“Thank you for being a gentleman, Jameson.”
His smile was lopsided. “Well, I appreciate that. Maybe you can tell me what we’re doing here.”
She waited until he looked her in the eyes again. “I think the room’s beginning to get warm.”
“Well, I agree with you there.”
“Should we talk or—” She smiled instead of finishing her sentence.
His attention was revved to full alert. He licked his lips, set down his coffee cup, and slid under the sheets next to her. She nearly spilled her mug. “I think you better take this,” she said as she held it out to him.
He set her coffee on the floor, so close she heard the clinking of the ceramic. He climbed on top of her body as she pulled her knees to the side and, leaning on his elbows, let his fingers lace through her hair. One thumb dragged along her lower lip. With complete focus, he inserted his thumb into her mouth. His chest rose with his inhale, just before he bent down, his thumbs caressing her cheeks on both sides as he took his kiss at last. His fingers gently cradled her head. They fell into the warm intensity and familiarity of what their combined chemistry had always been, and was building again. The sights and smells of the room, the talks from last night, even her years as a single mother, all floated away. She was focused on her need for this man. It was basic, like breathing, something she’d held back and hadn’t allowed herself to own. Releasing those portions of her soul felt so good, to be lost in the arms of someone who transported her to the heavenly delights as a real woman, not a plaything. Again, her emotions got the better of her. When he came up for air and looked into her eyes, he carefully rubbed the tears away.
As if reading every breath she took, absorbing every expression on her face, he let his fingers draw down to her panties. The smell of her arousal was unmistakable, seeming to drive him wild. He urgently pulled them off her, spread her nether lips with his thumbs again, and kissed her there, sucking and biting her nub as she arched backward from the pulsating pleasure he brought her. The sight of his light brown hair between her legs sent off a warm tickling sensation, a delicate feather was lightly brushing up her spine. Her skin was warmed all over, her nipples engorged and hard, craving his touch. Her ears buzzed. Her breasts ached, bulging under the confines of the lacy undergarment. His lovemaking started slow, then gained gradual speed as he rose up again and searched her face, intent on the way she bit her lip. His fingers pinched her nub, and he drank from her arousal. Her moan was all for him.
He lowered his mouth again, finding her opening, laving her while her rocking pelvis performed the dance for his hot tongue he inserted deep.
Suddenly, she could take no more and pulled under his arms as if she could lift him, bringing him up on top of her, begging for his cock.
“Please, I need you inside me.”
He slipped down his boxers with ease, and her fingers clutched his muscled butt cheeks as she pulled him hard into her, eliciting a resonant moan from his massive chest, his arms bracing his shoulders. She melted beneath him as he arched, rocking forward and back over her lower body, spreading her knees wider, and begging for his thrusting penetration.
Briefly separating, he found a condom in the nightstand easily within reach and began to sheath himself, but she pushed his hands away and finished, squeezing his cock and letting her hand wrap around him tight. She led him to her opening, her fingers still forming a ring at the base of his stem, as he slowly eased his stiffness inside her, feeling every half inch at a time. She’d closed her eyes at the sheer power of their joining, feeling that place with her fingers as his body entered hers, getting lost in it.
He whispered in her ear, “Lizzie, look at me. I want to see how it makes you feel.”
Her muscles went into lockdown, and he groaned. “I remember this,” he whispered again. “And something else,” he said, as he kissed her ear, sucked on her earlobe, and found her bud with his other hand. Pressing it between his thumb and forefinger, he shattered her.
She began to shudder and shake, rockets going off behind her eyes, the delicate hairs under her ears washed in his long, languid kisses. When she pressed her neck to his mouth, she felt the sharpness of his teeth as he bit his way down to the tops of her shoulders. He lifted one knee up, holding the back of her thigh with one massive hand and slipping her lower leg over his shoulder. Having better access, he slowly added his forefinger to his own girth inside her, at the same time sliding his middle finger up the end of her sex, following the trail of her engorged lips to tap her sensitive anus. He did not penetrate her there, but rubbed her moisture all around her little flower in a ring. Her internal organs pulled at him again, and she pressed his buttocks, digging her nails into his flesh and gripping hard so that his granite shaft produced the dull ache against her cervix. She held him tight as her body milked him, not allowing him to move.
He began a long moan as his hips pivoted upward, his thrusts becoming more urgent, burying himself deep inside her, each plunge deeper still, until he held himself against her vibrating walls, catching the tail end of her orgasm, and riding her body until she caught her breath and began to calm.
A thin line of sweat drained down the small of his back. His forehead was covered with beads of perspiration. She blew into his face. He closed his eyes and accepted the gift of her breath. When he opened his eyes, they stared into each other’s souls.
How could she have even considered not seeing this man again? She reached down, pulling the sheets up over both of them. He collapsed, still inside her, and, within seconds, began a deep sleep.
She didn’t want to wake him, loving the heaviness of his body as he rested against her, making it hard to breathe. The difficulty of her rising and falling chest was a labor of love. His warm body covered her completely, including one of his arms clutching the fingers of her hand out to the side. She loved that his sleeping form demanded she still be his.
Maybe that’s what she’d been afraid of. What if she’d had to say no? What if he wasn’t the man she thought of as a magical memory? What if he had transformed into some other kind of predatory creature commanding her submission?
She knew she would have resisted him. But relief flooded her body. She could trust her feelings, her yearning for him all these years. Her instincts had been spot on. And just like magic, he had brought the one most perfect and precious thing into her life, Charlotte.
It was unfair to expect too much, but in the luxury of his arms and surrounded by the scent of him making her drunk with joy, she inhaled, grabbing all she could gather, and hoped these memories, too, didn’t have to be relegated to some distant archive she’d bring out only when she couldn’t hold it back any longer.
All that she could hope for had happened. He wanted to be Charlotte’s father and had accepted his paternity, as she dared to believe he would. And she hoped there would be room for her in there, too. Her mind wanted to embrace the vision they could be a family. But even if they weren’t meant to be a family, he would be Charlotte’s daddy.
And that was way more of a future than she ever thought possible. She’d take it one day at a time. Whatever happened, she’d accept it with her full heart.
Chapter 9
‡
“We are going on a field trip this evening. We will gather after evening prayers. Light refreshment will be provided, and then when we come back, we shall feast before turning in for bed. You will do an hour of study before we dine, before our field trip. Wear your western clothes, but wear the ones you’ve had washed, not the new ones.”
Assad opened the Rumi book and began reading.
‘With the Beloved’s water of life,
No illness remains.
In the Beloved’s rose garden of union,
No thorn remains.
They say there is a window from one heart to another,
How can there be a window where no wall remains?’
Most the boys had a confused look on their faces. “Sweet cherubs, you have no idea h
ow the pleasures of a woman can turn your heart. Understand, some of you have been sent by parents who know you might become martyred. ‘How can this be?’ you say. The woman gives to you the baby you send off to war.”
One of the boys sitting toward the front, his best and brightest pupil, turned around behind him. “Answer the teacher,” he demanded of the crowd. He was the one they all feared. Assad knew he would make a great leader because he did not care for feelings, which helped with some of the difficult decisions.
“So, Ari, you tell them then.” Assad nodded to the pupil.
“I have felt the calling of a woman. What the poem is saying is that as your loins increase, as you swell and ache to join, it is a false sense of duty and loyalty.”
“Exactly! Ari has stated it perfectly. How can a window exist where there are no walls? In other words, they have merged, become one. This is a very dangerous concept.” He held his finger to the air, stressing the point. “There is only one calling. There is only one love greater than all others; it transcends the limits of the flesh.”
Assad walked over to the side, looking out over the green rolling hills of the farm they’d rented. The land in Tennessee was beautiful. Lush and greenish gold this time of year. It was as if Mother Earth, as the hippies in America called it, was ripe with abundance, distracting her people from their true calling. It would be easy to fall into the beauty of this land, to lie in her arms and explore her valleys like he would a lover.
“The temptations are greater here. But so is the opportunity. The Americans are weak people. They trust everybody. They don’t like to ‘make waves’ as they say it.” Assad knew they enjoyed when he spoke English idioms. His eyes rolled as he pretended to be a surfer on a surfboard somewhere in the ocean he’d never seen.
The students chuckled, similar to what he’d remembered as a schoolboy at his mother’s skirts. Again, his breath was taken away at the purity of their thoughts in face of the hell he was going to ask them to create. They’d walk into the blast furnace of their cause with a smile on their faces, willingly. And Assad knew that every time they would do this the Americans would be afraid. They grew weaker with each new bold confrontation. He wanted them not to feel safe in their land of milk and honey, wanted them to think everything was falling apart, as it would one day. They blamed their own police, everyone in charge. Soon, they’d be running in the streets like the band of thieves they really were. Selfish, beaten down by a soft belly and a lifestyle that didn’t prepare them for the blood that was coming.
“The girls you will meet will want to learn things about you. You can smile and pretend to be shy. American girls love that. And let’s face it,” he said with a shrug, “it’s true. You will be shy. You will see and hear things you’ve been told you are not allowed to see and hear. It will be difficult for you to sit next to all the pretty girls in their halter tops and skin-tight short pants. Their parents allow them to look like prostitutes. Even the nice girls do it. Some of them are embarrassed by what they wear, yet they do it anyway.”
The boys whispered amongst themselves, adjusting their prayer robes.
“So you pretend you are a shy boy from Syria. That there was no future for you there and you must come to the States to live with relatives. You will read them these love poems.” He held up the little book. “And they will fall all over you for them.”
The consensus of agreement was there. The school uniforms had been purchased; not real uniforms, but jeans and American Keds, sweatshirts, plain tee shirts, and even black hoodies for each boy to help them fit in. They weren’t allowed logos at the school, so Fatima and the ladies had been careful to take along one of the mothers who volunteered at the school and was their liaison.
“Teacher, I wish to ask a question.”
“Okay. What’s up? Please stand and face me when you ask a question.”
Young Sami scrambled to stand. “If it is wrong to read Rumi back home, why isn’t it wrong to read Rumi here? And wasn’t Rumi a believer? My sister told me—”
“Your sister? Your sister reads Rumi?”
“No, Teacher, but she told me Rumi lived nearly a thousand years ago. At one time, it was considered scholarly to read Rumi.”
Assad held up his book. “You think this is scholarly?”
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
Absentminded. Someone sober
Will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.
“You think it is responsible to let yourself go like that? To fall into the clutches of a woman who lets you fuck her, over and over again, until you are crazy? That is the stuff of whores, Sami. That is an addiction to the flesh. You must be addicted to God and to his people. There is no greater good.”
“But we are to break the teachings here. You are instructing us to do something we could not do at home.”
“Correct. Because these girls you’ll be meeting are not worthy of the air they breathe. In that sense, Sami, you are allowed to cull them from the population of this land so we can claim it for our kingdom. That makes all the difference.”
Chapter 10
‡
Jameson rode behind Lizzie’s car outside the Nashville city limits until they came to a modest neighborhood of smaller homes on average-sized lots. It was a blue collar neighborhood with an assortment of toys in the front yards like an occasional motorcycle or older RV. The yards were fenced and generally kept simple, but nice. He imagined that most of the people who lived here were at work.
She stopped in front of a yellow home with off-white trim. A pink plastic trike with pink and purple streamers and yellow foot pedals was parked just inside the fencing. A pile of shoes, adult sizes and a few child’s sizes, including crocs, were scattered over the doorstep. Lizzie rang the doorbell, and he heard “Mommy” from behind the door. The window beside the front door was covered by narrow mini blinds with several of the slats twisted, leaving gaps. Jameson saw a pair of brown eyes examine him from one of those gaps.
When the door opened, Jameson came face-to-face with a little angel. Her nearly white-blonde hair was floating out of braids that had ceased to hold the hair at bay. But her eyes were unmistakable. They were his eyes. The same color of aqua, clear and almost backlit. She quickly refocused on her mother.
“Mommy,” she shouted as she leaned forward, nearly leaping from a young woman’s arms into Lizzie’s. She buried her head in Lizzie’s neck and gave her a hug, all the while staring up at him.
Lizzie’s friend eyed Jameson like he was a rare and lethal bug, her arms now crossed. At her side, a toddler of about Charlotte’s age, with chocolate brown eyes and a coffee and cream complexion, gripped her thigh and waited.
“Kendra, this is Jameson Daniels. Jameson, this is my best friend, Kendra.”
Lizzie’s friend didn’t offer her hand when Jameson stuck his out. She scowled at Lizzie. “You comin’ or goin?” she asked as she ignored Jameson without any acknowledgement. He wasn’t used to the frosty reception; but then, under the circumstances, he gave her the benefit of the doubt.
“I’ll be taking her and heading back to North Carolina tonight. Thanks, Kendra,” Lizzie answered her.
“Sure thing. I’ll go gather her stuff. Come on in, but our house rules say take your shoes—holy cow, those are nice boots!” She allowed a sneak of admiration to filter up to him, but then quickly covered it up. “But you still need to take them off, cowboy.”
“No problem.” Jameson sat on the porch bench and began following her instructions. Lizzie slipped her shoes off easily and stepped onto hardwood floors in her bare feet and red painted toes. Jameson placed his boots next to hers and walked in his stockinged feet to the small living room.
“Come on, Charlotte. Let’s find your bags, okay?” Kendra begged, holding out her hands for the toddler.
“I want Mommy to come.”
“Oh, soon you’re gonna have Mommy all to yourself. Help me pick up your dolls and things, and then we can visi
t with Mommy’s friend, afterwards, okay?” She shot a pointed look at Lizzie. Charlotte eyed him carefully again as she was led away to gather her things.
Lizzie took Jameson’s hand, and they sat side-by-side on the only couch in the living room. A large toy box in the corner had a lid in the shape of a princess castle. Jameson had never spent much time around children, even less around little girls not yet school age. He squirmed in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs.
“You nervous?” she asked him.
“Depends on what you’re gonna tell her.”
“Well, anything I tell Charlotte, she’ll forget. Or is it Kendra you’re more nervous about?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, neither one of them appears to have warmed to me at all.”
Lizzie giggled. “I remember that about you. Always worrying about things. You need time to let it sink in, Jameson. We’ve been here, what, all of one or two minutes?”
“Honey, I’m way out of practice. You forget where I hang out most of the time.”
“Yup. Bars and hotel rooms. Not sure either one of them picked up on that, so just relax and enjoy the tension.”
She gave him a sweet smile, but Jameson wished he could find a really good reason to bolt. He had been the one to insist he meet his daughter, and he wondered now if he should have taken more time to adjust, since it had been less than twenty-four hours since he’d learned about her.
“Don’t mind Kendra. She’s protective, and I do the same for her. We watch each other’s backs, sort of like you and Thomas.”
Before he could object, Charlotte came running into the room in a pink cape that sparkled in the sunlight, wearing a princess crown. Without warning, she jumped into his lap and leaned against his chest as if she’d done it many times before. In her right hand, she held a monster dress-up doll with big tits, wearing red high heels, jamming it up into his face, nearly smashing his nose.
“What’s this?” he asked, as he peeled the doll from her chubby fingers and held it out in front of him. “Holy cow. That’s a strange lookin’ thing, isn’t it? What’s her name?”
Nashville SEAL: Jameson: Nashville SEALs Page 24
