Chapter 1
Austin
A loud smack pierced the silence in Austin’s room. Fuck, not again, Austin thought. He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that his clan mate Logan was getting it on again with his flavor of the night.
The woman let out an audible moan of pleasure. God, that noise sounded good, Austin thought. His boxers started to tighten. Man, how he wished he could be the one with her, instead of Logan.
“You like that?” Logan asked.
There was a shuffle of movement and then the bed started to slowly creak back and forth, lightly hitting the wall behind the headboard. Austin closed his brown eyes as he imagined taking the woman from behind. As much as he hated how he could always hear Logan, the girls he was with always sounded so hot that he couldn’t help but close his eyes and pretend he was taking them himself.
Austin pictured his hands holding her thick hips tightly as he pushed deep inside her. The woman moaned louder, and Austin ran his hand down to his boxers. The creaking intensified and the headboard hit the wall with a loud bang.
“Oh God, fuck me harder!” the woman screamed, but her yell was slightly muffled in the sheets. Austin stroked himself in time with each pound of the headboard, imagining how tight and slick she felt around him. Logan growled in the other room, and an audible smack rang out again. The headboard of the bed pounded harder into the wall, and Austin imagined pumping into her from behind as her ass jiggled with each thrust. Her moans became louder with every squeak of the bedframe.
“Oh yes! Don’t stop,” she yelled. Her moans turned to wails as she teetered over the edge, and Austin could tell that she was almost ready to release, and he was just about there with her.
“Yes!” she screamed as the banging against the wall shook the whole room. Austin moved his hand faster, longing for release.
“Oh God, I’m coming!” The bedframe pounded into the wall as she moaned, falling into her orgasm. Austin’s body shook with her moans as he reached his climax.
Austin pushed his head back in the pillow. This is just fucking pathetic, he thought. Austin hated himself for what his sex life had become, getting off with the girl next door. But he couldn’t bring himself to actually take the plunge with another girl. He wasn’t ready to open his heart like that again.
Austin got up and cleaned himself off. The room next door was eerily quiet, and he hoped that they were done for the night. Take a bow, dude, Austin thought. She will be there in the morning.
As much as Austin loved and hated hearing Logan give it to some girl, Austin couldn’t blame him for getting with this one. She was a fine piece of ass. She had curves in all the right places and perfect pouty lips. If it were six years ago, Austin would have loved to throw her around in his sheets. But now, despite how he liked to imagine it was himself making her moan like that, he couldn’t bring himself to be with someone else. He was just too broken to let another woman into his heart.
Austin squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to stop the memories of her from invading his thoughts again. But it was no use. His thoughts always returned to her. He let out a low growl as he remembered her long, wavy blonde hair cascading over him, and how much he loved to tangle his hands in it. Her bright blue eyes had captivated him the moment he met her. He would give anything to get lost in her eyes once again.
Callie Jordan had been his everything. They had met the first night of their freshman year of college and had been inseparable. He had been instantly attracted to her, and once he got to know her adorable personality he was completely hooked. He could not get enough of Callie Jordan. Austin’s buddies always joked with him that he was completely whipped, but he didn’t care. He was happy to be whipped by Callie. Callie had made him feel whole.
Now, the wholeness that he once felt was gone, ripped from him by a drunk driver. Callie had been on her way to see him. Austin had told her it was late and that she could come over the next day, but she insisted that she wanted to spend the night in his arms before they left for summer break. She lived only ten minutes away from him, so she was Gavinant that she would be fine, and Austin had stupidly believed her. Callie was almost at his place when an idiot in a pickup truck took a turn around a corner too fast. The driver had lost control and slammed Callie’s car into a tree.
The night that Callie had died changed everything. It was as if part of his soul was gone, and he feared that there was no way to get that piece back. Without her light, he was only left with the darkest parts of himself. His sorrow over her death overtook his mind, and what was left was hatred and anger. Austin blamed not only the drunk driver for her death but himself as well, and he started to become self-destructive.
After Callie’s death, Austin’s personality completely changed. Instead of the fun-loving guy he once was, he was now just a hard shell with a very short fuse. His temper caused him to piss off a lot of people, getting him into several fistfights. After getting a high off the fighting, Austin was quick to pick fights just to take out his anger. One fight in particular got him sent to the emergency room with a black eye and broken ribs. His parents met him there and were worried sick about him. Austin’s mom had begged for him to get some help and talk to someone, but it fell on deaf ears. Austin didn’t want help; he wanted to wallow in his anger. The night after Austin left the hospital, Austin’s fighting record caught up to him. Charges were pressed against him, and while his lawyer father was able to get him off without a dent on his record, it did come at a price. His father had given him an ultimatum. Either Austin got his act together, or his father would do it for him. Austin hated ultimatums. However, he knew his father was serious. When he ran into one of his friends who had joined the army, he figured that would be the easiest way to fix things, a place to take out his anger somewhere far away from the constant soul-crushing reminder of Callie.
The higher ranks in the army quickly saw his inner demons and decided to use his rage for their benefit. Within a year he was transferred to a special ops team where he constantly put his life on the line for his country. He knew it was a stupid decision that could possibly kill him, but his rage had consumed so much of his soul that he no longer cared about what happened to him.
But even the constant noise of battle never silenced the rage that was deep inside of him. Several members of his unit tried to help him, but ultimately he lost his cool on his superiors too many times to count. The Army wasn’t prepared to deal with his anger issues, so he honorably discharged, with hefty severance package, and it was now this is what he had become. Luckily he had found a few other veterans that were just as broken as he was and they all lived together in the same apartment building. It was like having a support group right outside his door.
As evidenced by Logan’s nightly theatrics, Logan used sex to forget about war. He used dating apps to get his fix, and Austin would always stifle a laugh in the morning when he would see the girls depart of their walks of shame.
Austin wished he could bring himself to even think about going on a date, but he never could. Sure, he was still turned on by the thought of a woman’s legs wrapped around his waist, but his heart would never let him get to that point. He had built up walls so thick that he doubted they could ever come down. He longed for only one woman’s body, but being with her was impossible.