Tears streak down her cheeks and her eyes are wild. Like a wild animal trapped in a cage. That’s what she reminds me of and I feel guilty for thinking it, but I’m too glad she’s unharmed to worry about the train of my thoughts.
I swallow down my vanity and prepare to be the person who tells her it’s real life and everything she’s hearing is truth. “Teala, I’m going to find the people who did this.” That’s a truth I can give her.
“Oh my gosh. I can’t believe this is real. I can’t get ahold of my mom, Macs. I have no idea if she’s okay. The mall. Carina went to the mall. I don’t know if my friends are okay. The phones aren’t working!”
Her lips are trembling, and that’s all I need in the way of invitation. I kiss her, pulling her to me and slanting my mouth over hers. She responds immediately and this is a place where we’re okay. Nothing else matters for the seconds or minutes when we live inside this show of emotion. An emotion that isn’t anger or rage, or fear. It’s the purest thing I’ve ever experienced.
“It’s going to be okay. Everyone is okay,” I whisper against her breaths.
There’s so much death in the air that a body count won’t be readily available for weeks, maybe even months. Smith’s girlfriend is Carina. Fuck. I slide the satellite phone out of my pocket.
“Call your mom,” I say, extending it to her.
Her eyes light up. “I need to go to her,” she wails.
I shake my head. “You can’t drive out there, Teala. It’s not safe.”
Nothing is safe. How will I protect her when I leave? I wonder if she could fit in my dead hooker bag. I’d give her food and water and take her with me wherever I went.
“I have to. She’s by herself, Macs. She’s probably freaking out. What if she’s driving to me right now? How are the roads?”
She’s pacing with the phone pressed to her hear. I notice she knows the number by heart and doesn’t need to check her own phone.
The lights flicker in the studio. Fuck. The power plant. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This isn’t good. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“Mom!” she screams. “Are you okay? I’m fine. I’m fine,” she says, responding to her mother’s harried shouts.
I stand by the glass and try to tune out Teala’s voice because hearing the pain that resides there makes me feel sick. I can’t do anything about it and I surely can’t fix it. My hand automatically slides down to caress my weapon. Yes. There’s one thing I can do about this situation.
I stretch my arms over my head as I eye everything taking place in the parking lot. The lights flicker again, and then go out completely. Teala’s apartment won’t be safe. Not in the city, that high up, with a parking garage. That won’t do. My house is in a neighborhood too clustered. Maybe her mom’s out of the city would be the best place to stash her while I’m gone. I pull another cell phone from my back pocket. It’s slow, but I’m able to stay abreast on the attacks as they’re reported. By this time the news is about an hour behind. I see every gruesome target before anyone else knows and I’m helpless.
“It’s not even over yet,” I whisper. “How in the fuck did we not know?”
“What did they say at work, Macs? Are you leaving?” Teala asks, the phone pressed to her ear, but eyes trained on me.
I nod. “I’ll have to go. The primary focus will be securing the US, but I’m not sure where they’ll send me first.”
I skip the logistics part because she doesn’t want to know what I’ll be doing. No one does until it’s finished and over. Then the news eats it up for breakfast and misrepresents everything. People will write books about this and they won’t have to make up any details because this is larger than life all by itself. With my thumb I wipe at a tear on her cheek, right on top of her beauty mark.
“You should go to your mom’s. I’ll drive you.”
“I need to get my stuff,” she says.
Shaking my head, I squash that thought before it goes any further.
“Mom, I’ll see you soon. Please stay safe,” Teala says. “I love you, too. I love you,” she says, but she’s looking directly into my eyes.
It’s too much. I look away.
“I don’t have anything with me,” she says.
She trusts me so implicitly she doesn’t ask questions. Maybe she doesn’t want to know, but she doesn’t strike me as a woman who wants to live in the dark for sake of her feelings. She’s the type of woman who wants to know everything and stand among the devastation proudly. I nod to the rack of clothing she has for sale on the wall.
Without another thought, she pulls all of it off and shoves it into a tote bag with her studio logo on it. She goes under her desk and hunts out the zipped cash envelope. “What else?” she asks, meeting my eyes.
“The computer,” I reply, glancing around. My gaze lands on her plants. “And anything you don’t want to die.”
She looks at me. “Then you’re going to stay at my mom’s, too? You’re the one thing I want to keep breathing.” Her eyes turn down in the corner and it breaks my heart into a million pieces—a feat I would have laughed at if you’d told me it would happen only several months ago.
“I’m too stubborn to die,” I reply, trying to keep my tone light. Death isn’t something anyone wants to talk about, but in my line of work it’s a reality, and with what’s happening right outside this door, I don’t see a need to beat around the bush. “I’m always safe. Okay?”
She frowns, nods, and throws herself into my arms. It forces me to take a step backward. “My car is fine here?”
She can’t see my face because she’s wrapped around my body, which is good. “Take whatever you want out of it.”
She inhales deeply and my eyes flutter closed at the intense longing I feel at the simple gesture. I want to fuck her until there’s no doubt in her mind that I’m coming back for her. She’s mine. Nothing is taking her from me. Not my own ego, or what my brothers think of my reformed ways, and definitely not some fucking terrorists who want to steal everything. No one is touching her. The first thing I thought of when I watched a split screen of the conferences confirming this nightmare was her. I realize what that means.
I swallow down my flailing emotions and whisper, “Let’s go.”
Directing her to stand behind me feels odd. I’m in uniform, which usually gains respect, but right now it puts a target on our backs. As we exit her studio, a woman runs directly into me in a blind frenzy of tears and screams.
“They killed him!” she says, her eyes red-rimmed and wide. “They killed him!” the woman repeats and then runs off.
Teala clutches my back, and I’m made aware she’s sobbing. I can’t afford to comfort her right now. I may never be able to comfort her properly, but I’ll keep her alive.
She told me before we locked the door she didn’t have anything in her car she wanted. Teala is holding two bags with everything she collected from inside. I open the passenger side of my car and push her inside a little more roughly than I mean to. Teala doesn’t say anything else, but she does whimper before I shut the door.
My phone rings when I take my seat behind the wheel. The doors are locked and we’re safely stowed away, so I’m confident enough to answer the call from my friend. “I have her,” I tell Tahoe before he can ask.
Teala peers at me with an indiscernible look of frantic love. It hits me so hard I take her hand in mine and rub my fingers over her knuckles. She soothes under my touch and her bravado returns. I hand her a water bottle from the back seat and return my hand to hers. I reply to Tahoe at the appropriate times and try not to belie my true feelings. This is worse than anyone thought. I end the call.
This is WWIII.
I untangle my hand from hers and drive toward the freeway and try to remember the directions Teala gave me only moments before. She silences the static filled radio and looks out the window as we go. She asks me questions as I drive. Not about anything she knows I can’t answer. Simple things. Like where will she get food and clean water and w
hat about electricity and normal living things, and her bank and money, and her apartment. I make up responses the best I can. She believes every single one even though they were only things said to placate her. It’s what I do for my parents and maybe she knows I’m doing it because she’s seen it firsthand, but she doesn’t remark. She squeezes my hand tighter and leans her body as close as she can to mine.
Her mother’s road is bare of cars when we arrive forty minutes later. I was right in my assumption. The melee isn’t as severe out here. Or at least I tell myself this as a comfort tool. “You’ll be safe here,” I explain.
It’s not a steel ball, but at least they’ll have each other. The neighborhood is filled with older houses. This blessedly means residents have more property and can’t hear their neighbors fucking like animals. She points to a tall red brick Tudor with a high, rod iron fence surrounding it on all four sides. The gate is locked and there’s a box to buzz. Viola must be watching for us because the gate opens before I lean over to punch in the code Teala rattled off.
Her shoulders relax and her breathing evens as we roll down the long, black winding drive. Trees line it on either side and they meet each other at the top. A tree tunnel. “I like this more and more,” I say, mostly for my own benefit.
I’m nodding when she asks, “Why?”
“There’s only one point of entry and it’s locked. It doesn’t mean people can’t get in, but it may detract them.” I have no idea what to expect and no one knows the extent of the damage still ongoing. I pull the car behind a red sedan and throw the shifter into park. Sighing, I face her. “I don’t want to leave you here and I don’t want to tell you what to do.”
Teala is antsy. I can tell she wants to get inside to her mother. That’s what I need. “I won’t leave here. If you tell me to stay, I will.”
I glare at her. “Not like this morning?”
She looks down at her lap, a small smile playing on her lips. It vanishes quickly. “I had no clue when you told me then. Had you said the world was ending I probably would have listened,” she explains, using her hands. “Or better yet, demanded you take me with you.”
There it is. She wants what I want. Something I can’t accomplish.
“I wish I could take you with me, Teala. The president is drafting orders as we speak. Martial law will go into effect shortly.” I explain the basics. About how typically there will be a curfew and checkpoints on roads. No one will be allowed out at dark and our military takes over completely. It’s scary for civilians. Congress has never declared martial law. My mind whirs in a million different directions as I sort the information.
I help her out of the car and into the house. Her mother gives her a tearful hello, hugs me, and disappears out of Teala’s room to leave us alone. My phone rings three times while I’m in the house. Each time it’s someone telling me more bad news. I try to keep my composure for Teala’s benefit. It’s business as usual. I repeat that several times. I close the door behind us.
Teala is pacing back and forth in between her bed and the window covered in white, gauzy curtains. It’s her childhood bedroom and it looks as if it’s untouched by all the years in between eighteen and now.
“Look at me,” I say, my voice thick.
She stops pacing and spins on her heel. “How is this real life?” she asks. “I’m practical. I’m going to do the things you told me. I’ll be okay. I will. That doesn’t mean I can’t wonder what in the ever loving fuck happened, Macs. I think God is punishing the world because I’m happy. Why am I happy right now despite the amount of death?” She waves her arm to the window. “Don’t leave me here, Macs. Please.”
I swallow hard.
“God has nothing to do with this,” I say. “Bad guys do. Ones that I have to take care of. If I don’t, who will?”
“Someone else can. It’s selfish and rude and I feel like a heathen even requesting it, but I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t ask. Do you understand? I want you to be with me,” Teala says. “Don’t leave me. Not like this.”
Tears are pouring down her face and I’m more uncomfortable in this social setting than I have been in a really long time. Explaining won’t do any good when her emotions are so heightened. She wouldn’t understand, and I can’t fault her for that.
“I’m scared, Macs. Don’t leave me.”
I cross to her and take her in my arms. “You’re going to be okay,” I lie.
How can anything possibly be okay after this? Nothing will ever be the same. Catastrophes change people, which in turn shape the world. Instead of spinning in a nice round circle, it might hiccup here and there. It doesn’t go away. It’s a forever change.
“You’ll be safe here,” I amend.
I breathe in her hair. I kiss her neck, her collarbone, the place where her ear meets her cheek. The truth is when I leave here I have no idea when I’ll be back. If ever. I love my country. I agreed to die for it. If I only get to feel this for the short time we’ve had, I’ll die a happy man. She leans back to peer into my eyes—my soul.
Teala’s stopped crying, but her face is wet and I lose my breath. Her tears are for me and that changes everything. She strips her tank over her head and steps out of her tight pants. I wasn’t planning on having sex with her, but she’s so sad and it might be the last time, so I don’t fault myself the delay. She hits her knees and unfastens my belt and unzips my pants.
“I’ve always wanted to fuck a man in uniform,” Teala says.
She’s hiding from the truth, and I won’t deny her. Hell, I wouldn’t deny her anything I could feasibly give her. It doesn’t scare me anymore.
“And I just want you. Always, only you,” I reply, cradling the sides of her face. She slides my boxer briefs down to my ankles and pushes me to awkwardly walk backward until the back of my legs hit the bed.
Teala crawls up me, her naked body a swath of warm, delicious skin, and I make a point of erasing my mind of everything but her.
It surprises me how easy it is. She is peeling off my skin, separating muscle, coiling around the untouched places reserved for darkness and depravity. Her light is inside me.
That makes her mine.
Chapter Nineteen
Teala
This is the last time. Women can sense these things. Call it intuition, if you will. When I slept with men before, the sex always had a non-permanent quality. I could feel it all over my body. It’s harried and vicious hands because tomorrow doesn’t matter. Two hours into the future doesn’t even matter, because I’d be left alone wondering what the hell was wrong with me and the things I desired. Macs brings me back into the moment.
“Teala. Focus on me,” he says, his hands on the sides of my stomach, caressing softly. He tossed his camo jacket off, but he still has on a white T-shirt, his pants around his ankles, and his boots with his feet inside, are on the floor. If anything signals a man leaving, it’s when we have to fuck with our clothes on like we’re in high school.
“I’m here,” I whisper.
I’m straddling his hips. He’s hard and waiting, and I want it to last forever. Maybe if I can live in this moment for as long as possible, everything else will vanish. Leaning over, I place my lips on his. The salty taste of my tears mixes in our kiss and I can’t help but cry a little at the bittersweet reminder. Macs shushes me and rubs my back, and I think maybe I can’t have sex with him. The part of Teala who only wants sex and fucking and orgasms isn’t anywhere to be found right now.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” I whisper.
People don’t know if their loved ones are alive and I’m crying because the person I care about has to leave my side. I feel as guilty as the terrorists who stole so much from so many. Before he can respond I deepen the kiss, placing one hand on the side of his head. I thread my fingers through his hair and open my mouth to allow his tongue to mingle with mine. The sweetness of the moment goes away when I reach between our warm bodies and adjust his shaft so he can enter me. He jerks as soon as we make
connection and moans out a small plea of pleasure. It feels good—right. He fills me in the next thrust, and his large hands tighten around my hips as he guides me at a pace he wants. Eyes closed, and lips parted slightly, he continues his assault with controlled, manipulated thrusts. I can’t even focus on coming because I’m too wrapped up in his pleasure. This isn’t a face I’ve seen all day. It’s been scowls and frowns, stoic reserve, and grimaces.
“You feel so good,” he whispers.
Instead of responding, I kiss him and sniffle. He must have a face full of my snot, but he hasn’t said anything yet.
“I want you to come,” Macs says. “Please.”
His voice is pleading and strained. His fingers are stroking my clit in a frenzied pace I know will get me off in no time if I can concentrate on nothing else. I slide my hands up his shirt to expose his abs and chest and let my fingers grip the mountains of muscle that reside there. I close my eyes and let the sensations take over. He’s filling me, stroking me, and all my senses are overtaken by one entity—him. No sounds but skin slapping, and I smell his sweat and shampoo. My hands are worshipping him, and my heart—it’s loving him.
Macs picks up the pace with his thrusts, and I come in a slow cycle of rapid fire waves. I don’t scream or call out his name. I merely concentrate on my breathing. As soon as the very last flutter of orgasm leaves, Macs slides me off his shaft and pumps his hand around the base of his slick cock and comes on his stomach. His face is chiseled from perfection even when he has no control over it. My core clenches in response. More. I want him to live inside me. I have a tissue box sitting on the bed because my mom shoved it into my hands when I came tearfully blasting in her front door. I take one and wipe his stomach when I see he’s not making any fast movements to rid himself of the sticky substance.
“You don’t want to leave,” I say.
He keeps his eyes closed as he shakes his head to confirm my assumption.
“And I’m afraid that makes me unpatriotic, or less honorable in some way,” he says, using a hoarse voice. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
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