Fractured

by Leanne Pearson

  Dominic tilts my chin, bringing my eyes back to his. He continues, “We’ve been at this for a while now, darlin’...I push, you pull back.” He’s right, I know. A torturous slow dance between two, not just one, damaged souls battling with their burdens of the past, yet inexplicably drawn to one another. I’ve yet to fully discover what has caused this beautiful man such pain in his life, but I know something went down while he was in Afghanistan. Whether it’s this, or a more personal loss, I still don’t know. I get the sense that whatever demons he has, he’s raging an internal battle to keep them at bay. I know that on some level he feels my pain, is willing to shoulder it, I just cant bring myself to open the door to him and let him in.

  If I loved and lost again… I. Would. Not. Recover.

  I tentatively reach up to grip his wrist, pulling it down. I look up into his eyes...I’m in trouble. Having this man this close to me when I’m trying and failing miserably to lock down my developing feelings and physical need for him. His eyes are slow burning. Molten. Desire has darkened his pupils so that there’s just a thin ring of blue around the edges. He sweeps a gaze over my face which drifts to my mouth. My legs start to tremble. “Dom, lets not...do this.” A tear escapes from my eye. I bite down on my lip. I so wish I could find it in myself to be swept away in this moment, to bury the pain, let this man tear down the walls I’ve so carefully constructed. I feel like I’m stuck in quicksand, trapped with no way out of this quagmire my emotions have become.

  His breath fans the side of my face as his husky voice whispers into my ear, “Don’t fight what’s growin’ between us. I can see you’re tearin’ yourself up inside about it...give into us, darlin’, you can’t hang onto guilt forever. Please stop punishin’ yourself. I can’t stand watchin’ you do this anymore. You deserve to be happy. Daniel would want you to find happiness again. I’m not trying to replace him, and you’d not be betrayin’ him by movin’ on. Please…just take a chance on us.”

  Damn him. That frigging American drawl of his is making my knees weak. I can’t think clearly when he’s this close, way inside my safety bubble. My resolve is slipping; I can feel it. Chancing a glimpse upwards, I’m not prepared for what I see reflected in his eyes. Raw need, and a look so intimate, I feel emotionally stripped to the bone.

  His words gut me at the same time causing my chest to constrict. He really shouldn’t mention Daniel, yet what he said was so sweet. His eyes hold me captive, his throaty voice soothing me in a way that I know if I had to hear it on a daily basis, I’d always feel safe, protected. Daniel had a similar effect on me. When I was completely freaking out about something, or overwhelmed, he’d hold me tight, and my fears and concerns would soon evaporate. Problems seemed infinitesimal when I was with Danny, and it is not lost on me that I’m starting to feel something strangely similar with Dominic. This scares me, as I’m already in too deep.

  He backs me up against the wall behind us, intertwining his fingers with mine, bringing our joined hands up on either side of my head. Bringing his face down to look deeply into my eyes, his mouth is mere centimetres from mine. Our eyes lock. I’m panting slightly, my body alive with sensation.

  Too late...my thoughts are stopped the minute his mouth closes over mine. I lose all sense and am just sensation. His tongue expertly skims past the seam of my lips, which open of their own accord. He deepens the kiss, my breath hitching as he pushes his body against mine and lets go of my hands to hold my face between his large calloused ones. My hands drop to flatten against the hard wall of his chest where they ball into fists as I clutch at his shirt, feeling boneless as his kiss penetrates the last layer of my resistance. Past, present, and future evaporate as my entire existence is caught up in this mind-blowing kiss.

  Dominic anchors his body to mine, propping me up as my legs buckle. My heart pounds in my chest, this reaction to him purely instinctive: Woman to Man. I can feel the answering thrum of his heart reverberating through the walls of his chest. Primal need. Our tongues entwine, hungry, demanding. We’re caught in a raging bushfire of want and heart-stopping desire. Gripping the back of my neck with one hand, he slides the other down my arm, gently slipping his hand through the slit of fabric up onto my shoulder. His fingers on my bare skin, coupled with the hardness of his arousal between my trembling thighs, causes another very audible hitch in my breath, an unbidden voltage of desire sweeps through me. I whimper into his mouth as my hands feel their way up his muscled chest to grip his shoulders.

  No, no, no. I’m breaking my own rules here. I’ve got to slow this the hell down, stop it right now before I cross a line I’m in no way ready to step over.

  I break the kiss, slipping down and under his arm entangled with my hair. I step to the side of him, immediately feeling bereft of his touch. “I’m sorry, Dom, I can’t do this,” I breathlessly manage to get out before barrelling back through the doors into the function room.

  Thank God our table is empty. Chase and Sarah must be dancing. A quick scan of the room confirms this. The music drowns out my rapid breathing, and I swallow a lump in my throat as I blindly fumble under the elaborate tablecloth to find my handbag. Locating it, I’m fortunate nobody notices as I quickly slip away.

  Choking back a sob, I run out into the hotel car park, briefly glancing back over my shoulder. Thankfully Dom hasn’t followed me out. My cell phone starts ringing in my bag. Dom, I guess. I rush to my car and bundle in, my face now swimming with rivulets of tears. Blindly swiping at my eyes, I slam the car into reverse, then make my way out onto the empty street. My cell starts ringing again. I ignore it. Taking an unsteady breath, I flick on the radio wanting to drown out the damn phone, and hopefully numb my mind of all conscious thought until I’m back at the unit, and can privately release the watershed of emotions threatening to breach the tentative grip I have on my composure.

  Adele booms to life as her husky voice fills the car, the lyrics of “Set Fire To The Rain”, hit me squarely in the gut like a battering ram. My chest constricts and a sob bursts from my throat. “Please God, no.” Realisation dawns. This man has somehow crept under my skin. Is he capable of saving me? God knows I’ve tried so hard to keep him out. I can still feel him pressed up against me, still smell his masculine scent, and still tingle from the hardness of his honed body taut with restraint as he took my mouth in his. The chemistry between us is electric. I don’t want this, don’t need this complication in my life. Do I?

  Tightening my grip on the steering wheel in an attempt to hold back a flood of tears, I swallow hard as Dominic’s words came back to me: “You’re deep in a free fall, sweetheart, I want to be the one to catch you. Let. Me. In. Please.” My reaction to him, to that kiss, must’ve been as transparent to him as it was to me, and it clearly wasn’t just my physical answering in that heated embrace, either. We crossed an emotional boundary tonight. That kiss broke me down and built me back up. That constriction in my chest grows tighter as this dawns on me.

  Barely focusing on the dark road ahead with Adele still haunting me with words that rip through my heart, I turn into the narrow road leading back to our unit, slip up the driveway, and cut the engine. Alone in the dark, my memory is assaulted with an image of that raw expression on Dominic’s face just before he kissed his way through the last vestiges of my self-imposed walls.

  Falling in love again was my greatest fear, but could my need for Dominic be greater than the fear of ever loving a man again? I crave our connection, his friendship. I don’t think this is just physical.

  I miss you, Danny. I wish it had been me. What do I do?

  * * *

  A while later, a soft knocking alerts me to somebody at the door. I squint through the peephole to see Dominic standing out in shadows, his handsome features partly hidden by the shadow of night. Opening the door to him slowly, tears spill over immediately. He steps towards me.

  “Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I pushed you. You’re obviously not ready for a relationship, for us. But, I just needed to see you safe
ly home,” he says while stroking my cheek gently, his voice tender. I hear resignation in his tone. Dropping his hand, he turns to leave.

  “D-don’t. Don’t go, Dom.”

  At my words, he stops with his back to me, shoulders rising and falling. I slowly close the distance between us, tentatively slipping my arms around to grip his chest, pressing my cheek against his broad back. I am done denying my compelling attraction to this man, and exhausted from fighting the force of my feelings for him that render me powerless to their onslaught. I breathe him in and tighten the grip I have around him.

  “I’m…willing to try. I’ll be honest. I’m scared of this, of us, Dom. I didn’t know I had the capacity to feel this strongly again about another man, certainly not this soon. It feels like I’m betraying Daniel. That may sound crazy because he’s gone, but it’s how I f-feel.” My voice cracks with the weight of emotion as I lose my composure on the last word. I take a deep ragged breath, slowly exhaling, gaining courage.

  “I want you. I shouldn’t. But I do. I want something with you, but I’m still in love with Danny. This doesn’t make any sense I know, and I don’t know where that leaves us. H-he’s the only man I’ve ever m-made love to,” I say in stutters before tears rob me of my ability to speak.

  Faster than I can blink, I’m in his arms. He grips my quivering chin gently with hands I notice are trembling. He brings his mouth down to mine and kisses me with such intensity, I feel like I’m soaring, every nerve ending in my body responding to his touch as he runs his hands up my body and into my hair. His fingertips on my skin leave a trail of fire in their wake. He plunders my mouth as a soft moan escapes my lips. My head drops back as his mouth consumes my neck, licking and tasting in a teasing path down towards the rise of my breasts. He suddenly pulls back to cradle my face again. We’re both breathless as he rests his forehead against mine, battling to regain some control.

  “It’s only ever been Daniel,” I whisper quietly.

  “I get it, darlin’. It’s okay. You’re fragile still. We’re gonna take this real slow. Although I think you need to change. This dress is stretchin’ the limits of my self control.”

  And he makes me smile…through my tears. Oh, this man.

  His hand rests on my waist, the other he moves up to place against the bare skin of my chest, his thumb moving in agonisingly slow circles across my heated skin. This floods my body with delicious currents of desire and flips the switch. Throwing caution to the wind, I move to satisfy an urgent craving to have my mouth on his body.

  “I don’t know that I want to go slow,” I purr, surprising myself with the force with which I grab his shirt, and wrench it apart with all my might. The sound of a few of his shirt buttons hitting the wooden floor, my rapid panting, and Dominic’s sudden intake of breath, are the only sounds in the room.

  “Darlin’,” he growls in warning.

  I rest my fingers over his mouth to silence him as I kiss the exposed skin of his chest, sweeping my mouth across the soft curls of his chest hair. I dart my tongue out to lave the tip of a nipple standing to attention, circling it slowly before taking it into my mouth, while raking my fingertips over the ridges of his stomach muscles, which undulate at my touch as he tightens his hold on me.

  Dom groans deeply in his throat: an intensely carnal sound that I respond to with a whimper of my own. In one movement, he grips my backside in his large hands and lifts me, slamming us against the wall. My legs band around his hips like a vice as he surges his thighs between mine, my short dress riding up easily. Just a few layers of material are all that separate our lust-crazed bodies that are humming with need, strung tight with all-consuming desire, and desperate for a physical release. My hands are all over him and it’s like he has more than two of his own, as I can feel the probing and palming of his fingers everywhere, all at once. We are that frenzied for each other.

  Daniel’s face flashes through my mind. I stiffen, panting hard, trying to catch my breath. I’m so torn. Guilt for my dead boyfriend is facing off against an insatiable hunger for this living, hard, hot man under my hands, and between my thighs. Dom senses my shift and halts his ministrations on my body by guiding my legs back down so I’m standing pressed up against him, but no longer wrapped around him. We’re both breathing hard, eyes fused to one another.

  He takes a deep breath. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”

  “I want you, Dominic. I n-need you. Just make me forget. Please. For one night, I want to l-lose myself in you, in us.”

  “I’m not after a one-night stand with you darlin’.”

  “You could have fooled me,” I say, pressing my hips against the evidence of his arousal.

  “Sweetheart, it wouldn’t be considered normal for me not to be sportin’ wood around you.” He chuckles softly.

  “I get that, Dom, but you’re a man with needs, and you’ve been unbelievably patient with me.”

  He runs his fingers across my face, then lifts my chin to meet his eyes.

  I melt under his touch and scrutiny. I would comply with anything he asked of me at this point.

  “Sweetheart, you are worth the wait. Not many things of value in life come easily. I’m not a seventeen-year-old-jock anymore. My days of one-night stands are over. You’re precious to me. I want things to be different with you.”

  He continues, “When I make love to you,” he nuzzles into my neck, “and we will be makin’ plenty of it darlin’, I want it to be free of regret. I’ve fucked up so much in my life, if any of the values the Marines taught me that I relate to, it’s honour, and I will do right by you. I will honour you by waitin’ until you’re ready for this, emotionally that is. I want our first time together to be all you remember, and never regret. Not for it to be a quick shag to numb your troubled mind for the night.”

  If it were possible for me to be any more in awe of this beautiful man, it is right now.

  Let him in? He’s already snuck into the most tender place in my soul, where my wound of loss is still raw. He is the salve.

  Marine Corps values of honour be damned. I want him. Need my hands on his hot and hard body again so badly I can’t see straight. How could he possibly think I’d regret a night with him?

  “I could never regret you, or anything between us, honey,” I whisper, sliding my hands around his neck. His grip on my hips tightens.

  “Yeah, you could, sweetheart. I want you free of the guilt and confusion about us that’s got you so tied up in knots. You need to be totally sure of us when we cross that line.”

  Conversation over, he stares into my eyes. “Kate, you are so beautiful,” he whispers before bringing his mouth down to kiss me. My knees weaken and all I can do is cling to him and hold on, unable to breathe sufficient air into my lungs whilst simultaneously kissing this man.

  The growl of an engine, and the crunch of gravel as a car pulls up outside my unit, cause us to pull apart. I then hear the sing-song lilt of Sarah’s drunken voice. Dominic quickly tries to right his shirt, and I smooth my hand over my hair before opening the door.

  Sarah swings out of Chase’s car, giggling.

  “Hey, you two, why did you disappear so quickly? The party had only just started,” she asks with a higher than usual pitch to her voice. Tanked. And I’m relieved actually. She’ll be too wasted to feel the vibe between Dominic and me.

  “I, uh, wasn’t feeling too great, so I came home. Dominic just stopped in to see if I was okay. I’m fine now,” I lie, while glancing into the car. Chase’s face is partly obscured in shadow so I can’t read his expression. I’m riddled with guilt and don’t know if this is evident on my face.

  “Yeah, I’ll uh…just grab my keys, will follow you shortly,” Dominic mumbles to Chase.

  Fortunately Sarah walked right past the couple of buttons from Dominic’s shirt. Thankfully, I didn’t rip them all off. That would have looked awful to Chase. Sarah passes out on the couch a few minutes later, before she has the chance to pepper me with questions about my dance with Domin
ic and what transpired after that.

  Dom and I spend another hour texting one another. His last one left me with a sleepy smile on my face and an ache between my legs.

  DOM: Can’t stop thinking about u. And I’m still hard as a rock.

  Chapter 20

  FALLING

  ~ Dominic, 24 October 2011. The next morning ~

  “Get down! Get the fuck down, Walker!” Tom screams out to Brent from my left, then a whistle precedes a deafening boom. I hit the ground, as all hell breaks loose. Shit, my ears. I shake my head to clear the dizziness. Something’s wrong with my hearing. Sound is muffled. “Fuck that was close. We need co-ordinates, Martinez!” Jake screams out. Mortar shells arc out from our gunners returning fire. Incoming rounds tear up the dirt in front of me. Dust fills my vision. Men are crawling through the dust ahead of me. A few break away from the others, dashing across a clearing in a crouched run, shouting in Arabic. I can see their silhouettes through the grit and dust. Shit.

  One is dead ahead...moving towards me. Twisting to locate my assault rifle, in a few seconds I ready it for fire. Chat-chat-chat-chat...my body jars in rhythm as rounds burst from my M16. He jerks forward before slowly dropping to the ground…

  I wake with a start, the sheet stuck to my body, saturated with sweat.

  God, I wish I wasn’t so broken. Will these fuckin’ nightmares ever stop?

  Taking a deep breath, I manage to slow my thundering heart while wondering how Kate is doing this morning. When she opened that door last night, and I saw just how torn with conflicting emotions she was, I took the punch that guilt delivered to my gut. I realised just how far I’d pushed her. I was an insensitive jerk the night before last, too. I took the flirting with her too far. Should’ve known better. Daniel’s been gone less than a year. Yeah, really sensitive, Dominic.

  I want her. God, I want her. And beneath all those layers of guilt, and anguish, she wants me too, needs me. She’d alluded to this fact on numerous occasions, before telling me outright last night. That’s the silver lining in this dark cloud, leaving me cautiously hopeful. But I’m gonna have to slow things down and ease her into us as a couple. Something I’ve never had to do with any woman. Up until I enlisted, Amber was suffocating and clingy. She didn’t do slow.