by Lucy Gage
She fingered the cobalt blue lapis lazuli necklace she still wore around her neck every day and stood there, mesmerized, while his strong, melodic voice serenaded her the way it had countless times in the past year. As the song finished, he sang, “All…I want…is you…” and played the last few chords looking straight at her.
That can’t be him, right? My brain has finally snapped and this very elaborate hallucination is a result of the stress.
She turned to leave the office and go outside to determine whether he existed, to prove whether or not she needed professional help or if the impossible had happened and Neil had really come back to her after all this time.
Walking slowly down the hall toward the front door, she trembled. Turning the doorknob, her hand visibly shook. She rotated the knob, pulled open the door and there he stood, hand poised to knock. She gasped.
He swallowed hard and said, “May I come in?”
She nodded and stepped aside so he could walk through the door, then she gently shut it behind him, shaking the whole time. Staring at him, her breath hitched and as he stepped toward her, she began to shake violently.
“Meghan, are you afraid of me?” he asked, concern in his voice.
She shook her head and looked down. She saw his boots step into her frame of vision and felt his warm, strong hands on her shoulders. When she kept her head down, he tipped her chin so she’d look at him.
“What’s wrong, then?”
Her lip trembled and the tears she had been holding in welled up and spilled out of her eyes.
“You’re really here,” she whispered.
He nodded. His hands moved up slowly along her shoulders and neck, cupped her face, brushed away the tears with his thumbs. He looked at her with such intensity, she thought she might fall over from the weight of it. She saw him glance at her mouth and then back up to her eyes. Then he leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers slowly and gently.
Heat rushed through her body. His lips were as soft as she remembered. She responded by kissing him back a little firmer and sliding her hands up his chest. Oh, his chest was still so strong. She melted into the kiss, opening her lips so he could slide his tongue into her mouth. And then he was really kissing her, the way he had that day at the airport when they had said goodbye. Except, now the passion wasn’t contained, it was set free and he was backing her into the wall and kissing her like he hadn’t seen her in a year.
Which was pretty damn close to true.
Neil’s hands wandered back down her shoulders, down her waist and settled on her hips, which he pulled to his own. She could feel that hardness between his legs pushing into her pelvis, and all the desire she had been holding inside for the last four months, waiting for him to come back to her, burst through the surface.
Memories flooded her brain.
The day she brought him home, he’d made love to her against this wall as soon as they had walked in the door, and he took her to heaven twice in a row. Then, the night he met Carlos at the dinner, when he’d dominated her…God, that had been hot.
She fumbled for the waist of his pants and began undressing him as quickly as she could. She shoved her hand inside his boxers and grabbed him and he gasped. Another memory crashed into her, of his hotel room. I’m probably not going to last long the first time. God, had that been the night of the wedding? Yes. That was what he had meant when he’d mentioned the first time she gave him a blow job. To remember it now shot chills up her spine.
Neil stepped back, yanked her sundress over her head, groaning when he saw the cobalt blue bikini underneath.
“I’ve been waiting almost a year to see you in that,” he growled.
“Wouldn’t you rather see me out of it?” she asked, breathless.
“Don’t tease me,” he begged.
“I’m not teasing, soldier. Take me to bed.”
He picked her up in his strong arms, like he had that first day, and kissed her as he carried her to the bedroom. He set her down on the floor and started removing his clothes frantically, kicking off his boots, taking off his over-shirt with his name on the front. She pulled his t-shirt out of his pants and up over his head. She sighed. She had missed his chest. Who knew she liked beefcake? No, not beefcake. Neil.
He drew her closer and kissed her again, first her lips, then her neck. He whispered, “I want to make love to you, Meghan.”
“I want that too, Neil,” she whispered in reply. “Please.”
She pushed his pants and boxers over his hips and there he was, the beautiful man who had haunted her dreams for the last year, in all his glory, real and hard and ready for her. She touched him and his breath hitched. Meg knew the first time would probably be quick if he took her now – assuming he hadn’t had sex in nearly a year, like her. So she did the only thing she could think to do, she dropped to her knees and enveloped him with her mouth.
He moaned and ran his fingers through her hair when her lips caressed his velvet skin on the way down and she let her teeth graze him on the way up, repeating in a gentle, loving pattern. Tongue swirling around the tip, she moaned. God, had she missed this. Not sex in general, but sex with Neil. Savoring it as long as she could, she ran her hands around his very fine ass and pulled him into her mouth further. After that, it didn’t take him long and she felt warm fluid hit the back of her throat.
Waiting until it subsided, as she stood, she trailed her fingers up past the huge abdominal scar that marked his emergency surgery. She touched it gingerly.
“I was afraid you were gone forever,” she whispered.
Neil brushed the hair from her face. “I told you I would come home to you. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep.”
Untying the top of her swimsuit, he began suckling her breasts. She thought she had died and gone to heaven. Oh, how she’d missed those magic lips. He leaned her back onto the bed and removed the bottoms, then he kissed down her abdomen and ran his hands along her thighs, slowly spreading her legs as if opening a treasure chest.
His lips and tongue teased the sensitive skin of her inner thigh the way he knew she loved it. When he growled at her daring Brazilian wax, then licked the bare, wet folds, she threw her head back in ecstasy and dug her nails into his scalp. His fingers and tongue took turns probing her, licking from top to bottom and driving her closer to an orgasmic frenzy. Yet another flash of memory, of lying on the hotel bed with heels on her feet. Not the morning after, but the night of the wedding. It was all too much. She needed him inside her. Now.
“Neil, make love to me. Hurry.”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied, and he pushed into her slick opening in one rough thrust as he kissed her passionately, just the way he knew she loved it. Every inch of him melded with her as he moved in and out in the slow, rhythmic dance of two long-lost lovers. Numerous sensations flooded her brain at once as the first orgasm shattered her.
As she came, she ran her hands down his back to his sexy butt and pulled him harder to her center. “I missed you so much.”
He moaned. “I missed you, too. More than you can possibly imagine.” He brought his hand under her hip and lifted her so that he could drive deeper.
“I don’t know, I think I have a good idea. You feel so good, Neil.”
“You’re so tight, Meghan. Did you really wait for me? All that time?” he asked as he kissed her neck, nuzzled her ear.
She pulled him harder again. “Yes. I’ve been waiting for almost a year for you to be inside me again.”
That triggered his orgasm. Lucky for her, she had already been on the edge again and they came together. They cried each other’s names and then he collapsed on top of her.
After a few seconds, he pushed up on his forearms and brushed her hair from her forehead. With him still solid inside her – it felt so good for him to be in there again – she undulated her hips. He kissed her sweetly.
“You waited for me.”
“I told you I would. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
Sh
e caressed his back, relishing the feel of the sweat on his skin that she had been imagining for so long, the rippling back muscles that illustrated his strength.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t sure if you’d still want me after what happened the last time I saw you.”
He rolled into his Playgirl pose. Oh, my.
She shifted to her side to face him, her head on her hand. “You mean when Beth came into your hospital room, kissed you and acted like your girlfriend?”
He grimaced. “Yeah. Even if my mother hadn’t read her the riot act, Danny wouldn’t have let me forget what she did to me. I’d never have taken her back, even if I didn’t remember anything about the past year.”
“Do you? Remember anything?” Was it too much to hope that he remembered how much he loved her?
“I do now. As soon as I remembered, I asked my CO for leave so I could come see you.” He ran his fingers down her shoulder, along her collar bone toward her breasts and the pendant that dangled between them. “You still have it.”
“I wear it every day,” she whispered.
“Still?” he asked, brows furrowed, voice thick.
“Always.” He kissed her then, slow and deep and sensual. When he pulled away, there were tears in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. “I was afraid, on the way here, that you might have given up and gone back to Nico because of Beth.”
“Right after you woke up, on my way home, I saw him. Nothing happened between us. We talked and I think I gave him closure. He and Carlos are both good friends. They’ve helped me endure it all.”
“So you didn’t take him back?”
“No, Neil.”
He sighed in relief. “I love you, Meghan. So much.”
“Still?” she asked, her heart racing.
“Always. I never stopped. I just…forgot what I already knew.”
“Which was?”
“That a part of my heart has probably loved you since the first moment I saw you at that football game. I just needed to be reminded.”
“What reminded you?”
He grabbed his pants and pulled out two cream-colored sheets of stationery with cobalt blue flowering vines on the borders.
“This. I want you to read it to me.”
“Out loud?” He nodded.
Meg stared at the letter. She had never sent this one. How did he get it? That was a question for later, apparently.
She took a deep breath and began – she’d basically memorized it.
Dear Neil,
I don’t even know what to say right now. I’m filled with a jumble of emotions and I don’t know what to do with them. The only thing I can think to do is to sit down and write to you like I have been every day since I got that first batch of letters. I don’t know if I’ll ever send this to you, but at least I’ll get it all out of my head.
It has been two months since an IED launched you into the air, scrambled your brain and took you from me. I don’t know the details; they still haven’t told us everything. But they said that it was a miracle you even survived the force of the blast, let alone without a broken back or anything other than some very serious internal injuries, broken ribs and a fractured pelvis. I prayed for you, Neil. Every single day since you left Portland, I prayed for you. Since the day Dan called to tell me you had nearly died in that blast, I’ve prayed so much I think God is probably sick of hearing from me.
At first, I just wanted you to make it, to get through each surgery to the next, to be stable enough to be transferred back to the US so I could come to you. And then you finally were able to come home, and I sat there, holding your hand, willing you to wake up so I could see those beautiful green eyes again. The important thing, I kept telling God, was that you wake up. I just wanted you to wake up. I didn’t think to ask that you’d remember you love me, Neil. I never doubted that you would.
Today, I put your ear buds in your ears and I played our two favorite songs. The doctor said that all types of stimulation could help, and since I had already kissed you and talked to you and sat by your side, holding your hand, reading our love letters and wearing my perfume every day for two weeks, I thought that, short of doing something sexual to you while you were unconscious (and believe me, I considered it), that maybe reminding you of that first Skype call might do the trick. I guess it worked, because you woke up today.
The thing is, when you woke up, you weren’t quite my Neil. The doctor said you recognized me because you had known me for a long time. But you didn’t remember anything from the last year of your life. You didn’t know that Dan and Charlie had already gotten married, let alone that you took me home that night and made me fall madly, passionately, desperately in love with you over the course of the next week and the 6 months that followed.
So, I’m sitting here, Neil, and I’m at a loss. Because I’m still the girl you took up to your room at Dan and Charlie’s wedding. The one who spent the last 8 months so in love with you that I ached every day. The one who prayed to a God she barely believed in before to protect the man she loved because she couldn’t live without you. He answered my prayers. You’re alive. And you’re whole. And you’re awake. I just forgot about the part where you love me as much as I still love you.
And I do love you, Neil. I love you more than anything in this world and I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else. Maybe someday I’ll get over you. But until then, I’m going to be right here, waiting for you to remember that you loved me so much it hurts. Because I know you loved me as much as I love you. And I have to believe that it’s still inside you somewhere.
Be careful and be safe. Come back to me. I miss you. I love you.
Always,
Your Meghan
When she was done reading, tears still in her eyes and her voice, Meg looked at Neil and asked, “How did you get this?”
“Didn’t you send it to me?”
“No. I’ve read it about a million times, but I never sent it to you. When did you get it?”
“Yesterday. Why?”
It dawned on Meg who’d sent the letter. Why wasn’t she surprised?
“Charlie.”
Neil shook his head. “I don’t understand. Charlie sent it? How, if you didn’t give it to her?”
“Charlie and Dan were here last week. They stayed overnight and I took them to the airport for their trip. Did Dan tell you that they were taking a second honeymoon?”
Neil nodded. “He said they were taking the tropical vacation they couldn’t take last year.”
“Right. Charlie was showing me where they were going on my computer. I left for a few minutes to check on dinner and she asked for a pen. I told her it was in the top drawer. She must have found the letter in there. I couldn’t bear to take it out this week or else I’d have noticed it missing.”
Neil took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a second and then when he opened them, his green eyes made direct contact, and he said, “Do you still love me, Meghan? Do you love me as much as you did when you wrote that letter?”
Meg shook her head and Neil inhaled sharply. She touched his cheek. “No. I love you even more than that now.” He let out the breath and visibly relaxed, his breathing uneven.
“You scared me,” he said, shaking his head at her. He leaned his forehead into hers. “I love you so much. I think I might fall to pieces if you didn’t still love me. That letter made me take out the boxes of my stuff from Afghanistan that my parents gave me at the hospital. They told me to look at it when I was ready. So I finally did. You wrote me so many beautiful letters, Meghan.”
“Because you wrote me so many beautiful love letters, Neil. I had always wanted to write love letters to someone, to receive them from someone. I didn’t stop after you were hurt. Did they give you those?”
“They did. Oh, Meghan. I am so, so sorry I put you through that.”
She pulled him to lay back down on the bed with her, so that she could hold him. “You didn’t do it on purpose, Neil. But plea
se, don’t ever do that again. Can you promise me that? Because I don’t know if my heart can take it.”
“I can’t make any guarantees, Meghan. But unless there is a troop surge or we actively go to war, I shouldn’t see combat again. They asked me to teach at sniper school. One of my instructors is retiring and he recommended me for the job.”
“Where is that?”
“Fort Benning. In Georgia.”
“I always wanted to live in the south.”
“You’d follow me there?”
“I’d follow you anywhere, Neil. I’d follow you to the ends of the earth if it meant I could wake up next to you ever day.” He smiled. He had opened his mouth to speak when she heard a knock at the door.
“Oh, shit.”
“Got a date?” he joked.
She jumped up and threw on her robe. “Uh, sort of. I was going to the beach with Nina. We both had good reasons for wanting to forget today. Well, I did. Now I want to remember it for the rest of my life. Be right back.”
Meg ran down the hall just as Nina walked in the front door.
“I was wondering where you were. You’re not ready yet? You knew I was going to be here at nine, Meggie. If we don’t get going soon we won’t get a spot at Pine Point. You know that.”
“Um, I think I might have to skip the beach,” Meg began.
Neil walked into the living room in just his boxers and wound his arms around Meg.
“We can go to the beach.”
“Neil! Oh, my God! You’re here! Does that mean you have your memory back?” Nina exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. She stepped away, smiling.
He laughed and nodded, looking at Meg with such love she thought she might melt.
“Yeah. I finally remembered how in love I am with your cousin.”
“I can’t believe it took you so long. As if you weren’t in love with her before this last year.”
Neil blushed. “Yeah, I figured that out. It was really confusing waking up with her sitting next to me. I thought maybe I had dreamed that part for a while when she never came back. Danny tried to tell me she had fallen in love with me, but nothing seemed to jog my memory and I didn’t believe it was real.”
