Michele

 

On the way to Iain’s apartment, we were both quiet. Too much had transpired for small talk.

When he had called my name, my real name, I had totally frozen. Never would I have suspected that he knew who I was. Sure, he’d run into me on the street and then shown up at the bar - but those things felt like coincidences at the time. I had told him of my own accord that I was married, not knowing that he’d already known that.

If I knew what was good for me, I’d run away. I’d get the hell out of here and find another place, far away, to settle down in. The thought had been tempting, at first. When we were sitting there together on the park bench, he had been staring at me with what looked like suspicion as I told my story. Fear, metallic and strong, had sat in my throat. And then he had pulled me close.

I hadn’t been held like that in so long. Shannon wasn’t much of a hugger. It broke something within me. Even though I knew it wasn’t a good idea, even though I knew that Iain was potentially dangerous – I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t turn down something that felt so good.

I felt such an odd mixture of hurt and relief, now. Hurt that I had been lied to, but relief that he had told me the truth and that we were on the same page. And, with a blush, I thought of that kiss again.

It had felt so perfect, despite everything that had just happened. It felt right. He’d asked me if I felt it too - and if he meant that electric spark, that magnetic pull between us, that dizzy sensation and warm flush from being so close to him, then yes, I felt that. I wanted nothing more than to feel his lips on mine.

I wondered what he wanted to show me at his apartment. I wasn’t sure how wise it was to be alone with him right now. I felt so raw and unfocused, uncertain. Everything about my life here had been turned upside down in the span of an hour, and I didn’t know yet what to do about that. But being with Iain, I felt safe and secure, for the time being.

Iain Sheppard.

He’d been in the Army with Brandon. It had all come back to me, and now I recalled so clearly Brandon boasting about saving a man’s life. I remembered that story well, because he told it frequently at dinner parties, but I’d only heard Brandon mention Iain’s name once or twice.

All along, I knew exactly who Iain Sheppard was, but I didn’t connect the dots.

“We’re here,” Iain said, breaking me out of my thoughts. We were stopped in front of a gated door, sandwiched between a nail salon and psychic readings shop. He unlocked his door and it creaked open, and I followed him inside.

Once up a dimly lit flight of stairs, he turned down the hall and stopped at a door labeled with the number 4.

After we were both inside, he shut the door and bolted it, removing his coat and offering to take mine. I took my shoes off and looked around. The space was small and sparsely furnished, with hardly anything adorning the walls. I took it all in, noting how tidy it looked.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked him. I walked to the living room window, looking down at the street.

“Just a couple of years.”

His voice was right behind me, and I turned.

“What did you want to show me?”

He hesitated. “I wanted to show you where I lived.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Surely he had something more illuminating to show me?

“I know how this looks. But, I thought… if you knew where I lived, then you would feel a little safer. And… if you ever feel unsafe for any reason, you can always come here. It can be your safe spot, if you want.”

“My safe spot?” I repeated, wondering if he was joking.

“Listen - you said it yourself. Once I tell him I’m dropping the case, he’s just gonna hire someone else, someone who will probably discover where you live. If you ever notice anyone tailing you, call me. They’ll have to get through me first.”

I felt the blood leave my face at that, and I took a step backwards, my back hitting the window. Coldness from the glass soaked through my sweater.

“I should leave New York.”

“And go where?” he asked, concern on his face.

“I don’t know. Anywhere. I could go to Florida. My mom lives there. Would he find me there?” My lip trembled, and I clamped my mouth shut. Iain stepped forward, closing the distance between us, pulling me into a fierce hug.

“If he’s determined enough, he’d find you anywhere you went. But that doesn’t mean you should give up. You have to fight him, and we can do it together.”

His words felt like honey in my ears, sickly sweet and tempting. I wanted very badly to take what he was offering.

But Iain, he barely knew me. Why would he offer to help me like this? He was risking his own reputation and his friendship with Brandon.

“Why are you doing this for me?”

He didn’t say anything at first, only strengthened his hold on me. I relished the feeling of it, the temporary security. I let myself imagine what it would feel like to always be in these arms, protected. But I brushed that thought away immediately.

Iain released me and stood there for a moment with a frown, as if deep in thought about what he wanted to say.

“My last deployment,” he began, his words so quiet I had to strain to hear them, “I was engaged. My fiancée, Emily, was pregnant with a baby girl. I was… so excited, to come home to a child, and I was miserable that I would be deployed when she was brought into the world.

“We had a name picked out, a nursery halfway done, and our families were thrilled. But then, one night, after I was deployed, she went into labor too soon.”

There was an extremely still silence at that, and I barely dared to breathe.

“I found out about it too late, in a phone call in the middle of fucking nowhere in Afghanistan, after the baby was already lost. I cried into the phone, apologizing over and over that I wasn’t there, asking Emily a million times if she was gonna be okay. She sounded… distant, over the phone. So lost and broken. And it was all my fault. I had to be away during one of the most important moments of our lives, and I wasn’t there for her.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Iain. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

He ran a hand through his hair, roughly, and shook his head.

“Yeah, it fucking was. I could have done something, she was here all by herself for months, pregnant. I could have lightened the load, or - or made sure she was eating right, or something. But I had to go to war, instead. I had to play soldier one last time.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said softly. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

“It was hell. I was a walking nightmare and after my deployment was up, as soon as I got back, I didn’t renew my term. I went home, ready to start fresh with Emily, ready to be a civilian and ensure I’d never have to leave her alone again. But when I came home, she was gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“She fucking left me. She cleared her shit out of our apartment. She left a note, changed her phone number, and I never saw her again.”

“You didn’t try to find her?”

“I thought about it. But in the end, I realized that none of it would have happened if I had just been there to protect her. My own actions pushed her away. And the moral of the story is, the reason I’m telling you all this, is because while we barely know each other, we’re connected, Michele. It’s no coincidence that you and I met, and as stupid as it sounds, I think we met for a reason. And you need help - and I’m going to do my damn best to make sure that I don’t fuck it up this time.”

I reacted purely on instinct. I wasn’t even aware that I had moved toward him, or that I had stood on my tiptoes and grabbed his face and lowered it toward mine, but I was aware of him kissing me like a starving man. He backed me up against the window, the sound of my back bumping into it loud and rattling, but I didn’t care. I opened my mouth, inviting in his eager tongue, running my hands through all that hair, the feeling of his body pressed against mine so satisfying yet I desperately needed more. I moaned into his mouth, the feeling of it so exquisite and carnal and perfect, my hands gripping at his hair now, tugging.

Reason tried to poke through the haze of lust, telling me that I shouldn’t be doing this, but I ignored it. I released his hair and lowered my hands to his shirt, fumbling with the buttons and sighing when I felt his own dip under my sweater, fingers dancing up my pebbling skin. I wanted him so badly I could almost taste it; I wanted to feel him inside of me, up against this fucking window if he wanted; I didn’t care.

All too quickly, the kiss ended and he rested his forehead against mine, panting, his hands stilled against my ribcage. My body was a hot mess of adrenaline and endorphins, my heart racing a mile a minute in my chest.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked, his voice unbearably husky. The sound of it sent heat straight to my center, which was already aching with need.

“Yes.” I squirmed against him, feeling his own arousal, hearing a soft moan escape his lips. “Iain, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

It didn’t have to mean anything—just mindless sex, a movement of bodies as one and a shared release. It had been so long since I’d been touched by loving hands.

He led me to his bedroom, a small room that seemed to double as his office. There was a brief moment of indecision in which we both regarded each other, but then I latched onto him again, pulling his mouth against mine in a greedy kiss, working those buttons with all the precision I could muster. He tore my own sweater over my head, tossing it to the ground, and then unclasped my bra. I shimmied it off, getting the last button on his shirt free and removing it quickly, running my hand over toned muscles, feeling his skin hot with desire.

My eyes were drawn to his left shoulder, which had a rough-looking scar in a patchy circular shape. I ran my fingers up and over it, giving him a questioning look.

“My last deployment,” he told me, his voice still laced with lust. “I got shot.”

I nodded and then reached to pull his face toward mine, my lips slanting over his in a hungry kiss.

He groaned against my lips, running his hands up my belly and touching my breasts, his fingers tweaking at my nipples, making me gasp.

He backed me up against the bed. I lay against it, chest heaving as I watched him remove his jeans, kicking them aside. He came toward me, his hands hovering above the button of my own jeans, as if asking a question.

“Take them off,” I urged him, not wanting him to have any doubts about what I wanted. “And fuck me.”

“Fuck,” he whispered, and he removed my jeans and panties quickly, throwing them somewhere behind him. I was completely exposed before him, and he was above me, erection straining against his boxers, his eyes trained on my body, soaking me up. “You’re so perfect, Michele.”

I blushed, not expecting him to say anything like that. I squirmed a little, anxious to feel his touch, wanting to take that smoldering stare off of my nakedness. I just wanted to feel his body, nothing more.

“Come here,” I said. “And take those boxers off.”

He complied, sliding them down, and then he reached over to his nightstand, fiddling in the drawer. He pulled a box of condoms out, tossing them on the bedspread next to me. He got on the bed, hovering above me, his face flushed with lust.

He kissed me, lazily, using his tongue to trace a line across my bottom lip, his hand brushing down my stomach and toward my aching center. He broke the kiss and looked down, just as his fingers parted my hot folds.

My mind was then laser-focused on only that one spot, on the rhythm of his fingers and the overwhelming pleasure mounting inside of me. He was watching my face, his eyes searching, and when I felt him insert one finger, and then two, I gasped, knowing that I was close.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “Come for me, baby.”

I did, loudly and spectacularly, my breaths coming out as moans as I rode those waves. He released me after it passed, and I lay there for a moment, blissful.

I was distantly aware of his movement and then of a ripping sound. He rolled a condom on and then kneeled before me, lining himself up at my entrance. His eyes were hooded, and in that moment, I knew that it was utterly useless to think I would be able to fuck him one time without feeling anything at all. This man had a choice to turn me over to his friend and chose not to. For whatever reason, he saw something in me that changed his mind. He saw the truth.

“Please, Iain,” I pleaded, sensing his hesitation. I wiggled my hips, and he hissed. Then he plunged into me.

The fullness of it, the absolute sense of completion, almost drove me to orgasm again. I moaned, adjusting to his size, and then he began to move, picking up a steady pace, his breaths bursting out of him in half-gasps as he took me. I grabbed at his shoulders, pulling his face toward mine and kissing him again, knowing that what I felt for him in that moment was very real. He was more than just a body. He was Iain.

I was close, and his body slamming into me gave me just the right amount of friction. He picked up the pace, the sounds of our bodies slapping together loud and abrasive. I felt his breaths against my neck, the guttural sounds he released sending new shocks of heat through me. I didn’t want it to end.

Without warning, I came again, the feeling of it ripping through me with ferocity, and I cried out, a pleading sound. He began to speed up, mercilessly, and then I felt him shudder, his own release joining mine with a groan.

We stayed like that, for a few moments, until our breathing slowed. He lifted himself up, kissing me softly before removing himself from me, my body feeling oddly empty as he did so.

“I’ll be right back,” Iain said, and he disappeared into the hall. I heard the sounds of running water, the sound of a toilet being flushed. I sat up, aware of my nakedness in a new way since everything had happened. I was cold.

I was also very tired, and his bed looked awfully comfortable. I pulled the comforter back and slid under it, resting against a pillow that smelled so much like Iain, it overwhelmed all of my other senses.

He returned, his face softening when he saw me lying there in his bed. He slid in with me, his warm body pressed up against mine, and placed a soft kiss against my head.

Warm, content, and secure, I fell asleep, forgetting everything else.

I was safe.