I deliberately circle my thoughts back to Abby and meeting her in an hour. I glance at my watch. Fifty-three minutes. I haven’t seen her since that moment after class, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. It was the closest thing to aroused I’d felt in as long as I could remember. I'm twenty-five years old. I'm not supposed to be celibate, but the fucking war has neutered me.
The door to the bar swings open, and I see her the moment she steps into the dark interior.
Something is wrong. I was supposed to meet her. And yet, she’s here. One look at her face and I'm on my feet, crossing the space to her. "What is it?"
I want to put my arm around her. I want to pull her close and let her lean before she collapses. "Can we go somewhere?" Her voice breaks, shattering my heart with it.
"Yeah. Sure. Let me close out my tab with Eli."
I step back to the bar and hand Eli my card. Caleb stumbles back to the bar from the latrine. His Brooks Brothers shirt is untucked and wrinkled and he smells like he crawled out of a bottle of tequila. He slaps me hard on the back.
I barely manage to keep my expression neutral even as I shift to keep him away from Abby. There’s something about the way he looks at women that’s…unsettling. I’m trying to behave, if only because Eli asked me to and because Abby is here.
I’d really like to avoid her seeing the worst of me at the moment.
I just want to get out of here, away from him and the thousand bad memories he’s resurrecting just by breathing. I might completely lose my shit if he starts in about what a badass he is.
Hatred is a powerful thing and Caleb—not the person but what he represents—is on the short list.
Jesus, Eli needs to close my tab out so I can get the hell out of here.
“Hey, look at you.” Caleb glances over at Abby and nudges me in the elbow. “Finally gonna get some, huh?”
Just like that, Caleb crosses the line. It’s an innocuous statement, one that shouldn’t set me off. But I know this guy and I know where his mind just went, taking Abby with him into the filth and the grime and the grit. My hand moves before my brain fully engages and I shove him back. “Watch your mouth.”
He smiles and it is cold and patronizing. “No need to be so fucking sensitive. She’s just a piece of ass.”
I react before I really think.
I slam my fist into his face. His cheek splits open and the sight of his blood feeds the need in me for violence. To hurt him for those hateful words. I hope to Christ Abby didn’t hear him.
The blow sends him sprawling across the barroom floor, and I’m about to follow him down, but Eli is there, blocking me from taking his fucking head off.
I shake my hand and take a step away from Caleb, who has managed to push himself upright. Blood splatters on his pale blue Brooks Brothers button-down.
Hitting him felt better than it should have.
Eli steps between me and Caleb and jabs his finger toward the door. “Out.”
I guide Abby out of the bar, unsure of where to put my hands, what to do with them.
“Friend of yours?” she asks. There’s forced lightness in her voice, a tension that mixes with whatever was there when she came into the bar.
I need something to fill the void between us. Something to distract me from the look in Caleb's eyes that filled me with disgust. Maybe I was just looking for a fight.
I was, but that doesn't mean Caleb doesn't need his ass whipped. Just thinking about it gets my blood burning again.
“Not exactly.” I drag my hand through my hair and breathe slow and deep.
“Looks like there’s a history there.” Her voice is quiet. Husky and thick and reserved.
“He’s…he reminds me too much of my old platoon leader.”
“Sounds like you miss the guy.”
Her comment catches me off guard and I smile unexpectedly. “Something like that.”
“Do you miss it? The Army?”
I swallow at the innocence in that question. How can you miss something that destroyed you? That would have taken everything you had? “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“What do you miss?”
“Everything. The guys. The stupid shit my soldiers used to do.” I hesitate. “The sense of purpose, I guess. That what I did mattered.”
She stops then and her fingers find mine. She cups my face with her free hand, her touch soft and oh so compelling. “What you do matters, Josh,” she whispers. A moment before she kisses me.
There is darkness in that kiss. A reaching out, grasping for something to hold on to. I’m pulled under, needing, hoping.
The drinking, the emotional distance—I feel a deep sense of shame because those things extend from my time in the Army. And I’d give anything to be back there now in the stink and the heat and the chaos.
I'm supposed to be an educated man; I'm supposed to know better than to bury my emotions in a drink or six, lamenting the loss of purpose in my life.
Until I met Abby, I was content to burn away the best years of my life missing the worst years of it. Now? Now I am being drawn slowly toward the light, after being in a pool of darkness for far too long. There is a faint stirring of arousal that is so much more than a fleeting sensation of an erection.
It's hope.
Hope that maybe what ails me is only temporary. That maybe, just maybe, I'm not forever fucked up from the war.
That maybe someday I can put the pieces of my broken life back together because I'll have something or someone else that makes me feel like a man again.
But until that day comes, I'm stuck. In the shadows. Wanting, wishing, hoping for a chance to step back into the light.
Abby
There is too much churning inside Josh—inside me—and I'm not sure I can handle him falling apart if I'm already so close to the edge myself. I needed an excuse to touch him, to lose myself in his taste, his touch.
I need to escape. Before everything comes spilling out and Josh looks at me like I'm damaged and unworthy and unlovable. I’m not sure what it would do to me if he ever looked at me like Robert did.
It might break me.
"I needed that," I say quietly against his mouth when I can breathe again.
"Yeah?" He strokes his thumb over my cheek. The roughness of his touch is a balm, calming and exciting all at once. “What happened?”
“Friend of mine was slapped around by his boyfriend,” I admit after a moment.
“Graham?”
I frown, unable to look away from the genuine concern in his eyes.
“You know him?”
“We chatted at the Baywater.”
“No smartass comments?”
“You keep being surprised by the fact that I’m not some mouth-breathing Neanderthal.”
“Well, the Army isn’t exactly known for being a bastion of tolerance.”
“Maybe before the war. Now all we really care about is whether you can do your job. Gay, black or otherwise, most people don’t give a shit. Will you do what it takes to get everyone home? That’s the stuff that matters.”
There’s a roughness in his voice. There’s more to that story.
"You're not going to ask?" he says after a moment.
I shrug, grateful for the distraction from my own worries. It's so much easier to focus on someone else's. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not particularly." There is something dark there, simmering just below the surface. Ready to break free at the slightest provocation.
"Then I won't ask."
He makes a noise. "You're pretty uncurious for a girl."
I tuck my hands into my jacket pocket and we start walking again. "I guess I understand not wanting to talk about everything with everyone." I look over at him. "People aren't entitled to having their curiosity satisfied."
That noise again. I can't decide what that means.
But I don't ask. For now, I'm content to be with him. To be facing down at least one shadow of the nightmares that haunt my life.
/>
He glances over at me, and I can physically feel the half-truth standing between us. "Why did you come to The Pint tonight? I would have met you at work."
I shrug again. I'm not being deliberately coy. I just can't find the words to tell him how much it hurts seeing Graham in pain. "Maybe I just didn't want to be alone."
He stops walking. He slides his hands over my shoulders and turns me to face him. His palm is warm on my cheek, his thumb slipping over my skin. His face is cast in shadows from the streetlamps overhead.
He's calm now; the violence in him either contained or dissipated. Not gone for good, though. I've seen this kind of violence before and it's never really gone. There's a storm brewing in the distance. Thunder rumbles closer from the west.
"We're going to get rained on." My voice is thick. I wasn't lying. I don't want to be alone.
I'm tired of running from the memories of the past. Tired of pretending to have all my shit together. I want to ask him to take me someplace.
Tired of having to be strong for everyone around me. Tonight, just for tonight, I want to lean on someone else. Even if that leaning takes the form of something hot and mindless and slicked with sweat, it will allow me to pretend, if only for one moment, that I am just a regular person. That I don't have to be strong all the time.
I take a single step closer to him. The muscles in his throat move as he swallows. His lips part, his breath is warm on my skin. His fingers spasm against my cheek.
No, the violence in this man is not gone.
And I'm afraid. Not of him but of what he represents. I'm afraid of my reaction to this man, to the violence in his soul. Fear and arousal are twisted inside me. I want this.
I want to do this without shattering.
But it might break open all the old wounds before I'm able to handle them.
"I don't live far from here." His voice is harsh. Rough and strained.
Like the man. Caged and contained by a façade of modern life.
His thumb pauses against my cheek. His mouth is there, just there. A breath from mine. I am aching, hurting and needy all at once.
I close my eyes and lean in, resting my forehead against his. For a moment, the world falls away and it is just him and just me, and we are alone in the shadows and the light.
I'm terrified of taking this step. There's no going back after this.
And I want this. I can handle this. If I keep telling myself it, it will be true.
"I would very much like to go home with you." The words do not get caught in my throat. They flow between us, carrying the invitation, the request from my lips to his.
A shudder runs through him. I can feel the vibration in the space that separates us.
"Abby."
Both hands are cradling my cheeks now. As though he was holding something fragile and worth more than a thousand suns.
But it’s just me beneath his fingertips.
He says nothing more until I open my eyes. The storm is there, looking back at me. Watching. Waiting.
"Tell me what has you sad." Such a simple request. One that I think I love him for.
I slip from his touch and thread my fingers with his. I'm not sure how much I can talk about tonight. Not sure what I can resurrect without falling to pieces, something I'm trying desperately to avoid.
I take a deep breath and hold it until it burns.
When I finally speak, it's not what either of us is expecting. "I suppose you're used to being asked about war."
His fingers spasm against mine and it is a long moment before he answers. "Yeah." Another silence. "Though not as much here as you'd think. I thin...I think people here don't really want to know about it." He glances at me. "Or at least what they think they know about war."
I offer a half-hearted smile. "They're against it."
He makes a noise. "Right."
"There are a lot of assumptions about you. Because you're a veteran."
"I think I'm always one step away from becoming every stereotype they already think I am." He pauses. "I feel like every time I open my mouth, I risk finally meeting everyone's expectations. The angry veteran. Can't piss him off. PTSD might start acting up and he might snap and shoot the place up."
He's trying to be flippant but it fails beneath the weight of his bitterness. It surprises me, honestly, at the level of anger in those words.
"I get that," I finally tell him. "Not the angry veteran, but the expectations? I think it makes life just that much harder for me here because I'm always worrying how people will take what I say or do."
He holds the door open to his apartment building. It's an older brick building at the edge of campus. Not far from the bars and the old shops that were the first in the area to be gentrified.
I follow him silently down the worn carpet corridor to an old door that looks like it's been painted over a dozen times or more.
He pulls out his keys and opens it, letting me into his world, his life.
But I don't have time to take in his apartment.
As soon as the door closes behind us, he backs me slowly against it. I'm aware of his space at the periphery of my senses, but it is Josh who holds my attention.
His body is long and lean against mine, a solid wall of muscle that surrounds me. His mouth hovers just near mine. He does that a lot. This almost-but-not-quite-kissing thing.
It's driving me a little insane.
"You never struck me as worried about what people think." Soft words that are a balm on the ragged, exposed wounds I'm trying to bandage over once more.
"Maybe there's a lot you don't know about me." Sometimes, the truth is easier than a lie.
"What made you hurt tonight?" he whispers against my mouth.
"Maybe I'm trying not to think about it." I want to lose myself in his kiss, but he's holding himself apart. Just enough to make me contemplate serious bodily harm.
He makes a warm sound. "So you need a distraction?"
Oh sweet baby Jesus yes please.
But I can't talk. Because he covers my mouth with his and I am gone, sinking into the sensations he strokes to life inside me with each flick of his tongue.
Chapter 15
Josh
She's not telling me the truth. At least not all of it. I haven't known her long but I know she's a pretty straight shooter. She is hurting tonight. I know this. I can see it as clearly as I've seen anything in my life.
And she came to me.
I slide my tongue against hers, needing, wanting to make her tremble. It's a need inside me, burning for her. Only her.
I want to take away the pain and make her forget her own name.
I cradle her face in my hands, kissing her deeply, tasting all of her. Her scent surrounds me, something warm and rich and smooth. She makes me forget. Makes me feel.
And feeling something other than dead inside is so fucking rare for me these days.
I slide one fingertip down the smooth line of her throat. Her pulse scatters a ragged beat beneath my touch and she makes a warm sound deep in her throat.
"I like that." A throaty whisper in the darkness. "You have talented fingers."
I smile against her mouth. "I haven't even gotten started yet."
Her arms thread around my neck. "Yeah?" She nuzzles my throat, her breath hot on my skin. "What else do you have planned?"
I stiffen. I know she means it as a joke, but it hits me in the soft parts below the waist. I kiss her to hide my reaction because I have no fucking clue what I've gotten myself into.
I have no idea how to do this. How to fuck the woman in my arms senseless while hiding what the war has done to my body. To my fucking soul.
But there's no time like the present to figure it out.
Abby is here. In my apartment. And I am not going to waste this opportunity to love her like I've been dreaming to.
I lift her then, sliding her legs around my waist, never breaking the kiss, never losing the sweetness of her mouth on mine.
I make it al
l the way to my bedroom, glad that it is at least laundry day so everything is piled in one corner as opposed to scattered around my space like it normally is.
My relief is misplaced. I trip over a goddamned shoe and stumble to the bed, twisting just in time so that Abby falls on top of me.
"Wow, those are some impressive reflexes you've got there." She's smiling down at me but I'm borderline incoherent. She's straddling my hips, her body pressed to mine in all the right places.
Panic spikes through me that she'll figure out just how fucked up I really am. I pull her down, rolling until she is beneath me.
She is fire in my arms. Burning, liquid fire penetrates the dead zone inside of me.
I want to feel her body pressed against me. The warmth of her skin against mine. I crave her. She is more than a need to me.
She is hope.
And she has demons she's been hiding from the world. As confident as she comes off in class, I can’t help but see the insecurity she tries to hide. As badly as I want to strip her naked and taste every inch of her body, I have to do this right.
I lean back then, tugging her with me until she's sitting up in my bed. I can smell myself on her and it hits me center mass with a sense of belonging. I want to see her in my clothes.
But not right now.
I swallow. My mouth is suddenly dry and I am very much not sure about how this whole thing is going to go down.
But it's better this way.
I watch her watching me slide the buttons of my shirt open. One by one.
I'm not exactly accomplishing the whole hiding thing but I don't have to get naked for her to see me. She'll probably figure things out before I'm ready to tell her anyway.
Her eyes darken as I drop my shirt to the floor. Her eyes are drawn to the black ink etched into my skin. She is still, so still she might be a statue, frozen in ice. Her chest is barely moving as I lift the t-shirt over my head.
I'm not sure she's seeing me. Or if she's even in the room with me.
I don't know if it is something specific in the color splashed between the black lines, or if it’s about the tattoos in general.
I stand there and let her be, let her absorb my own private hell drawn in full color over my body. It's been a few months since I had anything new done. My skin is healed, the ink immortalized in my flesh. For now. I'm drawn to the pain. It's like fighting. A delicious slide of a needle into your skin. It takes over every single thought until all you can feel, all you crave is the pain.
Break My Fall (Falling #2) Page 10
