unbending for an embrace.
I read it once.
Then again, clutching the thin cotton of my shirt. I twisted it as if my heart was in my fist and by God, I was going to wring it dry before it killed me.
“Honey?” He was at the office door in his pajama bottoms, framed in the molding around the opening. Dark behind him. Lit with the barest window light.
He was a god and a saint. He lined my soul, and as I stood there with my shirt twisted in my fist, he was…
I held out the letter.
…the heart I wanted to wring dry.
“Greyson?”
“No,” I said, not denying my name but his. His name did not belong on that paper. “This is a mistake.”
Caden came into the room with his hand out for the letter, brows knotted with curiosity and concern. He didn’t know what it was.
Hope kept the tears at bay. Hope was the only cure for disappointment—if it didn’t kill you first. Hope stuck harder and took a piece of you when it was ripped away.
He opened the letter for the briefest moment then folded it again.
“It’s a mistake,” I said.
“Let me explain.”
No. No-no-no. Hope ripped away, leaving pieces of itself behind. I was made of spit and tears, but I held on to them. “It’s a mistake, Caden!”
“It’s not. I mean, it may be, but—”
“It’s not?”
Hope was a fish hook, barbed to leave a jagged hole when removed.
“It’s just the reserves.”
“Just? You fuck.” I punched his shoulders with both fists. He didn’t fall. He needed to fall so hard he’d break time. Then we could go back ten minutes, before I knew. Back a day, before the letter existed. A decade, before the war. “You fucking fuck. How could you do this?”
He held up both hands. “Just take it easy.”
I snatched the letter from him and tore it up. “I do not accept this.” I threw the pieces at him. “I love you. You are my life, you fucking shit.” I punched his chest and he did not defend himself. “I break for you. Do you understand? I break every damned day and you do this? Why? You think getting away from me is going to cure you?”
“It’s not that.” He grabbed my arms before I could punch him again.
“What then?” I tried to yank away, but he wouldn’t let me.
“The treatment. The experimental protocol. I need to be in the system or I don’t qualify.”
I buckled. I couldn’t hold myself up. The floor was despair and I needed to melt into it, flatten myself against it like spilled water, spread and evaporate. Only his hands kept me upright, saving me and killing me with equal force.
“It’s IRR. I don’t have to do anything. They’ll keep me off active duty. Please. Listen—”
“You’re going to get called. Do you understand, you stupid, stupid man? They’re going to call you back.”
I tried to get away, but he held me harder. “They’re not. Greyson. Listen to me. They’re not calling me.”
“You’re going to get stop-lossed. They’re going to deploy you, send you away, and I swear, Caden, you’re not a soldier. You’re not meant for it. They’re going to send you back broken.” My anger melted in its own heat, dripping away in thick tears.
That time he’d gone off-base with a medevac. He’d been so brave and strong inside the hospital walls, and it all fell apart on the front lines. He returned covered in blood, unable to function or process what he’d seen. He wasn’t the same after that. His arrogance lost its edge after one time on the front lines. What if he was sent out again? How could he so blithely assume he’d survive it? “Why? Why did you do this?”
“I have to. I can’t let you keep taking the brunt of my sickness. It’s hurting you. I’m hurting you. Grey, I’m…” His face tightened as if he held back his own tears. “I’m afraid I’m going to kill you.”
He barely got the last word out before breaking. He let my arms go, and I held him. We bent together, falling as if we’d been detonated, limbs wrapped together like a smoking pile of twisted metal beams, weeping for the end of the life we’d tried to live.
Chapter Nineteen
GREYSON
I sat on the stone wall on Central Park South and picked the pickles off my sandwich, eating them one by one. They got less and less shockingly sour with every bite.
The sidewalk was packed with the lunch crowd, and more than once, I had to chase someone
away from the spot next to me. A jackhammer pounded the street somewhere. No matter what street I was on, there was always a jackhammer going in New York, as if the city had to remind you not to get too comfortable.
Ronin appeared with a cup of coffee, and I moved my bag so he could sit next to me.
“Afternoon, Major One More.”
“Afternoon, Lieutenant Shithead.”
“I had the feeling this was the kind of conversation I was in for.”
“What you did was fucked up.”
I watched a gaggle of tourists wrestle with a map. A businesswoman dug in her bag to pay for a knish. Two guys in suits walked as if they were racing somewhere and talking as if they were on the verge of ending poverty.
“I assume you’re talking about Caden going into the reserves,” he said.
“I can’t even look at you.”
“He’s a grown man.”
“He thinks you can keep him from getting called.”
“How do you know I can’t?”
I let out a derisive laugh. He’d always had a high opinion of his position.
“This war’s messy,” I said. “It’s never going to end. Every week, it’s clearer we’re in a quagmire. You know it because your company is invested in keeping it going. War ends, money dries up.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Maybe not for you. For the suits on the top floor? For the lobbyists? That’s how it works. And now my husband is on the army’s radar. If there’s pressure to send him back, you’ll buckle. Your company will buckle. And if he goes back…” I took a deep breath and finally looked at Ronin. “If he goes back and he doesn’t die, he’ll be dead anyway. In his mind, he’ll be someone else. I’m not ready to lose him. I’m not ready for my mind to die.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” He put his coffee on the seat and pivoted to face me. “I’m going to tell you things you should have seen already.”
“Don’t try to tell me how much pull you have.”
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