Chapter Nineteen

Teala

This is the last time. Women can sense these things. Call it intuition, if you will. When I slept with men before, the sex always had a non-permanent quality. I could feel it all over my body. It’s harried and vicious hands because tomorrow doesn’t matter. Two hours into the future doesn’t even matter, because I’d be left alone wondering what the hell was wrong with me and the things I desired. Macs brings me back into the moment.

“Teala. Focus on me,” he says, his hands on the sides of my stomach, caressing softly. He tossed his camo jacket off, but he still has on a white T-shirt, his pants around his ankles, and his boots with his feet inside, are on the floor. If anything signals a man leaving, it’s when we have to fuck with our clothes on like we’re in high school.

“I’m here,” I whisper.

I’m straddling his hips. He’s hard and waiting, and I want it to last forever. Maybe if I can live in this moment for as long as possible, everything else will vanish. Leaning over, I place my lips on his. The salty taste of my tears mixes in our kiss and I can’t help but cry a little at the bittersweet reminder. Macs shushes me and rubs my back, and I think maybe I can’t have sex with him. The part of Teala who only wants sex and fucking and orgasms isn’t anywhere to be found right now.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” I whisper.

People don’t know if their loved ones are alive and I’m crying because the person I care about has to leave my side. I feel as guilty as the terrorists who stole so much from so many. Before he can respond I deepen the kiss, placing one hand on the side of his head. I thread my fingers through his hair and open my mouth to allow his tongue to mingle with mine. The sweetness of the moment goes away when I reach between our warm bodies and adjust his shaft so he can enter me. He jerks as soon as we make connection and moans out a small plea of pleasure. It feels good—right. He fills me in the next thrust, and his large hands tighten around my hips as he guides me at a pace he wants. Eyes closed, and lips parted slightly, he continues his assault with controlled, manipulated thrusts. I can’t even focus on coming because I’m too wrapped up in his pleasure. This isn’t a face I’ve seen all day. It’s been scowls and frowns, stoic reserve, and grimaces.

“You feel so good,” he whispers.

Instead of responding, I kiss him and sniffle. He must have a face full of my snot, but he hasn’t said anything yet.

“I want you to come,” Macs says. “Please.”

His voice is pleading and strained. His fingers are stroking my clit in a frenzied pace I know will get me off in no time if I can concentrate on nothing else. I slide my hands up his shirt to expose his abs and chest and let my fingers grip the mountains of muscle that reside there. I close my eyes and let the sensations take over. He’s filling me, stroking me, and all my senses are overtaken by one entity—him. No sounds but skin slapping, and I smell his sweat and shampoo. My hands are worshipping him, and my heart—it’s loving him.

Macs picks up the pace with his thrusts, and I come in a slow cycle of rapid fire waves. I don’t scream or call out his name. I merely concentrate on my breathing. As soon as the very last flutter of orgasm leaves, Macs slides me off his shaft and pumps his hand around the base of his slick cock and comes on his stomach. His face is chiseled from perfection even when he has no control over it. My core clenches in response. More. I want him to live inside me. I have a tissue box sitting on the bed because my mom shoved it into my hands when I came tearfully blasting in her front door. I take one and wipe his stomach when I see he’s not making any fast movements to rid himself of the sticky substance.

“You don’t want to leave,” I say.

He keeps his eyes closed as he shakes his head to confirm my assumption.

“And I’m afraid that makes me unpatriotic, or less honorable in some way,” he says, using a hoarse voice. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

I’m not sure what he’s apologizing for, but it’s a blanket apology, and I know all about those. My father tried them on me for the first several years after the divorce. It came to a point where an apology from anyone meant very little without action. Macs doesn’t have anything to apologize for, and maybe that’s why it means more than those in my past. I force him to look at me, leaning over his body. My breasts graze his chest and that stirs him to life. His gaze flicks up to meet mine.

“You’re going to leave and you will be honorable and patriotic and do the hard things others can’t. You’re a good man.”

He scoffs. “I don’t know about that. I mean, I’m awesome, sure. The adjective you used is a little loose,” he explains, a grin gliding over his face. “Unlike you,” he says, his hand winding its way in between my legs. He plays with the wetness for a moment or two, just long enough for my eyes to flutter closed in expectation. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” What he means to say is, this isn’t normal. “I don’t know what happens next and I have no clue how long something like this could keep me away. There aren’t rules anymore, Teala. This is war.”

I probably look like a deer caught in headlights. He’s giving it to me straight, which is all I could hope from him. This is a little much to take in, but I nod.

He goes on, “And I don’t want to ask you to wait for me, but I’m going to do it anyways.”

I swallow down the terrifying words and brush the side of his face with my hand. “You don’t have to ask.”

He nods. “I do. You just called me a good guy.” He smiles widely.

I laugh, in spite of the tears forming in my eyes and my pounding pulse. “It was a loose adjective. Remember?”

He sits up, his pants still around his ankles. It looks ridiculous now that I’m not riding him, and he’s talking about his feelings. He pulls his pants up in one, goddamn hot swoop and eyes me down so fiercely now I’m scared for another reason. He wills my attention by looking at me, a feat I never would have known was possible.

Taking my hands in his, he says, “No one is going to fuck you like me. Make you wet like me.”

He’s right. I’m sitting here sopping wet and ready even though it’s been less than five minutes since he filled me. I smile at his statement. He doesn’t return the gesture.

“No one is going to love you while doing it. Not like I will.”

I choke on spit and cough—a most ungodly noise. He told me he loves me. Sure, it was in the same sentence as fucking, but that’s been our way from the second we laid eyes on each other.

“You don’t have a lot of confidence in me, do you?” I ask, finally relenting to the laughter that bubbles its way from the depths of my stomach. Which I think resides in my feet, at the moment.

Sighing, he puts his hands on his hips. “It came out wrong.”

I shake my head. “No, it came out perfect. I love you, too, Macs. Even if it means we’re labeling it. Even if we said we wouldn’t call it anything. When it feels like this,” I say, laying a hand over my heart, “then you label that shit, put it in a jar, and keep it close. I love you. I’ll wait for you. I promise.”

If he knew how much my promises meant, he’d feel more exclusive, but as it stands his reaction to my admission is enough to make me weak in the knees. He moves my hand and puts his on top of my chest, right over my heart, instead. It chills against my warm skin, still flushed in arousal.

He steps closer, and I lean up on my knees. “I never thought I’d like the sound of that,” he says, leaning over to kiss me. Macs’ hand slides down to caress my side and glides over my stomach as his lips work against mine. Sad eyes greet me when he pulls away. His lips turn down in the corner. “I have to go now, Tay.” His neck works as he swallows.

“I’m not sure how to do this.”

He steps backward and turns his eyes to the floor. “How to do what?” he whispers, rubbing both of his hands through his hair.

It’s odd to see him without product coifing in his hair. It’s not tousled, or slicked back. It’s sort of fluffy and perfect. Even though I want to cry some more, I smile instead. It confuses him enough to garner a grin back.

“How to say goodbye to you when you have this awesome hero hair going on,” I reply.

Smiling, he looks up and hands me my shirt and pants he picked up from the floor. He hikes his thumb at the bathroom connected to my bedroom. “I can go do it really quick if it helps? You’d be shocked what I can accomplish with a little water.” He turns away while I get dressed. “Watching you put on clothes only reminds me of taking them off and we’ll be in the same place we were ten minutes ago,” he explains.

I wouldn’t mind that. I want that. “I’m fully dressed,” I say. “Albeit sticky.”

He has one hand on a small black duffle bag he brought inside. Crossing to him, I hold my breath. The TV anchor drones on downstairs. I hear the hysteria, the panic, the confusion. It fans my anxiety flames.

Macs swallows hard. “I need you to keep this bag for me. There’s another satellite phone in there, which you can use to reach me,” he says, chancing a glance down my way, but looks away quickly. “I only ask that you use it in case of emergency. The number to mine is programmed in there.”

I nod, grateful for this lifeline even if I can’t use it every waking moment. He goes through the bag and shows me things that I can use if we lose power to help with life. It’s extra gear. Things he never in a million years thought he’d need to use or show me how to use. At the bottom is a handgun in a holster.

“This is only for emergencies, too,” he says. “It’s loaded.” His voice is taciturn, demanding I know he’s serious.

I pick the cool black weapon and turn it over in my hand. “I know how to use it, Macs,” I say. “My dad taught me when I was a kid.” I remember how important he thought the skill was. The older I got the more I strayed from that logic. Guns kill people. I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. When he left and I realized what a whore he was, I vowed to never pick up a gun in my life because obviously lunatics and selfish assholes use them. When I tell Macs the quick story, I see the tension in his shoulders relax.

“You’d scare someone with it to be sure, but you don’t know how relieved it makes me to know you can do more than that, you can defend yourself,” Macs says. He’s trying to talk over the television, I can tell. The volume is so loud I can hear that it’s not normal news regardless. His efforts are misplaced.

“Here’s a phone, but don’t call me and here’s a gun, but try not to use it?” I ask, laying it down on the top of the bag.

There’s other stuff in there that lets me know he didn’t intend to leave this here. Like his clothes and a dopp kit with grooming products. He walks over and shrugs his jacket back on. The uniform is identical to the one Tahoe had on, and the sight makes me sad. I launch myself into his arms and bury my face in his neck.

He clutches me tightly, but when he releases me a touch, I know it’s time for me to put my grown up panties back on. When my tiptoes hit the floor, I wipe underneath my eyes. “I lived without you once,” I announce proudly. “And I can do it again.”

My statement doesn’t make him happy. In fact, I think quite the opposite happens, because his eyebrows knit together in anger.

“What? Do you hope I’m miserable without you?”

He scratches the side of his head. You can tell having fluffy hair is a distraction. “I guess not, no. But I don’t want you to go back to being single either.”

“Does this feel like I’m single?” I ask, leaning up and pressing my lips against his.

I will him to feel the passion through my lips. The love. The disdain for this situation. Everything I never said for fear of frightening him off. Macs groans into my mouth, but holds me at a distance.

Keeping my eyes closed, I will the clash of teeth and lips to drown out everything else, so nothing else exists in this moment except what I give permission to. His hands are tender, more so than they’ve ever been. I bite his lip as I pull away and let my gaze find his. We’re nose to nose, heart to heart, and it’s the moment I break.

I sob into his chest.

“I believe you. That wasn’t a single lady kiss,” Macs says. “Don’t get upset over it.”

I laugh through a hysterical sob and I feel like such a failure. Like the little girl who can’t control her emotions. The more he sees me cry, the angrier I become. He tells me he’s sorry, and it’s not his fault, but I can’t form coherent sentences to tell him that, so I just shake my head and clutch his jacket and let every fear take over my body.

When he says he has to go a third time, I release him with the intent of watching him walk out the door. Time has stood still since we entered the house. We’ve been in my room for less than thirty minutes. With a thumb he wipes a tear from my cheek and pops his thumb into his mouth. It would probably make me laugh if there wasn’t a constant stream of tears taking that one’s place. He throws me a lopsided grin, his thumb still tucked between his teeth. A one-sided dimple appears. I shiver.

“From the back to the middle and around again,” he sings, lifting and lowering his shoulders.

I do laugh now. “I’m gonna be there until the end,” I whisper, completing his ’90s song by Crystal Waters.

“One thousand percent. Pure,” Macs says, raising his eyebrows in question.

“Love,” I finish.

Macs kisses my forehead and walks out the door. I remember slamming that door a million times when I was a teenager. I remember tilting a chair under the knob to keep my parents out when I had a boy in my room. But I don’t remember ever feeling such pain seeing a back disappear from it. He talks to my mother for a bit. I can hear that through the vents cut into the wooden floor. Macs walks out to his car in the same stride I’ve seen dozens of times before. Slumping to the floor, I kneel, leaving my chin and arms on the windowsill.

Saying goodbye wouldn’t be this hard if I knew when I’d see him again. If I could cross off the days on my calendar like a normal military girlfriend it would be manageable, the pain wouldn’t resonate so deeply, I’m sure. Macs doesn’t look up at my window, and I know it’s a purposeful move to regain some semblance of his other personality. He can be the SEAL. The man who will take care of a nation and serve his country well. He told me he loved me. He asked me to wait for him.

I want to know why the first man I’ve ever loved arrived during a skewed reality, twisted by enemies no one knew existed. It’s the world’s cruel joke. Give Teala what she’s secretly wanted and then snatch it away before she enjoys it too much. I place my hand against the glass and peek through my fingers at his car disappearing down the drive. Even as I dwell with this agony, I hate myself for succumbing to the dramatics of it all. I did the same thing when my father left. If I’m being honest, the hollow feeling inside my bones feels the same way.

I turn on the clock radio on my nightstand and scroll through the stations until I find a clear news station broadcasting the attacks. I turn the volume down and slide under my covers. I want to fall asleep hearing the atrocities that stole him away. The irony of where I’m at and what has happened isn’t lost. I resolve to stay in this bed until I can put on a strong front for my mom.

For myself.

But mostly for him. And it’s not the him you think.