Keep My Baby Safe

by Bella Grant

  “That’s where you found Marina?”

  He nodded. “I should have known there would be no fucking phone. Marina could speak a little English, and she told me there was no phone. I left and was trying to steal a truck when she showed up in one. She’d stolen the keys from someone at the bar. She said she would take us to Palenque, the nearest town with an airport, but we had to take her to the U.S. with us. I would have agreed to anything at that point. I loaded Gret…Major Kork into the truck. As we drove, Marina said she was the town whore, and she wanted to get away because the men were always beating her. She saw me as a way out. She knew the cartel was looking for us, but she thought I was the pilot of the downed plane. She didn’t realize until she saw Kork, and I explained to her that she was the pilot.”

  He swallowed hard. Tasha could sense something was coming. So far, his story was exactly as she’d read it, but his face was beginning to twist with grief and his voice became more strained.

  “It was only about sixty miles from Cacahuatal to Palenque, but it took us over two hours to get there. When we arrived, I sent Marina in to get a room at a motel. I gave her all the money I had on me, about a hundred bucks. It was dollars, but she made it work. Gretch…I mean Kork, was sleeping, so I carried her into the room.”

  She noticed the deeper into the story he got, the more he wanted to call Major Kork, Gretchen. She guessed after five days in the jungle, dodging cartel thugs with guns, rank and protocol went out the window.

  “While Marina went for food, I got on the phone and screamed for help. Command was surprised to hear from me. They thought everyone had been killed in the chopper crash. They’d sent in another rescue, but the wreckage had been picked clean.” He looked at her, his eyes welling with tears. “They dispatched a C-12 Huron for a medical evacuation. We had to stay put for a few hours and we’d be out of there.”

  She hadn’t studied the report on the crash, but his story matched up with what she remembered. After a long moment of quiet, she prompted him. “That’s where you were ambushed?”

  His lips thinned. “Yeah, but it didn’t go down like in the report.”

  She felt a chill. “What happened?”

  His breathing was shallow. “Marina came back with some food. I woke Gretchen up and she ate a little before she went back to sleep. It was a six-hour flight from the U.S. to Palenque and I hadn’t had a bath in days. I thought we were safe.” He paused. “I got in the shower…and Marina joined me.”

  Tasha felt another chill. In the report, Dan had made no mention of the shower, only that three men had tried to take Major Kork, and she and Marina had been killed before he could stop them.

  “Gretchen was in the next room, but we were in there, fucking our brains out, when the cartel showed up. I guess they threatened the clerk, and they got in with a key. I heard Gretchen shout, but when I tried to go to see what was up, Marina started screaming. She fought like a wildcat, but I clamped my hand over her mouth, and when the guy came running into the bathroom, I shoved her at him. He shot her, but it gave me enough time to get in under the gun. I got his gun and shot him. Two other guys were trying to drag Gretchen out of the room, but even as sick as she was, she fought tooth and nail. One guy took a shot at me, but the other shot Gretchen in the head. I got one of them, but the other got away.”

  He looked down, his face incredibly sad. He didn’t continue, so she assumed the rest was probably as the report stated. He’d carried Major Kork to the truck, driven her to the airport, and when the plane arrived, he’d put her lifeless body on the plane himself, becoming violently agitated when they tried to take her body from him.

  “The moment my feet touched the ground, she was my responsibility, and I let her down. Because I couldn’t keep my fucking cock in my pants, she’s dead. I swore then that I’d never let something like that cloud my judgment again.”

  She nodded. He hadn’t known. In the bar, he hadn’t known, just as he’d said, but he remembered that day in Mexico. She could imagine how devastating it must have been to have gone through so much, to have gotten so close, and then through such a small error in judgement, have it all taken away.

  “Dan, you didn’t know. How could you? Marina helped you. You couldn’t have known she would turn you in, that she was working for the cartel or, at the very least, tried to use you to her advantage.”

  “I shouldn’t have trusted her so easily. Gretchen was in the next room, half-dead, and I was in the shower fucking the town whore. I couldn’t keep my cock in my pants for six hours. Six fucking hours, that’s all.”

  She watched his eyes and could see the pain there. He’d blamed himself for Major Kork’s death for a year, carrying the burden of his guilt alone, and it was poisoning him.

  “She fought so hard,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “She never gave up. No matter what, she never gave up fighting to live. Even in the motel, she clawed and kicked, fighting for life to the bitter fucking end, and I got her killed.”

  “If you’d been sitting in the room beside her, what could you have done? The men would have shot you the moment they entered the room.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing, but if I’d been on guard, I might have seen them coming. I could have been waiting inside the door and gotten a gun. I don’t know what I could have done, and I never will, because I was too busy shoving my cock into the bitch who turned us in.”

  “Has it occurred to you that maybe she did that so you wouldn’t be able to fight back?”

  He glared at her. “Of course I know that. That doesn’t change the fact I let it happen.”

  She felt her heart go out to him. The Air Force Pararescue motto was These Things We Do, That Others May Live. They took their motto seriously, and he had obviously been devastated by his failure.

  “In the bar, was it my fault that Derrick and Rich were killed?”

  “No,” he said softly. “It was mine.”

  “Why wasn’t it my fault?” she asked, her tone gentle.

  “Because you couldn’t have known.”

  “Just like you in Mexico?”

  “That’s different. I was responsible for Gretchen. I knew we were in bandit country and they had been after us for days.”

  “But you thought you were safe.”

  “My first mistake.”

  “Dan, not everything that goes wrong is your fault. I picked you for this team because I could see from the testing and your record you were perfect for this job. But sometimes bad shit happens to good people through no fault of your own.”

  He said nothing as he stared at the floor. She turned his face toward her. “If Derrick and Rich aren’t my fault, then Major Kork can’t be your fault. You can’t have it both ways. I’ll be honest with you, I would have made all the same decisions you did. If I had been in the room with Major Kork, she would’ve still died because I probably wouldn’t have been unable to resist the urge to take a shower myself.”

  He looked at her. “Maybe. But we were in there a lot longer than necessary to simply take a shower.”

  She gave him a small shrug. “So? Maybe I would have stayed in there and let the water pour over me. Maybe I would have started a few minutes later and still been washing my hair. It doesn’t matter.”

  She paused and realized she knew exactly how he felt. The situation, with only minor variations, had played out in Orkut as it had in Mexico. The only difference were the players. She turned his face toward her again.

  “Listen to me. I know how you feel. I understand, I really do. Everything you just described, someone you were responsible for being killed. The no way of knowing. The being distracted by sex. It’s all the same, in Mexico and now. If Derrick and Rich aren’t my fault, then Mexico can’t be yours.”

  He stared at her a long time. “If Mexico isn’t my fault, then what happened here can’t be yours.”

  They held each other’s gaze for a long moment. “It’s hard to let go of the guilt, isn’t it?” she asked, he voice barely ab
ove a whisper.

  “Very,” he replied just as softly.

  “Maybe we can help each other?”

  For the first time since Derrick and Rich were killed, his smile touched his eyes. “Maybe.”

  Daniel

  Dan had sworn an oath to himself that he would go to his grave before he told anyone what had actually happened in Mexico, but telling Tasha had been cathartic. She understood. Like no one else ever could, she understood how he felt.

  He tried to cling to his guilt, unwilling to forgive himself, but Tasha’s words had cracked the hard shell that was slowly suffocating him. ‘If Derrick and Rich aren’t my fault, then Mexico can’t be yours,’ she’d said. He couldn’t reconcile her words with how he felt. He knew beyond doubt that what happened to Rich and Derrick wasn’t her fault, it was his. He knew what might happen, and he hadn’t warned them. Except he had, or at least he’d tried. But Tasha was also correct, he hadn’t known. Even as he tried to warn them, he knew he might have been jumping at ghosts. There was no indication those two women were any different than any of the others Long and Tesley had been fucking for the past three months.

  ‘If Derrick and Rich aren’t my fault, then Mexico can’t be yours.’ Her words rang in his head. She was watching his eyes and he could read the pain. All the life had gone out of her after Rich and Derrick’s death. It was more than the mourning of friends lost. It was like a piece of her had died with them. But it wasn’t her fault, goddammit. But if it wasn’t her fault, how could Mexico be his?

  He sat on the edge of her bed, watching her, reading the pain and that horrible emptiness, that all-consuming darkness he knew so well. She was slipping away, carrying the guilt for something that wasn’t her fault.

  ‘If Derrick and Rich aren’t my fault, then Mexico can’t be yours.’ He felt the guilt fracture a little more. No. I won’t let the darkness take her. She doesn’t deserve that. He touched her face in a gentle caress.

  “You have to let go of the guilt,” he said.

  “I can say the same about you,” she replied.

  He saw the pleading in her eyes. She was desperately seeking his forgiveness, but he had no forgiveness to give her. He couldn’t give her absolution without admitting she’d made a mistake, a mistake he knew in his heart she hadn’t made. He pulled her lips gently to his, trying to show her through action what he couldn’t find the words to say.

  He kissed her softly, the barest brushing of his lips to hers. He pulled back to watch her eyes. “It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered. “You have nothing to feel guilty for.”

  She held his gaze. “Then neither do you,” she replied just as softly. “You did nothing wrong, Dan. Your only mistake was trusting Marina. How could you have known she would turn you in?”

  He watched her eyes. The pleading was still there. He didn’t know how to reach her, to comfort her. He wanted to grasp the guilt, pain, and darkness inside her and rip it out. He pulled her lips gently to his again, trying to show her he didn’t blame her for what happened.

  She sighed as she melted into him. It was as if she craved the comforting touch of another human being. His desire for her surged. He tried to bottle it back up, but as he pulled away slowly, the look on her face broke his heart. By pulling back, she read it as him rejecting and blaming her. His heart went out to her, the sadness of her face speaking to him as words couldn’t.

  He pulled her to him again, more forcefully this time, and she responded. A tiny light, the last remaining flicker of who he was, began to grow brighter as their kiss deepened. He hadn’t been with a woman since Mexico, and all the support from his friends and brothers-in-arms couldn’t replace the comfort derived from the touch of another person who truly understood how he felt.

  The flicker inside him began to burn brighter still, its light driving the darkness from his heart. Her arms went around him, pulling him in, holding him fiercely tight as their kiss continued to deepen. She pulled back with a gasp. He felt a rush of fear. He needed this, needed this unlike anything he’d ever needed before. He’d been trying to comfort her, but she’d thrown him a lifeline and was pulling him from the dark abyss he’d been lost in for so long. He didn’t want to let it go, afraid he would never find it again.

  Tasha pulled his lips to her neck with a soft gasp and he nuzzled her. He realized that she needed this as much he did. They needed each other as they needed no one else. They were becoming one as they joined in battle against the guilt and darkness. He hadn’t been able to save Natalie or Gretchen, Derrick or Rich, but he would save Tasha, even if he had to fight the devil himself for her. He wouldn’t let the darkness take her, or he would die trying.

  The flicker roared to life, the fire burning bright with purpose. He felt alive as he hadn’t felt since Mexico. She smelled of flowers and spices, and her skin tasted sweeter than any woman he’d ever been with. With a groan, he forced his head back against the pull of her hand on the back of his head and took her lips again. He tasted her, and she responded by opening her mouth. He took her tongue, then her lips, then began to kiss down her jaw to her throat. She gasped, and as her head tipped back to give him reign, her hand held his lips to her skin.

  She was coming alive under his touch, his fire igniting one inside her. He grabbed her breast through her sleep shirt and gripped it firmly, teasing the point with a finger. She grunted softly as she gripped his manhood through his pants, her breathing speeding up and becoming deeper. He pulled back, and as he did so, she gripped the bottom of his shirt and ripped it roughly over his head. He returned to her lips for a torrid kiss as she fell back to the bed, drawing him down with her.

  As their tongues engaged in an intimate dance, his fingers slid inside her panties. He touched her, a feather light, fleeting stroke of her most intimate area. She inhaled softly, her hips rising slightly as she devoured him. His passions were overtaking him and he thrilled in the experience. For the first time in a year, he felt alive. He touched her again, a slow gentle swipe of his pointer finger through her wetness, and she moaned into his mouth. He deepened the kiss, sucking softly on her bottom lip as he caressed her again, firmer this time, delighting as she broke from his lips, her head tipping back as she gasped.

  The kiss broken, he rose from her and slid her black tangas off roughly. He was returning to her lips when she stopped him with a touch, watching his eyes as her nimble fingers unfastened his belt. With a smile he pulled back and removed his pants. When he turned to her, he froze. She’d thrown her sleep shirt to the side, and for the first time, he saw her in all her womanly glory. He knew she was beautiful, he’d noticed that the first day he’d met her. Later, dressed in her sweat-soaked sports bra, he’d never seen a sexier woman. But seeing her now, he realized how truly magnificent she was.

  The appeal of her deep red hair and her startlingly green eyes were matched by her beautiful face, firm breasts, and muscular arms and legs. She was a goddess without equal, a vision of perfection made real. He was mesmerized by her, the spell she’d cast over him broken only when a playful smile danced across her lips, a smile he returned. She’d noticed his reaction, and it pleased her. She lay back slowly on the bed, her smile beckoning him.

  He returned to her lips as she took his cock in her hand, caressing him slowly, smearing his slickness down his shaft. He touched her, again dragging his finger through her folds as he suckled at her breast, teasing the point to erectness with lips and tongue. His finger danced, touching and sliding, gentle pinches followed by slow caresses or quick flicks. She began to move under him, her hand stroking him faster as her breathing deepened, her soft moans louder. He pressed her, his finger moving faster and harder, probing deeper as he flicked at a nipple with his tongue. He could sense her rising rapture and he smiled as her stoking hand slowly stopped.

  “Fuck!” she hissed as a quiver passed through her, her face twisted in sweet agony as she drew her chin into her chest, her free hand pressing his into her pussy as her shoulders rose from the bed. He conti
nued to tease her, caressing her button, driving her orgasm, delighting in the pleasure he gave her.

  She fell back to the bed, her breathing hard and fast. “Fuck!” she gasped as her hand began to stroke him again. He began to kiss down her body. Never had a woman tasted so sweet, never had her skin felt so smooth. He began to move lower, kissing slowly to the heart of her femininity. She tightened her grip on his staff, stalling his slow, erotic march. He tried to pull away, but she tightened her grip further to prevent his escape. He groaned with their brief, erotic struggle, then surrendered. Her smile continued to play at her lips as she pushed him to his back and turned in the bed.

  She started with his lips and began to explore his body as he had explored hers. Her lips were soft and warm, and each touch was a new source of delight. She crept lower, taking her time, his anticipation building with her every kiss. As she moved lower, she turned even more, her breasts dragging over his stomach making him want to groan in desire. He snaked out an arm, grabbed her leg, and pulled her around. When he tried to lift her hips over his face, she struggled briefly to free herself, but he held fast. She finally allowed him to position her as he wanted, and he wasted no time in tasting her nectar.

  “Have you been with a woman since Mexico?” she murmured as she tickled his balls with her tongue and again took his rod in hand to slowly stroke him.

  “No.”

  “Good,” she purred before swallowing him.

  He groaned as her warm mouth surrounded him. She took most of him, backed off briefly, then swallowed him fully. He hissed as his need surrounded him, his skin burning with erotic fire as her tongue flicked and danced along his shaft. She rose, then plunged down on him again, the wet slurping sounds of her ministrations the single most erotic thing he’d ever heard.

  She came up for air and stroked him quickly before taking his cock into her mouth again, flicking the head savagely with her tongue. He couldn’t stand it, his back arching as he shoved his hips up. His orgasm was coming, bearing down on him like a cataclysmic force. She backed off, giving him a moment’s respite, but just as he began to taste her again, she took him deep into her mouth with a hard, swift insertion.