It’s forever before she moves.
She crawls slowly into my space. The heat from her body warms my skin. I close my eyes. I want her fingers on me. I want her to touch the darkness and know that it's me beneath the violent ink spread across my body.
She circles behind me. I bow my head, knowing what she finds there.
The First Cavalry Division patch stretched across my back. The black horse head and the black slash across the bright yellow shield. And in that shield, the names of my brothers.
Each name. Permanently carved into living flesh.
"How many times did you go?"
"Twice." I can't open my eyes. "I wasn't there for the heavy fighting."
Then I feel it. The gentle trace of her finger down the center line of my spine. I shiver at the unexpected, erotic sensation.
But I am completely undone by what she does next.
Abby
I wrap my arms around his waist and rest my cheek against his shoulders.
I can hear my mother's cries. See the flashes of black and blue ink from the cut-rate tattoos when her boyfriend slaps her, shouting at her that she should control me. That she shouldn’t put up with my mouth, my attitude.
I don't want to remember, but the memories are coming, rising up in the darkness. I feel ill, physically sick.
But I stay. I refuse to let the bastard who hurt my mother because of me rule my life any more. He's done enough damage. To me. To my relationship with my mother.
And I need to move on. I am so tired of being stuck in the past.
"What do you see when you see my tattoos?" A deceptively quiet, gentle question.
"My mom. Her boyfriend." I suck in a shuddering breath. No sense in hiding it. It’ll be harder later.
Josh is tense beneath my touch now.
"I see everything I lost when my dad died."
"He hurt you." A vibration of potential violence in his stillness.
"He hated me. Hated that I was mouthy. Hated that I talked back. He tried to tell my mom that I needed my ass beaten to learn some respect."
I force myself to look at the tattoo on Josh's back. I trace the outline of the guitar pick shape on his skin. He trembles beneath my touch. It unnerves me how such a simple reaction can send such a surge of pleasure bolting through me.
A pleasure laced with something forbidden.
I trace the edges of the black lines between his shoulder blades with the edge of my nail, then I press my lips to the center of his back. He sucks in a hard breath and makes a strangled noise deep in his chest. The sound vibrates through his body and into me.
"When he couldn’t get his hands on me, he punished her."
I stay there, frozen, long after those words, encased in years’ worth of shame, have left my lips and tainted the air around us.
It's a long moment before Josh turns and draws me into his arms. He leans back, dragging me down with him into the tangle of sheets that smell warm and familiar. He kisses me, and it is soft and sweet and everything I never expected from anyone.
He is violence, caged and restrained. But at that moment, he is the most thoughtful lover I've ever had. His mouth is gentle on mine, stroking, sipping, tasting. He cups my face. "He can't hurt you anymore."
"She's still with him." And I almost choke on the unexpected bitterness in those words. I thought I’d made peace with all of that.
Guess not.
"Christ, Abby, I'm sorry." He pulls me close, and I wrap my arms around him, surprised by how much those simple words hurt. It is an acknowledgment that everything I've tried to become has been built on a lie.
A charade.
I push out of his arms and lean over him, cupping his face with one hand. "Thank you."
He frowns. "For what?"
"For not judging me." I brush my lips against his.
“For what? Surviving a shitty childhood? That’s easy.” He grins against my mouth. "If you had told me you hate puppies or something, I might have had a hard time handling that."
He tangles his fingers against my hair and pulls me down, claiming my mouth. There is raw possession in this kiss and I am not for a moment fooled by his teasing words.
But I'm soon beyond thought as he kisses me and takes me out of this world to a place where there is only him and only me and the pleasure he strokes to life in my body.
It's one of the things I'm starting to love about him. The strange paradox of this man. He wears ink carved into his skin beneath his t-shirts yet can argue philosophical and political theory like a man raised in expensive boarding schools. But when he touches me, he is just Josh. Pure. Simple. Energy and heat. As passionate in love as he is in everything.
I close my eyes as he peels the clothing from my body. Lose myself in sensation as he traces my breasts with his tongue. His touch is sensual and slow. Patient. Pressure and heat build inside me. I want his clothes off. I want to be skin to skin with him. Touching him like he’s touching me. Exploring. Learning.
There is something freeing about giving myself permission tonight. To touch. To feel. To let go for once in my life.
His fingers are sliding over my skin. Slowly, lower. Lower. A caress of skin against my hip bone. And then his fingers slide beneath my panties and I am lost in a brilliant starburst of sensation as he strokes me where I am soft and wet and burning for him.
His lips follow his touch. He licks me, then blows on my skin. Warm and wet, hot and cold. I am nothing but a twisting mix of sensations.
I am not prepared for his mouth to press to my core, where I am wet and swollen.
I bolt upright off the bed, scooting my hips back, but he captures me. His smile is dark and wicked. The smile of raw masculine pride that shifts abruptly to confusion. His thumb strokes my inner thigh. He is patient. Waiting. Watching. "I thought most women liked that sort of thing."
I don't have the words to tell him that no one has ever done that to me before. I’ve never trusted anyone to…do that. It’s too exposed. Too open. But I don’t have the words I need to explain it. The words to make it not sound pathetic and insecure. It’s something I’ve read about in novels but never experienced and now that I have, it is shocking in its intimacy.
But I can't say that because my throat is blocked off and my eyes burn.
If he notices, he doesn't say anything. Instead, he crawls slowly up my body until I can see only him, blocking out everything.
"Trust me?" He brushes his lips against mine and I can taste the lingering warmth from my body on his mouth.
It’s kind of scary how he can read my mind. But I’m not questioning it. It’s an escape. Words I don’t need to find.
I make a rough sound in my throat as his fingers find my heat once more. He slides my panties to one side, kissing my throat. My chest. Inching his way down my body as I grow more and more tense with each slide of his fingers through my sex.
He makes a warm sound as he nuzzles me where I am exposed and vulnerable and aching. "Beautiful," he whispers.
And when he touches his tongue to me, I forget my own name, forget everything but the touch of this man that rocks my world.
Josh
I've found heaven. I'm a shitty poet but watching Abby surge off my bed when I barely touched her sent a spike of raw male power through my veins. I've been around the block a time or two but I've never seen anyone respond like she just did.
I slide my tongue over her clit again, gently, and her hips jerk in response. Pleasure, hot and thick, washes over me. Watching her, seeing her body respond—I've never been so fucking turned on in my life. My entire body hums with awareness as I taste her, making little designs with my tongue and listening to her cries.
She's so fucking wet. I could lose myself in her, but I can't. This is about her. Not me and the fucked up shit keeping me from returning fully from the war. This is one hundred percent about Abby.
I slip one finger inside her, and she damn near bucks off the bed.
"Holy shit that feels good."
A ragged cry. A sob. She's so fucking gorgeous. Her skin is flushed and damp as I continue. Touching. Teasing. Tasting.
There's something simple about going down on her. About using my mouth and my fingers to drive her wild. It's deeply fucking erotic knowing that I'm the first man to touch her here like this. A primitive need rises inside me, preening that she's mine, only mine. That she's responding to my touch—to me. Fucked up, broken me.
I slip another finger inside her and her cries are stronger now. Her thighs clench against my shoulders. She's glorious, spread out on my bed, her body thrumming in pleasure with every stroke of my tongue. I want to make her come. I want to hear her scream.
Her body arches with each slide of my fingers. I slip my thumb down, stroking the sensitive skin just below my fingers.
She comes then in a sudden burst of tension, her body spasming around my fingers. Wetness floods against my tongue as I draw it out, strumming her body like a high-tension wire.
It is only after that I slide my fingers slowly from her body and crawl up to lie next to her. She burrows closer, one thigh sliding between mine, one arm around my waist.
She kisses my neck and makes a sleepy sound.
I can't help feeling really fucking pleased with myself even as disappointment tries to wrestle the fleeting pleasure stolen away from me.
I close my eyes and just let myself be. I'm there. And for once, I'm not sliding down a black hole of alcohol-induced darkness.
"That was…pretty amazing," she whispers after a long silence.
I kiss the top of her head. Her hair is soft and springy against my lips. I think I love her hair. It's wild and bold and daring—just like Abby.
I grin in the darkness. "You're welcome."
She slaps my chest even as she laughs. "You sound so pleased with yourself." She leans up. "But you didn't…"
"It's not about me right now." I lean up, cupping her face. "This was about you." I kiss her gently. “Distraction accomplished.”
She kisses me, and I'm lost again in the moment. In the sensations that are all Abby. Part of me can't believe she's here. That she's actually in my bed.
That she doesn't know how fucked up things really are with me.
I'd say that's a victory any day of the week.
She looks down at me, her golden eyes heavy and dark. "Thank you. For everything tonight." She traces her fingernail over the black heart tattooed over my chest. It's shaped like the muscle and wrapped in a crown of thorns. I was feeling particularly morbid and dark when I had that one done. "I swore I'd never date a soldier."
"Because of your dad?"
She shakes her head. "Because of Ray. My mom’s boyfriend."
The rage is back, slowly burning away the fleeting pleasure. I only speak when I'm sure I've got things under control. "Is he still active duty?"
"I don't know. And I don't want to know, honestly."
"What's his last name?"
She looks at me sharply. "Why?"
"Because if he's active duty, the Army can do something about it."
She shakes her head and cups my cheek, kissing me sadly. "She won't leave him. It doesn't matter what the Army does."
I exhale sharply and pull her down into my arms, tugging the comforter over both of us. I wish she wasn't telling the truth but I saw far too much of this kind of thing when I served.
And as much as I want to believe the Army would do something to him if they found out about it, I know just how little they really care about things like domestic abuse. If they needed him, the value he'd bring to the unit would outweigh any allegations of abuse.
I lay there in the dark, helpless and angry at the world, wishing there was some way to fix even a small part of it. For her, for me. Anything would be a welcome change over the stasis that my life is at that moment.
It's a long time before she shifts against me, her body arching into mine.
She's getting ready to go. I'm not ready for her to leave. I want to ask her to stay.
Please don't leave me.
But instead I kiss her gently. "I'll drive you home?"
"I'd like that."
I watch her dress, her body lithe and strong. She's a light in the darkness of my world.
And I will lose her the minute she finds out that I'm only half present in this world. The rest of me is still at war.
And always will be.
Chapter 16
Abby
"There you are."
I stop short, really not wanting to deal with the owner of that voice. I'm in a hurry to meet Josh at the library to go over our lecture notes from Quinn’s class.
My ex may not be the dead last person on the planet I want to see, but he's up there in the running. Right next to the demon from The Exorcist and a few family members who can drop dead for all I care.
But because I'm trying to be polite in public and not be the stereotype people pretend they're not waiting for, I stop and turn. I leave one hand on the door. Just so he's clear that I am not planning on lingering in this conversation.
"Yes?" Yep, my tone is short. I can't summon the ability to care if he's calling me a bitch beneath his breath. If he hadn't been so insecure, he might not have been threatened by my refusal to sit in the corner like a good little trophy.
"Why aren’t you returning my calls?"
“Maybe because I blocked your number months ago.” I try, really try, to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
He rubs the back of his neck and looks at me like he used to. Once upon a time, he would get me all twisted up inside with just a look. With his broad shoulders and wide smile, Robert is as close to being a god as a man can get. You wouldn't think he had a fragile male ego by looking at him.
"I wanted to see you."
"That’s not really in the ‘don’t ever call me again’ playbook," I say. I'm not interested in his concern, fake or otherwise.
Because he doesn't actually care about me. He cares about how I make him look, and I'm willing to bet money he’s got some event that he wants me to attend with him to make people think he’s a normal, well-adjusted, non-threatening black man in an wealthy, trying-to-pretend-it’s-not-all-white business school. He stands in front of me, his arms over his chest, looking every bit the big, tough guy I fell for all those months ago.
Too bad it was all an act.
And I’m no one’s trophy.
"We're not dating anymore. You made it abundantly clear that I didn’t meet your expectations of a woman you can be seen with."
His jaw tightens. There he is. The insecure little man I know so well. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I…maybe I miss you being by my side."
I smile flatly. "You should have thought about that before you asked me to shut up when that woman asked me why I didn’t straighten my hair to make it look neater. It never occurred to you to speak up. To defend me so that I didn’t have to be the angry black stereotype." I turn to go. Because the truth of it is, his silence hurt. I expect biting comments from strangers.
I also expect more from the people in my life.
I'm not sure why I am reacting this way. Maybe Robert's hand on my upper arm is the proverbial straw.
When his hand closes over my upper arm, I jerk away and slam my elbow into the glass door. Pain is a brilliant starburst up my arm as I nail my funny bone.
I swear. Loud enough that people inside the foyer pause and shift to get a better look at whatever they think is getting ready to happen.
I am so not doing this. Not here. Not ever.
"You don't have permission to touch me." My voice doesn't waver. Doesn't tremble. "Ever again. You made it abundantly clear where I stand with you, and I have more pride than to let someone try to change who I am." I'm not screaming. I'm not raising my voice. But damn it, he is going to get the point.
And maybe someday, I'll get him out of my head.
"Is everything okay?"
There is a part of me, a tiny part that I'm ashamed to admit exists, that wants to lea
n toward the strength and security I hear in Josh's voice. I can feel him like a solid wall behind me, and it takes everything I have not to let that relief show on my face.
I turn to him slowly and offer what I hope is a reassuring smile. "Sure. I was just coming to meet you."
I look back and see a hint of darkness that flashes in Robert's eyes. Just a moment and it's gone, but I remember the ugliness he hides beneath that smooth, collected exterior.
Josh is a solid wall between me and the freedom I need, but he is not watching me. He's staring at Robert. I've seen that look on his face before. Last night at The Pint, right before he knocked the guy at the bar on his ass. And as much as I might hate Robert, I don't want Josh fighting on campus.
"Are you okay?" It is only after he speaks that he looks away from Robert and down at me.
I reach out before I can stop myself. Maybe it's because I need the contact; maybe it's because I need the reminder that he is real and solid and good. I place my hand on his chest, right over the slow and steady beat of his heart. Those dark green eyes fill with an intensity that's as frightening as it is compelling.
"Let's go," I whisper when I'm sure I won't embarrass myself.
His gaze flicks over my shoulder then back down to me. The intent to harm is gone now, leaving only warmth in the darkness of his eyes. A warmth that draws me closer to this powerful, dangerous man when I know damn good and well I should be going in the opposite direction.
But still Josh doesn't move.
"You're shaking." His voice is low and deep, laced with worry that melts me a little more.
"I'm fine."
He swallows and I'm tempted, so tempted, to slide my fingers over the movement in his throat. To see if his pulse is racing like mine. To see how warm his skin would be beneath my touch.
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