Make Me

by Turner, Alyssa

  Just because he wasn’t jealous of what Manny had with her didn’t mean Manny wouldn’t be. After all, Kyle had lots of practice sharing Manny over the years. He’d been there at every turn as Manny’s interest in the women he dated crested and fizzled. Kyle knew how to find his place next to him even when Manny’s attention had been divided. Truthfully, it had never been that hard. Everyone knew they were inseparable. Kyle never once felt as though that would change.

  But in all that time, Manny never really had to share anyone with Kyle—not in any way that counted. Sex, after all, was just sex.

  He studied Rebecca as she glued herself to the window with excitement in her eyes. Sex had been what put them on their knees together that first time with Manny, but the hunger in his chest now had little to do with getting Manny off and everything to do with wanting her to stay.

  His text to Manny said that they’d landed safely. After a moment Kyle added that he needed to talk and that he’d call when they got to the hotel.

  Stepping into the warm weight of the Caribbean air, Kyle took a deep, cleansing breath. He needed to get away from the campaign and everything that came with it. Just for a few days he needed to be free. Rebecca stepped out into the light and plopped an enormous sun hat of black woven straw on her head. It flopped in her face, and she wrestled with it to no avail.

  “Are we renting a car?” she asked. The soft ocean breeze blew the hat in her face again. He took it from her and smiled.

  “Only our luggage is taking a car. We are traveling island style this weekend.” He pointed to a Vespa kiosk. Rebecca looked genuinely delighted, and he took a mental snapshot of that smile.

  “I have always wanted to ride one of those.”

  “Ride? No, you’re driving, baby.”

  She fished into her knapsack and pulled out a hairband, then whipped her curls into submission atop her head.

  Kyle folded her Hollywood-diva-style hat and stashed it into the front pocket of his suitcase. He twirled an errant curl around his finger. “Now you look ready for anything.”

  She blushed nice and pink for him, and he couldn’t resist a nip of her jaw.

  “Sunblock?” he asked upon returning from the small pink building.

  “Check!” she said, taking the key he offered.

  “Helmet?” he asked, tossing her the faded yellow one with a snappy blue racing stripe down the center.

  She looked at it and laughed. “Check!”

  “Quick lesson around the parking lot?”

  “Oh, thank God!” she said, with her shoulders sagging a little as she popped on the helmet. “I don’t want to risk an elbow.”

  He eased in close to snap the chinstrap for her. “It’s easy. Trust me.”

  “I do,” she whispered.

  Kyle got lost for a second in the complexity of her gray eyes. He saw every gentle wish and every fear she’d ever had. “You really are special, Rebecca.”

  She pulled her chinstrap tight and swatted him on the butt. “The sooner you finish sweet-talking me, the sooner we can hit the beach!” With that she hiked her dress up and swung her shapely leg over the sea-foam seat of her Vespa.

  Kyle’s cock tightened in his pants thinking of just how hard he wanted to hit the beach with her. First, he’d have a talk with Manny. The closer Kyle got to Rebecca, the dumber he felt for not doing it sooner.

  * * *

  Manny tried to keep his voice down as he waited to board his first-class seat to his twenty-four-hour Bermuda getaway. He had long ago quit feeling envious over the perks Kyle enjoyed with his reams of Benjamins in the bank. For one, Manny knew the dues on those perks were pretty steep. He also knew Kyle would give his last dime to make someone else happy. In the end, Manny learned to say thank you and leave it at that.

  But Kyle sounded weird in his text and even weirder now on the phone. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Manny. I’m not saying that I feel any differently about you, but I need to tell you that I want Rebecca for myself.”

  “What?” Several people raised their heads with annoyed glares at his sudden outburst. Manny felt the hairs rise up on the back of his neck. This was his worst nightmare come true. He gritted his teeth and covered the phone with his hand. “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “Shit, that totally came out wrong.” Kyle took a breath.

  “Where is she right now?”

  “Out by the pool.”

  Manny had heard all about the private cabana with its own plunge pool when Kyle practically demanded they’d take this trip.

  “You want to start over again?” Manny said. “And this time make me not want to fly all the way over there just to punch the crap out of you?”

  “I meant to say I want to be with her because I like her, not because you like her. I mean, I like that you like her too…and maybe it started out that way for me, like the other times…but…”

  Manny could see the strain on Kyle’s face even if they were hundreds of miles away. Where was that cocky, sure-as-shit attitude he’d come to know and love? Swept away in a wave of strawberry blonde curls, he supposed. “I wish that made me feel better.”

  Kyle huffed. “She’s fucking special, man. I just got chills when I said that. Fucking chills, do you hear me?”

  Manny bit the inside of his cheek. “I hear you.”

  Kyle cleared his throat. “I have feelings for her too, that’s all, and I don’t really feel like I need your permission to fall for her.” He sighed. “It’s kind of too late anyway.”

  “Kyle, what are you saying?”

  “The rules. We need to talk about the rules, man. I want to make love to her the same as I want to make love to you. As often as possible.” Kyle laughed lightly, and Manny wished he could appreciate the humor. “I’m not going to put my dick on house arrest, just ’cause you aren’t in the same room with us.”

  Manny swallowed hard. “I did. Don’t you think I wanted to make love to her when you were away last week?”

  “That isn’t right. I know how you feel about her. I know how you feel about me. You shouldn’t have to hold any of that back, and I don’t want to either.”

  “Good for you then.”

  “Good for us, dude. We have found the perfect woman.” Kyle’s voice was full of joy. “Hurry up and bring your ass here soon so I can have my cake and eat it too.”

  * * *

  Rebecca dragged her foot back and forth through the tepid water as she lay at the side of the pool. The sun had nearly set on the peaceful ocean, and only the faint call of seagulls in the distance stirred the evening air. She closed her eyes and inhaled the sea, thinking how different the ocean smelled here. How naïve could she have been? Bermuda was a hell of a lot nicer than Coney Island. She’d been too embarrassed to admit to Kyle that although she had a valid passport, it had yet to be stamped. She wasn’t much different from the kids he’d brought to see her; her only knowledge of the great big world was from books. She was never rich, but with her research, she never felt poor.

  She opened her eyes again and gazed out at the horizon. The day that had passed stretched out before her eyes.

  The day that was Kyle.

  She smiled at the thought. Her body tingled at the memory.

  They took the slower, secondary roads to the hotel, Kyle keeping a watchful eye on her the entire time. She decided to race him at the last intersection before their turn toward the beach, and he feigned engine trouble just to win.

  “Dirty bastard!” she’d yelled after him when she’d predictably stopped to help. He laughed all the way to the gates. They were twenty-five feet high, at least, glittering with golden letters in the noon sun. Kyle flashed his identification at the gatekeeper as if they’d arrived in a Rolls-Royce rather than on two rented Vespas. She admired his confidence, though he didn’t seem to make a point to flash his money in anyone’s face. Kyle Hunter looked like any other tourist on vacation. Maybe that was just what he wanted.

  Rebecca felt oddly like a couple standi
ng there at the reception desk with him, without Manny. He’d wanted to show her the gardens next to the golf club, and he’d held her hand as they walked. He’d pulled her seat out for her at lunch and didn’t correct the waiter when he’d asked what the Mrs. would be having. In fact, they’d laughed about it once he’d gone. Rebecca had mentioned that her name meant “to be snared,” so Hunter was quite an ironic fit.

  Curse the word nerd she could be sometimes. Kyle had only smiled, but she’d sworn that his cheeks had turned a little rosy.

  He’d been sweet. Sweeter than she’d ever expected from him. It was just a short walk back to their suite after lunch, and with the warmth of the afternoon light beating softly on her back, they watched the waves roll gracefully onto shore. They’d shared jokes and teased each other—the kind of lively banter she’d come to expect from Kyle. And then he’d told her about the mission he flew with Manny over Kandahar. He toyed with her hand as it rested between them on the warm concrete seawall, delicate strokes from her palm to her fingertip.

  “People are always calling us heroes, but they don’t really know what it was like over there.” He talked and stared at her hand, stroking the longest finger between two of his callused tips. “Our orders were to kill whatever was coming at us…whatever stood between us and our target.”

  Rebecca leaned her head on his shoulder. “The thing about heroes is that they never think they deserve the title.”

  That won her a small smile, but his expression took on distance once more. “Some of them were just kids. Kids caught up in something somebody told them to believe.” He shook his head. “Marines don’t talk about it—what it’s like to kill someone.”

  “We don’t say thank you enough for what you’ve sacrificed.”

  “Manny and I were lucky. We know many of our brothers who sacrificed a lot more than we did.”

  “Still,” she said, placing her hand on top of his and bringing his eyes to meet hers. “It’s OK to mourn your innocence.”

  He looked at her then as if she’d torn off his mask and held it high in her hand for all to see.

  She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so personal.”

  He was silent, and Rebecca had a hard time reading his expression. He eased his hand up her forearm to her shoulder, sliding to her neck. Finally, the slightest quirk of his lip bloomed at the corner of his mouth. “That was pretty damn personal.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.”

  “I feel downright…what’s the word? Snared.”

  Rebecca smiled, the warm-and-fuzzies taking over. “Not cornered, I hope.”

  “More like held captive…captivated,” he said. A dimple appeared in his cheek, and Rebecca coveted it.

  “You Wiki’d my name.”

  “You started in on the whole Rebecca Hunter twist. I needed to see if it fit like you said.”

  His thumb brushed at the scar just under her collarbone. For once, she didn’t feel the need to shrink away. He’d touched it like it connected them somehow—her scar and his—but only hers could be seen.

  “What happened here?” he whispered to her, dipping to kiss the spot.

  Rebecca opened her mouth, and the familiar impulse to run from the pitiful truth was there with her. If there was one thing she’d never tolerated, it was pity. The quick, innocent lie she’d told since she was a kid was poised on her lips. She’d told that lie so many times that it had started to have a life of its own, like truth could be born of an immaculate conception if you tried hard enough.

  But she hadn’t really fallen off her bike as a young girl on her way home from the playground, and lying to Kyle just didn’t seem like an option. “I broke my collarbone when I was eight.”

  “Ouch.” He pressed soft lips to it again and looked up at her. “How?”

  She inhaled deeply and knew that sharing this part of herself was about more than just opening her mouth. It was about being vulnerable. Nothing scared her more.

  “We’d just moved into the house in Aurora. It’s a split-level ranch with a short staircase, only about eight steps. For two days straight I tried to work up the courage to jump from the top. I thought it would be so thrilling, such a daring thing to do. My cousins always teased me for being a squirt, too little and afraid to do anything. Every time I got ready to jump, I just couldn’t do it.”

  Kyle nodded and she continued. “That third morning, my dad was at the bottom sorting through the mail, and I asked him to catch me.” Rebecca could feel her heart begin to race, almost as if she was back on those steps, summoning the courage to try to fly. “I closed my eyes and counted to three, then I threw myself into the air.” Rebecca felt the air rush out of her lungs when she said that and her voice squeaked on the last word. She inhaled again, determined to keep from sounding any more pathetic. “But he didn’t catch me. I landed on the tile floor like a sack of bricks, and when I opened my eyes he was gone.”

  Kyle cupped her cheek, the look of horror marring his gorgeous eyes. “Aw, honey, that’s awful. How could he not be there to catch you?”

  “It wasn’t his fault. I found out later that he’d never heard me ask him. The phone had been ringing and the 'Sure, sweetie' I’d heard him say was directed at my mom when she asked him to answer it.” She shuddered, and he pulled her closer. “I had to stay in bed the whole summer. And let me tell you, starting a new school with a big ugly brace wasn’t the best way to fit in.” She sighed through a light chuckle, but it felt like lead in her throat.

  “Sounds lonely.”

  “I had my books.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “They were good company then.”

  He nodded. “I feel like it all makes sense now.” He kissed her softly up the side of her neck. “I want to be there to catch you. Will you let me?”

  She grabbed his big broad shoulders and held on tight, searching out his lips with her own. He slipped his hands under her shirt and massaged both breasts in a slow caress that matched the dance of their tongues. Rebecca felt every inch of her body melt against him in complete surrender, and the idea of flying seemed real.

  Then a pang of guilt struck her like an axe. “When’s Manny getting here?”

  “Around eight.” Kyle cut a sideways glance at her. “Do you wish he was here now?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Kyle paused before answering, and Rebecca got the feeling he was weighing his response. “Yes and no. I miss him, but I kind of like spending time with you alone.”

  Rebecca had to admit she had had a wonderful day spending time with Kyle…alone. “Is it wrong if I say that I like having alone time with you too?”

  “Does it feel wrong?”

  “Yes and no.”

  He’d leaned in and kissed her then, snaking his arms around her and taking her mouth the way she’d come to expect. Kyle’s kiss turned hungry, and she knew what he wanted. She also knew what she wanted.

  She felt the pull on her bikini strings behind her neck as the bow tore loose. Her top slipped away. “You do know how stunning you are, right?” Kyle said. Those eyes shimmered as clear and cool as the Caribbean waters a few yards away.

  Rebecca watched as he raised his hand to her neck. He let his fingers fall upon her skin like feathers and sweep down between her breasts. It caused her to arch her back, and he smiled.

  “I love to see you react to me.”

  “I don’t seem to have a choice,” Rebecca whispered, and she wet her lips. She already missed having her mouth on him. “I want you.”

  She slid into the pool, slicing through the sun-warmed water to the bottom. When she surfaced, the water lapped at her shoulders and her hands worked at the strings on his board shorts. He helped her, lifting enough to slide them free to his thighs. Rebecca took him into both of her hands and pressed his shaft to her lips. She lifted her eyes to meet his. “You’re the one who’s stunning.”

  When she enclosed him in her mouth, she was treated to a shuddering sigh. He grew harder as she sucked him, and his fi
ngers found their way into her hair, tightening in her curls. She instinctually stilled, and he pulled her gently away. “Baby, that feels amazing, but I would love it if you would get your sexy ass up here where I can show you how much I want you too.” He smiled down at her. “Don’t keep that delicious pussy from me.”

  She swiped her tongue against her bottom lip. “I suppose that would be unusually cruel.”

  He helped her out of the pool with one strong tug. One effortless sweep of his arms under her body and she was in the air and headed to the white canvas lounger. Goose bumps overwhelmed her in the fading light as he laid her down. Ridding himself of his board shorts, he shielded her from the steady tropical breeze with his entire body.

  She had his cock back in her hands as fast as she could manage, guiding it between her lips. He rolled his hips as she sucked him in, silk draped over steel filling her mouth once again. Another simple tug on the bikini string at her hip and the cooling evening air licked at her bare pussy.

  Kyle licked her next. She moaned against his shaft as the warmth of his tongue flooded her. The sweeping rasps of his taste buds overwhelmed her, and her skin tingled with goose bumps all over again. He sank his fingertips into the flesh of her ass, pinning her cunt to his mouth while the thrusts of his hips sent his cock shuttling to the back of her throat. A single finger and then another dipped deep inside to slide against her walls, and Rebecca felt taken whole by Kyle and all he did to her. Then he withdrew his fingers, only to place them against her tightest threshold. He swirled his tongue into her pussy and pressed his slickened finger into her ass.

  Rebecca took him in. His body seemed to consume her from all angles. “I want to fuck you here,” he said, and Rebecca knew that he would. “Do you want me to?”

  “I’ve never done it before.”

  He withdrew then, righting himself on the lounger to find her gaze with his own. “Aw, baby, let me make this good for you,” he said and swept his lips past hers on his way to her neck. Then his head popped back up, concern flickering in his eyes. “Unless you’re afraid to try.”