by L. A. Witt
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“There are nights when I wake up in a cold sweat and have a fucking panic attack,” he continued. “Normally, it’s embarrassing to have someone else in my bed when that happens. With you . . .”
“What?”
“With you, it’s a relief. Because I’m not alone.”
I avoided his eyes. “It’s . . . Yeah, it’s nice to not be alone.”
“And being with someone who gets it is even better.” He paused. “Look at us, Travis. We’re both fucked up. When I go to sleep at night, I never know if I’m going to make it through the night without coming apart. And that’s probably never going to change.” He touched my forearm. “But when I go to sleep next to you, at least I know I’m with someone who understands. I feel . . . I mean, maybe it sounds stupid, but when I’m with you, I feel safer going to bed with all my demons. Like I can come apart and freak out, and . . .” He chewed his lip. “It’s like . . . well, you mentioned when we flew to California. Flying scares the fuck out of me, and I know damn well there’s nothing you can do to keep the plane from crashing. There’s a risk, and that’s just how it is. But when you’re there with me, I feel like I can face that risk.” He sat back and blew out a breath. “I don’t know. It sounded better in my head. I—”
“No, I hear what you’re saying. And I understand. To tell you the truth, it’s been a lot easier to try to sleep when you’re here too.” I pressed my elbows into my thighs and lifted my shoulders, hoping he couldn’t tell I was stretching a new spasm out of my back. “We’re good at keeping each other calm and coping through nightmares, but one thing that’s never going to get any better is my back. The pain is always going to be there, and it—”
“I know it is. I’ve known that since the beginning.”
“Yeah, well, the novelty wears off fast. Believe me. It might not happen in the first few months. Might not even happen the first year or two. But sooner or later, it wears thin when you’re with someone who occasionally has to cut a trip to the commissary short because he’s in too much pain to walk, let alone carry groceries.”
He sighed. “It goes both ways, you know. What if we want to travel together? I mean, you’ve got enough to deal with when you fly. How long before you get tired of holding my hand and telling me we’re not going to die when you’re hurting bad enough to break a sweat?”
I wanted to tell him I couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of holding his hand. “That’s part of the problem, actually. That I’m always hurting bad enough to break a sweat.” I swept my tongue across my lips. “You’ve got a lot to deal with. You don’t need someone whose top priority, all the time, is minimizing pain.”
“I could say the same to you.” His tone was gentle, but invited no argument. “But it’s not a matter of what I need. It’s what I want. And what I want is to be with you.”
“And what I want is for you to be happy, not having to . . . I mean, Jesus. You can’t possible enjoy constantly having to accommodate me in the bedroom. That’s going to get real boring, real fast. I promise.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Have you ever heard me complain about the sex we have? I enjoy everything we do in the bedroom.”
“For now. How long before that isn’t enough?” I forced back the ache in my throat and tried to hold his gaze. “It’s not that we can’t fuck, you know? It’s that every single time we’re in bed, we’re having a threesome with my pain. Every time. I’m sick of it, so why wouldn’t you be?”
Clint sighed. “Do you think I’m an asshole?”
“What?” I sat up straighter, ignoring the jolt of pain. “Of course not.”
He took my hand. “Then why are you so sure I’m only sticking around until the sex gets boring? I was married for sixteen years, for God’s sake. I know people get into a rut, and the sex does get boring, and it takes work to keep it interesting. That’s not going to be any different here.”
“Aside from the part where our sex life is already—”
“Yes.” There was a hint of exasperation in his voice, but also a sparkle in his eyes. The corner of his mouth rose a bit as he squeezed my hand. “What’s it going to take for you to believe me?”
I tried to smile, but that crippling doubt and worry made it nearly impossible. “Time, I guess?”
“Then will you give me the time to convince you?”
“Would you think less of me if I said this scares the ever-loving fuck out of me?”
Clint’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “You think you’re scared? Jesus, Travis. I lost my wife of sixteen years as a direct result of being fucked up in the head. I can’t even see my kids without someone else there, all because my job traumatized me so bad, I fell apart.” He brought my hand up and pressed his lips to the backs of my fingers. “So don’t you think I understand what it’s like to be afraid that something that happened to me in the past might destroy the best thing that’s happening to me now?”
I . . . had no idea what to say. I stared at him, disbelieving. Of course I’d known about his trauma-fueled downward spiral and his divorce, but it had never occurred to me that he might be quietly afraid that I’d be the one to walk away. That he was afraid he’d send me packing.
“God, I’m sorry. I just . . . I freaked out.” I released a long breath. “To tell you the truth, when I came over yesterday, it wasn’t to call things off. It was . . . it was quite the opposite, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I wanted to tell you . . . I wanted to say that I . . .” I gently freed my hand, leaned forward, and rubbed my neck with both hands. “And then when you said you’d talked to your ex-wife, and that you might tell your kids, I panicked. It was like it was suddenly bigger than us, you know? There’s family involved. There’s kids involved. And my kid was already involved, and . . .” I looked in his eyes. “It just seemed too real all of a sudden, and all I could think of was how much I lost the last time I felt like this for someone.”
Clint’s Adam’s apple jumped. “Felt like . . . how?”
“Do I have to spell it out?”
He held my gaze without flinching. “Couldn’t hurt.”
All the air rushed out of my lungs, and I pulled just enough back in to whisper, “I love you.”
And there it was. Out in the open. No taking it back. Point of no return.
He laced our fingers together again. “I love you too. That’s why I’m here. This isn’t something I can give up on that easily.”
“It isn’t something I should have given up on.” My shoulders sagged, provoking a fresh twinge in the middle of my back. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a fucking idiot.”
“No, you haven’t.” He lowered our hands. “We’ve both been through hell. Different kinds, but it’s still enough to make you wonder what the world’s going to throw at you next.” Laying his other hand over the top of ours, he added, “But we can do this.”
“God, I hope so.”
“We can,” he said. “In fact, we’ve probably got a better shot because we understand each other. I never thought I’d find someone who I could sleep next to because they understood what might happen during the night. That gives us a pretty big edge, don’t you think?”
“That’s true.”
“And there’s also . . .” He chewed his lip.
My heart sped up. “What?”
He took a breath. “There’s no shame in a little outside guidance.”
“Outside—like a counselor?”
Clint nodded. “Something to keep us from going off the rails, you know?”
“That . . . that might not be a bad idea.”
“I can go down to Fleet and Family after holiday stand-down. See what they have available.”
I glanced down at our hands, then turned to him again. “You’d really do that?”
“Of course. Remember, I’m the one who would have sold his soul to be able to talk to a counselor over the last three years. I still can’t talk to anyone about th
at, but there’s nothing classified about us. So yeah. Absolutely.”
I exhaled. “And, uh, for what it’s worth—you can talk to me about what happened.”
His fingers twitched ever so slightly, and he smiled. “Thank you.” Sliding closer to me, he let go of my hand and reached for my face. “I love you, Travis. You and all your dings and dents.”
This time I managed to laugh, and drew him in. “I love you too.” Brushing my lips across his, I added, “Dings, dents, and all.”
He held me tighter, and when we came up for air again, he touched his forehead to mine. “I don’t know any more than you do if this will work. But I damn sure know I want to try.”
The lump in my throat threatened to choke off my voice, but I whispered, “I do too.”
He kissed me. Then again, and we pulled each other closer.
I let you go?
I can’t believe you came back.
I really let you go?
Disbelieving he was here—and that he’d ever been gone—I met his gaze. Wow. He was here.
He touched my face. “You know, if we’re going to start over and make this work, a good place to start might be in your bed.”
I laughed, and God, it felt good to be laughing with him again. “I think you might be on to something.”
“Only one way to find out.” He rose and extended his hand. “Shall we?”
I took his hand. “Let’s go.”
We couldn’t get our clothes off fast enough. Why clothing had to have so many fasteners and bullshit, I had no idea. Pressed up against Travis’s bedroom door, my shirt off and belt partially unbuckled, I was two seconds away from saying to hell with it and tearing everything apart at the seams.
Finally naked, we sank onto his bed on our sides. Travis hooked his leg around mine, pulling my hips closer to his, and he kissed me. Dear God, did he kiss me. Like he often did, he kept a hand on the back of my neck as if he thought I might suddenly pull away.
Not a chance, Travis.
As we made out and held each other and touched each other all over, I couldn’t get over how relieved I was to be back in his arms.
“I know it hasn’t really been that long,” he murmured, “but it feels like you’ve been gone for months.”
“Feels the same to me.” I held him tighter, curving my hands over his ass and marveling that we’d made it back to this. “Just glad you’re back.”
“Me too.” He leaned in to kiss my neck. “Don’t know what I was thinking.” He brushed his lips along the side of my throat. “I don’t want to be without you.”
I pulled him closer. “You don’t have to. I don’t want to be anywhere but here.”
“Thank God for that,” he growled, and sank his teeth into my shoulder.
I moaned, gripping his ass tighter and arching against him. “Fuck . . .”
He lifted his head and kissed me again. I couldn’t get enough of him. Maybe because I’d had a solid twenty-four hours to believe this would never happen again, and now I needed as much as I could get to make sure it was real.
Panting hard, Travis broke away. Sort of.
“I want to suck you off so bad,” he whispered. “But I just . . . can’t stop . . . kissing you.”
I cradled the back of his head. “Then don’t.”
He didn’t. He draped his arm over me, pushed my lips apart with his tongue, and kissed me like he had in the car that very first night. Boldly, but not obnoxiously so, like he knew what he wanted and exactly how to get it.
Anything you want tonight. Anything.
He started to nudge me to roll over, but jumped, and the sudden intake of breath sounded more like a wince than a gasp.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Just . . .” His cheeks colored.
“Maybe you’d be more comfortable on your back.”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“Worth a try, right?” I rolled him over and climbed on top. Before I’d even situated myself, he had my cock in his hand, and . . . Yes, please, just like that.
“I think you’re right,” he breathed. “Being on my back works.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Frees up my hands.” He slid his other hand between us, and I lifted my hips to give him some more room. He nudged me a little, encouraging me to move up toward the headboard.
When I did . . . wow. One hand stroked my cock, and the other teased my balls. Squeezing my eyes shut, I rocked my hips.
“Like that?” he asked.
“Oh yeah. A lot.”
“Good.”
Moaning, I buried my face against his neck and thrust into his hand. Each time I rocked back, his other hand gently stroked my balls. Holy hell. I didn’t stand a chance—I was halfway to orgasm simply because I was against his naked body. With his hands on me like this—
“Oh, God!” I threw my head back and shuddered, and the friction of his strokes gave way to slick warmth, and he didn’t stop pumping my dick until I begged him to.
“I love the way you sound when you come,” he said.
“Feel free to hear it whenever you want.” I lifted myself up and found his lips again. “And speaking of, I seem to recall you sound pretty hot when you come too.”
“Yeah?” He grinned. “Just in case you’re not remembering clearly, you’re welcome to double-check.”
“Hmm, such a giver.” I kissed the tip of his nose. “And I have every intention of doing that.”
He fidgeted under me. “Please do.”
One more kiss, and then we paused to clean ourselves off. After he’d tossed the tissues away, I laid him on his back again.
“Now. Where was I? Oh, I remember . . .” I started down his neck. “I was going to turn you inside out.”
He released a ragged breath. “You’re already halfway there, believe me.”
“Good to know.” I planted a line of light kisses down his chest and his stomach. He squirmed, and his muscles quivered beneath my lips as I continued lower.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “You’re . . .” He trailed off into a shudder.
I looked up at him. “I haven’t even touched your dick yet.”
“I know. But you—”
I ran the tip of my tongue from his balls to the head of his cock.
“Fuck!” He stared down at me, lips apart and eyes wide. “Oh Jesus . . .”
“Already halfway there, huh?” I winked. “Better get you the rest of the way.”
He swore softly and closed his eyes, and I took his cock between my lips . . . but I wasn’t about to get him there quite yet. Outside of our office quickies, I was never in a hurry when I was with Travis. Orgasms would happen when they happened—in the meantime, I wanted him to feel so good he was losing his mind. Whenever I went down on him, I lived for the whimpers and profanity, the shivers and the hitches of his breath, and he didn’t disappoint. As I teased his cock and balls all over with my lips, tongue, and fingers, he trembled like he was about to come unglued. He clawed at the sheets. His hips squirmed. Half the sounds he made were curses, and the rest were just helpless gasps.
I don’t care if it was only a day and a night. I fucking missed you.
“Shit,” he ground out. “You’re gonna make me come if you keep going like that.”
I moaned around his dick.
“Fuck yeah. Keep . . . keep going.”
Game on.
I stroked the shaft and concentrated my mouth on the head, and his every sound told me I was very much on the right track. Trembling fingers ran through my hair, and the air was full of whispered profanity.
“D-don’t stop.” He shivered hard. “Gonna come. Oh God, gonna come. Oh my God.”
A shudder ran through his entire body. His cock thickened against my tongue, and then released, flooding my mouth with semen, and I kept right on stroking him and teasing him.
“S-stop,” he stammered. “That’s enough.” He sank down into the mattress as I sat up. “Wow.”
I wiped my lips wi
th the back of my hand, then joined him on the pillows again, and he drew me into a kiss.
“Don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before,” he slurred, “but you have the most amazing mouth.”
“Likewise.” I dropped another light kiss on his lips. “And damn good hands too.”
He chuckled. “You did seem to be enjoying them.”
“No complaints at all.” I grinned. “Five out of five stars. Would put my dick in your hands again.”
We both burst out laughing, and God, it felt good to be laughing with him again. Somehow that made this seem even more real than being tangled up and turned on. Like we weren’t just going through the motions, but had really come back to the way things should’ve been.
He pulled a sheet up over us, and we lay there for a long time, kissing lazily and enjoying the afterglow. I had absolutely missed his hands and his mouth, but mostly, I’d missed him. Now that I was beside him again, everything felt right in the world.
After a while, I said, “I missed you.”
“It wasn’t even all that long, but I missed you too. I’m sorry.”
“We’re here now. That’s all I care about.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes were full of uncertainty. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “I should probably give Kimber the all clear.” He reached for his phone.
“I feel bad we scared her off.”
“She’ll be okay. She’d been trying to talk me into calling you, so I think she just wanted to give us some elbow room so we could talk.” He quickly wrote out a text, sent it, and put the phone aside again. As he lay back down next to me, draping his arm over me, he smiled. “I’ll talk to her about it later and make sure she’s okay, but I’m pretty sure she’ll be fine.” With a quiet laugh, he added, “She’ll be less inclined to kick my ass now that she knows we made up.”
