Unbreak Me

by Michelle Hazen

  Even the words turned him on.

  Her eyes came open but were only hazy green slits. “Yes, any—I need—oh God. Yes.”

  He surged upward, wrapping his arms around her waist, and stood while still buried inside her. That got her eyes wide open, and he started pumping into her while standing. One arm under her ass, one around her waist, his thigh muscles clenching. He wanted her up against a wall, her back against something firm so he could push deep and—

  He pulled out the second before it was too late, gasping as he held her up in shaking arms and tried to fight the orgasm already roaring through his head, begging to burst out through his tip. The air in the shed clung molten hot to his skin. A thousand and three degrees, and still it felt cold on his erection after the warmth of her body.

  LJ lowered her to her feet and she staggered a little, reaching for the weight bench and climbing up onto it on hands and knees. She fumbled for a second and then dropped one leg to the ground so she could open a little more.

  Before she could get self-conscious, he joined her. His hands were so hot her skin seemed cool against his palms when he smoothed them up her back, leaving kisses along her spine. “I’m here. I’m right here. You hear my voice, Andie-girl? I love you. You know how goddamn much I love you.”

  She turned her head, shaking the tumble of her black hair out of her face as she reached one hand around to draw his mouth to hers. “It’s okay,” she murmured through the smile that crept into their kiss. “I’m okay.”

  He laid his cheek between her shoulder blades and closed his eyes. He was not okay. He wanted this so bad, wanted to take her deep from behind in a way he couldn’t explain in words, or as a mere fetish. It was more like part of his DNA, the need to claim her as his.

  “You hear me, love? You hear my voice?” He kissed the back of her neck, wrapping one arm around her and holding himself up on the weight bench with the other. “It’s going to go deep from this angle.”

  She curled her ass back into his lap, pushing the head of him into her. “I love your voice. I want you to do it hard. It doesn’t hurt, LJ.” She rocked back a little more, her muscles fluttering around him. “It feels so good.”

  He curled his abs and eased into her with a long, exhaling groan.

  She squeaked, squirmed a little, and started begging in tiny broken sounds that drove him out of his mind. He was pumping into her before he’d made the choice to do it, slamming so far in that the swollen head of his dick locked into some perfect, secret clasp that made her moan every time.

  He had to hit that spot again. Again.

  He dropped his hand farther down, where everything would be more sensitive.

  She clamped her teeth against a scream, and she fisted around his dick as she crashed into orgasm again. He thrust even harder, his legs screaming as the head of his cock dragged through the convulsingly tight clasp of her. He exploded, hot waves of liquid bursting from his tip, spreading deep within her body. Just when he thought there couldn’t be any more, pleasure flashed brightly behind his eyes, pulsed once up his shaft, and then slowly ebbed away.

  He held her with his one free arm, sweat slick between their bodies as he buried his face in her hair, breathing her scent with every ragged breath.

  They needed to lie down. That one thought beat inside his head with every too-big beat of his heart, but it took him a second before he could pull out. Once he did, he maneuvered them until they were sitting, lifting Andra into his lap so he could hold her better.

  “Oh my God,” she said, her head sagging against his shoulder. “I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.”

  He grinned. “Did Cosmo magazine tell you that’s what a man likes to hear? Or am I just that good?”

  She blew a hair out of her face and gave him a narrow-eyed look belied by the smile tugging at her lips. “You know, smugness is not attractive.”

  “That’s not what you said a minute ago,” he teased. “I do believe you called me beautiful, Rodeo Queen.”

  “I was under the influence at the time,” she mumbled, letting her head sag against his shoulder again.

  He tugged her hip a little closer into his lap, dropping a kiss on her hair. She said something very soft, and he lifted his head. “What was that?”

  “Do you think it’s because this place is so different from home? Why my attacks stopped, I mean?”

  He wasn’t so sure they had stopped. It had been only a few days, after all. He didn’t want to jinx it, though, in case she was right. “Nothing to trigger bad memories, maybe?” He turned his head enough to kiss her cheek. “And hey, if you happen to like making love in a backyard shed, that’s all right with me.”

  As soon as he said it, it hit him that she’d never said it back. She had only said she loved his voice. He’d told her he loved her so many times now—with his saxophone, with his body, with words, and she’d never said it back. Sometimes, she looked at him in a certain way, and he thought maybe . . . But he wanted more than maybe. His heart was so tied up in this girl that he knew damned well he was never getting it back.

  Then again, maybe she was the smarter of the pair of them. He was starting to doubt he was ever going to be able to leave his mama or New Orleans for long, but he could already feel the itch of going a whole week without riding a horse. He loved his life in Montana, living his days to the rhythm of the wind and the animals beneath his saddle.

  And location was even less of a choice for Andra than it was for him. She owned part of that ranch, and the better part of the Lawler reputation was built on trophies won by horses she’d trained. Plus, she was welded by the heartstrings to that palomino mare of hers.

  Andra lifted her head from his shoulder. “You okay? Or is the heat killing you, too?”

  He grabbed his shirt off the floor and handed it to her so she could get cleaned up. “Missing my cowboy hat, that’s all.”

  She got up out of his lap, her face lighting up.

  “What?”

  She grinned, and blushed the tiniest bit. “Next time we do that, will you wear your cowboy hat?”

  Her smile soothed some of the ache in his chest even as it stabbed a little deeper, because he never wanted her to turn that smile toward any other man.

  “Darlin’, if you let me do that again, I’ll wear anything you want,” he said. “Except pants.”

  Thirty

  “Faster!”

  Andra picked up the pace of her whisking, frowning down at the uninspiring tan goo in the skillet.

  “Faster, girl, or the roux’s going to burn.” Rose clucked her tongue.

  “Why don’t we turn down the heat if it’s going to burn?”

  “Wouldn’t taste right. You’ve got to brown it right at the edge of burning to get it nice and dark, but if you let up whisking, you might as well throw it in the trash.” Rose tucked the blanket higher up on her legs, glancing over at the Cubs game playing on the tiny TV in the corner of the kitchen. The sweatshirt she wore puffed around her whole upper half, the words on it so faded that all Andra could make out were the words “Middle School.” She couldn’t decide what was more adorable: that LJ had been so tall by middle school, or that his mom still wore his sweatshirt.

  Adorable or not, Andra had no idea how Rose could be wearing a sweatshirt in August. The AC was on the highest setting, and she was still sweating in cutoff shorts and a tank top. The only nice thing about the heat was that LJ always wore shirts that exposed the thick muscles of his arms. Or no shirt at all.

  “Quit your daydreaming, girl. Whisk!”

  LJ chuckled, swiping diced bell peppers to the side of the cutting board with his knife. “Dang, it’s kind of fun to watch her yell at somebody else in the kitchen.”

  Rose gave him a half-fond, half-aggrieved look. “LJ was seven before I could get him to come out with a decent roux. But it took Mona’s girls until they were twe
lve.”

  Andra laughed. She never got tired of Rose’s stories about LJ, though the older woman rarely bragged about her son in front of him. “You had him cooking when he was seven?”

  “Well, I had to! I didn’t figure any woman was going to put up with that attitude of his, and I didn’t want him to starve. Besides, he didn’t grow that tall on only three meals a day. Took more like six or seven when he was in high school.”

  He turned halfway around, grinning. “If you’d known I was going to turn out so pretty, you wouldn’t have had to bother.”

  “See?” Rose said to Andra. “Manners like that, of course I thought he’d starve.”

  “Y’all just don’t want to admit my cake got snatched up before yours at the last barbecue ’fore I moved.”

  “Why do you insist on talking like you just slogged out of the swamp?” Rose demanded. “You have a four-year degree, LJ Delisle, and I’ll thank you to do it justice.”

  Andra’s whisk jerked to a stop. “Having an accent doesn’t mean you’re uneducated.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to cringe, because she’d just picked a fight with LJ’s beloved mom. But she hated everything about the entire argument. “It’s ridiculous. Nobody ever says British people sound uneducated, even though they tack an r on the end of all kinds of words that don’t have one. The idea that a southern accent makes you sound dumb has a whole lot more to do with prejudice than IQ points.” She lifted her chin. “I happen to like the way he talks.”

  Rose blinked, and Andra braced herself for a fight. “Well, then,” the other woman said, the corner of her mouth twitching upward.

  The door rattled under a too-enthusiastic knock.

  Rose turned toward the sound, brushing off the tense moment. “LJ, take that whisk and see if you can salvage the roux before you have to run off to work. Andra, honey, go see who’s at the door and tell them the gumbo won’t be ready until this afternoon no matter how many times they ask.”

  LJ hooted with laughter, stealing Andra’s whisk. “After she ate your red beans with a straight face, I thought for sure Mama loved you too much to teach you a thing. Turns out even love has limits, and those limits start with messing up gumbo.”

  “I wasn’t messing it up.” She gestured at the pan. “It’s goo! It was goo five minutes ago, too.” She crossed the kitchen and pulled the door open, yanking hard to get it past the sticking point. “The gumbo’s not ready, Ty, and I promise you don’t want to come in here. These two are both crazy.”

  LJ’s best friend grinned at her from the porch. “Maybe I came to see you.”

  She snorted. “After what I did to your guitar? Not likely.” She turned and gave Rose a pained look. “He said the sounds I made were like the babbling of an infant.” She narrowed her eyes at Ty. “They were chords. I am almost sure they were chords.”

  “Girl, you’re pretty and all, but if music is a language, you’re illiterate.” He laughed.

  “Not fluent,” LJ corrected from the stove, whisking with quick, exact strokes. “Illiterate would be if she couldn’t read, not speak.”

  “Oh, she can’t read music, either, fool.” Ty shook his head. “It’s sad.”

  “Did you come here to make fun of me?” Andra opened the door a little farther, leaning on the edge. “Because I have to tell you, these two pretty much had that covered.”

  He brightened. “Nope. I got something for y’all.”

  She couldn’t help a smile to match his. It was so easy to see why he and LJ were friends: they both started at a thousand watts and only dialed up from there.

  “Remember that family we helped move last week? They called me to haul off a load to the thrift store, because they knew I’d do it cheaper than the moving company. They had a bed that wouldn’t fit in their new spare bedroom, and it happens to be the size of frame you’ve been looking for.” He reached over to the wall and hauled a headboard over in front of the door. “See? California-king-sized.”

  Black metal headboard. The scrape of handcuffs jerking against the post.

  Andra jolted backward, the sight a battering ram straight to her chest. Her bare foot skidded on the linoleum, her ass smacked the floor with a bruising thud, and she skittered backward.

  “Andra?” Rose asked. “What’s the matter?”

  She tried to go faster, get farther away from that bed frame. Her legs stopped working. At the same time, her arms went weak and she was helpless. Stuck there for whatever came next.

  “Shit.” LJ hit his knees beside her, turning her face toward him. “Look at me, sweet girl. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

  Blood, dried on her fingertips as she crept off the bed, digging at the screws with cracked nails as she tried to gauge how long she had to try to get loose before he came back.

  LJ exploded up. “Get that thing out of here.”

  Ty’s voice sounded closer now. “What? What’d I do? Is she okay?”

  The cotton of the gag expanded, stuck in her throat so she couldn’t pull air around it or even get enough to cough it out.

  “Go.” LJ stuffed him outside and slammed the door to hide the bed frame. He was back with her in a second. “Breathe, Andra. It’s gone. You’re safe.” His voice shook, and his eyes were fastened on her lips. They felt the numb kind of cold they got when they started to turn blue. LJ must be scared, too, because he knew she was dying. He knew her body was broken and it would turn on her, kill her before it would let her be stuck in that place again.

  “LJ, you leave her be,” Rose said. “See to dinner.”

  He threw a wild glance over his shoulder. “No, she—”

  “Mind your mama, now.”

  He stood up, slowly, and Andra couldn’t even get her eyes to move to follow him. Tears blurred everything, and she couldn’t blink. The burn started in her chest, sending urgent fingers upward. Cells dying, begging for oxygen she couldn’t give them.

  “Turn off the burner and see if you can scrape that roux off my good pan. Did you buy onions? They’re good for your immune system, you know. And they fight inflammation. When you’re old, LJ, you’ll thank me for feeding you so many onions.” She clucked her tongue at the scrape of a spatula on cast iron. “Oh, it burned on good this time, didn’t it? Well, simmer a little water in it, see if you can cut the black part loose.”

  The edges of Andra’s vision started to go. Black to gray to a blur of color still left at the center. Her whole body collapsed in on itself, a balloon sucked empty of air.

  “In Montana,” LJ said, “they get these fat yellow onions, sweet enough you could eat them like an apple. From over in Washington. Next time, I’ll bring you a bag.”

  They sounded so calm, normal.

  “How long has that lattice been loose under the porch?” LJ asked. “You know if I’m not here, Ty will nail it back down for you before the possums move in.”

  “Tyrone has his own mama to do chores for. He doesn’t need to be doing mine. I was just waiting for a good day so I could swing my own hammer.”

  Their conversation was utter normalcy, while her heart raced like she was fighting for her life. But then, she wasn’t, was she? She was in a kitchen, they’d been cooking, and there was nothing binding her hands. She blinked, and oxygen rushed into her lungs. Clean linoleum stretched in front of her, a couple of black smudges on the bottom of the door where shoes had brushed against the paint. Her muscles ached, and she stretched them gingerly before she pushed back to her feet.

  “Sorry.” She kept her eyes on the floor, not wanting to see how Rose looked at her after that little episode. The counter was only a few steps away, and she meant to start helping so she would look normal again, but she was too shaky to risk picking up the knife. Instead, she held on to the edge of the counter. She hadn’t had a single attack since she’d followed LJ to New Orleans, not even when they’d made love in the shed: th
e first time she’d been with a man since her kidnapping. Everything here was so different from home, and she felt bolder, lighter here. She thought all that was over. But she was the same person.

  The heat of LJ’s chest steadied her back, his arms coming around so one crossed her chest, the other winding around her waist. He ducked his head, his cheek pressed to her hair. She wasn’t sure if the quivering was coming from her body or his. Maybe both.

  “Don’t apologize,” Rose said. “There’s some things a person can’t help. Better they happen at home than out in the rest of this hard world.” Andra didn’t realize the older woman had gotten up until a hand smoothed over her hair and brushed away the marks of the tears that had streaked down her cheeks. “There now,” she murmured, and Andra leaned into her touch, her throat clenching.

  “That one was over faster, didn’t you think?” LJ asked.

  Andra gritted her teeth. She didn’t want shorter panic attacks. She wanted to not have panic attacks. But she didn’t want them to see how much it hurt to start all over again, so she just freed a hand to squeeze LJ’s forearm. “How did you know to just go about your business?” she asked his mom. “It actually did help.”

  LJ let her go, coming around and ducking his head to see her face. “Really? Because it made me feel like a jerk.”

  Rose turned, made her slow way back to the table, and sank into her chair.

  “When it happens, it feels like I’m dying.” It felt odd to say it out loud, but Andra focused on LJ’s brown eyes, willing him to understand. “Not like I’m injured or something but that my body goes haywire and stops working. Every single time I know I’m going to suffocate, and I can’t move or do anything about it. This time, though, you guys were so calm I knew it couldn’t be real.” She touched the back of LJ’s wrist. “I knew if I were actually dying, you’d be freaking out.”

  “You can’t suffocate yourself,” Rose said. Her arms sagged in her lap now, as if even the trip across the kitchen had used up all the energy she needed to sit upright. “I read all about it at the library, years ago. You can get so mad or so scared you quit breathing, but as soon as you faint, you start right up again.”