by Elise Marion
“I’m going to tell you a story,” he murmured. “And I want you to just listen. Okay?”
She could feel his hand leaving the water, then heard a light splash as he dunked it back in. Swiveling her head, she watched as he produced a washcloth, wringing some of the moisture from it before lifting one of her arms from the tub. He didn’t look at her—kept his gaze focused on her arm as he began smoothing the cloth over her skin, working the lather methodically toward her shoulder then back down again. He kept talking, almost as if he hadn’t just heard her say she wanted to break up with him.
“All right,” she said, frowning as she fought against the relaxing sensation of him circling the cloth over the back of her hand before running over each of her fingers.
He repeated the motions with her other arm, his voice even as he launched into his story. “So, when I about six years old, my dad almost killed my mom.”
She gasped, her eyes growing wide as she dared a glance at him.
“Not Sarah, my stepmom,” he clarified. “My actual mom … and it wasn’t on purpose. Just listen.”
Nodding, she leaned forward as he washed her back, hanging onto his every word.
“My dad was a soldier, and he’d been to Iraq a few times by that time,” he continued. “It did things to him, changed him in a lot of ways. He suffered from night terrors, paranoia, anxiety … it put a strain on their marriage, on our entire family. I was just a kid, but I remember some things. Most of all, the night he almost killed her.”
Pausing for a moment, he moved to the other end of the tub, reaching for one of her ankles and lifting a leg from the tub. She lay back and kept quiet, curiosity now eating her alive. Jack’s family had seemed so perfect—it was hard to imagine him having witnessed something like that.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I left my room to get a drink of water,” he said. “My parents never slept with the door open, but that night, they did. I still don’t understand it … why, on that one night, they would leave the door open. It was the one part of the whole thing I could never make sense of. But I walked past right as it happened. I saw the whole thing, and when I look back and remember it all now, it’s still so surreal. He sat up, eyes only half open—like he was still asleep, but awake at the same time. If that makes sense.”
Addison simply nodded, biting her lip to keep from saying a word. Something told her that he was giving a piece of himself he’d never given anyone else. It was important for him to get this out.
“He turned, got on top of her, and started choking her,” he went on. “And not lightly, either. He was strangling the life from her … but not in a hateful way, but almost as if he thought he was fighting for his own life, you know? Like he had no choice.”
“He was dreaming,” she finally said.
He nodded in agreement. “He was dreaming. I stood there and watched it happen—watched her wake up and start to fight. I could hear her choking and gasping for air, but I couldn’t … I was frozen. Something told me I needed to move, to help her—help them both.”
“You were six years old,” she murmured. “What could you have done?”
He shrugged. “I know that now, but for years after, I carried a lot of guilt over it. Anyway, she eventually fought him off, and woke him up. I ran back to my room, but I could hear them … my mom crying, my dad begging her forgiveness. It was the moment I realized that my family had been broken forever. I knew they would never make it past that night. A few weeks later, she kicked him out of the house, and I didn’t see him again for a year after that.”
She watched him closely as he finished washing her and wrung out the cloth, laying it over the side of the tub. Bracing his arms on the edge, he stared back at her, his expression passive. He related the story as if reciting the alphabet—simple facts of his life that had come and gone. But she knew better. Not having his father for even that short a time must have been painful. Things couldn’t have been any easier on Mr. Bennett’s end, either. He seemed like a loving father, and if he’d stayed away for so long, he’d likely thought it was for Jack’s own good. It was the exact same conundrum she faced right now, and she couldn’t say she blamed Jackson, Sr. for trying to protect the people he loved from himself.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” she whispered. “It must have been hard on all of you.”
Jack nodded, folding his hands together above the water. “It was. But, you know the rest of the story. Dad met Sarah and got his life together, and they raised me together after my mom died. But, I wanted to tell you that story so that you would understand something about me.”
“What’s that?” she asked, clutching the side of the tub and leaning toward him.
His gaze came up to meet hers. “I’m not so fragile that I can’t handle what’s coming. You’re trying to protect me, and I appreciate that. I love you for it … but my life hasn’t been perfect, Addison. I have seen my share of darkness, lived through it. But all those bad things—watching my family fall apart, watching my mom waste away from cancer, finding Tracy’s dead body in that alley—I got through them. I didn’t get through them by trying to take on everything alone. I had Micah, my family, Reniel, and the other Guardians. If I’d tried to face it all alone, I might not have survived. Trying to face the hard shit in life by yourself … Addie, you can’t survive that. So, if Hell wants to use me to get to you, then we’ll just face that head-on, just as we have with everything else since we met … together. I won’t be afraid if you won’t.”
She’d known he would say this—had thought she was prepared to counter him, to tell him that she couldn’t let him face this sort of danger at her side. But Addison found determination and sheer strength of will in the depths of Jack’s eyes. In that moment, she knew he wouldn’t let her go without a fight. And just now, when she felt so exhausted and battle-weary, she didn’t have the strength to resist.
Urging her to stand, he reached for a towel and wrapped it around her before plucking her from the tub and setting her on her feet. He began drying her, vigorously rubbing the towel over her from shoulders to toes.
“Eligos wants to take everything from you,” he continued. “And for a while, he succeeded. He took your childhood, your happiness, your mother. Will you let him take your future, too?”
“Jack,” she whispered. “I don’t want to let him win … but I can’t … losing you again would kill me. Don’t you understand? I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t,” he insisted, rising to his feet and dropping the towel. “Do you hear me? You won’t.”
Then she was in his arms, her naked body pressed against his fully clothed one. The rough texture of his shirt and jeans should have agitated her skin, but instead, it heated her blood, making goosebumps rise along the bare flesh.
“I love you,” he murmured before taking her mouth, his kiss demanding and insistent.
She melted, her limbs weak and her body pliant in his arms as he began carrying her through the open door into her bedroom.
“I love you,” he said again, kissing the corner of her mouth, then her chin, her neck, her shoulder. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you again, and I meant that. Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” she sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. “Yes, Jack.”
“Do you love me?” he asked, approaching the bed and turning to sit on it, settling her in his lap.
“Yes,” she moaned, trembling as his hands slid up from her waist, cupping her breasts, thumbs stroking the nipples in a feather-light motion.
“Tell me, Addie,” he whispered in her ear, his tongue flicking against the lobe. “Say it.”
“I love you,” she murmured. “More than anything, I love you.”
Leaning back a bit, he reached for the hem of his shirt, then pulled it off over his head. Addison’s breath caught in her throat, her hands coming up to touch the smooth expanse of his chest, the stretches of ebony skin kissed by moonlight. Wrapping one arm tight around her wai
st, he moved further across the bed, until he lay under her, stretched out and propped up on his elbows. His eyes gleamed, melting into that startling shade of silver that she loved so much.
“Then don’t leave me,” he urged. “Stay … stay, and show me.”
Nothing but death could have stopped her. Even after reminding her how much he loved her—enough to fight for her, to overcome her deepest insecurities and fears—he was giving her an out. She knew if she stood up and walked away, he wouldn’t stop her.
But, God help her, she couldn’t walk away. She loved him far too much to let him go.
Lowering herself until her breasts brushed his chest, she gazed down into his eyes. He kept his hands at his sides, lying passively beneath her as if anticipating something. Addison knew what he waited for.
Taking his face in her hands, she pressed her lips to his, drinking from his mouth with all the longing tearing her up inside. He touched her again, his hands gripping her hips and squeezing, urging her against him. She shivered at the feel of the hard, thick organ pressed against her through the fabric of his jeans. Trailing her lips down to his neck, she circled her tongue over the racing pulse thrumming at the base of his throat. He sucked in a sharp breath, letting it out on a ragged sigh as she continued lower, pressing her mouth to his chest, then teasing a flat nipple between her teeth.
She couldn’t seem to get enough of him—his feel, his taste, his scent. He let her explore him, threading his fingers through her hair and holding tight as she smoothed her tongue over the ridges in his stomach, thrust against her hand when she cupped the bulge at the front of his jeans.
“Addie,” he groaned, the muscles in his abdomen tightening as she worked to free him, snatching his belt open before unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans.
His hands tightened in her hair, the hold growing almost painful as she gripped him in one hand, swirling her tongue over the flared head of his sex. He grunted, his hips bowing up off the bed, causing her to have to hold on to him to keep from being thrown off. He was coming undone, succumbing to the pleasure of her lips circling him and sliding steadily downward. She closed her eyes and loved him with her mouth, letting her senses be flooded by his taste and the sounds of his guttural moans as he urged her on, guiding her with his hands in her hair, showing her the rhythm he wanted.
He muttered a curse, his breath coming in shorter spurts as she took him in even deeper, until she felt certain she’d driven him almost completely to the edge.
Her name fell from his name again and again like a mantra, or a prayer—the only thing he seemed capable of saying. But she heard the meaning in every utterance of it; he wanted her, he needed her, she was making him fall apart.
Finally, she released him, and a sigh of equal parts relief and regret fell from his lips.
“Back pocket,” he managed between shallow breaths. “Wallet.”
Finishing the task of undressing him, she then reached into the back pocket of his jeans to retrieve his wallet. She smiled when she found two condoms inside.
“Someone took my advice,” she murmured, opening one and using it to cover him.
“Thank God I did, because I don’t think I could have made it to the next room to get one otherwise,” he muttered, reaching for her and pulling her back into his lap with an urgency that left her breathless.
She braced her hands on his chest and waited until he had positioned himself at her entrance. Then, she lowered herself onto him, taking him into her body. She didn’t realize how starved she’d been for him until the moment he’d filled her, so deeply she prayed he never found his way out again. Tremors wracked her body, racing up and down her spine as the urge to move overwhelmed her and chased every other thought from her mind.
They moaned in unison as she slid up, then back down his length, repeating the motion again and again as he raised his hips to meet her every downward motion. Pleasure rippled through her, stoking the heat in her belly to nearly unbearable limits.
Sitting up, Jack wrapped his arms around her and changed the rhythm, rocking her against him, touching her in places so hidden and deep, she hadn’t even known they were there until he made them come alive.
Her heart felt as if it would expand right out of her chest, breathing becoming harder with each exquisite stroke of Jack inside her.
She clung to him, letting her head fall back as he trailed hot kisses down her neck and chest before catching hold of one nipple, sucking it in deep. The telltale spasms of a climax began in her, a light fluttering that grew and built by the second.
Jack’s hands were everywhere, stroking her hair, running down her back, gripping her hips while his mouth touched her, tasted her, whispered love words against her skin.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, raising his eyes to meet hers, his mouth brushing hers. “Addie … my Addie.”
Tightening her hold on his shoulders, she fell against him one last time and spent, her entire body trembling as she shattered into what felt like a million pieces. Yet, as she cried out and plummeted over the edge, he held her tight and lifted her, urging her pleasure to even greater heights. Keeping up a steady rhythm within her, he pushed her farther, turning the spasms unfurling in her core into pounding waves that tore through her like a hurricane, leaving her breathless.
He followed soon after, his hold on her tightening even more as he released with a shudder and low groan.
For a long while, they remained that way—him holding her close, her head resting against his shoulder, her entire body limp, the only sound their breaths racing together in the dark.
Then, she felt herself moving as he rolled over and laid her on her side, disengaging from her body. She whimpered, reaching for him as he slipped away from her, leaving the bed. But, he’d taken every ounce of her energy and strength, leaving her unable to do more than lie there and watch him disappear into the bathroom.
He returned a moment later, sliding back into the bed beside her and moving her around a bit until they were both nestled comfortably beneath the blankets. Lying on his side, he faced her, reaching out to tuck her hair behind one ear.
“I need to tell you one more thing, Addie,” he murmured, his eyelids already growing heavy with fatigue.
“What’s that?” she murmured, suppressing a yawn.
A soft smile curved his lips as he reached up and traced his index finger along the line of her jaw, circling her chin, then stroking her lower lip.
“Don’t freak out,” he warned. “But, I want you to know exactly where I stand. Someday, I am going to marry you. Nothing you say will convince me otherwise. You’ll be mine for life.”
Closing her eyes, she smiled and nestled closer to him. It sounded like the perfect way to spend the rest of her life. It was what she wanted—even if she couldn’t find the words to tell him so.
Yet, even as she began falling asleep, she couldn’t shake the premonition telling her that they were nowhere near living happily together forever. He’d urged her not to be afraid, but she couldn’t escape the knowledge that she still stood poised to lose him.
She’d never been more afraid in her life.
Micah stared out over the small group gathered in the little Baptist church on the corner, a few blocks away from the apartment he’d once shared with Jack. He’d come back to the neighborhood on the pretense of gathering the rest of his stuff, and leaving his and Jack’s keys behind for Mama Jo, but he had another mission. A secret he didn’t trust to anyone else. Not because he thought anyone would be upset by it. On the contrary, they would be proud of him. But, this was something he needed to do alone—the first step on the road to becoming a worthy person.
He wasn’t certain what to do with the rest of his life, or how to make himself fall out of love with Addison. But, he did know that he couldn’t begin to wrap his mind around those other things until he got this out of the way.
Gripping the wooden podium in front of him, he cleared his throat for what had to be the third time and for
ced himself to speak.
“My name is Micah,” he began. “I’m not a good person … haven’t been for a long time. So long, I think I forgot what it takes to be one.”
Silence continued as the group gathered before him continued watching with various degrees of polite interest.
“When I was a kid, my daddy left my mama,” he continued. “I hated him for it … still hate him, if I’m bein’ honest. About a year and a half ago, my sister was murdered. My mama’s gone … and there ain’t many folks left in the world who love me.”
Pausing, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Was he really about to do this? It seemed silly, spilling his secrets to people he barely knew. But, he’d already begun. There was nothing left for him to do but finish. He would never know if it might work if he didn’t at least try.
“I took my first drink when I was sixteen,” he went on. “Just for fun, really. But after a while, I found it was a good way to stop hurtin’. The more I hurt, the more I drank, ’til I couldn’t get through a day without a drink, because just openin’ my eyes every mornin’ felt like too much to ask.”
Falling silent again, he lowered his head, feeling the moisture pooling in his eyes. He blinked it away and cleared his throat again, pushing through.
“But now, no drink in the world can ease my pain,” he said, his voice becoming gruff with the effort it took not to lose it in front of a bunch of people he didn’t know. “In fact, it’s made matters worse. Now, I’m a bastard no one can stand to be around. I say terrible things, I hurt people … chase them away. For a long time, I let myself think my excuses were justified. My pa left me, after all. My mama died. My sister got killed. But I can’t do it no more. I gotta change something, or I’m gonna die alone.”
Sniffling and swiping at the pesky tear racing toward his jaw, he forced himself to raise his head as he spoke the truth for the first time in his life.
“I never wanted to call it what it was,” he stated. “I was a drunk … I liked to drink. But I can’t lie to myself no more. So … here goes. My name is Micah … and I’m an alcoholic.”
