This was what it meant to have your whole body consumed by the needs of someone else. Every time I touched her, my entire being was invested. Every time we moved closer towards the possibility of having a future together, she stamped another big chunk of my heart as hers.
And I prayed to fucking God it wouldn’t be long before she stamped her mark on all of it.
Rebecca
This time when I woke up he was there, lying casually beside me, just watching me. As I began to come around, I felt the slightest tug of my hair between his fingertips. “Morning.”
“Look away,” I moaned, covering my mouth with my hands. “I have gross morning breath.”
Jake smiled and his body trembled with laughter. “Well if you do, I do. Now kiss me, woman, and let that grossness mingle.”
I wasn’t turning that down, and as the slightest kiss from Jake got me far too excited, that led to him getting excited, and then, like the worst bad joke ever, he ended it with words of dread. “We need to talk.” I knew my body stiffened up when it registered those words, and he felt it, too. “About Mansion.”
I pulled the thick fluffy blanket up around me and sat up, ready to hear the worst. Jake chose to stay lying on his side, propping his head up on his arm, exposing that luscious chest and all his killer abs.
“Concentrate.” He chuckled.
“Oops, busted. I am concentrating. Now.”
“He wants the rest of his family and the only decent lead he had on smoking them out was you.”
“Fucker,” I said with menace. Jake’s words did not make me happy.
“I believe I may have called him something similar. Anyway, putting your face on a poster may have drawn them out, but if it didn’t, he knew it would bring others to his door and give him more leads. He was more than prepared to hang you out there.”
I understood straight away. “The marks from the honey trap.” Jake nodded and I could tell he was as pissed as me, but at least I was getting honesty.
“Mansion gave us a choice. Help him find his fucking siblings or he goes back to baiting you.”
That thought made my breath quicken in panic. The only option if that happened would be to keep moving. Although knowledge is power and I had an edge now. I knew where Cara was, so if I went down, I would be taking her with me.
“Jonas is looking into the first, so please don’t worry. He understands that you are not going to be part of any deal.”
I came back to the same thing I’d asked myself many, many times over the years—why me? But now I could add other questions to the great mystery. Why did these strangers help me before? And what reason did they have to keep helping me? Now seemed like one of the only times I might get an answer, so I went with it. “I don’t get why you’re all helping me.”
“A number of reasons. Jonas is a good guy. He knows tragedy and will help others avoid it at all costs. Ross helps for the same reasons but also because Cara insists. Her crazy ass family did this to your life and she feels responsible.”
“And you?”
“An excellent question.” That was all he said. We were back to the same old shit responses at a time when I needed and wanted the answers the most. My time here in Hawkstown could be officially classed as ‘borrowed’ as Jake saw us as only short term. It felt like hours, even days, had just been shaved off the clock. “A few days ago…” he began before stopping to look at me. “Why is it that my time with you feels like years? Anyway, a few days ago you asked me for honesty, Rebecca, and I need the same. Your life is so up in the air, and mine is too but in a different, less life threatening way, and I need to know how you see us. No matter what you say or want, I’ll be around until you’re settled and safe.”
It was crunch time.
I wanted to protect myself and leave it open for interpretation, but I was worried that he’d get it wrong and misunderstand me.
I knew before I’d even finished my train of thought that he was going to get it all. Life was short and fickle, and every extra day I procrastinated was another day I wasn’t living the life I’d always dreamed I could have if I just worked a bit harder and kept my head down.
“I don’t know what the future holds, but I want one. I feel this rush of breath and quickening of my heart when I see you. I also hurt when you’re not with me and all of that is pretty hard to ignore.”
I defiantly watched his face while I said my piece and I could see the blue of his eyes become more inky and deep. He gave no reaction that I could work with, no smile of pleasure or grimace of regret. I figured I’d just carry on until one of those reactions appeared, or he stopped me from making a fool of myself. There was always the possibility that what I was saying was ridiculous.
“All of my life, I’ve been fighting shadows, Jake. Bizarrely, it felt refreshing when those shadows were there because of me. I actually felt a sense of responsibility and hope that I might be able to fight them off because they were mine. But I’ve realized that whatever the shadow, all I’ve done is fed them and given them more power and I want to take back that power. I have to take it, sink it into my own life and finally live. I want to feel alive. The thought of doing that without you doesn’t sit right, and honestly, it’s not how I want this to end.”
Jake finally gave me a reaction. He’d been waiting with bated breath, like I was going to give him bad news and it was his turn to show relief. My heart was fluttering with the possibility that this might actually happen and it only intensified when he picked up my fingertips and kissed them as I carried on babbling like a nervous idiot.
“I mean, is this nuts? Is my life so crazy that I see a chance at normal and all I can think about is running at it at full speed and never letting go?”
“If your version of nuts involves running at full speed at me then I don’t think that’s crazy at all. I never got it before. All the girls and women I’ve been through have never consumed me the way you do. So what I’m saying, Rebecca, is will you—”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know what I’m asking,” he laughed.
“I don’t care.” And I truthfully didn’t. This was raw and real for both of us and whatever he wanted I would give him repeatedly. I knew I was feeling something special and different, something I’d never felt before. Love.
“I could have been asking you for anal sex.” He chuckled, waggling his eyebrows.
I didn’t reply.
“Call me a typical guy, but that wasn’t a no so we’ll come back to that exciting topic at a later date, hopefully. I could have been asking you to pack up your world and move closer to me.”
“Already done that.”
“I could have been asking you be to be a brave little soldier and move in with me.”
“Meh.” I shrugged. “We’re practically there already. We’ve spent most nights together since we met anyway.” Now I was the one playing with his fingers. I was nervous. This was what I desperately wanted and so far he’d only been posing hypothetical scenarios.
“I could have been asking you to marry me, Rebecca.”
“You could have been. Were you going to ask me to marry you?”
He looked at me and swallowed. “I want to say no, that you’re way off base and the idea is stupid, but that would be a lie. It doesn’t sound stupid or scare me like it should. It feels right, which is just fucking crazy.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “You see, this is when it’s obvious that you’ve never had a girlfriend. You don’t float marriage as an idea and see what sort of response you get. Generally, I believe it’s also bad form to suggest it after also discussing anal sex.” Jake laughed wildly and I loved the carefree look on his face. “What you do is take your big cock and balls by the hand and tell the girl that you want them to be your wife, that you can’t possibly see a future without them. Then you ask them to marry you.”
Jake pushed my fingertips aside and swung the sheet covering him out of the way, revealing his statuesque body to me. His skin was taut,
his abs were tight and his chest started rising and falling to match the intensity in his eyes. The further my eyes travelled down his body, the more his hard, pierced self, bobbed up and down around his middle, demanding my attention.
When he wrapped his hand around his shaft and grabbed his balls with his remaining hand, I gasped in shock. I started to tremble with giddiness at the thought of what his actions really meant. “This isn’t hard for me, Rebecca, although he sure is and fitting all that man junk in my palm is certainly a challenge.”
I knew my eyes were welling up.
“I know it’s the craziest fucking idea in the world, but something so crazy has never felt so perfectly rational. I want you to marry me, move here and be the woman who owns my heart as well as my body. I want us to have a family and to watch you doing parrots with my kids.”
That was it; the tears fell free. No one had ever made me the center of their world. No one wanted me above all else. I was always the third wheel growing up with my mom and Bob. I was always an inconvenience until someone figured out a way to exploit me.
Jake had asked for nothing apart from what was deep inside of me, my emotional trust, my heart and soul, my love.
“Rebecca, I don’t know what living is yet, but as fucked up as it sounds, I’ve been doing it since I met you. You make me feel alive and I want you to experience that feeling in life with me. Is that a better proposal?”
I was openly laughing and crying, the tears dribbling into my mouth because the smile on my face was so big, wider than it had ever been in my life. “Are you sure?”
“Can you see my cock and balls in my hands as you requested? Just to say, you turn me down and I face the prospect of a girl seeing my junk deflate for the first time ever. You say yes and I think I may make real love for the first time, followed by an explosion I’m not sure even he knows he’s capable of yet.”
I didn’t look at his massive, pierced dick after I’d wiped the tears from my eyes. I continued to look at his face and handsome smile. He was perfect and he wanted to love me forever.
My life had been launching from one chance opportunity to the next just to survive. Taking this chance came with a guy I knew I was falling in love with in a big way and the tease of living a normal, regular life. There was no way on God’s green earth that I was going to turn him down. “I think I love you,” I blurted.
“Not the reply I was expecting, but I’ll take it and run with it. Come here.” I slouched down the bed and got closer to him. “I’m going to love the fuck out of you right now and for as long as my equipment can hold it together. Morning breath or not, we’re sealing the deal on our agreement right now. No backing out, Rebecca.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I told him, moving my hand to get involved with his where it was still perfectly positioned around his erect dick.
When Jake finally made loved to me, I cried, only this time he kissed away my tears. As soon as we were both coming down from our high, he declared, “We’re getting married as soon as possible. Don’t want you changing your mind.” Even with him still inside me, I knew that I never would.
There was no way I was walking away from this.
Between us, we had no jobs and I’d pretty much dropped out of college. I didn’t think we had anywhere to live and I still had a hot mess of trouble trying to catch up with me. I’d still not met all his family and I was certain Jonas would go mental when he heard about this.
No… this wasn’t a crazy idea. It was completely fucking insane and I couldn’t stop smiling about it.
Jake
I wasn’t entirely sure how that had all come about, but it had escalated quickly.
Holy fucking shit.
I’d just convinced her to marry me.
I was getting married.
Allowing those words to leave my lips, let alone thinking them, should have had me running to pack a suitcase and buy a plane ticket to Alaska. But I wasn’t.
I was completely okay with it, and if marrying her kept her with me then in the end I would be the lucky one. The thought of not being with her wasn’t a good one. It made me feel all tetchy, so I was absolutely prepared to do anything to keep her by my side.
In truth, I was a little bit scared. Okay, that’s a lie. I was scared witless that she was going to realize I was just not worth it and leave.
As I lay beside her, I felt amazing knowing I was going to do this for the rest of my life. It wasn’t just making me hard with excitement; it was calming the fuck out of me, too. Like I’d found some magical peace I didn’t know I was looking for.
Was this what those nut jobs felt when they found God? All born again and gleeful.
“Baby, wake up, we need to talk again?” I whispered, waiting for her to rouse and show some sign of life. I couldn’t control my happy smile as her cuteness kicked in and she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes.
“Talk,” she demanded grumpily, making me laugh. I’d exhausted her and it was brilliant. I didn’t even know if she was a morning person. In reality, there was a lot I didn’t know, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was just so fucking excited that I would have chance to find out.
“I want to introduce you to some people today. Then I need to go and see my brother Jack. Things have been rough between us and I need to sort that out.”
Rebecca didn’t argue with me. She just got on board and followed my lead by getting showered and dressed.
Dolly, the girls and Jonas were all watching some Disney shit when we got next door. I didn’t even know what time it was. Rebecca and I had fucked or slept away most of the day and I was starving.
“A word,” Jonas asked, and after I left Rebecca manning the toast machine, I followed him back to his office. “I’ve made contact with Mansion and I’m waiting for a call back to find out what’s pushing his buttons.”
“Good, I need this sorting. I’m gonna marry that girl,” I blurted out, unable to hide the smile and excitement in my voice.
Jonas stopped and looked at me like he wasn’t seeing me straight. “All in good time. Can we not launch from one disaster to another?”
“It won’t be a fucking disaster, and fair warning, we’re doing it as soon as I can get it booked at the town hall.” I could see him searching my face, trying to look inside my head for some sign that I’d gone mental or my brain had crawled out of my ear holes overnight. “I trust all her I.D. and shit will stand up to a legal marriage?”
“Are you fucking insane?” he said, leaning his head towards me.
“What? It’s a valid question.”
Shaking his head in despair, he continued, “Now I know you’ve lost it. My paperwork will stand the test of time and a fucking age beyond. I meant this marriage shit.”
I failed to hide the disappointment I felt towards him. I hoped and prayed that not everyone was going to react this way.
I thought he’d seen what I really felt about her. “It’s not shit. I love her and I don’t see the point of fucking around, waiting some predefined time period just so everyone else considers it acceptable. I don’t need everyone else to feel comfortable with what we already know.”
“How about this—you’ve got no job, no place to live, she’s still in college and that’s before we get to the topic at hand. You’ve known her, what, a few weeks? Fuck, Jake, I’ve had longer hard ons.”
“I’ll talk to Jack about the living situation. We may need somewhere temporary. I’ve been thinking about a job, too.”
Here I went...
“You showed me I was wasting my life away. I had no purpose and I was thinking I could join up.”
“Join up?” he asked, confused.
“Yes. Join up. The navy.”
I saw his face pale a little, like I’d just asked him to choose his favorite between the twins. He turned away from me, paced a bit, and then came back at me. There was something wrong with his eyes, and in a moment of utter madness, he grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pushed me roughly into the nearest
wall.
Jonas’s face was angry and I could see he was working hard to keep his temper under control. “You sign nothing until we talk more about this. You have no idea what that world is like and what it can do to you. You want a job? Fine, but the navy… shit, Jake. Don’t you see what it did to me?”
He let go of me and put his hands on his hips, looking at the floor and breathing heavily.
“I do. I see it helped you become the best you could be. You’re respected. You served your country and it gave you a life.”
“Fuck. I am not a recruitment poster. Pissing hell! If I could cut myself open and show you the dark shit inside my soul, I would. Besides the actual surviving almost being killed and the complete mind fuck the navy can be, you don’t get it. You’re forgetting what I missed out on.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Dalton. If I’d known this could be my life, the kids, her, I wouldn’t have risked all that. Every time I closed my eyes or someone else’s, I prayed that I’d make it back, just to tell her how I’d always loved her. Imagine trying to get through the worst situations possible and then some, wondering whether you’re going to get that chance. If you loved that girl out there, joining the navy would be the last job option you’d consider.”
“But I’d be able to provide for her and I know we’d make it.”
He smiled sardonically. “That’s only if you make it, you dumb fuck. Listen, she loves you now. This Jake. You see the shit I saw and a different Jake will come home, one she doesn’t know how to love. Are you willing to risk that?”
Was I?
My brain was screaming at me that maybe he was being a little too extreme. I knew how I felt about her and I couldn’t see me surviving next week without her, so I clearly hadn’t anticipated how I was going to make it through a deployment without her, too. The thought that she could be left at home worrying about me wasn’t a good one.
“Promise me you haven’t already done something about this. You want that girl, fine. But I’m telling you, having both, the girl and serving, will kill you and in the long run you’ll have to choose one of them. And before you say it, even if you choose her, after being deployed she may not choose you. You need to figure out which one you’re serious about.”
Alive Page 14