“It’s cashmere.”
“They’re so soft,” I said before setting them aside and lifting out a coat that had been resting under the hat and gloves. The coat was black and cinched at the waist. I tried it on and couldn’t help but smile. It was beautiful, elegant. I didn’t want to take it off.
“Do you like it? I wanted you to have something nice for when it gets cold.”
“I love it.” I took the coat off and folded it back into the box it had come in. “Thank you so much.”
“You still have one more present to open.”
Justin handed me the small box. I took it and opened it slowly. It was a pair of earrings. Small platinum hoops with three tiny blue stones dangling from the bottom. They were a match to the necklace he’d bought me on my last day working at the community center.
“Justin,” I said, trying to catch my breath. I felt like crying. It was too much, more than I expected, even from Justin who treated me like a princess every second the two of us were together. “They’re beautiful, but you didn’t have to get me all this.”
“Come here, Jess.”
I walked over to where Justin was sitting. He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head against my stomach. Then he looked up at me, got on his feet, rested his hands on my waist and kissed me softly on my lips. “I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. I like making you happy. You’re just going to have to get used to it.”
“You make me happy even without the gifts.”
Justin sat back down and then pulled me onto his lap. My legs straddled his waist, and I wrapped my arms around the nape of his neck and rested my forehead on his. I inhaled Justin’s scent, a mix of soap and cologne, and then he kissed me on my neck just under my jawline. My body tensed, his lips felt so good on my bare skin. I moved my hands up to the back of his head. For another moment he continued to kiss my neck and then I pressed my lips to his. Knowing that it was just the two of us and that there was no chance of my brother walking in made holding back impossible. I yearned for Justin and, at the same time, I could feel his desire for me, which only made me want him more. His lips gently tugged on mine and then he parted my mouth with his tongue, kissing me like I was his air and all he needed to breathe. His lips left mine and traveled down to my neck again, every inch of my body tingled, I felt like I was being consumed. I ran my hands under his shirt overcome with the desire to feel his bare skin under my fingers.
As my fingers stroked Justin’s back he let out a soft moan. I wanted him to do the same to me, to touch me the way I was touching him, instead he pulled back. “We better stop.”
I wanted to ask why, but I didn’t. I very much doubted that the problem was Justin not wanting me. I could feel his desire, the more we kissed the more I knew I was exciting him, so there had to be another reason he wanted to stop and I was pretty sure it had to do with his legs. We’d never talked about how it would be if we ever became intimate with each other.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s just that I’ve never. . .you know, at least not since I lost my legs.”
“But you can, right?”
“Oh, I can,” Justin said. “It’s just that, I guess I feel a little self-conscious.”
“Maybe if we do something else first.” I slid off Justin’s lap and went to look for the remote control. “Let’s just watch TV.”
Justin smiled and scooted back up on the bed. I nestled beside him and started flipping through the channels until we found something both of us wanted to watch. As the minutes ticked by I kept wondering when Justin would kiss me again or even if he would.
After an hour, I got up to go to the bathroom. When I came back Justin was sitting on the edge of the bed. He’d poured us two more glasses of champagne. I only took a sip of mine because I really wasn’t in the mood to drink, I was too nervous thinking about how the rest of our night would unfold. I watched Justin as he sipped his drink. Before he could finish I reached for his glass, plucked it from his hands, placed it on the nightstand and leaned down to kiss him. Apparently, I realized, I was going to have to take matters in my own hands. Hungrily I searched for his tongue as I wound my hands behind his neck and sat on his lap straddling him. His arms circled my body and, as I felt his desire for me grow, I started kissing his neck. I wanted to turn him on so badly he wouldn’t be able to ask me to stop. My tongue traced every inch of his collarbone and as he moaned I reached under his shirt again. He inhaled sharply, but this time instead of stopping me he lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor.
His chest was perfectly chiseled. For months I’d imagined what he looked like without his shirt on. I ran my hands over the muscles on his chest and arms. Justin reached for the hem of my shirt and I helped him lift it over my head. I scooted off Justin’s lap and gently pushed him down onto the bed. He lifted his legs from the floor and when his entire body was flat on the bed I straddled him again. Justin looked up at me and touched my breasts. My bra was still on, I wanted to feel his hands on my bare skin so I reached around my back and unhooked it letting my bra fall on the bed beside me.
“You’re so beautiful,” Justin said as he reached to touch me again. I moaned as his fingertips ran over my hardened nipples. I felt like I was going to explode with desire. Slowly I lowered my body until I was lying on top of Justin. The feel of his bare skin on mine made me shudder.
“Are you okay?” Justin asked.
“Very okay.” I kissed him again, first on his lips, then his neck again, and then his chest. He moaned and arched his back. I reached for the button to his pants. Justin grabbed ahold of my hands.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said. My heart pounded in my chest. I was nervous as hell but I wanted him, there was no doubt in my mind.
Justin pulled my skirt down to my knees, I got it off the rest of the way. From his pocket, Justin pulled out a condom. “You came prepared,” I teased.
“Well, I was hoping. But if. . .”
“No buts. I want you. Now.”
Somehow we managed to get the rest of our clothes off. The room was dark, only lit by a bedside lamp, and I didn’t even glance down at Justin’s legs. I didn’t care about that, the only thing I cared about was being with him, touching and tasting every inch of his flesh. I stayed on top and when he finally entered me I gasped, surprised at how good it felt to have him inside me. His body rocked under mine. I arched my back as Justin’s hands went to my breasts again.
“Open your eyes,” Justin breathed.
I did as he asked and lowered my body forward so I could look into his eyes. Overcome with emotion I spoke without thinking. “I love you.”
Justin froze under me. “You what?”
I didn’t know how to answer him. I hadn’t intended on letting him know. Never tell a guy you love him first. That was one of the rules of dating that had been passed down to me by some of the older girls I’d known when I lived in the group home.
“I said I love you,” I whispered into Justin’s ear. It was too late to take it back, and besides, it was true. Maybe Justin wasn’t ready to tell me the same thing, maybe he never would be, but at that moment I didn’t care, I just wanted him to know.
Justin eased my head up a bit and kissed me on my lips deeply, passionately, he wrapped his hands in my hair and then grabbed my bottom as the two of moved in rhythm with each other again. His hands gripped my waist and I moaned in pleasure as he led me to climax. My heart still racing and my body still on fire from the pleasure I felt from him I almost didn’t notice as Justin’s body tensed under mine. He gasped and pulled me down onto him, his hands wrapped in my hair again. I lay down on his chest and listened to his heart pounding. Justin turned to his side as I slid beside him. He propped himself up on one of his arms and lifted my chin with his free hand so I could look in his eyes.
“I love you, too.”
I looked away from Justin. “You don’t have to say that just because I did.”
“T
hat’s not why I said it.” I gave him a skeptical look. “I wanted to tell you first, but I was worried I’d scare you off. I just didn’t think it was possible that you could love me.”
“Why would you think that? You’re like the perfect guy, handsome, kind, generous, what’s not to love?”
“This.” Justin pointed to his legs. It was the first time I’d ever seen his prosthetics. Nothing about them bothered me. The only thing that got to me was thinking about the pain losing his legs must have caused him. I’d never seen anyone wearing them in real life before, but they looked exactly like I imagined they would based on what I’d seen on television.
“Why is it so hard for you to believe that it doesn’t make a difference to me?”
“That’s a story for another time.”
“No.” I insisted. “I’ve told you things, plenty of things about myself. It’s your turn to now.”
Justin lay back down on the bed and sighed. I waited for him to start talking and explain why he was so afraid that his injury made him so impossible to love. “I was eighteen when I joined the Navy,” he began. “I had a girlfriend, and before I got deployed I asked her to marry me.”
My throat tightened as he mentioned another girl. She was his past, but I was still jealous. “What happened to her?”
“Let’s just say that before I left for Afghanistan I had two perfect legs and a fiancée, and when I came back I had none of those things.”
“She left you because of your injury?” I asked sharply. I already hated this girl for having been engaged to Justin, now I hated her more knowing that she broke his heart.
“Not at first. When I finally came back home, Erin, that was her name, seemed happy to see me and relieved that I was still alive after what had happened. But we couldn’t do the things we had done before. I was still trying to learn how to walk on my new legs. I had doctor and physical therapy appointments all the time and Erin wanted to do what all twenty-two year old women want to do—have fun, go out, and party. I couldn’t do any of those things.”
“So she broke up with you?”
“No. I think she wanted to, but she felt guilty about it. I’m the one who broke up with her.”
“Why?”
“I overheard her talking to one of her friends on her phone one day. Whoever it was must have invited her to do something because I heard her say that she couldn’t because she was stuck with Stumpy.”
“Oh my God. She actually used those words?” Justin nodded. I couldn’t believe that Justin had ever loved someone who could be so cruel. “That’s terrible.”
“I tried to convince myself I hadn’t heard her right, but I knew I had. She seemed almost relieved when I confronted her about it, like she was wondering how long it would take me to be the one to break it off because she couldn’t handle the guilt of dumping her damaged boyfriend.”
“That’s why you said no, when I asked you out. You thought I felt sorry for you, you didn’t believe I actually liked you for you.”
Justin nodded.
“What made you change your mind?”
“A few things. Mrs. Connor for one, you for another. I just didn’t see that in you. You don’t have a mean bone in your body. And, well, every time I pictured you with someone else I’d lose my mind a little. I didn’t just want you to be mine, I felt like I needed you to be.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but I have multiple mean bones in my body.”
Justin kissed my shoulder softly. “I don’t believe that.”
“I’m sorry you got hurt. But that girl was stupid; she didn’t realize what she had.”
“Losing Erin was hard. Not really because it was her; truthfully we were pretty mismatched, but because it came at the worst possible time. I’d just lost my legs, then my career in the Navy, then my fiancée. I was in a dark, dark place for a long time after that, but eventually I got over her,” Justin said. He reached for my hand and twined his fingers through mine. “I don’t think I could handle losing you, though. Every time I picture my future you’re always there.”
Justin’s perfect words echoed in my mind. I tried hard not to think about how too good to be true he was. Things in my life usually had a way of not working themselves out the way I wanted them to. What I craved most seemed to have a way of slipping through my fingers. There were many times I wondered if happiness just wasn’t in the cards for me. But I tried not to think that way and just let myself feel happy as I lay beside Justin.
Chapter 13
Somehow I managed to drift asleep. I woke up sometime later startled. For a minute I didn’t realize where I was. I turned to look at the bedside clock. It was just after midnight. Justin was asleep beside me. I tried falling back asleep, but couldn’t. I got out of bed meaning to go to the bathroom. It was then that I noticed that Justin had removed his prosthetics and placed them beside the bed.
After showering and putting on some fresh underwear and a shirt I crawled back in bed next to Justin. I wanted to see his legs again, to see what he looked like without his prosthetics, but I left the blankets in place. Justin would let me see if that’s what he wanted. It didn’t seem right to sneak a look while he slept. I nestled next to Justin in bed and a few minutes later he stirred.
“You’re awake?” he asked.
“I took a shower.”
Justin sniffed my still wet hair. “Mmmm, you smell good.” He kissed the side of my head.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You want to see my legs?”
“How did you know that’s what I was going to ask you?”
“I just figured.”
“Does it bother you?”
“No.” He pulled back the blankets and I turned on the bedside lamp. Both legs looked totally normal until you got to just below his knee. From there they tapered a bit and then just stopped.
“I’m told I was lucky. Below the knee amputations aren’t as bad as above the knee, much easier to learn how to walk on prosthetics.”
“It must have hurt like hell.”
Justin nodded and then pulled the covers back up. “It was a nightmare. From start to finish, the day I lost my legs was the worst day of my life.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was deployed with a Marine battalion in Afghanistan as one of their Corpsmen. Me and the team I was on were out on patrol one night when we stumbled on an IED. There was a huge explosion and the next thing I remember is being flat on my back and feeling the most excruciating pain in my legs. I heard screams, at first I thought they were mine, but then I realized I wasn’t the only one who got hurt. A few of the Marines I was with did, too.” Justin shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. “It was my job to help them, to save their lives, but I couldn’t. One of my Marines died, another lost part of his arm while I lay there helpless.”
“Justin.” I couldn’t believe he blamed himself for what happened. “It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could do.”
“The logical part of me knows that.” Justin’s voice sounded hollow, distant. “But I’ll never forget that feeling. The feeling of utter failure, of knowing that people depended on me and I couldn’t pull through for them.”
I wrapped one of my arms around Justin and kissed his chest. “You are not a failure. It’s not like you asked to be injured. If anything you’re a hero.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me. I even have the Purple Heart to prove it, but the guilt never goes away. I think about that Marine who died, and sometimes I think it should have been me. For months after it happened I wished that it were.”
I hated the idea of Justin lying around in a hospital in pain and wishing he were dead. “You’re not the one who planted that IED. Nothing that happened that night was your fault. Bad things happen to good people all the time, and there isn’t a reason for it. It just happens. For whatever reason, you made it out of there alive, and I for one am grateful you did.”
“For a very long time I wished I’d died that night. At first it was because of the pain of my injury, then it was the agony of rehab and trying to learn how to walk again. And then it was just realizing that my life in the military was over, and I was a twenty-something-year-old man with no legs stuck at home with his parents and no job or any prospects of one.”
“How did you wind up working at the community center then?”
“Through a program that was looking to hire vets. I used to think that job saved me, and in a lot of ways it did, but the truth is, meeting you has made me happier than I can ever remember being. Even before I lost my legs.”
I was stunned speechless. “You seemed so normal when we met. I would have never guessed that you had been through what you had.”
“Call it self-preservation. I learned how to cover what I was thinking and feeling,” Justin explained. “Once you meet my mom you’ll understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother’s a total helicopter. She’s constantly hovering over me, looking for signs that I’m cracking. I think if it was up to her I’d still be seeing some shrink every day. It drives me crazy. So, whenever I would get in a mood I’d have to find a way to hide it from her or deal with her trying to convince me that she knows what I need better than I do.”
“Have you ever thought about moving out and getting your own place?”
“I’ve thought about it, lots of times. I just don’t know if I’m ready yet. I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong.”
“I guess it would be hard to find an apartment in Manhattan for what you earn at the community center.”
“My paycheck isn’t that great, but I also get some money from disability, and I have money that’s been left to me by family, so it’s really not about the money,” Justin explained. “After I got out of the hospital the therapists I was seeing said I shouldn’t be on my own, that it wasn’t good for me to isolate myself. But truthfully, I was actually thinking about getting my own apartment for the past few months, until I got that skin infection in my leg over the summer, and I couldn’t use my prosthetics. Being stuck in a wheelchair really scared me. It’s hard, you can’t even imagine how difficult it is to do things when you can’t stand on two legs. Everyone keeps telling me that eventually I’ll be independent again, but I’m not sure I really believe it.”
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