by Jillian Neal
I coaxed her tongue into my mouth and rocked her pussy against the fierce bulge of my cock. I’d trade every possession I owned in this world to be able to swear to her that I’d figure out some way for us to be together forever. I’d heard her repeated pleas for us to come clean with her brother and her parents. I wasn’t an idiot. Ignoring her requests punctured the fragments of my soul. Giving her what she needed, whatever it was, would always be what mattered to me. But what I’d have to take away to give her us, together, just wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t worth it.
So, instead of verbalizing promises that would ultimately be lies, I sank into the heat of her mouth and drowned myself in the flavors of my baby. I let her feel the weight of my insatiable hunger. My body vowed to protect her above all others. I cupped her bare ass in my hands. She arched as I dragged her between my legs. Desperation swamped my thoughts, drowning out the knowledge that at the end of this week in heaven I had to go back to hell, and this trip to paradise would be the last I allowed myself. She deserved more than I could give.
My hip throbbed as I rocked her up and down against my trouser-trapped shaft. I didn’t give a fuck about that or what would have to come when this was over. Tonight, I’d make her forget anything else in the whole fucking world even existed. Tonight, I’d give her everything I was or ever would be. I knew it wasn’t enough, but just then it didn’t matter.
27
Griff
I’d actually slept all night long. That hadn’t happened in so long I’d almost forgotten it was a thing other people occasionally enjoyed. I’d held on to her. She’d eased one of her legs between my thighs and had nestled her head on my chest, and heaven couldn’t possibly be any better than that.
One of the many, many perks that came when I snuck down to Denver to be with her was waking up beside my sweet Hannah, who was decidedly not a morning person. She’d grunt and groan when it was time to get up, but trust me, you get your head down there between those thighs and her groans would turn quickly to moans of my name. Best fucking way to wake up there would ever be.
I dragged my arms out across the cool hotel room sheets, stretching out the kinks in my shoulders. But cool sheets were not what I was expecting. My eyes blinked in the sunlight’s assault through the sliding glass doors. The covers on her side were thrown back, and my baby wasn’t there.
Still drowsy from actually sleeping, devastation stabbed through me the same way it always did when I woke up in her brother’s house instead of her apartment. Sitting up, I remembered that I wasn’t in either. Scrubbing my hands over my face, I yawned. I also needed to shave. “Hannah?” I sounded like a drunk frog as I located a pair of shorts.
“In here,” her sweet voice beckoned. Wherever here was I wanted to go.
Standing, I clenched my jaw as I let my hip figure out that it was going to have to hold up my weight again. But this morning’s aches and pains were almost nonexistent. Sex with my baby just made everything better.
Mildly impressed with how quickly I could walk, I scooted into the living room. There was my girl curled up in the corner of the sofa with her sketchpad and a pencil. Her hair was looped up in a lopsided bun by way of one of those cloth hairbands women always wore on their wrists. She was sporting a pair of panties, a tank top, her glasses, and nothing else. I’d seen her in a swanky cocktail dress, lingerie of most every flavor, and in ripped jeans with a Cubs T-shirt, a personal fave of mine, but this beat all of those by a mile.
“Morning, beautiful, you sleep well?” I rasped as I headed to the coffee maker.
“Extremely well. The mattresses I purchased for the suites are amazing aren’t they?”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure it’s the mattress and not the sheer number of orgasms I gave you last night.” I pretended to be offended.
She glanced up from her sketch. “Those were amazing, too,” she assured me with a mischievous grin. The pencil pouch she also used as a security blanket was open on the coffee table.
“Glad you think so because I thought we could go for a new personal best today.” I switched on the coffee maker and joined her on the couch.
“If you try to give me any more right now, I think my vaj might stage a protest.”
That was not at all what I wanted to hear. “You hurting?” Fuck, I’d been too rough. I knew it. She’d asked for it repeatedly. I should have had more willpower.
“Not at all. I was teasing.” She rolled her eyes but then returned them to the pad.
Easing closer, I studied the room she was drawing. Looked to be some kind of office lined with windows all complete with window bench seats. A massive desk sat in the middle. Her drawings were always so real I felt like I could step into the rooms that only existed two dimensionally. “For a new client?”
She shook her head.
Okay then. “For an old client?”
Another head shake.
“Want me to go back to bed and leave you the hell alone?”
This time her head lifted. “No. Not at all.” She sounded shocked. “I love when you sit with me while I sketch.”
I could do this. Just sit and keep your mouth shut, Haywood. Obviously, that’s what she wanted. She had the sketchpad braced on her bent knees. I took one of her feet and reclined her leg into my lap leaving her one leg to hold the pad. “Keep drawing.” I began to massage the foot in my lap.
“You are the best thing ever. This is my favorite sketch pad so I never use it for clients.”
I nodded, afraid to make more guesses and sound like a fool, so I rotated my thumb in the arch of her foot enjoying her sighs of contentment.
The intricate tat on my right pec was a sketch she’d done for me. Right after I’d gotten it, Smith had asked how I’d come up with the design. I’d lied through my teeth of course. The compass and sword that faded into a map tat would always be my favorite. I’d only had the artist change one thing about her design. Her initials were hidden at the top of the sword. What was supposed to be the N for north was actually an intricate, old world, double H design. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you’d never notice.
I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I wanted to know about the room she was drawing. I wanted to know every single thing that fascinated her the way the design clearly did. “Are you designing a new office for you, then?”
“Kind of.” She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and slowly her bespectacled eyes met mine.
“You’re doing this on purpose. You’re torturing me, right? You know I always want to know what you’re drawing.”
She laughed and then shook her head at me. “I am not trying to torture you.”
“Yeah, right. Fine, I’ll just go make myself a mug of coffee and will conveniently forget to pour some for you.”
“That is cruel,” she teased.
“Then tell me what you’re drawing.”
“I don’t want to scare you,” she hemmed.
“Baby, unless you’ve got bombs under that desk or IEDs in that rug or something, that office is not particularly frightening.” I did indeed get up to pour coffee, still impressed with the lack of stiffness this morning. “It’s too nice to be scary.”
She flipped the well-used sketch pad back to the first page and held it up for me to see. This drawing was of some kind of theater room. She’d colored in just enough for me to see the pallet she’d chosen for the room.
Black leather recliners sat before a projector screen. She’d added a few throws and pillows. There was a counter with what looked like an old school movie popcorn popper, because let’s be real, movie popcorn is the best.
When my eyes landed on the framed Cubs Sosa jersey on the wall with signatures all over the back, I failed to stop pouring the coffee even though the mug was full. Coffee streamed over the sides and down the counter. The picture of the jersey wasn’t something she’d dreamed up. It existed in real life. It hung over my bed.
“Shit.” I grabbed a towel to mop up the coffee and tried to process this. She flipp
ed to another page in the book. This one revealed a state of the art exercise room. I couldn’t quite manage words.
“The office is for me, but it won’t exist until we buy a house,” she confessed.
Abandoning the coffee, I forced myself to look at her. Hope and disappointment waged war in her eyes.
“Baby, please don’t do this.” I barely recognized my own voice, but I fought on. “It kills me. It fucking kills me to think that you dream up something I can’t ever give you.”
“Then give it to me.” She never even blinked.
“You don’t know how badly that would hurt you.” There, that was almost a confession, almost a whole truth. Disappointing her crushed me. I swore my bones couldn’t stand the weight of the agony in her eyes.
“I’m an incredibly strong person, Griff. The only thing that hurts me is you keeping something from me, especially when what you’re not telling me is the thing that clearly keeps us apart.”
“I know you believe that I couldn’t hurt you but this…thing…it would hurt you. And that’s the one thing I cannot and will not ever do. And not only that, but after it hurt you it would hurt him. The two people I care the most about in the whole fucking world. I…I just can’t do that.”
The muted ring of her cell phone shattered a little of the tension between us. Setting the sketchpad down, she dug in her bag and rescued my own savior. Whoever was calling her, I owed them big time.
“It’s Smith.” She flung the phone further down the couch and stared at it like it had talons.
Of course it was. Because that’s just how my life always seemed to work out.
When she covered it with a throw pillow, I had to chuckle. “He’s just going to keep calling.”
“Maybe not. Maybe he’ll give up. I am on vacation.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure because that’s his style. He’s an SF soldier, baby. He doesn’t give up.”
The ringing stopped, but then started back before she even slumped in relief.
I stalked back to the bedroom. “Answer him.” I closed the door and hated myself right along with the rest of the world.
28
Hannah
“What do you want, Smith?” I demanded. Why did he have to call me right now? Why when I was about to have what should have been one of the most important conversations of my life?
“What the hell are you so bitchy about?” He sounded more hurt than shocked though so I tried to quell a little of my irritation.
“Nothing. I’m just…tired.” So fucking tired of living this way and not being able to tell him how much Griff meant to me.
“You over at your new guy’s house or something?”
“No.”
“Sure.”
“Why do you care where I am?”
“Because staying over with a guy is a bad idea. You should be smarter than that.”
If I could have reached through my phone, I swear I would’ve strangled my brother. “Besides lecturing me why did you call?”
“I keep trying to explain to Mom that I cannot have social media accounts. She doesn’t understand why I can’t see the pictures she’s apparently posting on Facebook. And, dear God, I hope they’re not of that pack of hers because it’s just embarrassing. I could hack in but that seems tedious.”
I took two deep breaths. That didn’t help. Counting backward from ten didn’t either.
“Hannah? You there?” Smith demanded. Yep, I was gonna kill him. I did not have time for Mom or Facebook right now.
“I’m here. Just tell her you’d rather her text them to you.” There. That was a workable solution.
“I’m not an idiot. I did try that. Apparently she posted something about me, and she wants me to see how many likes it has.” Secretly, I hoped it was a naked baby picture, because that would serve him right, or maybe that one of him when he was five and got his head stuck between the spindles on the staircase in our house in Germany and was bawling his eyes out. But the disdain was more than apparent in my brother’s tone. It tugged at my heart. For the most part, all of The Sevens hated attention in any form. Smith was no different.
“Here, I’ll check it, screen shot it, and text it over, but I can’t talk to you and do that at the same time.”
“Hang on, that gives me an idea.” I heard his keyboard clicking. “Is her account private?”
“No, because she doesn’t understand that anyone can see it. I’ve tried to explain it, but I haven’t gotten far.”
“Then this’ll work.” I heard him typing.
“What will work?” I told myself not to care just to get off the phone, but I was curious.
“I have a few of my clients’ social media account info since we catch a lot of cheaters via Facebook. I can just log in through their account, and see whatever it is she’s posted.”
“Perfect. I’m going now.”
My mind reviewed what had already happened that morning. Maybe I should’ve put the sketchbook away when I’d heard him get up. Maybe we weren’t quite ready for that talk yet. Impatience would forever be my downfall. We had a week. I had to bide my time and take this slowly because men could be both stupid and stubborn.
The distinctive ring of an iPhone sounded from nearby. Frantically, I covered the speaker of my own phone and prayed Smith hadn’t heard that. Griff rushed out of the bedroom and silenced the ring. Checking the caller, he headed back to his hideout.
“Was that a phone?” Smith demanded. Damn him and his perfect hearing.
“No…how could it be?” But my voice lilted.
“You’re over at that new guy’s house aren’t you?”
For some very bizarre reason when God was making me, He’d decided I needed the big brother who was a hundred times more overprotective than any other big brother on the planet. “No one is here with me. Drop the interrogation mode.”
“Fine. Wait, why does Mom sign her posts?”
“It took me six months to get her to stop signing her texts to everyone. Again with the lack of Facebook knowledge.”
“Jesus, is she serious with this?” Smith spat. But his words were wounded, like someone had stabbed him in the chest. All of the air in his lungs came out in a pained hiss.
“What?” I tried to figure out how to put him on speaker so I could see whatever Mom had posted, but I was fairly sure that would make him able to hear what was going on in the room with even more accuracy.
“She can’t fucking post shit like this,” choked from him.
“Hang on.” I switched from the phone call to Facebook. Her post was the first one in my feed. My big brother’s boot camp picture stared back at me. I’d almost forgotten how young and innocent he looked before he’d gone from soldier to Beret. I glanced at her post. The blood racing through my veins froze. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh…dear…God. How could I have forgotten what day it was? I read the words Always thankful for my beautiful children, but on this day especially, when half of his team lost their lives… Quickly, I switched back to the phone. “Smith…I’m so sorry. I forgot what day it is. I didn’t mean to. Are you okay? Do you…want to talk or anything?”
If I could have one wish in the world, I don’t think I would use it to make Griff mine as much as I desperately wanted that. I think I would wish that the calendar year would go from July tenth to July twelfth so that my brother and Griff and all of the remaining Sevens didn’t have to relive this day every single year. The day their whole world had been torn to shreds with no hope of it ever returning to the way it was supposed to be.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound so fine,” I whispered.
“Fucking wish Griff was here,” he finally admitted, and I knew how much that had cost him. Guilt swirled in the pit of my stomach. I was the reason Griff wasn’t there to go through this day with the ones who remained.
Every single cell in my body longed to march into the bedroom and hand my phone to Griff. Why couldn’t we all be in this together? Why would neither of them ev
er let me help? They didn’t think I could handle what they’d been through. I had no idea what it was like to walk around in their boots, but I wanted so badly to be able to ease their pain. “I’m so sorry.”
“Nothing but a thing.” And there it was again. I wondered how long that expression would suffice.
“Yeah. I know.”
“Mom still can’t put shit like that on Facebook.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Same way you talked to her about her hike?” The forced chuckle was worse than any of the tears I’d heard my brother sob when he’d finally woken up at Walter Reed, and my father had delicately explained that not all of them had made it.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Do a better job with this, please.”
I’d never deny him anything. Not today of all days. “You got it.”
“Whatever. Go have fun but not too much fun, okay?”
“I love you, Smith. So much.”
“Same, sis. Be good.” He ended the call, and I flew toward the bedroom. Today was not the day for me to force my own agenda. Today, I had to be there for Griff. No matter what he wanted to do, or talk about, or forget about entirely, I was there for it.
He was behind the bathroom door with his phone to his ear.
“Did he hear the phone?” he mouthed.
I nodded and he cringed. “I know, okay. I know. But I’m kind of in this other thing too so any help you have I’ll take.”
It had to be T-Byrd. I wondered what they were discussing.
Griff’s eyes narrowed. Traces of pure hatred quivered in their depths. “Yeah, I have a fucking calendar.”
My heart sank slowly down to my stomach. It landed there in the storm of acid and regret. This was how Griff handled this day every year. No talking. No reminiscing about the good times. Certainly no discussion of the bad ones. No going to the graves. Nothing that had anything to do with what July 11 would always mean to us. Nothing but work and there was no talking him out of it. Occasionally, a new tattoo would appear somewhere on his form on this day. If that’s what he needed, that’s what we’d do.