Together We Stand

by JA Lafrance

  “Ryder,” she whispered, her chest rising and falling.

  Taking a chance, I kept my hand fisted in her hair and stared at her. “You tell me to stop and I’ll stop. You hear me?”

  She nodded. “I won’t tell you to stop.”

  We had finished off a bottle of wine, but I wasn’t feeling any sort of buzz. I searched her face. Her eyes were clear. A rosy glow was on her cheeks, but I had quickly realized that she blushed even before we got into the wine. “Say it, Clara.”

  “If I say stop, you’ll stop. I got it.” She reached up and started unbuttoning the top few buttons on her dress. “But trust me, Ryder. I won’t say it.”

  My eyes fell to her chest.

  Her fingers worked over the tiny buttons. When she reached to just below her chest, she pulled the fabric apart, revealing a red lace bra. It pushed her tits up, giving me a view of her perfect chest.

  “Clara.”

  We shouldn’t be doing this and so soon but as much as I was thinking about it, I couldn’t voice the thoughts rushing through me. Truth was, I wanted to go away with some happy memories.

  “Is something wrong?” She pulled away from me, a dark shadow passing over her face. When she went to do up the buttons, I covered her hands, stopping her.

  “No. Nothing’s wrong. I just…” I took a breath, the back of my neck heating. “I want this. I want you. But I don’t want you thinking that I’m using you.”

  She gave me a small smile and laid down. “Trust me. If I was worried about that, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m leaving on Monday,” I reminded her.

  “I know.” She grabbed onto the collar of my shirt and pulled me down until I was mere inches from her mouth. “Let me give you a going away present.”

  Clara

  I could sense that Ryder was closing in on himself. I appreciated that he was thinking of me, but it had been so long, and I knew there was a connection between us. I could feel it and I knew he could too.

  Taking the hint, Ryder knelt between my legs. He cupped my knee, inching his hand beneath my dress and pushed the fabric up to my waist.

  As much as I wanted him to kiss me, I couldn’t help but stare into his dark eyes. They looked at me like I was the only thing that existed in his world. And maybe I did for the moment. The scruff on his jaw was dark, like he hadn’t shaved in a couple days. His eyes told a story but before I could find out what that was, he lowered his mouth to mine.

  I sighed, opening to him and took his tongue deep between my lips.

  The kiss became frantic.

  His hands roamed and messaged, kneading into my skin until I was a panting, aching mess. “Tell me to stop,” he murmured against my lips.

  “No.” I reached between us, unbuckling his belt and lowered the zipper to his fly.

  He pulled my hands away, shoving them above my head. Holding my wrists in one hand, he stared down at me and winked.

  My stomach fluttered. That damn wink was enough to make me lose all control.

  He reached back between us, brushing his knuckles over my center.

  I chewed my bottom lip, my thighs shaking at the soft contact.

  He smirked, sitting back.

  My gaze dropped to his waist. Holy hell. His length was long and thick. It had been so long for me; I was sure he was going to rip me in half.

  Ryder reached into his pocket and pulled out a condom.

  My heart sped up, watching him open the package.

  “You want to help me?” he asked, a teasing lilt to his voice.

  I pulled the rubber from the package and slipped it down the length of him.

  A low groan rumbled from his chest, his eyes fluttering closed.

  I kissed his chin, a breathless laugh escaping me. “You like that?”

  “You have no idea.” He pushed me onto my back, cupping my thigh and spreading me wide for him.

  “Ryder.” I ran a thumb over his bottom lip.

  He reached between us and hooked his finger in the crotch of my panties. Pulling it to the side, he took a deep breath.

  “Wait.” I looked down between us, but I couldn’t see anything. The fabric of his shirt was in the way. “I want to wat—” He sank into me in smooth hilt. I cried out, my thighs shaking around him.

  “Fuck.” His lips found the side of my throat, his hips powering forward and back in smooth unforgiving thrusts.

  I was experienced but nothing compared to this moment with him. The pleasure was almost too much. It forced tears to my eyes at how good Ryder felt inside of me. “Ple…Go…” My words came out broken, a jumbled mess much like my heart.

  Ryder inched his hand up my hip. His body shook, his back muscles twitching over his bones.

  “Faster,” I heard myself say.

  He grunted, his teeth sinking into the soft spot beneath my ear. His hips picked up speed, powering into me with so much strength, my back bowed off the bed of the truck.

  Ryder leaned his forehead against mine, linking our fingers.

  Staring up at him, I licked my lips.

  He smirked, took the hint and lowered his mouth to mine.

  Ryder

  She was perfect. Almost too perfect.

  Her body was hot, wet, and all mine for the night.

  I never had any intentions of fucking her tonight but when she looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes of hers and ran her thumb along my mouth, I couldn’t resist. I had to feel her lips against mine. If she had turned me away, just knowing what she felt like against me, would have been enough.

  Even though I was shipping out on Monday, I made it a personal mission to keep in contact with her. Other people did it. So we could as well. Couldn’t we?

  “Ryder.” Clara’s moan pulled me from my thoughts. “Please.”

  I lifted off of her and leaned back. Glancing down at our joined bodies, I ran my thumb along her swollen clit.

  She jumped, her breath catching.

  Before I could stop myself, I pulled from her body and flipped her onto her stomach. Landing a hard swat against the seat of her ass, I shivered at the way she arched into my swing.

  Towering back over her, I covered her hands and slowly slid back into her body.

  She whimpered, her pussy sucking me in even deeper.

  “You’re mine tonight, aren’t you?” I whispered, licking along the shell of her ear.

  “Yes,” she panted.

  “You like my fat cock deep inside your cunt, baby?” I kissed the corner of her mouth. “Tell me,” I demanded when she didn’t answer.

  “Yes.” She trembled beneath me. “Yes, I love it.”

  I chuckled. “You’re giving me some going away present. I’ll be thinking of this the whole time I’m away.”

  “If you jerk off to thoughts of this moment, I want a video.”

  A laugh boomed through me. “It’s a fucking deal.”

  Wrapping myself around her, I slammed my pelvis against the seat of her ass. As much as I wanted to turn her back over and kiss her, I needed this moment. This sense of control that she was giving me. Because I knew that once I ended up in that shithole and was doing my job, I would have no control at all. The only thing I had to strive for was supporting my country and making it a better place for this generation and the next and so on. My ancestors did it. My father did it. It was my turn and there was no going back now.

  “Ryder?”

  I jumped, finding Clara looking up at me over her shoulder.

  “You good?” she asked, her brows furrowing in the middle.

  Covering her, I nipped the base of her neck, not needing her to see that I was terrified to leave. “I am now,” I said, because there was no way I would tell her different.

  Clara

  I realized rather quickly that there was a different side to Ryder. He was sweet and kind, nothing but gentle but get him in bed and it was a whole different story. It had been a few hours since he used my body good and hard like we both had wanted. Now he was softly sn
oring beside me with his arm wrapped around my middle.

  He hugged me tighter against him, pushing his face into the crook of my neck and let out a soft sigh.

  A light laugh escaped me.

  “Something funny?” he asked, his voice gruff.

  “No. Just happy.”

  He threw a leg over mine and nipped the spot beneath my ear. “Good.”

  We laid like that for as long as we could. But I knew that he had things to do before leaving on Monday. I wished I could have asked him to spend the day with me, but it wouldn’t have been fair of me to do that. Knowing he had to spend time with his family, I kept my mouth shut. His mom and sisters were probably freaking out already. I imagined his dad being broody and grumpier than usual. I had only met Angel a handful of times and even though he was a little moody, you could see the pride he had for his son.

  “I hope you have fun with your family tonight,” I told Ryder when he put the truck into park in the parking lot of my apartment building.

  “Thank you.” He turned toward me and grabbed my hand. “Thank you for last night.”

  “And this morning?” I winked.

  He chuckled, kissing my knuckles.

  After we had packed up and Ryder put the cover back on the bed of the truck, he had shoved me against the side of it. I could still feel his face between my legs and the burn of his scruff on my inner thighs.

  “I couldn’t help myself.” He shrugged.

  “I wasn’t complaining.”

  His eyes twinkled. “Good.” He hesitated. “Did you want me to walk you up?”

  “You know you won’t be leaving soon if you do that, right?”

  Ryder released my hand and left the truck. When he came around to my side, he opened the passenger door. “Tell me no.”

  I laughed, jumping out of the vehicle. “Come. I have coffee and I can cook you breakfast, and I can even introduce you to every corner of my bed. Not exactly in that order.” I backed up, waggling my eyebrows.

  A wicked grin spread on his face, when he charged for me.

  I squealed, running to the apartment building.

  By the time we were on my floor, I was panting, and he looked like he hadn’t just run up three flights of stairs. I clearly needed to work out more.

  “Hurry up, baby. I’m not a patient man.”

  I ran down the hall to my apartment. As soon as I had the door unlocked, a hard body pressed up against me. I half expected Ryder to take it fast but instead, he spent the next hour or two savoring every inch of me.

  While I was standing in front of the stove, cooking him eggs, a sense of peace washed over me. I was wearing his dress shirt and he was in his dress pants only. I realized rather quickly that I could fall for him. With his sexy smirk, his sweet advances and dirty words, I was already waiting for him to come home from his deployment.

  “I’ll miss you.” He stepped up behind me, placing a soft peck on my neck. “I do need to leave after breakfast though.”

  My chest tightened. “I know.”

  “You have my number. Text me. Call me. Send me videos. What the fuck ever.” He turned me around, cupping my face. “I want more of this. I want to continue this. If you do as well that is.”

  My heart jumped. “Yes.” I threw my arms around his neck. “I do. God do I ever.”

  He chuckled, placing a hard peck on my mouth. “Good.”

  After we ate, I walked Ryder to my door. I never realized that I would actually be sad to see him go. I thought last night would just be a one-time thing, we would move on and nothing else would come of this.

  But as he stared down at me with those dark eyes of his, I fell. And I fell hard.

  Ryder

  A while later…

  My vision faded in and out. A sharp pain stabbed me in the side, reminding me that I was still very much alive. I wasn’t sure how or why. They should have just killed me already. I didn’t know what they wanted. I couldn’t even understand half the shit they were saying. But I was an American Soldier. I had all the answers. I would have rolled my eyes if I could keep them open.

  But they had no idea. They could try and get whatever they wanted from me, but I was trained. Even my father didn’t know half the shit I had done, and he was a Navy SEAL. He had done things. Seen things. Survived things to get back to my mother. I needed to do the same to get back to my family.

  Clara.

  Fucking hell, she probably thought I was dead. I hadn’t texted her back in God knew how long. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t safe. Our camp had been ambushed. Men and women died. My brothers were beaten and tortured, while my sisters…I swallowed past the bile burning my throat. I would never get the images of what was done to them out of my head. They weren’t blood. None of them were blood but it went far past that. I reacted the same way as if they were my own flesh. I kept thinking of Gigi and Meadow and what I would have done if it were them who were beaten, raped, and mutilated.

  A heavy fist landed against my cheek, the bone beneath the skin shattering. I was numb to the pain anymore. They could hit me. Beat me. Fucking kill me. Nothing they did would get what they wanted from me. No matter how hard they tried, my lips were sealed and the secrets I knew were safe.

  But I knew…hell, I had known even before I was taken…there was no way I could come back from this or that things would ever be normal again.

  I just prayed with everything in me that Clara would be patient with me. I liked her a lot and knew that what we had, could turn into something more.

  Wait for me, Clara, and I promise, baby, it’ll be worth it.

  But even I knew that some promises were meant to be broken.

  About J.M. Walker

  J.M. Walker is an Amazon bestselling author who hit USA Today with Wanted: An Outlaw Anthology. She loves all things books, pigs and lip gloss. She is happily married to the man who inspires all of her Heroes and continues to make her weak in the knees every single day.

  www.aboutjmwalker.com/

  Newsletter Signup

  Cindy

  Lorne Oliver

  Cindy

  “Your dead guy,” Constable Brandi Faye, pointed to the far side of the road where the grass was matted down. “Ah, he was there. Was he there?” She spun around surveying the chaos around us. Cars were on their sides or crushed against each other, the smell of extinguished fires and spilled gasoline filled the air and there were spots of what I assumed was blood on the pavement. People were still screaming or crying. “Oh, there he is.” She pointed a finger towards a grove across a small field. A large man stumbled into the trees. “That’s your dead guy?”

  I stared at where the man had disappeared. “Dead guy?”

  Brandi shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry, Chickie, the paramedic said he was dead. Zombie on the loose?”

  “Do we have a police code for that?” I looked for any free constables that I could send to fetch him. They were dealing with traffic and the people collecting on both sides of the accident wanting a look. The other Major Crimes investigators were dealing with their assigned parts of the scene. Mine was taking a stroll.

  Brandi was dressed in an all-white “bunny suit" required for her job of crime scene analysis. “I thought in the major crimes handbook it said, in case of freaks, tweaks, psychos and zombies call Corporal Faryn Steel?” Her smile disappeared as she raised her mask and went back to work.

  I returned to my police issued unmarked Pathfinder for a handheld radio that I clipped on my belt, disposable gloves and a few disposable masks which I shoved in my coat pocket. Not sanitary, I know, but better than going breath to breath with a zombie. Strange that I was more worried about the COVID-19 virus than a possible walking dead. Maybe this was going to be where it all started.

  I tied my chestnut hair back before heading into the field. I would have to find somebody to check me for ticks later. I wore black leggings that went all the way into my army style boots, but I swear I could still feel the ticks, their tiny feet crawling up. I had been
talking to a new married couple that might be interested in checking me over later. Focus, Faryn.

  Initial reports on the accident were that at approximately 2:15pm a flatbed truck heading south hit the pick-up in front of it and veered into oncoming traffic. It was Friday and some of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions had been lifted, so of course the north bound lane was full of people getting a jump at the lake. The flatbed crushed the Honda Civic in the other lane before hitting a van. The scrap metal the truck was hauling broke free. One piece speared through the cab of the pick-up a mere second after the first hit. Other vehicles swerved or crashed into the ditches and each other. A van flipped into the shallow ditch and a mustang rolled end over end into the field. Seven vehicles in all were in the immediate incident. Many injured, some serious, the occupants of the civic were pronounced dead on the scene. So was my zombie.

  The greenery in the field was pushed down where he had stumbled, and he left blood on the plants. Did zombies bleed? I pulled a pair of blue gloves on just in case.

  In central Saskatchewan the fields were spotted with groves of woods. As I got close to where the man disappeared my hand went to the pistol on my hip. My thoughts were, why did this man walk away? How did he walk away? He was probably in shock and may not have even known what was going on around him.

  He stood inside the trees leaning against a birch. A long piece of metal protruded through his back close to the right shoulder.

  “Sir? Are you okay?”

  The zombie moaned as its eyes raised to the sky. Blood dripped from its coat. He took a step and the metal twitched. Blood squirted.

  “Sir, I need you to stop moving!”