“When those bastards had a bad day, lost some ground in their war against us, they took it out on me because I was their little slice of victory against the Americans. There were times when I didn’t speak for days. I was just too scared to remind them of where I was from and my accent always did that.” She wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “Days where I couldn’t sit down properly, days where I prayed that it would be my last day on Earth, the last time I would endure something so awful. Humans don’t do that kind of stuff to each other, but these people did and they never fucking blinked.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You’re still standing, baby.”
“I checked in with my handler as required, and each time they didn’t extract me a little bit more of me died. Then, one of ours came out to do a deal with them. I didn’t know that. I got my hopes up, thinking that when he’d done the deal, I’d be part of the bargain. I was, but they were going to leave me there. That man had seen what they did to me and he still walked away without a care in the world.”
Her hand was shaking, so I took it in my own. “I can’t imagine how hard that was.”
For months and months, I’d made my peace that I was going to end it myself. I had it all planned out. It wasn’t going to be them or me; it was going to be as many of them as I could take out, and me.”
I gripped her hand tighter.
“You know, I was okay with that. I really was. My inbuilt sense of revenge wanted to fuck America over just as much as they’d fucked me over. Kind of like a revenge dumping. But I never got the chance.”
“Shadow.”
It was just one word, but it explained so much.
“Shadow,” she repeated. “I honestly never saw a life for me outside of there. All my ideas and plans never had a good ending, or one where I could survive, but he proved that wrong.”
“I’m glad he did.”
“What’s he like?” she asked, and it was a question that came out of left field.
“He’s his own biggest doubter. His suffering took him to the brink, but his family, his brothers pulled him back.”
“I like that for him, that he has that.”
“For you, too,” I reminded her. “You’ve been to the brink and found something to pull you back.”
“I’ve done terrible things.” Penny’s other hand reached for the ones we’d already got joined, and while she suspected she’d done terrible things, I knew she was wrong. She’d had terrible things done to her, and that was very different, but I’d let her have her play for now.
“I’ve done terrible things, too, babe.”
“Do our sins cancel each other out because we deserve to be happy?” Her voice was hopeful, and I also thought it wise not to remind her that talking about sins was getting fairly close to religious territory.
“Maybe. Or your suffering cancels out my sins.” I tried to shrug my shoulder and was reminded of my injury when the pain stabbed back at me. The room fell quiet as I waited for her to continue.
“Is this a life you could settle for, hiding out here with me?”
“Feel like we’ve lived three lifetimes already.” And I had. My misspent youth, my attempted reincarnation in church and my dangerous revenge. It wouldn’t be disappointing to settle, because that was how I felt—settled. At peace, like I’d taken many paths in a journey to find my place.
“I can never go home. That was the agreement I made with Shadow when he got me out.”
I knew what she was getting at here. If I chose this life, I’d be giving up that part of mine, too.
The Black Sentinels.
My mini space-out lasted longer than I expected, but when she started to move from the bed, I snapped out of it. “See, what you gain isn’t worth what you’d have to give up from your life.”
“Stop.” I leaned forward to grab her and pull her back down to me, but just missed her. By the time she got to the bottom of the stairs, I was still finding the life in my legs and walking around the bed. I’d not been flat on my back for long, but it was enough to have seized me up. My body was using all its energy to heal. Walking down the stairs was painful, like every bone in my legs had a knock-on effect, up through my body until it connected with my torso, twisted through my chest and unsettled the sorest part of my injury.
“Fuck! Slow down!” Penny was putting on some running shoes and had already pulled a jacket around her body. “You make me go outside after you, I’m gonna be pissed.”
“You can’t decide with me around. I’ll cloud your decision.”
“Decision is already made.”
Penny stopped still; she’d got one shoe on and was halfway done getting her foot in the other one when she looked up at me. There was no fight in her, just something that told me she didn’t believe me—that she’d accepted we weren’t meant to be. That pissed me the hell off, more than getting out of bed. I’d fallen for the girl with guts and attitude. The one I could play with and tease, who didn’t take any shit from me. A Penny who would always come out fighting and go toe to toe with me. Yet right now, it felt like she wasn’t fighting for me, for us.
“Always been a nomad. Part patched because of my history with the brothers, but I never understood why I didn’t want to settle down until now.” That spark of the Penny I’d found when I’d messed with her the very first day in this very kitchen flared to life. “Thought it was because I missed home, the weather of this place, the greenery and the mountains, like it was ingrained in the blood that flowed through me, and let’s face it this place isn’t Cali. But that wasn’t it—I was searching.”
Penny swallowed but said nothing.
“Never expected to have been through so much, survived so much, and find it sitting in my own damned house, though.”
“What are you saying?”
“Where you are, I am. I feel the need to see my brothers, I can take a vacation. But I’m guessing they’ll understand, seeing as they got their happy, too.”
“I like that for your brothers.” I heard the smile inflected in her voice.
“And they’ll fucking love that for me, baby.” Neither of us moved, only Bullet who was poised by the outside door thinking that any minute now we’d open it and he could roam free for a bit. He’d followed her downstairs, already half-way to forgetting his snit with her. “Let the boy outside,” I whispered. “Take off the jacket and come here, Pen.”
Penny moved and did as I requested. As the pooch bolted outside, she came to me and folded herself into my frame. Moving my body as much as I could to accommodate her, I suddenly felt complete. Her cheek to my chest, her breath washing over my skin. “You can’t keep apologizing. When I say this is done, I mean it.”
She nodded and I squeezed her tighter.
“Want my girl back, my Penny. The sarcastic, sexy, sassy girl who ain’t afraid to give me my own shit back.”
“You sure?”
“Positive, look at me. This life we’ve found isn’t about hiding out for the rest of your days and me settling. It’s about us moving on together. It’s about simple things, the good life, getting on the bike and taking off when we want. It’s about knowing that the simple life is the best fucking life for both of us. And it’s the very best life because we know that the darkness we’ve suffered through can’t consume us when we’re together and claim what’s left for us.”
I felt her fingers clench as she attempted to pull me closer.
“I can’t promise you’ll forget what you went through, but I can promise to be here to get you out of the other side. Suffering alone, that shit is over for you, baby.”
The first droplet of salty tears hit my gut and I knew she was trying to tough it out.
“Let it go. Give it to me.” We both stayed still, locked together, and as her body shook, I knew she was losing the fight with it. “We talk, we let out the bad and replace it with the good together, okay?”
Finally, she sobbed and sobbed.
I wasn’t naive enough to think it was o
ver for her. After what she’d been through it would never be over, but I could get her to a place where the bad didn’t consume her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Penny
Could it really be that simple?
I wasn’t sure that I had it in me to let it go, but then if I didn’t, it would consume me. Permeate every inch of my body until it pulled me under completely and took over the remaining life I had left. If I was going to let it do that I may as well just fucking kill myself. The funny thing was, of all the times I’d thought about doing that while I was in Afghanistan, I’d never managed to settle finally on the idea, so why would I willingly let this stuff fester and take me under now, when I had a chance, a choice?
Fraser was mumbling in his sleep beside me. It had been seventy-two hours since I’d drawn a gun on him and put a big chunk of lead through his body. Despite all of that, his main concern was that I might still leave him. Maybe I had been through all I’d been through for him to be my prize at the end. I looked over his face. His scruffy beard was about three weeks past needing a shave. I’d been surrounded by men with beards for years, yet somehow it felt fresh, different. Maybe it was because I’d never really been kissed by someone with facial hair. Those bastards used to just abuse me and grin at me through theirs. One time, I reached up and grabbed a guy who was taking his liberal punishment a little too far, and believe me that was saying something. I pulled a fair chunk of his overgrown Arab beard out and then couldn’t sit down for a week afterwards. At the time it was worth the punishment, but I soon learned that hair of any kind held special meaning to them. No Taliban terrorist would be taken seriously with a chunk of skin exposed.
I had to stop thinking about those times; he was right. I got sucked into my own damn head, buried the thoughts back down and then pretended I’d never had them until they resurfaced again.
Reaching out, I scratched his face scruff with my nails, and he murmured before blinking his eyes open. “Hmmm, I like that.” His voice was sleepy and sexy, and it caused more than a stir of desire in me, but he would need to lead us back to that place. This time, Fraser was the hurt one and I needed his guidance on when he was ready. He sat upright against a pillow and rotated his shoulder in its socket gently.
Whispering, I went for it, the whole letting go of it thing. “I used to despise men with facial hair.” When he eyes flashed with recognition, he stilled but said nothing. He was going to let me lead. “I think it was because it held meaning to them. Hair is protected, a part of their identity. But you pull hard enough the stuff gives way.”
“Ouch. Sounds painful.”
“It was.” I smiled at him and he grinned back at me.
“Proud of you, although if you’re ever tempted to latch onto mine like that, tell me now. I’ll hit the bathroom and shave.” My fingers reached for it again automatically, and I lost myself for a few seconds in the raw moment of silence between us. “Thinking I might keep it, though.”
My hand trailed down the side of his cheek, under his jaw, and I felt him swallow as it passed his neck onto the top of his shoulder. “How sore is it today?”
“Barely. Honest.”
“Are you trying to make me feel better?”
“Every day, baby, for as long as you’ll let me.” I believed the words that tumbled from his lips. He might have held something back from me, something kind of huge that started all of this, but he’d never really lied to me. He’d always been truthful. “Kiss me.”
I leaned forward and placed my lips on his, my insides already beginning to burn.
“Kiss me like you mean it.”
I did that, too, and within seconds it escalated. “We can’t, you’re hurt.”
“You gonna make me beg? I think you owe me this.” His breath between kisses touched my lips and washed over my chin as he moved in and latched onto my neck.
“How... long...” I couldn’t focus, everything inside of me being touched by this crazy man.
“You wanna say something?” His breath tickled my collarbone as he moved my top aside and nibbled at the exposed bone, sucking and licking and driving me insane.
My head fell back. I needed him to kiss my neck, kiss my throat, be gentle with a part of me that had always been used to control me. “How long will you hold this little thing between us?”
“Little thing?”
“Well…” I swallowed, goosebumps catching fire on my skin. “Kinda little. I made it all better.”
“True.” Fraser’s hands moved round to my back and unclipped my bra fastening, causing me to groan the minute my breasts were released. “I know how you can make it much, much better.”
“You’re totally gonna keep using this.” His mouth made its way back to mine as he urged me to climb onto his lap.
“Touch me.” His words made me shiver. He wanted this, me, and I wanted him more than I’d wanted anything and that included life. There were times when I never thought I’d see happiness again.
“You’re still injured.” I tried to delay, but we both knew it was futile; this was happening.
“You’re gonna do all the work.” His hand reached for my left breast.
“I have a feeling you’re going to milk this for all it’s worth.”
“Talking of milking.” I giggled and he grinned at me as he nodded to his crotch. This was what sex should be about. Love, understanding, a little bit of light humor, but all the emotion. The complete experience between two people who loved each other.
Did I love him?
My brain flipped the question over instantly. Of course I loved him. I’d never felt a love like this.
“I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” I blurted out, unable to take any of the words back.
His face came closer, and when both his hands cradled my face, I saw the effort it took to move his shoulder just that little bit more than he intended. “Guess that means you’re staying?”
“I want to.”
“Then you’re staying.” Fraser held my eye contact. “Haven’t had a lot in my life, Penny. I only really loved my sister and losing her hurt me. Thought I’d found my place with the church, but it seems I was just as lost as always. Only people I’ve loved of late are my brothers, until you.”
Until. Me.
“Mean it, Penny. What we’ve got didn’t start conventionally, but I’m taking it and I’m keeping it. I’m keeping you. We make a life for us here.”
“A life here,” I whispered, wondering if I burst out crying whether it would wreck the mood.
“You with me?”
“I’m with you. You love me, too.”
“I love you, too.”
Nobody had ever said those words to me before, not even the boyfriends I’d had before my service. Nothing lasted, nothing was ever permanent before this and even though it had been a short space of time, I wanted it to be permanent until I took my last breath.
Deciding that enough words had been said, I did as he asked me before things got heavy and intense. I pushed my hand past the elastic keeping his dick confined. Heat hit my hand immediately when I touched it; he was rock solid. Marble hard, covered in the softest of skin. I rubbed him up and down, loving how his emotions flowed across his face, his eyes fierce. “That’s it, baby.”
His words spurred me on. I pulled my top up and over my head, feeling the cold air touch my skin the same time as his eyes, causing me to blush both inside and out. With my hands wrapped around his dick, I got back to rubbing him, up and down, up and down and over the top.
“Christ, Penny, you’re so fucking beautiful.”
“I need you inside me.” I rarely talked during sex. I was too conscious, too desperate to not get lost in my own head, and that took concentration. You couldn’t enjoy the experience of something new if you were constantly focused on what you’d endured during the past. I saw the fire in Fraser’s eyes burn brighter, hearing me tell him my needs and desires meant something to him. I liked that the simple things pleased him, an
d I was still learning about how the simple things really felt, and it boded well that we could learn that sort of stuff together.
“Not stoppin’ you.”
After shedding the bottom half of my clothes, I pulled his boxers down and straddled his legs. We both hissed in sync as we joined, the feeling of fullness sending my stomach into freefall. The intimacy of this was off the scale. Of all the sex we’d had this was the first time we’d done it since I’d spoken my truth, and he knew who I was.
This was the first time we’d been together since we’d declared our love for one another.
Fraser leaned up close to me, our chests touching as I felt his fingers snake up my back and reach for my hair. Within seconds he was holding me close, gently keeping me in position. “Never seen anything as beautiful as this. You, riding my cock naked, and the mountains in the background.” He let me turn my head so I could see what he saw. The tops of the trees, the hills and mountains in the distance and the clear blue sky dotted with the odd cloud. “Gonna fuck you outside, too.”
I hitched up a few inches and sunk back down. “Could be cold.”
“No chance. I know you feel that fire, same as I do.” His words were just another example of how in sync we were, I knew he felt the deep burn between us.
“Gonna build us a hot tub on the deck. Gonna take you in there, too.”
I rose up and down, imagining him and me outside, naked, surrounded by nothing but the trees and countryside.
“This is our home. Gonna make it something special for us, baby.”
That sounded amazing. Most of the time while I was away, I’d dreamt of a home. It was a pretty house in the middle of nowhere and the sun would be shining. I’d have no troubles and no cares in the world. This place where I was right now was pretty darn close, but it took until this very moment to realize that it wasn’t about location or the type of house; it was about who you got to share it with. I’d be the luckiest girl in the world to get to call this little slice of peace and quiet my home for the rest of my days. But if I had all my belongings in a backpack and was riding up and down the country on the back of Fraser’s bike, then that would also be perfect, because he was what made this place a home.
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