Little Jack

by Atlas, Lilly

  She needed him to lie next to her, wrap her in those sturdy arms, and hold her as they slept, but she knew without asking that would never happen. After that morning, she’d be lucky if LJ blinked in her presence, let alone closed his eyes for a nap.

  She saw it, the moment of change. Something shifted in his eyes. Now that the physical need had been slaked—at least for the moment—reality began to creep back in. Holly swallowed, pushing away the tremendous heartache that hovered right there.

  “Don’t do it,” she whispered.

  He tilted his head. “Don’t do what?”

  “Push me away.” She held her breath. What a vulnerable position to be in. Splayed out naked before him, as he held her heart in his hand. Her body was safe. No fear there. But her heart?

  “I don’t have a choice, sugar.”

  Her heart was in grave danger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  LJ’S BODY CRAVED the slide into deep relaxation that followed an earth-shattering orgasm, but his mind had already jumped two steps ahead. Never would he put Holly at risk like he had that morning by letting down his guard and nodding off no matter how tempted he was to curl up next to her and let oblivion claim him.

  “Not yet,” she whispered. Wiggling, she propped herself onto her elbows.

  Why did she have to go and make this difficult? With a sigh, he slipped from between her thighs and flopped down beside her. They both rolled to face each other, and he immediately stroked a hand over her hip. Asshole that he was, he couldn’t keep from touching her even though he had every intention of severing their connection.

  “Holly, I could have killed you this morning.”

  “That never would have happened.” Her hand landed on his chest, drifting up and down. All he wanted to do was purr like a damn cat and give himself over to the gentle attention.

  Instead, he captured her hand and held it palm to palm against his own. The size difference was laughable, with his mitt being almost twice the size of her hand. “Look how much bigger I am than you. I’m not being extreme here, Holly. I could have hurt you. I could have fucking killed you.”

  With a shake of her head, she frowned.

  “You trying to tell me you weren’t afraid this morning. There wasn’t a single second where you felt fear for your life and safety while I had my whole fucking arm across your throat.” As he spoke, he circled her neck with his free hand.

  One squeeze is all it would take. Twenty, thirty seconds of no oxygen and she’d be out like a light. She was so much more fragile than he was. Why the hell had he let things progress so far? Now there would be a different kind of pain. An internal cut that never fully healed. For both of them.

  Holly’s eyes flared and there it was. Proof she couldn’t hide. A tiny hint of fear despite her brave talk. She shifted her gaze way. “LJ—”

  “I wish I could tell you this morning was an anomaly, that I had some crazy reaction to what Schwartz did to you and it set off an intense nightmare I couldn’t break out of. But I can’t say that. Because for the past few years I have at least one of those brutal fucking nightmares each week. I wake up angry, on the floor, ready to attack, with my heart pounding, covered in sweat, sometimes even screaming. Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  She needed to stop touching him, or he’d lose his resolve to walk out of that room and sleep on the couch. “Like you want to cry.”

  “What’s wrong with me crying for you, LJ? I care about you. A lot. More than just about anyone else. And when you care for someone, you suffer when they do.”

  Why the fuck did she have to be so goddammed sweet?

  A single tear slid from the corner of her eye, soaking into the pillow and stabbing into his heart. “Because I don’t deserve it. Your tears or your caring.” He swiped a thumb under her eye, capturing the next bead of moisture. “Please don’t waste your tears on me.”

  “So this is why you leave me every night? This is why you won’t even close your eyes in my presence? Why I’m always wondering what I d-did wrong and why you won’t stay with me?” The little hitch in her voice nearly broke him.

  Step one: remove his hands from her, but that task was proving to be impossible. With skin as soft as Holly’s, any man would have trouble resisting a touch. Up and down the swell of her hip, he stroked. The contrast of his sun-tanned hands and forearms with a pale part of Holly she never allowed to see the sun looked gorgeous. So creamy and smooth just like the vanilla frosting she always smelled of.

  “That’s why. And that’s why this has to end, Holly. I have no choice.” Finally, he tore his hand from the lush skin of her hip only to stroke it over the column of her throat. “I have no memory of hurting you, Holly. I wasn’t in my right mind. Wasn’t present, but when the deputy told me what I did?” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Please let me walk away without a fight. I can’t, won’t put you at risk like that again, sugar.”

  “We can—”

  His nose bumped hers as he pressed an index finger over her lips. “No, we can’t just continue on as we were. Both of us know what will happen. We’ll be tired one night, and we’ll fuck until we pass out. Or we’ll have a little too much to drink at the clubhouse, and we’ll tell ourselves we’re only going to close our eyes for a moment. Or we’ll snuggle up on the couch with a movie and drift off before it ends.”

  “All of those things sound perfect,” Holly whispered against his finger.

  “Yeah, sugar,” he rubbed her pink lips. “They do. Until halfway through the night, I attack you in some dissociative state where my mind is back in Afghanistan, and my body is here, fucking choking you to death.”

  “You won’t…”

  “I did.”

  Holly let out a heavy breath. What argument did she have? She knew he was right, even if she didn’t like it. Her sense of self-preservation would win out in the end. It had to. That was human nature. Who would willingly put themselves in a relationship where their options were separate beds for life or risking their life?

  “You said your mind was back in Afghanistan.”

  Of course, she picked up on that slip.

  “Yeah.”

  “In your nightmares, are you reliving something?” With a shake of her head, she said, “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  LJ stroked his thumb over her lips, still partially swollen from his earlier kisses. “It’s all right. Yeah, I relive the last event of my military career. The incident that sent me home and had me medically separated. I’ve never talked about it. Not once. Not in all the years since. Not with my brothers. Not with my therapist.”

  “You don’t have to now.”

  But maybe he did. Maybe if she knew the extent of how fucked in the head he was, she’d finally understand she was better off without him. Perhaps sharing his story would free her. Because he’d never get over it. Not fully. And she deserved a whole man, not a deadly shell.

  “I told you I was special forces, a Navy SEAL. I deployed frequently and for varying amounts of time. Even before this final deployment, I’d been showing signs of PTSD. Extra jumpy, mild nightmares, some anger issues, things like that. What people don’t understand is the mental strain of just being in a war zone. Even on days when nothing happened. Days so boring you’d count your eyelashes for entertainment, the possibility of a life and death situation was always there. Which meant the entire time, you’re on edge, waiting, anticipating, hypervigilant. Even in sleep, part of you stays alert and ready for action. You have any idea how draining that is on a six-month deployment?” He shook his head. “Fucks you up.”

  “I can’t even imagine the strength, the bravery it takes to do what you did, Jack.”

  With a snort, he said, “Not fishing for compliments here, sugar. Just telling it like it is.”

  “You still deserve to hear how incredible I think you are.”

  He wasn’t touching that comment. “Anyway, on our last mission, we wer
e helping an EOD team. They’re the explosives guys. They were disarming an explosive device they’d discovered while traveling, and we were back up since we were the closest team around. Anyway, just as they’d given the all-clear, someone screamed about tripping a bomb we hadn’t been aware of. The guy was running toward us at full speed, hollering about how we had to get the fuck outta there as fast as possible.”

  Holly began to fade into the background as LJ transported back to that last horrifying day in the Middle East. With each word he spoke, the weight of the memories increased until a crushing weight sat on his chest.

  “Do you need to stop?” Holly asked as she kissed his chest. Just that one little touch of her lips grounded him in ways he wouldn’t have thought possible.

  “No. Don’t need to stop.” Now that he’d started, he just wanted the fucking poison out of his system. “My best friend, Mick, had been standing next to me, and like a fucking hero, he ran toward the guy instead of away. I have no idea what he was thinking. Maybe he thought he could get to him and help drag him out of the blast zone. I’ll never know, and that’s one of the things that haunts me to this day.”

  “Oh, Jack,” she said. Yeah, she knew what was coming.

  “I screamed at him to get his stupid ass back, but he didn’t listen. The blast was huge, took out an entire building. I was thrown about fifteen feet from the force of it. Later, someone told me I was only in the air a few seconds, but fuck, Holly, it felt like hours. I witnessed it all. Mick’s death is branded on every one of my fucking senses. I saw his black and charred body. Felt the heat as it scorched my skin. Heard his fucking screams of terror and anguish. Smelled his fucking melting flesh, and, fuck, if the goddammed smoke didn’t coat my taste buds. I was helpless, so fucking helpless as I flew through the air and crashed down to a pile of broken bones.”

  “Helplessness,” Holly whispered.

  LJ pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes. Fuck if he would cry now. “Gets me every time. So, you see, sugar, I relive that shit in vivid detail during the night, and I lash the fuck out at anyone or anything near. I can’t be trusted and I’m not sure that’ll ever go away.”

  She grabbed his hand, pulled it from his face and pressed her lips to his fingertips. “What about talking to someone? Going to see a therapist? I can go with you.” Her voice held a note of pleading.

  Too sweet. Too goddammed sweet. “I’ve done it, sugar, for about two years. Learned some shit to deal with the panic attacks during the day, but it didn’t do shit for the nightmares.”

  Of course, he hadn’t told the therapist everything. He hadn’t told anyone everything. Never uttered the words of the trauma that haunted him in the night.

  All of a sudden, Holly shot straight up. “Oh, my God!” She spun, kneeling next to him. “I know someone. LJ, I know someone perfect.”

  “How? You’ve lived here for five minutes.”

  “He doesn’t live here. He lives in Tampa.”

  “He? You fuck him?” He narrowed his eyes.

  With a roll of her eyes, she swatted his chest. “Jesus, LJ, of course not. Will you listen for a minute?”

  He made a show of zippering his lips closed and tossing away the key.

  Holly snorted. “You’re ridiculous. Okay, my brother’s best friend growing up lived next door to us. His family went through some shit while he was in high school, and he eventually fell in with the wrong crowd.”

  “A one-percenter MC?” With a smirk, he raised an eyebrow.

  “Ha, ha. Are you listening? This is serious LJ.”

  Ugh, he was an ass. Here she was, working to come up with an idea so they could not only be together, but he could finally have relief from the crippling nightmares. He placed a hand on her thigh. “Sorry, sugar. Keep going.”

  Shooting him a sassy smile, she said, “Thank you. Anyway, his name is Baxter but we call him Bax, and he spiraled out of control pretty fast. Drugs, fights, theft. Eventually, when he was eighteen, the cops picked him up on an auto theft charge. He was sentenced to ten years, served five.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. When he came out, he was a different person. He was a man, but he’d made that transition while behind bars, which I imagine would scar anyone.”

  Sure would. Since prospecting, LJ had met plenty of guys who’d served hard time. Changed a man no matter their age, but to go from child to an adult in prison fucked men up more than most things.

  “Anyway,” she went on. “He turned his life around. Got a degree in psychology and works mostly but not exclusively with prisoners. I have a feeling you’d like him. My brother, Daniel, still keeps in touch with him pretty often, so I can get his number for you.”

  The thought of baring his soul to another stranger had LJ’s gut rolling and his mind shooting up road blocks. He’d tried that route, sorta, and here he was after having practically killed his woman.

  “LJ…” Holly’s voice softened. “I know we have a lot of factors working against us. It’s made us have to fight for each other when we should be in the easy blissful honeymoon phase. I’m not going to lie and tell you it won’t crush me if you want to walk away, but I will understand if having to fight for this thing is too much too early.”

  She cupped his face between her palms. “But I like us, LJ, uphill battle and all. I need you to really hear me right now, okay?”

  He nodded, captivated by the fierce expression on her face. “I’m listening, sugar.”

  “I’m willing to fight with everything I have. For you. For us. And I’m willing to wait to spend another night in your arms until you feel safe and ready. For as long as it takes, I’m willing and happy to do it if it means we’re moving forward. It’s not a sacrifice or a compromise, so don’t use those as an argument.” She winked then grew serious again. “But I can’t fight alone. It just won’t work. We’ll end up resenting each other, and that would be so much worse than losing you now.” She stopped talking to wipe at a tear that escaped.

  A second one followed. This time LJ smoothed it away with his thumb. He heard her loud and clear. She’d stick around. She’d wait for him to get his shit together. She thought he was worth it—they were worth it.

  But that meant he had to get that shit together. Which meant facing his issues, finally confronting and coming to terms with the most painful event of his life. The incident that left him emotionally crippled.

  “This guy, the therapist, think we could make it work with him being long distance?” LJ finally asked.

  Her eyes widened, and she shook her head as more tears rolled down her cheeks. This time though, he had a feeling they were tears of relief. “I’m sure he’d be willing to talk through FaceTime. I know he’s done it before.”

  After taking a breath, LJ jumped off a cliff he’d promised he’d never scale again. “All right. Get me his number.”

  Before he had a chance to process what was happening, Holly threw her arms around him and knocked him back on the bed. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear right before smothering him with kisses all over his face.

  “Jesus, sugar,” he said as he stilled her movement with a grip on her hair. “I should be getting on my knees and thanking you. No one has ever cared as much as you. No one has ever wanted me like you do. There’s just no one like you. My sugar.”

  Holly’s throat rose and fell with the force of her swallow as her eyes glistened again. Instead of allowing the tears to fall this time, she said, “If you’re gonna get on your knees, LJ, I can think of something better for you to do than thank me.”

  Quick as lightning, he flipped Holly to her back. “Don’t need to be on my knees for that, baby.” He kissed his way down her gorgeous body and straight to her sex, pressing her thighs wide as he went.

  Surprisingly, he felt light deep inside. Not the dread he’d expected when he agreed to see a therapist. All owed to Holly. The amazing woman healed his soul one day at a time.

  He circled her clit with his tongue, fucking loving the
familiar prick of her nails on his scalp.

  The least he could do for his woman in return was make her come until she passed out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE WEEKS OF working at the diner passed in the blink of an eye. By now, her face had healed, allowing her to feel confident in public once again. Holly adored every second spent behind that counter, from the constant stream of customers to the lively and enthusiastic staff, to the success of her menu. Even the two crotchety old regulars who sat at the counter spreading town gossip and bitching about anything and every aspect of their lives made her laugh on the regular. Both in their late seventies, the pair had been friends since grade school, and had been eating at the diner at least three days a week since Toni’s parents opened the place over thirty years ago. Holly arrived and left work with a bounce in her step and a smile on her face each shift.

  “Can I interest you in a muffin to go with that coffee, Mrs. Stokes?” Holly asked one of her favorite customers. A woman in her late-fifties who worked at the local library. She’d been by every weekday since Holly’s counter opened. Five mornings a week, she made a production of only ordering a coffee. Once Holly offered her a muffin or a donut, she’d hem and haw about how she should stick to her diet. In the end, she left with a giant, warmed treat each morning. “Fresh out of the oven as of ten minutes ago.”

  “Oh, Holly Lane, you’re hell on my diet,” Mrs. Stokes said as she peered into the display case over the top of her light pink glasses. “You know, I didn’t lose a pound last week? Not one pound.” She clucked and shook her head. “I blame you.” When she lifted her gaze, her eyes twinkled, and she winked. “Haven’t tried the cinnamon streusel muffin yet.”

  “You got it,” Holly said as she stifled her laugh.

  Once Mrs. Stokes had been rung up and sent on her merry way, Holly took a breath. This ten-thirty to eleven am stretch tended to be the quietest thirty minutes of the morning. Too late for the breakfast crowd, too early for lunch. Gave Toni’s staff a chance to rub their aching backs and reenergize for the next few hours.