by Brook Wilder
“Come on, let’s not keep our table waiting.” Jackrabbit tugged uncomfortably at his suit jacket again as he walked Rachael into the dimly lit marble lined entry way. He waited for a moment, more unsure of himself than he could ever remember being in his entire life.
Finally, a pretentious looking man in a black suit saw them and walked over with a look in his eyes as if he was just about to take out the trash.
“Can I help you?” The host said, looking down his nose at his all the while.
“Yes, I have a reservation tonight. It’s under Dawes.”
The host looked slightly surprised before he looked down through the heavy leather-bound book in front of him and found the reservation.
He looked back up with an empty apologetic smile on his face. “Yes, of course you do. I’m sorry for the… misunderstanding. This way please.”
The host led them through a dining room that was dimly lit with flickering candle light and a stuffy atmosphere that reminded him of being dragged to church by his grandmother as a child. Then, like now, he felt uncomfortable as hell.
“Here is your table. The server will be right with you.”
They both took their seats. An awkward hushed silence fell, thick and cloying. They both looked around, uncomfortable and out of place. They were still struggling in silence when another arrogant looking man—presumably the waiter—walked up to their table.
“Still or sparkling?” He asked in a terribly fake French accent, all the while ogling Rachael as he spoke.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Jackrabbit had to battle back the urge to punch the bastard right in the nose. No one had the right to look at her like that—like she was a piece of meat. That was one dish that was definitely not on the menu.
Surreptitiously, Jackrabbit put out one heavy booted foot, and ‘accidentally’ dropped it right on the waiter’s toe. The server gave a pained grimace before kicking his foot out of the way.
Jackrabbit knew it was petty but he couldn’t help the shit eating grin he sent the pretentious leering prick. “Sorry. Accident.”
“It’s fine.” The waiter’s lips peeled back in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Still or sparkling?”
“Still or sparkling what?” Jackrabbit asked, one brow raised in question. He lowered it into a glare when the server shot him a smug look.
“Water, of course. Still water or sparkling water?” You idiot was implied by the man’s tone.
Before Jackrabbit could open his mouth and say something he would probably regret, Rachael said. “Uh, just regular water is fine. Thanks.”
She rolled her eyes as the man turned towards her, moving too close as he leaned over the table to fill her glass. His eyes were glued to where her dress revealed her impressive cleavage and Jackrabbit had to fight every instinct in his body screaming for him to make an example out of this pretentious asshole.
After an eternity, and none too soon for his own health’s sake, the waiter drew back, handing them both a menu. Jackrabbit opened it up and blanched as his eyes glazed over at the unfamiliar words.
The waiter gave him one more condescending look and nodded towards the menu. “Just let me know if you can’t read the menu. It’s all in French. Very sophisticated.” He threw Jackrabbit a pointed stare as if to say, not like you. He turned towards Rachael, gave her a look that was far warmer than it should be, and leaned in to put his arm on the back of her chair.
“I can explain everything to you if you’d like. My French is excellent and—”
“I think we can manage.” Jackrabbit forced the words out through a jaw so tense that it was a wonder he could speak at all.
The waiter cast him one more look before turning and walking away. Jackrabbit forced himself to take three long, deep breaths to calm the temper that threatened to explode from inside him.
The fucking balls on that guy! To talk down to him and hit on Rachael right in front of his face. He balled his knuckles a tight first before forcing them to relax.
He glanced over the menu and didn’t understand a fucking word. Fuck. This was a mistake. All he wanted to do was take Rachael out on a nice date. To show her that there was more to him. Well, way to overplay your hand there, buddy.
He looked up then, leaning forward.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what the fuck this menu says—.”
“I don’t speak French. What does this say—”
They both froze at the same time, cutting off their words as they mixed together. Jackrabbit’s blue eyes met her green ones. They looked at each other for several unspoken seconds before he felt it—the crack in the tension between them. They both laughed at the same time and the last of that tension melted away for good.
Rachael leaned forward, a wicked gleam suddenly shining in her emerald green eyes that stoked a smoldering fire inside him.
“Do you want to get out of here?” She asked.
The wicked edge was in her voice as well and Jackrabbit was taken back to their first night together after Hatchet and Elsie’s wedding. It was the same question he’d asked her then, and he vividly remembered her answer, and what had happened afterward.
Jackrabbit’s grin spread from ear to ear as he leaned close to whisper in her ear. “God yes.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Oh my god, yes! That is…uhg, that’s it. That’s…Oh my god…That’s amazing.” Rachael closed her eyes on pure heaven as she bit into the cheesy, gooey, saucy slice of pizza, the crust crisp and perfect as she chewed.
“This is incredible.” She said, taking another bite. Pure paradise. “By the way, pizza is my favorite food.”
“I can tell.” Jackrabbit laughed.
Rachael looked over at him before joining in, chuckling to herself as she finished off the piece. She sighed, full and happy and so much more at ease after leaving that stuffy restaurant. Being hit on by snobby waiters was not her idea of a good time.
She cast a surreptitious glance at him. This came pretty close to perfect, though. There was a blanket he’d grabbed from somewhere in the back of his truck and spread out on top of the grassy hill he’d driven her to.
They left that stuffy overpriced restaurant laughing like a couple of teenagers in the middle of a dine and dash and hadn’t stopped laughing until they were miles away. They stopped to pick up a few slices of pizza before Jackrabbit gave Rachael a lopsided grin and told her he knew the perfect spot to eat it.
It had been a short drive from the pizza place to the grassy outcrop he took her to and every minute had been worth it, even those wasted at Lupo’s. On top of the hill, the view was incredible.
The big Texas skyline stretched for miles and miles ahead of them. The sun was setting, tipping down below the horizon and painting the sky in vibrant shades of crimson and magenta before finally winking out of sight as the indigo night descended.
Rachael lied back on the blanket with a sigh of satisfaction, staring up at the night sky as indigo faded to velvety black and the twinkling stars above began to wink awake one by one until the sky came alive with light.
“It’s beautiful up here.” She finally said as Jackrabbit reclined next to her. This wasn’t at all how she’d pictured their date ending. It was far better than anything she could have imagined.
“I found this place one night while I was out on a ride.”
“Doing something illegal?” She asked lightly and Jackrabbit shook his head in response. He pointed one finger up into the night sky.
“See that constellation there? Right above the tree line? That’s the big dipper.” His voice was soft and soothing in the darkness and for the first time all evening Rachael felt completely relaxed, at ease within herself. She peered over at the area he was pointing at.
“I don’t see it. All I see are a bunch of stars clustered together.”
“You see the really bright one? Towards the bottom, right above that big tree?” Rachael squinted again, this time nodded as she spotted it.
“Okay, s
o just follow that over, those stars there make up the handle.” Jackrabbit explained softly. “And then right above it are the four points that make the cup of the dipper.”
“Huh. I see it.” She said as it came into focus. She glanced over at Jackrabbit and saw him grinning back at her.
“Do you know any others?” She asked, suddenly fascinated by this new side of him. A side that she had never seen before. He was still the rough and tumble biker, the president of the Roadburners, tattooed and gruff around the edges. But now there was something more relaxed about him. More at ease. As if he could finally let himself be… himself around her.
“Do I know any other?” He smiled before moving his hand to point at the right of the big dipper constellation, “That one’s the little dipper. And just below that is Cepheus.”
Rachael turned her head so she could see him in the darkness. “How do you know all that?”
Jackrabbit sighed and then shrugged, letting his hand drop to his chest. “I learned it during my enlistment. If you’re stranded, alone, in unfamiliar territory at night and without your compass, the stars were the best way to navigate back to where you need to be.”
“And did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you ever have to navigate by the stars to escape enemy territory?” There was a note of teasing in her voice but it fell away as she watched his expression grow serious. Even shadowed as it was, she could make out the tension in his face at her question.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.” Rachael said softly after he fell into a hushed silence.
“No, no, it’s alright,” Jackrabbit finally said. His eyes were locked on the stars above as he spoke. Rachael could hear the strain in his voice as he did. “It wasn’t me.”
“What wasn’t you?” She prompted after he fell silent again.
“It wasn’t me that was trapped in enemy territory.” Jackrabbit shook his head, a distant look glazing his eyes as he relived the terrible memories. Without second thought, Rachael reached out one hand and wrapped her fingers around his, squeezing tightly. Her touch seemed to give him the strength that he needed to continue.
“It was Hatchet. We enlisted together, us and… one other. Finn. We were deployed in the same squad. The first few weeks past. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. We were just there doing our job, you know? Boring as shit, but I wasn’t complaining.”
He paused for another long moment and Rachael gave another squeeze of his hand. It jump started him again.
“Well a couple months into our second tour things went south. We were doing a standard sweep of a village when they got the drop on us. Before any of us had any idea what the hell was going on, bullets started flying, we got split up. Hatchet had taken cover in a shack that was cut off from us. We couldn’t get to him and Finn was hit.”
Jackrabbit took a deep breath, not stopping this time as if now that he had started all he could do was let it all come out. “I dove after Finn when he went down. I saw the bullet go through his leg. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was act. There were guns firing and mortar rounds going off. The noise, Jesus, the noise…”
Rachael tilted her head so she could get a better look at his face and even in the darkness she could see the pain the memories still caused him. She just lied there, silent, next to him, holding his hand as she waited.
“We made it all out, somehow.” Jackrabbit barked out a bitter laugh, “But we were different. The war, the bloodshed, the taste of fear in your mouth every single day. It changed every one of us.”
“But you made it. Like you said, you survived. You were strong.” Rachael whispered softly into the night, unsure of what else to say. He’d never shown her this part of himself before. The vulnerable part. The part that was scarred and weary.
“Strong.” Jackrabbit said. “I guess that’s one way to put it. Hatchet can’t stand to be in small places for more than a few minutes before he starts to lose it, Finn actually did lose it. Had to go and make himself crazy thinking revenge would fix him.”
“And what about you?” Rachael asked, never letting go of his hand as she turned to look back at the sky, waiting for his answer. It took several long heartbeats before she got it.
“Me, well, I was fucked up long before I got shipped out. But I grew harder. Not in a good way.” Jackrabbit shook his head. “It’s hard to explain but once you look at all that stuff up close and personal. It stays with you. You try and get away from it all when you get back but it doesn’t want to leave. It’s with you forever.”
They lied there, side by side on the blanket. Rachael’s heart melted for the man next to her. He was so much more than what he first appeared. Under the snarky, sarcastic, gruff exterior, there was a depth to him that she never realized. She was surprised by how much she wanted to get to know that man, the man he really was.
After several more minutes, Jackrabbit lifted his hand and pointed at one grouping of stars that just barely brushed the horizon line.
“That constellation there, the one that looks like a swan? That one’s my favorite. She’s Cassiopeia.” His voice still had a tense edge to it but as he continued to speak it began to soften, The way I was told, the story is that Cassiopeia was a great Greek queen. All high and mighty. Well, she was the most beautiful queen in the whole land, so beautiful that the sea nymphs themselves got jealous of her. Supposedly, she was so beautiful that the gods plucked her from her throne on earth and put her in the stars so that everyone could gaze upon her.”
“That’s a nice story.” Rachael said, gazing up at the spot he’d pointed towards.
“Who knows, it could all be bullshit but that’s what my buddy told me and I—well, I like it.”
“Cassiopeia.” Rachael whispered the name softly, her hand still twined around his as they lied there, staring up into the stars, a peace falling over both of them while the warm night breeze blew and the darkness folded in around them.
***
Jackrabbit tried to be surreptitious as he tilted his head just enough to glance over at Rachael. She was spread out on the blanket next to him, lying on her back and staring up at the constellation he’d just pointed out. Her expression was thoughtful, but there was only one thought going through his mind at the moment and it sure as hell had nothing to do with the stars twinkling overhead.
That was one thing that had never changed between them. The sexual desire was like a drug in his veins and he had to force his mind out of the gutter just like he had to force his hands to stay still at his side instead of letting them free to do what they so desperately wanted to. Touch her, tease her, over and over until she was coming apart in his arms, with the husky sound she made in the back of her throat echoing in his ear.
Get a hold of yourself, Rabbit! This is supposed to be about getting to know each other, remember?
He nodded to himself at the much needed reminder before fighting off his wayward body once more. Truth be told, though, he’d revealed more of himself to her already that night than he’d ever shown anybody. Not even…he stopped himself from even thinking about her name. He didn’t want anything to ruin the moment. This one perfect moment.
It had taken a lot from him to talk about his past. To open himself up like that but she hadn’t judged him. She hadn’t laughed or brushed off his story. She hadn’t even laughed at his story of the constellation Cassiopeia. Finn had told him that tale one night when they’d been out on patrol.
The reminder of Finn dimmed his happiness for a moment but he forced it away. Not tonight. He wasn’t going to let anyone ruin this moment. Not even myself, he told himself firmly.
He tried to keep his body in check but damn was it hard with Rachael lying so close beside him, her fingers warm and soft against his where she still held onto his hand. Like a god damned teenager, Jackrabbit scolded himself again. But this time he wasn’t sure if was due to the hand holding, or his out of control libido.
Jackrabbit did the only thi
ng he could think of and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Maybe if he couldn’t see her it would be easier to ignore the persistent lust that pounded through his veins. Nope. No, that definitely didn’t work. If anything, it made his cock even stiffer because in his mind, he could still picture her.
Her lush curves, her sweet, soft skin, the spicy scent of her hair drove him nuts. And her eyes. He could see her emerald green gem stone eyes glimmering at him with a wickedness shining from their depths. Damn it, if he couldn’t get a hold of himself this was going to be a very short night.
Her kiss was tentative at first and shocked him so much that his eyes popped open to see her grinning down at him from above. The feel of her lips was like heaven against his and before he realized what she was doing, Rachael had lifted the dress up and over her head.
