by June Gray
He held a fist up to his forehead, holding me in place with his gaze. “And I’m furious with myself for treating you like shit. You deserve so much more, Elsie.”
My heart ached for him, for the uncertainty that clouded his features. “I deserve what I want. And I want you.”
His eyes searched my face. “Why?” he asked in a broken voice.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared at this roughly drawn replica of the man I once knew. This was not the proud, confident Henry I fell in love with; but what if this insecure man was all that was left?
I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his body, holding him in place. He bowed his head and whispered his apologies into my hair. “I don’t want to lose you too, Elsie.”
I squeezed him tighter, my tears soaking into his shirt. “I would go to hell and back for you, Henry. You’re not going to lose me.” I craned my neck and grasped the sides of his face. “And I want you because you are good and honest. You’re brave, smart, funny, and sexy. I’m with you because loving you comes naturally to me, like breathing in air.”
He wound his fingers around my hair and fisted it at the nape of my neck. I looked up at him boldly, letting him know that I was not going to flinch at the first sign of trouble. I opened my mouth to speak but he crushed his lips to mine, kissing every thought out of my head.
Suddenly our hands were all over, unbuttoning and tugging and throwing articles of clothing across the room. With his hands under my butt, he lifted me up against the living room wall and plunged into me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and urged him deeper, and he responded by thrusting harder, faster. I could feel him building up, his breathing becoming more labored against my ear, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’t wrap my mind around our angry sex. A voice in my head whispered that we shouldn’t be doing this, yet here we were, panting into each other like dogs in heat.
So I tried to clear my mind and focus on the here and now, but I couldn’t stop the image of Henry punching Dave from playing on a loop in my mind. The complete lack of control and regard on Henry’s face as he hit one of his closest friends clutched at my heart and refused to let go.
Henry pushed into me one last time as he came, not making a sound, only breathing hard against my neck.
After some time, he loosened his hold and let me down gently. “I’m sorry,” he said, doing up his jeans and refusing to meet my eyes. Whatever it was that he was apologizing for, I was never able to find out because he said nothing else and just walked out the front door.
5
PEACE TALKS
Henry was not in my bed when I awoke the next morning. I threw an arm over my eyes, hoping to shield myself from the sunshine peering through the wood blinds but there was no going back to sleep for me. Not with everything that happened last night fresh on my brain.
I crawled out of bed and dug around in my desk drawer until I found his letter. I sat on the computer chair and read it over for the hundredth time, clinging to the idea that I could somehow find a way to break down the wall of rage he’d built and find the old Henry on the other side. I had no clue how to even begin but I was ready to try anything.
Henry came home around noon with an apology sandwich from Subway and my favorite: oatmeal-raisin guilt cookies. Henry and I ate on the floor against the couch in silence, just watching the news. Even after we’d finished our meals we continued sitting there, both unwilling to walk away without discussing last night’s events.
“Did you run this morning?” I asked, picking at the carpet between my legs.
“No. I went to see Dave.”
I looked up at him in surprise. “And?”
“We talked it over. He told me what happened.”
I waited but didn’t really expect the apology. Still, it would have been nice if it had come.
“Then I went to see the commander.”
“On a Saturday?”
“Yeah, he was at his son’s soccer game.” He took a big gulp from a water bottle. “I told him about the altercation. He asked me if I needed to see a counselor for PTSD.”
I wanted to yell “I told you so!” but didn’t think it would help the situation, so I left the words unsaid to float around with the dust motes in the sunshine. “So what now?”
Henry picked at the seam of his jeans. “It’s tricky. If I go see a military therapist, it’ll go on my record that I have PTSD and my top-secret clearance will get taken away.”
“Can you get it back?”
“Eventually. It will take a while, though. So in that time, I won’t be able to do my job.” He sighed. “And when I don’t do my job, my OPR—the officer performance report—will look like shit. And then I’ll get passed over during the next promotion board.”
“Oh. What are you going to do?”
He looked at me then, his eyes conveying a million emotions. “What do you think I should do?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“I can’t think of anyone else that this affects more,” he said, grasping my hand. “So?”
The naïve girl in me hoped that my love alone was enough to fix whatever was wrong with Henry, but the pragmatic girl knew that sometimes love just wasn’t enough. “I want you to let go of that anger that’s built up inside, and if it means you have to talk to a therapist, then so be it.”
He frowned, doubt coloring his face, but he nodded anyway. “If that’s what you want.”
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want his career to suffer but hidden in the most shadowy recesses of my brain was a voice whispering that Henry might never have to deploy again if he was diagnosed with PTSD. But what kind of a person would I be if I ruined a career that he’d worked hard for, that brought him great pride? “If you talk to a therapist outside of the military, does your commander have to know?” I asked.
Henry chewed on my words. “No, I don’t think he does.”
“Then I want you to do that.”
He finally looked at me as his lips pulled up into a wry grin. “Dave told me that my one redeeming quality is you.”
“Well, he’s right,” I said. “Count yourself lucky.”
Henry leaned over and planted a light kiss on my lips. “I do,” he said. “I’m sorry about last night. About everything.”
“I forgave you the moment you gave me that cookie,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood.
He shook his head. “No, I mean it. I don’t want you to ever be afraid of me.”
My heart sped up. “I don’t want that either.”
“And I’m sorry for running out on you like that. I didn’t—”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “Stop apologizing,” I said. “Just start doing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He grasped the back of my head and pulled me in for an all-consuming kiss, setting me afire and reducing me to ashes.
He pressed me down onto the carpet, supporting his weight on his elbows as he ground his hips into mine. My fingers slipped under the hem of his shirt and found the zipper to his jeans, but he just shook his head and sat up on his knees. He held my wrists away from his pants and brought my hands to the waistband of my shorts. “Take them off,” he ordered.
I grinned as I slowly slid out of my shorts, enjoying Henry’s take-charge approach. I hated his bossiness any other time, but right now, hearing the confidence in his voice, I felt as if I was seeing a sliver of the old Henry returning. I leaned up on my elbows when he got to his feet.
“Stay right there,” he said, taking a step backward. “And you’d better be completely naked when I get back.”
I complied, pulling my shirt over my head and undoing my bra, then lying back into the carpet. I could hear him in the kitchen, messing with what sounded like the ice maker. “Did you get thirsty?” I asked when he came back with a cup in his hand.
&nbs
p; He chuckled and set the cup down by my leg. “That’s one way of putting it,” he said, running his palms along the inside of my thighs and spreading my legs apart.
“Am I the only one who will be naked?” I asked as he lay on his stomach, his head directly above my crotch.
“Yes,” he said, his breath warm on my skin. He pressed my legs to the floor, laying me completely bare, then flashed a grin before nipping at the inside of my thigh with his teeth, trailing the way to my center. His tongue darted out and swirled around my folds, making me arch my back off the floor to get more of him. He moved at a confident, unhurried pace, making me tingle with anticipation as the pressure began to build.
He pulled away and held my eyes as he sucked one of his long fingers into his mouth and then another, and inserted those same fingers into me. When he dipped his head and began to lick at me again, I closed my eyes and felt every nerve in my body sing. It was almost too much and yet not nearly enough.
His fingers found that sensitive spot inside me and began to rub it in circles, building me to a crescendo, and just as I was approaching the cliff and preparing to leap right off, an intense chill touched my skin and wrenched me back to reality.
“What?” I panted and found him holding an ice crescent above my mound.
“Just relax,” he said with a smile and lowered the ice to my skin again, slowly sliding it between my folds.
I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation, the cold was a painful thrill that was almost too much to bear and yet . . .
Henry pulled the ice away and licked the places he had just chilled, his tongue warm and soothing. The temperature contrast just about undid me, but he touched me with the ice again, sliding it lower and lower until it was pushing at my entrance.
I squirmed and he pushed it inside me, invading me with a coldness I couldn’t take, but he pulled it away and replaced it with his tongue, and just as I was getting used to the warmth again, he slid the ice inside once more. He alternated like this, the cold and warm, at leisurely intervals until I was fisting the carpet, my muscles coiling, building, rushing toward that cliff’s edge again.
Then it was just his tongue as he thumbed my clit in circles and I was lost, tumbling down into the ocean of pain and ecstasy and everything Henry. My legs buckled under his hands, my insides trembled around his tongue, my mouth screamed his name, and I came and came.
Afterward, he crawled up beside me and kissed me, my taste still on his mouth. “God, you are so sexy,” he said, brushing hair away from my face.
I moved my hand to give him his turn but he grasped my wrist and brought it up to his face, touching his lips to my palm. “No,” he said. “I just want it to be about you right now. Just you.”
I was too exhausted to argue so I wrapped his arm around me and curled into his chest, basking in the moment when Henry was both warm and cold, old and new, loving me and only me.
* * *
On Monday morning, I walked out to the kitchen to find Henry sitting at the dining table still in his pajama pants.
“You’re going to be late,” I said, leaning against the counter as I looked at my watch.
He took a leisurely sip of his coffee and even though he was smiling, it seemed as if a heavy weight was pulling his features down. “I’m taking some time off.”
I found my travel mug already filled with coffee, made up just the way I liked it. “Thank you,” I said, giving him a kiss on the forehead, hoping to ease the frown etched between his eyebrows. “How long?”
“I’ve accumulated eighteen days of leave, so that many.”
My heart did a little jig before it remembered that I actually had to work, that his leave did not directly affect me. “What are your plans for the next eighteen days? Hang around and couch-surf?”
“I’m going to California.”
I stopped midsip. “Huh?” I asked eloquently.
“Back when I was younger, before you and Jason moved to Monterey, I used to see a psychiatrist, but I stopped during freshman year in high school.”
I knew he’d had problems at home, but he never told us he’d needed a psychiatrist. “Because of your parents?”
He closed his eyes and nodded, taking a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m going to go see Dr. Galicia again. I talked to her for a while when you were getting ready. She wants to see me tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I asked. “Does that mean you have to leave . . . tonight?”
He nodded and said, “Come with me.”
I wanted to say yes, but there was no way I could on such short notice. “I have work.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” He set his mug down and walked over to where I stood at the counter, wrapping me in his arms. “It’s just for eighteen days, less than one month.”
I nodded despite the lump in my throat. “Is that enough time?” I tilted my head back to look at him, wishing throwing tantrums was still acceptable behavior. He just got back home and now he was going to leave again. It didn’t seem fair.
“I hope so,” he said gently, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m sorry it’s such short notice. I just really need to do this.”
“Okay.”
“Okay you’ll go with me?” he asked with a hopeful lift to his eyebrows.
“Okay you can go,” I said. “You’ve got eighteen days to work through your issues, and then I’m coming for you.”
“You’re coming to California?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. The man was relentless. “It was just a figure of speech.”
“But wouldn’t it be fun to be back there together? I want you beside me when I tell people that we’re finally together.”
“Why do I need to be there for that?”
“So they’ll believe me.” He grinned. “And so that your dad won’t beat me to a pulp for boning his daughter.”
I laughed at the image of my dad, who was the shorter of the two men, putting up his dukes and challenging Henry to fisticuffs. “Yeah, that is worth missing work for.”
“So come.”
I sighed, my defenses already starting to wear down. “I can’t. I’m a responsible adult now.”
He huffed. “Okay.”
“Okay you give up?”
He released me. “Okay you’d better go to work before I tie you up and throw you into my luggage,” he said with a slap to my rear.
“Sounds kinky,” I said and shook my ass at him all the way to the front door.
* * *
Several hours later, I found myself standing in Will Rogers airport, bidding Henry good-bye once again. I was starting to get the feeling that being with him meant that I would forever be standing on this side, always the one to watch him leave.
“Are you going to see your friends?” I asked after he checked his bags.
He shrugged as he glanced toward the security gate. “Maybe. If time permits.”
“How about your ex-girlfriend?” I teased.
He grinned. “Definitely. I’ll make sure to see all of them,” he said and tickled my side.
“Are you staying with your parents?”
“Yeah. They actually sounded happy to see me.”
“Maybe things will be different,” I said, squeezing his hand as we walked toward the security gate.
“Maybe.”
Once we reached the security line, he turned to me and grasped the sides of my head, pressing his lips to my forehead for a long while. I closed my eyes, inhaling his scent, my body already missing his solid presence.
“You should come out to Cali,” he said. “Even just a few days.”
“I’ll try,” I managed to say through the ache in my chest. “I don’t have much time off saved up.”
He held my face in his hands tenderly as he planted soft kisses on my lips, then on my nose, and finally on my forehead. �
�It’s just eighteen days,” he said and I got the distinct feeling that he was saying it more to reassure himself. “I’ll be back long before your birthday.”
“You’d better,” I said. “I’m thinking a costume party to celebrate my birthday.”
“Are you going to wear that ‘Tomb Raider’ costume again?”
“You’ll have to wait and see.” I kissed him one last time and pushed at his chest. “Get going, buster,” I said with false cheer.
He quirked one dark eyebrow and looked down at his watch. “You want me to go already?”
“The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll come back,” I said simply, not saying that waiting here with him was torture, that it reminded me too much of that day back in March when we were separated for six months. “So scoot.”
He grinned and kissed me one last time before he joined the short security line. It took him all of five minutes to reach the metal detector and another thirty seconds to collect his things and slip back into his boots.
Then he turned one last time and winked before heading off into the terminal. I watched his steady, unassuming gait until he turned the corner and was completely out of view, already making plans of my own, sure that the next time I found myself in an airport, I would not be standing on this side of the gate.
PART THREE
RETREAT
1
REVEILLE
I was calm during the four-hour flight but the moment the plane touched down at the Monterey Airport that drizzly Thursday night, my insides immediately turned to mush.
I’d flown to California many times before, but this time, Henry had no clue I was coming. I had managed to get some time off work to spend the last three of his eighteen days of therapy with him, and was planning to surprise him tonight.
