On Solid Ground

by Melissa Collins

  My heart swells, his words boasting of his complete and utter commitment to his family. But then it breaks just a little, recalling how he said he wouldn’t be around much longer. “So then you’re moving away? Like another state?”

  He shakes his head adamantly. “Hell, no. My shop is here. I won’t give that up.” His words do nothing but confuse me.

  “Then I don’t get what you mean that you won’t be around.”

  “It’s just . . . look, things have never been easy for me and Nikki. My mom was a drug addict, turned tricks for money in our house.” His confession is colored in shame, a hushed whisper. “She OD’ed when Nikki was a senior in high school. I was only twenty-two, but Nikki had already started down the wrong path. So I didn’t go to college; instead, I got a job and lived at home. I figured it was the only way to protect her from all the guys running in and out of our shithole home.”

  “Beck, you did the right thing.” He shoots me a sidelong glance.

  “Whole fucking lotta good it did her. Even after . . .” He immediately stops talking, stiffening his spine and pulling away from me.

  “After what?” I ask, curiously. The way he reacted to whatever he was just about to say reminds me an awful lot of the way my body language changed anytime I almost came out to my parents.

  “Nothing,” he deflects, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Okay,” I let it go, “but I can tell it’s important.” Reaching for his hands again, I inch closer to him. “And even though I was an ass before, I’m here for you. Whatever it is, and whenever you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be ready to listen.” My eyes hold his, or maybe it’s his holding mine, but we sit in a calm silence laced with understanding for a few minutes.

  “After I was raped,” he spits out quickly, words of disgust flying from his mouth.

  Rage fills my body. “What? When? Who?” My muscles bunch in heated tension, fists clench in balls of hatred. “Tell me what happened,” I beg.

  “Not much to tell,” he explains, but it’s not enough for me and he knows it. “It was the night of Mom’s funeral. I ran out to grab me and Nikki some dinner and when I came back home, he was attacking Nikki.” His voice is shaking so much; I’m shocked I can even understand him. “At least he didn’t get her,” he adds quietly. Anger and shame mingle together in his confession.

  “Come here.” I pull him to me, doing the only thing I can think of. Cradling him against my body, I try my best to absorb his past, to take in the pain he’s feeling. Cupping his face in my hands, I pull him away from me, gazing into his glassy eyes. “It’s not your–”

  “Look,” he pulls away from me completely, “you don’t need to tell me what I already know. I’m over it, okay? Except for a few bite marks and bruises, Nikki made it out unscathed. And that’s all that matters. It’s all that’s ever mattered.”

  “No,” I demand. “You matter. You mattered then and you matter now. You matter to me and to them. So don’t you dare diminish what’s happened to you. It’s made you who you are.”

  “Some fucking hypocrite you are,” he spits, shocking me once again.

  “What?” I ask disbelievingly.

  “Delaney was more than just another soldier, wasn’t he?” There’s no point in denying it. He seems to already know the truth.

  “What do you want to know?” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I try to keep the memories at bay.

  “Whatever you want to tell me.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start,” I huff, already defeated by my past.

  “At the beginning,” Beck states simply, waiting for me to say what I’ve never told anyone.

  “He was the first person I came out to, except for Chloe, of course.” Smiling, his face flashes through my mind. Rugged, but young and carefree. His green eyes always shining with some kind of mischief. “I laugh to myself when I think about it now, the way he got it out of me. See, I wasn’t all that great at figuring out if other men were gay. That’s what made me leave college in the first place.” I use the short burst of a chuckle to conceal the pain I feel over the attack. “Hit on the wrong guy and his friends ganged up on me on my way home from a night class. School was all just a cover to escape my family anyway, so quitting wasn’t as big of a deal as it sounds.”

  The reaction I previously had to his rape is mirrored back to me. “Those fucking cowards,” he seethes.

  “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” My statement confuses him, but it’s the most honest thing I could say. “Without it, I wouldn’t have left school and enlisted. I wouldn’t have found Delaney,” I add wistfully, hoping not to offend the man sitting at my side—the man who I know has the ability to change my life now just as much as Delaney did back then. “And without him, I wouldn’t have accepted myself. Still can’t do that too much. On the outside at least,” I admit, replaying the earlier moment from the carnival. “But it was because of him that I was able see myself for who I truly am.”

  “How long were you together?” His question sounds timid, as if he’s not sure he wants to know the real answer.

  “By the time I was able to admit I was gay to him, and then admit my feelings about him to myself, we were only together two months before he . . . before he died.” As if they’ve taken on a life of their own, my legs start bouncing, itching with restlessness. “We were literally at war, and I was the happiest I had ever been in my life.” The tone of my voice changes; my heart rate skyrockets. As my vision blurs, the attack comes on full force. “He w-was the only one wh-who ever knew m-me.” Tonka prances down the short hallway, leaps up on the couch beside me, and nudges his nose under my crossed arms. Beck drops a hand to my shoulder, massaging away some of the building tension.

  “It’s okay, Dax. You’re okay. We’re here,” he coaxes me into calming down as Tonka licks my hands, urging me to pet him.

  Silently, I nod, biting back the torrent of emotions hovering just beneath the surface. “I know.”

  “No, you don’t because I haven’t said it,” his words are softer, kinder than they have been since we left the carnival. “I keep trying to push you away because you’re the first real thing I’ve ever had in my life. You’re the first person who’s been genuine and honest and it scares the fucking shit out of me because I don’t know how to deal with it.” He laughs humorlessly. “It’s like if it’s not fucked up beyond all recognition, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “FUBAR,” I laugh.

  “Huh?”

  “FUBAR, it means fucked up beyond all recognition. That’s what my life has always been. Here I am, a war veteran, and I need a dog to calm me down. I’ve killed people, but I can’t even tell my own parents I’m gay. If that doesn’t define FUBAR, then I don’t know what does.”

  “Maybe we’re more alike than we thought.” The glint of anger that was in his eyes before is now gone, replaced with something entirely different. Sliding closer to me, he pulls my face to his, softly pressing his lips against mine.

  Though it starts out chastely, a kiss meant to promise something for which he must not have the words, it quickly transforms into one of need. That’s the state we’re both in, after all. Need. I need him to calm me; he needs me to steady him. I need him to rouse me back to life; he needs me to remind him that his is a good life, not one of meaningless nothingness.

  Pushing him back against the arm of the couch, I cover him with my body. Wrapping his legs around my hips, he grinds his hardened dick against mine. In a matter of seconds, we’re both pulling at each other’s shirts, tossing them to the floor. My fingertips come to life against his skin, tracing along the inked lines of every mark on his body. “I need you. I need this,” I whisper against his neck, my lips lost to the feel of kissing his skin.

  “Take it. Take everything you want,” he pants, lifting his hips as I slide his jeans and boxers from his body.

  Resting on my haunches, I trail my nails over his chest, leaving angry red lines on his skin. His dick bobs with de
sire, heavy and needy, as my fingers continue their torment. When I take him into my hand, his eyes roll back in his head, pleasure overpowering his entire body.

  With measured movements, I work him over from base to tip, making him even harder than he already was. “Fucking shit, Dax,” he growls, his words filled with need. “Oh, shit,” he calls out when I lick a path up his thigh, bringing my mouth closer to his rock hard dick.

  Keeping my eyes on his, I secure my lips around his pierced tip, flicking my tongue over the cool metal as my hand works up and down his shaft. It doesn’t take long for him to push his hips up into my face, fucking my mouth. A groan of disapproval falls from his lips when I stop sucking him off. It only takes him a second to realize that I need to get my mouth busy elsewhere.

  Pushing his legs up from behind his knees, he curls them up against his chest. When his fingers lock together with mine, helping me to open him up, something deep inside me cracks open. The connection I thought I’d only ever feel with one other person, the one I’d thought was long gone, comes back to life in that moment.

  So with our hands locked together, I use my tongue to fuck his ass, to ready him for me. Replacing my tongue with a finger and then two, I grow hard still listening to his moans of pleasure.

  “Floor,” I demand when I move back over him. “Need more room to fuck you the way I need to.”

  He crawls down from the couch, grabbing a pillow on the way. Moving it under his knees, he turns away from me, expecting me to get him from behind. Looking over his shoulder, he concedes, “I know you’d prefer it this way. I want to make you happy.”

  Securing an arm around his waist, I think he expects me to just go at it, fuck him without needing to look at him, like I had wanted it to be that first time. But so much has changed since then and now, the thought of being inside of Beck without being able to look deep into his eyes, without being able to melt against his lips, all seems insane. In a move that surprises him, I flip him over, spreading him on his back.

  Still wet from minutes ago, I ease myself into him, moving slowly. For the briefest moment, an uneasy feeling moves through me. He’s just told me about being raped, about his sordid past, and here I am, pushing inside of him. My uncertainty takes over, making me voice my concerns. “Is this okay?” I say, resting my elbows on either side of his head. “I mean you just–”

  His full-on attack of my lips is all the answer I need. With one hand wrapped around my neck and the other clutching my ass, he makes it so there is physically no space between us. Against my lips, he says, “This is perfect. Better than perfect. Being with you makes me forget all that other shit.” He pauses, biting his lower lip. His body opens to mine, relaxing with the words, “Now, please move. I need to feel you.”

  To describe what happens between us as a connection would be lying. A connection suggests we’re two parts coming together. Two separate bodies, uniting in a few stolen moments of pleasure. But that’s not what happens as I move languidly in him. Yes, our bodies move in a perfectly syncopated rhythm, a uniform motion of passion. But with my hand stroking his cock, while I move deep inside him, we are a full circle. We don’t become united; it’s as if we’ve always been united somehow and these movements simply remind us that our other half was always out there.

  My legs shake underneath me as he quivers around my waist. Sucking in a ragged breath, I inhale his exhale. His hand clutches my back as my dick swells with need. His back arches up, drawing me deeper into his body as mine pounds on, seeking release. The pulses of his orgasm, jetting in hot ropes over my hand, squeezing in rhythmic succession around my dick, push me over the edge.

  Physical and emotional exhaustion wash over me, causing me to crash on top of him. The stickiness of our sex meshes between us, but neither of us mind. My hands find his. Lacing our fingers together, I stretch our joined hands over his head, raining down kisses across his lips, neck, and chest.

  “Hey,” he nudges me a few minutes later, “you’re crushing me,” he kisses the words against my cheek. “And I think we’ll stick together if you stay there any longer.”

  We laugh as I roll to his side. He’s right. Any longer and this shit would act like Krazy Glue—though the thought of having Beck around permanently doesn’t sound so scary.

  Our breathing evening out, we enjoy the afterglow. “Can I ask you something?” My question is one of mild nervousness.

  “You just did.” He pokes me in the rib, laughing at his lame-ass joke. Propping myself up on my elbow, I look down at him, rolling my eyes so hard I nearly sprain them. He laughs again but then says, “Go ahead. Of course you can.”

  “How does it feel? You know—when I’m, I mean when we’re . . .” Laughing at my own bashfulness, I find it ridiculous that I’m having difficulty talking to the man I just fucked.

  “You mean when you’re fucking me?” he finishes my question for me and I nod, thankful for his uncanny ability to read my mind when the words just can’t come out. Mirroring my pose, he traces his fingertip across my shoulder and down my bicep. “Painful at first, but you’re huge,” his eyes widen, emphasizing his point, “so that’s expected.”

  “Is it painful the whole time?”

  “No,” he shakes his head. “The pain burns away when you move. It’s odd to describe, but the pain changes to this burning heat. That most definitely does not hurt. It’s a full feeling for obvious reasons, but it goes past just where you are physically. It feels full all over. Complete somehow.” He recognizes my stare and mistakes it for one of confusion. “I guess I’m not making much sense huh? Anyway, what’s it feel like for you?”

  “When I’m in you?” I ask to clarify.

  “Well, yeah sure. But I meant what does it feel like when you’re bottom? My description can’t be too far off can it?”

  Quietly, I admit, “I don’t know. I’ve never bottomed.”

  My words shock him into silence briefly. “Oh, ok.” I can tell there’s more he wants to say, maybe he just doesn’t know how to.

  “I want to though,” I say against his parted lips. “I want you to.” A hiss of breath passes his lips, one of pleasure and want. “Is that something you’d be willing–”

  “More than I can even say,” he answers, rolling on top of me, kissing me senseless.

  “One more question,” I manage between kisses.

  Looking down at me with something that looks a lot like love in his eyes, he smiles and nods. “Sure, anything.”

  “Can we shower first?” We both share a laugh before cleaning up and passing out for the night.

  A swift knee to the stomach wakes me early the next morning. Violet plops down in between me and Beck who, just moments ago were sleeping peacefully in each other’s arms.

  Curling my arms around my stomach, I move myself to an upright position. Having just had the wind knocked out of me, I can’t say much of anything. Beck wakes and moves up against the headboard next to me, laughing quietly at my bent over position. Obviously feeling sorry for what she just did, Violet curls up against my side. “I didn’t mean to give you a boo-boo.”

  “It’s okay,” I choke out, catching my breath. “I’m okay. I’ve had worse.”

  This of course piques her interest. “Really?” Her eyes widen. “Like what?”

  Beck looks on, simply enjoying the early morning interchange with me and his niece. It’s normal, probably something most couples do, cuddling up in their beds with their kids as the sun filters into the room.

  “This one,” I trace a paper thin line at the top of my eyebrow, “I got because I didn’t listen to my mom. I was running and hit my head on the countertop. Split wide open and needed five stitches.” Holding my hand out in front of me, I let her count my fingers so she can see how many five is.

  “No way,” she gasps in disbelief.

  “Yes, way. And this one,” I lift up the bottom of my tank exposing a long scar on my side. “Is from when I needed to have my appendix removed. Had to stay in the hospital and
everything.” She sits mesmerized, in awe of my stories.

  “I got this one from riding my bike,” Violet boasts, holding her elbow up into my face. “There was a rock stuck in my arm and everything. But then Mommy kissed the boo-boo and it was all better.”

  Beck smiles from behind her, letting her sweet voice fill the room. “I have a bike riding scar, too,” Beck chimes in, pulling his leg out from the covers. “I was popping a wheelie and the wheel came right out of the frame. Fell on my leg and scratched it up real good.”

  Laughing, I can’t believe what he’s just shared. “My brother did that to me. Rigged my brakes,” I laugh now. Of course at the time, I was plotting my revenge for weeks. “The pedal sliced straight up my leg.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother,” Beck interjects while Violet stares down at the three-inch red line running down my shin.

  Shrugging, I try my best for deflection. “We’re not really that close.”

  “What’s this one from?” Violet points to a small circle of a scar on the front of my shoulder. Beck leans over, immediately recognizing it for what it is: a bullet wound.

  “That’s . . . umm . . .” I stall, staring at Beck, hoping he’ll help me out.

  A small, sad smile tugs at Beck’s mouth. “Sugar pop, did you know that Dax here is a soldier?”

  Her eyes, huge and awed, sparkle as she looks up at me. “Really?” The amazed quality of her word makes pride bloom in my chest.

  “Yep,” Beck smiles again, gracing me with his own appreciation. “And that is a scar from battle. He’s a real hero, right here in front of you. What do you think?”

  Violet bounces up on her knees, careful not to knock into me this time. She cups her hand around her uncle’s ear, whispering, but not really whispering, a secret. Beck chuckles and says, “Of course we can.”

  They move from the bed and as I go to follow, Violet stops me in my tracks. “No,” she demands. “You have to be in bed for me to bring you breakfast in bed.”