by Elise Faber
The doorbell dinged again as Keely rushed to finish. One final spritz of the hair, a good fluff with her fingers then she hurried across the flat, yanking the thong out of her butt crack and cursing herself for letting Karen talk her into that too. She paused to calm her breath and pat the back of her skirt into place before opening the door. Maybe if she wasn’t huffing as if she’d run a sprint, it might keep him from thinking she’d been racing around like a nutter before he arrived.
His smile widened as she opened the door. “Keely?”
She nodded, nearly gob-smacked, but recovered enough to answer with a smile. “You must be Brock.”
“I am,” he said and stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you.” His long fingers wrapped around hers, warm, solid, and not the least bit sweaty as the other cradled her forearm.
The butterflies in her stomach took flight as she waved a hand. “Want to come in for a minute? I need to grab my stuff.”
“Sure.”
Keely almost stumbled watching him walk past her into the apartment. She’d never seen a man move with that much cat-like grace before. Each step became a fluid roll of thigh under the dark denim. The ripple of muscles flexing moved up to each glute and pulled the jeans taut in just the right places as he turned. Veins under the tan skin of each arm popped to life as he twisted his wrists. Biceps tightened and strained the available circumference of the sleeves of his shirt. His body transformed into living art right before her eyes, and a hunger she hadn’t felt in a very long time gnawed on her control. She wanted to push him down and roll on top of him like a naughty kitten. Mark him. Make him hers. He smiled and tucked his hands into his pockets, and the space between her ears filled with white noise.
“Keely?”
She blinked the lusty haze out of her eyes. “Huh?”
“Do you need to sit down?” he asked and gently guided her by the elbow to the sofa and helped her sit. He moved quickly to the fridge and brought back a bottle of water. “Your face is beet red. Are you feeling okay?”
She huffed a laugh and pressed a hand to her burning cheek. “I’m fine.”
His eyebrows bunched, unconvinced as he encouraged her to drink. She complied but only so much as to still see his face over the bottle.
“I made reservations, but we don’t have to go if you aren’t feeling up to it.”
The utter disappointment was displayed so clearly in his eyes it speared her heart.
And she fell.
“Are you just messing with me?” Brock said and pointed his fork full of pasta and mushrooms at her and narrowed his eyes.
“Nope,” Keely said then popped another piece of buttered roll into her mouth. “From that very moment, ass-over-teacup gone on you.” She grinned. “You handsome devil.”
“But how could you fall in love with me?” he asked. “You didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat.”
Keely lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know.” She broke off another piece of bread and swirled it in the heavy cream sauce. “All I know is there was something in that look you gave me. Like there was a key I needed to open a lock I didn’t realize was inside me. And you were it.”
His loaded fork still hovered over his plate as his eyebrows pushed down even more.
“What’s wrong?”
Brock shook his head as he turned the fork over and over, concentrating on it. “I’m,” he said and then rubbed a hand roughly over his mouth and dropped the fork with a clang of china and metal.
Keely flinched at the sound. “Brock.”
He shook his head harder and began a push-away move as if to stand.
Keely clamped a hand down on his forearm. “Talk to me,” she said in a rush; her voice had turned to a thin wisp. “We don’t ever walk away from each other upset, remember?”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly and pressed a hand over hers. The struggle making itself known in twitches of muscles in his jaw. His shoulders slowly sagged forward. “I hate that I can’t remember any more of that night.”
“It’s okay, Brock,” she said with a little more strength. “Remembering is my job now.”
December, eleven years ago. 9:00 p.m.
“No really,” Brock said with a laugh. “The guy seriously couldn’t remember why his balls were suddenly not there anymore?”
Keely pressed her lips together to stifle the giggle and nodded. “Then all of a sudden, he pulls them out of his coat pocket happy as a clam. There they were, floating in a hideous liquid of Lord-only-knows-what inside a little mason jar. He held them out to me all proud like and said, ‘Oh there they are! I thought for a second that I’d lost my marbles again! Took me forever to get them back from Doreen down at the shelter last time they’d walked off.’ Then he leaned closer and whispered, ‘Have to watch that one. She’s a pincher.’”
Brock barked out a laugh.
“Besides obviously being crazy as a bessie bug, we found out later he’d been a convicted sex offender in Texas and had himself castrated to get his sentence reduced,” she said. “But he still wanted to keep them. So whatever whack-a-doodle doctor did the de-balling handed them over after his procedure.”
“Dayum,” Brock mumbled and cupped a protective hand over his crotch.
“Uh-huh,” Keely agreed. “To date, that guy is still the strangest patient I’ve ever treated.”
The clock in the kitchen chimed out the hour, and they both turned. Keely blinked wide eyes at him, her mouth open in a cute little O of surprise.
“Nine o’clock,” Brock said and frowned at his watch. “Dang, Keely. I’m so sorry. We’ve missed our reservation.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh no, it’s my fault. I talk too much when I’m nervous.” Then she immediately clamped her damn mouth shut. Way to go. What are you? Sixteen?
“I didn’t mind,” Brock said, in a warm caress of bass with the barest hint of a rasp. The suddenly softer purr in his voice touched all her loneliest spots, and she wanted to squirm in her seat. “I really enjoyed the conversation much more than I would have a steak.”
She snorted a laugh as his stomach growled. “Oh really? Well, all we have here is sandwich stuff. Want one?”
Brock’s smile softened his whole face as he stood and offered her a hand up. “Absolutely.”
“It was as easy as breathing in and out,” Keely said as she pushed the last noodle around and around her plate as if in a trance. “Like I’d known you all my life.”
Brock’s next smile took a little of the haunted dullness from his eyes. “I think I remember feeling that too.”
Keely brightened. “Really?”
He nodded and scooted his chair closer. “I have a strange déjà vu sensation and a little less of that hollow pit opening wider inside me like from before.”
“Good,” she whispered and pressed a kiss to his lips. A soft and unhurried brush, back and forth, of lips and the barest tip of her tongue now briny from the butter and sauce.
So that when the memory finally surfaced and bloomed behind his eyes, Brock sighed with contented relief as he took her into his arms, and she began to whisper again of how their life and love had been born. The caress of her breath on his cheek stoked the memory brighter until it burned white hot and consumed his fears.
For the moment.
December, eleven years ago
“This stuff is amazing,” Brock said before taking another huge bite. “What is it?”
Keely smiled as a little tingle of heat warmed her face. She placed two pieces of light bread on a plate for another sandwich and let the smile grow wider. The pleasure of something as simple as feeding him, more importantly, watching him enjoy her creation flooded her heart with pure joy.
“There’s a little market on my way to work,” Keely said as she finished spreading her mother’s special homemade mustard on the bread then shredded a handful of ham over the smear of light yellow and speckle of spices. “Sometimes Karen and I live off this stuff when things are crazy busy.” She smeared the other slice of b
read with mayo then balanced a slice of provolone on top of the mound of ham. “They also make their own cheese.”
He raised his eyebrows and waved for her to continue since his mouth was still too stuffed to speak. “This cheese is my absolute favorite.” She added a pat of butter to the outside of the top of her sandwich then sprinkled it lightly with garlic salt before popping it into the broiler to melt and toast. “It has exactly the right balance of dry, smoky flavors.”
Brock finished his half then tipped the bottle of beer to his lips. It was some fancy microbrew Karen liked from a local guy, but he didn’t seem to mind. “You’ll have to take me to this house of awesome meats and cheese,” he said between swallows. “I love little hole-in-the-wall places like that.”
Keely paused, mesmerized. The solid Adam’s apple in his throat gently bobbed after each pull. The smooth skin of his face rounded to hold the liquid in each cheek for a second then flexed to push it backward. Full lips cradled the rim as he groaned with pleasure, and his eyes fluttered closed.
She scraped her teeth over her bottom lip and squeezed her trembling thighs together, wondering if his mouth would feel as soft and warm as it looked moving over that awful, growing ache.
“Keely?”
The knife clattered on the granite. “Huh?”
Brock snorted a laugh and shook his head. “I think you went somewhere without me for a moment.”
And she just knew. Keely knew right then and there, between one half of a ham sandwich and the other, that she never wanted to go anywhere ever again without this man.
“But we did go,” Brock said against her ear. “Didn’t we?”
Keely nodded in silence. Her ribs quivered as the muscles suddenly cramped. She’d moved at his urging to sit on his lap. He’d added his own robe before they’d actually started eating, and it hid some of him. She didn’t like that one bit. Her hand slipped inside to lightly stroke nails over his chest and follow the familiar rise and fall of cut muscles covering the firm foundation of bone. Brock had always been her most solid entity since that very first night. And it had been that crushing level of loss that had driven her to her darkest moments without him.
“We did our duty,” she said and curled the other arm around his back. “There wasn’t a way to predict what happened. No one who lives this kind of life can see it coming.” Her lie left the harsh bitterness of gunpowder on her tongue. Because sometimes… you can see the end coming, and Keely knew that all too well.
He stilled, even though she knew he enjoyed being touched this way. Goose bumps ran in ribbons all over his neck and chest as she glided the barest tip of nails on his flesh.
“Do you blame me?”
She raised her head only enough to meet his gaze, feeling her own fire and conviction respond with an almost audible snap. “Never for a moment.” The officer part of her seemed to settle again even as the echo of her voice died.
He waited, knowing her moods well enough by now to catch the intricacies of when a pause was truly only a pause and not a full stop.
“But as your wife, the person you left behind…” Keely whispered and cupped a hand to his face before she pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. His lips were firmer and unyielding now as he seemed to wait for the blow. “…yes, because you were gone, I did blame you at first. And I was lonely…” She shifted to see him better, yet still hold on. “…even in a crowd of dozens of our friends or family. Missing you became a pit that I eventually couldn’t crawl out of every day.”
Brock’s head drooped forward a little until it rested against her chin. “This is something I’d be glad to never remember.”
Keely held his head with both hands, kneading the waves of coarse hair and tracing the ridges of bone at the back of his skull. “Me too.”
He moved slower than ever, as if he’d fallen into a pool of syrup, as he nuzzled her chest. “Tell me more about the beginning of us instead of the end.”
December, eleven years ago
“How long have you been a nurse?” Brock asked as they moved from the kitchen with the last few dregs of their beers toward the living space, since its tininess declassified it as a living room. Karen had insisted they call it a space instead. Such a snob.
“Two years,” she said and took a spot on the sofa. “I went to college right out of high school and passed my boards the first time around.”
Brock seemed to consider the seating arrangements. Then he took a spot on the sofa close enough that her knee kept bumping into his when she adjusted her position.
She drained the last swallow from her bottle and settled into the buzzing sensation in the back of her brain with a sigh. “How about you?”
“Straight into the service right out of college,” he answered then leaned over to place his empty bottle next to hers on the coffee table. As he straightened, his arm stretched out behind her head along the cushion and then gently tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m not great at waiting.”
“Looks like you still aren’t what I’d call a patient person.” Keely laughed in spite of the knots of dread contracting in her stomach as Brock hugged her closer.
His fingers had already slipped into the robe to trace the line of her hip under the fabric, which he was now shoving out of the way. They fit together perfectly, always had. That night had been the first time the angles of their bodies had snapped in line. This is mine had resonated in their every embrace.
And she could still feel the click of understanding when he touched her. That had to make a difference, right? If I still feel those things, surely he does too? Maybe the old woman was wrong. Brock is strong; he has always been so much stronger than any other man I’ve ever known.
“I just always know what I want when I see it,” he said, but it came out muffled against her neck.
“Well, maybe so.” She closed her eyes as he nibbled her skin. “Though that night we had a little difference of opinion on a few points.”
He paused and frowned. “What points?”
“Mainly that even though you’d decided what you wanted, you forgot to ask me,” Keely said and lightly tapped the tip of his nose with a fingertip. “Because I also have pretty strong opinions.”
He grinned wider and lifted her to straddle his lap in one smooth move. “Yeah, that sounds like me.”
“Oh, it was you, mister.” Keely wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into their kiss. Searching for that moment when their souls intertwined as before. She finally broke the kiss, gasping and afraid, when the sensation never came.
December, eleven years ago.
And there it is.
Keely rolled her eyes and scooted a little more toward the arm of the sofa to create a good bit of space between them.
“I knew I should’ve stuck to my guns,” she muttered and leaned forward, grabbing the empty bottles to take them to the kitchen.
“About what?” Brock blinked rapidly as if she’d ripped some lusty curtain away from his eyes and plunged them into a harsh light.
In a way, she had, and her personal bullshit meter started to scream PILOTS between her ears.
“I have a strict rule about dating pilots,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” he said and raised an eyebrow but didn’t attempt to stand and follow her. “What’s that?”
She stuck her bottle under the running tap to add some water then sloshed it around with a little more force than necessary before dumping it out. “I don’t.”
“I’m confused,” he said then paused to blow out his next breath, “especially considering the whole reason I showed up at your door tonight was to go out.” He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and rubbed the back of his head with one hand. “So you don’t date?”
“Oh no, I date,” she said and tossed the bottles into the recycle bin with a crash that actually helped feed her now-darker mood. “Just usually not pilots.”
His expression of muzzy bewilderment hardened into the same shitty smirk she’d seen on every p
ilot before him who’d chatted her up. “Awesome,” he mumbled and leaned back on the couch again.
“And they’ve all had the exact same scowl you’re wearing right now when I’ve sent them packing,” she said and folded her arms over her chest. “So I guess this is goodnight.”
Keely wanted him to go. Like now. Needed him out the damn door before she wavered. This guy would wreck her, she knew it. Then she’d be right back in the same sinking boat as the when the last hotshot had ripped her heart to shreds, leaving her broken and needing a couch to crash on, away from her mother, to lick her wounds.
Brock sat very still. He seemed to be studying not only her but the room, and the slightest vibration in the air. She watched his face go from flushed with stiff lips and squinted eyes to gentle and curious. The tiniest, slyest smile she’d ever seen in her life twitched to take over that gorgeous mouth, softening the lines of his face. He unfolded that long, lean body from the couch and moved forward, each step rolling up his thighs with that odd cat-like slinkiness that screamed strength. Power. The ability to utterly possess a woman in a way that thrilled and terrified her all at the same time. Coiled and ready to strike, but waiting for exactly the right moment.
Oh shit.
A rush of heat roared out of her stomach, and the first dew of sweat collected between her breasts.
She raised a shaking hand and pointed over her shoulder with a thumb toward the door. “Sorry if Karen misled you and wasted your time.”
Five steps, and he was standing in front of her, so close she could smell the spring freshness of his laundry soap. Not touching or invading her space. Just solidly in front of her, but yet not pinning her in or blocking escape.
His gaze weighed so heavy on her face, but she refused to look away. Her chin rose that fraction of an inch in defiance.
“I honestly thought we were having a great time,” he said softly. That maddeningly sexy rasp of his deepened a little more so close. “I love hearing you talk.”