Fever

by Carnal, MJ

  Unable to stop myself, I moved in right behind Kat, grasping her hips. She shot up, looking over her shoulder at me. “Hiii,” she drew out, clearly inebriated.

  I grinned. “Hi.” She relaxed into my front and allowed me to move us from side to side.

  She sighed, closing her eyes and letting me move with her. God, she smelled incredible. I would never smell coconut again and not think of her. Bringing my nose down to her hair gracing the side of her face, I inhaled deeply. Kat leaned further into me, solidly meshing her body to mine. I had no way of hiding what she was doing to me physically. I didn’t care. I was in the moment with her and I wanted her to know how she was affecting me. She turned in my arms so that we were face to face, and ground her hips into mine. I groaned.

  “Tell me, Timber, what are you doing in my little po-dunk town?” Her voice came out raspy.

  I licked my lips, noting she watched my tongue with rapt attention. “I needed the work. Heard there was a job opening, so I came to see what it was. The better question, though, Kat,” I leaned down, my mouth grazing her ear, “is what are you doing in this little po-dunk town?”

  She gave me a wry smile. “Oh, a little of this, a little of that.”

  As I spoke, my breath lifted her hair. “And why do I think there is more to that story?”

  She giggled, then hiccupped. “Because there is. I couldn’t stay in Bay City. There were too many demons there. Too many monsters lurking in the corners.”

  “What does that mean, Kat?” I focused on her eyes, watching her close them. She seemed to be going somewhere in her head that she didn’t want to go. I wanted to feel bad for prying, but I couldn’t. I wanted to protect her, but I also knew I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know why she was running.

  “It means your little friend did something unforgiveable. He’s ruined me. I’m scarred Timber. I’m scarred.” A small tear slipped from the corner of her eye that was still closed. She leaned forward and rested her head on my shoulder.

  I swallowed hard. Wracking my brain, I tried to think of what friend she was referring to. Was it a guy, was it a girl? Who?

  “What’d he do, baby?” The term of endearment falling easily from my lips.

  She pulled back slightly, her eyes glassy from the alcohol. “He knocked me down with the football, remember?”

  We were talking about Adam? Within seconds her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out, her small body going limp in my arms. Bending down, I put my arm under her knees and lifted her, cradling her to my chest. She was feather light. Walking over to Beaver and Mel, I noted they seemed to be in a heated discussion when they stopped talking and looked at me.

  “She’s out cold. I’m going to take her upstairs and put her to bed.”

  “You don’t have to. I can take care of her.” Beaver began to stand and reach for her, but I stepped back. I knew he meant well, but I didn’t want anybody else to touch her. Especially not right now, not after what she told me. Maybe I could get her to stir and she would tell me more.

  He looked at me skeptically. “I’m just going to put her in bed and sleep on the couch in case she wakes up and needs someone. I promise she’s safe with me.”

  Nodding his head, he sat back down and turned towards Mel, continuing their discussion as though I hadn’t interrupted them. I made my way up the narrow stairs to the door at the top. It was unlocked, which made me grit my teeth. It looked like I would be installing a lock tomorrow morning. Anybody could come right in and hide and wait for her. Just the thought made my stomach turn.

  When I got inside, I took a quick look around and noticed her place was just as small as mine, maybe even smaller. Tucked in the corner was a twin bed that had a white and yellow quilt covering it. I carefully pulled the blanket back, trying not to jostle her too much. When it was pulled down far enough, I put her down, gently resting her head on her pillow. Standing back to look at her, I questioned whether or not I should strip any of her clothes off. Kat would probably want to kick my ass. Deciding that it didn’t matter either way to me, I went ahead and tugged her shoes off. Moving up to her jeans, I unbuttoned them, sliding them down her smooth thin legs. That’s as far as I was willing to go. I wouldn’t take advantage of the situation after she showed me some of her vulnerability. I was a prick, but I didn’t get my rocks off on girls that were passed out and unaware that I was standing over them.

  Squatting down by the head of the bed, I used my index finger to push back a few stray hairs resting on her cheek. Her skin was so soft. Looking at her sleeping peacefully, I made a promise to myself right then and there. I would do whatever I had to, to protect her. It wasn’t lost on me that I said the same words six years ago, but this time I knew I meant them. I would always be here for her. I leaned in and placed a soft kiss on her temple before I stood back up and went to lie down on the couch.

  Chapter Eight

  Timber

  “Mmm… just like that,” I whispered in Holt’s ear.

  The kid was sound asleep in his rack and grinding his hips into the hard cot. Corey and Rooster were standing off to the side, chuckling and shaking their heads. Holt wasn’t supposed to be sleeping, but he must have decided a midday nap was a good idea. Too bad for him - you fall asleep when you shouldn’t, you pay the price. The other two and I had walked in here after lunch and found the kid passed out, clearly having a wet dream. I hit Rooster on the shoulder and tipped my head towards Holt, silently telling him to check this out. I walked over to the kid and squatted down. Leaning in, I had started talking dirty to him.

  Holt moaned and ground his hips even harder into his bed. A few minutes had passed, then he suddenly held his breath and shook. Before his body relaxed after getting off, he awoke and shot up, pushing his body up with both arms. He looked down at his bed, not realizing he wasn’t alone.

  “Damn it,” he griped about the mess on his front.

  I let out a small cough, effectively getting his attention. His eyes shot to mine, and I gave him a devilish smile. “Was it good for you? Cause it kinda sucked for me, man. I didn’t even get mine.”

  Corey and Rooster stood in the corner practically crying from laughing so hard. Corey was wiping his eyes while Rooster was bent at the waist. Holt’s face turned beet red with embarrassment. His expression went from embarrassed to angry. Standing up, he walked past me, nudging my shoulder with his own.

  “Not one word about this, fucker,” he said.

  I held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor, but I suggest you take your snooze on someone else’s time. Uncle Sam would be pissed to know you’re sleeping on his watch.”

  Holt went and grabbed a clean pair of fatigues. “Change your panties and head outside. We have drills in twenty,” I told him as I walked out with the other two, who were still unable to suppress their laughter.

  Twenty minutes later we met on our makeshift shooting range to do target practice. We practiced with heavy artillery weapons and grenades to make sure that when real life situations happened, we’d be prepared to defend ourselves. I was a sharpshooter, and rarely missed. So I stood off to the side, watching my boys use M-16s to take down their targets. We had been at it for about an hour when it was time for us to load up and report for our next patrol in the city.

  Climbing into the MRAP I secured my harness, ready to roll. These bad boys were a mix between a tank and a Hummer in looks but made of steel. However, out in those cities and being wide open to attacks, nothing could really keep you safe.

  We were making our first round when we passed by the same shop where we’d seen the man abusing the woman. Looking at the storefront, I saw her. She was standing outside the door with her head down, waiting for whoever was inside to finish. Probably the same bastard that had been pushing her around.

  “That the same broad?” Cooper asked before we went around the corner.

  “Hard to tell with her head down, but yeah, I think so,” I responded.

  As we came back around, I watched her aga
in. She lifted her head and looked right at us. Why was she watching us? Something didn’t feel right about the situation, but I told the nagging in my gut to shut up. As the last few seconds passed that she was in view, I observed her closely. Did she just smirk?

  I was being shaken awake. My eyes flew open and my heart was pounding in my chest. Where the fuck was I? The last time I didn’t know my surroundings was back in the desert. Going on high alert, my body acted on instinct. The same nudging that brought me out of my sleep pushed at my shoulder again. Grabbing the person by their upper arms, I quickly shoved them down on the floor and straddled them, incapacitating them from any movement.

  I always kept a small pocket knife at my side. My adrenaline pumping and still not recognizing where I was, I pulled it out, flipped the blade open and held it to the throat of the person underneath me. My hand was greeted by soft flesh and a gasp that came out was more feminine than I expected. Focusing my eyes on the face below me, I noted the terrified hazel eyes staring up at me. Kat held her hands off to the side, palms open, in a gesture of surrender.

  “Shit,” was all I could say.

  *********************************************************************

  Kat

  My entire body was being pressed into the hard flooring and Timber was on top of me with a knife at my neck. His eyes were absolutely wild and unrecognizable. I was scared out of my mind, but I also knew somehow that he would never hurt me. What a strange thing to be thinking when there was a blade pressed into my skin.

  I watched as his eyes cleared and he really looked at me now. “Shit,” he breathed.

  “Timber?” I barely whispered.

  His blade dropped out of his hand and made a clinking noise when it hit the ground. He looked like he was about to be sick. Swallowing hard, his eyes searched all over my face and then down to my neck.

  “Oh, Christ, what’d I do?” He was speaking so low I could hardly hear him.

  Very tentatively I reached up to touch his cheek. As soon as my fingers made contact with his skin, he shoved off of me so fast you would have thought I burned him. The pained expression from his eyes made my heart ache.

  “Timber?” I asked again, just a little louder.

  He paced back and forth a few times before he stopped and looked at the ground. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. I was still lying completely motionless on the ground, unsure of what to do next. Slowly he brought his eyes back to me. His features hardened and I knew he’d officially shut me out.

  “You okay?” His tone was clipped.

  I barely nodded my head.

  “Good. I’ve got to go.” He grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter and walked out the door before I even had a chance to process what just happened. Slowly rolling over onto my stomach, I laid my head on my forearms.

  What the fuck just happened here? I barely remembered anything about last night. When I woke up I had looked around my still darkened room. My stomach had rolled from the alcohol. I was never drinking tequila again! On my bedside table there had been a glass of water and two aspirin. Sitting up in my bed, I had seen two very large feet hanging over the arm of the couch and I had somehow known they belonged to Timber. That thought warmed me. He stayed with me last night to watch over me. I’d never had a guy do that before-well besides Roger, but that didn’t count. After taking the medicine, I had gone and perched myself on the edge of the coffee table and stole a few moments to watch him sleep. His brows had been furrowed and he was apparently dreaming about something. My initial thought was, ‘how cute, he can even look grumpy in his sleep.’ It stopped being cute when he started shaking his head back and forth, mumbling incoherently. It didn’t take long before he started thrashing around. I tried to wake him by calling his name, but it wasn’t working. Even as I jostled his shoulder, he wouldn’t open his eyes. Then all of a sudden he did, and I found myself pinned beneath him with a knife to my neck. I don’t even know how he moved that fast. An average person would have been terrified of dying in that moment, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t scared for me at all. I was scared for him. I’d never seen a man look as lost as he did. It took my breath away.

  I’d wanted to fix him. My desire was so strong - just to wrap my arms around him and whisper ‘It’ll be okay, you’re safe’ in his ear. He pulled away from me before I got a chance to do more than touch his cheek. His warmth had seeped through me, and now that he wasn’t here, I felt cold and bereft. It made me want to cry. How did I get from being skeptical of his intentions to wanting to give him my shoulder and fix him?

  I’m not sure how long I laid there, but I figured it was time for me to get up and shower. I’d dwelled on what happened for far too long and I had errands to run before the bar opened. Ed needed me to head to the post office to mail his bills and then to the grocery store to get things such as limes, lemons, maraschino cherries, and oranges. I got up from the floor and headed to the shower to strip down but was brought to a stop in front of the mirror. On the left side of my neck was a deep red line. The knife hadn’t broken the skin, but it had apparently bruised me. Great. I’d have to think of something to tell Ed, Mel, and Beaver because they would undoubtedly ask me about it, unless of course, I braided my hair to the side to hide it. I stepped into the shower and stood there for a while, just feeling the spray soothe my muscles. It helped relax me enough that my hangover was slowly subsiding. I made a mental note before I got out that I’d need to carry a bottle of water around with me today. Rehydrating myself would keep the nausea from rearing its ugly head.

  *****************************************************************

  I loved stopping in the post office for nothing more than to talk to Marg and Henry. They ran the place and had for the past fifty years. When I looked at them, I could see what Ed and Rose might have been like. It made me hurt a bit for Ed because his love was gone, but I also liked knowing that he had had a love like that.

  Marg ran the front counter, weighing packages, selling stamps, and putting the mail in people’s PO boxes. Henry typically worked in the back and sorted the incoming and outgoing mail. They’d broken down and hired someone younger to go out and actually drive the mail car after Henry had a heart attack in front of someone’s house five years ago. Since then, he and Marg decided that it was best to keep him close by in case something else happened. He’d received a pacemaker after the attack, but it still scared poor Marg to death that she’d almost lost her husband.

  “Good morning, my lovely young girl. And how are we doing on this fine Tuesday?” Marg greeted me with a warm smile.

  I looked into her kind light blue eyes that reminded me so much of my own grandma and answered, “I’m doing all right. Just dropping off some of Ed’s mail. Do you have anything back there that you’d like me to take back with me?”

  “Well, let me check.” She walked in the back for a minute and came out with a small stack of envelopes. She handed them to me. “Here ya go, my dear.”

  “Thanks, Marg. I’ll let Ed know you said hello.” She said ‘yes ma’am’ to my retreating back. But before I left, I decided to ask a question.

  “Hey Marg, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course. You can ask me anything you’d like.”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, unsure of where to start. “Henry served in the Army, right?”

  “He sure did. Did twenty-three years. Why’d you ask?”

  “Well, because I have this friend. I knew him from a while ago, and he recently came into town for some work.” I divulged this bit of information, knowing that she’d never go around gossiping. “Anyway, he just recently got out of the Army, but I’d heard he’d done some time overseas. He seems…different.”

  She nodded her head in understanding. “That’s because he is, honey.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me tell ya somethin’, when Henry came back from World War II and fighting in Japan, it was like the Army gave me back a different husband. He
’d seen things that couldn’t be unseen. People were shot right in front of him, some of them by his own hand. That naturally changes a person. Henry had changed to protect his mind from going crazy. If he dealt with all of it at one time, he would have self-destructed.” She leaned against the counter. She looked at me thoughtfully, then reached across the counter and patted my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I had walked back towards her. “If you’re worried that you won’t see the same person that your friend once was, don’t be. It takes time for them to understand it all, and I’d like to believe that they do it in their own time. He’ll come back to you, honey.” She gave me a small smile and a knowing look.

  I nodded, rubbing my lips back and forth. “Thanks. I appreciate your honesty.” I made my way out of the post office and started my car. I sat there, looking out of my windshield, letting this new revelation sink in.

  Timber had never been my favorite person in high school. But then that one day - the day that he spoke to me in the parking lot - I had started looking at him differently. He’d made an effort to see if I was okay. None of them ever stooped to my level and tried to talk to me. I never felt like I was worth their time. He made that all different that day. That was the day I stopped viewing him as a self-centered asshole. I had begun crushing on Timber. I felt like he wanted more than his friends did. I had started paying attention to him outside of grading his biology papers. He no longer stood off to the side while his friends teased those that weren’t a part of their clique. He would tell them to leave them alone then distract them with something else. Many nights after what Adam did to me, I had laid in bed and wondered what Timber would have done if he knew what his friend did. I made up a whole fairytale in my head that he had come into the shower room before Adam had succeeded in taking advantage of me. He draped a towel around my shoulders and comforted me, after he had kicked Adam’s ass, of course. That dream was all I’d had to help me sleep at night. It brought me more comfort than I should have let it. So many nights I had let myself close my eyes and drift off to my own imagination giving me relief.