Sweet Agony (Sweet Series Book 1)

by Jessie Lane

  I wasn’t ready to let her go entirely. Honestly, I might not ever be able to let her completely go.

  She studied my face for what felt like forever before she said slowly, “Forgiven.”

  A smile stretched across my face as I pulled her to me, used my arm around her shoulders to guide her, and led us back toward the kitchen.

  “So, tell me what you’ve been up to, Gin.”

  “I have a boyfriend, and I’m in college. Which one do you want to hear about?”

  Jesus. I would rather talk about her period than that boyfriend of hers with octopus hands.

  “Let’s talk college, honey.”

  In my line of work, I never knew if the next mission was the one I wouldn’t come home from, so I was going to take this moment with the girl I loved but couldn’t have and make it last as long as I possibly could.

  Ginny

  Twenty Years Old

  As Lucas and I sat at his mother’s kitchen table, catching up, I thought over what had been said a little over an hour before and almost laughed. Funny how, when Lucas asked me for forgiveness, it sounded more like a command than an actual question.

  You would think someone seeking such a thing would make sure they were not demanding it, but not Lucas Young. The proverbial question mark on the end of his sentence was for my benefit alone and probably not a courtesy I would get from him often in the future. If he wanted something, he would obtain it by any means necessary.

  For instance, when he had told me and Olivia at his last high school football game that he would score four touchdowns, he’d made it happen. Or, like how he had planned for years to go in the Army to be in Special Forces and was drafted right out of basic. Lucas Young was relentless when he wanted something. Therefore, I should probably consider myself lucky he hadn’t dictated my forgiveness.

  But instead of feeling lucky, all I felt was sad that he still didn’t want me. You could think you were over someone, and then, with just a glimpse of their face after not seeing them for a year and a half, you realized you would probably never be over them. That truth sucked in a big way. It also made me want to run back home and cry my eyes out. I wasn’t going to let myself do it, though. No, I was going to sit here and visit with him as if I didn’t give a flying Fig Newton about what he thought. Even if it was the furthest thing from the truth.

  So, I sat there, chatting with the boy I used to think was my knight in shining armor, rescuing me from locked closets, and studied him.

  He looked older, and not just because he was. There were lines around his eyes and mouth that told me he’d laughed … and cried. His skin was overly tan from his deployments, and even though he was doing his best to seem carefree with me, his eyes were hard, dark, and maybe even … lost?

  During the past year, I’d convinced myself that there was nothing Lucas could say or do that would allow me to forgive him for what he’d done to me. Now as I studied him, my resolution wavered. There was something about his demeanor that said he needed a hug. He needed a strong shoulder to lay his head on and lose himself in his thoughts. And pathetically, there was part of me that very much wanted to be the person who gave him the comfort he needed, which was why I was crazy as hell for sitting here and talking with him at all. I should be running in the opposite direction of him and staying far, far away.

  Nevertheless, my heart had almost burst out of my chest at the chance for things to be normal between us again. Or, at least I had hoped things were back to normal until he asked his next question.

  “Why aren’t you wearing the necklace I gave you?”

  I felt the color drain from my face and looked away. How could I answer that? After you broke my heart, I couldn’t stand to look at it every day, let alone wear it anymore. Yeah, because every girl wanted to admit that.

  The silence between us became awkward, and when neither one broke it, I peeked up through my lashes at him. His face was set in a grim look, his lips flattened with either anger or frustration; I couldn’t tell which.

  I looked down at the blue stain on the side of one of my hands in frustration, a smear of color left behind after drawing with my markers earlier. I rubbed at the spot with my thumb anxiously, using it as a focal point so I wouldn’t have to participate in the confrontation.

  Who the hell was he to get upset because I wasn’t wearing his necklace? He was the one who had made it perfectly clear that we would never be more than family friends. Just because someone forgave someone else for hurting them, it didn’t mean they always forgot what had been done to them. I doubted I would ever forget that sort of agony, which made me realize Lucas and I had a stain between us now, but that damn mark wouldn’t be as easy to remove as the marker on my hand.

  I was starting to wonder whether, forgiveness or no forgiveness, the blemish on what kind of relationship we did have was now permanent, sort of like a scar.

  “Gin,” his rough voice called almost sadly.

  I slowly brought my head back up to look at him again, and he reached across the kitchen table and took both of my hands in his, wrapping them in his warmth. There was emotion working behind his eyes, but I couldn’t name it. Regret maybe? Sorrow for still seeing the repercussions of his actions? Whatever it was, he didn’t give me long to wonder about it before he spoke again.

  “You didn’t have to take off the necklace, Gin. I get you did it because I gave it to you, so in a way, you thought of it as mine”—Lucas shook his head—“but if you think that, you’re wrong. It’s yours. It’s always been yours from the moment I gave it to you. Nothing I do or say can ever take that away from you. So, when you go home tonight, put it back on, because it will always belong to you.”

  With the end of that fervent but strange declaration, Lucas stood up, walked around to my side of the table, and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Then he walked away, leaving me sitting there with this odd feeling that something important had just happened, and I had missed it.

  He had only been talking about the necklace… right?

  Chapter

  10

  Lucas

  Twenty-Five Years Old

  It was Ginny’s twenty-second birthday, and my family had begged me to come home for the weekend to celebrate it with them. Her mom had saved up the money to rent us cabins at a wilderness resort not far from our small New York town. I had once again been gone for over a year, but this time, I was coming home with the knowledge I was about to ship out for a third time.

  Deploying didn’t bother me. This was my job, my calling in life. What I didn’t enjoy were all the tears from my loved ones before I left.

  I didn’t need them worrying about me. I needed them living, going about their day and living their lives to the fullest. They were the reason I was willing to fight and die for this country—to protect them, to give them the freedom to go from day to day, knowing they were safe. I wasn’t looking forward to my mother and sister’s waterworks … or Ginny’s.

  Her tears were the worst, if only because I knew they came from some place deeper than worrying about a family member. They came from the place inside of her that she had stashed all of those little girl’s hopes and dreams she used to have for me—for us.

  Seeing Ginny cry over me was the equivalent of a knife to the heart. It killed me every time. Maybe it was a good thing that, with each deployment, a little more of my humanity died. Perhaps, in a couple of years, Gin’s tears wouldn’t affect me at all.

  Against my better judgment, I caved in to my mother and sister’s demands. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Gin—I always wanted to see her—but to have what you wanted more than anything in the world within your reach then walk away from it was torture. Not to mention, my emotions were all over the place when it came to seeing her.

  My head prayed she still had the same boyfriend with the octopus hands, and they were settled down and happy. It would hurt to see her happy with someone else, but the logical part of me still knew it was for the best. My heart, on the other hand,
hoped octopus boy had jumped in front of a moving train and died a tragic death. No man would ever love Gin the way I did.

  The truth was that I still couldn’t have her.

  Anytime I got orders, there was a good chance I wouldn’t come home. It was what I had signed up for, so I didn’t complain. However, this sort of life wasn’t fair to the women who waited at home for their man to walk through the door, and I refused to put the love of my life in that role.

  With all of that in mind, for better or worse, I hopped onto a commercial flight and went home to spend time with the very woman my heart beat for on her birthday.

  After I arrived at the resort, we all had a good time, taking in the various activities offered: horseback riding, canoeing, swimming in the lake. This meant I got to see Ginny in a bikini for half the weekend, which resulted in the worst case of blue balls known in the history of man.

  On Sunday, we had a big cookout with my dad manning the grill, allowing the rest of us to drink, which I did a little too much of. What was the quote? Be careful what you wish for? Well, on the way into this little shindig, I had prayed for alcohol to get me through. After sitting down at the picnic table and being ambushed by Ginny sitting next to me, I knew alcohol was definitely going to be needed.

  Our mothers had just gotten up from the table to go inside a cabin to get the potato salad, macaroni and cheese, and other dinner fixings when I suddenly felt a subtle breath on the shell of my ear.

  “I need to see you tonight, Lucas.” Ginny’s soft voice sent a tingle down my body.

  Turning my head to look her in the eye, I said the only thing that came to mind. “Why?”

  A pretty blush spread over her cheeks, and she bit her bottom lip. “I want to … talk with you tonight. So after dinner is over, I’m going to come by your cabin. Okay?”

  The question was hopeful, and there was a mischievous gleam to her eyes. Dear Lord, that look could do what nothing in my military career had been able to do so far—bring me to my knees.

  Instinctively, I knew she didn’t want to talk. No, the look in her eyes said she wanted to do things a hell of a lot more intimate than talking.

  My dick went rock hard at the thought of my hands on Ginny’s naked skin.

  It was absolute torture.

  I didn’t know why she had suddenly decided to make a play for me again, but my decision hadn’t changed in our time apart. My life was still too dangerous to bring in someone as soft and gentle as Gin. I couldn’t take the chance that, if something happened to me, it would break her.

  Getting out of this situation was going to take some deceptive maneuvering. The woman I still secretly loved with every cell in my body would probably hate me again by tomorrow morning, but if that was what I had to do to spare her the heartbreak of being a future military widow, then I would do whatever the hell I had to do.

  Pasting a smile on my face, I replied quietly. “Sure, Gin, come on by the cabin after dinner and we can talk.”

  Her face lit up brighter than a fucking Christmas tree, and I knew that it might be the last smile she ever gave me. Then she darted in, gave me a quick peck on the lips, and jumped up from the table to walk away. Looking back, she mouthed the word, “later” then disappeared into the same cabin our mother’s had gone into.

  Looking back at my dad at the grill, I caught his disapproving look.

  Shit. By tomorrow, I would be in the dog house with both Ginny and my father. Whatever. A man had to do what a man had to do to protect the ones he loved, even if it meant breaking their hearts.

  I got up from the table and headed over to the cooler full of beer. I was going to need about a dozen of these to help me get through today. How was I supposed to know that, in the end, the alcohol was what would end up being my downfall?

  The day passed in a blur of food and joking between siblings. My brothers would occasionally ask about my deployments, and I would give them the vaguest answer I could then change the subject. Ginny sat by Olivia the entire day, but I often caught her glancing my way out of the corner of her eye.

  I did my best to play along, cracking jokes and making conversation with the family as if I weren’t internally hating myself every goddamn second that passed. We even had cake. A two-layer, homemade one with strawberries and blueberries that made an American flag on top. I bet the cake was delicious, but everything tasted like sawdust to me at the thought of what I was going to do later. Or not do.

  After night fell, Olivia and Ginny excused themselves and stated they were going to bed. Everyone wished Ginny a final happy birthday, and she left, giving me the sort of smile I’d only seen her give me in my dreams.

  I started pounding back the beers after she disappeared. One after the other.

  Eventually, the parents went to bed, and the only people left were me and my brothers. I kept them engaged in conversation until well after midnight, allowing what I thought was enough time to pass for Ginny to get the point that I wasn’t going to meet her at my cabin.

  When I was so drunk I started to wonder if I would be able to walk back to my cabin, I finally told my brothers good night and left.

  It was a good thing I left when I did, too, because it took my drunk ass probably half an hour to shuffle my feet the short distance to my cabin. Stumbling inside, I barely managed to get my clothes off, accidentally pulling my boxers off with my jeans before tripping over my own damn feet and thankfully landing on the bed. I passed out immediately, only to dream about soft hands petting my chest and abs. And there were soft, silky, smooth legs tangled with my own. I wasn’t the only one lying on the bed now.

  “Wha da fuck?” I slurred, finding that sort of funny. Who knew you could be drunk in a dream?

  I felt a finger cover my mouth and heard a soft voice whisper, “Sh … It’s okay, Lucas.”

  Damn. I knew that voice. It haunted me in my dreams. It had gotten me through cold nights in the mountains and deserts overseas. Maybe this was another one of those dreams where I could have my Ginny and not worry about ruining everything. That was what it had to be—a dream—because my angel would never be waiting in bed for me. I had given up on ever having her in my bed years ago.

  Plus, innocent girls like her didn’t do things like this, which was all the proof I needed that I was sinking into one of my many fantasies of her. A sweet torture, these fantasies I had.

  “Why yous haunt me, Gin? I swear I sees yous everywhere I go.”

  The legs next to mine moved, and she maneuvered herself until dream Ginny straddled my waist.

  “You’re drunk, Lucas. I shouldn’t do this or tell you what I’m going to while you’re like this, but if I wait another minute, I’ll lose my courage, and I don’t want you to leave again without knowing.”

  “Woman!” I shouted, confused, “Wha are yous talkin’ ’bout?”

  She lowered her face until it hovered above mine. God, even when Gin was in my head, she was as pretty as the real thing.

  Her tongue came out to lick her bottom lip nervously, and I groaned at the sight. It made me think about what else she could be licking, and I felt myself harden.

  Wasn’t that totally fucked up? A man could feel like his cock was so hard it could hammer nails even in his dreams? It didn’t seem right.

  “I love you, Lucas.”

  Her voice again was soft, but those words of hers rang loud and clear through me. I didn’t care if I was passed out drunk, and this was just a figment of my imagination. Right now, she was giving me everything I had wanted for what felt like my entire life, and I was going to enjoy every moment of it before I woke up and was alone again.

  Grabbing her head, I slammed my lips against hers. She ground herself down on me, and that was when I realized dream Ginny was naked. Hell, yeah.

  I wandered her body with my hands while she scratched her nails down my chest. Then she brought her body back until she was straddling below my waist.

  I probably should have paid attention to what she was doing, but my ey
es had caught on to the sight of my necklace wrapped around her neck, lying against the creamy skin of her chest. It looked so right, seeing her bare in nothing except that gold chain and heart-shaped locket, exactly as I had always imagined.

  I didn’t think emotions could be this intense in a dream, and that probably should have tipped me off that something was horribly wrong. Of course, then my angel did something else I had always imagined yet never thought I would get to enjoy.

  She wrapped both of her hands around my cock, stroking my length and causing me to lose what was left of my mind. Nothing else mattered when I was submersed in her touch, this pleasure.

  I bucked, but she pushed me down with her weight. If this were real, and I was sober, my tiny, little angel wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of holding me down. Anything was possible in my dreams, though.

  It felt like she was rolling something down the length of me. A condom, maybe? It would make sense that dream Ginny would be as smart as my real Ginny. Although, my dream Ginny had never used a condom before in my fantasies. Strange.

  That thought niggled at me, and the back of my neck tingled with some kind of warning, but then all of my doubts were lost as she started to slide herself onto my throbbing cock.

  “I don’t want this dream,” I stumbled over my thoughts in a raspy whisper. “I don’t want to stop. Ginny,” I dragged out her name as I fought the urge to tell her all my secrets.

  It was slow moving, and we struggled a little because she was so tight. I wanted to love her good, make it the best she would ever have, dreams or no dreams, but my patience was shot, and the fuckin’ room was starting to spin. There was no damn way I was going to pass out into oblivion before I finished this fantasy.

  Flipping her over onto her back, I accidentally slid out of her, losing what little progress we had made. That was okay, though, since I was sure as shit about to fix that.

  Using my hand to guide myself into her, I felt her wetness on my fingertips, only spurring me on to hurry. She was obviously ready. I sure as fuck was ready. There was no need to wait. Any sort of waiting meant I could wake up, and this would all be gone. I never wanted it to be gone, so I had to hurry up. That way, I could hold on to the memory of it forever.