“You told them about me. That was your first mistake,” I finally counter, joking but not letting him know that. “The rules remember?”
“I wasn’t breaking any,” he says, breathing heavily. “I accidentally mentioned you when she asked about the venue.”
“And? There has to be more to it than that. She wanted to know my life’s history, Leif. She asked me if my period was regular,” I reply. I’m pretty sure she was joking, but I answered honestly because she caught me off guard. “Come on now. What did you really tell her?”
The breathing on the other end of the line intensifies, an animal caught in a perfectly laid trap. “They know what’s inside my mind. Eva knows me as well as I know myself. I didn’t have to tell her anything else. I merely said your name and she attacked.”
I laugh. “Come on, Leif. I’m not giving up. Tell me,” I order, checking my watch. I’m on a break at the General Store, sitting in the dimly lit backroom, echoing my voice. The other workers take breaks with each other. I’m the odd man out and have to eat my packed lunch in a dungeon hole without another person in sight. I like the peace. I like it even more now that I have Leif to talk to. “Why did she want to know how many exes I had? Questions aimed in the dating department.”
He groans. “I might have mentioned that we were…friends. Eva took it from there and it’s snowballed into her planning our wedding and naming the nonexistent children. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Eva is relentless in her pursuit to match me up with someone. And to have kids of her own. It rubs off on everyone around her.”
This got a lot more serious in the span of thirty seconds. He’s basically admitting to having feelings for me. To his family. Sisters. People who mean something to him. He’s also simultaneously telling me this isn’t going past the dating phase.
“You can breathe easy, Leif. I don’t care about talking to Eva. She was nice enough. I honestly thought you’d be upset because we were breaking some dumb rule. Sure, she was asking more questions than I have to answer on my yearly physical form, but it’s because she cares about you.” A novel idea to me, a woman without siblings. My cousin lives a few towns over. I don’t see her near enough, but she’s always been the closest thing I’ll ever have to a sister. She’s busy with her life and I’m busy with mine, but I know she’ll make time for me if I need her.
“No. You don’t know Eva. She doesn’t care about me, she wants to own me.”
Tilting my head back, I let a giggle slip. Shaking my head, I reply, “You’re being such a dude. It was a little weird. I’m over it already. You scared me when you called today. By the sound of your voice, I would have guessed someone died.” I swallow hard and try to mask my unease by taking a bite of my sandwich. “Which would be an occurrence in your daily life, wouldn’t it?” I ask when my mouth is empty. It’s a hard thing to wrap my brain around. The whole SEAL career and all that it entails. He’s given me details here and there when I ask pointed questions about Hell Week and the breakdown of where all the different Teams are around the country. He promptly shuts down the conversation when I ask specific questions about missions and things I’ve seen on the news. Top secret Leif gives nothing away.
“Not daily,” he fires back. “More than it should. It happens more than I want it to. Though things are slower than they were at the start of the war. It’s dying down. No pun in intended,” he replies, clearing his throat.
I take another bite and chew slowly, digesting this information. “Is dying down a good thing?” I edge. “Safer for you? Safer for our world?”
The scratch of his five o’clock shadow rubs against the phone. “Yeah. Yeah,” he says. “It would make me sort of twisted if I admitted I enjoy war, right?”
“Yes,” I say.
“I definitely don’t enjoy it then.”
I slurp the rest of my drink. “But you do enjoy it.”
“I never said that.”
“You do,” I reply.
“I’m happy here. In Bronze Bay. Not deployed.”
“Hmm,” I grumble into the phone. “Yeah?”
“With you.”
My face flushes and my stomach flips the contents like a roller coaster. The tone of his voice pierces my thick skin—silently filling me with something I never dreamed possible. Hope. I ball up my napkin until it can’t get any smaller. Leif stays silent, waiting for a response. “I have to get back to work,” I whisper.
“Can you come over tonight?” Leif asks. “We could watch the sunset, drink beers. Or wine, if you think that’s a more acceptable date.”
I laugh, and my stomach sinks. “I can’t. The night nurse isn’t around and I can’t ask the daytime one, she’s been there all day while I’m here.”
After a beat or two, Leif asks me how much I pay the nurses, and I tell him. He asks me a few other questions about my finances. I have no reason to lie to him or feel ashamed. His sister knows when I’m having my monthly, surely my income and bills aren’t that taboo to talk about. Leif has told me he’s really good with numbers and he wants to help me. For whatever reason, maybe because help isn’t something that’s offered to me very often, I accept willingly.
“Last question,” he asks, voice hesitant. “I had Celia look into a few facilities in our area. Don’t get upset. I just asked her very casually. She’s a nurse and knows a lot of people.”
I make a noise of acceptance, mostly because I’m not sure what to say and I’m a little upset. We never established boundaries, but this kind of seems like he’s stepped over some.
“If she can pull some strings and get your mom the help she needs, would you accept it?”
A lump lodges in my throat. This is what I’ve always wanted for her. A place she would be safe at all hours of the day regardless of my location. Would I be able to live with the guilt of passing her to someone else? “Can we talk about this later? I’ll think about it,” I tell him, sniffling.
“Did I make you upset?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s just I’m happy you’re trying to help me and sad because I didn’t think it would happen this fast. It’s a lot. I’ve been on my own, save for my friends and the nurses I pay, for a long time. Giving up control will be complicated.”
“We can talk about it later, okay? Something to think about is all.”
“Sure,” I tell him. “I have to go back to work. The birds are staring daggers at me,” I say, narrowing my eyes at my coworkers trying to listen to my conversation. “Call me later?”
“Of course,” Leif says. “Malena.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re an amazing person. In case no one has told you that today.” He clicks off the line, and my heart rate ratchets up even though he’s not in front of me. Shaking my head, I pocket my cell, slam my lunch box in my locker and exit the break room without so much as looking at the rest of the General Store employees.
______________
I rub her clammy forehead. She woke up flailing and crying again. Because she forgot he left us. I calmed her as best as I could, but I’ll be on high alert for another hour or so. That’s about how long it takes for Mom to fade back into REM sleep where she has to be for me to be confident she won’t wake up and try to leave the house. After leaving her room, I double check the locks on every exit in the house. I had trigger alarms installed on every single door and window after the first time she went for a walk at two in the morning. I hoped the alarms would take the place of the night nurse and save me some money, but it wasn’t enough and I had to keep working. It will never be enough.
Rubbing my tired eyes, I pull a glass out of the cabinet and hold it under the faucet to fill it. Standing over the sink, I drink the contents, tipping my head back. Deep breaths, Malena. Deep breaths. Leif is right. A facility would be able to better handle her at this point. She’s not only a prisoner of her own mind, she’s a prisoner in this house. I grab my novel off the kitchen table, and head back to my side of the house, taking the monitor with me. I grab a
stress ball off a shelf and begin crushing it in my palm. This is the point when I usually start to feel sorry for myself. The point when I let the guilt ease, and let myself actually feel mad about my predicament, my lack of life because of the responsibilities I bear.
A rock hits my window instead. Glancing at the gauzy curtain, I look back at my book. Another tiny rock hits. Then another three in a fast succession. Padding over, I pull aside the curtains and see Leif leaning against a palm tree, in my front yard, a bicycle next to him. Shaking my head, I deactivate the alarms using my cell phone and open the window as high as it will go.
“You scared me,” I hiss out. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
“I wanted to see you,” Leif replies, the tension in his shoulders and neck evident from my perch several yards away. His white shirt has a sweat stain. “I couldn’t wait until our next date,” he explains when I don’t reply. “Can I come in?” The air is thick, the humidity clinging to anything that will hold it.
I’m acutely aware of my tousled hair, crappy old T-shirt hitting mid-thigh, and what it means when a man comes over in the middle of the night unannounced. “Is this a booty call, Leif?” He approaches and my heart thumps a little more wildly with each of his thunderous steps in my direction.
He smirks. “No way.” Under his breath, he says, “I wish.” But I know without a doubt I wasn’t meant to hear it, so I take the goosebumps and the panty buzz and step back so a burly man can remove my screen and crawl through my window.
“I can’t believe you rode all the way here.” I pull my fingers through my hair, glancing in the large mirror above my dresser trying to calm the tangle. I let my gaze flick to Leif in the mirror—he’s staring at me, a fierce smolder about to set my skin on fire. In favor of seeing that in person, I meet his eyes, smiling. “It’s late for a workout, isn’t it? Didn’t know bike rides were your thing either.”
“I wasn’t working out. I just…couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he says. “You’re so beautiful.” His eyes dip down to my shirt and bare thighs. “I’m out of my league here and while I’m sure me showing up in the middle of the night to talk to you isn’t the best idea, you should know I almost didn’t wake you up. I was standing out there just thinking. Looking like a burglar or something worse. Figured I better just do what I came to do.” What did you come to do?
“If it makes you feel better, I wasn’t sleeping. You didn’t wake me up.” For once, I keep a lid on the details. Ruining this mood would be criminal.
“Good,” he replies, breathing heavy. “I need to try something.”
“Try something?”
He steps toward me, putting one hand on my hip, raising my shirt on one side by gliding his hand up to my waist. When my black lace panties show, he lets the shirt fall back down. “Like I thought,” he growls, swallowing hard. Leif leans his forehead down on mine. “Malena, I can’t stop thinking about kissing you. I can’t stop,” he repeats. “If I kiss you, maybe I can get my head on straight. I’m not a man that makes excuses, but I need to try. You’re driving me fucking crazy. Talking to you. Getting to know you. Giving a shit. It’s all messing with me. A kiss. All I need is a kiss.”
Running my hands under his T-shirt, he shudders as my fingers make contact with his bare skin. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not,” I reply after he hisses out a pleased breath.
Nodding emphatically, he says, “It is.”
“Sounds like we have an experiment on our hands,” I reply, removing my hands from his rippling abs to glide my palms on top of his biceps and forearms, watching as my touch prickles his skin. “Just a kiss? Nothing more?”
Biting his lip, he nods, leans down and pushes my lips apart with his tongue. His hands circle my lower back as the kiss deepens—my lips on his, and our bodies pressed together, no space for the Lord in this embrace. It’s gritty with need and electrified with pent-up desire. His teeth bump against mine, as he tilts his head the opposite direction to possess my mouth from a different angle. Backing up, he follows me until my legs hit my bed.
Leif breaks from the kiss only long enough to remove his shirt, as I scoot back toward the pillows. “Consider the experiment a failure,” he breathes, eyes wild, gaze flicking from my mouth to my eyes. “I’ll never get enough of your lips.”
I grin in reply and he’s on me in the next second. His kiss truly is an out of body experience. My skin is on fire from feeling his large hands on my hips, tingles of need flush every part of my skin that touches his. This isn’t because I haven’t been with a man in a long time, it’s because it’s him. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I clasp my hands around his neck, lacing my fingers in his hair. Our height difference isn’t as obvious when we’re lying down, limbs entwined, heart to heart. Leif drags his lips across my neck, leaving a trail of fire as he goes. His kiss finds my ear and I whisper his name. A tiny plea for everything he’s not giving me. Everything he can’t give. His lips find mine again and I let my eyes close to feel every sensation crawling through my body.
His muscles are tightly coiled, strong. Leif’s body is saying everything his words never have. He wants me. Us. This. Just as much as I do. When he pulls away from the kiss, I meet his eyes. The light blue is exquisite this close—a liquid ocean full of torment and satisfaction. He pushes breaths through his full lips as he pants, the only exertion being him holding himself back. A flood of wetness soaks my panties, a mere look turning me to culpable putty in his hands. I’d give up anything to have him. This look. I feel it everywhere.
“Malena,” he says, licking his lips. “I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.”
“Then don’t. Kiss me.”
Wetting his lips, he looks at me reverently laying beneath his strong frame. “I want to do a fuck ton more than kiss you,” he says, leaning back, his legs on either side of my own. My shirt rode up, and there’s an ample amount of under boob exposed. “A kiss didn’t fix anything.” Leif shakes his head. “A kiss sealed my fucking fate.” Sighing, he bends his head and drags his lips up my stomach to my breasts, teasing my shirt up with his tongue, until his mouth seals over my nipple.
He slides his mouth over to the other side and repeats the gesture, his lips and tongue worshipping my skin—slowly, methodically. I’m lost in the moment, his touch, the way he’s looking at me, testing my reactions like he’s trying to play an instrument. My breaths come quicker, and my stomach flips when he finally brings his kiss back to my mouth. A soft rain begins falling outside my window, the wind blowing it around signaling a night storm.
“You kiss like you’ve had a lot of practice,” I say, my words brushing across his wet lips.
He shakes his head slowly, dragging his tongue along my bottom lip as he does. “You make me feel like this is my first time.”
His words hit me everywhere this time, including my heart. “You’re so smooth.” I guide his head back to mine and steal the knowing smirk off his face with another kiss. He groans into my mouth as he presses his erection between my legs. The hard bulge is exactly where I want it minus our pesky clothing. His face tells me he’s thinking the same thing as he glances between our bodies, his bottom lip clutched between his teeth.
The moment turns to dust as the first roll of thunder breaks around us. We both jump. Leif puts a hand on his chest. “I’m not used to that yet. This shit comes out of the middle of nowhere.”
“I know. It’s not something you get used to either. Sort of comes out of the middle of nowhere most of the time,” I say, my heart rate hammering more from his touch than from the scare.
Kneeling, I hug him around his neck. His hands hold me, but his attention is focused at my open window. That thunder must have really shocked him. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, obviously,” I reply.
He shakes his head. “No, not the thunder or the rain. It sounded like a crash,” he says. “In the distance.” Nope. I didn’t hear anything. His cat-like, SEAL reflexes must be on ale
rt. When he pulls away from me and stands from the bed his eyes are narrowed out the window, his gait sure, steady, it looks like he’s entered another mode—another skin.
“My bike is gone,” he whispers.
I jump out of bed and grab my phone and then the horrified sickening feeling rages in my stomach. “I didn’t turn the alarm back on,” I whisper.
“What?” Leif says, turning to look at me over his shoulder.
I run to the living room and sure enough, the front door is wide open, the rain blowing in anytime a gust of wind strikes. “My mom. She’s gone. She left,” I scream out, but Leif is already out the front door at a pace that seems inhuman. “I didn’t turn the alarms back on,” I say to myself. How could I forget? Why would I turn them off and forget? What is wrong with me? Staring at the cell phone screen and the red disarmed buttons, I close my eyes and take a silent, horrified breath. “I did this. It’s my fault. It’s always my fault.”
I step into the rain and am soaked in seconds, my hair plastered across my forehead. With bare feet, I make my way down the driveway to the main road and look both left and right. When do I call the police? Now? The road is silent, we only have a few houses on our street, but there are a ton of trails cutting through the thick brush-like woods that surround our house. It’s from one of these trails that Leif appears several feet from where I stand, a rain-soaked hero, my mother, sobbing silently, in his arms.
“Get the car, Malena,” he calls out the order. “Her wrist is broken. She took a fall on the bike.” Her pink nightgown is covered in dark muddy spots highlighted by a lone, blinking street light. Turning on my heel, I start my car and run back to the house to throw on actual clothing and grab Leif’s shirt off the edge of the bed, a sight I’ll probably never see again.
Tossing It_A Navy SEAL and Secret Baby Romance Page 7
