by Lauren Layne
“But they’re so cute,” she mutters, the elbow slipping back down to cover her eyes again.
Losing patience, I wrap one arm around her waist, jerking her toward the side of the bed, and then lifting her to her feet with both hands.
She glares at me. A morning sprite, my Olivia is not.
My Olivia.
I ignore the faint sound of warning bells at how right that thought feels.
I bend down to kiss her nose. “I want to show you something.”
Her eyes go dark and she reaches for me. “Oh yeah?”
I laugh and grab her wrists. “Not that something. We have to go outside.”
She opens her mouth to protest, and I squeeze her fingers, just a little urgently. “Please,” I say. “It’s important.”
Curiosity slowly replaces her sleepy resentment, and she reaches out a hand for the pile of running clothes I already retrieved from her room.
“This better be good, Langdon.”
It’s darker than ever outside, but it’s cold and clear and perfect.
She trots down the steps behind me as we walk toward the trail, the way we have dozens of times before. If she notices that I don’t have my cane, she doesn’t say anything. I’ve been going without it for weeks now, but she’s never seen me on one of our morning walk/runs without it.
“This better not be some weird new species of bug or a bird’s nest on the trail,” she mutters. “I can’t get excited about that stuff even on normal days, and on a morning when I’ve gotten two hours of sleep…”
I start to remind her that her lack of sleep is for a good reason. Several good reasons, I mentally amend as I remember just how creative we got last night. Instead, I place my hand over her mouth to stop her cranky rambling. “Shut it. Just hush and watch me for a sec.”
Slowly I remove my hand, gratified to see that she’s finally quiet.
And damn it…my heart is hammering. How did I not realize how hard this would be?
But I owe it to her. I owe it to myself.
Very slowly I turn toward the path and start to jog.
In the past few days, while I was avoiding Olivia, I added the treadmill to my workout routine. As a result, running has gotten a little bit easier every day, but the wonder of it still hasn’t worn off.
I’m running.
I can’t make myself look back. I’m too afraid that she won’t get it. That to her it’ll just be some dude moving along at a slow jog, big whoop. I’m afraid she won’t understand that I thought I’d never run again.
Most of all, I’m afraid she won’t realize the most important thing of all, what I’m really trying to tell her—that if it weren’t for her, I never would have run again.
I hear her come up behind me. Her breathing pattern is still terrible, so it’s like a big honking bird. Hard to miss. And then she falls into step beside me. No words. She just matches my pace.
Very slightly, I turn my head to look at her, careful not to break my stride.
Tears are running down her face. The happy kind, I presume. She gets it.
I can’t hide the smile. I don’t even try. If running feels good after a three-year hiatus, smiling might just feel even better. One more thing to thank her for.
We run forever. At least that’s what it feels like. We don’t stop until we get to the part of the path that narrows as it leads into a wooded area. It’s more secluded here, and it must be the part of her run where she usually turns around, because she slows to a walk before moving toward the trees, hands on her hips as she catches her breath and looks out over the water.
I move behind her, and for several moments we stand there in companionable silence, as the dark of night shifts into the gray of early morning.
“How does it feel?” she asks, turning her head just slightly to the side so I can make out her profile.
Leave it to Olivia to say just the right thing. Anyone else would have given me some sugary garbage, like I knew you could do it! or See? All you needed was to set your mind to it!
And when she asks how it feels, I also know she’s not talking about my leg, which is fine, if a bit stiffer than it used to be before the injury. She’s asking how I feel. How my soul, if you want to get all weird about it, feels about running again.
“Amazing.” I drop my head slightly to plant a kiss on her bare shoulder. She prefers to run in tank tops, which I find kind of hot, if not ridiculous. Then again, I suppose it’s no different than my affinity for running in shorts.
She sucks in a little breath, and I expect her to pull away, making a fuss about being all sweaty or something girly like that, but she tilts her head to the side, her long ponytail swaying slightly.
“It feels unbelievable,” I say, my lips touching her skin again and lingering. “Too good to be true.”
Olivia makes a humming noise.
I step closer to her so my chest is against her back, my hips against her butt. I turn my head slightly, this time kissing the soft part where her shoulder meets her neck, and whisper the truth there. “I don’t know how to live without it.”
I’m no longer talking about running. I’m talking about her. Us. And when she tilts her head back to rest it on my shoulder with a shuddering sigh, I know she knows it.
I wrap a hand gently but firmly around her ponytail, turning her face toward me. I keep thinking that one of these times I’ll be able to touch her, taste her, without being consumed. I’m wrong. The kiss is hot and urgent from the very second our lips touch. I keep one hand in her hair, the other low on her belly, holding her plastered to me as one of her hands comes up to hook around my neck.
It never occurred to me that making out in the woods at dawn, both of us sweaty, could be erotic, but the kiss goes from hot to downright scorching in a matter of seconds, and I nudge her forward just slightly off the path and into the not-quite-secluded privacy of the woods. She tries to turn toward me, but I keep her back to my chest, all but pinning her between me and a tree like a beast that can’t control itself.
I can’t control myself.
I don’t release her hair, refusing to let our mouths break contact, but she doesn’t seem to mind, her tongue reaching for mine, even as her hands have to brace on the tree trunk.
My hand slides under the fabric of her shirt, touching her damp skin, from the hem of her running pants to the tight band of her sports bra, but refusing to touch her breasts until she begs me to.
It doesn’t take long. She breaks our kiss with a gasp. “Touch me.”
I release her ponytail, letting her head fall back on my shoulder as I slide both hands roughly over her breasts, massaging her nipples with my palms through the sports bra until we’re both crazy.
Having watched her wriggle into the sports bra, I already know I won’t have the patience to get it off her, so when I can’t go any longer without touching her skin, I jerk the tight band around her rib cage upward, my fingers finding her tight little nipples and rolling them.
Our harsh breathing grows loaded in the early morning silence. It’s unlikely that anyone would come this way, but knowing that they could only makes it hotter.
I slide my hand into her shorts, fully intending to content myself by teasing her through the fabric of the pale green panties I know she’s wearing. That plan goes out the window when I feel her dampness even through the fabric, and I manage only a few teasing strokes before my fingers slide under the lace, my fingers dipping into her slippery wetness.
Olivia makes soft mewling noises I haven’t heard out of her yet, and I find myself smiling despite the fact that my boner feels ready to tear through the fabric of my shorts. I love that she gets off from being fingered outside, up against a tree. In every other way, Olivia is a textbook good girl, but not like this, not with my fingers on her clit and my cock pressed against her ass.
I love that about her. Shit. I seem to love everything about her.
Her breath starts to get faster, but she grips my wrist. “I want you inside me.”
I groan. “No condom.”
She shakes her head. “I’m on the pill.”
I hear the question in her voice. She’s asking if there are other things we have to worry about. Questions we couldn’t seem to think to ask last night.
In response, I rip her shorts and panties down, doing the same with my own shorts, and I hesitate, wanting to give her more than fucking her against the tree with our workout clothes around our ankles, but then she leans forward, palms against the tree, back arched, and she gives me a hooded, sex-starved look over her shoulder. She wants this. And I want her so damned much.
I grab her hips, plunging inside her with so much force she gasps. Then she readjusts her grip on that damn tree and pushes back at me as I take her again and again, my hands running over her hips, her ass, and up to her breasts before finally sliding back down and petting her in the way I know makes her crazy.
I want it to last forever, but we’re too far gone, and the second she cries out, I’m right there with her, exploding harder than I ever have before as she clenches around me.
Holy.
Fuck.
She all but collapses against the tree, and for a second I can’t do much more than rest my forehead between her shoulder blades before I force myself to move, pulling up her shorts, then my own.
I turn her toward me, pulling her into my arms.
After what we just did, the chaste hug feels almost laughably tame, and she must think the same, because she giggles against my chest.
“Oh my God.”
I laugh along with her. “So. That happened.”
She tilts her head up to look at me, her eyes close to adoring, and I feel a punch of longing so intense it almost takes my breath away. Not longing for her body…although that’s always there, just beneath the surface. Longing for her, and her laughter, and the simple way she expects good things of me because she thinks I’m good.
Somewhere inside me, a demon is telling me that I’m going to disappoint her. That I’m going to destroy her. For the first time since Afghanistan, though, I push the thought back. For the first time, I let myself believe that my past—my scars—don’t define me.
I kiss her forehead. “Ready to run back?”
“Um, not unless these ugly shoes you made me wear have wheels. Or wings. I can’t run after that,” she says with a little nod toward the tree.
I give a mock sigh and hold out my hand. “Walk?”
She takes my hand without hesitation, her fingers locking with mine.
For three years I’ve thought there’d be no better feeling in the world than being able to run again. But I’m wrong.
Walking hand in hand with Olivia is better.
Chapter Thirty-One
Olivia
I still love my afternoons in front of the fire with Paul as much as I ever did. Only now that things have changed, I’m finding that big leather chairs aren’t exactly ideal for snuggling.
I content myself with putting my feet in his lap while we read. He doesn’t seem to mind.
With one hand, he steadily turns the pages of his book. With the other, he alternates between rubbing the arch of my sock-clad foot and taking a sip of the tea I made us. Not so long ago it would have been booze by his side. He still drinks it occasionally, but now it’s more of an afterthought in the evenings instead of a crutch he needs to get through the day.
No matter where I look, I see only progress. Not that I think of Paul as my project. Not anymore. He’s no longer an undertaking I need to conquer in order to vanquish my own demons and earn my paycheck. He’s a person.
One that I care about at levels that are starting to worry me.
My smile fades, just slightly, as I try to push the thought away. But the thought won’t budge, and I force myself to face it head-on. So what if we haven’t exactly exchanged words of love? I’m twenty-two. I don’t need a vow of undying devotion, a ring, or one of those long talks about “us” that make guys crazy.
But a hint on where we stand would be nice. Just a hint.
“You’re scowling,” Paul says idly, his attention still mostly on his book.
“This Andrew Jackson biography’s just got me thinking,” I lie.
“Uh-huh. You’re really flying through that,” he says with a pointed look. He’s referring to the fact that I’m a tenth of the way through, even though I’ve been attempting to read it for over two months.
I open my mouth to retort that I’m savoring it, but abruptly I slam the book shut.
“Okay, fine. I don’t like it.” I toss the heavy book onto the end table with a disgruntled glare. “I’m trying to like it. I know I’m supposed to, and it’ll enrich my mind and all that, but I’m bored out of my mind.”
He presses his lips together as though to hide a smile, and I narrow my eyes at him. “Go ahead. Judge,” I say.
He shrugs. “No judgment. I’ve just been wondering how long it would take you to admit that you’re not into it.”
“You probably think all I want to read is celebrity magazines,” I mutter.
“Nah,” he says, giving my big toe a tweak. “Give yourself a break. Biographies aren’t for everyone. You’ll find some topic you like. I have a couple books I could recommend.”
I nod unenthusiastically, and he watches me carefully before slowly closing his own book.
“Okay. More than the book is on your mind. Let’s hear it.”
I smile. “You know, for someone who’s been out of the dating game for a while, you know how to read women.”
“Like riding a bike,” he says. “Only so much scarier. But seriously, what’s up?”
“I don’t even know,” I say, telling him the truth. “Don’t feel like reading, I guess.”
Both of his hands are on my feet now, massaging in deep kneading motions that feel amazing. “Okay. So we’ll talk.”
I give him a wry smile. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Actually, that’s not true. I fully intend to trade conversation for a blow job later.”
I roll my eyes. “The sad thing is, I know you’re only half joking.”
“Less than half, actually. I really like blow jobs.”
“Shocked. I’m completely shocked.”
“Seriously though, Middleton. Say what you need to say, or ask what you need to ask. Your mental anguish is giving me heartburn.”
I start to tell him that he can go back to his reading, and that yeah, I’d love another book recommendation. Preferably one that doesn’t double as a lullaby like that biography.
But I do want to talk. But I won’t ask him about us. Not only because I don’t want to see his wince, but because I’m terrified at the answer I might get. I’m not ready to hear that I’m just a fun fling that helped pull him back from the dark side.
“Tell me what happened,” I blurt out. “In Afghanistan.”
My mind goes blank for a second, as does his face, and I clap a hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry. I just…I don’t know why I threw that out there so tackily.”
Paul’s mouth quirks up, the lines from his scars moving too. “You asked because you want to know.”
I open my mouth to tell him it’s none of my business and that he’ll tell me when he’s ready. Then I remember what he said that day he found me Googling him. I remember why he was so upset. He said no one ever asked him, person to person, what had happened.
And I just did that, so…I hold my breath. Please let this be it.
He leans forward slightly, his palms sliding up my calves. We both watch the movement of his hands before he slowly raises his eyes to meet mine.
“I want to tell you. I want it to be you.”
His eyes hold nothing but trust, and my heart squeezes. In that moment, I know.
I love him.
It’s not the easy love I had for Ethan, or the warm, uncomplicated love I felt for Michael as a friend.
I love Paul, the person. I love his darkness and his shadows. I love his smile and the kindness h
e tries so hard to hide. I love the boyish quarterback beneath the war veteran, and I love the scarred right side of his face even more than the perfection of his left.
I love him.
And because I love him, I do one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I let him tell his story, even though I know the ugliness of what he has to say may very well rip me apart.
I start to pull my feet down so I can sit up straight, but his hands stop me, his fingers continuing to move absently up and down my calves as he turns his head to watch the fire.
“Tell me what you know,” he says quietly.
“Not much. That article…it mentioned that you and your team were taken…that you were tortured. But it didn’t say much.”
His head drops a little. “The lack of information makes it seem worse than it was, actually. As far as those things go, I was lucky.”
My eyes bug out. “Lucky? In no scenario should torture and lucky be uttered in the same sentence.”
“I—”
I lean forward, placing my hands over his, our fingers linking. “Start from the beginning. Say as little or as much as you want.”
He takes a deep breath. And then he talks.
He tells me about how he’d been in Afghanistan for only five months, but that odd as it sounds, things had become almost routine. Life on the base was monotonous but not awful.
He talked about how early on, his heart had hammered every time they’d had to leave base, but over time that too became routine.
“I think I knew,” he says then. “I think I somehow knew when I woke up that day that it was going to be different. My guys and I…we had this pact. No matter how bored we got, or how shitty the weather, or how much we missed life back home, or Oreos, or our girlfriend…we didn’t talk about the bad stuff. You know? It was like this unspoken power of positive thinking, or bullshit like that. If we didn’t talk about how much it sucked, then we didn’t think about it.”
I nod in understanding, even though I know nothing in my own life experience compares.
