(Present)
Sitting across the table from her in the hotel room, I want nothing more than to get whatever secret she’s keeping out of her. If she were a drug lord, a kidnapper, or a terrorist, things would be so much easier. I know exactly where to inflict pain and for how long in order to get them to break. But she’s not a criminal, she’s the woman I love and the woman I want more than anything in the world. And right now, she’s exhausted. Her eyes are weary and her body’s tense.
“You should get some sleep,” I reply after a long silence.
“Yeah and you too. Even tough guys need sleep,” she says.
“I have some work to do. I have to check on Banshee and see if he found anything worthwhile. And I need to talk to Wyatt, see if they have news about Cash,” I reply as I help her clean up.
“You were far away just now, where’d you go?” I ask, thinking she might keep that a secret as well.
“Honestly, I drifted back to the three-day weekend we took to your cabin,” she says.
“When was that?” I ask. She’s hurt. I can see that in her eyes and the small “o” shape she’s making with her mouth.
“Relax, Shay, of course I remember. There’s no way I could forget that. We lived on sex and junk food.”
“The way God meant for it to be,” she jokes. But then we make eye contact and again the air is thick with unspoken thoughts.
After we clean up, she heads to the shower and I fight my urge to join her. Instead I stay and allow myself to go places in the past I should not go. I recall being inside her for the first time. She was nervous yet eager for us to make love. She worried about pleasing me; I worried about hurting her. I’ve never been timid or shy in bed, even with the first girl I fucked. But this was different, this girl would be my last, and I would be her first.
We had such a good time in the cabin; we never wanted to go back into the city. We laughed too much, talked too much, and played way too much. It was a weekend of abundance. And then we had sex. I thought being inside her would open up the sky for me, but instead it opened an entire new solar system.
Christ, she felt too fucking good to be real…
***
Logan (Three years ago)
I have done a lot of shit with women, but I have never, ever watched one sleep. But it’s 5 AM and that’s exactly what I’m doing. The strange thing is there is nothing else I’d rather be doing than this. I place the cover over her. I do that so she can be warm but to be honest I also do it so I won’t see her bare shoulders. It would just turn me on and then she’d get no sleep at all.
That’s all it takes to get me going—her bare shoulder? Christ, I’m in trouble…
We have two days left in this cabin and there’s no fucking way I can stay away from her that long. Last night as I put her in the tub, I actually prayed to God for strength to hold off on having sex with her. I want to let her get used to being intimate with me before we go all the way.
However, wanting it and being strong enough to follow through are two different things. She sighs in her sleep and turns away from me. Her subtle movements make the sheet covering her shift out of place. And now her back is exposed. Fuck me. I try to fight the urge to kiss her, which lasts maybe two seconds. Soon I’m planting kisses on her bare back. She feels so good against my lips. There’s just no way I can be that close and not touch her. How the fuck did this shit happen?
“Haven’t you put me through enough, Mr. Hunter?” She moans with pleasure.
“I haven’t even started,” I warn her as I nibble on her neck. She runs her fingers though my hair and soon the light touching turns into another full-on make-out session. We know that spending another second in bed will make us lose what little self-control we have. So, we decide it’s best if we actually leave the bed and go outside. We grab some breakfast, take a walk in the forest, and spend most of the afternoon holding hands and kissing. It’s insane how happy that makes me.
Later on, we get back in my truck and go seek out groceries for dinner. We both suck at cooking but we bet on who is worse—it’s me, by the way. I admit to her that my brother Wyatt is the cook in the family; I’m the guy who eats and tries to skip out on washing dishes.
Dinner is a fun disaster. Everything is undercooked or overdone. We challenge each other to see which of us would have the guts to take the first bite. I win, but man does it cost me. It’s horrible. The meal looks nothing like it was supposed to. We should feel bad about our poor cooking skills but we are too busy laughing at each other to care.
We end up going to a diner down the road where we eat, drink, and dance all damn night. I love holding her close. I love hearing her sigh as she places her head on my chest and leans into me. I feel her heartbeat against my chest and I talk to God—for the second time that weekend.
I don’t know what I did to deserve her, but thank you. Thank you.
I didn’t think we could ever go near that bed without being naked but I was wrong. We lie down on the bed with our clothes on and just talk. She tells me about being afraid of the Cookie Monster when she was a kid. I tell her how my brothers and I would stage surprise water balloon fights in the living room. And how we accidently hit my dad in the face with one and we went into hiding because he threatened to send us to military school.
She tells me about the few good memories she had growing up and how it helped her not hate her past completely. She shows me the small scar on her right knee from when she climbed her first tree. And she shares her dreams of running the help center someday. She tells me some of the ideas she’d like to implement at the center and I’m blown away by how well thought out they are.
I mention things to her that I haven’t even shared with my family. I admit how nervous I was the first week I started on the force. I forgot to put my safety on and almost shot my damn dick off. She laughs at that—hard. I punish her by tickling her with my lips. She laughs even harder and begs for mercy.
A few hours later, we are racing to see who will be the first into the lake and she wins. So, like any mature person, I get even by stealing her clothes and forcing her to have to beg for them back. When we get back to the house, she gets her revenge by getting me onto the bed and straddling me.
“Say you’re sorry for taking my clothes,” she says.
“Not gonna happen,” I tell her.
“Okay, now you’re gonna get it,” she threatens.
She unzips me and takes my cock in her mouth. She twists, turns and teases my dick until I howl the words “I’m sorry.” Shit, I would have said anything when she flicked the tip of my cock with her tongue and brought the fucking stars down to me. She takes all of me in her mouth—she sends me into a state of bliss I never knew existed before today. I can’t take that shit anymore; I bathe her with feverish kisses and lay her on the bed.
I look down at her, lying there, naked and glowing as the moonlight hits her skin. Her body is like lightning: powerful, beautiful to behold, and dangerous as fuck. I dip my fingers into her pussy and growl like a damn animal, “I love that you’re so wet for me. Fuck! That shit feels good.” She moans as I play inside her. I look down at her again; her eyes are closed as she enjoys the feel of my fingers inside her walls.
“Anika, open your eyes.” She does as I say; her eyes are gleaming with lust. “I love you, do you love me?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You are fucking mine and I’m yours. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Good. ’Cause we gonna get married,” I inform her.
“You can’t ask me to marry you while we’re about to have sex, Logan. People don’t normally do that.”
“I don’t give a fuck what people don’t normally do. I want you, only you, for the rest of my fucking life. Do you love me?”
“Yes, Logan, I do.”
“Forever.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to marry me?”
“Yes, I do,” she says as she glows with happiness.
“Good, now open your legs; I’m coming home.”
***
The following day, the first thing she says to me is that if I want to change my mind about proposing, I can. I tell her I’m good and that nothing has changed for me. I ask her if she wants to change her mind and she says no. But we are both worried that the other is holding something back so, after we find a metal toy soldier on the bank of the lake, I pick it up and come up with a plan.
“Okay, we are going to put this soldier guy on the window, standing up. And if for any reason either of us changes our minds about getting married, we can lay this guy flat. That means, ‘man down,’ one of us wants to back off this marriage thing.”
She agrees with my plan. It actually helps because as soon as we wake up and note that the toy soldier is still standing upright, we just ease into our day. Soon, we don’t even look at it, we just know that the toy is still standing and we are still fucking in love. When we get back to the city, we go to dinner with my family for the first time.
My brothers are shocked to hear that I am getting married but not my mom and Shelby. They look at each other and smile as if they had some kind of bet going on. After dinner, my mother kidnaps Shay and the two of them go to the backyard. They talk for nearly an hour. I’m told it’s girl talk and none of my business.
Women.
On the weekends, we stay in bed and daydream extensively about being able to buy an island. The plan is to one day live off the grid, on nothing but orgasms and coconuts. But every other day Shay keeps adding something to our imaginary island.
“Okay, I know I said all we need is a hammock, a few changes of clothes, and food,” she says as she lays her head on my chest.
“Yes, and that’s it,” I remind her as I stroke her hair and tuck her head under my chin.
“But we will also need one little thing on our island.”
“Okay, what is it?” I ask.
“Cable.”
“No!” I laugh.
“Yes, Logan, we will need cable.”
“Anika, how is having cable on our little island being off the grid?” I ask.
“It’ll be basic cable. No HBO. No Showtime. We’ll practically be Amish,” she swears. I tell her no and vow that I am not changing my mind. But then she slides under the sheet and without warning takes my cock into her mouth—all the way.
“Anika, that’s not—oh shit!” I groan as she starts to glide her slick tongue along my now rigid member. My head falls back onto the pillow and I don’t even remember what we were talking about. But whatever she wants, whatever she wants, she can have…
***
Jack is excited that Shay and I are getting married. Not because he wants me to be happy but because he bet me a hundred bucks that we would happen. So he now gets to collect; money hungry bastard. When the team takes me out to celebrate, Jake takes me aside and tells me I picked a wonderful woman. He’s gotten to know her well now that they both go to the same support group, and he tells me she has a big heart. He also tells me that if I dare mess up, he has no doubt that Shay will literally rip my balls off. He’s not wrong.
Jake isn’t alone. Everyone at the station likes Shay. She’s doing such exceptional work the captain hired her on full time. She’s very excited because it means she gets to have health insurance.
“You would get health insurance anyway when we get married,” I remind her as I take a seat by her desk and hand her a Pop-Tart.
“Yes, but I’m getting it on my own. That means I am a grown-up,” she says as she pops a piece into her mouth. I suppress a smile and watch her gloat about being an adult.
“Congrats on coming on full time. I’m proud of you,” I reply as I quickly sneak a kiss when no one at the station is watching. We plan to celebrate but then things get really hectic at work, for both of us.
It’s hard for us to find time, even during her break. She has to see about a client at the courthouse, get a checkup, and take her mom to rehab. I want to help out, but things get crazy at work for me too. One afternoon, we’ve both had enough of the craziness. I text her:
“I’m bringing Ruby burgers home. We eat at 8. And you are naked by 8:15. Deal?”
“Deal.”
It’s really fucking insane how far life can throw everything off. That night the team got a call about a hostage situation happening at the Fifty-ninth Street station. The cops were chasing some meth head after he robbed a mini mart. He ducked into the station and started shooting.
He took down an elderly couple and a seven-year-old boy before we could contain him. Watching the elderly couple try to hold hands as they gasped their last breath was fucking hard. But seeing that seven-year-old kid in his mother’s arms was soul crushing.
I shower at the station so that I don’t enter the house smelling like death and sadness. I have replayed the kid’s death dozens of times in my head and from every angle. And the question that keeps bouncing around in my head is always the same: Could I have prevented it somehow?
It never gets any fucking easier to watch people die. But watching a kid die…it’s a whole different level of torment. I know it’s wrong but I can’t fight it; I bring all the darkness home with me…