by Dahlia Rose
He pulled away suddenly before the desperate need to have her consumed him. He had this planned for day now for when she came home and he was not to be denied. Eric dipped one of the strawberries in the creamy chocolate and held it to her lips. Sapphire bit into the fruit and some of its juice dribbled down her chin. Eric leaned in to lick it from her skin and then fed her the rest of the strawberry. He dipped his finger into the chocolate and this time he spread it on her nipples and the silver dollar-sized areolas.
His gaze met hers as he took the coated tip in his mouth. She gasped and he felt her fingers slip into the hair at his nape as she held his head to her breast. He sucked the chocolate off her nipples but the taste of her was better than any confection she could ever use. His hands were on her hips, encouraging her to spread her legs so he could play with her smooth, shaved pussy. He moaned in pleasure when he found her slick and moist to the touch. He rubbed at her clit with gentle movements and her hips undulated in response.
Eric moved from her breasts and took her lips in a searing kiss. This was not going to be a night of sweet and seductive love-making. He was going to fuck her hard and take her beyond any passion he had shown her before. She opened her mouth willingly to his invading tongue once more and her kiss in return was as wild as his. Eric could taste the strawberries on her tongue. He pierced her with his fingers and sent them deep inside her.
He pulled away from her lips, his breathing harsh to his own ears. He stood and grabbed her by the hips and laid her down on the wide oak table, admiring her nakedness. Sapphire spread her legs willingly, exposing the moist flesh of her pussy to him He bent his head to taste her secret folds, the scent of her arousal fueling his passion. Sapphire arched her mound against his seeking mouth, grinding her hips to fuel the pressure building inside her. He flicked his tongue against her clit and used his fingers to drive her wild. With a shuddering cry, Sapphire climaxed against his exploring lips and he tasted her cream against his tongue.
He stood between her legs and watched her body writhe. She grabbed her knees and spread her legs wider so he could see her milky juices run down her hot slit. He rubbed the head of his cock against the slit, making her moan before he grabbed her hips and rammed himself into her silky passage.
“There, my sweet, sweet girl. Do you see how hard you made me?” He leaned his hands against the table and growled in her ear as he fucked her.
Sapphire’s moans were wild. She wrapped her legs around him tightly, trying to take more of him with every thrust. “Harder, Eric, fuck me harder1”
He grabbed her legs from around his waist and spread them wide, watching his cock plunge into her wet pussy over and over again.
“You’re so wet, so goddamn wet,” he muttered.
He was beyond wild, pumping inside her with earnest until she screamed her release. Eric pulled out of her pussy and went to the second barrier that would give them ultimate pleasure. He had introduced her to the illicit gratification of taking her ass since they had been together. She panted and nodded her consent when he pressed his cock against the tight brown hole of her anus. With slow ease, he gritted his teeth and entered the tight passage. She was so hot, so tight that he almost blew his load with that one deliberate thrust.
“Do it, Eric, just like that,” she said on the end of a sultry moan.
He gave her what she asked for, driving himself inside to the hilt over and over again until her scream announced her second orgasm. He felt his own take over his body. With every thrust, he drove himself higher in the zone of ecstasy until he reached the pinnacle of his orgasm with a harsh cry. Eric drained his seed inside her and slumped against her body on the table. Her fingers caressed his back and he kissed her neck over and over again.
“Yes,” she said with a sigh.
He moved to look at her lying under him. “What now?”
“Yes, I’ll move in with you.” She giggled. “I told you I would give you an answer after dessert.”
He gave a soft chuckle. “Honey, I already started moving your stuff over.”
She gave a snort. “Then what was the point of asking me?”
“It was the principle of the situation.”
“Let’s go upstairs and you can show me more principles of this relationship,” she whispered.
Eric lifted her easily into his arms and carried her to the stairway. “We have a new bed to break in just like we did the table.”
She giggled. “Are we going to break in each room of the house?”
“Twice if necessary,” he answered.
Her giggles followed them up the stairs and it was the most beautiful sound to his ears.
Chapter Four
“Master Sergeant, we’d like to call you up for one more mission before your retirement papers are filed.”
Eric listened to the voice of his superior officer who had sent his recon team to various hell holes in Iraq and Afghanistan. They had weeded out so many insurgents and terrorist cells that they became the best at what they did. Finding the bad guys and taking them in with minimum civilian loss of life had become their specialty. It seemed they had gotten too good at their job since he was being asked to go back into that situation again.
“Sir, I’ve been back for less than six months. What happens if I decline?” Eric asked.
“Your team still goes in anyway, but we all know they do better when you lead. They would follow you into a firestorm if they had to,” the Senior CO said. “But the country needs you, and your duty as a soldier and the protection of your men is in your hands. It’s only a seven month tour in Afghanistan.”
“Seven months is a long time, sir,” Eric snapped. “Especially when I just started a life here and my girl moved in with me.”
“You wouldn’t have that life, that American dream, if you didn’t do what you do best, Master Sergeant.” His CO’s replied was abrupt. “Just like you, those guys would prefer to stay home but they all said yes willingly.”
“They don’t have choice. They are still enlisted. They go where you send them. I’m out, remember?” Eric tone was just was short. “My honor is no less because I can choose to say no.”
“Yes, it’s your choice and I hope you decide that your country still needs you and so do your men.”
His superior used the triggers that he knew would get Eric to say yes. Duty, honor and the safety of his men would be a priority and he agreed to report for duty in two days. I’m going to have to break this to Sapphie, he thought. The amazing thing was this time she would be there when he got back to Paradise. In the three weeks since he asked her to move in together, they had made a home. It made him ache that he would be leaving again but what else could he do? His men would need him to keep them safe.
He walked back out to the mechanic shop and thought about all he had to do in two days. He would have to find someone to cover the shop until he left. Luckily he had hired on a mechanic who was a guy he knew when he was growing up. He was trustworthy and he was sure that he could leave, hit or run, the shop for a few months. Sapphie could cover the books and that way he would not have to close the shop. His Sapphie, he would miss her with such fierceness. He could already feel the emptiness begin to creep in and he had not even left. Her scent, her smile, everything about her would be in his thoughts while he was gone. She would be the thing that helped keep him going. Coming home to her would be in his every thought. She walked in while he was under the hood of a car changing the spark plugs. He knew it was her because no one else would walk in and smack him on the ass like that. He looked over and she was wearing a green sweater with a pair of sexy, tight blue jeans. Yeah, I’m going to go crazy missing her.
“What ‘cha doing, hot stuff?” she asked.
He came out from under the hood and she kissed him. “I’m changing out some spark plugs on Susan Moore’s minivan. She is stuck home today with the kids so I’m trying to get it done so she can take them to the park or something before those hellions give her a nervous breakdown.”
/> “I don’t know how she does it with three-year-old triplet boys.” Sapphire laughed.
“What are you going to do when we have six of our own?” Eric teased
“I don’t recall ever wanting six kids, Eric Dawson.” She pointed at him. “I think we need to round down to a nice two.”
He wiped his hands on the work cloth and came to wrap his arms around her. “Okay. Two and if anymore come along well, I won’t say no.”
“Hey, watch the clothes, buddy. It’s hard as hell to get engine grease out of cashmere.”
Eric kissed her hard. “I’ll buy you a new one, Sapphie. I have something to tell you.”
“You’d better be buying me a new one. This cost—” She saw the serious expression on his face and stopped. “—what’s going on, honey? Tell me.”
“I got called back up for active duty for a seven month tour,” he explained.
“How is that possible? You’re retired.” She looked up at him. “They can’t stop-loss you. I saw it on TV. That’s been closed out in the military.”
Eric could already see the distress in her eyes. “My papers are a month away and they asked me to take another tour with my unit.”
“Basically they asked you to do it and you can say no.” She gave a relived laugh. “Okay, well I guess you told them no right?” When he didn’t answer she prompted again. “Right?”
“It’s my men, Sapphie, and my country,” Eric said quietly. “I have to go.”
She stepped away from him and shook her head. He tried to pull her back into his arms but she pulled away and held her hands up to stop him from advancing again. He implored her, “Baby, it will all worked out. You see, you can help Derek run the shop and stay in the house and you’ll be here waiting for me when I get back. We can pick up right where we left off. We’ll get married and everything. I have two days before I go. We can get everything taken care of.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “You cannot be serious. You drop this on me about going back to god knows where, a marriage proposal and everything, and you expect that I’m going to say yes?”
“I know it’s rushed but baby, we love each other and we can make this work.” He reached out to her and she slapped his hand away.
“You could’ve said no, Eric!” She shouted. “They don’t have to see you when your dreams make you shake at night. Or when you wake up with night terrors and you’re in a corner calling out commands to your men. They don’t have to watch you go outside and work yourself to exhaustion so you can sleep. Why are you going to go back to that? Then all the progress you made will be gone!” Sapphire began to cry. “Suppose you go and you die. Then what am I supposed to do, huh? Look at a flag and remember?”
His throat felt raw and when he spoke his voice was gruff. “Sapphie, I’ll come home to you. But I need you to say you’ll be here waiting for me.”
“And I need you to say you won’t be going,” she retorted. “You’re not obliged to, you can’t take everyone’s life in your own hands. Take your own and choose to stay and love me.”
“I can’t do that, Sapphie.”
“Then I can’t wait for you to come home. I won’t sit and watch the phone, waiting for a call. I’ll break every time a car passes by and my heart stops when I think they are coming to tell me you’re dead and give me their condolences. If you were still enlisted then I would have to deal but this is your choice, Eric, and if you make it, you will make it alone.”
With every word her sobs grew until the sound tore at his heart. What could he do—his honor, the love of his life, the military, his men? He felt as if he was being pulled in two different directions. In the end Eric chose what he knew, what had been his life for years. He chose his unit and the military which made him the man he was now.
She didn’t need to hear his words to know he made the choice. Eric could see it in her eyes that she knew he would still go, no matter how much it hurt. Just as he saw in her eyes that she would not come running into his arms and say, “I’ll be waiting for you, Eric.”
“When you get back I won’t be here. I won’t be in Paradise,” she whispered with tears running down her cheeks. “I can’t stay here knowing that you’ll be back and knowing that you chose this over me. Be safe, Eric. You make sure to stay protected and come home but I won’t be waiting.”
“Sapphie. . .”
But she turned and walked away and soon, she was running out of the garage. She rushed past Mrs. Waverly, who was coming in, and down the street with some of their neighbors staring behind her curiously.
“Well you done stepped in it this time, didn’t you boy?” Mrs. Waverly stepped through the garage door. “What did you do to make that poor girl run out of here crying?”
“I gotta go back and do another tour in Afghanistan,” he explained. “Well not exactly ‘gotta’ but it’s my job and those guys need me.”
Mrs. Waverly gave him a kind look, something he was unaccustomed to from the stern old lady. “Listen Eric, you have a lot of bravery in you and a lot of pride. But when does that end and your life begin? Your parents saw little or none of you for years while you did your duty. Those boys signed the paper just like you did. You’re not responsible for their lives, the Marines are. Now ask yourself this question while you pack—where does duty end and your life begin?”
With those words she left, moving slowly with her cane out of his garage and to continue her walk. Eric looked around with so much emotion swirling inside him he didn’t know what to do. He lashed out and put his fist into the side of the garage. He hoped the pain and the burning would dull the heartache of Sapphie leaving or whatever it was that was holding him from going after her. He punched at it again and again but nothing helped so he funneled his energy into going inside and pulling out his duffel and filling it with things he would need. He tried not to think of Sapphie but when he looked at the bed, he saw an image of her sitting there and smiling at him. It was too much for him to stand and that night he slept in the living room again, like the first few nights when he came back to Paradise.
Chapter Five
Sapphire lay in bed and stared up at the white ceiling of her bedroom. Hot tears slid out of her eyes and onto her pillow. She was back in her own place in the same clothes she had on today after the blow up with Eric. Even though most of her stuff was over at Eric’s house or what she thought was their new home, she had no inclination to move. The pain was too great so she would just lay there until it abated just a little so she could see past her broken heart.
How could he go back? She thought in misery or moreover, how could he choose going back over her? No answer came because she could not see past the fact that a war and honor meant more to him than making a life with her. He thought throwing a marriage proposal in there would sweeten the pot. But a relationship could not be only on his terms and Sapphire was not about to settle for a quickie wedding and watch the man she loved walk back into danger knowing he might not return. She wondered if he had a death wish. Was what he had seen broken him so much that this was all he knew and how he wanted to face life—always in the center of danger? In that case there was no way she could stay with him either. She couldn’t watch him go off time and time again, not know if he is coming back. How could she believe this was the last tour?
She rolled on her side and clutched a pillow to her chest. She wished she hadn’t seen him on the side of the road. She wished she could go back to having him just as a dream, the fantasy that was her teenage crush. Instead she had fallen in love for real, and hard, and she didn’t know if she could take the loss. Sapphire knew she couldn’t face him, nor could she sit in shop and watch him drive away in two days. With a sudden movement she got up and threw the last few scraps of clothing she could find in a bag and headed out into the night. She drove out of Paradise knowing when she came back he would be gone.
It was the only time she could gather her things in peace. She had no doubt he would leave a key with Derek so she could go in and get h
er stuff. She would find a way to relocate her business as soon as possible. Every second in the town she grew up in would remind her of him and somehow she had to learn to live without his love. The night was cool when she got in her truck and left town. In her rear view mirror she could see the dark house where she slept with Eric the night before and the cherry red car parked out front.
Four days later, she returned to Paradise. She spent those days living in a motel, not answering calls on her cell phone and hiding away from the world. The few calls she made were to lease a space in Tulsa to relocate BonBon. She placed an advertisement in the paper that informed her customers the business would be moving.. That too had her phone ringing off the hook but she was in not in the frame of mind to answer any questions. If her customers loved her edible delights like they said, they would follow her or order online. And with a move like this she would get more customers. Even with this news, trying to see the upside of her heartbreak was not working.
When Sapphire parked her truck, she noticed the car was gone from in front of the house and everything was quiet. She could feel the emptiness inside her and she knew he was gone. Pain sliced through her chest just as severely as when she walked out. Opening the door to her shop, she found an envelope on the floor and automatically knew it was from him. Inside was a key and a card that said three simple words. I Love You! It was his way to asking her to stay, she knew, but to Sapphire it was an impossibility. One person couldn’t fight for a love when the other was choosing a different path that would take him away. Tomorrow she would begin packing up her stuff and getting ready for her move.