The Problem with Peace: Greenstone Security #3

by Malcom, Anne

  I would’ve stayed for a lot longer if I could’ve, despite the fact my knees were protesting, and my jaw was beginning to ache.

  But Heath had other ideas.

  I was hauled up his body and his hand clutched my neck. “Fuck, baby,” he growled. “Are you real? ‘Cause I swear to Christ, I’m worried about the state of reality right now.”

  I pressed my lips to his and he didn’t hesitate to open to me, the act of kissing him after what I was just doing sending shoots of desire down my stomach.

  “We don’t need to worry about the state of reality,” I whispered against his mouth. “We need to worry about the state of my virginity and it’s still intact. I’d like for you to rectify that immediately.”

  His eyes lost their lazy satisfaction and his hand tightened on my neck to the point of pain. “Sunshine, we don’t have to do that. You can stay perfectly intact. For someone who isn’t gonna leave with no return date, no fuckin’ forwarding address. Someone better. I’m happy with this.” His hand trailed downwards to gently tweak my nipple.

  I let out a little moan.

  His hand trailed lower. Way lower.

  I let out what could only be described as a cry of pleasure.

  His eyes flared. “I’m more than happy with this,” he murmured. “We can continue to do this. I’m not gonna push you.”

  I took his wrist in my grasp, moved his fingers to intertwine with mine and then led him to my entrance. Coaxed him inside me.

  He let out a growl and moved his fingers inside me while I somehow managed the feat of walking us backward, so the bed hit the backs of my thighs.

  “You don’t need to push me,” I said, voice broken with the movement of his fingers. “I’m going to push you. I’m going to have to demand you make love to me. Right now.”

  Another eye flare.

  His fingers stopped moving. They left me gently.

  He didn’t speak. Instead, he pushed me onto the bed.

  A drawer opened and closed.

  Foil crinkled.

  Ah, he was thinking of practical things that hadn’t even crossed my mind. Despite the fact I’d preached safe sex to my much more sexually active friends. I didn’t used to understand how anyone could get so caught up in something and not remember to protect themselves.

  But it was impossible to protect myself emotionally.

  Heath was doing what he could physically.

  His body covered mine seconds later. And he was kissing me. Again, this was different than every one before. Probably because we were both naked, on a bed and all of his delicious manly parts were rubbing against all the right places.

  But also because this kiss was the last kiss we’d have...before. Everything would change after.

  He pulled back so his eyes met mine. “I’m not gonna lie to you, baby, this is gonna hurt, though I’m sure you know that. But the next time I’ll make it better for you. I’ll make you scream so loud that you’ll lose your voice the same second you lose everything but my cock inside you.”

  Wetness rushed between my legs at his words.

  “Heath,” I whispered, wrapping my leg around his hip and pulling him down.

  His lips pressed against mine at the same time he pressed against me.

  The sensation of him pressing into me, probing all the sensitive areas he’d worshipped before he yanked me closer to a climax I didn’t think I’d have the energy to reach again so soon.

  But then he pressed harder, pressed inside.

  And at first, the pleasure battled with the pain, my primed body submitting to him.

  But there was only so much submitting my body could do before he had to push through without submission. With pain.

  “Polly,” he murmured. “Look at me. Need your beautiful eyes.”

  I didn’t even realize I’d had them squeezed shut in my discomfort.

  When I opened them, Heath’s eyes searched mine. His entire body was taut, his jaw tight enough to shatter if he clenched it any more.

  “Keep lookin’ at me,” he demanded. Then he thrust into me with a brutality that I knew was actually gentler than the slow and agonizing movements of before.

  I cried out in mostly pain and a leftover of pleasure. I kept my promise, I didn’t squeeze my eyes shut through the burning pain of him breaking through that wall, of that unpleasant fullness that almost felt like I was being torn in two.

  Heath’s mouth pressed onto mine, gently at first, then more insistent. He demanded a response out of me and I gave it to him. And I got so lost in the kiss that I didn’t flinch when he started to move, when my sensitive body started to protest.

  I kept kissing him.

  I dug my nails into the skin of his back.

  He growled against my mouth.

  And whether it was the kiss, the growl, or Heath himself, the pain started to subside. Slowly. Much slower than his thrusts, but enough for each to yield less pain and more of that beautiful pleasure that seemed like it was from a lifetime ago.

  I no longer felt too full with Heath inside me.

  I felt perfect.

  He stopped moving. “Polly?” he demanded in concern.

  I sunk my nails into his back again moving my palm to his ass to yank him closer into me. He let out a hiss.

  “Don’t stop,” I breathed.

  “The Devil himself wouldn’t stop me,” he rasped as he started moving again.

  And my hips started to move with him. My body. Everything responded to him. The pain was a dull ache, still there, still insistent, but it was drowning in the sea of sensation Heath had thrown me into.

  Chapter Three

  It had been hours.

  We hadn’t left the bed, apart to meet basic human needs.

  I would’ve forgone food entirely, but Heath was insistent of the fact that I needed to replenish my energy.

  And to be fair, he’d used up a great deal of it.

  I was quite happy for him to use up all of it.

  For him to use up all of me.

  Because I wasn’t falling for him.

  I’d fallen.

  Hard.

  “You know, I thought this was a modern-day fairy tale,” I said, spooning ice cream into my mouth. “But I don’t think the princes do the things to princesses like you just did to me.”

  I was wearing his tee, sitting on his counter, swinging my aching legs as he leaned against his fridge, watching me.

  Shirtless.

  Wearing sweats low on his hips.

  Commando.

  And he had just done things.

  Things I didn’t think my body could handle.

  Things I didn’t know my body craved.

  He was silent for a moment after I spoke, then he moved taking the spoon from me just as I’d been about to put it to my mouth. He ate the ice cream on my spoon with a smirk before setting it and the tub aside.

  He pushed my legs wider so he could step between them. My core responded immediately, despite the dull ache.

  “You want a fairy tale,” he murmured, playing with my hair. “See, that’s your problem. You want something that someone’s already written for you. And that ain’t you, babe, I’m fucking pleased to tell you. The person you are, the story you live, it won’t fit in a book. It’s not ever going to be flattened down to live in some two-dimensional world. You’re too big for that. You’re too bright. You’re sunshine in a life that has always been midnight.”

  I blinked away the prickling of tears at the back of my eyes. Because his words were unbelievable. They were not something you uttered to a girl that you met at a bar, the girl who gave you her virginity for reasons unknown.

  But maybe they weren’t unknown. Because no matter how free-spirited I was, I wasn’t a girl to give something so precious to just anyone.

  Not to the boy who rented a hotel room on prom night.

  Not to the boy who wrote a love song about me.

  Or the one who inscribed our initials on a tree.

  No.
<
br />   I was going to give it to a man who told me I was his freaking sunshine after knowing me for twenty-eight hours.

  Yeah, I was counting.

  “How do you know me when you’ve only known me for twenty-eight hours?” I whispered. Then I realized I was vocalizing the fact that I knew the exact number of hours we’d been together for. “You know, approximately,” I said quickly.

  “Can’t tell you how I know,” he said. “Just know that I do.”

  Silence echoed between us with the power of the truth.

  “You say you live in a world of make-believe yet somehow you’re the realest person I’ve ever met,” he murmured, eyes roving over me.

  “Maybe everything was make-believe until I met you,” I whispered.

  “Fuck,” he hissed inches from my mouth. “You can’t say shit like that. We can’t say anything else. It’s too dangerous.”

  I knew what he meant.

  Because I felt it too. Every word we said meant something. We were sharing things. And tangling ourselves in each other in impossible ways. Impossible because we both knew this had an expiry date.

  “So let’s not say anything else,” I said against his mouth.

  And then I kissed him.

  But that was much more dangerous.

  * * *

  “Can I ask you something?”

  I didn’t know how long we’d been lying there in the shadow of the full moon.

  It wasn’t lost on me that it was a full moon. The full moon had power. It poured energy into the world and amplified both good and bad experiences. I was a believer in such things.

  But I couldn’t believe it was the full moon that gave power to this particular experience. The one that had my body aching and sated and thrumming with the sheer amount of worship set upon it.

  No, that was all Heath.

  His arms tightened around me. I liked that. A lot. That when I spoke, he had to physically pull me closer to his naked body before he answered.

  “You’re asking me if you can ask me a question?” he teased. “You’re naked in my arms, Sunshine. Know how sweet your pussy tastes, know what it’s like to be inside it. Think you can just go straight ahead and ask whatever you want.”

  I giggled. “Don’t be crass.”

  He pulled me farther up his body so I was all but splayed upon his chest and tilted my chin up to meet his shadowed face. “I seem to recall you enjoying me being crass,” he murmured against my mouth.

  Even though the area between my legs was tender, it pulsed with the sex in his tone, needing more of him.

  I smiled. “I seem to recall the same thing. But it’s a little foggy. Maybe you’re going to have to refresh my memory.”

  “Fuck, baby, you’re gonna wear me out,” he growled, catching my bottom lip in his teeth.

  His hands moved up and down my back. “And you’re testing all my willpower. ‘Cause I know you’re hurting, so I’m gonna wait. It might fuckin’ kill me, but I’m waiting.” His arms tightened around me once more. “So how about you ask that question to distract me.”

  “You’re on short leave, right?” I asked.

  He was right, my question did distract him, and it wasn’t even the real question. It was the precursor to the question. But nonetheless, his body froze around mine, and I felt the change in his demeanor instantly.

  “Yeah, babe,” he said. “Wheels up on Monday.”

  I ignored the dull burn in my throat that came with this knowledge. Not just that he was leaving and I was likely to never see him again, though that sucked, but because he was going somewhere violent. Somewhere he could get hurt.

  Die.

  Best-case scenario had him coming back a little less than he was before. A little less than he was right now. Because war took from everyone. And I couldn’t stand the thought of it taking from him.

  “So you’re stateside for three days?” I clarified.

  “Yeah, not including flight time. Hardly worth the trip, but it’s better than the alternative, which was stayin’ put.”

  “And when you got here, from a war zone, you came to a shitty bar in West Hollywood to listen to a crappy band and drink warm beer,” I said.

  “There a question in there, Sunshine?”

  I traced lines with my finger on his pec. “You know there is.”

  He sighed, long and hard. “My buddy, Duke, he’s from bumfuck nowhere in the middle of Dakota. Total travel time to get him home puts him there for just under fourteen hours. But he did it, grin on his face because he’s going to see his folks, his sister just had a baby and his girl is there. Most of the men on the bird over here had similar stories. People to go back to. People that care if they come back.” He paused. “I’m not most men.”

  Sadness bloomed in my heart, cold and painful. “You don’t have anyone?” I asked.

  “I guess I could visit my parents. Might be sober enough to recognize me,” he said. “But considering I left at sixteen when I got big enough to fight back and win against my pops, I doubt they would welcome me with open arms. Never been welcomed with open arms since I can remember. Doubt even when I was born.”

  I struggled to not bawl all over his chest since his voice betrayed no emotion at the fact his parents beat him and didn’t care about him.

  Obviously, there was emotion there. But the more hurt there was in some people, the tougher they seemed.

  “What about friends?” I asked.

  “Hung out in rough crowds before I left home,” he said. “Not people I imagine stayed off drugs or outta prison. Bounced around from sixteen to eighteen, didn’t stay anywhere long enough to make friends. And then I went straight into the Marines. So my friends are the ones I’ll be getting on a plane with come Monday.”

  I digested this.

  Or I tried to.

  I could not imagine, I could not fathom a life like that. My life was full, bursting with people who I adored. I decorated my life with people I loved. It was what filled me up. I tried to think about not having a mom and dad who loved me for exactly who I was, tried to think of them hurting me.

  Bile rose in my throat at the mere thought of it.

  I struggled to imagine a life where I didn’t have Lucy, Rosie, Ashley—my safety nets and my shields from the world. People who would die for me, commit felonies for me. People made up big chunks of my heart.

  “I’m sorry that you didn’t have people to treat you in the way you should’ve been treated,” I whispered.

  “I’m not,” he replied.

  I stilled.

  “’Cause if I had somewhere to go tonight, maybe that asshole would’ve got what he wanted,” he said not taking his eyes from mine. “And if I went through all that shit just so I could stop the world from marking you with that kind of ugliness, then I’m at peace with that.”

  I blinked rapidly.

  I had no idea what to say to that.

  How in the heck did someone respond to that? Because he wasn’t just saying it. Heath didn’t just say things unless he meant them. And he meant it. He meant that he was happy to go through years of utter misery to help protect me from a handful of moments of it.

  “My life was ugly, it is ugly,” he murmured. “But you changed that.”

  Again, my heart stuttered. Bled.

  “Everyone is looking for something that will make the world a little less ugly,” I whispered finally.

  My words gave him pause. Actual visible pause, and then his brows furrowed in that attractive and familiar way, scrunching up his features like a man staring at a puzzle without the right pieces. “That’s not something that I’d expect you to say.”

  I smiled. And it wasn’t happy. It felt rather sad and melancholy. Because it was filled with truth. “Of course not. I am the literal Pollyanna, right? I’m not meant to see the ugliness, I’m the carefree, rather flaky yet loveable romantic. But there is no way to exist in this world and be carefree. It’s an impossibility. We’re all pretending. Just like you’re pretending t
o be all... you.”

  He raised his brow in the moonlight. “All me?” he repeated. His voice now held a hint of teasing, just like his eyes. “And what is ‘all me’?”

  I grinned shyly. “I don’t know. The strong and tough Marine who comes to a woman’s aid in a bar when really he needs someone to come to his aid. Show him that life isn’t just wars in one country and savage drunks in another. A person who fights ugly for a living and maybe needs a little beauty in his life.”

  All teasing glint left his eyes. He searched my face for a long time. “Jesus,” he muttered. “I think I’ve found that beauty, Sunshine.” He stroked the side of my face in a way that unnerved me.

  It was nice, of course, because whenever he touched me, it was nice. But there was something poignant, final, about it. Like in The Way We Were when Katie realizes she still loves Hubbel but there is no way they would ever be together, so they just bask in that last moment flirting with different futures, different pasts, until they go back to their mutual realities which will retreat their relationship into a memory.

  But then again, I tended to romanticize moments.

  “You know I’ve fought in battles, some of them I didn’t think I’d be comin’ back from. Survivin’,” he murmured, he grasped the side of my neck with one hand, the other biting into my bare hip. He stroked the side of my jaw with his thumb. “Somehow I did. But I don’t think I’ll survive you.”

  And then he kissed me.

  And neither of us survived that weekend.

  Not really.

  I fell in love with him that night, when I was too young, too naïve and too fearless.

  When he left, I experienced the broken heart that would’ve jaded a lot of people. Turned them cold and cynical and closed. But I was determined, even though I was broken, even though I’d given him everything, my most precious of things, I would not give him that.

  He could take my virginity and my heart, but he would not take that zest for life that was central to me. The zest for love. For the fairy tale.

  He gave me first-hand experience of the fact it wasn’t real.