by Serena Bell
Oh, God.
She didn’t care. She didn’t care what a bad idea this was or that in half-sleep he probably didn’t know who she was or what the hell he was doing. She didn’t care that when he awoke fully he’d push her away, or that in the morning he’d pretend it hadn’t happened. She didn’t even care that it couldn’t be, couldn’t last.
She just wanted more of him—the succulent swell of his mouth against hers, the slick contact echoing in the quiet room, the grunt of satisfaction he’d made when she’d slid home against him, key fitting lock and turning. His rough, dream-angry hands, the sinew, bone, and equally hard muscle under her own roaming fingers, the sleepy, rich scent of his skin filling her head.
Because these strange interludes, these middle-of-the-night meetings, they were the only place she could find him. Or, really, the only place and time when he could find her. When she knew he recognized her.
“God,” he said. Or she thought he did. And “Trina.” Then again, so she couldn’t mistake it, “Trina.”
This couldn’t make it worse. It couldn’t make her feel more lost. And maybe, just maybe, it could be a bridge back for him. There was no denying the connection, no denying the hard length of him against her thigh or the relief in the sounds he made or the way he clutched her.
And there was no denying the relief that had washed over her as she felt his mouth on hers, heard her name spoken in that sleep-roughened voice. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been holding herself together, but now he was giving her permission to let go, and she poured herself into him. Kissing him long, their mouths slick and giving, his hands now drifting down to find the hem of her shorty nightgown, sliding underneath it to cup her where she was hot and achy and so willing. He groaned, clutched her like she was the secret to something, the pressure of his palm against her pubic bone over her panties setting off a cascade of sensations that her body mindlessly sought more of, her hips lifting to him. Her voice, his name; her fingernails, his skin; her hunger, his willingness to feed and fill.
He took his hand away, gave her the whole of his body between her thighs, and she’d missed him, missed this, so much. Rocking against each other and kissing, like before the first time he’d ever been inside her when they were as horny as teenagers in alleys, backseats, behind the locked door of a bathroom in his house at night, until they’d gotten their first big break and the girls had both been invited to a sleepover party.
Everything about this was brand new and ancient at the same time, the way he ground between her legs, the tension gripping and welling up there and clutching her all over, drenching her in sweat. It was impossible to tell how much was his tongue stroking hers, his mouth setting the pace, his hands pulling too hard and not hard enough in her hair, the weight of him on her like something she’d lost and found again and couldn’t get enough of, the hard, hot length through two thin layers of fabric, just the right amount of friction, the emotion pouring through her like something she’d been soaked in.
Whatever it was had gotten hold of her and tightened its grasp, sweat prickling all over her body, her hips seeking him recklessly and relentlessly, and his seeking her back. He wouldn’t let her mouth go and it was like being pulled, down, down, down, the tension thrumming to a taut, helpless peak, until she was breathless and beside herself, totally out of her head. She raked his back, called his name, came with an exultant, ragged cry he suffocated with his mouth, his own groan swallowed in his chest, his body rigid over hers, his muscles locked and trembling.
He lowered himself slowly to the bed beside her, found her hand with his, wrapping hers completely, a blanket of safety, and they lay there, side by side, her thoughts a jumble, words waiting to sort themselves out. Questions. What was that? What happens now? Does that mean—
And in the silence, his breathing was easing, lengthening, his hand coming loose, until she looked over and saw that he was sound asleep.
Chapter 9
He strolled through the woods, trying to pick out a location for a new tree house. Not every tree, even in dense forest like this, was right for it. He needed a tree that was not only tall, with relatively few low limbs, but healthy enough to bear extra weight—and to outlive the humans who were about to become its new inhabitants.
He was almost out of sight of the girls’ tree house, entirely out of sight of the main house, when he found the tree he’d been looking for. A thick-trunked fir, reaching far up into the canopy, free of disease, with only a few low branches—sturdy, well separated from each other, and nearly perpendicular to the ground. As if it had been made to cradle a hideout.
He had a vision for what he wanted, but he didn’t know yet what it was. It would be round and cozy—a Hobbit hole up a tree—with a spiral stairway ascending. It would blend well with its surroundings and be rough-hewn, making use of raw logs or limbs with bark still intact in places, with a wraparound deck. There’d be a woodstove at the far corner of the deck, which he could use to heat water for an outdoor shower.
It would feel so good to build. His job had been about destruction for way too long.
And he’d teach Clara as he went, pass along what he knew to her. That was way better, for sure, than the knowledge he’d passed along in Afghanistan. How to be wary, how to be vigilant, how to tear down, how to capture and kill.
The girls had ridden their bikes to the ice-cream shop after lunch. Trina had asked them to check in when they arrived at the shop and when they left, and they’d been forbidden to deviate from their route. “I should have confirmed with you, first, Hunter,” she’d said—not looking at him.
“It’s fine,” he said. “You’ve kept them alive all year; I trust your judgment.”
I don’t, however, trust mine. What the fuck happened last night, Trina?
If it had been a dream, it had been realistic enough to leave him with physical evidence; he’d tossed his boxers into the laundry, unease weighing heavily. He’d showered, finding other signs, a sore spot on his thigh, a chafed area where he didn’t think his fist had done any recent work.
Her mouth slick under his, her body arching, her voice a choked cry.
He wrenched his attention back to the tree, his creation slowly revealing itself, his mind already leaping ahead to measurements, to the attachment bolts he’d sink, the brackets he’d need—a trip to the lumberyard in order soon.
“Hunter?”
She was tromping toward him through the woods, laughing.
“What are you doing? You look like—you know that scene in Winnie-the-Pooh where Piglet and Pooh are chasing their own footsteps around the tree?”
She wore a pair of leggings that cut off just below the knee and a long shirt that flared a little at the hips, emphasizing the gorgeous excess of her curves, and his hands were 100 percent positive they’d been all over that ass last night.
He imagined the conversation:
Um, I have a potentially awkward question for you.
Shoot.
Did we—last night—did we hump like teenagers in my bed?
Funny you should mention it, we did!
He let out a short laugh and she looked at him like he’d gone stark raving mad. Right. Right. He hadn’t actually answered her question.
“I’m thinking of building another tree house.”
“Another one? Lucky girls.”
“Not for the girls. At least—I don’t think it’s for the girls.”
“Then—?”
“I guess for me,” he said. “I need—a project.”
“Makes sense.”
“Did you— I’m sorry, I don’t remember, but—”
“You don’t have to apologize for stuff you don’t remember.”
She’d done something different with her hair today, and it fell in loose corkscrews against the cream of her neck. An image, like a snippet of video, flashed through his mind: brushing the tips of her hair against the sensitive skin of her throat.
Memory?
His heart was poun
ding.
She was staring at him now, questions in her eyes, and he said, quickly, “I don’t remember if I was around when you decorated the tree house—”
She shook her head. “I did it while you were gone. I hope it’s okay.”
“Are you kidding? It’s amazing. I love it. I can see how you’d be a great set designer. It’s like a movie set—for a happy childhood, maybe.”
She smiled. “That’s kind of what I was thinking when I did it. I hadn’t designed anything in so long. You don’t get many chances, living in apartments. I mean, obviously you can buy furniture and rugs, and that’s satisfying to a degree, but I haven’t been able to really choose paint colors, definitely not to do murals—”
“Did you do the painting?”
“The girls and I.”
“The tree?”
“I did the tree.”
“It’s beautiful.”
A blush had risen in her cheeks, and he suddenly wished he’d seen her last night, aside from the shadowy sense of her above him. Wished he’d seen her eyes, the color in her face and chest.
But it would be better, saner, far more sensible to wish it hadn’t happened. That it had been, in fact, only a dream.
“So, a tree house for you? What for?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think just for the pleasure of building it. I miss it. Making something with my hands.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I miss it, too. Having a picture in my head, making it real in the world.”
“Yes,” he said, with so much vehemence that they both laughed. And he felt a sudden surge of kinship with her. He’d never really found anyone else to talk to about that aspect of himself, partly because he’d spent most of his adult life around soldiers, but also partly because even in his home life, he’d been focused on survival—keeping his marriage together, making sure his daughter got what she needed when there wasn’t quite enough love to go around in their household.
“Did we talk about this? Before?”
“Before amnesia? B.A.?”
He laughed. “Yeah. B.A.”
“No. There was so much other stuff going on—we were focused on the girls, and on—”
The sudden pink in her cheeks made it clear what that pause stood in for.
“I knew you built tree houses, and I knew you loved finish carpentry. You said if you didn’t deploy again, that’s what you’d do, finish carpentry—”
“Yeah, Nate said that, too. That I was talking about getting out.”
Her face, her eyes, even the tiny movements of her lashes and mouth, got very still. She nodded.
“Did I say why?”
Her gaze slid away from his.
“Because of you?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think only because of me. But maybe—yeah, maybe somewhat. Whatever. Anyway, forget I brought it up, okay?”
She turned away, her shoulders hunched. Even though the posture was meant to be self-protective, it made her look terribly vulnerable, and he wanted to reach out and touch her. Just something simple and innocent. Reassurance. The comfort of a human hand.
But he didn’t.
“Hey,” she said, after a moment, turning back. She’d schooled her face in the meantime and the storm appeared to have blown through. “Why I came out here. I was just looking at plane tickets. It’s cheaper for us if we go Saturday.”
Saturday was the day after tomorrow.
He nodded, feeling that tightness in his chest again. Before his injury, he’d heard people talk about that physical sensation, but he’d never experienced it. Now, it was a frequent visitor.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay with that.”
So either last night hadn’t happened or it didn’t change anything. And he should be relieved about that. He was relieved about that.
She tilted her head to one side, and he thought she was trying hard to look like it didn’t matter what he said.
“I think it’ll be fine,” he said.
Over the last couple days, she’d gradually revealed everything she could think to tell him about Clara. Current favorite shampoo brand. The fact that she now liked to wear white camisoles under all her clothes. The school had told Trina to keep an eye on Clara’s vision—she might need glasses if things got any worse. Clara had developed a crush on a boy in her math class but seemed to be over it now.
“I forgot to say, about the lunch wraps, if you grill the chicken, she rejects it. And she won’t eat turkey breast. Which, I don’t know, is probably just as well, because I’m sure all that store-bought deli meat isn’t good for kids anyway.”
“It’ll be fine,” he repeated.
He did not feel fine, though. His head hurt. His thoughts were muddled. Words came slowly to him, as if he were trying to find them in a vast file cabinet, searching one folder at a time.
“I’ll make chili for dinner for tomorrow night. It’s Clara’s favorite. And we could, I don’t know, watch a movie they like or something.”
“Sure,” he said.
She turned and went back inside, and he watched the pretty swing of her hair and the sway of her ass. Made himself look away.
Saturday.
She wouldn’t get to see the tree house go up, or not much of it anyway, since he hadn’t touched the tip of a pencil to paper yet.
That tight feeling in his chest?
Regret, he thought.
And what a funny thing to regret. He had no sense of loss about those weeks she was mourning, but he couldn’t quite catch his breath over the fact that she wouldn’t be here to stamp her vision on the inside of his tree house.
The human mind was a marvel, he thought—what it chose to let go of and what it chose to hold onto.
Chapter 10
Trina knelt on the floor of Hunter’s guest-room closet, dumping shoes into the last of her suitcases. Some of these shoes had been part of her life for longer than Phoebe had, and she was way overdue to move on. When she got to L.A.—when she got to L.A. and was established in her job and making some money, that was—she’d have to get herself some better clothes. New shoes. If she could afford them. It was going to be expensive, living there. She’d started looking at apartment listings, and whoa, baby. She was grateful that Stefan had found them a temporary solution.
She and Phoebe were leaving tomorrow morning, crack of dawn. All that was left was the chili dinner and a viewing of Inside Out and one more night spent in Hunter’s house. She’d promised herself—sworn, really—that she would not go into his bedroom to comfort him if he cried out. Because it hurt worse now, knowing that the same stunning heat still simmered between them but that this time, it wasn’t enough to bring them together.
He’d told her—before—that his marriage to Dee had been bitter and confining—not because Dee was a bad person, but because they’d disappointed each other. We never should have been together, he’d told her. We were only together because of Clara. Because we couldn’t keep it in our pants. Sex wasn’t enough.
No. It never was. If Stefan had taught her anything, it had been that. It was a damn good thing she was getting out of here before she had a chance to forget that.
Although there was still a part of her that wanted to scream at Hunter: I know your marriage sucked, but we weren’t like that. Let me show you! Let me show you again.
But if their encounter the other night in bed hadn’t convinced him, she had no idea what would. He hadn’t registered even a faint protest when she’d told him she was purchasing plane tickets.
It made her feel like weeping.
“Trina?”
Her name was barely a whisper. She turned to find Clara behind her, arms crossed protectively. Her heart gave a crazy squeeze.
When Hunter had first left, Trina had wondered if it would be hard for Clara. To be the other girl, not Trina’s own. But gradually over the last year, Clara had won Trina over completely. It had been a series of tiny surrenders: The first time Clara had slipped her ha
nd into Trina’s, and a small sigh had escaped from Trina’s lips, like the settling right before sleep. The first time Clara had cried in her arms, and Trina’s eyes had filled. The first time Trina had jumped hotly to Clara’s defense when Phoebe had taken a sisterly swipe at her friend, claws out. Mama Bear, now, to two.
Or she had been.
She supposed the process of coming to feel that Clara was hers would reverse itself. After all, Clara was in good hands.
“What is it, hon’?”
The voice got even smaller. “I got my period. Just now.”
“Well, hey,” Trina said. “That’s—”
She met Clara’s eyes.
“Yeah. I could get, all, ‘Wow, honey, congratulations, you’re really a woman now,’ or—” She scrutinized Clara’s face. “We could just skip that?”
Clara bobbed her head at that option.
“Do you need pads?”
“Yes,” Clara whispered.
Trina dug in her packed suitcase. She’d been wondering how close Clara and Phoebe were to this moment.
“You know how to—?”
More emphatic nodding.
“Go ahead into the bathroom and try it out, and if you have any questions at all, come back and get me.”
Clara disappeared with the pad squeezed tight into the palm of her hand, as if she could make it—and all that it implied—disappear. She was back a few minutes later.
“Trina?”
If Clara’s voice got any quieter, it wouldn’t be audible at all. “What, hon’?”
“What do I do when I need more pads?”
“Well,” Trina said. “I’ll give you the ones I have. And we can get some more at the grocery store or the drugstore.” She remembered quite clearly how humiliating this had all been. “I’ll pick some up for you.”
