I squeeze my eyes shut tight, unwilling to spoil the moment with tears.
Unable to stop the hurt that I know this will bring.
I thread my fingers with his and draw his hand between my breasts.
Never have I felt so loved, so cherished.
This. This is why I stay. This is why I can't leave.
This.
Chapter 28
Josh
I hate waking up and not knowing where I am.
My heart slams against my ribs. My hands shake as I breathe deeply, trying to control the panic that rips through me.
I suck in a deep breath and inhale a warm, familiar, comforting scent.
Abby.
I move my cheek a little and she is there. Curled into me, her body soft and warm in sleep.
I turn into her, needing the comfort of her body, her scent, to drive away the latent edge of panic. Slowly, so slowly, the panic fades, leaving in its place something else.
Something aching and warm.
At first, I don't believe it. I can't.
I feel like I am twelve years old again as I reach down between our bodies, needing my hand to confirm what my brain is telling me.
That it's not a fucking dream that will turn into a nightmare when I wake up and see my dick soft and useless once again.
I'm awake. I'm really awake.
And I've got a fucking hard-on.
There is something like joy inside me. Like there should be doves released into the sky and holy organ music filling the air.
It's hard not to sit there and just hold it. To feel it hard and smooth in my hand. I should feel awkward at best, stroking my cock with Abby right there.
I want to wake her up and be all “look at my fabulous erection”.
But that just feels weird. And a little sad. Because nobody is ever as excited about your own erection as you are.
And I'm afraid if I stop, if I do anything other than lie there, stroking myself slowly, that it'll go away, fading back to being nothing more than a memory.
I squeeze a little tighter. My balls clench at the sensation. Christ it's good, so fucking good to stroke my cock again. I make a noise, deep in my throat. Something like pleasure, long forgotten.
And then I feel Abby move. She shifts in the bed, rolling toward me. I pause.
I don't know if I should be guilty or proud or ashamed. Heat flashes over my body.
And she nuzzles my neck, her hand sliding down my belly over the sensitive head of my cock to grip me gently.
I almost come right then and there. My balls tighten. I'm there. So close. I want this to last, to not end. To never end.
But her hand is sliding up and down my cock, tugging in just the right place, tightening now, twisting, until I unload, coming on my belly like I might tear apart into a thousand tiny pieces.
"Christ." A prayer. A profanity. I don't know. I can't think. I can only feel as she keeps stroking me until I'm sure I'll die from pleasure.
"See," she whispers, when I'm no longer certain I'll embarrass myself by crying. "You don't have an S&M streak after all." She nuzzles my neck again before nipping my earlobe.
I can feel it already. A stirring, a tightening.
I pull her against me, needing the contact. I am suddenly more afraid now. More terrified that this might be a fluke.
Or that now, I will disappoint her.
She kisses me then, her hand sliding over my cock, caressing the head of it, wet from my own cum.
"Abby.”
"Shh."
She slips her thighs over mine. "We need…"
"I don't have any." I want to cry. "I haven't needed them in so long, I just stopped carrying them around." I close my eyes, not wanting to admit that I'd given up hope of ever being where I am at this exact moment.
She lowers her forehead to mine. "I might cry."
She laughs, tucks her face against my neck and laughs.
But then she shifts and slides her warm, wet heat along the length of my cock.
My entire body burns with the need to be inside her. To feel her surround me.
I grip her hips gently.
And ease her away. "We can't. Not without protection."
She smiles at me. "You really are a saint, aren't you?"
"Not really." I draw her lips to mine. "I just don't want anything to risk what you've worked so hard for."
She blinks rapidly then and kisses me fiercely.
She presses her lips to my throat, my collarbone. I go absolutely still as she inches her way down my chest.
I can't breathe. I can't move.
I can't look away.
She is there, her mouth just there. Her breath is warm on my cock.
And then her mouth, moist and warm and soft, surrounds the tip of my cock, sucking it gently, so gently.
I can die a happy man. She tightens her fist around the base–squeezing, stroking, sucking me.
I can't resist. I thread my fingers through her soft, curly hair and try so fucking hard not to move. Not to hurt her.
But the sensation surrounds me, drags me away from all conscious thought, until all I can feel, until everything I am is focused on that single sensation of Abby's mouth on my cock.
And then I'm lost, gone, coming again, harder than I've ever come before.
Lost in the unbelievable feeling of finally being home.
Abby
"I don't want to go to class." I want to get our happy asses to the drugstore and get some condoms and spend the rest of the day in bed.
Josh is laughing at me. "I'm the one who should be saying that, not you."
I want to throw something at him for laughing. "Listen, Mr. Magic Fingers. You've been teasing me for days now. And I'm supposed to be all ‘let's go to class and talk about symbolic violence’ when you've finally decided to get an erection?"
I crawl into his lap, pushing him away from where he was tying his shoes. He grips my hips and drags me closer to him. "I'm not laughing at you," he whispers against my mouth.
And then he kisses me. Hard. Harder than he's ever kissed me. My lips are bruised. If they're not, they should be.
I want more. I want it all. The pain. The pleasure. With Josh there are no half measures.
"You really want to be a responsible adult?" I whisper.
"No. I think we need to at least pretend to be responsible adults." He smiles against my mouth. "And the clinic is on the way to class. So we can take care of our little problem on the way back here."
"I'm surprised you're being so rational about this."
"I'm really not. It's more self-preservation than anything. If I don't go to class, I might get calluses from jerking off too much today."
The laugh breaks free, and I lower my forehead to his. It feels so foreign to laugh like this with a lover. To laugh with Josh.
I cup his cheek, his stubble soft beneath my palm, and kiss him sweetly. I want to cherish this. Because the darkness isn't gone. It's merely waiting, lurking. I know it will be back.
It always comes back.
But for the moment, I will ignore it. I rock against him gently. "Class ought to be interesting today."
"Why?"
"Because I've never been distracted by the possibility of sex afterward."
"Probability," he growls against my mouth. "This is going to happen."
"Only if you can get it up."
A sound wrenches out of him. Something between a laugh and a snarl. He rolls then until I am pinned beneath him. Until I feel the weight of him between my thighs, the hard length of him rubbing against my core where I am already aching for him again.
"I'll get it up," he says. Then he closes his eyes and rests his forehead against mine in what is becoming an achingly familiar gesture. "I hope."
"You will. And if not? We've always got your fingers."
He laughs again and we finish dressing for class.
It's going to be a long day.
Chapter 29
Abby
It’s strange to no longer feel alone as we sit in Quinn’s class. I'm no longer surrounded by a sea of people who act like they are never quite sure if they should approach me or pretend I'm not there.
It's fine. I'm used to it.
But I'm not used to this. To having him next to me. To feeling his strength and warmth beside me, knowing that later, as soon as class is over, we can leave.
We can finish what we started.
I'm aching and distracted as Quinn starts his lecture. Parker is there, asking her normal rational choice theory-based questions. She's not even annoying me today.
I guess this is what it feels like to have a lover that consumes everything. All your thoughts. All your fears. Everything.
Josh is taking notes. He's slouched back in his chair, his notebook leaned up at an angle. I'm not sure if he's actually taking notes or if he's doodling.
I love the way his fingers wrap around the pencil. The thick tip guiding the pencil across the page.
I can all but feel that finger on my skin, sliding over the seam of my body.
He glances up at me. Heat flushes across my skin as he catches me staring. His lips quirk in a tiny smile, just a crease at the edge of his lips.
Yeah, I'm not paying attention at all.
"What can we say about religious versus secular violence?" Quinn asks, drawing my attention away from the promise of Josh's hands.
His fingers stop the movement of the pencil.
Just like that I can feel the shift in Josh.
But the class keeps going on, as though the world hadn't just frozen beside me. Parker raises her hand. "I'm not sure I see a difference."
Josh is tense beside me.
I cautiously raise my hand. "I think we need to break it down into smaller categories than religious versus secular violence."
"What would you propose?" Quinn asks me.
"I'm not sure. I think we'd need to dissect violence conducted by the state, violence conducted by individuals acting on behalf of another institution." I take a deep breath. "And violence conducted by individuals on their own behalf." My words fade a little. I hate myself for it.
Josh glances over at me, a question in his eyes. I shake my head a little bit, focusing on the lecture, refusing to go backward ever again.
He leans over; his breath is hot on my ear. His words rumble over my skin. "Save whatever frustration you have for later."
I duck my head and smile. Nice distraction. I write on the edge of my paper.
"Is there a difference in those levels of violence? In the forms they take?" Quinn pauses. "Mr. Douglas?"
Josh shrugs. "I don't know. Does it matter why someone kills? If the end state is the same?"
There is an undercurrent in that question, a darkness I'm afraid to acknowledge.
But I've already seen it. I've already looked at this man and seen what he's capable of.
"Our legal system acknowledges a difference in intent," Parker says.
There's something off in her tone today. There is something in her voice that lacks her normal spark, and damn it, I do not want to care.
"How so?"
"We don't punish people strictly for killing. We punish people for intentionally killing," she says.
"Durkheim famously said crimes are the things we punish because we punish them, not because they are inherently criminal in and of themselves," Josh says. And I try not to be impressed that Josh knows anything about Emile Durkheim, my favorite sociologist. "So maybe it's only intentional killing we punish because maybe that's the only form of killing we wish to condemn."
Parker shakes her head once more. "Then why don't we punish soldiers? They are intentionally killing."
"On behalf of the state," I clarify.
"People who join the military do it for some sick thrill," Parker says. "We know there are higher rates of psychopathy in the military population. Why do we have to explain their killing with justifications for state violence?"
Josh is practically vibrating next to me. "And corporate board rooms have the highest rates of psychopathy and CEOs destroy far more lives than any gun-welding soldier ever will."
"That's not true," Parker snaps.
"It is. Just because the truth makes you uncomfortable doesn’t make it a lie," he says.
I can feel it again, the urge to diffuse this tension building in Josh. "We've surrendered the right to take people's lives to the state in modern democracies."
Josh shakes his head. "No we haven't. It's just a convenient lie we tell ourselves." His voice is tense, but calm. Not even close to that first day where the violence practically radiated from him. "Any one of us in this room could kill someone."
"That's definitely not true," Parker says.
“It’s absolutely true. How else can you explain how entire nations are moved to commit genocide,” Josh says. “It’s an indictment on being human, not individual character flaws.”
Parker opens her mouth, then snaps it closed. It really is a banner day if Josh has finally won an argument with her.
"Any one of us could be gunned down on our walk home from class today. We could be shot by a robber or hit by a drunk driver. We tell ourselves our lives are safe but that's because we live in a bubble. A nice protected world where the police don't shoot us for the color of our skin, where the streets are safe to walk at night. Or where religion is something done on Sundays or Fridays or whenever but not something worth dying for." He pauses. "This entire conversation is informed by very western, educated ideas. The rest of the world doesn't work like this."
"Does anyone wish to challenge Mr. Douglas's assertion that ours is a very western conversation?" He looks to Parker, who is strangely silent.
Josh
I can't think straight. I keep hearing Parker's voice mocking me, my brothers. The pain that Caleb is going through right now–all dismissed as the needs of a group of psychopathic killers.
I look down at my hands. The anxiety is back. Paralyzing me, choking off my ability to breathe.
I hate this class. I fucking hate it. It is a mantra in my head, repeating over and over ad nauseam. I hate how this class makes me feel. Nothing has changed.
I doubt it ever will.
Class can't end soon enough.
Abby deserves an explanation, but I have to get away. Have to break free before I completely lose my shit. Again.
One fucking comment. One goddamned discussion in class and I'm a fucking basket case all over again. I might as well join Caleb in the funny farm.
I feel rather than hear Abby fall into step next to me.
I am not a small man but she keeps up easily.
She doesn't stop me. Doesn't try to get me to confess my sins or talk to her or beg me to tell her what's wrong.
No, not my Abby.
She just walks with me, keeping pace as I try to outrun the demons that have followed me home from war.
I cut through a narrow, wooded path. Toward the old tunnel that leads through the dry riverbed toward my apartment.
Finally I stop. In the center of the trees, with the smell of damp woods and old leaves surrounding me, I stop.
Because I can't go on. Not like this.
"You should know I've fired my weapon in combat," I say quietly when the words will finally come.
"If you're asking me not to judge you, I already don't."
"I don't need you to." I bow my head. "I judge myself. I sit in these classes and I remember how sure I was. How satisfying it was to pull the trigger and see the bodies drop." I can't breathe. "I celebrated. I high-fived my buddies every single fucking time we made it back from a mission without getting blown up." God but those feelings–those things I had been so certain about at war–I was no longer certain about any of it. “I walked away. When it hit me how fucked up it was that we were celebrating, I left the Army.” I hand my head, unable to hold it up. “Part of me misses it. Fiercely.”
I doubted. And I hate the fucking doubt. I hate how it
makes me feel dirty.
Like a monster, cloaked in the flag and worshiped for his service.
I feel her move a moment before the warmth of her hands penetrates the ice around my heart.
I can't stop. I have to tell her. She has to know. Someone has to know.
And if she walks away, then so be it. But I can't do this with her, knowing the weight of the lies I carry with me. That haunt me.
"I never regretted any of them. I never thought about their families. I never thought about whether they had a dog or a brother or a sister." I can't look at her. Can't bear to see the shame. The judgment. "I didn't care. It wasn't my job to care. It was my job to kill them before they killed me."
I finally, finally open my eyes. I see the shadows in her, the resigned press of her lips into a flat line. "I sit in class, and it resurrects everything, Abby." I suck in a deep, heavy breath and it does nothing to break the knot around my heart. "And it hurts. It fucking hurts. There's no fucking parade. There's no celebration. Just doubt. Did I do the wrong thing? Did I make a good kill?"
Her eyes are filled now but she doesn't pull away. "I keep waiting for you to walk away. For you to say you know what, this fucked up GI with the broken dick isn't worth the effort." I shake my head slowly, fighting desperately to keep the last of it contained. Because it might just break me. "But you're here. And I can't figure out why." I grip her wrists and lower them from my chest. "You should go. Leave and go find some normal well-adjusted college guy. Preferably with a working cock and a clean conscience."
She makes a horrible sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob as she buries her face in my neck. "I hate that you're hurting," she whispers. "I hate that I can't fix this for you." Her breath is warm on my neck. "But please don't tell me to leave. Don't push me away before we even have a chance to try." Her lips are soft against my skin. "And you do just fine, cock or no cock. We can always buy you a strap-on if it's that big of a deal."
It's my turn to make the horrified sound. I pull her tight against me, clinging to her. She is solid and steady and real. I grind my thumb and forefinger into my eyes. "That is quite possibly the most fucked-up thing you could have said." But I'm laughing, despite the pain, despite the hurt and the doubt.
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