Chapter Twelve

Drake

I was fucking shocked. I thought we’d gotten past all this, gotten past her curiosity. There was no way I wanted to show off my wounds, the marks from what had been a living hell. The physical therapist kept telling me that I’d been spared. The other old timers at the VA kept bragging about war wounds while I was in recovery and having a nurse wipe my ass when I was still wheelchair bound. I didn’t see any of that; I just saw the permanent truth they’d left on me.

I stood up and started to pace, raking a hand through my hair.

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“I just need you to know that I don’t care. I need you to understand that I can see past that. After this, if it makes you feel better to keep everything covered up, I won’t object. But you don’t ever have to hide from me. You need to know that.”

And she managed to say that with those wide blue eyes, the eyes of a fucking angel in that face, and I didn’t know what to do. Leonard had told me to fix this mess, and there was the present I was still arranging, but this would go even further to help heal the damage I’d done by walking out on her the last time we were in the playroom. I obviously couldn’t do that again.

But I owed her the truth, the actual truth, the one I didn’t even tell my parents when I got back from leave. “It’s my fault.”

She frowned and sat up in the bed. “What?”

I balled my hands up into fists at my sides. “It’s my fault. I changed the jeep route that day because we’d been getting intel on something I needed to check up on in the far west quadrant. I could have gone with the standard route but it was my call. I thought it was worth looking into this. Then we go out there and it goes FUBAR, and I’m holding what’s left of my best friend in my arms. I did that!”

Belle was out of bed quickly, rushing to me and putting her hand on the side of my face. I didn’t deserve her comfort. I didn’t deserve anything ever. Still, I couldn’t pull myself away, couldn’t leave the soft feel of her hand over my skin.

“You didn’t!” she cried, her tone strong. “You weren’t the insurgent who buried the IED to start with. You weren’t the terrorists who started the war. You were just there trying to do the best that you could, trying to follow up on the information you were given. You didn’t do it!”

I shook my head and stepped away from her, but she then took one of my hands in hers. Maybe I needed that, needed the heat of her touch to keep me focused in the moment. I could already feel the blood pounding in my ears, the whizzing rushing past me, all those signs that I was going to be pulled back to then, into those damn flashbacks that haunted me. That left me weak, like an animal. I gripped her hand tightly and took in a gasp of air.

“But Jimmy, Martinez, Jones… all of them. If I had made a better call, it wouldn’t have been them. If I’d been smarter or…”

“What?” Belle asked, her blue eyes wide and her tone calm, as if she were speaking to a scared animal. Maybe she was. “Were you supposed to be psychic? Were you supposed to be clairvoyant? You’re only human, Drake, and you did the best you could. That’s all you could have done.”

I pulled back from her, frustrated by the decision, but needing to show her all my truth. Maybe Belle wasn’t wrong about that. Sighing, I started unbuttoning my shirt, moving fast. It was like a fucking dam had burst, and I couldn’t get the material off fast enough. When the silk slipped off, I stood there with my arms spread wide, giving her the full picture. The scar was visible over my right hip, ran about seven inches and then to the side of my stomach. It didn’t really affect the view of my abs, and maybe people would assume I’d accidentally fallen off my bike as a kid and impaled myself on a fence post, something completely normal and inane, if I didn’t tell them about the service.

It wasn’t really disfiguring, not compared to some of the wounds I’d seen on others at the VA. Shit, there were guys from ‘Nam who still came in with napalm burns so bad that they no longer had ears. I wasn’t like that, but I knew what that scar meant, knew that the mark branded me as a failure. I’d gotten my men killed, and I had to remember it in exacting detail anytime I took my clothes off. Anytime I slipped into the shower… like a damn curse. Then I’d be doomed to remember, to draw back into those flashes.

Those fucking flashbacks.

Belle stilled for a moment, her intense gaze studying the scar. Then she quirked her head at me and spoke, her tone still calming. “May I touch it? I… does it hurt?”

I shook my head. “Maybe you should. I don’t even know anymore.”

She reached out and stroked one finger over the edge of my hip to where the scar dipped low under the waistband of my jeans. I shivered at her touch; it was the first time anyone had touched me there in years. The first time I’d let any woman see it, and I’d let her.

God, what the fuck is this woman doing to me?

She reached up after that and skimmed her fingers over the ridges of my abs until they stopped at my pecs. “You shouldn’t be ashamed. I’m not going to give you some speech about you being a hero because I know it makes you feel like you’re put on the spot even more. I get that.”

“I don’t think you could,” I said, placing my hands over hers on my chest.

“Maybe, but I know it wasn’t your fault. I know that if your friends were alive and could see you now that they’d want you to try and move on. They definitely wouldn’t blame you. You have to let it go.”

She didn’t keep talking. Instead, she traced her fingers over my abdomen and then she leaned her face forward until her lips were caressing my skin. She littered my body with dozens of kisses, and I let her. Ran my fingers through her hair and let everything wash over me as my cock grew hard as granite in my pants. I fucking wanted her so badly; it was all I could do to keep from grabbing her right there and throwing her back onto the mattress.

Then she ran her tongue over the line of my scar and I fucking lost it.

I did grab her then, lifting her soft, naked body and demanding that she wrap her legs around my waist. Then I found the nearest clear stretch of wall and pressed her against it.

“You always get to me, Belle,” I said, my voice low and gruff.

She nodded and bit her lip in a way that drove the blood raging through my dick. “It’s the truth, Drake, just let go. All you have to do is let it go.”

“I can do that.”

At least for tonight, that is.

I reached down into my pants pocket and pulled out a rubber. “I need you to hold on tight,” I said, pinning her up against the wall as I unzipped myself and slipped the condom over my cock. “You ready?”

She nodded, and I was glad she was up for it. I loved pleasuring her, making her come with my name on her lips, but nothing felt as good as actually being inside of her. Even tasting her juices couldn’t make me feel as good.

This wasn’t going to be slow burn lovemaking like when I’d gone down on her or when we’d first had sex. No, this was going to be a hard fuck, something I needed, what I wanted to exorcise my demons. Belle watched me hesitate with those wide blue eyes beckoning me on, and I knew she was ready for it.

I shoved my cock deep inside of her. She was ready by now, limbered up from our earlier play, so I slid into her like I was made for her. Maybe I was. She was hot and tight like always, and I hissed at the warmth of her as I plunged balls deep into her. Belle wrapped her legs tightly around me, as if she was trying to squeeze me with her damn thighs.

I fucking loved it.

That animal side of me, all that pain and fear I tried to keep bottled up, came roaring out. I’d kept it tightly leashed with my Dom role, with all my rules, but now I just wanted to fuck out my guilt, to let it all be done with. Belle reached her arms around my neck and dug her fingernails into my back, scratching deeply. It made me pound harder into her, my cock pushing through her until my hips were pistoning for all they were worth.

Then my balls tightened, and I came, wishing a little that I could come deeply inside of her with no barriers.

She shuddered around me and cried my name as she shook, her climax obvious. Belle dropped her head and kissed my shoulder and then my lips. It took everything I had to keep standing, to keep from stumbling where I stood. I’d rarely had sex take this much out of me, but anything with Belle seemed to be an exception, everything about her a new fucking revelation.

“Do you feel better?” she asked, winking back at me. “Can you let it all go?”

“Not in one night,” I admitted, smirking and kissing her again. “But it’s a start.”