Darkness Past

by Sherryl Hancock

  “Are things bad at home?” she asked softly.

  Sierra shrugged, taking a deep breath and blowing it out in a quiet sigh.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Sierra said. “About him,” she qualified.

  Kashena nodded, realizing that it was probably difficult for Sierra to split her loyalties. “Then how’s work?” Kashena asked with a grin.

  Sierra smiled, appreciating that Kashena didn’t push about Jason. The fact was that things were awful, and she didn’t want to dump all of that on Kashena.

  “Well, I’ve got three capital cases in pre-trial, another starting trial tomorrow. I’ve got three DAGs out with the flu, and a serious legal support issue.”

  “Sounds like a lot.”

  Sierra sighed. “It is a lot,” she agreed, “but I’ll deal with it.”

  “I know you will,” Kashena said. “If anyone can handle all of this it’s you.” She got up and poured Sierra another glass of wine. Kashena handed it to her and sat down again. “So, the DAGs that are out, are they the ones in pre-trial?”

  “One of them is,” Sierra said. “He’s one of my best, and I’m scrambling trying to help his legal assistant get everything together in his absence.”

  “Can you replace him?”

  “Well,” Sierra said, looking considering, “I can, but he’s so intimately acquainted with this case. A lot of what lawyers do is think on their feet. When a witness doesn’t answer the way you expect them to, you need to be able to fall back and regroup. You need to find a new angle to get at the point you’re trying to make. It’s much easier to do that when you’re highly familiar with your case.”

  Kashena nodded. “But what are you going to do if he can’t get back in time?”

  Sierra took a deep breath and released it in a whoosh. “I guess I’ll end up trying the case myself.”

  “Oh, that defendant will be hating life then,” Kashena said, grinning.

  “You think so?” Sierra asked with a smile.

  “Oh yeah, siccing my girl on them is probably the nastiest thing Midnight Chevalier could do to a defendant.”

  Sierra bit her lip, her eyes shining. “Your girl, huh?”

  Kashena looked back at her, smiling softly. “Yeah,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Sierra echoed, snuggling back against Kashena.

  They talked for another hour, then Kashena saw Sierra glance at her watch.

  “I better get you home,” Kashena said, moving to stand.

  “I guess so,” Sierra said, sounding a bit forlorn.

  When Kashena dropped Sierra off, Jason was out working on the lawn. He stopped the mower and stared at Kashena. Kashena merely looked back at him from behind her sunglasses. He was a classic Marine—flat-top blond hair, darkly tanned skin, ruggedly handsome, but not too handsome. His bare chest was on display; he was well muscled with tattoos on both arms.

  As Kashena drove away, Sierra walked past Jason, trying to move out of arm’s reach. It didn’t work. He pulled her to him, crushing her against his sweaty torso. His lips smashed down on hers. She had a flash of what kissing Kashena had been like, just an hour or two before. So different. Kashena’s kisses were soft, sometimes intense, but never crushing like this. She felt like her lips were being flattened against her teeth. She wanted to shove away from him—he was getting sweat and grime on her beige suit—but she knew he’d just complain about it, so she didn’t.

  “Who’s the broad?” Jason asked when he let her go.

  “That’s my bodyguard,” Sierra said, not liking that Jason thought of all women as “broads.”

  Jason gave snort of sarcastic laughter. “Some skinny little broad is going to protect you? From what? Flies?”

  Sierra looked back at him, unable to believe she’d ever found him charming. Of course, he was much more coarse since he’d come back from the Middle East. It was apparent he’d gotten used to the way women were treated in that part of the world.

  “For your information,” Sierra said tightly, “Kashena is an ex-Marine.”

  “Bullshit,” Jason snapped.

  “No, not bullshit,” Sierra replied. “She was a second lieutenant and led her own platoon.”

  Jason curled up his lips in disgust. “So she fucked some general and got herself made a second lieuy, so what?”

  “I seriously doubt that,” Sierra replied scathingly, “since she’s a lesbian.”

  Jason’s mouth fell open in shock, and Sierra took the opportunity to retreat inside the house. She was already castigating herself for telling him that. She knew it was something he wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t stand gays, and what if it was too telling that Sierra knew that about her bodyguard?

  Sure enough, ten minutes later he came inside, leaning on the counter as she was cooking dinner.

  “So how do you know she’s a homo?” he asked crudely.

  Sierra turned around, staring at him, disbelief on her face. Finally she shook her head and turned back to her cooking, ignoring his question. Suddenly she could feel him behind her. The smell of sweat and dirt pervaded her nostrils.

  “I asked you a question,” Jason said in a tight voice.

  Sierra shuddered to herself, feeling sickened that he intimidated her so easily.

  “She told me,” she said eventually, unable to think of anything else.

  “Why?” he asked, his tone still a growl. “She hoping to fuck you?”

  “Jesus, Jason!” Sierra glanced around, hoping that Colby wasn’t around to hear that. “Do you have to use that kind of language? I don’t need a call from the school saying that Colby is talking like that now.”

  “So? Was she hoping to fuck you or not?” Jason asked, as if she hadn’t even spoken.

  “Contrary to popular belief,” Sierra said condescendingly, “not all gays are depraved degenerates that will sleep with anything of the same sex.”

  Jason made a sound that showed that he didn’t believe a word of what she’d just said, but he let the other part of that question go. Sierra was relieved.

  Later that night, as he continually did, he crawled into bed naked next to her, pressing his hard-on against her.

  “Jason…” she sighed, shaking her head as she tried to read the brief she had in her hands.

  “Put that shit down for a few,” Jason said, pushing aside the brief and reaching for her hand. He guided it to his hard-on. “Do you know how much I missed fucking you?”

  Sierra looked back at him, unable to formulate a reply. She wanted to inform him that talking like that did absolutely nothing for her. Another retort that came to mind was that his erection did nothing for her either. What she wanted to do was get out of bed and run away. She wanted to run to Kashena and never look back. But she knew it wasn’t that easy. Nothing was ever as easy as it seemed.

  In the end, she gave in and let him have sex with her. She never thought of it as making love anymore. Nothing about the sex act with Jason pertained to love. She’d known that long before she’d met Kashena again. The problem now was that she felt dirty after she’d been with him. That was something that hadn’t been so prevalent before. Now she had something to compare it to, and it paled significantly.

  Making love with Kashena was sometimes tender, sometimes heated, but she always felt like Kashena respected her. It sounded trite, even to her, but Kashena respected that she was more than a body to be used. Jason used her as he saw fit, never caring if she had an orgasm or not. Something she hadn’t had with him in many years now. She’d mentioned it to him once a couple of years before. He’d snickered and said, “I thought that’s what you women bought vibrators for.”

  Jason sensed Sierra’s revulsion during sex. He’d always figured her for frigid anyway, but that didn’t matter. She was a nice tight fit, so it always got him off. She was some overeducated suit, and he got to fuck her whenever he wanted to fuck her. That thought alone got him off half the time. She had a hot body, sexy, slim, even after having a baby, and long dark hair that fe
ll all around her. He knew she didn’t like sex, but tough shit. She was his wife, and he’d do her whenever and wherever he wanted.

  Otherwise, what was the point in marrying her? Besides the fact that he’d knocked her up? One of the guys he used to consider a friend had told him that if he didn’t marry Sierra, he’d report Jason. The last thing Jason wanted was to get ousted from the Marines. His dad, a good old-fashioned redneck of a Marine, would kill him. So he’d married Sierra.

  His father, Jason senior, had been his usual charming self when Jason and Sierra had gone to the small farmhouse in Minnesota.

  “You married a fuckin’ breed?” Jason senior had sneered.

  Sierra had stared wide-eyed at the man. She wasn’t used to such treatment. Her family was one of the richest in San Diego. People in the community as well as the tribe had always treated her with respect and kindness. This was something totally foreign to her.

  “Her family’s got bucks,” Jason junior had told his father.

  “You knock her up?”

  Jason had merely nodded, his eyes lowered.

  “Dumb fuck,” Jason senior had spat, then peered at Sierra. “You trap my boy, you little slut?”

  Sierra’s mouth had fallen open at such a crude, nasty accusation. She’d finally turned and left the room. She’d walked out to the rental car and sat in it until Jason had finally come outside. She’d told him she wanted to leave. He’d argued with her, but she’d refused to get out of the car. They’d never gone back to visit Jason’s father again. Sierra could see why Jason’s mother had left the horrible man years before.

  The next morning, Kashena picked Sierra up but didn’t go to the door as she usually had before. She was very aware that Jason was there, lurking somewhere, and the last thing she wanted to do was meet up with the man. She hadn’t liked him on sight. There was also something she felt she needed to discuss with Sierra.

  Unfortunately, Jason found it necessary to trail Sierra out to the vehicle and walk around to Kashena’s side. Kashena had her window down, because she was smoking a cigar, so there was no avoiding the man. He gave her an appraising look, one she was used to getting from men. It was obvious he knew she was gay too.

  “So you’re a bodyguard, huh?” he asked snidely.

  “Yes,” Kashena answered, flicking her cigar pointedly over his head.

  Sierra got into the vehicle and glanced at Kashena, once again sorry she’d told Jason that Kashena was gay, knowing her husband had a big mouth. Naturally that was the next thing he asked.

  “Sierra says you’re a lesbo,” Jason said. “That true?”

  “Is that pertinent to my protecting your wife?” Kashena asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “Maybe,” Jason replied, defensive immediately. “How do I know you’re not cruising her for a piece of ass?”

  Kashena’s look could have frozen him. Her first instinct was to ask him if he was feeling threatened. In the end, she simply didn’t answer him. She put the Suburban in gear and drove away, turning just tight enough to make him step back in order to avoid being bumped.

  Kashena grinned evilly. Sierra glanced back to see Jason staring open-mouthed at the retreating vehicle.

  “Kash, I’m sorry,” Sierra said. “He was making snide remarks yesterday about your ability to protect me. I snapped.”

  Kashena shrugged. “I don’t care if he knows I’m a lesbian. That’s his problem, not mine.”

  Sierra nodded, noting the edge to Kashena’s voice.

  “But,” Kashena said, “we do need to talk.”

  “Okay,” Sierra said, looking worried.

  Kashena drove to a coffee shop nearby, ordering them coffee and then leading Sierra to a private corner. She took Sierra’s hands in hers.

  “Now that Jason’s back,” Kashena said, “I think we need to talk about our relationship.”

  Sierra prayed that Kashena wasn’t about to break things off, ready to beg her not to do that.

  “In terms of what?” Sierra asked tentatively.

  “In terms of sex,” Kashena said, her tone direct. She could see that Sierra was nervous, and she didn’t want her to feel like that. “I’m not saying we can’t be together, honey,” Kashena said, squeezing Sierra’s hands gently. “What I am saying is that I need there to be some time between the times that you’re with him and then with me.”

  Sierra looked at her for a long minute. “Like what kind of time?”

  “Well,” Kashena said, hesitant, “I think forty-eight hours is reasonable.”

  Sierra pressed her lips together. “So you’re saying that if I have sex with him, you don’t want to make love to me until forty-eight hours later?”

  “Yeah,” Kashena said. She’d noted that Sierra had referred to the act with Jason as “sex” and the act with her as “making love.” She felt her heart tug at that. “I’m just a little funny about men in general,” Kashena explained. “I don’t want anything from them on me. Does that make sense?”

  “So basically you want me decontaminated?” Sierra asked, smiling.

  “Yeah, decon,” Kashena agreed, chuckling, then her look became serious. “Do you think we can do that? That you can manage that?”

  Sierra nodded, looking pensive.

  “Are you sure?” Kashena asked.

  “I can try, Kashena,” Sierra said. “He’s very pushy about sex.”

  Kashena’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she said nothing. “All I ask is that you be honest with me.”

  “I can definitely do that,” Sierra said, nodding.

  “Good.”

  They both left the coffee shop feeling like there was a better understanding between them.

  They found out quickly there was a big difference between “understanding” and being able to stand things. Many times on the way home from the office, Sierra would reach over to touch Kashena’s hand. The first time was the day they’d talked in the coffee shop.

  “Been deconned?” Kashena smiled wryly.

  Sierra had pressed her lips together. Since she’d been with Jason the night before, it hadn’t been forty-eight hours. She shook her head slowly. Kashena gave her an encouraging smile.

  “S’okay,” she said with understanding. “I’ll just go to the gym and work off my aggressions.”

  Sierra laughed softly, nodding her head.

  Chapter 6

  Over the next week, things were much the same, and Kashena quickly found herself getting not only frustrated, but pissed off. A week and a day after they’d made the “forty-eight hours” agreement, Kashena drove to the river, parking the vehicle and getting out to walk. She’d asked once again about “decon,” and Sierra had answered, once again, in the negative.

  Lighting a cigar, Kashena did her best to walk off her anger. What the fuck was up with this? Did she really enjoy him that much that she had to fuck him every night? What did that say? That Sierra really wasn’t into women, was what it told Kashena. That when Sierra had needed someone while Jason was away, Kashena had been a substitute, but now that he was back…

  Sierra stood next to the vehicle, watching Kashena stride down the path, smoking and generally looking pissed off. She was nervous—she could sense things were coming to a head, and she had no idea how to stop them from doing so. Jason was relentless about sex, and it was making her crazy. She’d tried to stave off his attentions as much as possible, but he wouldn’t leave her alone. It was as if he somehow sensed that in having sex with her, he was keeping her from something else. She hated it more than she could begin to explain.

  In truth, too, she was afraid to admit to Kashena that she was unable to find a suitable way to reject Jason’s advances without causing too much of a fight. It was a horrible situation to be in. She didn’t want to fight with Jason, not while Colby was in the house, and certainly not about something so personal and private as sexual relations. And what excuse could she give Jason? “Sorry, I can’t have sex with you because my girlfriend won’t touch me for forty-eight ho
urs after you have”? It just wouldn’t work.

  “This isn’t going to work,” Kashena said as she strode back to the SUV, echoing Sierra’s own thoughts. “I can’t keep on like this.”

  “Kashena, please,” Sierra said, her tone pleading. “I know things are really hard right now, but I’m sure things will settle down with Jason soon. He’s just… I mean, he was in the Middle East for so long…”

  “You think he didn’t fuck anything that wore a skirt there?” Kashena snapped, knowing male Marines better than most.

  She regretted the sharp rejoinder a moment later when Sierra paled. But then she realized that Sierra was upset that her husband was sleeping with other women… The word fuck! screamed through her head.

  Kashena moved toward the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  “Look,” she said, her voice hardening significantly, “I thought I could deal with this, but I can’t. So, we need to stop seeing each other.”

  “But…” Sierra began, getting into the vehicle as Kashena was. “I mean, what about this? The protection part?” she asked, stunned beyond reasoning.

  Kashena nodded, feeling a little bit more of her ego get ripped away. “You don’t have to worry about the protection part,” she said icily. “I was going to tell you tonight—it’s my understanding that Midnight has finally gotten your stalker picked up for just that. He won’t be bothering you anymore. So you have no need of my services anymore.”

  The emphasis on the word “services” should have warned Sierra where Kashena’s head was, but she was too busy trying to think of something to keep Kashena with her. Kashena didn’t give her a chance to think about it too much.

  Starting the Suburban with a roar, Kashena backed up and drove toward Sierra’s house. She dropped her off without another word and merely a curt nod to Jason, who seemed to be waiting for them outside, a beer in hand.

  Kashena drove home, changed clothes, and went to the gym. She spent the next three hours taking her hurt and anger out on the most readily available weight equipment.

  “Pushing it a bit, aren’t we, Marine?” came a familiar voice from behind her.