by Lila Munro
“I’m sorry about the cold,” Connor said, stepping in behind her and kicking the door shut. “And the mess. I’ve not been here much lately.”
Pulling her coat a bit tighter around her frame, Jodi searched the wall with one hand looking for the light switch she knew was near as Connor made his way seemingly by internal radar down the hall. When the lamp on the entry way table came to life and shrouded the area in dull, pale yellow light, she saw he wasn’t lying. It looked like he’d been coming home from work, dropping his gear at the door, undressing on the way to the bedroom, ordering take-out only to eat less than half of it and leave the container where it fell, and, if she had to guess, leaving for the club. And Jodi knew Connor. He was going to Steele Image to try to drown whatever was going on in his mind he couldn’t let go of, not to play. He played with no one but her and only when she offered.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t actually contacted her to play for the last four years. For the first few years after their divorce, he’d call and tell her he needed her. Then he’d stopped and Jodi could only presume he just expected her services. Yeah, the buck was going to stop. She had needs, too, and she was sick of being exploited and letting herself reach out when she knew what the result would be. He always found center after a weekend full of sessions, she left wanting, and they didn’t speak again until one of his friends called because he was so far down the rabbit hole again they were afraid for him.
Fuck. That.
What about when she was down the rabbit hole?
Desperate was one thing, but stupid and self-destructive was quite another. At this point as far she was concerned, they were teetering on self-destruction. Either they learned to live together or learned to live apart. No more divorced, friends with benefits, bullshit.
Jodi took a seat on the edge of the leather couch and scooted forward when the backs of her thighs came into contact with the frigid material which stung her like a frozen prod. She hadn’t been perched there long when Connor returned, club clothes gone replaced by a pair of olive green sweats, wool socks, and a black sweat shirt with Army Strong emblazoned on the front in peeling gold letters.
“I left you something warmer on the bed. If you want, have a hot shower and I’ll order some take-out…” he trailed off, looking critically at the mess of white, waxy Chinese boxes with bright red Kanji on the sides, assorted brown cartons from various generic, local pizza joints, and a smattering array of colorful paper sacks containing half-eaten hamburgers and bits and pieces of soggy French fries. Stunned realization of his own living conditions hit his eyes. “I’ll clean up, too. And build a fire.”
With that he turned his back on her and went to the fireplace, crouching in front of it and pulling the grate back to stuff some kindling beneath two logs which had clearly been placed there and forgotten.
Jodi’s heart ached as she watched him working, his muscles straining against the soft lines of the fabric draping his body. She still loved Connor so much it hurt. Before she let the brevity of it grip her, she rose and left the living room determined to pull herself together before they had it out.
When she set foot in his bedroom, the familiarity of it welcomed her and taunted her at the same time. How long had it been since she’d been here? Spent the night with him in his bed rather than their regular room at the club? When had their relationship become clinical and robotic? Detached? Impersonal? What kind of game had they been playing for the last few years with each other? One which had to stop, this much she knew to be true.
He’d carefully placed a pair of pink camouflaged lounge pants on what she once considered her side of the bed, although currently the entire thing was rumpled beyond any sort of sleeping condition at all, along with a white, cotton, long sleeve shirt with her motto printed on the back. Women Marines, the fewer the prouder. Damn straight. The smallest branch of the mainstream services, it also contained the least amount of females who’d earned the title and Jodi made it her personal crusade to prove herself more worthy than any man her peer. No wonder they teased her and whispered behind her back at times. She was beginning to wonder if it was even worth it.
She was actually surprised these clothes were still here. They’d have to have been for years and she wondered why Connor hadn’t just tossed them out by now. With trembling fingers, more from nerves than cold at this point if Jodi was being honest, she picked up the shirt and held it to her nose. Interesting. The house might be a pig sty right now, but these had recently been laundered. When she laid them back down, she noted the absence of underwear. It had to be an oversight. He was too rattled to be thinking about seducing her. Not that he would anyway. Anything remotely close to emotional intimacy had been gone from their relationship for a long time. It was a circumstance she regretted.
The hot water shooting out of the shower head when she stepped in stabbed her icy skin like tiny daggers and it took a few minutes for her flesh to warm enough the tingling stopped. It was when she was heated enough to think clearly and acknowledge her surroundings the overwhelming scent of Connor enveloped her and seeped into the very fiber of being. His soap, his shampoo, his shaving gel. So much for trying to clear her head enough to have their talk.
Laying her forehead against the shower wall, Jodi gave herself a pep talk and willed her body to stop its hungry response to Connor’s invisible presence. Why after all these years did her body still crave him? His touch? Wanting him haunted her and right now it just plain pissed her off.
Jodi set her jaw, tamped down her desires, and stepped out of the shower, her hair clinging to her shoulders and cheeks in a stringy mass. Preparing to do battle, she dug her clip out of her bag and pinned her hair up, headed back into the bedroom, and got dressed.
Before any type of altercation took place, she would insure she had somewhere to sleep when the smoke had cleared no matter the outcome. Going to the linen closet, she took out a clean set of sheets and went about making the bed a more enticing place to lie down. When the task was complete, Jodi tossed the dirty sheets in the hamper, picking up the stray clothes lying all around it and adding them to the stash, then steeled herself and left the room.
They had less than forty-eight hours to either make this or break it and not since boot camp had she wanted anything over with so badly in her life.
Chapter Seven
She found Connor in the living room stuffing the last of the fast food containers in a trash bag. While it wasn’t in perfect order, the place looked a hell of a sight better than it had a half-hour prior. Flames licked the inside of the fireplace and the chill was already dissipating replaced by the warmth and aroma of wood heat. Needing to help in some way, thinking it might help the man come center more quickly if his world was neat and tidy as it always was when things were right in the land of special ops, Jodi dragged a dusting cloth and some furniture polish, a bottle of Febreeze, and the vacuum from the closet in the hall and went to work.
“What are you doing?” he asked, stopping between the living room and kitchen, the now closed trash bag in one hand.
“Helping,” Jodi explained, plumping the pillows on the couch.
“I think I’ve expected enough help. Too much actually. It would seem I’ve been quite the ass. You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t. I want to.” Setting the cushions to right, she continued her mini-cleaning spree by spraying the curtains and filling the room with the scent of what some moron interpreted as the rain forest but was more like peaches met a watermelon. It was better than the stale smell which had been lingering prior, however. “And although you’ve not denied you want me here, I didn’t have to come and I don’t have to stay. This isn’t all your fault.” Setting the bottle down and placing her hands on her hips, she looked around for a moment noticing the glaring lack of a woman’s presence in his home. She wondered how long it had taken him to erase any sign of her ever having been here. “You know, I never minded keeping the house. In fact, I liked that part of our marriage. Hav
ing the house clean and a meal on the table when you got in. Well, when our schedules allowed it.” She squirted some lemony foam on the cloth before running it across the coffee table changing the tone from tawny to almost mahogany in one sweep. “You know, the wife part of the marriage.”
“If I’d backed off and let you do all that stuff alone, would it have changed things?” he asked, watching her move with battlefield precision around the room, shining this and that until the place started to look habitable again.
“No, there was more that needed fixed than those things.” While she was plugging in the vacuum, the doorbell rang. “Please tell me there’s someone on the porch other than a representative of a pizza place, Chinese joint, or fast food establishment.”
“There is.” Connor set the trash bag down just inside the laundry room which led to the garage off the carpet and answered the door. After paying the man and taking the bags from him, he disappeared into the kitchen.
By the time Jodi finished her work in the living room, Connor had yet to emerge and after stowing the cleaning supplies back in the closet, she wandered through the entryway to find him just finishing transferring the food from the plastic containers to real plates.
“How long’s it been since you had anything from Jason’s?” he asked, scooping the last of some bowtie pasta with grilled veggies into a shallow bowl and setting it beside the already dressed Caesar salads and a plate of penne with red sauce and grilled chicken on top. Two tiny containers filled with a variety of cookies and dessert bars sat unopened. “If you’d rather, we can eat in the dining room. Or we can sit in front of the fire place. It’s warmer in there.”
“Fireplace,” Jodi said. “I’ll go put a blanket down so we don’t get crumbs on the carpet. I just…”
“Vacuumed.” Connor looked up with a half-smile. “I understand more than you think. So, is it safe to open a bottle of red since we’re obviously not going to be playing tonight?”
“Is this a date?” she asked, backing up a few steps with one hand on her hip and the other at the base of her throat.
“Would that be so bad if it is?”
“I’m not sure.” An unwelcome and unfamiliar fear crept over Jodi as she spun on her heel and marched back into the living room.
Minutes later, they sat cross-legged in front of the now blazing fire an uncomfortable heavy silence surrounding them.
“We were too young,” Connor started, setting his bowl on the hearth, his food mostly untouched. He picked up his glass and swirled the contents before turning it up and draining it, returning it to its roost beside his bowl then leaning back on his palms.
“I know that,” Jodi said, her dish joining his. The only difference in their actions was she drained her glass, refilled it, and downed another half-glass before coming up for air. As hard as she’d tried to convince herself she was steady as a rock, the reality was she was shaken to the core. “We had no idea what we were, what we wanted, or how to ask for it or explain it.”
“We’re older now.” Glancing at her, his eyes sent a signal she’d not seen pass between them in ages and a knot of pure carnal need shot through her at the sight of raw hunger in Connor’s pupils. “Nervous?”
“Depends.” She cleared her throat and finished her second glass, a rush of warmth spreading from her insides and to her extremities. One last chug straight from the bottle and Jodi spread out on her side, propping her head up in her palm. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
“Do you need seduced?” Connor sat upright and brushed her bangs off her forehead with so much tenderness she was sure her heart cracked a little bit.
“Not really. Not tonight. I want you.” Closing her eyes, she reveled in his touch knowing she was doomed and knowing she’d probably regret this in the morning. But the hope of a few minutes of how things used to be between them coupled with the amount of liquid fortification she’d had drove any thought of fleeing from her mind. “I need you. I’ve needed you for so long.”
“I know. I just don’t know if I can give you everything you need, babe.” He made his way to his knees and crawled to Jodi, rolling her to her back and caging her in.
“Can we start with the immediate need for tonight and discuss the rest later?” Jodi asked, running her palms up the outside of his arms.
“Yeah.”
“Can you just…”
“Yeah. I can,” Connor said, lowering his head until their mouths touched. He almost seemed hesitant, as if assessing the familiarity of her. It appeared he deemed the minimal contact as recognizable and that endearing half-smile Jodi loved about him spread. He eased his tongue out to trace the outline of her lips. “Can you let me?” he whispered, sitting back on his heels and pulling her up to sitting between his thighs. He fingered the hem of her shirt, the question shining in his eyes.
“Yeah.”
In one tug, her tee was up and over her head, tossed to the side, and Connor’s hands were everywhere at once, palming her breasts, running up her back, gripping her hair as his mouth found her throat and his teeth sank into the place where it met her shoulder. While he assaulted her every sense, Jodi struggled to find solid ground, her hands as busy as his. Whimpering into his mouth which had once again found hers, she pulled his sweatshirt up his back disrupting his exploration of her tingling flesh to pull it up and over his shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
Impatient, Jodi pulled his sweats down to discover he had no underwear either when his stiff as a steel rod dick bobbed out at her. Not in the right frame of mind for seduction? Right. Unable to reach past his thighs without somehow finding a way to her knees, she leaned back on her palms, snaked her legs out from between his and used her feet to push the material past his knees before using one hand to work her own down far enough to worm one leg free right before Connor pushed her back down and sank inside her.
“Jesus Christ,” he mumbled, touching his forehead to hers. “I’ve missed you so much, babe.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Jodi whispered back, wrapping her legs around his waist and curling her arms up his back, grasping his shoulders. “Fuck me.”
“Gladly.”
Although Jodi knew they’d not had honest to God, real, raw and uninhibited sex in longer than she cared to remember, their bodies seemed clueless to the fact they’d been separated for so long. Without reservation, Connor found his stride and as his body coaxed hers into following the rhythm he set, Jodi just let it happen. She didn’t fight it, didn’t try to control it. She simply let Connor do exactly as she’d asked, fuck her, completely and thoroughly.
With sweat rolling off her sides, Jodi struggled to find enough breath to send his name off her lips when a wave of heat flew through her and she arched into him, her pussy contracting, holding Connor hostage as he emptied himself deep inside her.
For a moment they were a frozen mass of stiff limbs and irregular heartbeats then Jodi relaxed, her legs falling to his sides weak and rubbery. Like a balloon that had a slow leak, she deflated beneath him and opened her eyes that ached from being screwed shut so tightly.
“Shit,” she gasped, running one hand over her forehead, pushing her damp hair back.
“Yeah, shit,” Connor rasped back, easing off her and settling to her side on his back.
Chapter Eight
An hour later, they’d managed to make it to the bed and lay tangled together once again breathless. There was something to be said for just letting everything go and giving in to the idea of animalistic mating once in a while. No need to sort out who was in charge, no need for formality, no need for rules or thinking, just simple unadulterated love in its purest physical form.
“Want to talk about it?” Jodi finally asked as her heart slowed to its normal rate and she ran her foot along the inside of Connor’s right calf.
He stiffened before answering. “About?”
“About what happened over there?” Looking up to find his eyes were glued to the ceiling, she let one finger wander down the mid
dle of his chest before tracing one of his nipples.
“If you can listen without getting your panties in a bunch, jumping up, and getting on your phone when you hear it, yes.”
“Why would I get my panties in a bunch?” Jodi argued. Now just why he had to go and slap her offer of comfort and an ear square in the face was beyond her. No, combat talk wasn’t exactly the epitome of whispering sweet nothings in the afterglow, but for people in their world it was pretty normal. What as his problem?
“Because we got faulty intelligence.” Connor pushed away from her and sat up leaning back against the head board before reaching out and pulling open the top drawer of the night stand to retrieve a pack of Marlboros and a lighter.
“I knew you’d been doing that again,” she said, getting on her knees, snatching the signature red pack out of his hands and leaping off the side of the bed, landing smoothly on both feet.
She trotted off to his bathroom where she proceeded to flush the entire thing down the toilet. Then she shut the door and sat to relieve herself while she checked the anger Connor so clearly knew would come from her discovering some asshole in her own field had fucked up and helped get two men killed, not to mention sent the man she…loved…into a tail spin.
With her bladder empty and her attitude neatly tied in a bow, Jodi returned to the bedroom and slid back in bed. “There see?” she said, tugging the sheet up over her and rolling to her side to face him. “I didn’t flip out and call everyone I know.”
“I’m sure it took every ounce of your control, too,” Connor huffed.
“Look, I’m trying to be civilized here,” she snapped. “Would it kill you to do the same? We just shared something pretty amazing. I’d like to not ruin that right now.”
“Me either. That’s why I didn’t want to talk about what happened over there and why I’d rather talk about making pretty amazing a permanent condition.”
Jodi’s blood ran cold then hot. “What?”