Free Flesh: A Romance Novel

by Daya Daniels

  A frogman?

  Digby’s barking jerks my mind back to the present.

  I give both dogs a light yank on their leashes and set off in a jog back in the other direction.

  Now, I just feel like an asshole—a super asshole.

  Callie

  IT’S JUST AFTER SEVEN in the morning. I decided today I’d skip church for obvious reasons. Running a hand through my hair, I leave the bathroom after washing my face and brushing my teeth. I shove my feet into a pair of slippers, snatch up my robe, and head out of the bedroom.

  I stop and take a look in the next room and find it’s empty.

  I take another flight of stairs down to the second level. The hypnotizing scent of brewing coffee wakes me up a little more. When I finally make it to the kitchen, I make myself a cup and stare out the window facing the beach.

  It’s beautiful here.

  The blue water crashes into the shoreline. A large pier extending out into the ocean is just to the left of the house. People run and walk their dogs along it and the seagulls dip and dance in the sky above as they cry out. I take a deep breath and inhale.

  I look around for him.

  He isn’t in the den or in the TV room on the first level. When I make it past the front open doors, I stop when I smell cigarette smoke. Walking over to the screen door, I lean against one side of it and look outside, still sipping my coffee. He’s sitting in a corner of the porch.

  I watch him for a little bit, certain he knows I’m standing here.

  It’s been five years since the accident.

  Five.

  Long.

  Years.

  Trav is still as tough as they come but not to the extent he used to be.

  Years ago, he could swim five hundred yards in less than eight minutes doing the breaststroke. He could do a hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups separately in less than two minutes. And he could hold his breath under the water for longer than three minutes. Before the Navy retired him, I think his time was closer to four minutes beneath the surface without assisted oxygen, so as you can imagine getting in the water with him was fun, especially for the kids when he was at home. He was amazing! Still is.

  But these days, Trav is stubborn and difficult to care for. Many things he can do for himself but most he can’t. He isn’t used to being in one place for long either and especially stuck in a chair. He was always on the move, staying fit or outdoors, swimming, kayaking, and fishing. He loved to take the boys camping and we spent a lot of time on Lake Michigan on family vacations where Trav’s mother had moved after his father died years ago.

  During most of our twenty-year marriage—more than half of it—Trav was stationed someplace else. Often in Little Creek, Virginia, or Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. But usually he was off in Coronado, California, serving our country in the best way he knew how, while I was left here taking care of the kids.

  Trav joined the Navy right after high school, then around the same time we married he was a SEAL, becoming a member of the elite Team Six in less than a few years.

  The last mission that was to God knows where, I’d begged him not to go on but, of course, he couldn’t sit it out even though he’d told me he’d had a bad feeling about it.

  It was his duty.

  It was his job.

  He had to go.

  I’d seen numerous women lose their husbands over the course of Trav’s career. I’d witnessed broken families. I’d watched wives left pregnant, burying their dead husbands. I’d seen it all.

  And regardless of all the accolades they gave my husband when he lost most of his limbs, it didn’t help. They praised him for his service. They told us Trav could have his life back—that he could retire and enjoy the rest of the time he had left with his family. He could start over.

  I, however, felt differently.

  The Navy may not have sent my husband home in a box, but some part of him had died along the way.

  Trav isn’t the same. Nothing is the same.

  “Good morning, Callie,” he says in his deep voice, without shifting to look at me.

  I push through the swinging doors and stroll toward him.

  “Good morning.” I lean down and press a kiss to his stubble-covered cheek before I sit down next to him in a chair.

  His left eye twitches and he puts his cigarette to his lips and takes a long draw.

  The salty breeze washes over where we sit and takes my thin slip up with it, exposing my thigh. I brush it back down.

  Trav eyes the movement and groans. “You still have beautiful legs,” he compliments.

  “Thank you.” I take a long sip of my coffee and reach out to him. He lets me and for a moment I’m grateful he’s in a good mood. They’re few and far between, so when they do come around I’m grateful.

  “I’m going to make breakfast in a few minutes. What do you want? I can make eggs or waffles. Or, what about pancakes?”

  “I’m not hungry, Callie.”

  I smile. “You know, the last time I checked a cigarette didn’t exactly qualify as breakfast.”

  He snickers. “I’ll get something.”

  Howww?

  I let out an exhausted breath and set my coffee cup down on the table.

  These debates are frequent...

  Trav can barely care for himself, which is yet to set into his stubborn brain.

  I’d stayed home for the past five years, taking a long break from teaching to care for Trav, becoming his sole caregiver since we’d elected not to hire a nurse, which pissed him off.

  In the beginning, while navigating exactly how to do this new job and adapt to this drastic change of becoming a full-time caregiver in addition to being a wife, I felt lost. But I knew with a lot of hard work and some open-mindedness, we could make it work—we could put our lives back together. We could still be a couple.

  It took months before Trav was even well enough to make it out of his hospital bed and sit comfortably in a wheelchair. Then shortly after that he was home. With no legs from the knees down and one working arm with two fingers on it...

  I cried and cried in private at his appearance, desperate not to make him feel worse than he already did. He was so broken and half the man—physically—I’d always known. But none of it changed how I felt about him. I still loved him.

  I. Still. Love. Him.

  I missed him so much during those initial months he was in the hospital. As soon as he got out, I wanted him close to me. I was such a horny mess I fucked him right in that wheelchair when he first came home...desperate to have some piece of my husband I felt like I’d lost for a while. For a hopeful moment, it was as if I had part of it back, but it was too good to be true.

  Because eventually Trav settled into low morale. Then I began to think Trav hated when we spent time with each other—that he hated me. Then those intimate moments—that hadn’t been many—stopped altogether. Things snowballed to Hell from there.

  He refused to try to use the prosthetics because it was too difficult to balance without the proper use of both of his arms. Those first sessions were painful to watch as he became frustrated and cried like a baby when he couldn’t keep himself upright.

  And I’d seen my husband cry three times during the course of our marriage and two of those were at the birth of our sons.

  My six-foot-five, two-hundred-fifty-pound husband had been reduced to a helpless baby for months—unable to even feed himself or go to the bathroom alone.

  He’d often told me he wanted to die—that he should’ve died.

  After that, Trav was against participating in further rehabilitation therapy. He didn’t want anyone touching him besides me. Then a few months after he settled in back home, he wanted his own bedroom. He wanted to be even farther away from me. He wanted to be “left the fuck alone,” as he’d said it, or screamed it is probably more accurate.

  We meet eyes and he gives me that look he always does when he’s thinking more than he wants to say.

  He smirks and looks aw
ay from me. “I don’t want Helen coming here anymore.”

  Helen in the last six months had been a godsend. She’s a much older woman in her late sixties who’s a friend of the family and a trained caregiver and nurse who’d come highly recommended. She takes care of Trav. She cleans and often just because she enjoys it, as she says, she cooks and bakes when the mood strikes her. She also grocery shops! We pay her well for what she does. And I pay her extra often just for putting up with Trav’s verbal abuse when he’s intent on being awful.

  We have extended family here in Mount Pleasant—mostly Trav’s family made up of aunts, uncles, and cousins. He has two younger brothers, Owen and Paul, who are in the military. They’re constantly moving their own families around all over the world, so we don’t see them often. But sometimes they come here to visit Trav. My mother died six years ago. She was a huge help to have here when the kids were little and so was my older sister, Justine. After Justine married again she moved across the country with my two nieces to Oregon. We’re surrounded by friends here, most of whom Trav has pushed away in the last five years, since he’s been in a wheelchair.

  I suck in a breath and look away from him. “Trav, please.”

  He shakes his head. “She’s annoying and she talks too much. And she’s always moving my stuff around. I can’t find anything, Callie,” he complains.

  “I’ll tell her not to touch your things.”

  “Fuck, Callie,” he snaps. “Why don’t you listen to me for just once in your life?”

  My face twists. “Trav, she’s just trying to help.”

  “I don’t need anyone’s fucking help. I don’t want her back here...in my house, touching my shit!”

  It took a lot for me to decide to go back to work. Trav is actually the one who suggested it. And honestly, I think I needed it.

  “So, who is going to take care of you when I’m at work?” I place my coffee cup down and lean into where he sits to eyeball him, waiting for his response.

  “Noah will check on me in between his classes,” he grumbles.

  “Noah is leaving, Trav. Soon, it’ll just be you and me.”

  He gets a faraway look in his smoky gray eyes. I pull off his baseball cap. He jerks away from me and gives me a hard stare. I run my hands through his dark wavy hair gently. It soothes him when he’s like this...when he doesn’t want to say he’s hurting.

  I scoot closer and do it some more.

  He stiffens as if my touch is poison. And maybe it is.

  “Callie, stop,” he growls. “You always think this will fix everything.”

  “No, I don’t, Trav. I just think that maybe—”

  “STOP! Goddamn it!” The chair he’s in shifts forward when he bangs his hand on the controls, then reaches out and swipes my cup off the table violently. It hits the floor with a bang and shatters in pieces.

  I shoot up from the chair and hold on to my robe, backing away from him.

  He looks at me like he hates me. “You don’t fucking listen, Callie. You’re always so fucking selfish.”

  “Travvv,” I whisper.

  “Just leave me the fuck alone.” He spins away from me.

  I head for the double doors, attempting to keep my tears in my eyes, at least until I get upstairs and in the safety of my own bathroom.

  When I pull open the screen, Noah is rushing toward me, his blue eyes wide with panic and annoyance. He places his hands on my shoulders. “I’ll take care of it, Mom.” There’s nothing but authority in his voice.

  “It’s no big deal. He’s just upset.”

  Noah shakes his head and huffs. “Just because he’s in a bad mood doesn’t mean he gets to treat you like shit, Mom.”

  My tears are already falling quickly down my hot cheeks.

  I’m embarrassed Noah has to witness this, but it’s nothing new. There’ve been worse incidents the boys have seen, which have ended with Trav having bumps and bruises from hurting himself.

  Trav is still outside on the porch talking to himself.

  A flower pot breaking forces Noah to release me. “I’ll deal with this, Mom. I’ll deal with him. Go and do something today. Go to the spa or something,” he rattles out, striding across the kitchen to grab the broom and dustpan from the closet. “Just go.” He marches toward the front door with everything in his hands.

  More ceramic breaks and Trav is now shouting.

  I hate that the neighbors see this. Summer and Anthony must think we’re nuts.

  “Dad, stop this! Fuck!” Noah shouts as he steps out the doors.

  I head for the stairs and look around before I take the first one. I’d usually just scurry back to my room, crawl into bed, and cry for the rest of the day, waiting for my dreams to take me back to the way things used to be.

  Then I’d emerge later when Trav had calmed down and we’d watch TV together. I enjoyed watching MacGyver reruns with him even if it was the only thing he wanted to do. But then eventually he even wanted to do that alone.

  Trav said I’m selfish.

  And maybe he’s right.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Austen

  SOMETHING IS WRONG.

  I’d been waiting here for over an hour for Callie. When she finally did arrive, she sat in her truck for about the same amount of time. I’d already drunk two beers while watching her from the window of this motel that’s in an empty part of town.

  It took everything in me not to run outside in the parking lot and convince her to come in, terrified her emotions would force her to leave. When a knock finally landed on the door, I opened it up, trying my best to swallow down the deep breath I took, when she walked in and the subtle scent of whatever she puts on her skin washed over me.

  It’s mid-afternoon and although I said I’d spend a few hours tidying up the cottage and buying myself some much-needed dishes and utensils, I never got around to it. The only thing I could think about was this woman and what I’d seen this morning on the run I’d taken.

  But I don’t know why I’m really here. Honestly, I just want to talk to her, but I don’t know about what. People like me don’t talk. I barely like to talk about my own fucked-up existence. Besides, this isn’t what I get paid for...to ask questions. But oddly enough, I find myself wanting to know more about her life.

  I won’t fuck her, though, not anymore. Definitely won’t do that.

  Now, Callie sits on the edge of the bed, fiddling with her hands.

  “Do you want a beer?” I ask her.

  “No, no, thanks.” She smiles and inhales deeply.

  I’ve clicked on the radio on the nightstand, hoping the music would relax her.

  I take a beer out of the fridge and shut the door. I move over to the switch on the wall that controls the room temperature. The air is thick in here with something I can’t place—regret, attraction, lust, fear, sadness. The numbers on the control panel read seventy. I adjust it to a comfortable sixty-seven degrees and step away.

  I walk toward the bed where Callie sits. Her head hangs low. Her bangs are a little longer, brushing her unnaturally long eyelashes. I touch her chin with my fingers and tip her head up to look at me. And those sapphire eyes get me every single time.

  Each time I look into her eyes, I see hope. My insides catch fire. She looks at me as though I’m somebody—a human being with a beating heart and warm blood flowing through my veins. I worship these eyes...

  Her lips part. She brushes her cheek against the inside of my palm, like a woman in chains begging for her master’s touch.

  I drain half the beer and set it on the nightstand.

  Raking my hands through her dark hair, I take a few deep breaths. Long, slow breaths—breaths I hope will assist in getting the much-needed oxygen to my brain to help me think clearly. My resolve is cracking and my intentions are quickly turning dark. I’m painfully hard as my dick strains against my jeans.

  Callie’s eyes drop down to it.

  She reaches into a pocket of her dress, pulls a wad of cash out, and p
laces it on the nightstand next to the beer with shaky hands. “It’s for today and for the time before.”

  All crisp bills as they always are, since I know she stopped to the ATM before she came here. Something about the sight of that cash pisses me off. I feel rage looking at that money that a few months ago I would’ve so desperately needed just to stay afloat.

  She withdraws her hand from the pile of cash, keeping her eyes on me, her black pupils dilated because she likes what she sees.

  I reach down with my left hand and swipe the money off the table. The bills scatter on the floor like large pieces of green confetti.

  Callie’s eyes widen and her brows knot as she stares up at me, blinking slowly. Those pretty eyes well up with tears as they always do right before we fuck.

  Now I know why she cries...

  She opens her mouth to speak but before she can, I clutch her chin with my hand, running my thumb over her pouty pink lips, first gently then the motion becomes rough. I drag them against the top and bottom ones harshly. The movement exposes her teeth.

  “I don’t want you fucking crying today. Do you understand me, Callie?” I growl.

  She nods a few times and I lose myself peering down into her sweet face.

  Fuck.

  She lifts a hand.

  I take it in mine and place it over my cock, encouraging her to massage it.

  She does and when she reaches the head, she squeezes and my balls tighten.

  A groan leaves me as she lets go and her hand crawls up my T-shirt, exposing my abs that she runs her fingers over. I rip off my shirt and ease closer to her, raking my hands through her hair, forcing it to be messy.

  She undoes the top button of my jeans. I help her to push them down around my ass. I shove my briefs down and my cock flies free. She runs her hand along my flesh, massaging it from root to tip.

  A hiss leaves my mouth when her thumb slides across the crown of it, feeling the pre-cum there. She licks her lips.