by Gwyn McNamee
A weak grin ticks up the corner of his mouth. “I did.”
“What made you bring it out?”
It’s just one more reminder of everything we’ve lost, and I’m surprised he would want to see it every day. This lighter went through five tours with him. I can’t even imagine the things he must have seen and done with it in his pocket.
I was with Star when she bought it for him. We wanted to give him something for his nineteenth birthday—his first since enlisting, and the first one he would be spending without our family since he was six years old. I thought it was stupid to give him a lighter and encourage a bad habit, but Star insisted. Instead of giving a joint gift, I opted to get him something I thought was much more practical for his next deployment—a one-year subscription to Hustler’s online porn website.
Just thinking about the look on his face when he opened the card and read the note from me makes me smile despite the way my heart is aching holding Star’s gift to him in my palm.
It doesn’t escape me that he hasn’t answered my question about why he has it out again.
His eyes have returned to the view. I don’t think I’m going to get an answer. He pushes his left hand back through his hair and sighs. “Fuck, Skye…I don’t know what the fuck I am doing.”
I set the lighter back on the table before placing my hands on his knees. “None of us do, Gabe.”
He shakes his head and returns his eyes to me. “I’m a mess, Skye. I almost shot you last night and this morning…”
This morning?
“What about this morning?”
His whole body goes rigid and he scrubs his hands over his face. “Shit, I didn’t think it would be this hard.”
The internal war he’s waging shows in every movement he makes, but I encourage him to continue, knowing if he doesn’t talk about it, he’ll just bury himself into a deeper, darker hole. “Just tell me.”
He pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath. “I had a nightmare…about being over there…”
I wait for him to continue, but he just bites his lip and shakes his head with his eyes squeezed shut and then drops it in his hands. He was different when he came home after his final deployment four years ago, but I never suspected anything was seriously wrong.
“Gabe—”
“I could have killed you.”
“You keep saying that, but I’m right here, and I’m fine.”
His head snaps up and the eyes that meet mine are not the warm, deep pools they normally are, they are ice cold. “You won’t be fine, Skye. Not if we’re together. Savage should be the least of your concerns. I could seriously hurt you.”
I can’t believe I’m going to ask this, but I know the answer, and he needs to hear himself say it to know it’s true.
“Have you ever hurt any other girl who spent the night here?”
He growls at me and fists his hands. “Don’t compare yourself to them, Skye, they were nothing, and I never let anyone spend the night when I was still having these dreams. I thought they were done and over with.”
I don’t need to hear the words to know what he’s not saying. The dreams are back because of me. He’s so fucking stressed out and worried about what will happen with Savage, he’s actually driving himself crazy.
Jesus.
“Gabe, you need to take a step back. Breathe and relax. Everything is fine. You’re fine. I’m fine. And Savage will be fine when he finds out about us. He has Dani and the baby to worry about.”
He lets out a mirthless laugh. “I wish I could believe that.”
It’s abundantly clear I’m not getting through to him. There’s only one thing I can think of that will rescue him from the dark hole he’s fallen down.
I urge his knees apart and lean into him, pressing my lips to his even as he eyes me warily. He doesn’t resist me, but he doesn’t respond either. At least, not verbally.
His cock is hard to miss, straining against my stomach.
I slip my hand into his boxers and grasp him firmly.
He does nothing to stop me, just watches me with a mix of trepidation and longing. Not exactly what a girl wants to see, but I know he needs this as much as I want to give it to him. He needs to get out of his head, and I can do that for him.
She frees my cock from my boxers. There are no soft, lingering, exploratory touches of her hand or tongue. She immediately takes it in her mouth, engulfing me in a mind-numbing wet heat.
Fucking A…this is Heaven.
I wind my fingers into her sleep-tangled hair and fight my body’s urge to thrust up and my conscience screaming at me to stop her.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
This is so wrong.
But fuck, does it feel good…
Closing my eyes, I let my head fall back and try to just savor the blissful suction and attention she’s giving me. But, when her free hand slides into my boxers and cups my balls, I can’t fight it anymore. I drive up into her mouth, the head of my cock pushing against the back of her throat.
She moans around me and swallows while she swirls my balls in her hand. I almost come on the spot.
White stars explode against my eyelids, and a tingle shoots from my tailbone straight to my cock.
I’m close…so damn close.
I need to be inside her.
Coming down her throat isn’t enough for me right now. I need to be surrounded by her, by her clasping pussy. I need to hear her strangled moans while I pound into her.
With a little more force than I intend, I yank her off my dick. Her wide eyes stare at me in confusion.
I don’t say anything. There aren’t any words to describe why I need to do what I’m about to do. Even if I tried, I doubt she would understand. How could she?
How can she comprehend that my losing myself in her is the only thing besides pain that can clear my head of all the bullshit rattling around in there? If only momentarily.
Hazy pink sunlight filters in the windows, illuminating the right side of her face as she stares up at me.
I need to forget.
I stand and tug her up from the floor. The sheet falls away from her body and before she can say anything, I lift her up and spin her around, pushing her face-first into the chair with her beautiful ass raised in the air. Her glistening pussy calls to me from between her glorious thighs.
“Are we safe?” The question comes out rough and desperate, and I pray to God I’m not scaring her.
She focuses on me over her shoulder and nods, her rumpled hair falling in her eyes.
“Are you okay with—”
With a nod of her head, she silences me. Pushing her ass back against my cock, she lets out a low groan. “For fuck’s sake, Gabe, just fuck me.”
Fuck, this woman…
I shove my boxers down the rest of the way and align my cock with her wet opening.
There’s no way this will be gentle. I can’t do gentle right now. I can’t do controlled right now.
Her wet heat is molten fire on the head of my cock. I shove into her with one thrust, knocking her forward against the back of the chair.
No, this is Heaven.
Me and her, no barriers, nothing between us.
Just us.
I pull back and drive into her again—deep and hard—and she bucks against the back of the chair.
“Yes!” She cries out and clenches down on me—squeezing my cock and rotating her hips. “Let go, Gabe.”
I grit my teeth and dig my fingers into her ample hips while I pull out slowly. My thighs tremble with my effort to contain the beast threatening to break free.
“You sure, love?”
A muffled curse is the only response I’m offered.
She doesn’t know what she’s asking for.
Her long, dark, satiny strands wrap around my wrist perfectly, and I tug her head back until her eyes are locked with mine as I lean over her. I need to make sure there’s no fear or hesitation there. All I find is longing and lust. She stares at me, unblink
ing. “Go Gabe.”
I hammer into her.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
Hard and relentless.
It’s brutal, and fuck, does it feel good to let go of everything in my head and only concentrate on the physical connection between us.
He’s pummeling me.
His cock fills and stretches me. Our bodies slam together, and he holds my head immobile, forcing me to look back and stare into his eyes.
With every retreat, I clamp down on him, savoring the twitch in his tightly clamped jaw and the feral, animalistic gleam in his eyes.
He needs this, and I need him.
Yes, fuck, just let it go.
Every thrust shoves me harder into the chair, and every yank on my hair sends a sting rippling across my scalp. The pleasure borders on pain, but I revel in it. Only I can give him this.
The fingers of his right hand dig into my hip. I’ll have bruises but fuck if I care.
I feel every single inch of him with crystal clarity with every drive of his hips.
He shifts, pushing me forward until my left cheek is pressed into the leather back of the chair. My breasts crush against the cool material—the slippery surface a sharp contrast to Gabe’s hot, slick skin against my thighs, ass, and back.
Warm breath feathers my ear, and I tilt my head to try to see him, but he tightens his hold on my hair, holding me in place and keeping me prone.
Not a word has been spoken since the moment he plunged into me.
The only sounds are our grunts and groans, and our flesh slamming together. Heat engulfs my body, and I know I’m going to come. Hard. That damn piercing rubs me in all the right spots.
His breathing quickens with his increased pace, and he growls in my ear. “Come for me, Skye.”
I could never deny Gabe anything. I’ve loved this man since I was sixteen, and I always will.
My thighs quiver, and I’m so fucking close. Every grind of his hips moves me nearer to the precipice.
I clench his cock, and he moans and rotates his hips slightly, altering the angle of his entry. Four more thrusts and my orgasm slams into me. “Oh, fuck…Gabe!”
The room disappears and blinding white light overtakes my world. I buck against the chair while he continues to plunge into me relentlessly.
A grunt of satisfaction is the only warning I receive before he comes inside me, pushing deep, and then stilling with his body pressed against mine from knee to shoulder.
We both pant, his chest heaving against my back and our breaths mingling where his face is pressed against mine.
That was…
Shit…I literally have no words.
The quiet peacefulness of the moment ends abruptly when he stands, releases my hair, and jerks out of me before backing away slowly.
I push myself up off the back of the chair and turn to examine him.
His wide eyes are on me, but he doesn’t see me. His long, lean, muscular limbs tremble, and he runs shaking hands back through his hair before he fists them at his sides.
Oh, shit.
“No, Gabe.” I scramble to get off the chair on quivering, unsteady legs and stumble over to him. “Stop.”
He shakes his head, his vacant gaze still locked on mine. “Jesus, Skye, what the fuck did I just do?”
“Nothing I didn’t want you to.”
“But…”
I press my palms against his chest. His heart thrums a rapid tattoo under my touch; it’s racing just as much as his mind is. Closing his eyes, he clenches them tightly.
“No buts, Gabe. Look at me.”
After a brief moment of hesitation, he opens them. I rise up on my tiptoes and press a kiss to his trembling lips. He jerks away and narrows his eyes at me.
“Thank you.”
“What the fuck are you thanking me for?” He takes a step back from me, shaking his head, and I immediately miss his heat. “Jesus, Skye, I just attacked you.”
I step into him and wrap my arms behind his neck, locking them and making sure he can’t move away from me again. He doesn’t wrap his arms around me, but remains stock still.
“No, you just fucked me. You fucked me hard. You gave me what I wanted and what you needed.”
His body vibrates. He shakes his head and pulls me into an embrace, burying his face in the crook of my neck. His heart continues to race against mine, and his breathing is still ragged in my ear.
Come on, Gabe. Relax.
I slide my hand up the back of his neck and into his hair, holding him against me, and press a kiss to the side of his neck. “Everything is fine.”
“How can you say that?” His words are soft and muffled against my skin. “None of this is okay.”
I know he’s referring to a dozen different things, so his words don’t hurt me. Very little can anymore. He needs to accept that this—us—is happening, and I’m not going to let him push me away.
We both have bad shit rolling around in our heads, but he won’t scare me off that easily, even if he terrifies himself.
“We’ll make it okay, Gabe.”
Skye snuck out this morning before the sun had fully risen without giving me the chance to get a handle on what the hell had happened. I stepped into the shower and when I got out, she was gone, having left just a note saying she would call me later.
I don’t know what the fuck that was this morning or why Skye didn’t run for the hills the minute it was done, but it scared the shit out of me. It’s not that I don’t know I have violence in me, hell, the Army trained me to kill people. And I got paid to do it.
But what took place with Skye? That was something different. I’ve never been with a woman like that before—bare skin or bared soul. That’s what it felt like to me—my entire fucking soul was being ripped from my body and every bad thing I’ve ever done was pounded out into her.
She didn’t deserve that; no one does.
Yet, she stood there and fucking hugged me and acted like I had just made love to her instead of pounding her like a crazed, wild animal.
Jesus, I’m fucking losing it.
Before I can second-guess myself or talk myself out of it, I call the number I’ve managed to avoid for five months but still know by heart.
“Doctor Cochran’s office. How may I help you?”
“Hi Janine, it’s Gabe. I need to see her.”
There’s a momentary pause where I’m tempted to hang up. “Oh, Mr. Anderson, hello. Actually, I can get you in Saturday morning at eleven. Does that work?”
Two days. Surely I can make it forty-eight hours without going off the deep end. Hopefully.
“That’s perfect. Thank you.”
I drop my phone back onto my desk and stare at the stack of applications next to it. Byron does all the hiring, but I do the background checks. My sources are meticulous and very rarely do any of the employees surprise me with anything. I know their dirty little secrets because I have to. If I don’t, one could come back to bite me and Savage in the ass. We’ve worked too hard and been through too much to let that happen.
Yet, here I am, doing something sure to shatter the rock-solid friendship we’ve had for over two decades.
Why the hell did it have to be Skye?
There were at least fifty single women at that wedding. I could have holed up in a room with any one of them and fucked them and myself senseless all night. But instead, I let Skye kiss me and then spent the rest of the evening drowning myself in a bottle of Macallan alone in one of the empty conference rooms.
That was my second big mistake that night, not doing something—someone—else to eliminate the memory of that kiss, the way she smelled, and how fucking blue her eyes were when they were begging me to help her forget how awful she felt being there without Star…
I practically fall out of my chair when my phone rings.
Shit. I’m jumpy as hell.
Blocked caller.
That’s never a good sign.
“H
ello?”
“Anderson, son, how are you?” The voice is all too familiar, and a rock drops into the pit of my stomach as my blood pressure skyrockets.
“Don’t call me son. You haven’t been my father for a very long time. What the hell do you want?”
He’s got some fucking nerve calling me.
I’ve managed to avoid speaking with my father since last year’s fiasco. I watched his political career crumble on the news and felt a great sense of relief that even though he wouldn’t be locked up where he belonged, he at least would no longer be in a position of power.
His resignation as mayor sent shockwaves through New Orleans. He went from shoo-in for Louisiana Governor to announcing his retirement from politics with no explanation overnight. I ignored any and all of his attempts to contact me, but the fucker caught me off-guard this morning.
“Now, Anderson, can’t we be civil?”
I clench my fist and bite back a litany of curses that would get me nowhere. “First, stop calling me Anderson. Second, civility? You of all people shouldn’t be telling me to be civil. What are you going to do? Have me killed, too?”
He sighs deeply. “I still have no idea where you got all these nasty ideas from. I never—”
“Save it. What do you want?”
Why can’t he just disappear off the face of the Earth?
“Son, I was hoping we could discuss my return to politics—”
I bark out a mirthless laugh.
“You’ve got to be fucking joking.” The disdain and disbelief in my voice cannot be misinterpreted by him. He has to know how asinine this conversation is given the circumstances.
“It’s been a year—”
I cut him off before he can argue any further, because it would be pointless. “You don’t seem to get it. You’re done with politics. Done lording power over people and using that power to benefit yourself and vile, evil men like Dom Abello. I would have thought that was made very clear when we made our deal with him.”
“But, Ander…er, Gabe, I have to be able to live and have a career. I need to do something.” There’s a panic in his voice that makes me grin. Now he knows what it feels like to be on the other side.