“Ellie.”
“Yes?” He could hear the tears in her voice but steeled himself against them. This was her doing. She wanted this to end. Not him. “You do this, I’m done. No changing your mind. I won’t be back.”
With a grunt, he whipped the bottle across the deck, his aim accurate when it hit a nearby tree and exploded.
He dropped his head, scrubbed his palms over his face and bit back a scream.
I won’t be back.
No, it was she who was back. And only because she needed something from him. Not because she wanted him. Not to beg his forgiveness.
No. She was desperate.
And he was someone who could help her.
A fucking tool.
He felt her presence behind him to his left. Her breathing came slightly ragged which meant his outburst had upset her.
Good.
He grabbed his crutches and prepared to stand, muttering, “Need a fucking beer.”
“I’ll get it.” Then she was gone.
She was back quickly, offering an open bottle over his shoulder, but stayed behind him. Out of his view.
All he’d have to do was turn his head.
She was right there.
So close.
Within reach.
“Can I join you?”
He gripped the bottle tighter and took a long swig. When he dropped it back to his lap, he said, “You already have.”
“I can go inside if you’d like. It’s pretty out here. Peaceful. I could see why you’d want a house here.”
“That’s not why I built it.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. After a few more pulls on his beer, he continued. He didn’t know why he did, but he did. “Mercy lives to your left. Ryder to your right. Hunter’s building a house on another street near his son’s uncle. Expect the rest to move in here eventually. The invitation’s there, they just haven’t jumped on it. No need when you’re a single man, unless you’re a man who needs to accommodate his disability.”
Silence. One heartbeat. Two.
“You previously lived somewhere that didn’t.”
“In a lot of places that didn’t. You learn to adapt.” Why was he giving her this? Why was he even opening the line of communication?
It was dangerous.
“Walker,” she began.
It was the first time he heard her use the name he demanded she use. A less personal name than Trace.
But he didn’t like it on her lips.
“If you’re gonna stand out here talking when I told you I wanted to avoid that shit, you might as well sit the fuck down where I can see you instead of hovering behind me.”
She moved, but not to grab another chair. No, fuck him, she moved in front of his, to stand at the railing just feet away and leaned back against it. She planted both hands on the top rail, pushing her tits out as she did so.
She probably didn’t realize she was doing it, but Walker couldn’t miss it.
He was glad he was wrong about the boob job. Because the top she changed into gave him no doubt those tits were real.
With living next door to both Mercy and Ryder and their women, he’d seen something similar on Rissa and Kelsea both. Snug tops that clung to their curves and tits. Camisoles they called them. Thin shoulder straps that made him wonder how they didn’t snap from the weight. Especially when it came to Rissa, who had the biggest tits out of all the women.
And all the men had told Mercy he was a lucky motherfucker. But not out loud. They were envious, but they weren’t stupid.
Ellie wasn’t nearly as big as Rissa but still... he was right. They were fuller now than they’d been the last time he saw them.
She had aged well.
At almost thirty-seven, she could pass for twenty-seven. Especially with her long, auburn hair now sweeping past her shoulders. Hair he had a sudden urge to fist, to yank her head back, scrape his teeth down her delicate neck and then fuck the shit out of her while he bent her over the railing.
He wondered if she’d made all the little noises she used to make with him—the night he took her virginity and all those nights afterward—with McMotherfucker.
He closed his eyes and turned his head away, picturing George McMaster lying between her thighs, fucking Ellie all those years it should have been him.
That shit just stuck in his fucking craw.
His jaw tight, he kept his head turned away and his eyes shut. But even so, words slipped out. “You were supposed to be mine. No one else’s.”
He counted the seconds waiting for her answer. Six. Six long seconds.
“Yes, that was the plan,” she whispered. “You changed our plan.”
“Ellie, someone else had you.”
“Someone else had you, too, Trace. Probably a lot of someones.” This time her words were louder, holding a different kind of hurt. Was she imagining him laying between some other woman’s legs the same as he had imagined with her?
He opened his eyes and met hers. “None of them meant anything to me. Can you say the same?”
Her fingers tightened on the top railing as the color drained from her face. “Since I married the man, no.”
His breathing stopped for a moment as that knife twisted deep. She not only gave herself to someone else, but loved him, too. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
Starting at the top of her head, he raked his gaze down her body, not hiding what he was doing. And he didn’t miss when her whole body went tight. But she said nothing. She didn’t move away. She allowed him this.
He paused on her lips when they parted, and her tongue darted out to swipe across the bottom one. He slid his eyes over her neck, wondering how hard her pulse was beating just beneath her smooth skin. He hesitated at the hollow of her throat. A delicate, vulnerable area he had sucked, licked and kissed too many times to count. He continued over her bare shoulders, which were currently pulled back stiffly.
He dropped his gaze to the round, creamy flesh pushing out of the top of that black camisole and the shadowed crease of her cleavage. He was tempted to nuzzle her there. Her nipples were noticeably hard, pressing against the soft fabric. His thumbs ached to brush across them.
He made his way lower over her slender stomach, her still narrow waist until he reached the flare of her hips. He was right. They were curvier. Fuller. And even though he couldn’t see it now, he knew her ass was, too.
He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering those nights in the back of his pickup, with him on his back on a blanket and Ellie straddling him, riding him hard and fast, tossing her hair, his fingers digging deeply into the flesh of that ass, encouraging her to take what she wanted from him.
Because he would’ve given her whatever she wanted. All she had to do was ask and he would have broken his back to get it for her.
The tan shorts she had pulled on earlier looked soft and worn and extremely comfortable. They only came mid-thigh, so it left a lot of her smooth skin exposed. And he took his time exploring every inch. All the way down to her pink painted toenails.
He worked his way back up until he landed on her face. Her expression was sad, haunted, filled with regret.
He was sure it mirrored his.
“So damn beautiful, Ellie. So fucking beautiful. When I looked at you, I saw everything that was right in the world.” The fingers around the bottle clenched. The one on his thigh curled tight. “You stole that from me.”
Her chin rose and from where she stood, she looked down at him. “You might have thought my decision was selfish, but so was yours. You left me first, Trace.”
He did, but not in the way she was making it out to be. “You didn’t miss me.”
She pulled in a ragged breath, then breathed out, “I missed you.”
“You didn’t love me.”
Her eyebrows knitted together, and her expression and words became harsh. “How can you say that? It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life.”
“Then why d’you do it? W
hy did you destroy us?”
Her head snapped back and then her face crumpled. Surging forward, she fell to her knees next to his chair, her hands gripping his. “Trace, your soul was restless. You enlisted. You needed something I couldn’t give you.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes. I saw it. I recognized it. I was hoping it would go away. It didn’t.”
“You knew that I wanted you. I wanted us. But you took that away.”
“You enlisted without talking to me first!” she screamed. She dropped her head, her hair covering her face. Her chest rose and fell a few times before she lifted her head again.
He had no doubt what she was feeling, it was easy to read it on her face.
Devastation.
He knew exactly what that felt like.
He stared at their hands, hers squeezing his tightly as she continued, “I messed up big. I got it. I hear you loud and clear, but you have to let the past go, Trace. You can’t torture yourself like this. You can’t keep torturing me like this. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would. I wish I could, but I can’t. I can’t change it. I can only accept my mistake, learn from it and move on. But you have to accept yours, too.”
His breath burned his lungs. She was on her knees, pressing her stomach against his legs.
“You volunteered to leave me. To get shot at. To put yourself in danger. I was afraid to lose you, Trace. You were my everything. My world. Then you left. You went over there. There. Where people go and never come back or if they do, they’re never the same. I couldn’t watch or wait for that. Someone knocking on my door to tell me the worst news of my life, just like what happened to my mother when my father was killed over there. I watched her try to cope, to put on a brave face when dealing with me. But she couldn’t hide it. It utterly devastated her, Trace. It took her years to recover from losing the love of her life. Years and I’m still not sure she’s fully recovered. The possibility of that happening again crippled me, paralyzed me to my very core. It was easier to give you up than watch you come back destroyed. Or in a casket covered in a fucking American flag. Because that’s all my mother has to show for my father’s need to serve. A fucking flag.”
Every word struck a blow, cut him deep. Seared his heart.
But she didn’t stop. She kept going and he didn’t even try to stop her. Because she needed to say it and he needed to hear it.
“For what? You would have sacrificed for what? How would have losing your life changed anything? Was what I did selfish? Yes. You enlisting without discussing it with me first was also selfish, Trace. Especially when you knew what happened to my father, how I’d feel if history repeated itself. When you told me, I was crushed. It told me that I wasn’t enough for you. You didn’t love me enough to stay, to find another way.”
Yeah, he needed to hear everything she said but she also needed to hear him. Something that should’ve been done all those years ago instead. Like adults. But they had been young and immature. Trying to figure out life and what it might hold for them.
“I loved you more than life itself, Ellie. That’s why I did what I did. I wanted to be the best husband, the best father. I wanted to give you the world. But I only had a high school diploma. I had no money. I had nothing but me to offer you. That’s it. I knew the military would make me a better man, a disciplined one, give me skills, build my career. Give me the tools to be the best man I could be. For you. For us. I only planned on doing four years, then becoming a cop. The military was a step into that world. I was told when you came home a vet, doors opened. I was only going to do my time and get out.”
“Not everyone gets out,” she whispered.
Once she was done with him, he didn’t leave after his obligated service, he stayed. He did what he needed to do to make the Army his career since he had nothing to come home to. He successfully made it through, not only airborne training, but all the requirements for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
He became a Night Stalker. And he was damn proud of it. He was proud of every drop of blood, sweat and tears he shed to attain that.
But that was all he had.
Until he didn’t even have that.
“I didn’t die over there, Ellie.”
She leaned back and her eyes flicked down to his left leg where his stump was exposed. His weakness exposed. “You could have. You almost did.”
“I was too fucking stubborn to die. And, Ellie, you know the saying, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
She lifted her green eyes from what remained of his left leg, her voice thick, “You used to call me sweetheart.”
He jerked his hands from her grip. “And after that I called you a lot of other things.” He grabbed his beer and downed the rest of it before telling her the truth. “You shutting me out ripped out my heart, crushed my soul. I had nothing left but a dark empty cavity in my chest. So, sorry if I’m not in the mood to call you sweetheart anymore.”
Her sadness hit him in the gut. “We both messed up.”
He knew they both messed up. But it was easier to blame anyone but himself for fucking up the best thing he’d ever had.
She was right. He should have sat down and had a discussion with her about enlisting. Especially after she told him about that day the Marines came and knocked on their door. About how much her life changed after losing her father. After listening to her cry when she mentioned how much she missed him.
But he didn’t. He had walked into the recruitment office just to talk to them, check out his options, see what the military offered. But when he’d walked out, he’d already signed up. At the time he was proud to do his “patriotic duty,” be able to provide for his future wife, his future kids.
Being older than her and “the man” in the relationship, he had this fucked-up notion stuck in his head that he’d make all the decisions for them both. That he knew best.
He didn’t.
That decision back then had been stupid because he didn’t realize how it would affect her. While he saw it as doing something good for the two of them, setting up their future, she saw it as something bad, where it would destroy it.
But even so, she didn’t have to end up with McMaster, the only guy in town who could give her everything he couldn’t. More than what he could ever hope to provide for her.
When he’d called home and his father told him that news, he’d gone on a violent, alcohol-induced bender.
It was far from pretty. And if it wasn’t for some of the members of his platoon covering for his destructive ass, he would’ve been thrown out of the Army.
If that had happened, he definitely would’ve been left with nothing. Only holding his own fucking dick in his hand.
“Do you want another beer?” she asked softly, bringing his attention back to her.
“No.” Because if he had another one, it still wouldn’t be enough. He’d need another and another until he’d have no control over his urges.
And the urge to touch Ellie was eating at him, burning his gut, the pressure in his chest stifling.
He planted his palms onto his thighs, pressing them down, holding them there, so he wouldn’t reach out to her where she still knelt at the front of his chair. Close enough he could pick up her scent as the light late summer breeze swirled between them.
“How long do you think I’ll be here?”
“I don’t know. Until we figure out what the fuck is going on.”
“Days?”
“Hopefully.” In truth, they only had about eight days to find a solution.
“A week?”
Hopefully not. Having Ellie sleeping two doors down from his master bedroom for even a few days would be difficult enough. “I don’t know.”
“It’s good we got things settled between us, then,” she said, rising to her feet.
His hand snaked out and snagged her wrist, holding her in place. He looked up at her, tilting her head. “Have we?”
She lifted her eyebro
ws in question.
“Have we got things settled between us, Ellie? You think those words we just spilled, confessions we just made, settled things between us?”
Her mouth opened and nothing but a breath escaped.
“Are you feeling settled?” he asked her. “Because the fuck if I am.”
Chapter Seven
Ellie’s gaze lifted from his firm grip on her wrist to Trace’s face. His expression sent a shiver down her spine and caused a simmer in her belly. He looked hungry. Like she was his prey and he wouldn’t be settled until he hunted her down and consumed her.
She blinked slowly at her thoughts, then dug her teeth into her bottom lip.
She wasn’t sure what to do, where they would go from here.
He’d said roommates for the time it would take to help her. But he was not looking at her right now as if she was a roommate.
She saw this look before. She recognized it. He wore the same expression when they were at a pep rally at school and the seniors were on one side of the gym, the sophomores on the other. His blue eyes had landed on her and remained there for the whole thirty minutes. Even when his friends were talking to him and joking around, vying for his attention. She knew he answered them because his mouth had moved, but he kept her in his sights. Afraid she might disappear into thin air, if he even glanced away for a moment.
She had never seen him before that fall day. It was her first year attending that high school, since they had only moved to town late that summer after her mother married her stepfather.
When she first noticed him staring at her, heat filled her cheeks and she’d ducked her head. As the rally went on, she became braver, sneaking peeks, and eventually not hiding her own interest. Even going so far as giving him a smile and meeting his eyes across the large room.
She had no idea why a senior would be interested in her when all the senior girls were so much prettier, had nicer clothes and dressed so much more maturely than she did.
Those blue eyes were intense then, but, as she learned later, that was nothing. His interest in her only sparked that day. Eventually it became a roaring bonfire which engulfed her.
Engulfed them both.
Guts & Glory: Walker (In the Shadows Security Book 4) Page 6