by Leddy Harper
“Dinner’s ready.” My voice came out airy, heavy and burning with unsatisfied desire as I spoke against his collarbone. I gently pushed against him, needing to pull the pan of lasagna from the oven before it burned.
“I’d rather eat you,” he said with his fiery lips against my neck, scorching me with a heat that traveled down my body and settled between my thighs.
I hesitated for a moment before pushing him away enough to slide past him. His promise had left my panties wet and my core throbbing, but I had to stay strong. Not only did I have food I needed to tend to, but we had been in the middle of a very serious conversation—one which had left me with an unanswered question. And I wouldn’t allow myself to get hung up on his sexual promises before finishing what we’d previously started.
The lasagna was too hot to eat, so I left it on the stove to cool down some. When I turned back around, I found Nolan hunched over, his forearms leaning against the tops of the barstools I’d been trapped between. But his deep, penetrating gaze was locked on me, practically stripping me of what little clothing I had left on. I suddenly became aware of the fact I stood in his kitchen in nothing but a bra and small cheerleading shorts.
He must’ve read my mind, because as soon as I moved to grab my shirt, he swiped it from the bar, keeping it from me.
“Come on, Nolan. Let me put it on for dinner. I don’t particularly care to burn my chest with hot cheese.” I smiled at him, teasing him enough in the hopes of him returning my shirt to me, but it didn’t work.
“If I have to eat with a hard-on, then you have to eat topless. It’s only fair, Novah.”
“You know, you could rectify your problem by letting me have my shirt back. You might just calm down if my breasts weren’t on display.”
He finally smirked, but it was sinister and full of other promises that left me clenching my thighs together. “I can think of several ways to rectify my problem…none of which include you putting clothes on, and all of which involve you taking them off.”
He stalked toward me, rounding the bar until he stood in front of me. His thick arms caged me in against the counter behind me. Everything about him from his darkened hazel eyes to his ticking jaw, his coiled biceps to the hardness behind his zipper—which he tauntingly pressed into me—had my body burning with need. But I craved more from him, so I fought against the desire that left my clit swollen and achy, and stood my ground.
“If you think I’m weak enough to give in, then you ought to spend a little more time getting to know me. You’re tempting, Nolan, but I’ve played this game before.”
He bent down so his lips grazed the edge of my ear, his fiery breath coating my neck in chill bumps and sending shivers down my back. The bundle of nerves at the base of my spine tightened and ached.
His words were mostly made of thick air as he whispered, “Tell me what to do to get between your legs.” The tips of his fingers trailed up my bare thighs with the softness of a feather. “To get inside you.” He pressed into me harder. “To taste you again.” His tongue traced the outer edge of my ear just before he nipped the lobe gently between his teeth.
Everything in me screamed to let him have his way, to give in and succumb to the things I knew he could give me—things I’d never been able to find since him. But I couldn’t. If I ever wanted all of him, every nuance he kept hidden from the world, I couldn’t be weak.
I had to steel my resolve for him.
“Talk to me. It’s the only thing I want from you, Nolan. I just poured my heart and soul out to you, and all I ask for in return is a response. A breadcrumb, a tiny piece…something to help quiet the fear in my head.”
That’s all it took for him to back away, his eyes zeroing in on mine, narrowed and dark. No longer were they clouded by lust, but clear and focused. He remained in front of me, back hunched so his face was level with mine.
“What fear?” He dipped his head as soon as I attempted to glance away, keeping me from breaking eye contact with him. “Novah…what fear?”
“I thought…” Insecurity suddenly attacked me, leaving me small and insignificant beneath his scrutiny. “Never mind. It’s stupid—it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
“No.” He carefully wrapped his fingers around my neck and forced me to look up as he regained his full height. “Stop doing that. Everything you do matters…every thought, every feeling, ever word. They all matter. Don’t start something and then shut down.” He leaned closer until his forehead pressed against mine. “Don’t shut me out.”
I fell into him, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face into his chest. “I told you how I felt—how I feel—and you dismissed it, changed the subject when I said I wasn’t sure about yours. Listen, if you don’t want to tell me, I understand, but please don’t lie to me. Don’t try to sidetrack me with promises of sex. If you don’t share the same sentiments, it doesn’t mean I’ll give up on you. I can’t expect you—”
“My God, Novah.” He threaded his fingers into my hair and used it as a leash to pull me away from his chest. “You have got to stop these nervous rants. If you don’t stop talking, then I’ll never be able to tell you anything.”
He stared at me, as if expecting me to respond, but I couldn’t. He told me to stop talking, but even if he hadn’t, his gaze was intense enough to silence my words before they could even form.
“I have no idea why you’re unsure about my feelings toward you. When you came to my office on Monday, I didn’t hold back. I told you how I felt about you in high school. None of which was a lie. After everything I told you in the car on Wednesday as we sat in the junkyard…how could you possibly doubt how I feel?”
“I didn’t say I doubted it. I said I could assume. But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to play your words in my head and try to surmise what you mean by them. You’ve said a lot, Nolan. Some out of anger, which if left solely to assumption wouldn’t exactly lead me to certainty.”
“Then let me make sure you know with a hundred percent certainty, without a shred of doubt, and with no room for assumptions.”
I blinked and waited for him to continue.
“You were right on the money in your explanation of the afternoon in my mom’s garden. Of who I was back then…who you were. And how we were—the connection, the moment we shared. All of it. You say you unknowingly gave me your heart. But I unknowingly took it.”
He licked his lips and dropped his gaze, clearly struggling with his words. But I remained stoic, silent, waiting for him to find the composure he needed to go on.
“Fear has no place in war. When you become afraid, you lose the ability to be proactive. But it’s hard to block it out when you see death on a daily basis. When you lose brothers, people you’ve grown to love. When you have to pull the trigger because life comes down to you or someone who’ll take you out without a moment’s hesitation. Suddenly, you find yourself alone, your pistol in your hands, with only one way to escape the demons living inside you. And you realize you now face two enemies: the ones hiding in the trenches, and the one in the mirror. You ask yourself what’s the lesser of two evils. Do you wait to be taken out by a stranger who hates you, hoping you make it back stateside for an honorable burial, or do you bite the bullet and give yourself one last moment of dignity?”
“No…Nolan.” Tears clouded my vision, pouring from my eyes and trailing in warm paths down my cheeks. I’d asked for answers, but I never expected to hear this.
He gently shook his head and wiped my face with the calloused pads of his thumbs. “No matter how badly I wanted to end it all, guarantee my way home, even if it would be in a box, I couldn’t do it. The memory of your face kept me from pulling the trigger. It kept me alive when death seemed so much easier.”
His confession caused me to hiccup, choke on my own erratic breath. My heart sped up, my pulse thrumming in my neck. Everything in me warmed and cooled all at once. Dizzying visualizations danced before my eyes as I tried to image what he’d been through, but all
I could picture was a lost soldier, alone, with nothing but the innocent love of a girl left behind.
“I could never explain why you’d come to me in those moments, saving me from myself. But now I know…it’s because I unknowingly had your heart. But then, during a supply run, my Humvee hit a small IED. I was in the back, which spared my life, but two of my friends didn’t have the same luck. After that, I hated you.”
His words stung, eating away at me until I had to drop my head. I couldn’t look at him while he confessed to hating me, even though he’d already told me. But hearing the why, the when, and the how…it was too much, and I had to look away. Thankfully, he continued without forcing me to meet his gaze.
“I blamed you, because had you not prevented me from ending my own life, then I would have never been there. I would have never had to go through that. And I would have never been forced to live in this body. In my mind, it was your fault I was missing a leg. Your fault I’ll never forget the stench of burnt flesh. And your fault I’ll never be a whole man ever again.”
“Please, Nolan…that’s enough,” I cried out, begging him to stop. I couldn’t hear any more. My tears had turned to sobs, my legs barely holding me up as I shook uncontrollably.
His lips came to rest on my cheek, his hands running soothing circles across my back. “It’s taken me a long time, Novah, but I finally see now. I know it was never your fault. I knew it then, but refused to accept it, because I needed someone to blame.”
He pulled away slightly, enough to look me in the eyes. And I waited silently for him to go on.
“Six years ago, I sat in a bathtub at my parents’ house, my dad’s revolver in my hand. I couldn’t take it anymore—the constant pain both in my body and inside my head, the deep-rooted anger, the haunting nightmares I couldn’t wake up from. The person I became. The son I’d turned into.”
I wanted to close my eyes, block out his words, but I couldn’t. I was transfixed on everything he said. Every word. And they buried themselves in my head as I visualized it all.
A horrific motion picture of his torment.
His demons.
“It had become too much, and I didn’t want to live anymore. I put the gun to my lips, but then worried something would go wrong and I’d end up living, only this time, on a feeding tube because I no longer had a throat. So I pressed the barrel to my temple. I put my finger on the trigger and closed my eyes.”
As he said this, his eyelids lowered. He inhaled deeply, his shoulders broadening, and then he met my gaze once more. This time, something bright flashed in them, causing the gold flecks to shine through the darkness.
“You know the saying, ‘see your life flash before your eyes’? Well, I don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but something similar happened. However, it wasn’t my life. I didn’t see flashes of my childhood or close relatives. I didn’t see war or my friends. But I did see something. For no reason at all, I saw a butterfly land on a flower. I sensed a heavy presence directly in front of me, between my legs, and I could swear it pressed against my chest. I smelled something sweet, like shampoo or lotion, but I knew it wasn’t mine. It was feminine, soft. And then I saw blond hair shining in the sun right before I whispered, ‘now,’ and the scent grew stronger. I never saw your face, but I knew, without a doubt, that once again, you came to save me.”
As he told the story of his vision, I could picture it so clearly, but from a different point of view. I remembered him sitting behind me, waiting for the fluttering butterfly to land so I could capture it with my camera. It was a yellow butterfly, and after a few moments, it landed on an opened hibiscus flower.
“I signed up for college the next day. I made a new plan, one that included getting a degree, getting out of my parents’ house, and then moving to wherever you were. At the time, all I could focus on was finding you. I didn’t have a clue as to what I’d do once I did, and I refused to put too much thought into it, because anytime I allowed you into my head, the hatred disappeared. And I needed to hold onto it.”
My chest tightened and more tears leaked from my eyes, joining the others on my chest. His events gutted me and filled me with despair and hope all at the same time.
“Then I found out you still lived here, and I got started on opening my business with a friend from college. I figured I’d move here first and get settled before reaching out. I found out four months ago about your studio, and for those four months, my hatred grew until I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought I had it all figured out. But then you showed up in my office with the photos you’d taken.”
A lump formed in my throat. My stomach churned, and I had to slap my hands over my mouth in fear of becoming sick. I pushed past him and raced down the hall next to the kitchen. I had no idea where I was going, but I hoped the door I found myself in front of was a bathroom.
It creaked as I opened it. I rushed inside and closed it harshly behind me. But it wasn’t a bathroom. It was an office, a dim room with one window above a small oak desk. Before I could escape, the door opened again, pushing me out of the way and farther into the room.
“Novah, let me finish.”
“No,” I said and stumbled to the desk. I used the cold edge of the wood to hold me up on my shaky legs. “I don’t… I can’t…” I spun around, finding him directly in front of me, defeat evident in his pinched brows and downturned lips. “I honestly have no idea what I expected you to say, but I can’t listen to this. It’s too much.”
He dropped his gaze and slowly shook his head, leaning against the desk with his arms on either side of my trembling body. “You said your chest feels full, like I’ve filled it. But it’s not because I’ve given you back your heart, Novah. It’s become my lifeline, and I’ll never return it. I think your chest feels full because I’ve given you my heart.”
Time froze for a brief moment, allowing his words to soak in. Unable to hold back the impulse, I took his face in my hands and kissed his lips, feeling him tremble against me. “That’s all you had to say from the start, Nolan. You didn’t have to torture me with your story.”
His brief hesitancy waned as he held me tighter, pulling my chest flush with his. The way his rough, warm hands searched my body, my bare skin, left me on the edge of desperation.
“Can I eat now?” he asked with heavy breaths.
“I’m not in the mood for lasagna anymore.”
He picked me up. My legs automatically wrapped around his tight waist, and he gave a laugh. “I wasn’t talking about the lasagna.”
Before I could answer, only barely registering his words, he set me down on top of the cold, hard wood. The wall behind me pinched the skin over my spine, forcing me to arch in order to relieve the stinging pain, but then the back of my head hit the window. The wood slats of the blinds rattled as they moved against the glass pane and filled the room with noises parallel to destruction, yet it didn’t interrupt Nolan in his plight.
His lips trailed achingly down my neck to my cleavage, his hands moving behind me where he swiftly unclasped my bra. With unhurried movements, he dragged the straps down my arms and pulled the cups away from my breasts before tossing the flimsy material behind him. I was left in a heady cloud of lust when he pulled the chair out from beneath the desk and sat in it, directly between my legs. After getting situated, his mouth traveled south, his tongue leading the way to my navel.
I gripped his shoulders and dug my fingers into his taut muscles, needing something to ground me. Convulsions took hold of my body. My nerves went haywire as his attention continued its path to the band of my cotton shorts. When his fingers hooked beneath them, prepared to pull them off, I had to steady myself on the desk. I pushed up to lift my hips in order to keep him from dragging me completely to the floor.
My panties had been yanked off along with my shorts and tossed over his shoulder to join my bra on the floor. The air from the vent settled between my legs, and it sent a shiver up my spine as it instantly cooled the overheated arousal that left me slick with
desire.
His fingers taunted my bare sex and his lips seductively met the sensitive flesh over my pubic bone, warming my entire body with each breath he exhaled. My hands trembled. I frantically held onto his head, wishing his hair had been a little longer to grab onto while my hips uncontrollably rotated toward him.
A sharp gasp rolled through my throat as my head tilted back. I squeezed my eyes closed with my mouth opened wide. He’d filled me with a thick finger, slowly working me open before adding another. Every time I began to relax around him, he’d do something else to cause my muscles to clench and my back to arch.
The feather-soft grazes of his lips left every nerve sizzling and fried each time he moved his head. Then his blazing, wet tongue swiped the spot that had been aching for his touch since our brief moment in his kitchen years ago. He sat hunched over in the chair between my legs, his face buried in my sex, his tongue expertly manipulating my clit while his fingers explored every inch inside me. I thought I’d explode, unable to hold on any longer, but then he pulled his face away and waited until he had my attention.
The tension in my forehead grew tight as I waited for him to say something—or to go back to what he’d started—but then I realized his intention.
“Nolan, I’m completely naked on your desk. You’re sitting between my legs. Your fingers are deep inside me and you just had your mouth on my clit. I think it’s a safe bet to say you have my permission.” My words were nothing but panted desperation, airy and throaty.
A genuine smile lit his face as he said, “I’m not taking any chances this time.” And after giving him a nod, he turned his grinning lips back to the throbbing he’d created.
This time, his movements became harsher, making his earlier ministrations seem gentle and soothing. His thick, calloused fingers moved roughly in and out of me, forcing my eyes to nearly roll to the back of my head. With each thrust of his hand, the stirring in my lower abdomen intensified, filling my core with almost unbearable heat.
