by Diana Gardin
She brings me the platter of chicken, and I realize I’m going to have to throw them on the tiny grill one at a time.
“Did your mother forgive you?”
My cell phone buzzes in my pocket. Holding up a finger to Sayward, I pull it out and scan the words in the text flashing across my screen.
Hey, Bennett…Hoping this is still your number. We need to talk.
I blink, staring at the one number I never expected to see on my screen. Not now.
Not ever.
My fingers squeeze the metal on the device tight as I slip the phone back in my pocket and turn my attention back to Sayward.
“Yeah, she did. She lives in Georgia, which is where I’m from, but we talk a lot and she visited me when…” I trail off.
Maybe I’m ready to be open with this woman, but only so that she feels comfortable enough to be open with me. I don’t talk about my time in prison. It’s an event that changed me, and I never want to go back there. I don’t even want to think about how I felt that night, or how I felt afterward knowing what I did.
Sayward stands beside me. “When you were in prison?”
All I do is nod, tensing for the questions.
But they never come. Sayward just goes back to the counter and stretches up, opening a cabinet and trying her damnedest to reach something too high for her slight stature.
My eyes travel the length of her curves, following the line of her bare, toned legs and pausing at the flare of her hips. Something inside me stirs, waking up in response to the natural beauty of the woman in front of me. My gaze continues up, sticking to the bare skin peeking out where her shirt rides up. There’s ink visible there, the delicate lines of a design I can’t see snaking up over the top of her shorts. My interest in her intensifies, wanting to see what a woman like Sayward would have permanently tattooed on her body. She doesn’t make decisions lightly, and I can imagine that she very seriously considered exactly what she would get before she went and had the work done.
Glancing down at my own arm, where a full sleeve winds its way from shoulder to wrist, I want to ask her what she has. But when ink is hidden, it can be a private thing. I’m not going to ask her what it is.
I’m going to wait until she lets me see it for myself.
Crossing the tiny space until I’m beside her, I get in her space. “What are you reaching for?”
She glances at me, notes how close I am, and immediately looks back toward the cabinet. Her voice is just a whisper, and the sound of it makes me feel like she’s touched me even when she hasn’t. “Flour tortillas.”
My hand easily sweeps across the shelf until I find the flat package she’s looking for. I place it on the counter in front of her, and she takes a deep breath as she trembles a little.
As I step away, Sayward points to the refrigerator. “Do you want a beer? I drink Coronas on Mexican day.”
“Would love one.”
Heading back over to turn the chicken, I kneel down beside the grill. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your brother?”
She doesn’t hesitate. “Thirteen years.”
Whistling, I glance up at her. “And your father?”
“The same.”
Sadness blooms in my chest. “I’m sorry you lost him, Sayward.”
She nods. “Thank you, but you can’t lose something you didn’t really have, can you?”
I switch out the cooked chicken breast for a raw one. “Yeah, beautiful. You can.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out.
Jacob: Cops didn’t find anything suspicious in the area. Everything OK there?
So it was just my own paranoia. Thankful, I type a response.
Me: Everything’s good. Thanks.
Twenty minute later, Sayward slides a generous amount of chicken quesadillas onto my plate. She tops it with sour cream and pico de gallo and we both carry our food to the small table just outside the kitchen at the edge of the living room.
Sitting down, I stare at my plate. “This smells amazing, Sayward.”
She shrugs. “I’m a good cook.”
Sipping my beer to cover my laugh at her blunt honesty, I shoot her a look. “What else are you good at?”
If she understands my innuendo, she doesn’t let on. I’m guessing she doesn’t, which just makes this even more fun. How far can I push the flirting before she realizes what I’m doing?
“Other than hacking that’s pretty much it.”
“Oh, I doubt that very much, Sayward.”
She narrows her eyes as she sips her beer. She’s drinking out of a straw in a drinking glass instead of straight from the bottle, which I thought was pretty fucking adorable. She runs her straw absently around the rim of her glass. “Are you flirting with me?”
Ah. So she doesn’t completely miss all social cues. Atta girl.
I shrug the same way she did a minute ago. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Well, stop. You’re here right now regardless of the fact that I don’t need a bodyguard. You also turned me down flat just a couple hours ago. Let’s just get through this.” She makes eye contact with me as she fires the last comment with an edge to her voice, and I don’t miss how important that is.
I put down my bottle and stare right back. “Sayward, I didn’t turn you down. I told you that I wasn’t going to let you suck my dick because you felt like you had to. This?” I gesture between the two of us. “Will happen. And yeah, we work together. But there’s no rule at NES against it, are there?”
She opens her mouth, then closes it.
Ha. Gotcha there, don’t I, beautiful?
There’s a stubborn set to her mouth. Seeing it makes my dick hard as fuck, and I can’t even apologize for it. The woman is white-hot and she has no clue.
Gesturing between us exactly like I did, she emphasizes each word. “This won’t happen unless it’s on my terms. You got that?”
I smirk. “And what would those terms be, exactly?”
I take my first bite of food, and I was right: it’s delicious. She’s a good cook, exactly like she said. Wolfing down a quarter of a quesadilla, I wait for her response.
Her eyes are on my throat as I swallow, her pupils dilating as she takes me in. The fact that I know she’s getting turned on by watching me eat her food just makes me want to throw everything off of this table and bend her over it. Seeing that perfect, round ass all stuck up in the air as I pound into her from the back is a thought that has my knuckles turning white around the tight grip I have on my Corona.
She points her fork at me. “This is sex. Nothing more. Obviously there’s an attraction here, and I want to see it through so everything can go back to normal.”
My smirk grows. “So you’re saying you want me to fuck you, Sayward?” Pushing my chair back, I wipe my mouth and then stand. Placing both hands on the arms of her chair, I lean into her.
Now she’s the one who swallows, and my eyes zero in on her delicate throat. Fuck, I want to taste her.
No…I need to.
10
Sayward
He’s leaning over my chair, caging me in, and there’s the usual part of me that knows he’s too close and the urge to run is just as strong as ever.
But then there’s another part of me, and I’m afraid to admit that it’s actually a bigger part, that wants him closer. Even closer than he is now. And the words he just uttered?
Holy shit. No man has ever spoken those words to me before. It shouldn’t be sexy, right? Women don’t want to be fucked, do they?
But right here, right now, in this moment? With this man, and this man only?
I do.
My breath hitches, and I’m acutely aware of the steady beating of my heart in my chest. It’s fast and it’s hard, and blood pumps to all the places I thought lay dormant inside me. Squeezing my thighs together as wetness once again pools in my panties, I stare up at him with determination.
“Yes, Bennett. I want you to fuck me.”
And then I want you to get out of my head.
His eyes go dark then, and I’m not prepared for how it makes me feel. One second they’re light blue and full of the mirth he usually carries and then they’re stormy.
Dark.
Dark.
Dark.
The darkness should scare me, because I already know there’s a murky place inside of Bennett that he’s pushed way down. But it doesn’t fill me with fear. It just makes my body react more, makes me want more.
More.
Maybe I need this.
In the next second, he’s lifting me out of my chair, our dinner forgotten. My legs wrap around his waist automatically. I don’t know how I know what to do, because I’ve never been like this with a man. But instincts kick in when my back slams against the wall and his lips crash down over mine.
My hands tangle in his hair, surprisingly soft, and I hold his head to me like I never want him to pull away. His tongue presses against my lips, tasting my skin, and my mouth immediately opens for him.
He dips inside, his tongue hot and wet, tangling with mine. He tastes like everything I never even knew I wanted. I moan against his mouth and I have no earthly clue where that sound even came from.
His response is immediate; he grinds his hips into mine and a whimper escapes my mouth as I feel the hard length of his erection rubbing against my core. I’m like a starving woman who hasn’t had food for days. But the only nourishment I want right now is Bennett.
Bennett.
He kisses me like he owns me. Like if he tried, he could take possession of every single part of my body. Maybe even my soul.
And that absolutely terrifies me.
My body trembles, and I’m not sure if I’m slowly drowning in his closeness or because I’m about to combust from the inside out. I’m feeling things I’ve never felt before. Even when I used to suck my boss’s dick, I never felt aroused. It was all about pleasing him so that I could move on with my day. And it always worked out really well.
For him.
Not for me.
But this? This is epically different.
Bennett’s barely even touched me, and I already know that this is going to change the way I think about sex.
Sex. The very idea of it used to completely baffle me. I mean, how could I ever want my body plastered against another person’s that way? How could I want to exchange air with them, exchange freaking fluids with them, without losing my mind? The very thought almost gave me hives.
But that was then.
This is very much now.
Bennett releases my mouth, only to plant his surprisingly soft lips on the very center of my throat. The force of it slams my head back against the wall, but I feel no pain. All I feel is pleasure.
“Bennett,” I gasp. I’ve lost my breath.
He speaks between kisses. “I’ve been looking across the table at you, staring at this fucking spot. I knew I needed to taste you, but this is just the beginning. I want to taste you everywhere.”
“Everywhere?” My eyes drift shut, my legs wrapping even tighter around him. Where the hell did my breath go?
He takes my mouth again, and my back is no longer against the wall. Instead, we’re moving; Bennett walks down the hallway with me in his arms like I weigh nothing. It’s only a few seconds before he’s slamming me down on my bed, and the forceful bounce kicks my brain into high gear.
Fear overrides my body, my physical reactions, and all of the lust roaring in my veins.
Bennett is a violent man.
With that thought, my blood slows it’s progression in my veins. Fear prickles every part of me, freezing my limbs and stopping my heart. My breath hitches for a very different reason, and I squeeze my eyes shut just as I feel his hands hit the mattress on either side of me.
What am I doing? I can’t do this. I can’t be with a violent man. Not after what I went through back in Colombia. A violent man killed my mother.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
“Sayward?”
Bennett’s voice sounds like it reaches me from the other side of a well. I realize that I haven’t been able to catch my breath for at least a minute.
Bennett’s hands cup the sides of my face. “Hey, beautiful. Come on, now. Talk to me.”
I open my eyes and focus on his deep-ocean gaze. His eyes are troubled, wary, worried. Realizing what I’ve just done, I reach up and grab his wrists, yanking his hands off the sides of my face. Then I shove myself off the bed and escape into the bathroom.
Slamming the door behind me, I lean over the sink as huge, hot tears pour down my face.
Why can’t I just be normal? An extremely attractive man was just whispering all the words any woman would ever want to hear while he had his lips all over me, and all I could do was think about the night my mother was killed?
A night I’ve successfully blocked out of my memory for years. Jacob insisted on my going to counseling as soon as I arrived in the States. I went faithfully for a year and a half, and never said a single word.
Not a single word.
I didn’t want to think about it, much less talk about it. So I just forgot. Moved on. Grew up.
Obviously, I can’t be with a man like Bennett. Not if it triggers those memories.
I expect Bennett to bang on the door any minute, but he doesn’t. Instead, after my breathing has slowed and the tears have stopped, his voice thrums softly from the other side.
“Sayward. Please come out here and talk to me, baby. I need to know what just happened.”
His tone is so quiet, so full of patience and something else I can’t identify, that my little dead heart begins to thaw. If he was someone capable of hurting me, would his voice sound gentle enough to wrap around me like a blanket? Frantically, I rub at my chest, but nothing changes. He’s getting to me. Whether I want him to or not.
Slowly, I reach for the door and turn the knob. I pull it open and stare out at Bennett.
He takes one look at my red-rimmed eyes and splotchy face and his expression crumbles. “Fuck, baby. What’d I do?”
My eyes fill with tears again. How can I tell him? Instead, I hang my head and whisper. “Nothing.”
He takes my hand, all of the intensity from a few moments ago long gone, and leads me to the couch. Pulling me down beside him, he turns his body to face mine as I curl into the cushions, attempting to disappear.
Bennett stares at me for a full minute while I try to look anywhere but at him.
Finally, he speaks, and his voice is rough. Like he’s been swallowing glass. “Sayward, be honest with me. You’ve looked into my background. Are you…are you scared of me?”
I look straight ahead. Needing some distance, I scoot away from him. “Bennett, my mother died at the hands of a violent man. You have a history of violence. In that moment when you slammed me on my bed, those two things merged in my head, which resulted in the panic attack I couldn’t control.”
I can’t help it when my gaze strays to him. His eyes close, and he leans his head back on the couch as he utters a quiet curse. It takes a few minutes of silence before he speaks.
He gets up and then slides down until he’s on his knees in front of me, his palms resting lightly on my thighs. His touch makes me stiffen, but I don’t push his hands away.
“Sayward…I’m about to do something I never, ever do.”
I hold my breath, looking at him. Really looking at him. The darkness in his eyes threatens to take over, but the warmth in his touch and the sincere brokenness in his voice let me know that I don’t have to be afraid.
He’s beautiful, in his own battered way. And it speaks to something deep inside of me I thought could never be reached.
“I’m gonna tell you about that night.”
11
Bennett
I was deployed. For Special Forces. We don’t know where we’re going until we get there, and our friends and family aren’t allowed to know our location. Or how long we’re going to be gon
e.”
I pause, glancing at Sayward to make sure she’s paying attention. She only knows what she’s read on a computer file. She doesn’t know where my head was when I made the decision that almost ended someone else’s life.
She meets my gaze, which is still so rare I almost lose my way in the steadiness of her eyes. But I keep going, because Sayward being scared of me?
Unacceptable.
“I was married.” I pause after those words, like I just threw a grenade into the room and am waiting for the explosion.
Sayward doesn’t respond, though. She just waits, the patience rolling off of her like waves of peace that push me forward with my story.
The story that I’d rather die than tell. But if she’s scared of me, I need to change that.
“My last deployment was brutal. We lost two men in our unit, and all I wanted to do was come home and hold her. We’d been together since high school, and sometimes it seemed like she was the only part of my life that saved me from total darkness. Like, the military gave me the structure and discipline I needed and wanted, but it also took me to places inside myself and in the world that I never wanted to visit.”
I heave a deep breath, remembering what it was like. “When I left, I wasn’t able to tell her where I’d be or how long I’d be gone. At that time, we’d been married for a couple of years and she knew the drill, but she was miserable about it. She worried and had a hard time without me while I was gone.”
Standing, because I feel like I want to crawl out of my fucking skin, I pace from one side of the small living room to the other. My hands go to my hair, raking and clawing through it while I relive this pain over again like it just happened. Anger flashes hot inside, boiling and bubbling just like it did that day.
The only difference is, somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I’m here with Sayward, and that she’s already scared of me. Whatever it takes, I have to control this rage that still eats me up whenever I let myself think about what happened when I came back to my house that night.
Our house.