by Patti O'Shea
“Before I joined Spec Ops, my first assignment,” he told her, without inflection, “was under Major Sam Benning.”
“Sammy is Alex’s best friend.”
Damon braced himself at the obvious affection he heard in her voice. He knew it was going to hurt when Ravyn hated him too. But maybe he deserved it. It was his fault. All of it.
“During a real ugly battle in the Third War, five of us were cut off, separated from the unit. Me, Major Benning and three privates. The major was injured. Not severely, but he lapsed in out and of consciousness, so I had command.”
“How long had you been commissioned?”
“Long enough,” he said. He didn’t want her to think he was excusing himself in any way.
“How long, Damon?” she demanded.
“Two months.” Ravyn didn’t say another word. He didn’t have to close his eyes to remember the chaos, the roar of weapons being discharged, the screams and moans of the injured. The smell of gunpowder still burned his nostrils. Get on with it, he told himself when he realized he’d been lost in thought. For a moment he wanted to forget about telling Ravyn and pretend it had never happened, pretend it wouldn’t make a difference.
“The first bad decision I made was when I opted to rejoin our unit. There were other Alliance forces close by that didn’t have as many enemy soldiers in the way. The second bad decision was putting Conway on point. She had more time in than the other two privates, so I thought she could handle it.”
“But she couldn’t.”
“No,” Damon said. “We ran into a little trouble. She should have helped us. We would have been okay if she had.”
He forced himself to back up, to explain everything in sequence. “We took cover while Conway went ahead to collect information on what was in front of us. A group of enemy soldiers practically stumbled right into us. I don’t think we even took a breath until they started moving away. Major Benning had been unconscious for a while and I didn’t think he would come to right then. He kind of made a grunting noise, just enough to call attention to us. Then all hell broke loose.”
Carefully, he unclenched his fist. His knuckles ached. He ran his hand over his mouth, wiping away some of the perspiration above his upper lip. It had been eight years and his body still reacted to the memory. He had a feeling if he lived another eighty years, he’d still be sweating when he remembered that day.
“We exchanged fire. I thought there were six of them and we took them all down. There were eight. Two of them came up on our flank. A twig snapped or something, but it gave us a couple seconds of warning.”
Damon took a few deep breaths. He wanted to sound calm and reasonable when he related the events of that day. He could feel Ravyn’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her. That she stayed so silent didn’t bode well, he decided. He took another breath.
“I could see Conway standing beyond the two men,” he continued, his voice steady. “She had a clear shot without endangering us. Because it would be easier for her, I didn’t shoot. Almost as soon as I made that decision, I realized she was terrified. Instead of helping us, she turned and ran. The enemy opened fire and her cowardice cost two men their lives and the major his career and his mobility.”
Ravyn made a small noise and Damon closed his eyes tightly for a moment. He’d known his actions were unforgivable. He lowered his arm from behind his head and stroked the mark furrowed high across his biceps.
“You’ve had your other scars removed,” Ravyn said, sounding subdued, “but you kept that one. Why?”
“So I never forget that bad choices cost lives. This is the only hit I took, a minor flesh wound. The two men who died had more than a dozen bullets in them. Major Benning, who was on the ground, took three bullets. I received one little graze. My mark of shame,” he finished, his mouth twisting.
“What happened to Conway?”
“She ran right into a full-scale engagement. She took so many bullets from both sides that she was nearly unidentifiable.”
Another life lost for which he was responsible. He’d gone to her funeral. “I went to all three funerals. I watched their parents and families grieve. All of them thanked me for coming. Thanked the man who had gotten their child killed.” Damon swallowed hard to clear his voice. “So that’s why the colonel hates me. I caused his best friend to be permanently disabled.”
“Tell the rest of the story, Damon.”
He looked at her then, too startled not to. She appeared sad, but not accusing. “There’s not much to tell,” he said with a shrug.
“Tell me how you and Sammy got back to our side.”
“We walked back.”
Ravyn shook her head. “Sam couldn’t walk. You put him over your shoulder and carried him. Kilometers from what he’s said. And that graze on your arm, your mark of shame, caused you to lose enough blood that the doctors all agreed you should have been unconscious yourself.”
“It wasn’t kilometers,” Damon said, not quite sure what to make of the information Ravyn had. How much had she known before he’d said a word?
“I didn’t know it was you,” Ravyn said, as if picking up on his thoughts, “and I didn’t know much of the story. Both Alex and Sammy tend to shield me, but I overheard them arguing when Sam was staying with us right after his discharge. He credits you with saving his life.”
“Major Benning is a generous man. If I had made other choices, things would have been different.”
“Maybe,” Ravyn conceded, “but maybe not. You can’t know what would have happened.”
He started to turn away, unable to accept her absolution. She touched him then, tangling her fingers in his hair and holding him steady so that he had to look at her.
“You were twenty years old, Damon, and as green as the grass in Ireland. You did the best you could.”
“I should have done better,” he insisted. It was hard for him to meet her eyes. She didn’t know, she hadn’t been there. He should have gotten everyone out alive and healthy.
“The army doesn’t agree. They gave you a medal. I bet you never wear it though, do you?”
He couldn’t contain a small, mirthless chuckle. “You know me too well.”
“I know you care too much, take too much responsibility for things you have no control over. Events have a way of happening, people make decisions you can’t predict. Tell me, do you blame yourself for what happened to your team at the CAT facility?”
“No.” He’d gone over this time and again in his mind.
“Why not? Why is what happened here different?”
“This time I made the right choices. I’d make them again in the same situation. They just didn’t work out right.”
“So you made the best decisions you could at the time.” She waited for his nod before continuing. “Eight years ago you did the same thing. There is no difference. You just have more experience now.” Ravyn moved until she leaned over him. He suspected she did it for emphasis, but it didn’t have the intended result. He found himself distracted by her nakedness.
Her hand hit his shoulder hard enough to get his attention. “Stop staring at my breasts when I’m trying to make a point.”
It surprised him to feel his mood lighten. He even managed a real smile for her. “Sorry, sweet pea. I can’t help it. You might want to cover up if you plan to continue with your point.”
With a half laugh, half growl, she pulled the blankets around her. And ended up baring him, which seemed to distract her. Her battle with the covers continued solo until she glared at him and said, “You could help me here.”
When the blankets were more or less fixed and they were more or less covered again, Ravyn unexpectedly straddled him. Shock held Damon still and her hands captured his wrists, imprisoning them next to his head. For a moment, he tensed; then he relaxed as another part of him began to tighten. She kept the lower half of their bodies separated, but he swore he could feel her heat. It made him crazy for that touch of her.
“I don’t kn
ow how to tell you this, but you’re all but guaranteeing I won’t hear a word you say.” He arched his hips slightly to explain why, but she moved, preventing contact.
“I know, but you weren’t listening to me anyway. We’re going to try something different. Repeat after me, ‘I am not responsible for Sam Benning’s injuries.’”
“Ravyn,” he protested. He tried to move his hands, but she squeezed his wrists harder and he subsided.
“Say it.”
He stayed silent. It wasn’t true; he couldn’t say it.
“Don’t you want to be inside me? Feel my body surrounding yours, all wet and hot? It’s getting me excited just remembering what it was like. The feel of you so big and hard. Mmm. It was so good, Damon.” Her voice had a breathless quality to it that added to the torridness of her words.
She licked her lips and gave a little shimmy that made her breasts jiggle. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to break her hold and roll on top of her. He wasn’t even sure what stopped him. “What game are you playing?”
“Positive reinforcement.”
She didn’t sound very much in control herself and Damon smiled, figuring he could hold out longer than her. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she drawled. “Let’s try this sentence, since the first one is too difficult for you. Say, ‘I made the choices I thought were right at the time.’”
Damon considered her words as much as he was able with all the blood rushing south from his brain. He decided they were true enough. “I made the choices I thought were right at the time.”
She lowered herself until her moist heat rested on his erection and then she slid up and back, stroking him. He arched his hips and this time she didn’t pull away. “Say, ‘I did not fire the weapon that hurt or killed any member of my team.’”
“I might as well have.”
Ravyn separated her body from his and he groaned. He could see it cost her, but it just about killed him.
“Wrong answer. Wanna try that again?”
He grit his teeth, but the words seemed to come out anyway. “I did not fire the weapon that injured or killed any member of my team.”
He could barely keep his eyes open as she rubbed against him once more. The feel of her sliding on his shaft was just too good. It took him a minute to recall he should be watching for her to lose control and end this game. She didn’t say a word for a long time, long enough for him to not care about anything but what she did to him.
“‘I did the best I could.’”
Damon hesitated and Ravyn halted, albeit reluctantly. He noted she all but panted, but he couldn’t take advantage of her arousal. Not when her dead stop left him feeling frenzied. His fingers twitched. Though she’d slackened her hold enough that he needn’t worry about hurting her, he didn’t try to twist free.
“I did the best I could,” he said, each word pulled from him. “Now keep moving.” She did and he groaned his thanks. Right now, he didn’t care about anything but release.
“You like this?” she asked, breathless.
“Oh, yeah, sweet pea, but I want inside you.”
“Not yet.”
“Ravyn,” he objected, but she swooped down, cutting off his protest with a kiss that demanded his total compliance.
“‘I am not responsible for Sam’s injuries or anyone’s death.’”
“That’s not fair.” Damon knew now that she wasn’t going to let him find his pleasure until she got the words she wanted.
“Neither is blaming yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. I can hold out longer than you can.”
“Just because I say the words, doesn’t mean I believe them.” But he knew she was right about outlasting him. As close as he was, he would say just about anything to join his body with hers.
“I know that. I’m betting, though, that just saying it will be enough to get you to start thinking. Get you to forgive yourself. No one blames you but you.” Her voice had a thready quality to it that did not diminish the vehemence of her belief.
“And the colonel,” he pointed out.
“Sammy doesn’t blame you. The parents of those who died don’t blame you. Alex’s opinion doesn’t count. He’s not necessarily reasonable when it comes to people he cares about.”
“That’s good news,” he commented with as much dryness as he could manage given that he was so hard he didn’t know if he would live through the experience. “He finds out about us, he is going to kill me. You realize that, don’t you?”
Ravyn smiled down at him. “Don’t worry, honey. I won’t let my big brother hurt you.”
His laugh came out sounding pained. She moved just enough to keep a fine edge on his need. He didn’t know why, but Ravyn managed to reach a part of him no one else had ever touched. He felt a warmth for her he couldn’t name. Never in his life had he seen a more beautiful sight than the woman straddling his hips. “Ravyn, please. I need you.”
“You know the magic words, and I don’t mean ‘open sesame.’”
She had him laughing again, even though he didn’t have the breath to spare. “It’s not my fault. Not that the major got injured or that the others died.” He might have said it, but it lacked sincerity. Ravyn hadn’t asked for that though. “Now, sweet pea. You promised.”
She shifted enough for him to slide home in one smooth thrust. This ride wasn’t going to be slow and easy, not with his control shattered. He was so close. “Harder,” he told her. Her inexperience showed in the timidness of her movements. He freed his hands then, moving them to her hips and guiding her into his strokes. His pace was fast and furious, and she braced her hands against his chest. Each finger burned her brand into his skin. He released one of her hips, finding the center of her pleasure. He’d be damned if she wasn’t coming with him.
“Oh, Damon. Yes!”
And she was there. He could feel it. He exploded inside her with a power he’d never experienced before. His. She was his. He might have even muttered that when he pressed his mouth against the long, elegant line of her throat as she lay over him.
He didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but he was nowhere near recovered when she said, “That’s why you went Spec Ops, isn’t it?”
“What?” It took all his concentration just to breathe, how could Ravyn be ready to talk?
“What happened that day. It’s why you applied to Spec Ops.”
He forced his brain back to work. “Yeah,” Damon admitted with more than a little reluctance. He thought they were done with this conversation. “I figured if I had more training, learned more, I wouldn’t make those kinds of mistakes again.”
She lifted herself up just enough to scowl down at him. With a smile, he rubbed her bottom in a gesture of surrender. He wouldn’t survive a second go-round of Ravyn’s positive-reinforcement technique. She settled herself against him again with a sigh that sounded contented. He could have stayed like that forever, their bodies joined, but Ravyn’s stomach growled. She tensed, probably in embarrassment, but Damon smiled. “I brought food in the pack,” he told her, giving the cheek his hand rested on a small squeeze.
With more than a little reluctance, Damon lifted her off him and left their bed. By the time he turned around, pack in hand, Ravyn had donned her nightgown again. “You didn’t have to dress for dinner on my account,” he said.
She blushed, but didn’t answer. He sat beside her on the bed and spread out the food he’d gathered. Ravyn seemed oddly pensive, like she’d put a wall of reserve between them. He didn’t like the idea that she’d distanced herself emotionally from him. Damon could only come up with one reason why. While he’d been relaxed and relieved that she didn’t blame him for the fiasco eight years ago, he’d forgotten her beloved Alex hated him. What were the odds she would anger the stepbrother who’d raised her for a man she’d known such a short time?
Usually Ravyn chattered to fill a silence, but today he found himself doing it. “As soon as we get back home, I’m going to have myself a big,
inch thick steak, rare. Green beans and a baked potato on the side. You dream of baths, I dream of beef.” Granted, his words weren’t haha funny, but Ravyn managed only a weak smile of acknowledgment.
He hadn’t felt a panic like this since he’d seen Conway run and knew he and the others were sitting ducks. Damon swallowed hard and tried a different subject. “How did you know the way to turn on the lights and the water? And to do this?” He gestured to the clear wall off to the side.
Ravyn swallowed the food she chewed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I just knew.”
Damon frowned. He wanted something more concrete than that. After all, he hadn’t forced her to throw up last night because he’d trusted she knew what she had done. He didn’t want to hear she’d just known. “What? You’re psychic?” His trepidation made the words come out harsher than he intended. Ravyn finally looked at him again and her eyes had a snap to them that relieved some of his worry. He swallowed the apology he’d been forming.
“I’ve always known things. Not anything useful, like a luxury hotel having a structural collapse or that a killer would wipe out the CAT team, but other things. It’s gotten stronger since I arrived on Jarved Nine and stronger still since, well, what happened.” The temper seeped from her to be replaced by shadows, and he knew she was remembering the massacre. She looked away for a moment, and when she finally met his gaze again, he noticed she looked beaten. A sound of protest escaped him.
His tough little sweet pea suddenly seemed fragile, as if one careless touch or comment would shatter her. Damon wished he knew how to help her, to breach the chasm between them. “Finish eating, Ravyn,” he said with care. “Even if you’re not hungry any longer, you need to keep your strength up.”
That she followed his directive without a discussion first didn’t bring him any pleasure. The woman who knelt beside him now was not the same woman who had climbed on top of him and insisted he repeat after her. He wasn’t sure who this new person was, but it wasn’t the Ravyn he knew.
His fear went soul deep. He’d been alone since his birth, untethered to anyone. He’d tried to find a home in the army, had made some good friends, but they’d had their own ties, their own parents, brothers, sisters, wives, children. Damon had about given up finding anyone he belonged to. Then he’d met Ravyn. She sat with her head bent, silently eating. If she severed the connection between them now... He swallowed hard, something inside bleeding at the loss he knew was coming.