by Kylie Walker
He leaned down and kissed her again. The kiss was so hot and so deep that it actually made her feel lightheaded. Years of pent up passion was exploding between them and nothing would be able to douse the flames until they’d both had their fill. His warm thighs massaged the sides of hers and the length of his rock hard erection pressed down into her as he kissed her. His caressing hands never stopped moving, like they couldn’t stop touching her like he couldn’t get enough. When he broke the kiss he pulled his lips up just enough to hover sexily over hers and he said, “You are so incredibly beautiful, Mia. I’ve never seen anything like you. I missed you so much.”
Mia started to tell him that she had missed him too but as quickly as he finished talking, his mouth was back on hers and he again possessed her. She put her hands up on his shoulders and let them feel the ripple of the muscle as he moved. He was incredible and she could hardly believe that this was finally happening. Still straddling her, he used one hand to slide under her upper back and he pulled her up about a foot off the bed. He nuzzled his face against hers, running his nose down the side of her cheek until she turned her head to revel in it. As soon as she did, his lips were on her neck, nipping at the soft curve of it and sending electricity shooting through her body from his lips to her toes. She gasped and bucked against him, crying out his name as he sucked on a piece of the sensitive skin and ran his tongue against it. When he finished with that spot, he slid off her and lay next to her on his side. He kept one leg bent over her in an almost protective gesture as he slid his hot tongue back into her mouth. Their kiss was erotic as they both sucked and reached and explored. His hands had still never stopped moving, running down her curves up one side and down the other and back up again and across. He stopped to run his palms against her nipples and then he would begin moving them again. Mia was almost out of her mind with lust.
She felt his fingertips brushing against her upper thighs and then she heard herself cry out in a strangled voice that didn’t sound like her own as he suddenly brushed his fingers along the seam of her soaking wet pussy. While he touched her, he looked into her eyes with an intense, burning gaze. It was almost as sexy as the touch and Mia wondered how she had lived without him for so long. With a soft touch, he parted her and slid a finger against her throbbing, swollen clit. Once again she cried out. He seemed to feed off the sounds she was making. With each sound of encouragement, he touched her harder and drove her crazier. She was trying to reach him, but each time her hands got close he would press against her body and stop her. He didn’t want her to touch him yet as he savoured her mouth again with his delicious tongue and manipulated her clit in slow, small circles. Mia began sucking on his tongue and she felt the rumble of a growl from his chest. When she turned it loose he pulled up his head and looked at her again.
“I need you inside me, Asher.”
He shivered again. Then he smiled and rolled onto his back, pulling her up on top of him. She was straddling him and her thighs were pressed into his hard chest. She pressed her hands against him and slid back until she made contact with his pulsing cock. He moved his hips until it was nestled up between her legs and suddenly the slow passion turned into urgent, frenetic movements as she pulled herself up and he pressed the tip of his cock against her.
“Fuck.” he groaned out as the head of his cock penetrated her. Mia lowered herself slowly, savouring the feeling as he entered her one throbbing inch at a time. Slow and torturous. She loved the way his expressive face let her know just how much he was enjoying this. He brought his hands up and circled her waist, bucking up his hips and pulling her down at the same time. He was finished waiting. She cried out as he filled her completely. Every nerve ending in her body was raw and it was almost too much, almost too overwhelming. “Jesus, Mia. Fuck baby. God you feel so good.” His words were strangled and he was flexing his hips up and down, circling himself inside of her. She leaned forward and ran her tongue across his lips and he groaned into her as his hands gripped her hair harder. They both finally couldn’t stand it any longer as much as they both wanted to make it last, they needed it too badly. She began moving up and down on his cock, riding him. His hands went to the cheeks of her ass and covered them, massaging them as he guided her up and down. He thrusted himself off the bed as she ground down against him, taking every inch of him deeper into of her. Their movements became faster and harder and more desperate. Mia’s stomach tightened and she could feel the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Her breathing was ragged and frantic. She was thrusting down onto Asher faster. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.” She moaned. Asher dug his fingers into her waist and thrust up repeatedly. Her clit rubbed against Asher with each thrust. She was crying out and Asher was holding her tightly against him. He whispered, “Cum for me baby,” against her mouth and then he claimed it as the intensity of pleasure pulsed through her. She gasped and panted into his mouth and exploded around him. Her body clenched over and over around his cock and Asher groaned, “Oh god Mia, I can feel you coming. So hot, baby.” He held her tightly in place and began driving up into her hard and fast. They were both crying out when she felt him go stiff all over. His cock swelled inside of her and he cried out her name just before his explosive orgasm released into her and his body began to shake all over. She collapsed down against his chest and their sweaty bodies slid against each other.
After his body stopped quivering, Asher sat up, still holding her in his lap and still joined to her and wrapped his strong arms around her back and burrowed his face against her chest. He was hugging her so tightly that she could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. She never wanted him to let go. She brushed her fingertips lightly down his back and after several seconds passed she realized that he was shaking again and she felt moisture against her breasts.
“Asher? What is it baby? What’s wrong?” He pulled his head back and looked at her. He had tears in his eyes. “It’s okay…” she couldn’t stand for him to look so sad, especially right after they’d just made love.
One of the tears began to slowly run down his handsome face as he told her, “I’m so sorry, Mia. I’m so sorry I left. I never should have left you. I didn’t want to. God, I loved you so much.” He started to look down again but this time Mia stopped him with the tips of her fingers underneath his chin. She moved his face so she could look into his eyes and she said, “Tell me, Asher. Tell me why you left.”
Asher sucked in a deep, shaky breath and said, “My mother was tired, Mia. She was in pain all the time. You know, you saw her. But it was worse than any of us could have imagined, I guess. She wanted it to be over. She was ready to die.” He paused and Mia waited. He sucked in another breath and another silent tear made a path down his face, as he said, “She asked my father to give her extra morphine and let her go. He couldn’t do it, so she asked me.”
“Oh Asher,” Mia wrapped her hands around his head and pulled him in tighter against her chest. She kissed the top of his head. “Oh baby, I’m so sorry.”
She felt him shake his head. “No, don’t be sorry. It was what she wanted. She begged me. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. But after it was done, my father told me I killed her and we fought. I left the house to get away from him. I should have come to you, but I needed to feel numb. I went to Dean’s instead and started drinking. Travis was there.”
“It’s not your fault. Travis chose to drink and drive. He was a big boy. As far as your mom, that was a lot to put on a seventeen-year-old boy. I can’t imagine Axel having to go through that. I’m so sorry.”
“I wanted to see you. I was going to drive. Travis insisted he was fine. I was too drunk to know the difference.”
Mia’s eyes filled with tears. Her heart was breaking for him and her brother. “You were just a kid, Asher, you both were. Have you been punishing yourself this whole time?”
He shrugged. “I thought everyone hated me. I couldn’t face my own father, or you. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had done to my mother.”
�
�Where did you go?”
“I called Dean. He loaned me some money and sent me to live with his aunt in South Dakota. I was only there for a month and then I joined the Army. I worked my way up to Special Ops.” He stopped there and she could tell that he was finished talking about it, for now. She just sat quietly and held him. Every so often she would kiss his head and rock him against her chest. Seventeen years of blaming himself for everything, it was too much.
Eventually Asher laid back and wrapped her up in his arms. She felt cocooned, and safer than she had in years, maybe ever. She drifted off to sleep and for the next five hours or so she experienced the most peaceful slumber of her life. The sun coming in through the blinds the next morning woke her. She smiled when she saw Asher’s face. All the lines of worry that had been there the night before were gone and his long lashes laid fanned out against his high cheekbones as he slept peacefully. She gave him a soft kiss and slipped out of bed quietly to use the bathroom.
As she was washing her hands, she noticed a brown prescription bottle on the counter. She picked it up and took a closer look. It was Asher’s prescription and it had a long name that started with an ‘R.’ Mia didn’t know what it was for and she started to worry that maybe something was wrong with him. What if he was sick? What if she lost him again? She set the bottle back down where she had found it and stepped back into the bedroom. Asher was still sleeping. God, he was so perfect.
She tucked the anxiety away and resolved to enjoy this time. This was what she had craved for nearly two decades. She wasn’t going to waste what time she had with him, worrying about when it would end. She slid back under the sheet and propped herself up on her elbow. She could look at him all day. The smooth lines of his chest made way for the bumpy, deep scars that riddled his abdomen. She let her fingers trace lightly over them and around the tribal tattoo that covered the one on his side. When she looked up at his face, his gorgeous green eyes were open.
“Hi,” he said with a sexy smile.
“Hi.” She was so entranced then by his face and his smile, she had almost forgotten her fingers were on his belly.
“Car accident,” he said.
“What?”
“The scars. They’re from the accident.” She nodded sadly and ran her fingers up to the deep one on his left shoulder. “Gun shot.” She swallowed hard and shivered slightly. Tracing her fingers down to the one on his side she said, “Tell me what happened.”
Chapter 21
The only people Asher had ever told about his time on that mountain were his superiors and his psychiatrist. It was something he couldn’t forget about, ever and something he wished he never had to talk about again. But, this was Mia. This was the love of his life that he had hurt deeply. This was the mother of his child. Something he had yet to wrap his head around. He wasn’t about to hold back any longer. He had already lost too much. He sucked in a deep breath and said,
“For the first few years I was in the army, I did nothing but train. They sent me to boot camp, of course, but my instructor saw something ‘more’ in me, he said. What he didn’t know was that it was hurt and anger and guilt that I had turned into aggression because I didn’t know what else to do with it. It didn’t matter to the army anyways. They saw that I was a killing machine in the making. They sent me from boot camp into special weapons training and from there to terrorist tactic training…and on and on for three years. When I was twenty-one they sent me to train with Special Ops in a group called ‘Night Stalkers.’” We learned how to do everything under the cover of night. We would shoot in the pitch dark. We would practice bombings and attacks. We became nocturnal animals basically. Then when I was twenty-three, they sent me to Afghanistan. I would spend my days working out, sleeping, and going over plans for missions, and most of my nights on my belly with my rifle on my arm. I was a night sniper and I was good, the best at what I did. My team became my family and I would have done anything to keep them safe. As the years went on I received a lot of commendations and because of that I was able to move up in the ranks quickly. By the time I was twenty-seven I was commanding my own team. The teams were small, only eight men. I had the same team for the next two tours and they were some amazing guys.” He stopped there as their faces raced across the front of his mind. Suppressing a shiver, he went on. “We were supposed to pull out of Iraq and begin preparing to head home the night before our base was attacked by suicide bombers. One of my men was killed in that attack by debris that found its way into the middle of his chest. It pierced his heart and he was gone quickly. We moved to higher ground so we could fire back on the insurgents firing on us as we evacuated. I took two bullets, one in my shoulder and another in my side. I wasn’t mortally wounded, so I was still fighting. I gave the order to move and Freddie, my second in command, and one of the nicest guys I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing stood up, and they blew his head off. It was the worst thing I saw while I was over there because it was him. I was sick for a long time over it.
I was sent to the hospital after all of that was over. When I was ready to discharge, they tried to send me home. I found out my team was on one last mission and I went to join them instead. When I got there, they were on a frozen mountain looking for a man who had been the only survivor when his team had been attacked. We looked for him for two days and just about the time they were going to force us to come down, half of my team was attacked. As the rest of my men and I ran in to their aid, I heard a jet. The Navy was coming in to bomb the insurgents. The communication between Special Ops and the SEALS had failed somehow and when I heard the jet approaching, I knew what was about to happen. I was yelling, but it was too loud between the jet and the gunfire. I ordered the men with me to stay where they were and I tried to get to the others. The silent bomb hit the ground when I was about twelve feet out. The insurgents on that side of the mountain were killed, but so were my men. I was thrown back about twenty-five feet. I landed on the bloody body of one of my men. The other two were still alive, but barely. They had all been shot that quickly while everything else was happening. There was a sniper in the hills. I had a concussion and I was hypothermic and hallucinating, but I was aware enough to know my guys couldn’t make it out on their own. I’d already lost too many men. I carried them out on my back one at a time. By the grace of God or something, they made it. But, by that time, the death toll that I had caused was the two at home and five members of my team.”
“It was war baby, you aren’t responsible for all of that. Thank God you were there to save the last two men. I know they have to be grateful.”
Asher nodded. “They were at the ceremony where I received my medals. I gave them each one. I didn’t want them. I was only doing my job. They were following my orders and they did so with no questions asked. They deserved them more than I did.”
“Is all of this what the meds in the bathroom are for?”
He felt his face go flush. He knew he shouldn’t feel ashamed for needing the meds, but to him they would always feel like a crutch. “Yeah. I was diagnosed with PTSD. I have nightmares and flashbacks. I’ve gotten so much better at dealing with all of that though with exercise and hard work. I don’t have to take the meds often.”
“You were injured that night too, besides the concussion?”
He turned his right hip to the side and showed her the scars there. “I have a metal hip and a few titanium ribs. I’m practically bionic.” He smiled, trying to make light of it. Mia ran her fingers over the scars, stirring desire in him once more. He pushed up against the headboard and pulled her against his side. “That’s enough talk about death. Tell me about my son.”
Mia smiled. He loved the way her face lit up when Axel was mentioned. He knew without asking anyone that she was a fantastic mother. She had all the necessary ingredients; compassion, intelligence, passion, love and, he would be willing to bet that she had done as good of a job as his own mother had.
The smile slowly faded from her face as she said, “It was about
a month after you left when I realized I was pregnant. I had missed my time of the month, but at that point, I had thought it was just all the stress. Then I started waking up sick every morning. I thought I had the flu, until it didn’t stop. I was losing weight and pale and just sickly. My mother was the one who made me go to the doctor. After Travis, they got really protective. If I sneezed one of my parents wanted to race me to the emergency room. Anyway, I went to the doctor one day at her insistence. She was at work and I went alone. When they asked if there was any chance I could be pregnant, I did’nt know. I told the nurse that the chances were very slim. But Axel is your son, after all. He was determined to make his way into this world.” She smiled again. “My mother was so upset at first. You knew her, she was never really a happy person. My father was so supportive. That was when I first went to your father. He was still drinking heavily and when I told him about the baby, he broke down and cried. He told me that he had been a terrible father and if I would give him a chance to know his grandson, he would be the best grandfather ever. I told him I would love nothing more, but only if he was sober. He spent several months in rehab. He fought hard to get sober and he never failed Axel as a grandfather. Axel adored him and vice versa. Greg taught him how to fish and hunt and how to work on a car. He used to tell me all the time how much Axel reminded him of you.”
Asher had tears in his eyes. He was glad that his son was there for his father and vice versa, but he couldn’t help feeling sad that it hadn’t been him. “Does he hate me?”
“Of course not. He has spent his life hearing stories about what an amazing person you are. Your dad told him football stories about you saving the game and I told him how sweet and caring you were to me and everyone who knew you. Your father told him about you taking care of Lily and how much she loved you. He doesn’t hate you, but he’s confused and angry. He doesn’t understand why you left. He knew that it hurt me and he knew that your Dad’s heart was broke over it. We were two of the people he loved the most. So although he also knew that you never knew about him and you didn’t abandon him, he didn’t understand why you left us. I tried to make him understand how bad things were with your mom and then Travis, but it’s hard for a kid who hasn’t really experienced any of that to wrap his head around that kind of emotional turmoil. He’s a good kid and he’s smart and funny and athletic. You’re going to love him.”
