Steel Rain: A Military Romance Collection

by A. Gorman

  Tonight I didn’t bring Nuke with me because I know Williams won’t let me bring him inside, and the old bastard watches the house like a hawk. Even now, well after ten, I feel his eyes on me from the porch as I knock lightly on Elle’s front door. I know she’s awake because though the lights are dim and her curtains are closed, the living room lights up every few seconds with strobe-like flashes from the TV. A part of me wants to flee, and another wants to barge in and take her in my arms.

  Footsteps. Each second I wait for her to open the door feels like an hour. I smooth my hands over the box in my hand. She mutters, “What in the world?”

  A beat passes and the door rattles as if her weight is pressed against it, and then the lock turns, and she stands before me, damp hair, makeup free, and so fucking beautiful it hurts. My chest aches from just looking at her.

  “Jake, are you okay? What are you doin’ here?”

  I tear my gaze away from those deep brown eyes and take in the rest of her. She wears only a shell pink negligee and satin robe. The later slips open to reveal the outline of her dark rose nipples beneath the sheath of fabric. She stares down, horrified, and ties her robe closed, and I turn away, shamefaced.

  “I’m sorry.” I shove the glossy Cherrywood box toward her and she takes it from me. Not that I gave her much choice to do otherwise. “I just came to give you this.”

  “Wait, don’t leave,” she says, wetting her lips. Her cheeks are flushed and all the blood rushes to my cock as I imagine her eyes fever bright, her lips full and swollen from my kisses and her skin flushed with desire. “Let me go get changed and I’ll be right with you.”

  “No, don’t,” I say, quickly. “I shouldn’t be banging down your door in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s hardly the middle of the night, Jake.”

  “It’s too late for visitors with good intentions, that’s for sure,” I whisper.

  “Jake, stay.”

  “I just came to give you that.” I nod toward the box she’s holding. She unfastens the latch and opens it. Her eyes grow wide. “To replace the one I ruined.”

  “This costs a lot more than the one you ruined.” She runs her fingers over the ivory handle and the stamped-lettered Wade & Butcher logo on the blade, and shakes her head, carefully closing the lid. “I can’t accept it.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Do you have any idea what this is worth?”

  I nod. “My granddaddy restored them; I have another just like it. It may not be pink like the one I broke, but it should tide you over.”

  “This is . . . it’s beautiful. Thank you, but are you sure?”

  “He’d want you to have it,” I say, frowning because try as I might to be a gentleman, I can’t keep my eyes off of her in that robe. “I want you to have it.”

  That’s not all I want you to have.

  “Well, thank you. Now, why don’t you come in and take a seat? We might not be ready for another close shave, but I been fixin’ to get my hands on that hair of yours. Do you think you could handle that?”

  I hesitate for a moment, but even if it kills me I’ll do it if it means being closer to her, so I nod and step inside. I can smell her shampoo, roses and lavender. Good God, I am rock fucking hard. Would it be weird if I pulled her to me and sniffed her hair?

  Elle takes a step back and sets the box on the hall table. “Why don’t you head into the salon and get yourself situated? I’m going to put some more clothes on and I’ll be there in just a moment.”

  “Okay.” I head down the hall and open the sliding door to the salon. I find the light switch and flick it on, blinking as the fluorescent overhead stutters to life. The gentle hum of the dryer and the scent of fabric softener soothe me, and I take a seat in one of the smaller salon chairs. I barely fit. Moments later, she enters the salon wearing an Alabama Crimson Tide T-shirt and another pair of those teeny-tiny white shorts that she likes to kill me with. I can’t decide if this is better or worse than the robe.

  “You ready?” she says, taking a cape from the pile. I love that she didn’t touch her hair or makeup while she was gone, but just got dressed. She doesn’t feel the need to appear presentable for me—and, if you know anything about southern women, it’s that they’re always presentable. Hell, my Memaw used to say, “A good southern woman will always leave the house like she’s about to meet the love of her life,” and she’d been married to hers for some sixty years.

  “I’m ready,” I say, bracing myself as those metal buttons snap closed around my neck.

  “Alright then.” She picks up a spray bottle from one of those little buggies and spritzes it over my hair. I tense, more from the cold than anything. She combs through all the tangles with her fingers first, and then with what looks like a florescent pink grooming mitt. My scalp tingles from the attention.

  “You should know I still ain’t giving you a buzz-cut.”

  “Give me whatever you think I need.” I don’t mean for that to sound so suggestive, but when she looks at me like she wants to straddle my waist and fuck me in this very chair, I’m glad it did.

  “I can do that,” she whispers, and all bravado I feel vanishes instantly when the first zinging snip of the scissors echoes in my ear. Panic spreads through me, but Elle is careful not to make any sudden movements, and after a while I stop shaking and breathe normally. Her presence is soothing, so much so that I don’t flinch when she presses the clippers to my nape and tidies up my neck. When she moves in front of me, my hand brushes her thigh. It isn’t intentional, the first time. I reach out and graze a fingertip over her soft skin, wanting to feel more of her.

  She jumps as if I’ve frightened her, as if she wasn’t aware that she’s slowly been driving me mad every second of these past few weeks. I draw my hand away and ball it into a fist as I rest it on my thigh.

  Ellie sets the scissors and comb down on the tiny counter behind her. She stares at my hands and slowly reaches out to trace her fingertip over the scarred knuckles. I want to pull away, but I don’t. Instead, my skin crawls as she works her fingers under my hand and unfurls my fist, drawing it back to her smooth thigh. The fingers of my free hand dig into the soft flesh over her hip as I pull her closer. A gasp escapes her, and I roll my gaze up to meet one filled with longing and what looks to be nervous anticipation. She stands, straddling one of my legs, and I lean forward, pressing my forehead to the softness of her breasts. She runs her hands through my hair, and I inhale deeply. Never in a million years did I think I’d ever get this close to a woman again, to her scent, her softness, or enjoy her willingness to let me put my hands on her, but then it dawns on me. Ellie Mason, a woman that looks more angel than human, is touching me, and my scarred hands grasp her body as if it belongs to them, as if she wouldn’t turn away if she saw the rest of me. The dread, the absolute horror of wanting her, of undressing in front of her and seeing the sheer repulsion on her face as she takes me in, is too much.

  “No!” I grip her hips with both hands and push her into the counter, holding her at arm’s length. I stand, and hurry past before she can touch me again. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Jake,” she begins, but her words are cut short by the salon door closing behind me.

  I shake my head and turn to flee, but my feet won’t move. It’s as if they’re glued to the spot and all I can do is sink my fingers through my freshly cut hair and bury my face in my hands.

  Jesus Christ, I’m a fucking pussy.

  I had my hands on a beautiful woman, giving me the fucking green light to touch her, and the only thing I knew in that moment was fear, absolute and all encompassing. It don’t matter that she’s a tiny little thing who couldn’t weigh more than one hundred and ten pounds; it don’t matter that I know at least eight ways to kill a man with my bare hands, and that any one of those options would work equally well on her. All that matters is that my brain recognizes her as a threat to my sanity and to the belief that when I’m with her, I’m just a regular man and not some
one who has escaped a war zone, scarred and terrified of his own shadow.

  She comes out of her house, approaching me cautiously. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to push you into something you weren’t comfortable with.”

  “Go back inside.”

  “No. I’m trying to apologize.”

  “You shouldn’t have to apologize for touching me,” I snap. “Someone as perfect as you shouldn’t ever have to apologize for that.”

  “Jake, come inside and we can talk.” She moves closer, and I take a step back. I wish the look in her eyes didn’t destroy me. I wish I could take her face in my hands and kiss her, pull her back inside and fuck her right there in the middle of her salon floor, but I can’t do any of those things so I shake my head and I turn away.

  “We ain’t got nothing to talk about, Elle,” I say, and I leave her standing on her front porch step as I run and don’t look back.

  Chapter Eight

  Ellie

  I open my eyes to find my eight-year-old crouched beside my bed. His pretty baby blues bore into mine. This morning, what’s reflected in them is anything but pretty. His brow furrows and I swear if looks could kill, I’d have been incinerated in my bed already. “Mamma, why aren’t you out of bed?”

  “Well, good mornin’ to you too, Spence.”

  “We’re gonna be late.”

  I sigh, knowing what I say next will be just the beginning of what’s sure to be one heck of a day, so I steel my nerve and say in my best mamma-means-business tone of voice, “We’re not going to the beach today, Spencer.”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “No, we ain’t.”

  “Yes, we are,” he yells. “It’s already eight thirty. We should be there; Jake’s gonna be waitin’.”

  “No, Spence, he isn’t. Go look out the window.”

  He walks over to the window and yanks the curtains open, exposing the downpour and a very wet backyard. Spencer hates rain almost as much as he hates changes to his routine. I’d been up earlier and when I realized it was pouring, I decided to go back to bed and indulge in a few more minutes before Spencer woke up and I had to tackle a meltdown before breakfast on very little sleep. That was the wrong thing to do. I should have prepared better. I should have come up with solutions. Of course, they wouldn’t have made up for the disruption to our schedule, but it would have been something. I was just so tired.

  Resigned, I get up and put my robe on. As I tie off the sash, I’m hit with the memory of Jake’s eyes undressing me while I wore this same pajama-set last night. It’d been such a long time since any man had looked at me that way, and later when he’d reached out and touched my thigh as I was finishing off his hair, it’d taken everything I had not to jump into his lap and ride him like a damn pony.

  “You are being somewhere else. Don’t be somewhere else,” Spencer yells his frustration.

  “You’re right, I’m sorry.” I shake all thoughts of Jake Tucker from my head and move closer to my son. “I’m listening now.”

  “Don’t be somewhere else,” he shouts. His whole body tenses up—clenched teeth, balled fists, even his little button nose is screwed up as he stamps both feet into the ground the way a footballer does when running on the spot. “I hate it. I hate it. I hate the rain, I hate you.”

  I crouch down on the floor in front of him, attempting to meet his gaze. “Spence, I’m here. I’m listening.”

  “The sand will be wet; it’s not the same. It’ll stick in between my toes. It’s not the same. I hate the rain. It’s not the same.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t know; you don’t listen.” He slams his balled fist into the side of his head, screaming the whole time. I reach out and restrain him with both hands, earning a blow to the face from the back of his skull as I turn his struggling body and pull him into me, his back to my front. He lashes out with his feet, kicking and bucking against me, and I know I’m going to have one hell of a bruised shin tomorrow. “Don’t touch me. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know!”

  “Tomorrow we’ll go,” I whisper.

  “It’s not the same. It’s not the same,” he cries.

  “I know, Spencer, I know.”

  I make soothing, shushing noises by his ear, and when he calms a little I pat his tummy and hum. I have a terrible singing voice, but I think Spencer likes feeling the resonance against his back. He frees his hands from my grasp and snags a lock of my hair. He rubs it between his fingers, over and over. It’s a sensory thing, and something he’s done since he was small to self-soothe. This is the only time I’m allowed to be this close to my son and though every meltdown destroys a little piece of my heart each time, there’s a stillness and a oneness to being able to comfort him, to hold him and stroke his forehead like this.

  On the carpeted floor of my bedroom with the curtains drawn and rain pounding the roof, I find peace with my baby in my arms. I feel useful, and needed, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like a good mother.

  Even if it is only for a little while.

  Chapter Nine

  Jake

  It’s been two days since I left Ellie’s house, and I ain’t seen hide nor hair of her and Spencer. Course it don’t help that I missed my run yesterday, because when I left Elle standing on her front porch I did somethin’ I haven’t done in a real long time. I went and got real familiar with a bottle of whiskey. I wound up passed out on my living room floor, and when I woke I opened another bottle and it fucked me harder than the first had.

  After every tour of duty, I lost myself in the bottle a little more when I returned home. The last time, I almost didn’t make it back out. My buddies were dead. My family was dead. I had nothing to keep me warm but the night terrors that grabbed me by the throat each time I closed my eyes and the visions that wouldn’t go away whenever they were opened.

  When Olivia had introduced me to Nuke, I’d quit drinkin’. I had someone who was depending on me and I wasn’t gonna screw that up, but right now, it’s too much. Too much everything. Too much hurt, too much desire, too much fear, and too fuckin’ many feelings. Elle calls to me like a siren to a sailor, but I can’t have her, so I’ve turned away and listened to a different siren song. Even now I can practically taste that deep, dark molasses flavor rollin’ over my tongue, and I’m fixin’ to quench this thirst because whiskey won’t say no to me. It don’t care about my scars or that I’m damaged goods. All it cares about is that I keep drinking.

  Miserable and wet, Nuke and me head for home, crossing the footbridge over the duck pond. It’s been repaired since I was here last, and aside from the deep gouges in the tree where Ellie’s car had been it all looks good as new. That’s pretty typical of this town. If something’s broke, you fix it. Wish that applied to people, too.

  I begin makin’ a list in my head of the good things that happened during the past three days, and then I tell my brain to shut the fuck up, ’cause it don’t matter. None of it matters. I don’t know what I was thinkin’, waitin’ here on a woman I hardly know.

  Stupid.

  I have nothing to offer her. Nothing but a broken man, an empty house, and a dog that deserves a much better life than the one he’s been given.

  She does too. That’s why I have to walk away, because having me in her life will only cause her and her son misery. And she deserves better than that.

  Chapter Ten

  Jake

  Two years ago

  Pain is everywhere. Blood is everywhere. My skin tingles; every nerve ending in my body feels like a live wire. Desert sand cakes my face. My ears ring, a constant keening scream that won’t let up. Beyond that, I hear their muffled voices speaking words I don’t understand, and that’s the crux of this whole thing. I don’t understand: why I’m here, why we were targeted, why my Lance Corporal’s head isn’t still attached to his body.

  I blink. I’m no longer outside, but hanging suspended from a rope in the ceiling. Black eyes meet mine. They study me as if I were an a
nimal in a cage. There is no joy in this for him. I am simply a means to an end. It’s the others who take great delight in my suffering. But I will not break.

  “I am a United States Marine,” I mumble.

  Laughter.

  My muscles cramp and spasm from keeping the agony locked inside. I won’t let them hear me cry out. I will not scream. I will not give them that.

  My whole body jerks as the man strikes me again, the barbed wire biting into my flesh. Warm blood flows down my ruined back, and I imagine it must look something like a rushing river over rapids made of flesh, sinew, and even bone. If they bleed me much more, there’ll be nothin’ left. With a smile on my face, I slump forward against my rope restraints and wait.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jake

  I don’t know how I wound up here, soaked to the skin and scratching at her door like a wild animal, desperate to get in. In a way, I guess that’s true. I do feel wild. Completely out of control. Consumed. By her, by the liquor I’ve been making love to these past few days, and by the thought of sinking myself balls deep inside her.

  I glance down at the puddle I’m leaving all over her front stoop. From beyond I hear footsteps. The lock turns, and when she pulls the door back, I fall in a heap over the threshold and into her arms. I go down like a sack of shit. Fitting, really. I didn’t mean to pull her down with me though.

  “Jake? Oh my God, are you okay?”

  “No, angel.” I grunt. “I ain’t okay.”

  “You’re soaking wet,” she mutters, coming up on her knees and leaning over me. “Did you walk over here in the rain? Have you been drinkin’?”