Tattered & Torn

by A. J. Downey

  “We were in this fucking podunk village in one of Afghanistan’s eastern provinces doing surveillance, trying to catch this piece of shit lead of this terror cell. We’d been set up on this ridge for fucking hours. Sun beating down on us, hotter than Hades balls and we’re just about ready to call it a fucking day when this God damned Mercedes pulls up outside this mud hut,” he took a couple more drags off his e-cig and looked at me with haunted silver-blue eyes.

  “There he is. Just comes popping up out of the car and we call for confirmation, right? Well it takes a minute and while we’re waiting for the green light to take this mother fucker out, here comes his kid running out of the hut, and this dude he doesn’t know I’m looking down the scope at him. He picks his boy up and he’s holding him up in the air and it’s this joyous fucking reunion going on down there,” he bowed his head and was silent for a long minute.

  “And we get it. Confirmed. Green light. Take the motherfucker out, but he’s got his kid in his hands and he’s bouncing this boy who is six maybe seven and I got it buzzing in my ear to take the fucking shot and I’m telling them, negative that I ain’t got a clear shot and the order keeps coming in, take the shot, to take the fucking shot and D. he’s like ‘I know man but you gotta take the shot, it’s orders’ and so I sight and I pull the fucking trigger and…” he looks at me agonized and I stare back horrified and his next words drop into the silence of the house like a thousand pound boulder… “I missed,” my shoulder’s dropped in relief and Trigger, he shakes his head and looks like he’s about to puke and he tells me… “I hit the kid.”

  I stared at him, several moments of silence stretching between us and all I can do is blink, stonily, sitting there and Trigger, he takes my hands in his and he tells me, “You did what you had to do to survive Shelly. He was hurting you. He was gonna rape you and nobody, I mean nobody should have to live through that once let alone twice. You did what you had to do to save your life. Big difference from the stain I got on my soul, Sugar. So stop torturing yourself.” He got up and I stared at him openmouthed and horrified.

  “What about the man?” I asked hollowly, “The one whose son you shot?” Trigger looked at me incredibly sadly.

  “It was the only time I’ve ever missed Shelly and I haven’t ever since for a reason,” he intoned and then to make things crystal clear he said, “I got the son of a bitch with the second shot but I can still never take back the first.” I nodded and pressed the heels of my hands hard into the seat of the stool I sat on, straightening my arms between my legs to hide their shaking.

  “Why did you tell me this?” I asked him and I wanted so badly to cry for him. The pain I was living with for ending the bastard who attacked me must be nothing in the face of what Trigger was living with, I mean it explained so much. Trigger looked me over a little sadly.

  “Because I thought it might give you some perspective, Baby. That it might get you to stop torturing yourself over a piece of shit male I would have gladly killed with my bare hands for putting his hands on you like he did. That wasn’t a man Shelly. Real men don’t hurt women, or children,” and with that parting shot he disappeared out the kitchen door, shutting it firmly in its frame.

  I turned my head and stared at the place where the man had lain after I had shot him. I pictured all that red blood, some of it my own from my busted face and decided that Trigger was right. I needed to work it out and be done with it and move past this little slice of Hell quicker than any of the rest. That the dude I’d shot didn’t deserve any more of me.

  I pushed to my feet and went down the hall into mine and Ghost’s room. I moved through the dark and flipped on the bathroom light. I wanted a shower in the worst kind of way all of a sudden. A symbolic washing myself of this whole last ordeal. Ghost joined me as I was rinsing the last of the soap I used down the drain. He pressed a kiss to the back of my shoulder, his fingers curving around my upper arms to draw me back into his chest.

  “You okay?” his voice was husky and soft with concern. I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak and he sighed and cuddled me back in to him.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. I shook my head no… I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to do the furthest thing from talking, but we hadn’t been intimate since this new attack.

  “Why… why haven’t you touched me?” I asked softly, half afraid of the answer.

  “Is that what you need?” he asked gently, lightly setting his teeth into my shoulder in a slight nip, “Me to touch you?” he asked.

  “I need to know why you haven’t.”

  Ghost sighed out and rested his forehead at the base of my neck, between my shoulder blades. His arms tightened around my waist and he pulled me back against him, more skin on skin. For a long time the only sound filling the bathroom space was the sound of the pulsating showerhead.

  “I want to. I’ve wanted to, I just didn’t want to push, Princess. I’m not sure what’s okay and what isn’t, I don’t want to make you hurt, or make you cry, Baby. I’m just not sure how to go about things with someone who’s been through what you’ve been through,” he murmured the words, so stark and honest against my skin and the sensation was incredibly unique.

  While the physicality of it, the sensation of his lips moving against my back, sent delicious waves of sensation sweeping down the rest of my back. The words he spoke were a sharp but sweet pain that pierced my heart. They made me incredibly sad and at once incredibly, incredibly angry. Not with Ghost, but with the men that had done what they’d done. I didn’t want to be this ticking time bomb with my lover. I didn’t want Ghost to feel like he was sweating it out, like he stood poised with clippers and every touch was a choice between the red or blue wire. That if he touched me here or kissed me there, that if he held me the wrong way or got rough with me that it could be like clipping the wrong damned one and boom! Instant emotional disaster.

  “Look, I don’t want you to treat me with kid gloves. I don’t know if or when or what sets me off and I’m probably not going to know, but you treating me like something that needs to be bubble wrapped on a shelf… So not helping. I feel like I have orange traffic cones around me and that just drives me nuts! Makes me think about it more not less and truthfully,” I struggled to turn around and he let me, I looked him in the eyes and sighed, “The last thing I want to think about when you touch me is them,” I willed him to understand where I was coming from and I watched his grave expression lighten as he processed through what I was saying.

  “I get you, Baby,” he murmured and I felt myself relax in the circle of his arms. I was so grateful that this wasn’t something that we needed to butt heads over that I kissed him and he really did get it, because he kissed me back and there was nothing careful about it. Our mouths tangled in a wild, passionate abandon and I felt the constriction around my heart ease.

  Ghost backed me right against the cold stone of the wall and I squealed into his mouth which was met with the vibrations of his dark chuckle. He wasn’t giving an inch, he wasn’t giving any quarter and I felt like I was on fire from the inside out with every kiss, every nip, and every touch as he slid his hands over my body, slicking them through the moisture on my skin.

  He kissed his way from my mouth, along my jaw, to the side of my throat, spending a couple of moments working the sweet spot on the side of my neck that turned my legs to Jell-O, before dropping into a half crouch and paying some extra special attention to each nipple. Pretty soon I was leaning back hard into the wall just to keep myself upright. I tangled my fingers into his wet hair, the strands that were normally sable soft to the touch, clinging wetly to my fingers as he dropped to his knees and with his stature that put his mouth right there and oh God yes, I wanted him to.

  “Trust me, Baby. I got you,” he murmured and braced one of my knees over his shoulder, draping my leg down his back and with one final look up the length of my body to make sure I was doing okay, that I didn’t feel like I was going to fall, he licked one provocative wet line f
rom my opening to my clit and oh man did Ghost know how to please with his mouth! I tipped my head back against the stone and cried out, pressing his mouth tightly to my pussy, fingers gripped through his hair. I closed my eyes to better concentrate on the sensation of his mouth on my most sensitive parts all the while encouraging him with my voice.

  Not that any of the sounds pouring from my mouth, bubbling up from my throat were articulate in any way. Far from it. Ghost was one of the most orally talented men I had ever been with and as he flicked his tongue through my folds he’d successfully short-circuited my brain rendering me completely incapable of coherent thought, or the ability to speak intelligibly.

  It felt so good, he felt so good and he kept me there, right on that precipice for what felt like forever. The cries coming from me were taking on a tone of begging and I was completely devoid of any pride by that point. I would have begged him, pleaded; gotten on my knees if only he would give me what I needed to come. I felt him chuckle darkly against my body, the vibration of it creating a new dimension of pleasure. Something fuller and more robust that had me gasping. He skated fingertips from my knee, up the inside of my thigh in a feather light touch and I wanted it, oh God yes I needed something inside me, to fill me out, to get me there. My core throbbing and empty, aching for the presence of his cock or his fingers, for the sweet bliss of having something, anything for my cunt to clench down around, to have that sweet spot inside of me touched and teased to pitch me into the whirling velvet dark of orgasm.

  Ghost slid his middle finger into me, to the hilt and I clenched my pelvic floor muscles, drawing him in, welcoming him into my body. He pressed his tongue to my clit, lapping at my body while he searched for that one damned spot and when he found it I yowled in bliss and wouldn’t you know? Something actually articulate came out of my mouth.

  “Oh God yes! There! Right there!” I cried and I felt him smile and grin against my body but Ghost didn’t give one fucking inch and with a come hither motion of his fingers and a final press of his tongue I came, pretty sure I did it screaming and had it not been for his palm flat against my chest between my breasts, pressing me tight to the shower’s smooth stone wall I would have fallen but Ghost wouldn’t let me fall. He held me up with his body. Bore my weight and held me on that high, milking every last bit of pleasure from my body with fingers and mouth until the pleasure became too much, too overwhelming and I whimpered, trying to scoot away.

  I’d let go of his hair at some point and now my hands were pressed, palms flat to the shower wall behind me as I panted. Ghost placed a final reverent kiss on my shaved smooth mound and looked up at me, his eyes filled with a deep and dark passion, with a touch of smug pride for good measure. He stood slowly and pressed me back into the shower wall with the warm hard length of his body against mine.

  “Kiss me,” he demanded shortly and I was oh so willing to comply. He held me against the wall and kissed me until he was sure I could stand on my own before gently pulling back. He gave himself a final rinse under the shower spray, probably more to warm up than anything before shutting off the tap.

  “Come here, Baby,” he helped me out of the shower and we dried each other off. There was still a lot of languorous kissing and lazy touching, which was enough to both relax and arouse me at the same time. Pretty soon we had each other worked up to the point where we were both damned near tripping over the other in our haste to get to the bed. Ghost grasped me by the hips and pulled me back against him when I turned to climb up onto the mattress. He smoothed one hand up my back to my neck and kneaded the muscles to either side before applying gentle pressure.

  I bent obediently at the waist and grasped the comforter in my hands. He kicked my feet into a wider stance and I gasped just before he found my entrance with the head of his cock. I was wet and ready for him and I wanted so bad for him to just fill me that I pressed back to meet his thrust. Oh my God, coming together like that was such a powerful feeling. Incredibly passionate, incredibly intimate and such a pure, sharp and sweet pleasure it was damned near bordering on pain.

  The sensation of having Ghost go that deep, of bottoming out against my cervix and pushing just that little bit more had us both crying out, his masculine to my feminine. The sharp pleasure filled report echoing back at us through the dark, from the ceiling, from the dark glass of the night filled windows. I gasped and begged him to do it again, for him to touch me deeper, give it to me harder and oh man did my man give it to me.

  He gripped me by my hips, fingers digging, damn near bruising and I loved it! I had always been partial to taking it kind of rough when it suited me and Ghost gave it to me with no exception. He gave me everything, his love, his hurt, his anger and frustration as well as his longing and comfort. He wrapped me up tightly, until breath panting, body slicked with sweat, I came apart beneath him screaming in pure unadulterated bliss. The bed holding me up as he rode me through my orgasm.

  I lay on my stomach, limp and full of grace as he took his time, finishing himself and when he finally came, his cock jumping and pulsing with his release inside me, it was so perfect, so exquisite I came again too, a much less wild, a much gentler blush of emotion and pleasure sweeping through my body, but another, quieter orgasm none the less.

  “Mm,” I heard him, and it was the sound one made after savoring something so fine, so beautiful you wanted the flavor of it to last forever on your tongue, the sensation of it to go on forever and it was knowing that I was that fine thing to him, that it was me that he was savoring that mended some of the tatters in my soul. He smoothed the palms of his hands over my ass and all the way up my back before gripping my shoulders. He pulled me back onto him even though he was seated as deeply as he could go and I felt an answering pleasurable throb from my body.

  “God you…” he blew out a breath, “I don’t even think there are any words, Baby, you’re just so…” he made that sound again, “Mm,” and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. Derek withdrew from me slowly and I gave a little ecstatic shiver.

  “Can you get up? Need help?” he asked gently. I crawled the rest of the way up onto the bed and he followed, pulling me in against his chest. I rested my head onto his shoulder and sighed out, content. He kissed my forehead and echoed my contented sigh with one of his own.

  “Damn I love you,” he murmured and I smiled, it wasn’t long though before I was sound asleep.

  Chapter 34

  Ghost…

  I waited impatiently on the stool Shelly had occupied while Trigger had talked her out of her self-flagellation over killing the fucking douchebag that’d attacked her. I was staring at the closed bathroom door off the kitchen, knee bouncing in agitation. She was late. Only by a couple of days at this point but enough that I’d procured a pregnancy test in the midst of my last round of tows so that we could just know and stop stressing over the unknown.

  The door opened and I looked up at her solemn expression expectantly. I didn’t know if I was excited or terrified, if I wanted her to be or if I didn’t. She slipped up on the stool across from me and cast her eyes to the floor and shook her head, scrubbing her face with her hands.

  “Negative. I’m not pregnant. It’s probably just stress that has me late,” she chewed her bottom lip and wouldn’t look at me. I felt both disappointed and elated at the same time and it was the most bizarre combination of emotions I think I had ever encountered.

  “I don’t know how to feel,” she said finally and frowned, I smiled.

  “I was just thinking to myself that I was feeling both disappointed and elated at the same time,” she looked up sharply.

  “I know right!?” she asked and I smiled a little bigger. When we weren’t busy clashing and butting heads over stupid shit, Shelly could easily be like a best friend to me. We were so much alike. At any given time, we were discovering, we were thinking or feeling the same way about this or that. It was really nice. Still, there was enough apprehension over how either one of us woul
d take something that it made what I said next difficult to say for me. I pressed on ahead anyways.

  “We really should plan things better and stop flying by the seat of our pants,” I said and she looked at me thoughtfully, so many emotions and so much confusion on her beautiful pixie like face. I held my breath and waited to see what she would say, how she would take it. I was finding my beautiful girl had a very hard time taking criticism over anything, that she was sensitive and would just tear into herself for doing something wrong even when that wasn’t the case. Likely it was a product of her erratic upbringing. I didn’t know, all I knew was that we needed to take things one step at a time and part of doing that, was planning things a bit better.

  “Yeah,” she said in agreement but her mind was here, there and everywhere. Didn’t take a degree in rocket science to see it.

  “Feel like a run?” I asked her and she looked at me stunned, before smiling appreciatively.

  “You’re learning,” she said with a secret smile.

  “Maybe I am,” I conceded and stood up. I took her into my arms and held her close for a few minutes.

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you too,” she said back.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” I took her gently by her fingers and helped her to her feet. We changed into running gear and stretched in the living room on the floor. Her face was healing, the bruises were at least something she could cover with a thicker than normal layer of makeup which was heart breaking in its own right.

  Dragon and the President of The Suicide Kings, Griz, had a meet in the coming days. No telling what would come of it, but we’d have to see. Shelly looked at me.

  “I’m not sure kids is a good idea until the whole thing with the Suicide Cunts is resolved,” she said gently.

  “Who knows how long that could be, Princess,” I murmured.

  “I know, I was going to say, I’m not sure I want to put it off for too long, maybe a year or two at the most, but Ghost… I don’t ever want to be a single mom.”