Impossible Choice

by Sybil Bartel

  “You’ve had enough alcohol to blow five times the legal limit.” His hand curled around mine and took the keys. “I’m not letting you leave.”

  “So now you’re protecting me?” I didn’t care if he was wounded, I thrashed against his hold.

  His hands tightened over my wrists and his face went red. “I’ve always protected you!”

  I arched my back and kicked out with my only free leg. “Who’s protecting me from you?”

  The color drained from Buck’s face, his fingers released their hold on my wrists and he dropped his head. “I would never hurt you, not like that.”

  The tears came, silent and wet, dripping past my ears. “You already did.”

  Blue eyes cut to mine.

  “I smell the perfume all over your bed,” I whispered, my heart shattering.

  “What do you want from me?”

  His touch, his kiss, his heart. But I had none of them. I forced the words out. “Let me go.”

  He rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling.

  I got up and grabbed my purse from the floor.

  “I didn’t cheat on you,” he said quietly.

  The knife dug deep into my back. “You’re right, you didn’t because we’re not together.”

  A rush of wind and he was on his feet. Fury distorted every inch of his face. “You want me to tell you I fucked her? That I gave it to her so good she begged for more? That she was everything you weren’t? Is that what you want to hear?”

  The pain was so crushing, I couldn’t breathe. “I can’t hear this,” I managed.

  “Hear what?” he bit out viciously. “That she spent the night in my bed? That you weren’t the last woman under me?”

  “Stop it!” I cried.

  “Stop what? Stop making you jealous? Stop hurting you? Because it fucking hurts, doesn’t it, Layna?”

  Ice spread through my veins and I went stock-still. “So this is payback?”

  His short bark of laughter held no humor. “You think I need an excuse to have a little fun?”

  My hands pressed against the big, gaping hole that was my chest and I curled in on myself. “You win.” I turned to leave.

  His arm shot out in front of me and blocked the doorway.

  I stilled but I didn’t look at him, I couldn’t.

  His chest heaving, his muscles taut, he didn’t let me pass. “Look at me,” he said through clenched jaw.

  I didn’t move.

  He gripped my chin and forced me to look up. When he spoke, the anger in his voice was replaced with pain. “I haven’t slept with anyone.”

  It was too late, he couldn’t unsay what he’d said. The damage was done. “I didn’t think you were sleeping.”

  His whole body went rigid, anger flashed in his eyes and his cruel tone was back. “What the fuck? You’re acting like I’ve been drowning in pussy since I left.”

  The image of her hands all over him played in my mind and it was like a switch flipped. The crushing pain mercifully turned to outrage. “I know what I saw.”

  “Yeah, and what’s that? Because you didn’t find me at a bar, three sheets to the wind with some chick’s hand on my leg and her tongue down my throat.”

  “I didn’t kiss him!”

  “A minute later and you would have.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Yes, you would have, because that’s what you do,” he snarled.

  “Are you seriously throwing the Talon thing in my face again?”

  “I seriously am.”

  “Well, throw away. At least I had an excuse. I’d been shot, then I’d drowned.” I knew it was a stupid, selfish argument, I knew it was a double standard, but I didn’t care. He was wounded in combat and it was unconscionable to compare what he’d gone through to what had happened to me at the hands of Miami’s men, but he’d chosen the marines. He knew how to wear his scars like a second skin. I wasn’t equipped with that kind of bravery.

  “That’s the price of cheating now? Life gets rocky and you get a free pass to go kiss whoever the fuck you want?”

  “I was having a bad fucking day and Talon was being a hell of a lot nicer to me than you are now. What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m fucking miserable!” he roared.

  Every bone in my body went still.

  “Fuck.” He turned away.

  I stared at his scarred, bruised body. His back to me, his hands on his hips, his head bent, he looked broken, wounded and broken. I wanted to hate him, Jesus, I wanted to hate him—but I couldn’t.

  As if gravity were pulling me toward him, I took a step and rested my forehead against his back. The second our bodies touched, he flinched but I didn’t retreat. His scent, his presence, I fought the urge to wrap my arms around him but I couldn’t stop my lips from placing one last kiss.

  I stepped back but I never had a chance to make my escape.

  Buck spun and gathered me in his arms. His overwhelming strength wrapped around me so tight, I didn’t know where I ended and he began. His heartbeat. Mine. The ocean outside. The room where this had all started, it felt real. And cathartic. And it was the most perfect moment we’d had since he’d walked out of my house.

  A second, a minute, an hour later, I gently tugged his T-shirt over his head. I smoothed my hands over his broad shoulders and traced his scars. I sank to the ground, unlaced his boots and pulled them off. I stood back up and he pushed me onto the bed.

  “This changes nothing,” he warned.

  It felt like it changed everything. “Kiss me.”

  His stare impenetrable, I held my breath but he didn’t move.

  I rose and wrapped my arms around his neck. I told myself I didn’t care that his bed smelled like perfume or that he was leaving tomorrow or that my last name wasn’t his. I wanted to live in this moment so I kissed him.

  But he didn’t kiss me back.

  I traced the scar on his head then touched my lips to the raised flesh. I feathered kisses across his temple to his jaw. My fingers danced across the strong bone and felt the smooth skin of a clean shave. I inhaled the clean, musky scent of him, fresh from a shower, and I told myself it was for me.

  He didn’t move.

  I lowered my mouth to his throat and swirled my tongue. “When I first saw you, I knew you were dangerous.” I dragged my nose across his collarbone and threaded my fingers through his.

  His hands fisted.

  “Your height, your build, the tattoo, it all painted a picture, but that’s not what frightened me.” I tasted the edge of his ear. “It was your presence.” I pulled the soft flesh between my teeth and his muscles flexed as his hands tightened over mine.

  I buried my face against his neck, pulled on our locked hands and fell back on the bed.

  Buck brought our hands to either side of my head and his body followed but he stopped short of contact. Hovering over me, his nostrils flared.

  “I wanted to lose myself in you,” I whispered.

  With the force of a hurricane, his mouth crashed over mine and his hips surged forward. Just as fast, he pulled back, yanked my dress over my head and unbuckled his belt. Ripping my underwear off, he gripped the hair at the back of my neck with one hand and stroked himself with the other.

  “You want to lose yourself?” he ground out, rubbing his hard length through my wet heat.

  “Yes.” Oh my God, yes.

  He slammed into me.

  “Blaze,” I cried.

  “You’re fucking mine.”

  The force of his thrusts, the sting of his belt hitting my thigh, the aggression in his possessive hold on my hair, I loved it, I needed it. I needed him to erase the pain.

  “Harder,” I begged.

  Tightening his grip on my hip, h
is dominance stepped up. Claiming me with every pounding muscle in his body, he drove into me over and over. But what started out as cathartic spiraled into despair. I grasped at his earlier denial but the scent of perfume took hold and wouldn’t let my heart go.

  He released my hip to rub his thumb over my clit. “Come,” he demanded, pinching the sensitive nerves.

  I fought back tears. “Why was she in your bed?”

  His hips drove deep, his thumb pressed harder. “Come.”

  Stars exploded behind my eyes and my head fell back.

  “Look at me.”

  Breathless, coming, my core clenching around him, I looked.

  “Mine,” his deep voice rumbled. “This. Is mine.” A few more thrusts and he shoved in deep. Hot warmth pumped inside me and a fierce groan shook his chest.

  A tear slipped down my cheek and I turned my head.

  The hand in my hair cupped the back of my head and brought me back. Panting, his chest still heaving, he looked down at me with bottomless glacial eyes. “Don’t.”

  I felt the betrayal of her hands on his shoulders like she was touching him right now. “She was in your bed.”

  Without denying it, without pulling out, Buck fell back on his knees and the angle hit me. I sucked in a breath and fresh curls of desire swirled. Filled with his release, my nipples aching to be touched, stretched from his still-hard length, I was desperate to erase any memory of her. I ground my hips.

  Buck sucked in a sharp breath. “You want more.”

  Yes, I wanted more. More reassurance, more time, more him, but I wasn’t getting it. There was only one thing I was going to get from him so I embraced it. I caught my nipples and pinched.

  “Fuck.”

  “More,” I whispered.

  His eyes turned to liquid heat and slow, so slow, he thrust inside me. Snaking his hands under me, he cupped my ass and yanked. My legs slid up his thighs and he drove his hips forward.

  My lower body raised, I cried out from the exquisite pressure of the angle. “I need to come again.”

  “I know what you need,” he said through gritted teeth.

  With my thighs resting on his, he reached between our bodies, pulled halfway out and fisted his semi-hard erection. Pumping himself, he ground his hips then pushed my knees to my chest and he popped out.

  “No,” I cried.

  “Right there,” he said in a hoarse voice. “That’s what I want.” He rubbed the head of his cock through my soaking entrance. “I’m inside you.” Up, over my mound, he spread our heat over me and whispered, “Feel me.”

  I groaned and he surged two fingers inside me. Pushing in deep, he rotated, pulled out, then did it again.

  I bit my lip and twisted my nipples.

  Then he curved his fingers and stroked deep inside me.

  Like an electric shock, my back came off the bed. Heat, pain, intense pleasure, I gasped.

  He did it again.

  “Shiiiiit!”

  His mouth crashed over my breast and his teeth closed around my nipple. Then his hand was pounding into me harder than his hips had. His mouth sucking and biting, his thumb digging into overly sensitized nerves, I started to come again and Buck moved.

  His hands flew to my waist, we came off the bed and my back hit the wall. “Wrap around me,” he ordered.

  I was a slave to my desire for him, my arms and legs complying with his demand. Before I could get my lips on his, he surged inside me again.

  “Oh my God.” So full.

  “I wanna hear it,” he demanded.

  My back against a wall, nowhere to hide, his body inside mine, I felt like I was slipping away. He was pounding into me, touching, biting, kissing me everywhere. I was out of my mind. I didn’t know the cries of pleasure filling my ears were mine. I was surrounded by hard muscle and sweat and dominance and nothing else mattered.

  “My Layna.”

  “Tell me,” I begged.

  “My feelings.” He surged deep.

  “I’m going to come,” I panted.

  “My...”

  “Ahhhhh.” My back arched, my hips jerked and I convulsed around him.

  He slammed hard, drove his tongue into my mouth and exploded inside me.

  Wave after wave of release washed over me until I was trembling.

  Hearts pounding, sweat dripping, the sound of our heavy breathing echoing through the room, Buck whispered against my neck, “Can you feel that?”

  “Yes.” But I wasn’t sure what he meant. Sex, sweat, his release, my release, desire, raw emotion, slipping time, unanswered questions—it didn’t matter. I felt it all.

  “I didn’t have sex with her. This...” He pulsed inside me. “This was where I wanted to be.”

  The cracks in my heart sealed shut.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I heard voices and the dark room swam into focus. I’d fallen asleep in Buck’s arms but now I was alone. I smelled coffee, so I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and pushed to my feet. The tequila came back to haunt me and my sore muscles faltered. I stumbled and reached for the nightstand, then I heard Talon.

  “Why’d you drag your sorry ass up here for a shower?”

  “I don’t want to wake her yet.”

  I smiled.

  “She got an expiration date?”

  “Back off.”

  “I knew you had it bad. The big bad Deer Hunter, prancin’ around a woman so he doesn’t disturb her.”

  “I said back off.”

  “Aw, c’mon, where’s the fun in that?”

  Silence.

  Talon laughed. “So you gonna nail that shit down this time?”

  “None of your business.”

  “It is when it keeps showin’ up drunk at my back door.”

  “First, I didn’t show up here drunk, you came looking for me and second, go fuck yourself.”

  “I came lookin’ cuz y’all about cried in my lap, moanin’ about heartbreak.”

  “That’s fucking bullshit.”

  “You’re right.”

  I could practically see Talon’s smile.

  “I’ll be ready to leave in five,” Buck said tersely.

  Talon didn’t respond.

  I heard some moving around, then Buck spoke again. “You got something to say?”

  “Not if you ain’t listenin’.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. You don’t listen for shit.”

  “Because you talk out of your ass.”

  “Case in point, right now.”

  “What?” Buck snapped.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, she doesn’t like cologne. But don’t take my word for it.”

  “The fuck you say?” Anger burned each of Buck’s words.

  “You heard me.”

  There was a shuffle then a quiet thud. “I thought we had this conversation,” Buck warned, his voice steely calm.

  “And I thought I told you she deserved more.”

  “I’m giving her more.”

  Talon’s laugh held no humor. “Wasn’t talkin’ ’bout givin’ it to her.” His voice turned serious. “How much more do you have to prove? That you can die like the rest of ‘em? How many injuries before it’s one too many?”

  My heart clenched.

  “Fuck you,” Buck hissed.

  “Be pissed at me all you want but you know I’m tellin’ the truth. You got money, you got opportunity, hell, you got a job all lined up for you with Roark. What the fuck you waitin’ for? Get out.”

  There was movement then a heavy sigh.

  “I don’t know anything else,” Buck said, defeated.

  “Learn. We all
have to adapt to civilian life sooner or later.”

  “I’m a marine. It’s who I am.”

  “Bullshit,” Talon threw back.

  “And you’ve got it figured out?” Buck’s anger was back.

  “Ain’t nothin’ to figure. There’re women out there who can accept the lifestyle but you took one who can’t. Open your fuckin’ eyes before it’s too late or you’ll leave behind nothin’ but a mess. You’re pushin’ her into somethin’ she’s not ready for.” Talon’s voice was edged with anger now.

  “She’s a fighter and I didn’t take her!” Buck roared.

  Talon laughed bitterly. “You think she had a chance when she saw you comin’? She’s more innocent than any one woman has a right to be. I never said she wasn’t a fighter, but she’s pure and you know it. She’s never had a boyfriend, let alone a man who eats, sleeps and breathes the marines. Now you want her knocked up and raisin’ a child alone? You’re a fuckin’ selfish dick. You’re enough to crush her on principle alone.”

  Silence.

  Then, “You’re in love with her,” Buck accused in a deadly controlled voice.

  My heart stopped and for five agonizing seconds, I held my breath.

  Talon sighed. “Hope you know what you’re doin’, marine.” He neither confirmed nor denied the accusation.

  “Semper Fi. What the fuck is your excuse?” Buck bit out.

  “I don’t need one, I’m not a marine anymore.”

  “Well, I am,” Buck threw back.

  “Then don’t die like one.”

  I barely had time to scramble back to bed before Buck came downstairs. Moving as quietly as he always did, I heard a dresser drawer open and close, then the bed dipped.

  His fingers brushed at my hair, then his huge hand glided across my back. “Wake up, Layna.”

  I rolled over. He was in his service uniform.

  “I have to catch an early flight.”

  “I don’t want you to leave.” I held it together, barely.

  “I know.”

  Swirling questions, breaking heart, I wasn’t ready for this. “Five more minutes.” We’d discussed nothing.

  “I can’t miss my flight.” He stood.

  I swallowed back the crushing reality and sat up. “Okay, I’ll be dressed in a second.”