Rescue Me: A Bad Boy Military Romance

by Vesper Vaughn

  He slams the accelerator again. I don’t even know how he can see where he’s going with the rain pummeling the windshield. “We gotta.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ELLA

  ELEVEN YEARS AGO

  I can’t stand the way that everyone is staring at me. At him. At us.

  We walk into prom hand-in-hand, the crowd parting for us like we’re the king and queen of this place. Luke will definitely be the king soon enough; I’m sure he’s had more than enough votes to clinch the win for himself.

  “Hey Luke. Ella,” Tim says with a smile, reaching into his tuxedo jacket pocket and removing a flask. “Something to lighten the mood?”

  Luke shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

  But I reach my hand out and knock back a huge mouthful of burning liquid. I swallow it and cough profusely. Tim laughs at me.

  “Easy there,” he says.

  My eyes water as Luke pulls me out onto the dance floor for a fast song. We dance together, our bodies pressing up against one another’s. The alcohol hits me and I stumble a bit. Luke grabs my elbow. “You don’t hold your liquor well, do you?”

  “First time,” I reply, feeling a little queasy. Everyone is still watching us. I stop when the song ends and push my hair back. I can feel it already returning to its curly state around my sweaty forehead.

  “You done already?” Luke asks me as a slow song begins.

  I shake my head. “Um, maybe just a break to go get some punch or something? You want any?”

  Luke puts his arm around my waist and pulls me closer to him, wrapping his fingers around my hand. “I think you aren’t thirsty.”

  “Good to know you’re arrogant enough that you know my thirst better than I know it,” I retort.

  He laughs. “You don’t like all the attention we’re getting. All the attention that you’re getting.”

  I blush and bite my lip. “They’re staring at us because of you. I shouldn’t be here with you and people don’t understand what’s going on.”

  Luke stares at me, a fire blazing behind his eyes. “You don’t even know how beautiful you are, woman.”

  I roll my eyes. “Right. Okay.”

  He pulls me closer to him. “Any guy in here would be lucky to have you with him tonight, and they all know it. They all want you, Ella. But they can’t have you.”

  I swallow hard, my heart beating. “And why is that?”

  “Because you’re all mine,” he says, tucking his finger under my chin and lifting my face closer to his. He presses his lips up against mine and I feel the fire between us. His tongue slips out from between his lips and finds its way into mine. His hands trail to my waistline and I wrap my fingers in his hair.

  He pulls away from me slowly. “Song’s over,” he says.

  “I’m ready,” I whisper.

  “For what?”

  “You know. Ready ready.” I raise my eyebrows pointedly.

  His eyes go wide and his smile is so large it just might break his jaw. “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you, Ella?”

  I shake my head. “I promise you I’m not.”

  Luke grabs my hand and looks around excitedly. “What the hell are we still here for, then?”

  I tug him back. “You have to stay for the prom king coronation. You have to. It’s going to be you.”

  He kisses me again. “You’re more important than a fucking high school popularity contest, Ella.”

  Happy tears threaten to spill from my eyes. “Alright. I just want to grab something to drink first. I really am thirsty.”

  “Hurry,” Luke says with a sexy grin.

  I give him a parting kiss and make my way over to the refreshments. I’m waiting in line for punch when Amy Waters cuts in front of me. “Excuse me,” I say, not thinking.

  She whips around. “What?”

  “I’m next in line. Not you,” I reply, my voice shaking slightly. Normally I would ignore her. What has gotten into me? I see Luke’s face flash across my vision and I realize that it’s him. He’s the one who has made me like this. I like that.

  “I’m in a hurry,” Amy retorts, ladling punch out of the bowl into a plastic cup.

  “And I’m not?”

  Amy gives me a poisonous grin. “You’re here with Luke Davis. I think you’ve had just about enough good luck for one night.”

  “Why do you care that I’m with Luke Davis? Don’t you have a boyfriend?” My mind flashes to Michael and I feel ill. I don’t know how anyone could date him, but he always seems to have a girlfriend despite him being a scum-sucking creature of the deep.

  Amy glares at me and I know she’s gearing up for payback. “A nerdy freak like you doesn’t deserve the hottest guy on campus.”

  “But a bitch like you does deserve an asshole like Michael,” I spit back. I clap my hands over my mouth but it’s too late. I’ve already said it without meaning to say it.

  Amy turns bright red and throws her cup of punch in my face. It splashes onto my dress. My hand starts to reach for more punch to throw at her as retaliation, but something stops me. “I’m better than you will ever be, Amy.” I wipe the punch out of my eyes and walk away from her.

  Luke grabs my arm. “What the hell happened?” he yells over the music.

  “Not now,” I say, my hands sticky. I feel disgusting.

  Luke puts his arm around my waist and walks me out of the gym. He ignores his friends pleading with him to stay just a little while longer. He only has eyes for me.

  We step outside. The sun should still be out but ominous, dark iron grey clouds have covered the remaining evening light. We’re almost to our target when the sky opens up, rain pouring down.

  “There goes my hair,” I yell over the thundering rain.

  Luke laughs at me. “I like it better curly, to be honest.”

  Butterflies flit through me. The rain washes away the remainder of the sticky juice, and we pile into Luke’s truck. We’re both drenched to the bone.

  “You gonna tell me what happened now?” he asks.

  “Amy Waters happened,” I reply. “It doesn’t matter. She got upset and threw punch at me. It was after I called her a bitch, but in fairness, she’s the one who started it.”

  Luke guffaws. “I never thought I’d see the day where you stood up to Amy.”

  I shrug. “I’m feeling a little confident these days.”

  Luke puts his hand on my thigh. I shiver. “And why is that?”

  I lean across the center console and get close to his lips. “You,” I whisper.

  We fall into each other, a tangle of soaking wet eighteen year olds. “You wanna go somewhere for this?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t wait.”

  Luke gives into my kisses for another minute but then he pulls back from me. “Wait a second,” he says. “Virginal sex on prom night is enough of a cliché. I’m not deflowering you in my truck on top of that.” He puts the keys in the ignition. “Not that I really feel like waiting,” he says. “But I’m not letting you do this. Not this way.”

  I sigh and lean back in my seat, my breathing still heavy from our too-brief makeout session. “Spoil all my fun why don’t you.”

  “Don’t worry. I know the perfect place,” he replies. He drives through the relentless rain that pounds the windshield. The wipers can’t keep up with the deluge, but Luke is unperturbed. He maneuvers his truck expertly on the dirt roads.

  I’m not even sure where we’re going. I can’t see anything. The sky grows blacker and blacker as we finally pull up to a round driveway. “You know this place?” Luke asks me.

  I nod. “It’s haunted.”

  “Hardly,” Luke says with a roll of his eyes. “You ready to run through the rain?”

  “On three,” I say. We count down and tear out of the truck on the word one.

  Luke pushes open the heavy wooden doors of the old stone mansion and we step inside. It’s relentlessly dusty and still, but at least it’s relatively warm. The icy rain has made the
temperature plummet outside. He pulls out a tiny flashlight that hangs off of his keychain and turns it on. The wood floors are worn and bowing, every graffiti-clad wall cast in eerie shadows from the piles of old furniture.

  “It’s like they just picked up one day and left,” I whisper.

  “That’s pretty much what happened during the bankruptcy. The family didn’t have much of a choice,” Luke replies. “Come on.”

  I take his hand and he leads me up the rickety, curving staircase. If I squint really hard, I can almost see this place in its former glory. It must have been beautiful. We happen upon a bird when we reach the upstairs and its flapping wings make me scream.

  Luke laughs. “They’re more afraid of you than you are them,” he points out.

  “Stop being logical and reasonable,” I retort.

  We reach the end of a long hallway and Luke opens the door to an octagonal room. This place is cleaner than all of the other spaces. It’s been dusted and maybe even mopped. A pile of clean blankets rests in the corner. Luke lets go of my hand and shakes out each blanket, one by one, and forms a makeshift bed in the center of the room. He sets the flashlight on the ground. It lights the space just enough for me to see the expansiveness of the room.

  “You planned this?”

  He shakes his head. “No. But I come out here at least once a week and just sort of think in the silence of this space.”

  I gape at him. “Like, you meditate?”

  Luke chuckles and puts his hands on my waistline. “Something like that.” He trails his fingers up my back and finds the back zipper of my strapless dress. “Let’s get you out of these clothes,” he whispers. I close my eyes and relax as the wet fabric drops. I cross my arms over my chest. Luke gently unwraps them. “Why are you doing that?”

  I bite my lip. “I feel…fat.” The words fall out of my embarrassed mouth.

  Luke takes both of my hands and sets them so they hang down against my sides. “More of you to love, Ella.” He takes off his jacket, shirt, and pants. We’re leaving puddles on the flooring. He stands in front of me, his muscular torso shining in the dim light.

  “What next?” I whisper.

  “You let me lead the way, alright?”

  And he does. He unhooks my bra strap and proceeds to study every inch of my skin with his fingertips. He shuts his eyes and traces the curves of my body, feeling every single centimeter. My knees start to shake and he lays me down on the blanket.

  His hands find my underwear and he pulls them down my legs. Soon, his hot breath is puffing against places no one but me has ever seen. He takes his time.

  “Faster,” I say breathlessly, willing myself to not writhe against his mouth even though I want to.

  He answers my call, unwrapping a condom and wrapping himself up in me.

  ***

  “You okay?” Luke whispers into my hair, his arms around me.

  The storm is still raging outside, but we’re tucked in here. I’ve never felt this safe in my entire life. “Yeah,” I reply. “More than okay.”

  He kisses the top of my head. “I’m sorry I don’t have something to feed you. I’m always hungry after sex.”

  I laugh. “And what would you feed me if you could?”

  “Hm. Probably my specialty.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Microwaveable macaroni and cheese,” he replies.

  “Wow, sounds gourmet,” I say sarcastically. “Is that what you eat all the time?”

  Luke nuzzles his face closer to mine, resting his chin on my head. “Since both my grandparents died, yeah.”

  I swallow hard. “I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  He shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t think either one of them wanted to live without the other. When my grandfather died, it was only a matter of time before my grandmother gave up, too.”

  “I know what that’s like. Well, kind of,” I say. “I lost my dad when I was eight to cancer.”

  Luke strokes my curly hair. Between the rain and sweat I’ve worked up with him, it’s a puff of red curls again. “It’s good that you’ve got your mom.”

  “It is.”

  Luke pauses and clears his throat. “Can I ask you something?”

  “I think you know me more intimately than anyone else at this point so fire away,” I reply.

  “Are you wanting to become a doctor so you can help your mom?”

  I wait, hesitating in my answer. “Yeah. I’d like to get her out of our house and into something nicer one day. She’s given up everything for me and I’d love to return the favor.”

  The wind picks up and a tree branch smacks against the window. “Hell of a storm,” Luke says.

  A second later, the tornado sirens sound in the distance. We’re so far out in the middle of nowhere we can barely hear them, but they’re definitely there. Luke jumps up and pulls me off the blanket, picking up the fabric and wrapping it around me. “Ground floor. Bathroom,” he says.

  “Does this place not have a basement?”

  Luke shrugs. “No idea. But we gotta go.”

  I run down the stairs, my heart beating. Luke pushes open a door to a room under the staircase. It’s in the dead center of the house. It’s a small powder room with a cracked toilet. The light from his keychain fills up this small space. He shuts the door.

  “We should be fine here. Limestone walls, central room, under the staircase, extra metal in the walls with the pipes,” he says.

  “I like this house. I’ve always wanted a stone house.”

  Luke pulls me closer, both of us still panting from the adrenaline. “Maybe one day I’ll build you one.”

  “Really?”

  “With a red door,” he replies. “I know how much you like red.”

  There’s a silence between us that is filled with a mixture of hope and uneasiness.

  “I’ve always kind of liked tornadoes,” I say, trying to change the subject.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s cozy. And at the park where my mom and I live, they have a shelter. It’s really just a community center where the laundry room is, but there’s always board games and people bring snacks. We just sort of hang out and have fun.”

  Luke kisses my forehead. “I like your optimism,” he says. Then he pauses. “Do you hear that?”

  I strain to listen. “What?”

  “Sounds sort of like a freight train. Fuck, I wish I had a radio in here to find out where the tornado is.”

  I grab his hand. “We could…do other things while we ride out the storm.” I grin at him.

  “I’m not going to turn that down,” he replies, unwrapping my blanket and taking me into his arms once again.

  ***

  We head upstairs an hour later, the storm gone and the sirens evaporated. Luke helps me into my mostly-dry dress and I reach into my pocket to turn on my flip phone. The screen lights up and the welcome music plays. I watch Luke get dressed. My phone starts vibrating off the hook.

  “Everything okay?” Luke asks.

  My eyes fly down the list of messages from my mom. “Oh, no,” I say. “My mom was texting me about the storm right before it hit. She wanted to make sure I was okay.” I sigh, texting back On my way in reply to her last message. It says: I love you. Hope you’re safe. “I gotta go.”

  Luke drives fast through the wet but clear roads. Downtown seems unscathed. We drive further out into the countryside, and the picture changes rapidly. Barn wood lies in the road. One hundred-year-old trees have been toppled. My heart beats in my chest as we round the corner to the mobile home park.

  It’s gone.

  Flattened.

  Empty.

  Nothing there but piles of wood and rubble.

  I don’t realize I’m screaming until Luke shakes me out of my terror.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ELLA

  PRESENT DAY

  The storm raging on and karaoke the furthest thing from my mind, we pull into Luke’s driveway. He screech
es the truck to a halt and throws open the truck door into the wind. The rain has turned into pea-sized hail and it stings as it hits my skin. Luke grabs my arm to keep me from running for the front door.

  “No!” he screams over the sound of the hail that’s increasing in size with every passing second. “Around the back!”

  I don’t argue. I just run, water soaking my clothes. We run around the corner of the enormous stone house and I see two metal doors in the ground. Luke wrenches them open and shuffles me down the stairs. It’s pitch dark down here but I don’t even care. I just run down the steps and nearly break my leg when I hit the landing.

  I hear the groan of metal as Luke shuts the doors behind me. “That hail’s gotta be the size of golf balls right now,” he announces, trotting down the stairs behind me. “Let me get the lights.”

  I hear him flip a switch a few times. “Shit,” he hisses. “Power’s out.”

  He fishes in his pocket and pulls out his phone. The glow lights up the space. It smells familiar down here. I expected it to be dusty and mildew-ridden, but it smells like new construction. “I haven’t had time to hook up a backup generator and even if I did, I don’t much like the thought of running back out there to crank it on.”

  He walks past me and opens drawers, pulling things out. Another minute passes and the smell of sulfur fills the air. A candle blooms to life. One, then another, then another. Slowly the place is brought into full relief.

  Fresh lumber studs cover the walls, and I see drywall panels going up. The room is filled with old furniture including an ornate four-poster bed that’s been half-painted white. An old, squashy armchair sits in the corner, lightly covered in drywall dust.

  “What is this?” I ask him.

  Luke continues to light candles; about a dozen. He takes a few pillars and sets them on the concrete floor in the corners to fully illuminate the place. “Tornado shelter, same as all the rest.”

  “This is like a bedroom though,” I say.

  Luke shrugs. “Yeah, well I thought it might be nice during tornado season to sleep down here. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about waking up and rushing out here. I put heavy new doors outside and everything. Before I got to it, it was just rotted wood and an old wire hanger keeping them shut.”