Stark September (Stark Trilogy Book 1)

by C. D. Bradley

  “Hey that tickles!” Kira shrieked. She tried to push him up but he was not having it.

  “If you think that tickles, just wait.” The sparkle in his blues eyes when he looked up at her could have melted the moon. Soon all she could see was his thick dark hair as his face disappeared between her legs. Kira squealed at the first contact of his mouth on her clit. He began lapping and then drinking a mix of mousse and her juices. Kira disintegrated into the soft sheets. The sensations became extremely intense, like a thousand fireworks going off in her clit and spreading over her entire body.

  “God you are amazing!” Kira panted as she sucked in a sharp breath. She couldn’t help but squeal and wriggle beneath him.

  “Be still, Kira,” he commanded softly. Owen Stark had a calm way of commanding everything around him.

  “I can’t! Ahhhh, God that’s so good I almost can’t stand it!” Kira shrieked and tried to escape. Her panting and moans fueled Stark to keep it up and take her to the depths of her most intense orgasm and hold her there. “Oh…My…God…Fuck!” Kira screamed.

  Stark could feel her body clamping down around him as her legs and hips began to shake uncontrollably. She gripped his hair and arched her back screaming and wave after wave crashed through her. He didn’t let up. Instead he alternated pressure from intense sucking on her clit to soft luxurious passes with his tongue, gently savoring every fold and teasing her overly sensitive clit. The combination kept Kira in a prolonged orgasm that wracked her body and sent intense pleasure into every fiber of her being.

  Kira’s heart was beating so fast, she felt like she was in another world. She could hear her own cries of ecstasy but they sounded far away. She clawed at Starks head and back holding him tightly to her and yet wanting to push him away at the same time. Then when she thought it couldn’t get any more intense, when her body threatened to give way, she felt the stretching of Stark’s fingers entering her, bringing her to new heights. Finally, she crashed into a swirl of pulsing blasts and collapsed.

  Stark looked up at her and smiled. “I’m not sure which was sweeter,” he said, licking his lips.

  Kira stammered and tried in vain to speak. She let her head fall back onto the pillow. He crawled up beside her and took her in his arms. Kira couldn’t get over how warm and strong his body felt wrapping around her, holding her close. They lay together for a while, Kira in happy post orgasmic coma, nearly forgetting Starks earlier admission. The world seemed good and safe and whole.

  He held her, twirling her hair rhythmically while she dozed in his arms. How the hell could I have said that out loud? he wondered. She was obviously upset by it and didn’t feel the same. He didn’t blame her. He knew that his life and his team would always be between them. He didn’t blame her for not wanting to get attached. He knew that someday she would leave and he would have to let her go.

  CHAPTER 19

  The blasted phone was ringing again. It was on the third round of shrill repetition when Kira finally reached her limit. She scrambled out from under the covers. She crawled across the bed, cursing under her breath searching for his damn phone. RING! Ring! The damn ringtone started again. Who programs their phone with that damn 1950s rotary phone noise?! “How can you not hear that?” Kira yelled toward the bathroom where she could hear him showering. As she finally reached his iPhone, the name blaring across the screen made her freeze. She almost dropped it as nausea swept her.

  “Hello.” She said coolly.

  “Be a dear and tell Owen his fiancé’ is on the phone,” Simone cooed in a silky voice as fake as her nails.

  “Nice try, Simone.” Kira said flatly. “I know who you are. Owen’s not available right now.” Or ever. “I’ll tell him you called.”

  “Oh darling have we met? My Owen introduces me to so many people. Are you the new help?” Smugness dripped like syrup from each syllable. Suddenly Kira longed for the screeching of the phone. Nails on the chalkboard would have been better than another moment listening to Simone.

  “No. We met in Aspen,” Kira replied. She didn’t even know why she was answering. She felt her blood pressure rising.

  “Oh, the ski tramp! Forgive me for not recognizing your voice. I can’t possibly keep up with all his little flings.” Her voice was smooth but no longer warm. She sounded like the cold venomous bitch that she was.

  Kira boiled on the inside but she did her best to sound calm. “Did you want to leave a message or were you just calling to be a bitch?”

  “Oh darling don’t be cross. Really, you’re not even in his league. Better to wrap this up and save yourself the heartache later.” The low icy tone of Simone’s voice enraged Kira. She could feel her pulse bounding behind her left eye, threatening a major headache. Before Kira had a chance to think about what she was saying she was raising her voice at the snake.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Kira snapped back. In her anger the drawl of her West Virginian accent was strong.

  “Aw, well, bless your little heart, dar – lin,” Simone teased, stretching each syllable. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feel-ins none. Did you really think at the end of the day Owen would worry about some country fried soldier groupie?.”

  “I’m not some piece of trash, Simone. I’m a doctor, a captain in the army for god’s sake!” Kira was yelling before she realized it. Stark came running out of the bathroom to see what was wrong. Kira looked up at him in horror. All the color had drained out of her face. She dropped the phone onto the bed. What the hell have I done?

  “Who is that?” Stark asked visibly alarmed. He ran over and picked up the phone. “Who the hell is this?”

  A voice as smooth as silk and as deadly as poison greeted him. “Owen, sweetheart, I was just chatting with the captain…your…girlfriend….” She paused just long enough to let it sink in, “Seems you’ve done real well for a lowly enlisted man. I mean, a Captain! A doctor! Good work, darling. Practically the upper end of the service industry. Terribly scandalous though, I’m afraid. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll be on the next flight to help you sort all this out.” She laughed loudly.

  “Simone, I’m serious. You leave this alone. I’m warning you. Stay in California and stay the hell out of my life,” Stark spoke, his voice dark. He knew what she was capable of. Simone was more than trouble. She was a time bomb filled with napalm.

  “Oh and Owen,” she said quickly before he could hang up, “While you’ve been off playing G. I. Joe with your little whore, you’re father died. So when we get all this nonsense cleared up, we have business to take care of back here at home. I’ll see you soon.” And she hung up before he could say another word.

  “Fuck.” He couldn’t believe her. What the hell was that conniving wench up to this time? Stark tried in vain to call his dad’s cell. Nothing. His heart was starting to race. He started to leave a message. What the hell would I even say? He paced back and forth across the room trying to figure out what to do next. He looked over at Kira. She looked horrified. At this moment that was the least of his worries. He knew he should explain to her but he had to talk to his father. He tried his father’s office, voice mail. This is not good. Finally he called the main house. He could feel the muscles in the back of his neck tighten. His father would never be there but maybe, just maybe, Rosalea would be. On the fourth ring her beautiful Spanish voice answered. Hearing her speak brought back the tenderness and joys of his childhood.

  “Hola, Stark residence. May I help you?” Her thick accent was like a warm blanket comforting his soul. “Hola, May I help you?”

  “Hola Rosalea,” Stark spoke softly.

  “Oh mi dios en el cielo! Mi hermoso bebe!” She began talking to him as if he were three years old again.

  “Por favor, dime que está bien. Simone llamó y…” Stark’s voice broke as he spoke.

  “Oh, lo siento Owen. Su padre….. murió……esta mañana.” She was crying heavily as she spoke. The confirmation felt like a sledgehammer blow squarely to his gut. He relived the
pain and loss of his mother and Maggie all over again. The helplessness, the anger, the loss were too much to bear.

  “Rosalea…God…I’ll be on the next flight, OK? I love you.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. He wanted to talk to her, find out what happened. He wanted to turn back time and have five more minutes with his father. In that moment he wished a thousand things, but it was too late.

  Kira watched Owen pacing, becoming increasingly upset. Man he is mad at me. Shit I have screwed everything up. She waited, not wanting to interrupt. Whatever Simone had told him really had him upset. She watched him stare into space and then dial the phone again. Out of the blue he began speaking Spanish to someone. Although not intentionally eavesdropping, the couple of years of Spanish she had in college allowed her to pick up a word her and there. When he hung up, he just stared at the wall for a moment as if he was trying to figure out what to do. Stark walked over and sat on the bed next to Kira. He stared straight ahead like an empty shell. After a deafening silence that seemed to go on forever, he finally spoke. “My dad is dead.” Kira couldn’t tell if he was informing her or trying to convince himself it was real.

  “Oh God, Owen, I’m so sorry! Are you OK?” Kira wrapped her arms around him. Ten minutes ago the world was perfect. Now Stark’s father was dead and she had just given that venomous snake all the ammo she needed to rip them apart. “Had he been sick? How did he die?”

  “I don’t know. I should know, but I don’t.” Stark said. He bent forward and put his head in his hands. “I feel numb. I mean, I know I should feel immense sadness but I don’t feel anything. All the years of fighting with him are shit.” He put his head in his hands. Kira held him and rocked gently. She smoothed his dark hair trying to sooth the emptiness.

  “I should have gone to see him sooner. So many things I should have said. Now it’s too late. I’ll never have the chance.” He stood abruptly. “I have to go to California. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to get you back to base. I’ve got to catch a flight home.” He was up and packing with purpose. He didn’t seem to even notice using the word home.

  But Kira noticed. Home. She sat numbly realizing what that meant. He was flying home to her. She pictured Simone’s smug smile and wanted to vomit. Kira knew there was so much more to Stark and Simone than she would ever understand. Hell, maybe she didn’t want to know. Desperately wanting to support him but at a loss for words, she was in a fog as she packed her bag and helped load their gear to leave. Stark was unbelievably quiet. Was he mad or just grieving? Kira didn’t know. She didn’t want to upset him any further by asking.

  From a distance Kira watched Stark as he spoke quietly to the owner of the hotel when they checked out. She saw the pity and sadness in the older woman’s wrinkled face. She knew those looks all too well. Kira remembered the faces of the other base families as they spoke softly and helped her mother pack their things. She remembered the pain and nauseating pity. Panic and nausea hit her hard. Watching Stark, she wanted desperately to be there for him, but a part of her wanted to run away. She had spent a lifetime fleeing and avoiding that very look. She fought to be independent and self-sustaining. She never wanted to be vulnerable, to feel that ever again. Yet here she was, becoming desperately entwined with a man every bit as dangerous as her father. How could she be so foolish? Thoughts of his declaration in the bathroom, the knowledge that he would, without a doubt, leave her one day, and the pity of the old woman’s face swirled around in her mind. It made her dizzy.

  The Jeep ride home was spent in a quiet fog. Kira retreated further and further into her self-made prison, desperately trying to replace as many bricks in the wall Stark had torn down. She knew this had been a crazy idea from the start. He was leaving, going to California and Simone. He didn’t even ask her to come with him, to be there for him. She realized that they had just been fooling themselves. He couldn’t have meant that he really loved her. Even if he did for a brief moment, it wouldn’t matter when they would inevitably have to go their separate ways.

  Stark drove like a man on a mission. He cursed himself for not going home months ago when Simone had first asked. He had spent so many years being angry and resentful of his father and Simone that he let them down when he was needed most. He stole glances over at Kira on the way home. She looked lost and crushed. He knew this must be bringing back terrible memories for her. He felt sorry for her, and then aggravated. He felt for her, but his dad had just died. Right now he needed her to be there for him, not retreat into some hole. He turned his eyes back to the road. They could sort it all out when he got back. Right now he had to get to California. All he could focus on was taking care of things he should have faced a long time ago. His heart ached for his father, mother, and sister. He realized he was alone in the world.

  * * *

  When they first arrived back at Stark’s house, he hastily packed while making flight arrangements and contacting his CO to let him know what had happened. She watched him moving around the house with military precision, executing each task. She wanted to help him pack, but she realized she didn’t know where everything was. She decided it was easier on him if she just stayed out of the way. Paige would be better suited for this. She half wondered where Paige was. Surely he would call her. They shared so much of their lives. Kira suddenly felt like an outsider in this very personal time.

  The truth was, she didn’t want him to go. The idea of him going home to Simone made her sick to her very core. He was going to California to bury his father and deal with a life he had almost completely walked away from a decade ago. How would it be to step back into that world? Would he decide he liked it better? Would he fall back in love with Simone? Hell, they had been engaged. He had really loved her once. Not for a fleeting moment in a shower, but really loved her. What if he…She knew there was no way she could go with him. How do you explain to your CO that your boyfriend, an enlisted guy, had a death in the family so you need to drop your duties for a few days and go off to California? She was sure Simone would be there waiting for him with open arms.

  Kira thought of her own father. How many times she had wished she had the chance to say good by. Her chest hurt. She thought of the pained look in Stark’s tear-filled eyes and realized that regardless of your age, size, occupation or gender, when your parent dies, you are still their child. The immediate loss is followed by sharp memories of childhood. How they held you, played with you, how they knew you like no one in your life ever has or ever will.

  “I took him for granted.” Stark said quietly. “In a way I blamed him for mom and Maggie. I blamed myself. But there was nothing either of us could have done. I was angry at him for such a long time. Now I don’t even know what to feel.”

  Kira reached up and hugged him. She held him tightly before he had to leave. She struggled for words. “I’m so sorry Owen.” She could feel the emptiness between them. He needed something she just couldn’t give. He closed his eyes and wrapped her up in his arms. He held on for a moment as if holding on to a lifetime. Then without saying another word he set her down and let her go.

  Kira watched him turn and head down the walk. Bags in hand, he made his way to the truck. Kira felt the hot tears burning her face before she realized she was crying. A lifetime of loss and fear came flooding back to her. Now alone, the tears streamed completely unrestrained as she watched Stark’s truck disappear in the distance.

  She walked slowly back into the house. Coming through the foyer, she saw it out of the corner of her eye. There, over the edge of the couch in the great room was the corner of his woobie. She smiled and felt warm all over remembering her dad telling her about how the ranger woobie served as a sleeping pack, pillow, or blanket. When in combat it was your one comfort. Kira walked over to it and wrapped up in the soft camo poncho liner. Immediately the smell of Stark was all around her. She knew he had carried this with him to hell and back. It had served as his bed roll, his warmth in bitter cold, one soft touch of home in times of desperation. Kira closed her eyes a
nd snuggled in its embrace. Her thoughts drifted back through time over years of heartache she had blocked out for so long. She could see her mother now rocking silently in the chair by the window at their aunt’s home in West Virginia. Those were long, cold days watching silent flakes fall outside. Her mother was always wrapped up in her dad’s woobie. It had been in his effects when the service men brought them. Small dots of his blood had stained the fabric in a tattered corner. Her mother swore for years that it still smelled like him. Kira pulled Starks woobie tightly around her and breathed him in.

  That first winter in Davis had been a long, hard one. Her mother barely spoke, barely ate. Kira remembered feeling so helpless and scared. Her Aunt Melissa had given them a place to stay and helped care for her and her brothers. Kira knew without Melissa’s love and hospitality she and her brothers wouldn’t have made it. She thought of how when they were younger they would laugh at all the stray animals and children Aunt Melissa took in. Kira remembered helping her aunt set the table one cold winter evening, the smell of hot potato soup filling the house. Kira looked at her mother lost in her grief, wrapped up in the seat by the window, and her brothers playing on the floor by the wood stove. She realized then that they were the strays. With one parent dead, blown to pieces and forgotten by the army, and the other reduced to a shell, they were practically orphans. Strays. The weight of their situation, their homelessness crushed the breath out of her.

  Her mother fell asleep and Kira saw the camo blanket slip from her fingers onto the floor and the soot from the wood stove. Kira ran over and picked it up and accidentally grabbed a small ember with it. The pain was sharp. But she didn’t let it go. Instead, Kira held on tightly and ran for the door. In her aunts large galoshes Kira ran outside into the deep snow. The world was white and quiet. She couldn’t explain her need. As she tried to trudge in the deep drifts, billows of powdery snow spilled over the tops of her boots with each step. She ignored their sting and fought on into the white wilderness. Her heart was exploding with pain and anger. It wasn’t fair! She reached a clearing just beyond sight of the house. Kira remembered spinning around holding the last remnant of her father close to her and screaming into the silence.