by Sybil Bartel
“Stop, please.”
“No.” The single word, rough, resolute, tore from his lips a second before he brought his mouth over mine.
His tongue plunged in and his restraint broke. He picked me up and my back hit the tile. Grasping my right thigh, he held my leg away from his wounded side, while his other hand wrapped my left leg around his waist. He pushed inside me and we both cried out.
Burying himself to his full length, he hit the very depth of my womb then stilled. His chest heaving, his eyes wild, he wrapped his huge hand around my jaw and throat then looked down at me with pure male possession. “I’m going to make you mine. Today.”
A rush of wetness flooded between my legs. Impaled, pinned at the neck, unable to move, I had zero control and I loved it. Moving the only part of my body I could, I clenched my inner muscles.
An inhuman roar broke from his lungs and he rushed me. Pulling out and slamming back in, Buck’s mouth crushed over mine. Two rough strokes, his chest shuddered and he slowly drew back. His jaw rigid, his face strained, he gently eased two fingers inside me. “All mine,” he breathed.
Desperate, I gripped at his shoulders and pulled. “Do not stop.”
He tilted my head and his lips swept across my neck as his tongue swirled against my skin. “You’re swollen.” He slowly twisted his fingers. “I know you’re sore.”
It felt so good, I didn’t care. “Please. I want you back inside me.”
“I am inside you.” His thumb made a lazy circle, mimicking his tongue.
I reached between us and grabbed his hard length, bringing him to my entrance.
His soft chuckle filled my ears and he slipped his fingers out.
I immediately started contracting. “Pleasepleaseplease,” I begged.
He guided himself in. My breath hissed out through my teeth and he moaned, low and deep. He pulled back then thrust once and stayed.
“You’re going to come for me—just like this.” His whispered command caressed my ear and his thumb began a slow and torturous assault on my clit.
I arched my back. “Please.” I needed more.
He throbbed deep inside me but he didn’t thrust. “Just like this,” he repeated. “Slow and rolling, baby. One more time for me.” He kissed my neck. “But the next time you shatter in my arms, you’re going to be my wife.”
I didn’t hear him. I was already falling.
My heel dug into his lower back, my thigh strained against his grip, and I came harder than I’d ever come before. The knot of tension inside me unfurled into a beautiful wave of pleasure-pain, turning everything I knew inside out. A shudder crawled up my spine in glorious sweet relief just as Buck cried out my name and pulsed deep inside me. Burying my face in his shoulder, I clung to him.
Buck lowered me to the ground and slowly pulled out. As the last few inches of him withdrew, I sucked in a breath.
His large warm hand cupped between my legs. “How bad?”
I put my forehead against his chest, breathing him in. “I’m okay.”
He scooped the washcloth off the shower floor, wrung it out and sunk to one knee. When he brought the cloth between my legs and gently wiped, I flinched.
He looked up at me, stricken. “That hurts?”
Heat hit my face and I looked away. “Not exactly.”
“Don’t hide from me.” His words were quick and just harsh enough to make me meet his eyes again. “Answer my question,” he demanded.
Swallowing, I shifted slightly. “I’m a little sore but mostly, I’m shy,” I admitted.
The washcloth touched between my legs again, softer than before. “I can work with that.” A ghost of a smile touched his face as I put my hand on his huge shoulder for balance.
I closed my eyes and floated in his intimate touch. His lips trailed up my body and he kissed my jaw. “All done.”
Still shy, I glanced up at him. “Thank you.”
He dragged a hand over my hip, cupped my breast then ran his fingers across my bottom lip. “You’re beautiful.”
Hot and bright and perfect, his compliment flushed my whole face. “I didn’t...” I stumbled, embarrassed. “I didn’t know it could be like that, I’ve never—” I ducked my head and hid behind the wall of my wet hair. “Come like that before.”
He tipped my chin up and kissed my forehead. “I’m glad,” he said quietly.
All I got were two words but he’d spoken volumes. Buck didn’t shout from the mountaintop. He didn’t broadcast his feelings and he never wasted words. But he did express himself. Quietly and stoically. And I was just beginning to understand the depths of this complicated man.
Turning the shower off, he grabbed a towel and wrapped me up. He was his usual quiet self as we dried off but there was a lightness to his expression that wasn’t there yesterday. When I tried to help him with new bandages, he gently pushed me away.
“Go, get ready.” He kissed the top of my head.
The fact that he’d let me wash him and he didn’t get mad at me for offering to help was such a victory, I didn’t push the issue. “Okay.” I smiled, floating out of the bathroom.
“Wife,” he said softly.
Wife.
Wife.
I was going to have a husband. Today. Right now. Oh God. I looked down at my stomach. Ohmigod.
Breathe. Breathe breathe-breathe-breathe-breathe. In through my nose, out through my mouth. Or out through my nose? Shit, which way? Okay, just...okay, get dressed. I could do this. I wasn’t getting married just because I might be pregnant. Nineteen was an age, just an age, it didn’t matter. And the timing was probably off. I couldn’t be pregnant. You had to time it, right? Fuck, what did that mean? I didn’t even know what that meant. Something about twelve days? Twelve days after your period? Before? During? When?
I knew nothing about this shit. I never paid attention. How the hell was I supposed to know? I could count the number of times I’d had sex on my fingers!
And now I was about to get married? Okay, just...deep breath, one thing at a time. Get dressed. That’s all I needed to worry about right now. A dress.
Trembling, I found a dress towards the back of the closet and yanked it out. Long, white, slinky, it had spaghetti straps and a large red flower silk-screened on the bottom right. I couldn’t even remember what I’d bought it for. Didn’t matter. I slipped it over my head and ignored the way it hung too loosely around my hips. I stepped into high-heeled sandals and searched through my mother’s jewelry for a pair of pearl and diamond earrings. I pinned my hair up in a loose twist and looked in the mirror.
A panicked young woman I didn’t recognize stared back. Eyes too big for her face, honeyed skin too pale, her mouth wouldn’t smile. An ugly scar marred her thin left upper arm and the bones below her neck showed just enough to not be sexy.
Makeup. I needed makeup. Scrambling for what little supplies I had, I lined my eyes in black, swiped on mascara and dusted color over my cheeks. Some nude lip gloss and it was as good as it was going to get. I’d never accumulated the amount of makeup my mother had. She never left the house without being a hundred percent flawless, her hair, her makeup, her clothes. A pang of grief gripped my chest and I fought back tears.
I would not cry. My mother rarely taught me things, she lived by example, but one of the things she did teach me was to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving, keep smiling. It was her arsenal. Never let them see you sweat, she used to say.
I went back to the closet, found a small purse to match my shoes and when I took my wallet from my other bag, it slipped from my hand and landed face open.
I reached down and fate mocked me.
Layna Blair smiled at me from the clear plastic slot where you kept a driver’s license but Jennifer Dellis had slipped out from her hiding place behind it.
Hands shaking, I pulled out the two driver’s licenses. Layna Blair. Jennifer Dellis. Johnson.
“You look stunning.”
I jumped and Buck kissed my neck. “You ready?” His strong arms wrapped around me from behind.
I bit down on my trembling lip and looked over my shoulder at the man who’d saved Layna Blair.
He went perfectly still.
“I don’t know who I am,” I whispered.
“Who do you want to be?”
“I can’t get married with a fake I.D.” The tears threatened.
Slow, like I would flinch, he turned me in his arms and took my chin. “That’s not what I was asking.”
And suddenly the truth of the past three months was in front of me, driving an ugly wedge into my heart. “I don’t know how to be Jennifer anymore but I’m not running scared like Layna.”
His thumb smoothed across my jaw. “I never knew Jennifer but the Layna I met wasn’t running scared, she was resilient. It doesn’t matter to me what name you give yourself, you’re brave and strong and you’re mine.”
Agony, fierce and brutal, broke free and I couldn’t stop the words. “But that’s just it—don’t you get it? I’m not strong, I’m not brave. I’ve been slowly dying inside these past few months. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what to do. I quit college, I don’t have a job. I don’t know how to live. I’m free and I don’t know how to live.” I flapped my hand between us like a fish out of water. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Buck dropped his arms.
“See! I can’t even talk to you without screwing it up!”
A steely calm descended over his face. “What’s there to do?”
The tension inside me snapped and obliterated the last ounce of rational thought I might have had. “What’s there to do? Do you have any idea what it’s like to leave the house? I look over my shoulder constantly. There’s no one there but I look, every time. That’s crazy. I’m a crazy person. I can’t let it go. Three years of being followed and now that they’re gone I can’t even let it go! I don’t know how to do this, I don’t know how to be free. Not a second goes by that I don’t wonder if they’ll show up but Miami’s dead. He’s dead and gone and I’ll never have to worry about him again and I should thank you for that but that would be just words. How can words even come close to thanking you for that? They can’t, I know that, but guess what? It didn’t fix me. I can’t erase my past. I don’t get a clean slate. Life isn’t that simple. I don’t get to wake up one morning and say, Hey world! New day, new life, new me, it’s all good. I can’t do that, I don’t even know how to do that.”
Buck stood there and said nothing—nothing.
“Fine, great, let’s go get married. Oh, wait. Which I.D. would you prefer? Who do you want to marry?”
I knew it the second the words left my mouth.
The life, the love, the man I knew, it all vanished. Not one hardened muscled moved in his body but it didn’t have to. I saw it in his cold, impenetrable eyes.
“Blaze.” I reached for him in desperate fear.
But I’d gone too far.
He jerked back and spun.
It wasn’t until I saw his retreating back that I realized he was in his dress blues.
Chapter Twelve
I sunk onto the bed and buried my face in my hands but the tears wouldn’t come. I wasn’t sad, I was mad at myself. When Buck turned his back on me, I knew how utterly selfish I was. He’d risked his life for me and I was blaming him for not being able to transition back to reality.
I was selfish and stupid. Of course you didn’t get married with a fake I.D. Marriage was a legal, binding contract. But more importantly, what Buck had said was spot-on. It didn’t matter what name I went by. I was who I was. I was the same person I was yesterday and I’d be the same person tomorrow, no matter my name, last or first. And Buck had been willing to marry me, exactly how I was.
I needed to fix this. I stood on shaky legs and rushed into the living room. “Buck?”
The front door closed.
I ran.
He was already getting into the cab.
“Buck!” I banged on the window seconds after he pulled the door shut.
Eyes like steel, mouth set, he didn’t even glance at me.
“Wait,” I called futilely, watching the taillights disappear.
I made it inside and collapsed on the couch. Crying didn’t feel right but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t believe he’d left. Didn’t couples fight without walking out on each other? Where was he going? Did he even know anyone in Miami? Then my stomach twisted. What if he’d left left?
I rushed into the bedroom. When I saw his duffel in the back of the closet, relief surged momentarily, but then ugly doubt crept back in. I dragged the bag to the bed.
This was crazy. I was crazy.
I didn’t care. A second later, I was rifling through the contents feeling sick to my stomach. Clothes, all perfectly folded, a few toiletries, duplicates of what he kept in the guest bathroom and that was it. No papers, no mementos, nothing.
I searched again and was about to give up when I felt a crinkle and something stiff. Taking the clothes out, I found an inside pocket. I fumbled with the zipper then a key chain with two keys and a sealed letter addressed to me fell out.
My cell phone rang and I jumped, dropping the keys. Glancing at the display, I cursed. “Where is he, Talon?” I threw everything back in Buck’s duffel.
“What happened?”
“Don’t fucking play games with me. He called you or you wouldn’t be calling me. Where is he?”
Talon’s voice took on an edge. “I’m not your referee.”
I hung up.
Three seconds later, he called back. I had two choices. Turn my phone off, because I knew Talon would keep calling, or answer. Since I was spineless, I answered. “What?”
“You don’t get to fuckin’ hang up on me. I didn’t do shit to you. Don’t put me in the middle of your goddamn cluster-fuck.”
I didn’t say shit. I was fingering the letter.
“So that’s how you’re gonna play it?”
I wanted to open it.
“Fuck,” Talon cursed under his breath.
What did Buck have to say to me that he couldn’t say in person? I disconnected the call and reached for the duffel but my phone rang again. Distracted, I put it to my ear.
“Goddamn it, quit hangin’ up on me!”
Buck wasn’t the letter-writing type. He’d never written me a letter. “What do you want?” My voice sounded flat, monotone.
“Damn it.” Talon inhaled sharply, then let out a long sigh. “You okay?” he asked, his voice softer.
“Where is he?”
“Before I answer that, I need to know somethin’.”
Did Talon know about the letter? “What?” A weird sort of numbness washed over me.
“Is this fixable?”
Cold seeped in and suddenly it made sense. It was his death letter. A letter you carried for when the inevitable happened. You didn’t go into war and leave unscathed. Dying was a probability so you wrote a letter. Words of comfort for the one you left behind. All the things you’d never get to say again, if you’d ever even said them in the first place.
I’d almost married a man who had a shorter lifespan than my father.
“Sugar?”
I couldn’t do this. “Don’t interfere, Talon.”
“That’s not what I asked, darlin’. You’re jumpin’ to conclusions.”
“I have to go.”
“Okay, you’re startin’ to worry me. I don’t recognize that tone in your voice.”
The weight of the letter was death in my hands.
I was holding deat
h.
I sucked in a breath. I could survive Buck leaving me. I survived a killer. I had money. I could run. I could start over. But I wouldn’t survive this. Not Buck’s death. “I’m done.”
“What’s goin’ on?”
I dropped the letter into his bag. “It’s over.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—”
“Goodbye, Talon.” I shut my phone off, picked up the duffel and walked out the front door.
Chapter Thirteen
I walked.
The sun set.
The waves washed over my feet.
Day bled into night.
I kept walking.
My feet filthy, my shoes long since lost, the hem of my dress a torn mess, I paused at my darkened front door. The duffel was still on the bench. Without turning on any lights, I went inside, showered and pulled on shorts and a tank. Standing in my dark kitchen, I drank three glasses of water and stared out at the backyard. Landscape lights shined up at the royal palms, the dock glowed in a summery yellow-green and the pool was lit up like an aqua Christmas tree. Moon pennies shimmered on the intracoastal and I wanted to disappear.
The walls closing in, I opened the glass slider, stepped out and sank into the outdoor couch. The night air moved slow across my skin. I wanted to close my eyes, but when I did, I saw every mistake I’d ever made with Buck. In the end, I gave in because I knew I deserved the pain.
A noise made me stir. I rubbed my eyes, wondering how long I’d been asleep. The dull thud of a car door closing sounded in the distance. I pushed to a sitting position and my front door swung open. Talon crashed through with a limp Buck hanging on his shoulders. I glanced at the digital clock in the kitchen. Two-twenty-seven.
“Goddamn, Deer Hunter. Yer legs broken?” Talon pushed Buck against the hall wall and held him there while he kicked the front door closed. “Why’s your shit out front?”
Buck mumbled incoherently.
Talon burst out laughing. “You’re a worse drunk than my aunt May, and that’s sayin’ somethin’.”
Buck let out a string of curse words.
