Nobody's Hero

by Kallypso Masters

  He sat and looked up at her. “We?”

  She gave him a moment to sweat, then sat in his lap.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Am I hurting your back?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, I do. I like sitting in your lap. I’ve been wanting to do it again ever since you held me on the loveseat in your office when I first came to the club…”

  Thoughts of what had brought her here wiped the smile from her face. Adam’s hand stroked her back in long sweeping movements. This wasn’t supposed to be about her sharing about her past hurts, but she felt such a sudden and overwhelming ache in her heart for Ian, her dead brother.

  “Does it ever get better?”

  “What’s that, hon?”

  “The pain you feel when you think about someone you’ve loved and lost.”

  He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her head against his shoulder. “A little bit. The pain never goes away, but it dulls with time. Just takes a very long time.”

  Karla laid her hand over Adam’s heart to feel it beating, giving her strength. Losing a spouse had to be an even greater loss than losing a sibling. She’d never heard Adam say much about Joni. From what she’d read online about the stages of grief, while trying to cope with her own grief over Ian’s death, she knew talking about the loved one was important to help someone get through the process. Was Adam as stuck in the grieving process as she was? Maybe he needed to talk about Joni. He kept so many things bottled up inside. That wasn’t healthy. “Express, not repress.”

  “What?”

  She hadn’t realized she’d quoted the movie line out loud. “In one of my favorite movies, French Kiss, Kate tells Luc that he needs to express his feelings, rather than repress them and let them fester.”

  “Chick flick.”

  “Yeah, but a good one. We’ll have to watch it together sometime.”

  He grunted in a noncommittal way. Somehow she doubted Adam would be into watching it with her. No biggie. She’d rather French kiss him than watch a movie by that title. She suppressed a giggle, then sobered as she remembered why she was sitting in Adam’s lap.

  “Tell me about Joni.” His heartbeat sped up. Don’t run from me, Adam. You can do this. Maybe she should start with something safe. “What did she look like?”

  He paused so long, she didn’t think he’d answer. Then he laid his chin on her head, put the glider chair in motion with his foot, and began to open up about the love of his life.

  “She was a tiny little thing. Barely five feet tall.”

  Oh, God. Karla knew she could never make herself petite for him no matter how hard she tried.

  “Short curly hair, strawberry blond.” Adam stroked Karla’s long, jet-black hair. Maybe she could cut her hair short, but she’d never be able to dye it strawberry blond. She remembered how much her hair had annoyed him when he’d had to tame it before he could bind her hands and arms behind her back in the gun technique he’d demonstrated at Marc’s house. That had been the only time he’d engaged in any BDSM activity with her—so far. She wondered if he’d ever use rope bondage on her again. She hoped so.

  “She liked to wear short skirts and had the sexiest legs. That’s the first thing I noticed about her.”

  Well, at least short skirts Karla could manage, but she didn’t have a clue if her legs were sexy to Adam or not. “Where did you meet her?”

  “I was on a short leave after boot camp and went home to Minneapolis to check on some…thing.”

  She could feel his heartbeat accelerate again, and he almost stopped breathing. He obviously must still be affected by the memory of how sexy she was. The pain she felt in her heart made Karla realize she might not be strong enough to let him continue reminiscing about the ghostly rival for his affections.

  “I found her working as a waitress at a diner in Saint Paul. I guess she could tell I was interested, because she just plopped down in the booth seat next to me to take my order, rubbing her…” He tensed and stopped the motion of the chair, lifting his chin from her head and leaving her feeling cold. “We were married a couple weeks later. November eighth.”

  There was a long pause. Karla couldn’t bring herself to ask about Joni anymore, but she didn’t want to end this rare, intimate time together. She wanted to know so much about Adam.

  Adam cleared his throat. “Tell me about Ian.” When she stopped breathing, Adam put the glider in motion again and stroked her arm, up and down in long, slow strokes, keeping time with the motion of the glider. “It does help to talk about them.”

  Karla had planned to talk with Cassie about her loss of Ian when they’d gone on their annual campout. They’d even planned a fire ritual to help her memorialize him and release some of the pain. The anger. Unfortunately, the cougar attack had put an end to their night on the mountain—and had almost put an end to Adam’s life.

  “Deep breaths, kitten. Now.”

  The use of the nickname he’d used in the bedroom earlier warmed her in places she wasn’t used to feeling warm. His hand brushing lightly up and down her arm made rational thought difficult. Knowing he didn’t mean anything sexual by it, she pulled her thoughts back to Ian. She needed to let go of her crushing grief. To let go of Ian. Tears filled her eyes and she choked back a sob.

  “Oh, God, Adam. I miss him so much. It hurts more every day.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. “I know, baby. Just let it out. I have you.” The gliding motion of the chair, his arms around her, his soothing words all came together to break down her defenses. She’d tried to be strong, especially when Adam had distanced himself from her.

  “What are you thinking, kitten?”

  “Why doesn’t it get any better?”

  “Just takes time, hon. Give yourself time. The first year is the worst. Lots of anniversaries to get through. Talking helps. Tell me what he was like growing up. Your mom said he got himself into a number of scrapes.”

  “Yeah. And he was always so mean to me.” She giggled and felt Adam grow tense. “He liked to tease me—and I was an easy target, because he always got a rise out of me. You should have heard what he thought of my pink hair.”

  “Neon pink.” She felt Adam shake his head and could hear the smile in his voice. “Most god-awful hair I’d ever seen, too.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s about what he said. You two are a lot alike. I was trying to show I was my own person. He just told me I was a freak.”

  “Well, I’ve been called a freak because of the kink I enjoy—but never for pink hair. Definitely different. You sure drew a lot of attention with it.”

  She didn’t want to remember attracting the pimp’s attention at the bus station, but maybe her streaks of hair color also had attracted Adam to her. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the hair, but her plight. In her predicament, she’d roused his protective instincts.

  “I like it better this way.” He stroked her hair and she felt a fluttering in her stomach. He liked her hair, even if it was the total opposite of Joni’s? She smiled.

  “What else did he tease you about?”

  “That I liked to wear black clothes all the time.”

  “Black’s fine on you, but you looked really nice in that red top at Marc’s house.”

  Adam liked red on her? She didn’t imagine Joni would wear red, not with strawberry blonde hair. Karla’s heartbeat accelerated a bit. She needed to go shopping.

  “How about when you were older?”

  “I didn’t see much of him after he went into the Army.” One of her greatest regrets. “We e-mailed each other a lot while he was in the service.”

  “You always were a faithful correspondent.”

  His words made her feel good, because she’d certainly written enough letters to Adam while he was in Iraq and afterward, too. For almost nine years, they’d written to each other. She returned her thoughts to Ian.

  “He changed after the war.”

  “Most
people do after serving in a war zone.”

  She wanted him to reveal something more about himself, without seeming too obvious. “In what ways?”

  “Too many to name. A big one is that some come back Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

  “Did you?”

  His arm tightened, pressing into her back. “Some. Nightmares mostly. It scared Joni to sleep with me at first when I was home on my medical leave. Sometimes I’d lash out at her. Well, not at her. Not intentionally, at least. I’d just lash out. She just happened to be there.” He paused, lost in his memories. “But they’re gone now.”

  No, they aren’t, Adam. She stroked his forearm, remembering his yelling for someone to report during one of the nightmares he’d had in the hospital. Marc must have been one of them, because she remembered the name D’Alessio.

  “Ian served two tours in Iraq during his enlistment, then got out. But I was in college by then. We didn’t see much of each other, because he was in Chicago and I was in New York. Then he started traveling overseas for some kind of business. Every now and then, he’d show up unannounced at the club or my apartment in New York. I didn’t even know he was back in the States the night he was…”

  She couldn’t say the word, but continued in a whisper, “I miss him so much. Oh, God, it hurts.” Karla buried her face into the crook of his neck, breathing in a woodsy scent and Adam.

  He held her closer, stroking her hair. “I know. It hurts like hell, hon, but it’s only been a few months. I promise you, it’ll get easier with time. You can’t just blink and expect it to be all better.”

  Being in Adam’s arms sure made it feel better, even if for just a little while.

  Safe.

  Home.

  Chapter Four

  Adam could shoot himself for not getting her to open up about Ian more over the last few months. He’d been trying so hard to avoid her, he hadn’t been the friend she’d come to Denver looking for when the walls of grief had started closing in on her. He had experienced that same feeling when he decided to retire from the Corps. The walls he’d put up to ignore his grief started caving in right after the firefight in Fallujah. The grief had nearly crushed him before he decided to start the club with Marc. Damián joined in later, also needing a lifeline to hold onto. His friends may not realize it, but they had helped him keep his sanity when the reality of a life without Joni had finally sunk in.

  He pulled her closer and stroked her hair. God, he loved her hair. So silky. Like her skin. She reached up to cup his jaw, then lifted her head from his shoulder and turned his face to meet hers.

  “Kiss me, Adam.” Her breath against his mouth set his dick to throbbing.

  “Let’s not go there again. If I kiss you, I won’t stop.” He reached up to brush a strand of hair away from her eyes. “Hon, I care too much about you. I’d just hurt you.”

  “You could never hurt me. Not intentionally. You’re the gentlest man I know.”

  The unsettling flashbacks he’d experienced earlier had jarred him, and he pushed her away, speaking more harshly than he’d intended. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know everything I need to know. Maybe there are a few things you need to learn about me, too, Adam.” She sat up straighter, but her gaze never left his. “I am an adult—twenty-five.”

  “Exactly half my age.”

  “Don’t interrupt.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He grinned in spite of himself. She was so damned sexy when she stood up to him. Everyone else buckled under to his authority, but not Karla. Well, she’d kept her distance from him the last few months, sensing his foul mood, but since he’d awakened to find her lying in his arms in his hospital bed, she’d let him know she wasn’t going to take any more evasive shit from him.

  Her declaring war on him tonight did nothing but conjure up fantasies of getting her to submit to him when he finally conquered her. He had no doubt he would conquer her, either, if he allowed this to continue—which he had no intention of doing. Karla was strong, but she was no match for him when he was back in top condition. Fuck. Even though he didn’t want her to submit to him, he couldn’t banish the image of Karla kneeling before him, her long black hair covering her bare breasts, waiting to do his bidding. His dick throbbed even more—directly against her ass. She smiled. Damn her.

  Damn him. Having her sitting in his lap was no better than having her in his bed. Exponentially worse. At least the bed was king-sized and he could keep her at arm’s length. Yeah, like that worked for you before, dickwad. No, his body deep in sleep had gravitated toward hers earlier, until he’d accosted her in her sleep.

  “I know you want me, even if you try to tell yourself you don’t.”

  He looked into her sparkling blue eyes. “You’re beautiful, Karla. Any man would be attracted to you. But you need me to be your guardian, not your lover.”

  “I want you to be my lover, Adam, more than anything. I want you to teach me to be your submissive.”

  “Hell, no.”

  She pulled back, wrinkling her forehead. “Why not?”

  “First of all, I think you might need a submissive more than you need to be one.”

  “I loved it when you tied me up. I felt so…free. That doesn’t make sense, but that’s how I felt.”

  Hell, it made perfect sense, if she were a submissive. She wasn’t. Besides, he didn’t need to be thinking about tying her up at the moment. The one time he’d done so before, she’d managed to get her claws in too deep under his skin.

  “And I’ve seen some people in the club who top one time and bottom another. Maybe I’m one of those.”

  “A switch?” The thought of watching her playing Domme with anyone at the club didn’t sit well with him either—and no woman would ever top him. However, seeing her dominated by anyone else caused his gut to churn. But being her Dom wasn’t an image he would entertain either. She had no natural interest in the lifestyle. She only wanted to get close to him because of her damned hero worship—in spite of his doing his damnedest to keep her away.

  Except at this moment. What were they talking about again? He noticed her full lips and realized how much he wanted to kiss her right now. Damn it. She’d done it again—short-circuited his brain.

  “Adam?”

  He returned his focus to her eyes.

  “What?” he barked.

  “So maybe I am a switch.”

  He needed to put an end to any discussion about bondage, discipline, domination, or submission with Karla pretty damn quick. “You’re a singer. That’s your role in the club—the only one you need to worry about.” Something in her eyes told him she wasn’t planning to let the matter drop. Damned stubborn woman. “I think we’d both better try to get some shut-eye, or we aren’t going to function very well tomorrow.”

  His hands spanned her tiny waist, before he remembered he couldn’t lift her, so he took her hand and helped her to her feet. Karla then held out her hand to him, but he ignored it and stood under his own steam, even though the effort left his back muscles sore and his legs shaking with the effort. He needed to wean himself off “Nurse Karla” here and get his life back on an even keel. The fleeting image of Karla wearing one of those skimpy nurse’s outfits like the one Marc had wanted Angelina to wear for the first costume night, right before the cougar attack, sent his dick bobbing inside his sweats.

  God, would he ever be able to get his life back under control, given what had happened earlier tonight? Not fucking likely.

  Karla went to his side of the bed and turned down the sheets for him.

  “I think I can take it from here, hon. Thank you for taking such good care of me.” He reached out and stroked her cheek, until she closed her eyes and leaned her face into his hand. He pulled his hand away quickly.

  Keep your fucking hands off her, old man.

  Rather than look hurt, she just smiled and walked around the foot of the bed. He expected her to continue toward the door into the hallway. Not Karla. Instead, s
he surprised him by walking to the other side of the bed, turning down the sheet and blanket, and climbing in.

  “Karla, what the f…heck do you think you’re doing?”

  “Going to bed. I’m exhausted.” She smiled again, and he could see where she thought this was headed. Well, not if he had anything left to say about it.

  “Go to your own bed.”

  “I don’t want to be alone tonight. You don’t mind if I stay here with you? I promise I’ll stay here on my side.”

  What was this “my side” crap? Now she was saying it?

  Without waiting for a response, she pulled the covers over her and curled onto her side, presenting her curvy backside to him. Adam stood and stared a moment. If his strength hadn’t been so compromised, he’d have picked her up and carried her to where she belonged. However, the thought of dropping and hurting her put an end to that plan.

  He glanced at his side of the bed, not certain what to do. Maybe he should go sleep in her room. That thought wasn’t very satisfying. Not that he planned to get any satisfaction—or even sleep—tonight.

  “Turn out the light and come to bed, sweetheart?”

  Sweetheart?

  If Karla had declared war on his heart earlier tonight, then she’d just now entered the occupation phase of her campaign. Not just of his bed, but occupation of that cold place inside his chest he’d vowed to never let anyone in. They didn’t make tactical charts to deal with this kind of battlefield.

  Maybe he could think more clearly after he’d gotten some sleep. Hell, like he was going to get any sleep with Karla lying a few feet away.

  Times like these, he wished he hadn’t quit drinking. Or given up on pain pills. He wouldn’t get any sleep tonight.

  Fuck.

  But there was no way he’d let his sleeping body naturally gravitate again toward the warm—and willing—woman lying in his bed. He took the few steps to the nightstand and switched off the light, crawled into bed, and turned onto his side, with his back away from her.