by Fields, MJ
I pick her up, and her hands cup my cheeks. “You wa almost late, Mommy.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She wipes my tears away. “Don’t cwy. It’s okay.”
I hug her tighter than I think I ever have.
“Will you sing me to sleep?”
I look at Rosa and William, and they nod toward the stairs. “We’ll catch up later.”
“Thank you so much,” I say as I carry my little one toward the stairs.
Inside her room, I lay her in bed then turn on the little light beside it that projects the stars onto her ceiling. After I tuck her in, I lie down beside her and sing her and myself to sleep.
13
No Going Back
Titan
Two days ago, Shadows sent a written message. He can’t talk while his larynx heals, so he’s become like a grade school girl sending written notes, badgering me.
The one I’m reading now isn’t directly to me, but Irons thought I needed to see it.
You tell him he has two legs and, one life. It’s a no-brainer. If I could hold his ass down and wield a saw, I’d be in there now. He better make that decision before I’m well enough or I will.
Apparently, it was to Laurie.
Irons made sure to tell me how exhausted she was, and that it was the first time he had ever seen her crack. He mentioned tears, in an accusatory way, and in a way that told me he knew something.
I lost my shit and started tossing things on the night table, and when I tried to get up, I fell and broke my ankle. Now, my rotting leg is in a cast and I’m tied to the fucking bed.
She stopped coming to my room unless Irons or Frankie are here. When she is here, it’s all business. Hell, she doesn’t even look me in the eye. Though, she does come to me when she thinks I’m sleeping and begs me to live for those who love me; begs me to live for those who need me and says she is one of them. I know she’s falling, just like I am.
She tells me that I’m an asshole, that I deserve whatever pain I’m in, and then kisses the top of my head and tells me she’s sorry. She’s angry at my decision, my actions, and I’m suffering because of it. I can’t stop thinking of everything from Scotty dying, to the girl, to my leg, and the cruel joke the universe is playing on me with Laurie.
When my door opens, I see Shadows being wheeled in. Jaxson follows him and the nurse into my room.
When the nurse leaves us, Jaxson steps in front of him. “Shadows is still unable to talk, but he is being released into Mary’s care.”
“Well, he can’t talk, and I can’t walk. Aren’t we the luckiest motherfuckers around?”
“You are. Both of you are. Hell of a lot luckier than Will,” Jaxson growls at me.
I know he’s sick of my shit. Newsflash: so am I.
“So I keep hearing. But coming from a guy on crutches and a hospital full of people who have two legs, I really see no fucking reason to party.”
“Titan,” Jaxson says with warning in his tone.
“What the fuck?” squeaks out of Shadows as he stands up. He flips me off when Jaxson hands him a whiteboard and a marker then scribbles furiously. When he turns it around, I read it.
Lose the leg, you stupid fucker.
“No.”
He starts writing again.
You die, and this is for nothing, man.
“Yeah, well, it already is. My guy died.”
Irons turns his back to me and looks at Shadows. “He’s hurting, you’re hurting, this is not a good day for a debate, so write down what you need to say and let’s get you somewhere to rest.”
“Home. Home to rest,” I mumble under my breath.
He holds up the whiteboard.
I would die for you. You know it. I know it. You would do the same. You’re here. Live for yourself. Live for all of us.
I look away.
When he clears his throat, I look back at the board and see more scribbling.
Or it’s all for naught, man. All for naught.
Then he sits down in the chair, looks at Jaxson, and points at the door. When Jaxson starts toward the door to call the nurse, Shadows wheels up to the side of the bed, not slowing down until he crashes into it. Then he pulls up his shirt and shows me his scars from the abuse he took while in captivity.
He grabs the board and writes, We will never be the same. Never. Matters fuck not. WE. ARE. ALIVE.
* * *
For two weeks, Shadows sends messages, telling me I’m lucky to be alive.
I don’t feel lucky. I feel like I’m crawling out of my fucking skin. I can’t sleep and have eyes on me every waking moment. Not that you can sleep in a hospital, and I should know. Between here and Germany, I’ve been in one for nearly a fucking month.
I also know that, since the day I turned the room upside down, she doesn’t come to visit while I’m awake. I told her to leave me alone, and she’s doing it. I didn’t do it to hurt her. I did it because I don’t want to hurt her.
There are rare nights that I know she’s here. I feel her presence. I smell her scent and fight the need to offer what I know she thinks she wants. It’s less than she deserves. She wants me.
I feel myself getting weaker. I know the infection is growing. It’s what I keep saying I want. I want it to take me. But if I’m honest with myself, it’s bullshit. I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to live without a leg.
* * *
I wake to the smell that is distinctly her and the sun heating my face.
I open my eyes to find her alone. “You dared come in here without a chaperone?”
She turns and looks at me.
“Or when I’m awake?”
She shakes her head. “He told me you were the one he’d turn to if he ever needed help. That you were the logical one.” She walks over and sits on the side of the bed, shaking her head as she looks down at me. “If he could see you now.”
“You have a point here? If so, get to it.”
She looks at her hands, now knotted in her lap. I’ve never seen her like this.
“Dr. O’Neil?”
She looks up. “I have something important that needs to be dealt with, and I could really use your help. It’s what brought me to the bar that night. But in your current state—”
“Even in my current state, I can help you out. I prefer using my hands, so you could untie me and—”
“I’d leave you tied up if—”
“A threat and a promise. Well, lock the door and get to it then.”
She closes her eyes tightly and whispers, “I need your help, Tanner, and I need you well, physically and mentally.”
“So, you had a motive.”
She shrugs. “Will told me that you are who he would go to—”
“I love the man like a brother, but when I’m tied to a fucking bed, and you’re asking for special favors, I’d prefer him to be left out of the conversation.”
“Here we fucking go again with your damn ego!” she whisper-yells at me as she stands and starts to pace. Then she stops at the door and locks it before turning back to me. “The night I met him, I was dared to walk up to a hot as hell pilot at the bar and hit on him.”
“Still don’t want to hear—”
“It was you, you idiot! When I overheard you and Shadows’ game that night at the bar with the bimbo sandwiched between you, I decided, no thank you. I choked on my drink, and Will came up from behind me and helped. That’s how I met William, Titan! I was going to ask you to take me to bed. Are you happy now?”
“I have no idea what the hell to say to that.”
“Say nothing. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is I think I know something about Will’s accident and—”
“Not here, Doc.”
“Oh, so now I’m Doc again?” She throws her hands in the air. “God, you infuriate me.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not playing my A game right now.”
“No, you’re playing a game far deadlier. And right now, that doesn’t work for m
e, so suck it up, be the man I know you can be, get rid of the rotting flesh, and learn how to deal with it.”
I nearly break when I ask the most honest question I have yet to ask. “How do I deal with missing a piece of myself?”
“If a little Syrian girl can lose an arm and go back to an orphan hospital in Aleppo, a man like you should certainly be able to in the United States.”
“You know where she is?”
“I know so much more, and I trust no one but you, a man who refuses to help himself.”
“Is she okay?”
“Well, I haven’t talked to her.” She’s getting more frustrated by the minute.
I try to hide my own emotions, wanting to calm hers. “Talk to me, Doc.”
“I want to trust you. I do trust you. But not in this state. Tell me you’ll fight, dammit.”
“I am fighting every damn day.”
“Bullshit, Lieutenant!”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re out-gunned, out-manned, there are bullets and bombs going off all around you, and you know you’re probably gonna die. What do you do, Lieutenant?”
I look away from her.
“What. Do. You. Do!”
“Untie me now.”
“Why should I? So you can throw a fit about something you can’t control?”
“You want me to help you, I’m telling you … untie me.”
She shakes her head as she walks toward me, tears falling down her face. However, she does the opposite of no, she unties my hands.
I pull her into my arms and hold her as she cries.
“I need you, dammit.”
“Is that why you stayed away for two fucking weeks? Do you think that’s what I needed?”
“I’m sorry.”
“And I’m sorry I can’t make you any promises when I have no clue how I’m going to come out of this. I’ll give you a year, Doc. You take my leg, I can’t handle it, you got a year from me to help you out of whatever mess this is.”
She sniffs and finally wraps her arms around me. “I’ll take it.”
“We do this today. I don’t wanna sit here and mind-fuck this. Just take the fucking thing.”
She leans back and nods as she licks her lips and looks at me, seeking assurance.
She needs me, and I need her.
Unable to stop myself, I kiss her, and I kiss her hard.
As my cock grows, so does the realization that I have a tube in it.
I push her back, and she looks confused, dejected.
“I have hardware.”
“Right, of course. I—”
“Get rid of it.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No crazier than you.”
“But—”
“Both of us need this right now.”
She closes her eyes and leans in, pressing her lips to my neck, and lets out a quiet whimper.
“Regardless of the consequences.”
She pushes back and gets to work.
Lying there with Doc taking care of shit, you’d think I would feel like less of a man, but the way she looks at me makes me feel more whole than I ever have. I know it’s probably all going to change after I lose a part of myself, but right now, I don’t give a fuck.
“Do you have to use the bathroom?”
“Doc, shut the hell up and get up here.”
She shakes in question of what she is about to do, but not because she doesn’t want to. It’s with the realization that she needs it more than she needs anything. Her silent comprehension of that fact is only moments behind mine.
She unties my ankles as she asks, “Are you in pain?”
I yank down her scrubs and underwear. “My balls are engorged, my cock’s a bit sore, but once I’m buried inside you, I’m sure all that will be inconsequential.”
She steps out of her clothes and climbs up on the bed, trying to hold back a laugh.
“What’s so damn funny about that?”
“The way your verbiage changes from Navy flyboy to sexy, intelligent, strong—”
“Hard as hell,” I say, gripping my cock and rubbing it against her heated, soaked pussy. “Christ, Doc.”
After ripping the IV out of my arm, I sit up and flip her over onto her back, ignoring the pain it causes because, in seconds, I’ll be buried inside her and it won’t matter at all.
“I know you’ve run the gamut of testing on me, so I’m clean.”
She thrusts against me. “I’m clean and on the pill.”
“Fuck yes,” I say before taking her lips again and filling her full of me. “Fuck. Yes.”
She spreads her legs wider, and I fuck her like I fear I will never be able to fuck again—relentlessly, hard, strong thrusts, dominating the movements of the woman beneath me. And she takes everything I give her as her eyes beseech for more, so I give her all I can as her body instantly quakes beneath mine.
Thrust after powerful thrust, our eyes remain locked together, taking, giving, begging, pleading. When her pussy contracts again around my throbbing cock, I crash my lips against hers to muffle her orgasmic cries. Then I change the tempo to long, slow thrusts until my balls tighten.
“Gonna come,” I hiss.
“My mouth,” she pants out. “I want you to come in my mouth. I want to taste you.”
I quickly pull out and roll to my back as she scurries down, taking me deep into her hot, little mouth. Then I pull her hair back and watch as her full red lips slide up and down my shaft while she sucks me off. I grab the side of the bed as the first shot bursts out of me.
Watching her swallow my come is enthralling, so I give her more. Watching her swallow another and another and another shot makes me want to give her all I can. I want to fill her full of me. I want to drown her in my cum so no man can ever have those lips around their cock. But when I see my cum seeping out of the corner of her mouth, I realize how fucking wrong that is.
Licking me clean, she moans like it pleases her.
“Taste good?”
“Better than I imagined.” She licks back and forth across my tip then sighs. “So much better.”
Her admittance makes me realize she wanted it as badly as I wanted to give it to her.
Fucked, I think. We are so fucked.
She climbs down, scoops up her clothes, and then hurries to the bathroom, leaving the door open. I watch her dress and fix her blonde, silky hair that was splayed across my abs moments ago.
After she’s dressed and has fixed her hair, she walks out of the small bathroom and begins to hook me up. “If I leave you untied—”
“Cut the shit, Doc. I was just buried to your navel and my cum was dripping out of the corner of your mouth.”
“Crude,” she says as she shoves the needle back in my arm.
“Easy,” I hiss.
She looks up from her long, dark lashes and gives me an apologetic look. I give her a silent acceptance.
In just a few minutes, she has everything back in place, except for the restraints and catheter. “I’m going to book an OR and order something stronger to help you relax.”
“Give me your phone so I can contact Irons and let him know I’m going to have my leg lobbed off today.”
“I don’t lob, Lieutenant. When I get done with you, you’ll have the sexiest stump and best prosthetic any man has ever had.”
“Sexy stump?” I huff.
“There is something extremely sexy about scars, Lieutenant.”
“I’ve read about that. Fetishes for amputees. Acrotomophilia.”
“That’s about as ridiculous as it comes. If a man is good-looking before, he’s even better-looking after and you, well your hot Lieutenant.”
* * *
After the door was closed behind Irons and Shadows and as Doc started to prep me, she asked, “You ready to get some rest?”
“Before you knock me out, I’d like to know exactly what it is you need from me when this is all done. We didn’t get a chance to discuss what you think you know ab
out Will’s accident.”
She slides the needle into my arm then looks up as she pushes the medicine into my vein. “First, I have to tell you that I think Irons is hiding something from me.”
“Dammit, Doc, I’m already feeling the effects of whatever you gave me, don’t start making me doubt you by questioning one of my best friends.”
“In Germany, after a briefing, Peterson made sure I saw her leave a folded piece of paper with the name of a town and some locks of her hair on the bed. The way she did it, it was clear she wanted no one to see the interaction. And before we left, the girl … she whispered the name Khaledes into my ear twice as if it was a secret. I googled the name.”
“I really hope you did it from a secure server, Doc.”
The look in her eyes tells me she didn’t.
“Dammit,” I sigh out.
“I also googled his family.”
It doesn’t take a genius to realize she thinks the little girl is somehow related to Khaledes. And based on my intel, his family was in Jblah.
“He’s fathered ten that he claims. There was a daughter named Laylee.”
“Fuck,” I whisper as I fight to keep my eyes open.
“I’m worried about her. My father worked at GITMO—I know how these people work—and she’s just a little girl, Tanner.”
“Tell Irons to contact Peterson.”
She nods.
“We’ll do what we can to try to make sure she’s okay.”
She nods again.
“Now, what about Will’s accident.”
“You said not here,” she reminds me. “We’ll talk when you are better.”
“Talk now. I’m falling out, Doc.”
I feel her lips on mine as she kisses me then whispers against them, “Fly safe, Lieutenant.”
14
Gone
Laurie
As Tanner went under, he murmured about Shadows, saying he should have let him die. I know they were thoughts in his subconscious, which isn’t unusual. Hearing it, though, was very difficult, especially after all he and I had gone through.