“What about your brothers?”
“Well…” I take a deep breath. I hadn’t really expected to get into such a deep conversation tonight. “They’re not huge fans of my mom’s. Understandably so.”
“Because…?” Monica prods, squeezing my hand, which I realize she’s been holding ever since I grabbed hers and pulled her back to my room.
“She left our dad— and us, I guess— when we were young. He was a great guy, too. A local politician, but not one of the smarmy ones, really.”
She laughs.
“We had a good life, and he was well respected, and completely in love with her. They were high school sweethearts. But she met some loser and ran off with him. In addition to falling in love with him, supposedly, she also fell in love with drinking, drugs, being a drifter…”
“Oh, man,” Monica says softly, sounding sincerely sympathetic. “That really sucks.”
“Yeah. The only loves that have lasted in her life are her addictions. She’s bounced around from loser guy to loser guy ever since. My dad used to wait around for her senses to come back to her. He’d bail her out, give her money, let her live with us after she’d had a break- up and begged and pleaded enough for him to take her back in. He loved her until the end, but she just kept breaking his heart over and over again.”
“And that’s why love sucks,” Monica announces, with conviction.
“Tell me about it. I think my dad literally died of a broken heart. They say it was undiagnosed hypertension, but to me that just sounds like stress and heartache.”
“Wow. That’s awful.”
“Sure was. Jensen and I practically had to raise Harlow. My mom came back into the picture for a while, out of guilt, and because she wanted some of dad’s money, but it was almost better when she wasn’t around. Things were chaotic and none of us had stable lives for a while. We were all on bad paths— especially Harlow— but the Air Force really saved us. Gave us a purpose.”
“I know what that’s like.”
“I guess I understand why Jensen and Harlow are pretty much done with my mom. They think ‘she’s made her bed’ and all of that. And I have to admit it can be frustrating, because no matter how much we help her, she seems to ruin everything all over again. But then again, it’s my mom.”
“Right,” she says. “You feel obligated. I think it’s noble of you. Although a balance might be good. Some boundaries maybe.”
I have to agree with her. I make a mental note to find out where and how my mom got a hold of alcohol, and institute a strict no tolerance policy.
I’m not sure if I can actually follow through with it— I don’t want her to be homeless, or living with some vagabond, like she has in the past. But I can’t let her live without consequence, either.
There’s a long pause, and I feel like I’ve been a conversation hog. I wipe a strand of hair from her eyes, which was probably put there by my mom.
“So what about you?” I ask her. “Is there a particular reason you have extended house guests?”
“Well, my brother died,” she says, and lets out a long, slow breath.
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” I place my hand on her shoulder.
I think about Harlow trapped in the helicopter when it was on fire, how I thought we’d lost him. I don’t know that I could have handled that.
“Yeah, his name was Mark. He was in the Air Force too. A fighter pilot, like me. Except stronger, faster. I still can’t believe he got taken down.”
“It happens to the best of us,” I tell her. “Fucking war.”
“Yeah. It about broke my sister- in- law. I sometimes still don’t know if she’s going to pull through it.”
“That would be so hard. And with kids, too.”
“Yeah, she was very depressed, to the point of being non- functional. She’s still pretty depressed, but she’s on meds for it, and slowly getting better, I think. But her whole life was built around him. She doesn’t have a career, or goals of her own beyond taking care of her family. She really doesn’t have anyone or anybody. So I invited her to move down with me, temporarily. That was over a year ago and she’s still living with me. But she can take all the time she needs. It’s nice to have company, and I think it helps her.”
“I’m sure it helps her to have your support.”
“Definitely,” she says. “I consider her family. I mean, she is family, by law. But I’m closer to her now than I am to my own flesh and blood. I have two older brothers who are great, but they’re stationed elsewhere, and they’re deployed a lot.”
“I know how that is.” I nod. “What about your parents?”
“They’re still back in Minnesota, where I’m from,” she says. “They had us kids later on in life and I’m the youngest, so they’re older now. We get along pretty well but I don’t see them often. My dad had a stroke a couple years ago and my mom takes care of him full- time.”
“That’s rough.”
She sighs. I sigh.
She says, “These are really deep issues…”
“…for our one night together,” I finish, and we both laugh. “I really didn’t mean to get so depressing. The night was perfect. Our mood was great.”
“It still can be,” she says, her knee bumping mine playfully. “We still have time left.”
“Yeah, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do with my just one night…”
“What’s that?” she asks, but I’m already kissing her, touching her.
And she doesn’t seem to mind it one bit.
Any bit of embarrassment I felt about my mother fades from my mind as my hands hurry to unbutton her uniform. And her sadness about her brother and sister- in- law always seems to fade away as she returns my kisses.
Chapter 7
Ramsey’s kisses are exactly what I need. They’ve been what I’ve needed for a long time, but I didn’t even know it. I was keeping my feelings, my loneliness, all bottled up. Now I open up to him, as he removes my uniform and then my bra, and his hands trace over my breasts.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. “Stunning.”
He wraps his hands around my waists and traces then up the curve of my breasts.
“Wow.”
He moves his hands up and down my body and then takes off my panties. I reach up to help him out of his uniform and admire his muscular, tattooed chest and arms.
I don’t have the lovely words like he has. I just have a million racing thoughts, about how good this feels and how badly I want it. I can barely hold back my excitement, and I feel weak, almost embarrassed, next to Ramsey’s quiet yet nearly eloquently spoken strength.
I want him in me, on me, all around me. I can barely think at all, but suddenly a rational thought does break through.
“Ramsey,” I whisper. “Do you have a…”
“Oh shit.” He stops kissing my stomach and takes a deep breath.
“I have condoms, but they’re in the bathroom. I’ll go get them but I don’t know if it’ll wake my mom…”
“It’s not an issue of… pregnancy,” I tell him, trying to be careful of how I word things. We may have just had a really deep conversation and we may be in the middle of an intimate act, but I’m not ready to go there with him, or anyone.
“Okay,” he says, sounding relieved. “I just had my tests done last week, and everything is clear…”
“Me too. Well, pretty recently.”
I’d definitely been tested since I’d last been with anyone, at least, but that’s been a while, and it’s another thing I don’t exactly wish to discuss with him. Some things are too painful to get into when a couple is only a couple for just one night.
“All right,” he says, his breath quickening again as he lays me down on his bed. “But anyway, you were jumping the gun.”
“I was?”
“All I want to do is taste you,” he says, his mouth moving lower, slowly, as he kisses my breasts, my nipples, my stomach, my thighs.
I sigh as his tongue flicks the outside of
my vagina.
“I want to taste your pussy so bad,” he says, and spreads my legs out with his hands. I raise myself up a bit, to meet his mouth, and his tongue gently licks my pussy hole.
“Oh my god,” I say, grabbing a hold of his thick, beautiful hair.
I hold onto his head as his tongue slides in and out of my pussy. He plays with my clit with one hand and one of my nipples with the other.
He flicks my clit, then rubs it expertly as he licks all around it. He squeezes and plays with my breasts.
Each time I feel on the verge of coming, he pulls back, licking around my lips or my thighs. At first I like when he does this, because I’m on the edge of something so overwhelming I can barely stand it.
But finally I’m at the point of near ecstasy and I say, “Please Ramsey, please…” feeling helpless under his spell.
“You want me to do this, don’t you?” he says, and closes his mouth tight over my nub. “You want me to suck on your sexy little clit?”
“Yes,” I say, trying to keep my voice down. “I want you to make me come.”
He moves his finger in and out of my hole as he sucks my clit. I’m overpowered by emotion and raw release. I finally give in to the mighty sensation I’d been holding back, afraid for what could happen when I let myself go.
“I’m coming,” I say, pulling a pillow over my face so as to stifle what would be screams if I could only let them out. “Ramsey. I’m coming!”
“That’s my girl,” he says, kissing my pussy and then sliding up next to me.
I’m nestled in his arm, my head under his armpit, completely exhausted. I’m pretty sure I’m panting, although I’m trying to control myself.
“Need a break?” he asks, with a grin.
“Just a little one,” I tell him, still feeling the electricity running all throughout my body still, gathering at my nerve endings for an extra special tingly after- effect. “That was amazing.”
“Tonight is amazing,” he says, stretching out across the bed as if we’re on a relaxing vacation instead of having to face early morning training tomorrow. “Our Just for One Night is turning out to be very nice indeed.”
I smile, and think of all the things I want to do to him, to make him feel as good as he makes me feel. And I want him inside me still, far up in me and close to me.
But before I have time to make my plans a reality, Ramsey’s breathing has become deeper and slower, and I realize that he’s fast asleep. And that I’m not far from joining him.
I awaken to a scream. Lots of them.
Ramsey is screaming.
He’s sitting up in bed, his eyes wide with terror, his veins nearly bursting out of his arms, his mouth wide open, screaming.
“Ramsey!” I say, touching him lightly on the shoulder.
He moves his shoulders away from me in a sudden, jerking motion. He jumps out of bed and starts throwing pillows and blankets on the floor, with angry, vigorous yet soft thuds.
“Ramsey! Ramsey!”
I don’t know what’s happening or how to stop it. He doesn’t seem to hear me yelling his name. Or it just sends him into an even angrier rage. He grits his teeth and huffs through them. Then he runs to the door, obviously meaning to open it, but in his half- awake, half- asleep state, he’s in a stupor, and he overshoots it, crashing into the door with one shoulder and then slumping down onto the floor.
Only then does he wake up, with a surprised jerking motion, his eyes popping wide open.
He looks at me, then looks around in bewilderment, as if he doesn’t recognize me, or his surroundings at all, not even his own bedroom.
“Ramsey?” I ask, tentatively. “It’s Monica.”
I decide to take the tone of a trusted medical professional, the way I’ve seen people do on TV after someone has suffered a concussion.
“We’re in your house,” I continue. “Your bedroom…”
“Monica,” he says, sounding almost completely back to normal now.
But his eyes still flitter back and forth, and he looks remorseful, regretful, and embarrassed. His shoulders slump and he sits back down on the bed in a resigned state.
“I’m so sorry.”
I hug him, not knowing what else to do, but it must be an appropriate idea, because he wraps his arms around me, breathing heavily.
“There’s another thing I should have told you,” he says. “But it doesn’t happen all the time. I thought it had mostly gone away, until I’m deployed again…”
“What is it?” I ask him, although I know I’ve just had it shown to me better than he can probably explain it.
“I have night terrors.” He sighs. “They’re pretty awful.”
“Yeah,” I agree, as I keep my arms wrapped tight around him. “I can see that.”
After a few minutes, he says, “Do you want me to take you back to your car? I’m so sorry for scaring you like this.”
“No, I’m fine,” I tell him. “I mean, unless it’s easier for you if I go…?”
“No. Stay.”
He pulls me back onto the bed with him, and we look up at his ceiling in the darkness.
“Well, we did say we wanted to have an exciting night,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
“Hrmph.” He lets out a low chuckle.
Minutes tick by. I try to think of what to say, or do, next, to try to make him feel better, but I’m still a bit startled myself, and I don’t really understand what happened.
Then Ramsey says, “I guess I owe you an explanation.”
Chapter 8
“I feel so bad that that happened,” I tell Monica, as we cuddle in the darkness.
Cuddling is something I’m not used to, something I don’t usually do. But it feels right at this moment, with Monica. I want to tell myself it’s the least I can do after scaring her half to death. But if I’m being completely honest, it feels nice for my own sake. It feels safe. Secure.
“And I feel even worse that I didn’t tell you,” I continue. “It’s just, so embarrassing. And since I didn’t think it would happen, I didn’t want to look like an idiot telling you about this weird… thing… that happens to me.”
“So it doesn’t happen every night?”
Her tone is curious, not judgmental.
“No. It hasn’t happened in a while. It usually comes and goes in waves. I guess this is the beginning of a new phase. I had kind of thought… hoped… I’d gotten it under control.”
I don’t say anything further. I feel like an idiot.
“Is there anything in particular that triggers it?”
“Stress,” I say.
Memories, I want to add, but I don’t.
“It’s probably because of the training tomorrow,” I admit.
“Intense, war- like conditions,” she says. “I understand. It sounds like you might have…”
She trails off, not saying it.
“PTSD,” I finish for her.
“So, you’ve been diagnosed?”
“No. No. Definitely not.”
I don’t want her thinking that.
“Ramsey, there’s no shame in it.”
“I know. But, it’s the way they treat us. No one knows, and you can’t tell anyone. Ever.”
That was another, selfish, reason I hadn’t told her. I don’t want anyone in the military to know. Not even my brothers know the full extent of it. They know I’ve had some “issues” and I’ve seemed rather “down” or “brooding” but that’s it.
“Okay,” she says, immediately, and somehow, I trust her.
After all, I suppose, why would she tell anyone? And how could she explain how she even knows personal information about me without also revealing that we were involved in an intimate, illicit relationship, which would be as detrimental for her career as it would be for mine?
“My brother Jensen was pegged as having PTSD,” I tell her. “He didn’t even have it. He was just supposed to use it as his defense in a stupid criminal charge, for defending our mom against som
e loser who was beating on her. All he did was step in to prevent that from happening at the time, you know?”
“Yes,” she says. “Or at least, I can imagine.”
“Well, they wanted him to claim that he had PTSD but then he would be placed on disability and he’d never be able to re- join his unit. He would have been screwed if it weren’t for Riley.”
“His wife?”
“Yeah. But she was his lawyer first.”
“That’s pretty cool.” I can feel her smile, even though I can’t see it.
“Yeah, but by saying he had PTSD he would have screwed himself over. Can you believe it?”
“I’ve heard that military policies can be pretty unfavorable to service members with PTSD,” she says. “And it’s unfortunate. You should be able to get help without being penalized.”
“Exactly.” I nod, although I doubt she can see me in the dark. “I know other guys who’ve had it happen to them too. They exhibit some symptoms, so they’re sent to a shrink, who they think is assigned to help them, but instead the shrink reports everything to the military, since the military is who assigned the shrink, and the guy’s out of his job. His livelihood. Everything he knows. When the very reason he has PTSD is because of the military.”
I shake my head.
“Is that why you have it?” she asks.
“I guess. I mean, I have had quite a few traumatic experiences while serving as active duty. But haven’t we all?”
“Sure,” she says. “Once my plane was shot down. It was from low range and I was fine. It was kind of like a miracle. But it was definitely traumatic. My brother died the same way, a few years later, and it was like re- living my own scary experience all over again, while losing my brother at the same time.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. But I can relate. Once I was stuck in a fucking cave. We were propelling off a mountain and some enemy fire hit us, and we had to go hide in a cavernous part of the mountain. The debris exploded, and the hole was closed up, and we couldn’t get out. It was two days before they found us and got us out of there.”
“Wow,” she says, sympathetic but impressed. “You’re a modern day Tom Sawyer.”
Sold on St. Patrick's Day: A Virgin and a Billionaire Romance Page 36