by Scarlet West
“So?” Reid frowned. “What’s happening?”
“My ex found my house. He was there.”
“What?” he exploded.
“Sh,” I cautioned, indicating Josh and the car. “Keep your voice down, please?”
“Okay. Sorry. I just I can’t believe it. I’m sorry, Hayley. But you have to call the police. We can’t let that happen. You can’t just leave – it’s wrong that this asshole can ruin your life this way.”
“I know,” I said. “But I can’t call the police. What would I say? There’s no evidence. They’d probably say I was delusional. It’s happened.”
“No!” Reid went pale. “How could they?”
I shrugged. “You get some nice people; helpful people. But some of them will always tell you you’re simply overreacting.”
He swore. “Hayley. You can’t let this happen. What about Josh?”
“You think I haven’t thought about that?”
“I’m sorry.”
We looked at each other. I saw him wet his lips, as if he wasn’t sure what to say next. “Hayley? I know this probably isn’t the right thing to say. But, you don’t have to run. There are people who would help you. You have friends here – people who don’t want you to leave.”
“Ryanne can’t help me out with this,” I snapped. “I don’t want to put her and her mom in the firing-line.”
“I didn’t mean Ryanne, or her mom.” He looked at me, almost angrily. “I meant me.”
I stared at him. Said nothing. I was quite surprised.
“What?” he frowned. He shrugged, a little helplessly. “Think about it. I’m an ex-Ranger, I still have the skills. I can protect you, Hayley; it’s what I’m trained for. Let me help you.”
I stared at him again. I couldn’t believe he was asking me. I’d dumped Margarita on him, sworn at him, fought with him, and he wanted me to stay? Wanted to help me? Help us?
“Reid,” I felt my throat closing up. “What can I say?”
“Say you’ll let me help.”
“Oh, Reid.”
He held out his hands and I took them and, before either of us thought about it, we were in one another’s arms. I squeezed him and kissed his cheek, glancing at the car. I saw Josh turn his head swiftly away.
“Shit,” I whispered.
“What?” He frowned, seeing the dismay on my face.
“He knows where my house is. I can’t go back.”
“Stay with me.”
“What?”
“Hayley, stay with me. You and Josh. You’ll be safe there. We can get everything set up. I even have a spare room. It’ll work perfectly. Don’t you see how perfect that is?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“Hayley? Look at me.”
I looked at him. He frowned.
“Is this about the other night?”
“A bit, yes,” I whispered.
“If you and Josh come back with me, just for an hour or two, I can tell you everything. Then you can decide what you’re going to do. I promise, if you choose not to stay with me, we’ll make another plan. You don’t need to feel obligated either way.”
I frowned. I felt torn – I wanted to hear his explanation. I sensed there was some deep sadness in his past, something he wasn’t prepared to talk about. I wanted to hear about it. But at the same time, I didn’t know if I could fully trust him after that, or not. I nodded.
“Okay. Just for an hour.”
“Great.”
I looked at his smiling face and felt my heart flip over.
“Okay,” I said. “But first, I need to get some bags. We’ve got to pack.”
28
Reid
I drove home in a daze. Hayley was coming over with her son. They might stay, and I was going to have to tell her the truth.
I swallowed hard. Since leaving the Army I had never divulged all my secrets to anyone. Sure, a few people knew bits and pieces but that was it. I didn’t think anyone would ever truly understand.
I ran up to my apartment and got cleaning. It was pretty tidy anyway – old habits die hard, and in the Army you learn to be ruthlessly organized – but I washed dishes and changed the towels and brushed the dirt off the floor.
When the doorbell rang, I was ready. I’d dug out some snacks and drinks and was just carrying them through to the sitting room when it sounded.
“One moment,” I yelled. I ran to the door and buzzed them through.
I stared as I opened the door to my apartment. She was dressed in jeans and a shirt, her blonde hair loose about her shoulders. She was irresistible.
I looked down at Josh who beamed at me.
“Hi Reid,” he said, clearly comfortable in my presence.
The knowledge made my heart soar. “Hey Josh. Do you like movies?”
His eyes went huge. “Are you kidding? You have Star Wars?”
I nodded. “As it happens, I do.”
“Yeah!” he punched the air in triumph. I heard him rattling off some jargon about the movie as I went to set up the television.
When Josh was settled with the film and enough Cheese Curls to feed a platoon, Hayley and I went to the kitchen.
“He’s happy,” Hayley grinned. “You’re good with him.”
I swallowed hard. “Thanks. He’s a great kid.”
“Thanks for having us here,” she said. She was sitting at my kitchen table, and she looked right. I smiled.
“Want a beer?”
She wrinkled her face. “I hate beer.”
I laughed. “I have wine?”
“I’d love a glass of wine.”
We sat down with our drinks. I took a deep breath. “Hayley, I’ve never talked to anybody about this,” I began slowly. “But I want to tell you. I trust you.”
She said nothing, just kept her gaze steady on mine. I shifted in my seat, feeling the strength of her care for me. I carried on.
“When I was in the Rangers, we did a lot of things that I still think about. It was hard. When people think of soldiers, they think it’s our job to kill. That, somehow, it’s something you can learn to do. It isn’t. It never gets easier. I often see their faces in my dreams. See the bodies…” I closed my eyes, memory flooding with images.
“It must be so hard,” she said.
I nodded. “It is. I can’t sleep sometimes. So when we…I hadn’t slept so well, not for ages.”
She grinned at me. “Neither had I.”
“Really?”
We both smiled. I took a shaky breath and carried on.
“I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am for what happened. But when I woke up, when you touched me like that. I was suddenly there, in Bagram, under attack.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. How could you know? I’ve never told anybody. Nobody would understand. Not now that they’ve all gone…” I paused. This was unchartered water.
“Your friends?” she asked softly.
“My men.” I had covered my face with my hands, my voice muffled. I could see them all so clearly. DeShawn and Amery hovered on the edge of my view, the last of my ghosts to arrive. I wondered if that was because they resented me the least, or if the opposite was true.
“They all died?” she asked.
“They were all killed. All because of me. It was my fault. I took them there. I said we should observe from those rocks. I waited there for an hour. I led them there.”
I was crying now, and I didn’t care. I had never talked about this to anybody. I could feel the pain in my throat, the words cutting like glass. I had to get them out, make her understand. I was a failure. I was a killer. I needed to tell somebody, to let this out.
“You didn’t tell them to pull the trigger,” she said softly. “The enemy did that. The war killed them. Not you.”
“You don’t understand!” I snapped back on reflex. “I… they…” I paused. Her words were seeping into my skull like wa
ter in dry sand. The war killed them. She was right. It didn’t heal the pain – not yet. But it was something I hadn’t considered before. “Maybe,” I said.
“You led them well, and they knew what they’d signed up for – they were adults. None of them would blame you. I know that.”
I sighed. “Maybe they wouldn’t.”
“No, they wouldn’t,” Hayley said.
I held her gaze. She looked back. I felt strangely cleaner. She smiled and I reached out to take her hand. “Thanks,” I said. “Now you know. When I woke up, I was there. Not here with you.”
“I understand,” she said.
I exhaled slowly. “I’m glad,” I said with a weak chuckle. “It feels like I don’t understand – not really. It’s taken me months to figure out what’s going on.”
“I get it,” she said. “You feel like you’re going crazy.”
I raised a brow. “Yes. Just like. How’d you know?”
“I felt like that with Joel, with his torturing me like this.” She ran a hand through her soft hair.
“Your turn,” I said softly. “You never told me about him.”
“No,” she nodded. “I didn’t. Not a lot to tell. I met him when I was in college – in my first year. We went out for a while. I was nineteen, and I guess I was pretty ignorant. I fell pregnant after three months. And, well, that was it.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug.
“You left college?”
“Yeah. It was sad. I really wanted to stay on, though.”
‘What were you studying?”
“I wanted to do nursing,” She said.
My throat hurt. “That’s too bad. You could have stayed, though? I know it’s hard, but it’s possible. Or what do I know? You wouldn’t have left, if there was any other way.”
“I had to,” she nodded. “I didn’t want Joel to know about Josh.”
“He was bad then too, huh?” I frowned.
“Yeah. It took a week for me to start to notice things about him. Weird things. Degrading me, making me feel worthless, comparing me to other girls; little aggressive things like blocking the door by standing in it, standing over me at my desk to shout in my face. Pushing me or pulling my hair.”
I could see she was reliving the dark times too – her hands were twisting in her hair, and her eyes were looking into the past. I shook my head.
“Sounds like a real asshole.”
“You have no idea,” she said, lip twisting in a wry grin. “He was super wealthy, so of course most of my girlfriends saw only that, and thought I was lucky. I wasn’t lucky.”
“I get it,” I nodded. “I’ve seen that kind of asshole. Think they can do whatever they want.”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
We sat quietly for a while. “So he’s been chasing you since then?” I asked.
“Yeah. I guess when I left so suddenly, something flipped a switch. He couldn’t let anybody get away from him. He’s got the time, and the funds, so why not? He’s been chasing us for seven years.”
“Wow.”
I couldn’t imagine the stress of that. In a war zone, it’s one thing. The enemies are more-or-less where you think they are, and everybody knows that they’ll kill you, and you spend half your time avoiding them and half your time hunting them. But this? Seven years of this threat – and not just directed at her, but at Joshua?
“He’d hurt Joshua too? His own son?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t take that risk.”
“Wow,” I said again. This was even worse than I thought. We leaned back and looked at each other in the silence. After a moment, I cleared my throat. “Thanks,” I said.
“Thanks?”
“For trusting me. For coming back here. For letting me tell my story. And for telling me yours.”
She squeezed my hand gently, but the touch sent shivers like fire through my body.
“I wanted to. You’re a good man, Reid.”
I swallowed hard. “Thanks,” I said.
We just looked at each other for a long moment. I studied those soft green eyes, her delicate face, the moist patch on her lower lip that made me ache to push my tongue between those soft pillows and kiss her.
She must have seen something in my eye, because she grinned and inclined her head toward the door to the living room.
“We should check on Josh.”
“Yes.”
I heard the sound of the television blaring, and her calling her son’s name.
“Josh? Josh?”
She turned around as I came through the door, a finger on her lips. Inclined her head in the direction of the couch. I grinned.
Joshua was stretched out on his side, fast asleep.
She walked back to the kitchen door to join me.
“So?” I whispered “Do we get some time on our own?”
She smiled. “You are wicked, Reid Collingwood. Did I ever tell you that?”
I raised a brow. “Some have,” I said.
She chuckled softly. “Well, then,” she said. “I would like to find out just how wicked you are.”
We kissed and then tiptoed through the living room and into my bedroom.
29
Hayley
Reid kissed me and pressed me back against the door, his body hard and lean as he leaned in against me. I felt myself go tense and pushed into him, loving the way his arms felt, so firm around me.
“Hayley,” he whispered into my hair.
“Reid,” I said softly. I ran my hands down his chest, loving the hardness of his body. He groaned and drew me to him, crushing my breasts against that firm chest.
“You’re driving me crazy.”
I giggled and he turned around so that, arms still entwined around each other, we walked toward the bed. He kissed me again, his lips firm on mine and pushed me down into the pillows. I collapsed under him, laughing.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he growled.
“So are you,” I said, reaching and running a hand down the side of that stunning face. He smiled and planted a soft, tickly kiss on my palm.
I felt my body ignite. I loved the way he kissed me. So passionate and tender at once. I could feel wetness soaking my panties.
He reached down and started to work my shirt up over my head. I shifted to make it easier and he drew it off in a single fluid movement. I smiled as his eyes moved across my body, staring at my breasts where they were covered by my lacy bra.
He touched me through the bra, palms kneading my breasts, fingers clasping me. I sighed with pleasure. He reached behind me and started to unclasp my bra, sending little sparks through my body as he bent down and kissed my breasts.
He pulled the bra aside and drew a nipple into his mouth. My eyes flew shut as sensations shot through my body, my nerves all tingling, sparking in my belly.
I felt him shift me on the bed, moving me around so he could reach my waist. He touched me through my jeans, fingers pressing so gently on my clit while he worked at my breasts with his tongue. I was a mess of sensations, not knowing which end of my body was more aroused.
He started to work my jeans down over my legs, and his hand moved between my thighs, exploring my wet folds. I was already so close to climaxing, my whole body a tingling bundle of nerves. He smiled at me and I reached up and started to unbutton his shirt-front.
“You too,” I teased.
He smiled at me. “No, you,” he said. “I want to please you. Lie down.”
I felt his words like a stroke on my skin. I lay down, watching as he started to undress, swiftly pulling his shirt over his head, revealing the body beneath it. I watched him, loving what he looked like, feeling myself get aroused beyond the point of any sense. I could have stared at him for ages, those biceps rippling, chest stiff with muscle, slim hips.
He caught my eye and grinned at me, then lay down beside me.
I sighed in amazement as he, very gently, helped me to roll onto my tummy, and then, with tenderness I wouldn’t have believed possible from a bi
g, strong man, started to gently knead my shoulders. I felt as if my whole body would melt as he went down my back and touched me with gentle, shivery strokes.
I tensed as he got to my buttocks, but his touch was tender and professional, working with the muscles without a sense of sexiness. All the same, it was incredibly sensual.
I was on the edge of a high peak of arousal, being held there, indefinitely, by his gentle touch.
After a long while, during which I almost fell asleep, the sensation was so lovely, he gently nudged me.
“Your turn,” I said, reaching for him. He smiled down at me.
“No, this is your turn,” he said. He bent down and kissed my lips. His hands ran down my body and I felt myself tense up with excitement as they moved down to my waist and lower.
I closed my eyes again as he started to work my clit, rolling it between finger and thumb. The sensations building in me were deep and complex, my clit big and throbbing in his fingertips.
I started to cry out softly as he worked me for longer, swifter strokes, gently rolling and pinching in a way that made me so close to the edge I had no idea how he was judging it so perfectly. I was in a haze of bliss and I lost all awareness of anything except what I was feeling. I felt that incredible urgency fill me and I cried aloud, covering my mouth with my hand.
He smiled and raised a brow and I could see he felt proud. The joy he took in pleasuring me was a joy in itself. I pushed against his chest, letting him know I wanted him on his back. He laid flat and I threw my leg over him. I rose up over him, my breasts swinging toward his face. He lifted his head and took a nipple into his mouth, suckling softly as I lowered myself onto him.
30
Reid
As Hayley started to move on my body, my eyes flashed open. I stared up in utter amazement.
My cock was on fire, her body gripping it tight as she lowered and raised herself. I watched her move, that lithe body bending and flexing as she rode me, her breasts moving gently with the motion.
“Fuck you feel good,” I whispered.
I reached up, unable to resist the sight of so much beauty. I held her breasts, cupped in my palms, as she moved. The skin was surprisingly cool, and I loved the fullness of them in my hands.