Operation: Endurance

by Christi Snow

  “I need you to….” His lowered voice stuttered to a halt as her soft, warm lips engulfed him. He moaned at the ecstasy of the wet heat of her mouth. It had been so long since a woman touched him and to know this time that it was Julie. This was pure heaven.

  A voice straight out of his nightmares spoke, filled with hatred and menace, “I can make sure you never fuck again.”

  Chris’s eyes flew open and straight into the black evil eyes of the man who’d tortured him for months. He scrambled back to get away from the molten hot poker, but couldn’t move. Suddenly he was chained down to that chair, naked in that god-awful hovel in Colombia. He tensed waiting for the blinding heat and pain he knew was coming next. Not again. Please not again.

  Instead he awoke, tangled in his sheets, drenched in sweat and gasping for air.

  Fuck.

  He sat up and looked over at the clock while he rubbed his left knee.

  3:48 AM.

  He’d gotten more sleep than normal. This time he slept for a solid 2 ½ hours before the nightmares woke him.

  He ran his hands through his hair and propped his elbows on his knees as he looked down at his flaccid cock. The dreams always seemed so real, both the ecstasy and the agony of them. Unfortunately, agony always followed the ecstasy so he never knew if the phantom pleasure was real or not. From all the physical signs, he really wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that.

  But focusing on his damaged cock wasn’t going to change anything. He got up and threw on some running shorts and an old ragged t-shirt. He’d come off the crutches a couple of weeks before and was working his damnedest to get back in shape for Mad Rob, the government contracting flight company and jump school he started with his brother, Colton, and their friend, Jake. He still felt the lingering repercussions of the months of torture on his body, but he was getting better. Every day he was physically stronger.

  After one too many sleepless nights, he learned that it helped to exorcise his nightly demons by exercising. He was tying his shoes when he heard the whisper of Cassie’s movement down the hall.

  As his twin, she always knew when the nightmares hit him. He knew she’d seen visions of him while he’d been imprisoned. He only hoped that she was just getting impressions of his nightmares now and not actually sharing the full reality of them. Honestly, he’d been too afraid to ask, not sure if he really wanted to know the truth of how much she was seeing into his completely fucked-up psyche.

  She just looked at him as they met quietly at the front door. He could see the concern in her eyes, but he didn’t want to talk about it. She joined him as he took off jogging down the sidewalk. Cassie ran an average of eight to ten miles every day, but he wasn’t up for that kind of pace yet. As it was, he could already feel the tendrils of pain ricocheting up and down his leg. She loped in beside him, simply giving him company and the comfort of her presence as he decompressed from the images in his nightmares.

  As they ran, he grimaced at the sound of his lungs already sucking in wind. It was going to take forever for him to get to his pre-captivity level of health. Back then, it would take five miles before his heart rate even started to rise.

  He looked over at Cassie in the glow of the streetlights. They hadn’t said a word to one another yet and she still looked half asleep.

  “Jake is going to be happy when I move out so you’ll stay in bed until a decent hour again,” he gasped out. Jake was her fiancé and his best friend. Their wedding was in two weeks.

  Cassie, damn her, wasn’t even breathing hard as she laughed. “Jake likes it when I leave early. You should see him roll over and immediately cover the whole bed. It’s enough to make a girl feel really unwelcome.”

  He smiled at the thought. “I don’t think you have an issue there. I can’t imagine Jake ever not wanting you in his bed. You have the guy completely wrapped around your little finger.”

  She smiled softly. “That goes both ways.”

  His heart wrenched. He was happy for them. He really was. How many guys were lucky enough to have their best friend marry their sister, but it left him feeling like a third wheel.

  And it looked less and less likely that he’d ever find the same thing. A part of him mourned the loss of his own future family he’d once dreamed about…but that was before being held captive by a madman for six months. He’d just have to be the best uncle ever to both his siblings’ future kids.

  Cassie interrupted his depressing mental reverie. “Are you sure you want to move out? You won’t have a running partner anymore starting tomorrow.”

  “You mean I can’t come over and drag you out of bed at oh-dark-thirty again tomorrow?”

  “Actually I wish you would, just so I’m sure I’ll fit in my wedding dress. But I don’t think you will, will you?”

  “Cass, it’s time for me to stand on my own two feet and deal with this shit by myself. You’re already too caught up in it as it is. There are times I hate how in tune we are and that you get all that garbage in your head, too.”

  She grabbed his arm and yanked him to a stop so she could face him. He bent over gasping for air while she looked like they’d just been for a stroll.

  “I’m not. My connection to you is one of the best things about my life. I don’t want to hear you talk crap about it. Yes, right now there’s some not so fun stuff happening in your head, but it’s happening mainly to you. I just barely get a taste of the god-awful things going on in there.”

  Her forehead creased with concern and the compassion showing through her eyes shattered him.

  “I hate that. I hate that it’s happened and continues to torture you. I hate that I can’t make it stop. I hate that I can’t take the pain away. But I love you and I want to be here for you. If our connection makes it easier to understand what you’re going through then, hell yes, I’m thankful for it.”

  She trembled with the force of her emotion.

  He pulled her in for a quick hug, thankful she was in his corner. “Okay, calm down, Rambo. I didn’t mean to get you so worked up. I’m fine. Come on let’s finish our run. I still have a few more boxes to pack.”

  * * *

  Julie washed her hands and looked down at the flour-covered piece of marble. Her sight blurred as tears filled her eyes. Only 4:46 AM and already crying again. She blew out a frustrated sigh, getting angry with herself. She needed to suck it up.

  Aaron had bought her this huge marble piece for her bread-making. He used to love it when she was in the kitchen cooking. He would come in and wrap his strong arms around her waist, saying that since her hands were busy, he was free to take advantage. In his world, her cooking was a win-win for him. Would he have resented the fact she was making bread for another man?

  She shook her head, angry with herself for starting the day off on a sad note…again. Of course he wouldn’t. She was being an idiot. Aaron had been too nice a guy. He would have pushed her to get on with her life. He never would have been bothered by the fact that she was using his gift to make food for another guy.

  Aaron never knew that when they met, she’d been mourning Chris’s death. A death that didn’t actually happen. They didn’t find out Chris was still alive until six months later and by then, she was already committed to dating Aaron.

  And now Aaron was the one dead, murdered by a sniper’s bullet simply because he knew her and her friends. He’d gotten caught up in a Mexican Mafia vendetta against her friend, Penelope.

  The guilt crippled her. Aaron had deserved so much better. He’d been such an incredible guy. The tears rolled silently down her cheeks as she wrapped her hands protectively around her middle. So much guilt. Guilt over Aaron. And now Chris was moving next door and she was using Aaron’s beautiful piece of marble to make Chris a welcome to the neighborhood gift.

  It was all so wrong. But she knew Aaron wouldn’t appreciate her wallowing like this. She was stronger than this and she shouldn’t dishonor his memory by letting her mix of grief and guilt win. He’d died over a month ag
o. It was time for the waterworks to stop. Starting now. She wiped the tears off her cheeks and stood up, pushing her shoulders back.

  She had Cassie’s wedding details to finalize, a breakfast to make, patients who needed her, and students to teach. Her life was full and there was plenty to keep her busy. She was strong and could do this. One step at a time. One day at a time.

  She read over her chocolate babka recipe as she worked to flatten the dough and then glanced at the clock. It would still be warm when Chris and their friends arrived to start moving him into the townhouse next door.

  Living next door to Chris… She glanced back out her kitchen window to Chris’s new front door. The sun was just starting to light up the sky. Was she going to be able to maintain her distance from him? It had been so hard since he came back, so wounded, so hurt. She wanted nothing more than to be able to wrap her arms around him, but she’d been with Aaron. And Chris had made it more than apparent that he wanted her to maintain her distance. Now, given their history and his impending proximity, distance was an impossibility. But where did this leave them? She still wanted to wrap him in her arms, but she’d given up that right when she’d accepted his death the year before. Another man for which she felt entirely too much guilt over.

  * * *

  Moving day. It was past time for him to move out of Cassie’s house. Chris lifted the last box into the moving truck, wondering for the fiftieth time that morning if this was a huge mistake. Could he live next door to Julie? Of course the answer was yes. There was nothing to stop him, especially since he’d already signed the lease and had the keys to the townhouse in his pocket. But was it really a good idea?

  There was no doubt Julie wasn’t in a good place in her head right now, the dark circles under her eyes became more pronounced daily as her clothes became baggier. But would his move make that better or worse? All their friends could see nothing but positive things about him moving in to watch over her. They all knew she was drowning under her grief from Aaron’s death. But they didn’t know about the history between the two of them, and he feared this might risk her mental state even more.

  No one knew what happened that Valentine’s Day weekend fourteen months ago and both he and Julie had carefully avoided discussing it since he’d been back. That was better though. There was no repairing the damage done by his broken promise. He’d promised he’d come back healthy and safe. That didn’t happen. They were both very different people now than they’d been then. They could only move forward and that meant helping Julie to heal.

  Chris squinted into the sun. Damn, only April 25th and it was already too damn hot in the West Texas sun. He rubbed his left knee to ease the ache. He probably shouldn’t have run this morning, as this day was shaping up to be a hard test for the newly re-formed knee. Made up of more steel plates, screws and rods now than original body parts, this knee probably qualified for bionic status. Too bad it didn’t feel that way.

  “You’re barely off those crutches. Why don’t you let Jake and I handle the rest of the carrying for the day?” His older brother, Colton, stepped around him in his usual take-charge manner.

  Chris tried to curb the irritation that came from dealing with Colton’s attitude. The two of them had come a long way, but his heavy-handedness with Chris still chafed. “I’ll be fine. I talked to my physical therapist earlier in the week and told her I was moving. She said the knee was strong enough to handle the extra stress. Don’t worry, Colt. I have no intention of doing something that will land me back on crutches. I never want to see those things again.”

  Colton struggled to keep his mouth shut and Chris had to work to hide his smile. Colt’s girlfriend, Penelope, was good for him. Any given day, Colton was incredibly bossy and overbearing, but now he’d physically bite his tongue when he knew he was about to overstep. The guy would be lucky if he had a tongue left after ten years of marriage to her.

  But from what he’d seen of the two of them together, Penelope wanted to keep Colton’s tongue in good shape. Their public displays of affection were damn distracting. These days it seemed like everyone in his family was getting some but him, which brought him right back to Julie again.

  She’d been the last girl he kissed. The last one he made love to before that fated deployment. She seemed so damaged now. He wanted to pull her into his arms and protect her.

  He was worried about her. They all were. Julie was the quiet one and didn’t share much with any of them, but they could all see her struggle and it was becoming more and more painful to watch. When the townhouse next door to hers had opened up at the exact same time he was looking to find a new place to live, their group of friends thought it was a perfect twist of fate. Someone needed to be near her to make sure she didn’t sink into that dark place where they could all see she was headed. He was the natural one to do so.

  Cassie and Jake emerged from the house, carrying his grandfather’s prized leather recliner between them. They all loved that chair and the security it represented, but had decided long ago that Cassie should be the one to keep it since she lived in their grandfather’s house. He looked at Cassie questioningly while he ran over to relieve her of her side of the chair, but by doing so, he halted the forward momentum of it to the truck.

  “Why are you carrying this to the moving truck?”

  She shrugged like it was no big deal, but he knew better. The two of them were six and Colton was ten when their parents died in a plane crash and they moved in with their grandfather. They never knew him before that point, but the twins managed to bond with their grandfather through this chair. He’d spent many hours reading to them in it and this chair was still Cassie’s favorite place to curl up and read in her bedroom.

  “Since Jake moved in, we have too much furniture. Unfortunately, you don’t have much after last year. You need it more than I do now.”

  “Cass, I can’t—”

  She shook her head. “Yes, you can and will. This chair has good karma and you need that in your new place. Consider it your housewarming gift from me.”

  He searched her eyes and could see her sincerity. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Thanks, Cass.”

  “Holding a chair here and it’s much heavier than it looks. Less loving, more moving.” Jake sounded annoyed.

  He smirked at Jake, although he could secretly admit he was feeling the weight of it, too. “Are you already worn out, old man? We’ve hardly even started.”

  “Bite me!”

  “Aw man, you’ve totally got the wrong twin for that one. I know I’m irresistible and all, but you’re gonna break Cass’s heart.” He smiled at Cassie and she just rolled her eyes at him. “Besides, it would never work out for us. She’s already bought her dress and she’d never let either of us hear the end of it if she had to return it now.”

  They’d started to make some forward momentum again, but now Cassie stepped in front of Jake, halting progress. She pressed her hand against his chest and looked at Jake with sultry eyes.

  Chris didn’t need to see this. He rolled his eyes.

  Her voice was low when she said, “And believe me, you really want to see that dress.”

  “You know I’m counting the days, darling.” Jake dipped his head to nuzzle on Cassie’s neck where her long red hair was pulled up in a ponytail, jostling the chair they held at the same time.

  Chris tried to ignore the spasms of pain radiating out from his knee, while he waited for Jake and Cassie to stop cuddling. Damn, it was going to be a long day.

  * * *

  Julie heard the moving van pull up out front and she quickly closed the top of the coffee carafe. She walked out her front door which was actually on the side of her house, facing Chris’s front door. The townhouses were more like apartments in that way. As she pulled it closed behind her, Jake and Cassie hopped out of the cab of the moving truck while Chris and Colton pulled his truck up behind it.

  Her glance lingered over Chris. He already looked worn out. While he definitely
looked better and had begun to bulk back up to his former muscular frame, there was no hiding the fact he wasn’t sleeping. The dark circles under his eyes screamed his exhaustion. He wouldn’t appreciate her observance though so she turned her gaze to the rest of the group.

  She smiled at them in greeting. “Good morning, everyone. I hope it’s okay, but I set up breakfast in my dining room if you need caffeine or sustenance before all that work.” She nodded her head at the trucks behind them.

  “Okay?” Cassie asked as she smirked at Julie. “Have you ever known these guys to turn down food?”

  Julie smiled back. “That’s kind of what I was counting on.”

  “Caffeine? Does that mean coffee?” Jake looked at her hopefully. She nodded and started them back over to her town house.

  “Coffee and food. The chocolate babka just came out of the oven.” She led them into her house.

  Colton and Chris moaned in unison. Chris asked, “Is that the same chocolate babka you made for New Year’s Day?”

  She forced a smile, wishing she could just act normally around him for a change. He’d just been out of the hospital for about a week when she’d made the babka and he still hadn’t had much of an appetite. He ate three servings of it that day. It was such a little thing, but it had been the first interest he’d shown in anything and the first glimmer toward recovery for him. Knowing how much he liked it was the main reason she’d made it today. “It is. I thought it would make a good welcome to the neighborhood breakfast.”

  “Thanks for this Julie. You really did way too much, but I appreciate it.” Chris spread his hands out over the over-the-top spread of food and drinks on the table. Like her, he seemed to have issues meeting her eyes. This awkwardness sucked.

  Colton looked at Chris. “I think I moved in with the wrong friend. If she does this for you often, I may just have to move in with you.”

  They all laughed, but it was Chris who said what they were all thinking. “Like you would ever give up what you have with Penelope.”