He still needed to ask Adam and Karla what their final decision was on buying the house from him. He’d planned to check with Adam earlier this evening, but then all hell had broken loose with Luke’s accident.
Living in Denver once fed that place in his soul that had been disconnected when he’d returned from Iraq. Adam once encouraged him to find some cause that made him feel needed, and he’d latched onto search-and-rescue work. Not to mention the Masters at Arms Club, but it was more the connection with his Marine friends that fed his soul. But Damián and Adam had new families now.
Had he ruined any chance of having Angelina in his life again? He’d tried to share some of himself with her a few minutes ago, but how much would be enough to satisfy her? Even if she agreed to be with him again, he didn’t want to be cooped up in the city.
Angelina moaned and wrapped her arm across his abdomen. Memories of the first night he’d spent in this bed holding Angelina in his arms seeped into his consciousness. The first time in this bed he thought he would have only the one night with her. He’d wasted much of the night and following week trying to figure out how he could get her interested in Luke instead. He’d known no woman would be satisfied with the little he had to offer.
Mine.
He held her tighter. The thought of anyone else touching his girl made him ill. He cherished the months she’d been with him. His outlook on women had changed drastically since they’d met. Before, he’d trusted no woman and had kept even his male friends at arm’s length emotionally. He’d lowered the walls a little bit since Angelina entered his life but had never totally opened himself up. A year ago, he wouldn’t have been able to imagine trusting a woman as much as he did this one.
What made her different? She was Italian. He didn’t understand his aversion to Italian women, one he’d had long before Melissa had come into his life during college. Allowing himself to become vulnerable to Angelina had shaken him to the core. The time she’d topped him had been nothing compared to coming to her at Rico’s place tonight with his heart on his sleeve. She could have crushed him, told him to take a hike.
Instead, she opened her home to him once more.
Angelina wouldn’t take any guff off of anyone. Her father and older brothers had helped prepare her well for the assholes of the world—including him.
Angelina moaned again, and he reached up to stroke the creases from her forehead.
“You’re safe, amore. Sleep now.”
Soon she relaxed against him again. Feeling the weight of her head on his chest gave him a sense of peace he hadn’t felt in a long time. He wished they could return to the time before New Year’s. Everything had been going so well then.
Or had it? Perhaps that had been yet another illusion. His inability to fully trust Angelina would have become an issue at some point. Here he thought he was trying to win her trust when all along he was the trust-deficient one.
He glanced around her bedroom. He’d grown up in a resort condo unit—a glorified hotel suite, really. Before Angelina had made the Denver house feel more like a home, he hadn’t paid attention to the difference between his home with Angelina and the one he’d grown up in back in Aspen. In those few months, she had made a number of changes, but Angelina’s house here in Aspen Corners reminded him of the one he remembered from his childhood in Italy. Cozy. Intimate. Perfect for a couple or a family starting out.
Or a woman living alone. Angelina hadn’t said anything about wanting him to move in. He’d better not start making too many plans. He hadn’t won his girl back yet.
Marc rested his chin on her head and closed his eyes. So much of his life remained unsettled.
* * *
“No, Zietta Natalia!”
Angelina was jolted awake by a forceful arm pushing her away.
Marc screamed in Italian. “I don’t want to come out!”
She pushed herself up from Marc’s chest and gazed down at his contorted features in the early-morning light. It took a moment for her to remember where they were.
In her best Mistress A voice, she commanded, “Marc. Wake up.” He blinked awake instantly this time and stared at her in confusion. “You had a bad dream.” Again.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
She shook her head. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
“You called out in Italian to your mama—only you called her Auntie Natalia.”
He shoved her head off his chest and onto the pillow. “Drop it, Angelina. I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Marc, I hurt when you hurt. How can I help you?” Her thumb moved back up to stroke his bottom lip, hoping to coax them to open and speak.
“I don’t need you—your help.”
She yanked her hand back as if he’d bitten it.
He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Cara, you know I would do anything for you—”
She shook her head. “Then talk to me. I’m not asking you to do anything for me other than to stop shutting me out.”
“I know what you’re asking, amore, but it’s not something I can give.”
“Why can’t you open up to me the way you did earlier tonight?” His shuttered expression told her that wasn’t going to happen. “What is it you need from me, Marc?”
“I need nothing from you!”
She didn’t try to mask the pain those words caused her. She’d asked for honesty, hadn’t she? She saw the bitter truth in his response. For whatever reason, he was incapable of letting himself be vulnerable with her, probably with any woman.
Angelina got up from bed and pulled her robe on as if it were a suit of armor. “Let me tell you what you need, Marc.”
“What is that?” Was it fear she saw in his eyes?
Why couldn’t you trust me, Marc?
“You need to leave. I can’t be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t need me. Who doesn’t even trust me.”
He didn’t fight to save their relationship, if they’d ever really had one. He dressed and walked toward the door. Tears burned her eyes.
Please leave before you see me cry.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you what you need, cara.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He shrugged.
“You unleashed the submissive in me, Marc, in this very room. If I am not permitted to serve your needs, I am left with nothing.”
Marc held onto the bedroom doorknob for a long moment. Could he hear what she tried to express? Would it make any difference?
He straightened his shoulders and opened the door. She watched him leave through a blur of tears knowing he wouldn’t come back again.
She’d gambled her heart—and lost.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“When the fuck are you going to figure out why the hell you keep screwing things up with that girl?”
“I’m trying, Adam.”
“Sure could’ve fooled me.”
Marc scrubbed his hand over his face. He’d barely slept in days. Exhaustion made it impossible for him to think anymore. “I know. You’re right, but I’ve been trying to figure it out. I’m stuck. That’s why I came to you.”
“What do you think I can do?”
He hadn’t really come here for empathy, but thought Adam would understand. Hell, the man had driven his own girl away to Chicago, a helluva lot farther than where Angelina had run. But Adam had managed to win Karla back.
“You know me better than anyone.” Marc really had let very few people close enough for any kind of glimpse inside him. Adam had been there in the field hospital in Fallujah when he’d been doped up and at his weakest. He had been one of the few to even temporarily breach his defenses. Between the lack of sleep for more than a week trying to figure out how to get Angelina back and worrying about Luke the last couple of days, he’d reached the end of his rope.
“Losing Angelina the first time was like losing a part of my soul.” He cleared his throat. “Worse th
an the aftermath of what happened to us on that rooftop in Fallujah. Worse than losing Gino, because I’d lost him six months before he actually got killed.”
Marc’s eyes filled, and he looked away before Adam could pounce on that sign of weakness. He would not break down in front of Adam. He took a moment to regain control by drawing several deep breaths.
“I expected her to come back any day. We’re right in so many ways. The sex is fantastic, she enjoys the hell out of the kink, and I’ve given her the kitchen of her dreams. What more could I give her?”
Adam raised his eyebrows briefly, but remained silent. Okay, that hadn’t come out right, but Marc decided to keep going. “She said she wanted me to open up and let her in. I’ve never opened myself up more to any other woman. Never wanted to. Giving anyone that much control scares me shitless. But I guess I couldn’t give her what she needed.”
Silence. After a few awkward moments, Marc continued. “Anyway, she didn’t come running back, as I’d expected. Instead, she went to Luke’s for comfort and shelter.”
“Anything going on between them?”
Marc shook his head. “No. Other than one time last fall where the three of us got pretty intense, they’re practically brother and sister.”
“You’re sure she isn’t trolling for your replacement?”
“Hell, no! You saw how it was with us at daVinci’s bar. There’s still something between us.”
“So what are you doing here in my office two hours away from her instead of sitting down with her and talking this out?”
Marc sighed. “I shut down on her again yesterday morning. She basically told me not to come back until I decide that I want a real relationship.” Marc leaned forward, leaning on the arms of the chair. “Adam, I don’t fucking know what that looks like. What’s wrong with me? I’m going to lose her if I don’t figure it out soon.”
Adam smiled, which threw Marc off-kilter even more. What did he find so fucking funny?
“What do you plan to do about it?”
“That’s why I came to you. I don’t have the first clue where to start to unfuck this.”
“I’m no fucking head shrinker. Why haven’t you talked to someone all these months who’s trained in that department instead of hiding out in the mountains? You could have been facing this head on for weeks, if not months.”
“It’s too easy to run away from a psychO’s couch.”
“A what?”
“Sorry, psych officer. I forget the Navy and the Marines have their own jargon.” Where was he? “Besides, Angelina isn’t going to wait forever. I’ve made her wait long enough. I want you to do whatever it takes to break down these barriers holding me back. I know you won’t pull any punches. I trust you to do what needs to be done.”
“You won’t get an argument from me there. Just hearing you say you trust me enough to yank a knot in your ass and get you to face your demons is news to me. I never thought you trusted yourself, much less me or anyone else.”
Marc hated hearing those words, but realized Adam spoke the truth. Maybe that lack of trust and security is what kept him from having as close a relationship as Adam had with Damián. His master sergeant didn’t ride Marc’s ass as hard as he did Damián’s either; something Marc often envied was their father-son relationship.
“Look, I need some kind of mindfuck or something like the one Damián pulled with Savannah the other day. I swear there’s just some kind of mental block that keeps me from relating to people on anything more than a superficial level. I’m not only keeping women at a distance, but you guys, as well.” Marc drew a deep breath after delivering his heartfelt spiel. He needed to get beyond whatever was holding him back. In a ragged whisper, he begged, “You have to help me get her back.”
“I can’t.”
Adam’s outright refusal to help took Marc by surprise. He found no words to form a response.
Adam walked around his desk to tower over Marc and placed his hands on his hips. “You’re the only one who can win her back. I might be able to help you get to the bottom of what’s going on in your head, but the truth might be more than you want to face.”
“I’ll do anything you say at this point.”
“You sure about that?”
“Absolutely.”
“You willing to try an interrogation scene?”
He’d seen Adam and Grant perform interrogation scenes in the club before. Some of them had caused him to remember his SERE Course training in the Navy where he’d been taught to survive, evade, resist, and escape. If captured or lost behind enemy lines, the tactics taught him what to do if tortured in order to maintain some measure of self-worth. The truth was that no one could hold out forever. The best one could hope to accomplish was to hold on to their dignity and avoid giving in completely.
Could his training help him if the enemy he faced was his own sub-conscious mind? The training had been so intense, he’d been given R&R leave afterward to recover. Most of the BDSM interrogations he’d seen, while intense, lasted only a few hours at most, and usually resulted in the subject confessing which playing card was being concealed from the interrogator. How could that be enough?
“Do you think we’re going to get anywhere with the typical club scene?”
“Can’t say. If I feel the need to employ SERE Course tactics, are you willing to subject yourself to that level of intensity? This isn’t the Corps. You have a choice this time.”
Hell, no, he wasn’t sure. But deep down, he didn’t have a choice either. No doubt in his mind it would take something along those lines to get him to break down the barriers he had painstakingly erected with years of practice. Perhaps he’d break before Adam had to take it to the SERE extreme of sleep-deprivation psychosis and torture. He hoped so. The short- and long-term effects of such manipulation weren’t anything he wanted to mess with. But if he did nothing, he was doomed to spend the rest of his life floundering much as he had been all year—perhaps most of his life, if he ever admitted to himself how empty it had been until Angelina had come along.
“It might be my only chance of finding out what has me so twisted up inside.”
“I want to hear the words of consent before we go any further.”
Marc paused to make sure he wanted to go through anything like that again. The prize at the other end would be being able to make a commitment to Angelina—if he didn’t wind up in the psych ward at the VA.
“I want you to do whatever it takes. If that means SERE training revisited, then so be it.”
Adam nodded, giving no visual cues as to what he thought about the idea. The scene wouldn’t be easy for him either. It was one thing to break the enemy and quite another to do the same to a friend.
“I appreciate that you’re willing to do this.”
“I’m not making any promises it’s going to help.” Adam reached for a legal pad and pen. “First, though, we need to set some ground rules. Any triggers I need to be aware of?”
Marc thought back to an aversion he’d had for a very long time, but couldn’t explain. “Stilettos.”
“Wasn’t planning on wearing any. What else?”
Marc would have laughed if he weren’t so nervous.
“I’m sure I’ve got a mixed bag of crap from childhood, adolescence, even adulthood that may churn up and need to be addressed.”
“What types of implements would you place on the hard-limit list?”
Did Adam plan to use them if Marc identified them? Didn’t matter. Marc had to answer honestly. “Paddles.”
“Hard or soft?”
“Hard.” Very hard. Marc didn’t mind using them, and Angelina sure loved them, but he hadn’t let her use one on him. She’d honored his limits.
“What else?”
“Not too crazy about ball gags.”
Angelina had used one on him, and he hadn’t totally freaked out. “Soft, but leaning toward hard, if that makes sense.”
Adam nodded. “Blindfolds?”
“No
known issue. But you need to push me to the limit if I’m going to get past whatever is holding me back.”
“I didn’t say I planned to avoid your triggers or limits. I just need to know what they are, if possible.”
Merda. What did Adam plan to do with him? Marc’s heart rate ramped up.
“Doc, if you had to guess the root of your problem, what would it be?”
“Women.”
“Wanna be a little more specific?”
“Italian women.”
“And yet you’re doing all this to win back a certain Italian woman?”
Marc shrugged. “I’m an enigma.”
“Wrapped in a fucking riddle.” Adam tapped the pen against the pad.
Marc grinned, even though there was nothing humorous about his situation.
“Could this have anything to do with the girl Gino stole from you? Damián mentioned some Italian bitch—sorry, woman—giving Angelina a hard time when you took her to your family’s resort for New Year’s.”
“No need to apologize. And, yes, Melissa is Italian, but my aversion must have started before her. Not sure why I wasn’t the one running that time. Maybe I never really surrendered enough of myself for it to be anything more than physical. What can I say? I was young and horny; it was more of a grudge fuck than anything meaningful.”
Adam nodded his understanding. “Who else do I need to consider? Have any issues with your mother?”
“Don’t we all?”
“Anything specific about your mother?” Adam clearly didn’t want to discuss issues with his own mother.
How to explain the situation, well, as far as he could even understand it himself? “I’m not sure Mama is my mother.”
“Come again?”
“I think she’s my aunt and later adopted Gino and me after my birth mother died suddenly when I was three. But Mama could be lying about that, too.”
“Jesus, Marc, you sure you don’t want to set up an appointment with a shrink at the VA? Why don’t you just talk with your mother—aunt, whatever the fuck she is.”
Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me) Page 37