by A. T Brennan
He should have just gotten her to look at his arm, given her a beer because it was the polite thing to do, chatted a bit about casual things while they drank and then said goodbye to her. He shouldn’t have offered her a second or third drink. He shouldn’t have told her to stay overnight, and he shouldn’t have opened the can of worms that was their combined emotional state. He shouldn’t have done any of that, but he really wasn’t sorry he had.
“I saw a lot of shit while I was serving,” he said after a pause. “Some of it stuck with me and some of it didn’t. I spent ten years of my career in safe places doing my job, but those two I spent on tour were different.
“When I was there it was a different world. We dealt with death every day, and it wasn’t just the bad guys dying. We would come up on explosions and there would be body parts scattered everywhere and people dying in the streets. We saw women who had been brutalized and raped, children who had been caught in the crossfire, innocent men who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I don’t even want to remember how many of my own men’s hands I held as they died. How many times I promised I would give letters to their families and tell their wives and children how much they loved them. I don’t want to think about how many I lied to saying they would be fine and tell them themselves as I watched them die.
“Gunshots and explosions were so common that unless they were close we didn’t even look up, didn’t even bother to look around. It was like a natural part of the landscape, and every time we went on the road we had to worry about driving over a bomb. About passing parked cars because there could be a bomb in them or worry that the person who walked by was wearing one.
“We didn’t know who was friendly and who hated us. I’ve been shot at by fucking kids. A kid who could have been the same age as my ten-year-old nephew fired a gun at me, and I had to decide whether or not to fire back. I had to choose whether or not to kill a kid because he was trying to kill me. Our medic was killed by a pregnant woman who pretended to need help. When he went to her she pulled out a gun and shot him point blank and turned the gun on us. We had to decide whether or not to kill a pregnant woman because she’d killed one of our own and she was trying to kill the rest of us.”
He just sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. He’d never talked to anyone about any of this, not outside of the shrinks at the rehab hospital. He didn’t talk about it because he hated to remember, but those were the moments that had haunted his dreams the night before and they weren’t leaving. They were still in his mind and he couldn’t shake them.
Kenzie just stared at Tyler and let him talk. She couldn’t imagine what he’d been through, and she had a feeling that what he was telling her was just what was in his mind now and didn’t even begin to scratch the surface. He was so strong to have survived all of that and come out the other end alive and with his humanity intact.
“When I heard the gunshot I went back to another time, another place, and it wasn’t until I heard you that I snapped out of it,” he said wryly as he opened his eyes. “When I was over there I expected to be shot at. I expected to come face to face with guns, but there I had my own gun. I had body armor and I had my men. I didn’t expect to come face to face with a gun here, in my neighborhood, with no weapon or armor or men. It brought all that shit back and it just kept coming back.”
“Nightmares?” she asked quietly as she drank down the rest of her beer and put the bottle on the table.
“Memories.” He shook his head. “Different shitty moments coming back to me in dreams. Memories I’d sooner forget but won’t let me go.”
“I had them too,” she admitted. “Not memories, just nightmares. I kept reliving the scene over and over again and in my dreams it was just as real as it had been in that moment.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” He sighed as he put his empty bottle on the table.
“It does.” She nodded and leaned back on the couch.
“Did you want another?” he asked as he nodded to the bottles.
“If I have another I’ll go from buzzed to drunk,” she said with a small laugh. “I usually don’t drink beer so it’s going straight to my head.”
She wasn’t really a beer drinker, she liked to have a few but three in less than an hour was a lot for her, and she was starting to feel it. The flush in her cheeks was getting worse and her mind was starting to get a little fuzzy. She wasn’t drunk, but she was definitely on the way to buzzed and one more would tip the scale.
“You have something against getting drunk?”
“No, usually a big fan,” she said with a laugh. “But I don’t usually get drunk with men I don’t really know.”
“You’ve never had a date?” he asked teasingly.
“Not nearly as many as you I’m sure.” She chuckled and then shrugged. “But I do okay.”
“Isn’t that what dates are? Go out, get drunk with someone and have a good night?”
She just laughed again and shook her head. “Maybe for some, but last I checked this wasn’t a date.” She was feeling the alcohol and the buzz was nice. It made her feel more free and she kept forgetting to think about all the reasons why someone like him would never want to be around someone like her.
“True. I usually don’t have my dates check my bullet wounds.” He laughed.
“Not on my list either.” She chuckled as she reached back and pulled her braid over her shoulder. She’d tied it a little tight and there was a chunk of hair that was pulling every time she moved her head, and it was starting to get on her nerves. She pulled the elastic off the end of it quickly combed her fingers through the strands, almost sighing as she felt the snag give and the pressure on her scalp lessen.
“Leave it down,” Tyler said a little thickly when she started to pull it back again.
She just looked at him in surprise.
The way he was looking at her, the heat in his eyes and the seriousness on his face, shocked her. It was not a look she was used to seeing in any man, and especially not one who looked like him.
She let her hair fall and just sat on the couch, staring at him as he looked her up and down.
“So, the reason you don’t want to get drunk with me is you think I can’t control myself?”
“No.” She swallowed and tried to get her heart to stop racing. “I have no doubt you can control yourself. It’s me I worry about.”
“You can’t control yourself?” he raised his eyebrow at her inquisitively.
“Usually, but sometimes I let my mouth get me in trouble.” He was still staring at her with heat in his eyes.
She knew it had to be the beer. It had to be making him see her as something other than what she was. She knew he was just teasing her and it was all just a joke or a prank, but she couldn’t get her heart rate to go back to normal, and she couldn’t stop the flush on her skin.
“Really?” His gaze lingered on her lips before moving back up to her eyes. “I can think of a few things you could do with your mouth that wouldn’t get you into trouble.”
She felt as though someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on her. There was flirting, and then there was seduction. She wasn’t the best judge of what exactly the differences were, but she felt things were moving into seduction, and she couldn’t believe it.
“You can?” she asked shakily as she tried to stop the adrenaline from rising in her body. She wasn’t drunk. She wasn’t mishearing or misinterpreting things. She was in her right mind, but she couldn’t be. She couldn’t be in her right mind if he was trying to seduce her, could she?
He just nodded and moved closer to her on the couch, so he was right in front of her and one of his knees was pressed against hers.
Gently he reached out and cupped her cheeks with his hands, looking into her eyes as he leaned toward her.
She was so shocked she couldn’t breathe. His hands were a little rough and they were big, but they were also warm and felt wonderful against her skin. A flush and a tingle moved over her body, and she focused o
n his lips as he moved toward her.
Instinctively she closed her eyes, and a moment later his lips touched hers. A pulse of pleasure shot through her at the contact.
She’d never kissed a man with a beard before. For some reason she’d thought it would be rough and scratchy against her skin, but it was soft and felt nice. His lips were warm and firm, and she barely managed to pull in a breath as they pressed against hers.
His kiss was gentle. He didn’t try to make it more than it was. He just kissed her for a moment and then pulled away, keeping his hands on her cheeks and his face close to hers as he looked at her.
“Kenzie?”
“I understand if you want to take that back,” she said breathlessly. “If you want to press reset and pretend it never happened.”
“Do you want to press reset?” he asked, his gaze lingering on her lips.
“No,” she breathed.
“Neither do I.” He leaned forward to kiss her again.
This time his kiss was harder, more pressing. His lips were warm and firm against hers, and his tongue moved out to gently trace over her bottom lip.
After a moment of shock she gave into the kiss, and to him. His lips felt so good against hers. His hands were warm and gentle as he held her, and when his tongue touched her lips she was shocked into reality and began to kiss him back, and brought up the level of passion as she let her tongue merge and toy with his.
He groaned against her mouth, and she gasped against his lips when he brought the level of passion up just the slightest bit more.
His hands dropped to her waist and grabbed her tight as he pulled her onto his lap. He settled her so she was straddling him and immediately sat up straight, pressing her body against his as he slipped his hands under her shirt so he could rub them up and down her back.
Her head was spinning, and the sheer strength she felt from him excited her. She ran her fingers through his short hair, relishing the slightly bristly but still soft feel of it, and gasped as his hands moved over her skin.
He felt incredible against her. He was hard and sculpted and she could feel his muscles, but he was still warm and soft. She wanted him so badly she forgot to be self-conscious. She didn’t worry that she was misreading the situation, and she didn’t think about all the parts of her that weren’t perfect. She just gave into him.
Her hands fisted in his shirt as she started to tug it up. She wanted to feel his skin against hers. He pulled away from her long enough to reach back and pull off the shirt and toss it aside; his eyes locked on hers as he did. As he was pulling off his shirt she reached down and pulled hers up and off her body, tossing it beside her as she held his gaze. His look was so virile and so male it made her shiver. He grabbed her and pulled her against his body again, pressing their bare torsos together.
“Oh god, Tyler,” she gasped as his lips found their way to the side of her neck and he started to tease and nibble the sensitive flesh. He kissed along her collarbone and then bent so he could kiss across her chest, kissing her breasts right over the material of her bra.
She gasped again and cried out as his mouth closed over her nipple and he bit down slightly, putting just the right amount of pressure on it. She let her head fall back as she clung to him and gave into everything.
She cried out again, this time when she felt herself being lifted up. He gripped her around the waist and stood, picking her right up along with him. She wrapped her legs around him as he stood there, his lips finding hers as he kissed her hungrily.
She could only hold onto him and try to focus on his kisses as he walked her toward his bed. For a bigger woman who’d always been teased for her weight, the fact that he was carrying her as if she weighed no more than a basket of laundry gave her a thrill she’d never felt before.
When he reached the side of the bed he just spun around and sat down, keeping her on his lap as he held and kissed her. After a moment he reached back and stripped off her bra and pushed her back so he could look at her.
As soon as his eyes settled on her body she came to her senses, and she was mortified. She was positive he’d take one look at her slightly saggy breasts, her soft stomach and her dreaded and perpetual muffin top, and he would be disgusted. She was about to look away from him when he slid his hands up so he could cup her breasts. The fire was still there. The desire was still in his eyes as he looked at her, and she relaxed in his arms.
“Don’t hold back,” he said huskily as he held her breasts, gently rolling her nipples between his fingers as he did. “Don’t let what you think I see and what you think I’m feeling make you pull back. If you want me, give into it.”
“I want you,” she breathed as she looked down at him.
“Then just let go.”
She let her head fall back as he lowered his mouth to her breast and began gently suckling her nipple, giving into the pleasure as his mouth teased her and she cradled his head, holding him closer to her as she cried out.
After a moment he grabbed her around the waist with his good arm and swung her around so he could lay her down, draping his body over hers as he kissed her. She ran her hands over his hard, muscled body, teasing him with her fingernails as she lightly scratched him.
He groaned against her kiss, and she quickly undid the button and zipper on his jeans. She slid her hands under his waistband, expecting to feel the smooth material of boxer briefs, but instead all she felt was soft, warm skin.
She moaned against his mouth and moved her legs so he was resting between them. She slid her hands down so she could cup his firm ass, squeezing and pulling him against her as she wrapped her legs around him and moved her pelvis to meet his, lightly rocking it against his.
With a groan he pulled away from her and quickly set to undoing and pulling off her jeans. They were very tight so it took a little bit of tugging and some pulling, but he was able to get them down and on the floor. In his haste he almost ripped her panties off, and tossed them aside as he used his knees to push her legs apart.
She was so ready for him she wasn’t even thinking of foreplay. She just wanted him inside her, but even in her haze she realized he hadn’t put a condom on.
She was about to say something when he sat back on his ankles, his jeans still on but pushed down a little, and pulled her closer to him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he did. He grinned as he ran his finger over her a few times before sliding it inside her.
She gasped and cried out when he started to move it slowly and purposefully. After a moment she felt his other hand resting on her lower abdomen as his thumb started tracing tight and slow circles over her clit, matching the pace of his finger.
“Oh yes, oh god!” she nearly screamed as the tendrils of pleasure started spiralling out from her very core. As soon as he slipped a second finger inside her the tendrils turned into waves, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she gave into the pleasure.
She could feel herself sweeping toward her release, and gripped the blankets beneath her hands and tugged at them, trying not to squirm too much as her body writhed and shook as her pleasure built.
Her body tightened as she climbed higher and higher, and suddenly she was at that moment between when the pleasure is at its highest and the crest of orgasm. She hovered there for longer than she thought possible, and it felt as if her muscles were about to snap under the strain of it. She was about to beg him to make it stop when he gave her that last little push she needed, and she felt her orgasm from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes as it ripped through her body.
“Oh fuck, oh yes!”
As soon as she hit her peak he just leaned forward and kissed her, pressing his body over hers as he gave her the chance to enjoy it and slowly start to come down.
After a moment he pulled back and looked down at her.
“Oh god, Tyler.” She stared up at him, trying to catch her breath from that mind-bending orgasm. He just smiled and leaned over the side of the bed. A moment later he pulled his hand up and tossed a
condom onto the bed beside her.
She grinned at him and sat up. Now it was her turn to tease him. She pulled him close with one arm so she could kiss him. His lips found hers and she slid her hand down the front of his pants so she could press her palm against his hard cock. He shifted their bodies and pulled his pants down a few inches so she could pull him free. He groaned against her kiss as her hand closed around him, and his arms snaked around her, pulling her close as she teased him.
He was hard and ready in her hand, and she liked how he seemed to be enjoying her; that he was enjoying her touch and how she could affect him as well. She just kept stroking him, and when she felt his muscles started to tighten under her hand and against her body, she found herself being shoved back against the bed as he pulled away from her.
He quickly stripped off his pants and grabbed the condom beside her. She watched as he ripped it open and rolled it on, and then he descended on her. She felt him against her, hard and hot as his body pressed her into the mattress. His lips found hers as he reached down to put himself in the right place before he thrust into her, hard and fast, swallowing her cry as he kissed her.
When he began to move she wrapped her body around his, clinging to him as he kissed her. He wasn’t being gentle, but he wasn’t being rough either. His strokes were strong, steady, and hard enough to make her gasp.
“Oh god. Yes, oh my god,” she cried out as he pulled his lips from hers. “Just like that,” she urged as he put the slightest bit more force behind his thrusts, and she heard him grunt against her hair as he moved a little bit harder.
She felt pressure starting to build in her body again, and cried out as he shifted slightly so he was grinding against her clit as he thrust inside her.
“Oh fuck!” She felt the pleasure wash over her and enjoyed and experienced every moment of it.
Kenzie wasn’t frigid as most people assumed. She liked sex, and when she did get the opportunity she was a very involved partner, but she’d never had an orgasm from penetration before. Not without having to help it along with some extra stimulation. It always felt good, sometimes it felt as though she was close, but she’d never gotten to that point before so she’d just accepted that was the way her body worked and she never expected it to happen.
