Chapter Twenty-Two
WILL
Will: Do you like peas?
Will: I can’t remember you ever eating peas
Shannon: Like, green peas?
Will: Is there another color?
Shannon: Would you like me to delegate that to my research assistant? It’s not necessary for her to finish the property line analysis she’s working on. I’m not waiting on that to file a conveyance or anything
Will: No. just tell me whether you like peas.
Shannon: I don’t dislike them.
Will: You have a research assistant?
Shannon: Yes.
Will: That’s new
Shannon: Yes. Many things have changed in the past 8 months.
Will: I’m making pasta with peas because you need more than cheese and nuts. I want to hear about these things over dinner tonight
Shannon: 1) Don’t baby me. I don’t need you to count my calories
Shannon: 2) I’m at a historic society convening until late. No dinner for me.
Will: Has anyone ever babied you?
Shannon: Maybe. I don’t know.
Will: It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to let me try.
*
Will: My quads are still feeling that spin class
Shannon: That’s the idea.
Shannon: You should know…I go to barre on Wednesdays
Will: Ok I’m down
Shannon: You know barre is ballet stuff, right?
Will: You’re not shaking me, peanut. I’ll pick up some leggings this afternoon. Is a tutu mandatory?
Shannon: Yes. Pink.
Will: I fucking love pink.
Will: I especially like eating it
Shannon: Gross.
Will: I’m going to shred this ballet shit.
Shannon: Sigh
*
Will: Do your brothers do anything?
Shannon: Yes
Shannon: Many things, actually
Will: Fixing your bathroom sink isn’t one of those things
Shannon: It’s a little leak. I wouldn’t bother any of them with that. They have far more important things to do.
Will: I’m sorry all I heard was you agreeing that your brothers are useless sacks of shit
Shannon: I’m worried about your powers of inference
*
Shannon: You didn’t sleep well last night
Will: Did I bother you?
Shannon: No. but I remembered you getting up a couple of times
Shannon: Is everything ok? Did you have a nightmare?
Will: It’s all good
Shannon: I don’t believe you
Will: I’d be better if you were sleeping naked
Will: Not that I’d pass on sleeping with you under any circumstance, but…
Shannon: Don’t go making it about the dick.
Will: I believe you brought the dick into the conversation, dear.
Shannon: The dick is part of every conversation
Will: True
Will: It’s always popping up.
Shannon: Are you sure you’re ok? You didn’t have a good night.
Shannon: You sounded uncomfortable last night.
Will: Probably because you were rubbing your sweet little ass on the dick
Will: How about dropping the flannel PJs tonight?
Shannon: How about no
*
Will: I like that skirt you’re wearing today
Shannon: Thank you
Will: I’d like to take it off you
Shannon: …don’t go there.
Will: Sometimes I think about pulling the zipper down and watching it hit the ground, but then I think about ripping it off instead.
Will: Just ripping the whole fucking thing
Shannon: Your default setting is “brute”
Will: My setting can be whatever the fuck you want it
Shannon: How about off?
Will: You want me to get you off? get your ass on the bed and consider it done.
Shannon: I’m dealing with a probate issue today but thanks anyway
Will: No problem
Will: Kick the asses. Bust the balls.
Will: And when you’re done, I’ll rip the skirt off and get you out of your mind
*
There were only a handful of people who knew I wasn’t leading my platoon right now. It wasn’t a secret but I wasn’t publicizing it either.
Lieutenant General McGardil paid me a visit shortly after a pound of shrapnel was extracted from my arm, back, and shoulder. He notified me I’d received the Medal of Honor as well as the rank of Captain—neither of which felt deserved—and informed me I’d be taking command of a black ops team unofficially housed at a NATO base in Germany. The missions would be classified above top secret. The unit would be composed of the smartest, toughest motherfuckers in the teams. The tactical support would be unlimited but highly covert. The American government would not acknowledge our existence or rescue us if captured, so there was no room for error unless we liked the idea of a televised beheading or Third World labor camp.
But there was one condition: unit commanders had to be mission-ready, and my half-numb arm didn’t qualify.
These opportunities didn’t come around often. Considering the tragic end to my last mission, it was a shock to find this offer in my lap.
The only thing missing—aside from the fully functional arm—was the interest. I didn’t want to load out for another mission. I didn’t want to lose another buddy to an endless, bloodthirsty war. I wasn’t interested in pounding my trident into another coffin or watching another family accept a crisply folded flag. I didn’t want to spend another day staring down evil. I didn’t want to live my life on one side of the globe while the woman I needed more than anything else was on the other.
Instead of me deciding where the road would end, the end found me.
I suggested as much to McGardil, and he made it clear he only wanted guys who jumped at the chance to sweat their sac off in his warzone. He sent me to the unit’s shrink for a battery of tests. I knew none of this came from post-traumatic stress or survivor’s guilt, and the shrink concurred, but McGardil wasn’t interested in hearing ‘no.’
The plan was simple: get home for some rest and relaxation, give my unreliable trigger finger some time to heal up, and put some hard thought into my future. In the meantime, the Lieutenant General was getting the team in place, and checking in on my ass almost daily.
Aside from McGardil, only Wes and Shannon knew I was hanging out in Boston.
I didn’t have the words to explain to either of them why I was here. I only knew that I had to sort through all of this. Was I really walking away from nearly fifteen years of service? From commanding an ultra-classified strike force? What would I even do with myself if I left the military?
For the first time since who knew when—high school? childhood? infancy?—I didn’t have a clear path ahead of me. Duty and service were sewn into my genes, and there was never a question about whether I’d enlist after college. I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t counting the minutes until I could be a frogman, and it was more than following my father’s footsteps. It was a pure sense of responsibility.
My father—the man who donned the honorary title of commodore in retirement and didn’t let a day go by without reading all the military community news and contributing his opinion on several special operations blogs—would find out about this soon enough. He always did. In most situations, he offered sharp insights and valuable perspectives, but I wasn’t ready to talk it over with him. He believed in career military men, and while his satisfaction didn’t drive my choices, I knew he wouldn’t be an objective sounding board on this issue.
Wes was out of the question. Aside from the fact he was probably busy infiltrating the Kremlin, he would love a gig like the one I was being offered. He lived for that shit, and he’d insist I find a new shrink for a second opinion. He’d never let me hear the end of it if he learned I was spending my days washing Shannon’s socks and vacuuming her apartment, and not back on base where I could get in the right head-space and train until I bled stars and stripes again. Regardless of how much spin class kicked my ass, it wasn’t doing shit to fix my injury.
And Shannon…I suspected she’d spring into action if I told her about the nerve damage in my arm and the crossroads in my career. She was a fixer. She was Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. She’d go into her “I’m calm but this is a fucking crisis” mode, and it wouldn’t take her more than a couple of calls to get me appointments with the best doctors in town. And it wouldn’t end there. She’d designate herself my chief health advocate, and park herself by my side, taking verbatim notes and firing off questions. Then she’d thumb through her contact list and find someone who owed her a favor, and I’d have a job, or—heaven help me—she’d invent a job at Walsh Associates and put me on her payroll.
But I didn’t want to get in line behind Shannon’s brothers as one more person who required her to take care of him. I didn’t want to rely on her to solve my problems, and not because I took issue with relying on a woman. The issue was with this woman. If anything, I wanted her relying on me. She already gave enough of herself to her family and their business, and I wasn’t going to become one of the things she had to manage.
Someone had to make things easier on her, to lighten her load.
Not that she let that—or anything else—happen without a debate.
We were sleeping together (as in sleeping) but every night started with a negotiation of the demilitarized zone in the middle of the bed. I fought it hard at first, but quickly realized it was an unenforceable border. She wasn’t accustomed to sleeping on one side of the bed, and always worked her way closer to the middle. I let her have her space, and more often than not woke up with her tucked right into my side.
I wasn’t doing well with the post-deployment horny. Getting rid of the Douchelord and reclaiming my space in Shannon’s bed were the first victories, but the game was essentially unchanged: she still needed to warm up to me, and she still deserved to be won.
It was good being close to her again. Even if it was jogging through the city or talking over dinner or arguing about a Game of Thrones episode, I liked the way she felt in my life.
Now I needed the rest of my world to fall in line with the one I was rebuilding with Shannon.
There was an email waiting in my inbox from Jordan Kaisall. From the subject heading, I knew he was looking for my opinion on hidden gem golf courses near Southern California. I’d take the ocean over greens any day, but he knew my parents were big fans of the game in their retirement.
Kaisall was good when it came to looking at issues from sides I’d never consider. I sent off a few courses to impress his prospective clients, and asked if he’d heard anything about the unit McGardil was assembling. I knew his response would come with another offer to run operation logistics for his private security team, Redtop, and though I wasn’t convinced it interested me, I was curious about my options.
That’s what I needed: options. Being thirty-six and not knowing what I was going to be when I grew up was fucking ridiculous.
Behind Kaisall’s email was a message from Gustavo Granovsky. We’d started out in BUD/S together, and he quickly earned the distinction of funniest motherfucker to walk the earth. He found humor in everything, even the dive exercises where the instructors would swim up, put you in a strangle hold, and then tie knots in the oxygen tubing. It left you drowning while fighting off an attacker.
I’ll never forget Gus crawling out of the pool wearing full gear, coughing and gagging on the hardtop, and then—with all the seriousness in the world—turning to the instructor and saying, “Sir, if you’d like to grab my dick again, please take me to dinner first. My mother didn’t raise me to give it away.”
We did two tours together before he was assigned to a different platoon. We never managed to be on the same continent at the same time anymore, but that didn’t stop him from sending regular (hilarious) emails to our entire BUD/S class. He was big on staying in touch with people, and that was a quality worth having.
Gus was getting married later this month, finally making it legal with his long-time girlfriend, Aviva. They’d bought a ranch near Poway about seven or eight years ago, where they kept a couple of horses and dogs. A kid, too.
I didn’t feel like typing any more emails with one hand, and scrolled through my contacts to find his number.
“How’s it hangin’, Captain?” Gus asked, his voice loud and tinged with laughter.
“Low and to the left,” I said.
“As God intended,” he said. “Where the hell are you? And when are you dragging your ass back to San Diego?”
I glanced around Shannon’s dining room. It looked like the scene of a swanky dinner party. Light gray wallpaper with a raised velvet pattern covered the walls. There were heavy candelabras running down the middle of the table, and a glass bowl filled with cranberries and limes. Fucking limes. The table was long—easily fitting her entire family—and functioned nicely as a staging area for getting my life in line.
“Boston,” I said, quickly continuing, “but I’m not advertising that. Just…dealing with some issues.”
“Is that why you haven’t responded to our goddamn wedding invitation yet? The nuptial event is only two weeks away and my bride is freaking the fuck out over these RSVPs, man.”
“I’m monitoring a situation,” I said. “I’ll have to report back.”
“Yeah, my bride’s gonna love that,” Gus said. “Do you have a timeframe for this situation report? Knowing that the long-term well-being of my testicles hangs in the balance? Literally hanging.”
Flying to San Diego in two weeks meant leaving Shannon, and I didn’t like that idea. “Not really.”
Then it dawned on me: I wouldn’t have to leave Shannon if she came to California with me. We could spend Thanksgiving together, just like we did last year. Maybe that was what we needed.
Gus sighed. “Do me a favor, man. Figure it out. I don’t want to tell Viv that we can’t give the caterer a final count yet. She’ll make me sleep in the barn, and I won’t get—”
“I’ll be there,” I said. “And I’m bringing someone.”
Even if I have to kidnap her. Actually…that might make it more fun.
“Wes got his own invitation,” Gus said. “That fucker hasn’t responded either.”
“Not Wes. A friend. A girlfriend,” I said, and I hated the taste of that word immediately. She’d rip my spleen out of my belly button if she heard me stammer through that comment, but that was what I loved about her. She was completely unafraid of reaching into me, tearing out my bleeding organs, and making me look at them.
Women like Shannon weren’t girlfriends. I didn’t know what the right term was, but girlfriend did not fit the bill. She was too bold and sophisticated and independent to be anyone’s girlfriend.
“Uh-huh,” he murmured. “Should we celebrate you popping your cherry before hitting forty? And this lady isn’t in Boston by chance, is she?”
“Yes, she is, but I’m not here because…okay, yeah I’m here for her,” I said. “My last mission went to shit, my arm is fucked up, and I’m thinking hard about retirement. On top of that, I left things in shambles with my girlf—err, my Shannon, when I saw her before this deployment. Come back and she’s dating a douchebag.”
Gus was silent for a moment. “Is your arm okay?”
“Shrapnel. Nerve damage. Trigger finger.”
“Shit,” he murmured. “Didn’t anyone tell you that you’re supposed to be good to your lady before going down range?”
I yanked my baseball cap off my head and rubbed my palm against my forehead. “I didn’t get that briefing, no,” I said.
Another long pause filled only with the rustle of wind and trees on Gus’s end. “You serious about retiring? What would you do?”
“Fuck if I know,” I said. “On both counts.”
“You could probably sell t-shirts at Quiksilver,” he said. “And those cute puka shell necklaces? You’d be good at that. You know, being a surfer boy yourself.”
“Thanks for the advice, Gus,” I muttered.
“Yeah, it’s my calling. Career advice for ex-special ops. I’ll give you this consultation on the house, but I’ll charge a retainer going forward. Before you ask, no, I don’t accept sexual favors.” He chuckled to himself, and then continued, “The night before the wedding, a few of us are getting together at The Pub for drinks. Bring your Shannon.”
I disconnected and stared at my hands. Aside from old scars and freckles, they looked like mirror images of each other but they couldn’t have felt more dissimilar. I never thought numbness would hurt this much. It was like I slept in a strange position and my arm didn’t wake up with the rest of me. I kept rubbing and stretching to shake off the prickly chill but it never stopped. There were moments when an avalanche of sensation hit me, and with it came dull throbbing or sharp, fiery pulses. It was awful, but I preferred it to the numbness.
I heard Shannon’s key slide into the lock, and when she stepped into the apartment, she was a whirlwind. Spitting fire and five different kinds of furious. She was yelling at someone through her earpiece, and she looked like the most beautiful tactical commander I’d ever seen. Her eyes darted to me without reaction.
“Well I’m sorry, Patrick, but shit happens,” she said. “Keep in mind that we’re not talking about highly experienced or highly paid personnel. People with years of executive assistant experience do not want to work for a guy who goes through support staff on a seasonal basis.”
She marched into the kitchen with her laptop tucked under her arm and started riffling through the refrigerator. It was full, a departure from her usual menu of yogurt and white wine. I took a strange amount of pleasure from engaging in domestic tasks like grocery shopping and fixing squeaky hinges. I even had dinner on the stove.
If all else failed, I was content being Shannon’s personal chef and sex slave. That was a life well lived.
“I cannot oversee every single thing your admin does,” she said, grabbing a bottle of Riesling. She held it against her body while she opened the laptop and started typing. “And as I’ve said before, if you can’t find a way to communicate without screaming or glaring or otherwise implying she’s dumber than stones, we’re not going to stop this cycle.”
God, I wanted to spend the weekend worshipping her. Tell her everything. Find my balls and act like a fucking man.
Instead, I snatched the bottle from her hand and crossed the kitchen to where she kept the corkscrew and glasses.
“I’ll handle it. I’ll handle it. No—” She dropped her head back and groaned. “No. No, Patrick. I’ll deal with it, end of story. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to hang up now. My patience for your absurd quantity of assistants is exhausting, and if I have to listen to you complain about Roberta for another minute, I’ll find you and beat you with a brick.” She stabbed her phone’s screen repeatedly, and then tossed it to the countertop.
I set the glass beside her and grabbed the cheese tray from the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. There weren’t that many markets in Chestnut Hill, and according to Internet commenters, only one with a highly rated cheese department.
“The minions aren’t behaving?” I asked. I brought my hands to her shoulders, pressing my thumbs into the knotted muscles there. She leaned into my touch, sighing, and I dropped my lips to her neck. She released a slight purr, but before I could go any further, she shifted away.
“I have to go back to my office,” she said, raking her fingers through her hair.
Hands braced on her hips, hair disheveled, and lips twisted in frustration while she tapped her foot on the hardwood, and I’d never been so turned on. I couldn’t explain why I liked this girl fired up, but fuck, I did. I really did.
“And then I need to fire Patrick’s assistant if I don’t kill her first.”
Covering the pans and turning off the heat, I said, “I’ll come with you.”
“Will,” she sighed, swiping her hand across her forehead. “This isn’t a field trip. Just let me deal with this drama alone.”
“No,” I said. I tucked her laptop into her bag and swung it over my good shoulder.
She wrapped her scarf around her neck and reached for her coat. “Simple as that? No?”
“Yeah,” I said.
She wanted to argue with me, but crossed her arms over her chest, marched down the stairs to the curb, and walked toward the Derne Street office.
I followed her up and down several flights of stairs while she collected files, shuffled through a small desk outside a door emblazoned with Patrick’s name, and finally settled in a wingback chair in her office while she made a couple of phone calls. This was her kingdom, and right now, she didn’t look like a content queen.
She dropped her head to her hands after telling Roberta that she wouldn’t be required at Walsh Associates any further. She blew out a heavy breath and turned to her computer. “I just need to reset the garage and door codes, and then shut down her email—”
“You don’t have someone to do that for you? Where’s Patrick?” He was the only one I liked. He rarely came up in her rants, and he wasn’t sleeping with my sister. On that basis alone, he was tolerable. “Shouldn’t he be doing this?”
“No,” she said, her hands fisting on her desk. “At least, not right now. I handle this shit. That’s what I do, Will, I handle all the shit because I’m good at it. Patrick is busy doing his job, and this just needs to get done. I’m not calling any of my team in to handle anything when I’m right here.”
Shannon thought I wanted to change her, but that wasn’t accurate. Saving the world was her gig, and I wasn’t about to take that away from her. However, there was a difference between saving the world and cleaning out an assistant’s desk on a Friday night.
I knew her family was everything to her, and I knew she was convinced that tending to their every need was her only purpose in life, and that was where I couldn’t get on board.
While Shannon typed, I explored her office.
I was hungry for information about her, and since our conversations were only gradually moving out of superficial territory, I was forced to draw my intel from environment. I knew she had at least fifteen magazine subscriptions but didn’t seem to read any. I’d first encountered her sin drawer last summer, but I dedicated an afternoon last week to categorizing the firepower and style of her sex toys. She had seven different types of salt in her kitchen—Hawaiian sea, smoked sea, flaky Maldon, fleur de sel, kala namak, black truffle, and kosher—but neither cinnamon nor sugar. She didn’t like talking before dawn and changed out of her work clothes as soon as she got home. There were three different blow dryers and four different curling irons in her bathroom, and she kept a box of her mother’s journals in her closet. I wouldn’t have noticed the box if her pajamas weren’t piled around it.
The office was equally intriguing. I glanced at the glass wall separating her office from the bullpen. From her desk, she could see Tom’s alcove, the small room where her assorted assistants worked, Riley and Matt’s offices, and the stairs. Of course she’d want to preside over it all.
There were photos from the Boston Marathon finish line going back six years, always with her four brothers and Shannon in the middle. Little geodes dotted her bookshelf. I spotted the framed magazine spread hanging near her windows and laughed out loud. It was classic Shannon—perfect red hair, perfect purple dress, perfect girl-boss pose, and the perfect headline. “‘The Hand That Holds it Down’, huh? Who holds you down?”
“That’s pretty rapey, William. Thanks for that.” She continued banging away at her keyboard.
“Not rapey,” I said, frowning. Her body didn’t lie in the night, not when she was unconsciously arching into me and wrapping herself around me. She was strung tight, aching for release, and I wanted her to let me take care of her. “Not even close. But tell me this: how hard would you come for me if I fucked you up against that glass wall? If you had to let go of everything and give it all to me?”
She was tapping her foot again, the heel clacking hard against the wood floor. I could almost see the disdain rolling off her in waves. “Like, how is that an acceptable comment?”
I rounded the desk and leaned in, bracing my hands on either side of her, my short beard scruff rasping against her ear. “When I can see how much you want it.”
Her breath hitched and I knew—I fucking knew it—it was exactly what she needed.
“Finish what you’re doing and then I’m taking you home.” I didn’t need to say another word. I didn’t need to add that she’d be too busy surrendering to worry about anything else.
However, I couldn’t think about that until we were home. It wasn’t like I could stand beside her with my semi and expect anything more than an elbow to the nuts. She wasn’t leaving until she was finished, and it was up to me to reconcile that reality.
I parked myself in a pale purple velvet chair and snatched one of the regional magazines piled on the small conference table. The cover boasted an exclusive peek at one of Sam’s newest builds, and despite my biases about the man, I found it interesting.
“I need to leave a few things for Tom, and then we can go,” Shannon said.
I followed her out, waiting while she marked files with sticky notes and arranged them on his desk. Pointing to a framed photograph, I asked, “Is that Tom?”
Shannon glanced over then went back to her notes. “Yeah, that’s him at Machu Picchu. He likes going places to climb things.”
“He’s been with you a while, right?”
The air was crisp when we reached the ground floor, and wind whipped through the narrow street while Shannon set the alarm. “Six years,” she said.
“You don’t talk about him much.” She yawned, pulled her coat tight to her chest, and leaned into me when I draped my arm over her shoulder. It was late and she was tired, but all I could think about was her skin against mine. I’d settle for another celibate night if we could do it with fewer clothes.
That was a lie. There could be no celibacy with nakedness.
“It’s not easy straddling the line between friend and boss,” she said. “He’s like family—of course he is, he lived with me—but he’s also not, and that adds some layers. We had to suffer through some tense times before we found the right balance.”
“He lived with you?”
“Mmm.” She ducked deeper into her coat to avoid the wind. “His parents were terrible, hateful creatures. They sent him to all sorts of reeducation camps to pray the gay out of him. When that didn’t work, they shipped him off to a boarding school that was basically hard labor and solitary confinement.”
“That’s awful,” I said. It wasn’t lost on me that this was the exact fear Wes lived with. There wasn’t a labor camp in his future, but he was avoiding this reaction. And he wasn’t a kid on his way to homophobic bible study; he was a thirty-four year old Navy SEAL.
“Completely. He tried to fake straight, but they were convinced he—and I quote—had the devil in him. They kicked him out and said he wasn’t their son, and blah blah blah he lived with me for a bit.”
“‘Blah blah blah’?”
“I owed an assistant district attorney a favor, and one night she needed a public defender,” she said. “He’d been arrested for trespassing. He’d been sleeping in a garage. I got the case thrown out and his record scrubbed, and I took him home with me.”
In the elevator, I asked Shannon, “What else do you collect?”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “You’ve got lost causes and dilapidated homes, broken souls, everything purple, and the geodes. And gourmet salt. Oh, and vibrators. And the bracelets! Those fucking annoying little bracelets.”
She tossed her hair over her shoulder as she marched toward her apartment. “Don’t be rude,” she said. “You’re one of my lost causes.”
I leaned against the wall while she unlocked the door, watching the way her fingers moved over the knob. She glanced back at me when she stepped inside, and it was possible she was speaking but the only thing I could hear was my pulse hammering in my veins.
She hung her coat in the closet and kicked her shoes to the corner while I secured the locks. I noticed every one of the quick glimpses she shot in my direction, and I followed her into the bedroom.
She wanted this. She needed this. She needed me.
Reaching out, I caught her around the waist and dragged her against my chest. “You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?” I asked. My fingers moved over her shoulder and down her chest, loosening her buttons until the shirt hung open. “About me taking you.”
“Your ego continues to get in the way of rational thought, William.”
She was working hard to keep her voice steady, but much like I could feel her body humming under my touch, she couldn’t hide any of it from me. “Mmmm,” I sighed, pressing my face into her hair and pulling in a deep breath as I shucked her shirt. “You don’t need to worry about any more rational thoughts, peanut.”
The skirt’s zipper hissed as I drew it down, and when I released my hold on the fabric, Shannon was left in stockings and a bra. That bra was off and flying across the room before I formed a memory of the beige lace against her skin. My fingers dipped inside the stockings, pausing to press my fingertips into her hips for one sweet moment, and then I yanked them down to her ankles. “Kneel,” I said.
“Your playbook is exceptionally limited,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Kneeling or against the wall. It’s really time to diversify.”
My hands traveled up her torso, shifting her arms until she gripped either elbow behind her back. I cupped her breasts, groaning as my palms rubbed over her taut nipples. “You’re adorable with your tough girl act,” I said. My lips mapped her shoulders, neck, jaw, and it wasn’t enough. I wanted to consume her, own her until I erased every minute of distance between us. Until she knew she possessed me in every way possible.
I walked Shannon toward the bed and pressed the small of her back until she was bent over, face down on the duvet. I wove the discarded stockings around her arms and shoulders, crossing them between her breasts, and tied them with a square knot. “All good?”
She murmured into the duvet, “This is new.”
“You asked for diversification,” I said. Two quick spanks landed low on her ass, and I panted as her skin bloomed with a bright flush. I wanted a million things right now—everything, all of it, anything to satiate the raw desire inside me—but what I wanted most was to feel her against my tongue again. “Remember that bed in Taos? When I tied your hands to the headboard with my belt?”
I dropped to my knees, and kissed from the backs of her knees to her ass, biting and licking and stamping every inch of this woman on my soul. She was moaning and wiggling, and issued orders to stop dicking around and lick her pussy already, but I made her wait. She was mad as hell and swearing into the blanket, and when my tongue circled her clit, I nearly came in my jeans.
Her legs were shaking within minutes, and when my fingers slipped inside, her words melted into a choked cry. I felt the pulse of her orgasm against my lips and the shockwaves on my fingers. She dug her shoulders into the bed as I licked her through the spasms, and she begged me to stop, to keep going, to give her more and harder, and there and no, no, no more.
“How was that?” I asked. I stroked her thighs while her breathing slowed, kissing my favorite freckle patches and dropping soft spanks on her ass.
Shannon’s shoulders shook as she laughed. “Borderline hallucinogenic.”
“Wait, was that a compliment?” I yanked my shirt over my head and kicked off my jeans, almost tripping myself in the frantic blur of arousal. I pressed myself against her, sighing as her skin triggered a burst of heat and affection into my blood. It was like the thrill of jumping out of an aircraft and tumbling through the sky, but better.
“Such a whore for praise,” Shannon said. I spanked her backside a bit harder, and helped her shift to the center of the bed. Seeing her bound and kneeling…there weren’t words to describe the jolting rush of adoration I felt for this woman.
“You know it,” I said.
With Shannon’s back and bound arms against my chest, I teased myself against her clit. Her hips rolled, quickly finding a rhythm, and I was sliding into her, a little farther with each pass. “Want you,” she gasped.
“Me? Or somebody?” It wasn’t the kind of question that belonged in the bedroom when light bondage and just the tip were involved, but it was the one I needed answered.
“What? You need me to unburden my heart before you’ll fuck me?” she asked, angling her hips to take me deeper. “You want me to tell you how much I need you and crave you and can’t survive without your gigantic cock?”
“I just want to know whether you want to escape it all with someone, or with me.”
Shannon hummed as my cock slipped out and over her clit. She dropped her head against my shoulder as I positioned myself against her heat, and she whispered, “I’ve only ever escaped with you.”
My brain wanted me to slam into her and fuck her until she couldn’t walk right, but some other part reminded me to go slow, to enjoy this. She sank down, and we stayed there, kissing, muscles trembling, whispering about how good it felt until the urge to move was overwhelming.
We rocked together, slow slow slow, and my world was this bed, this woman.
“Will. More,” Shannon groaned, clenching around me.
I found a faster rhythm, and brought one hand up to cup her breast and the other to her clit. The early convulsions of her orgasm were like a sexy, tingly embrace from an old friend, one that unwound the tension of space and time and brought it all back to the connection that was deeper than sex, deeper than desire. I felt it in my balls, and then that sensation spiraled up and down my spine, teetering on the edge of explosion. A hard thrust stole a groan from me, and I matched it with a quick slap to her clit.
“Come for me,” I said against her ear. “Let go for me.”
I slapped her again, and her sigh twisted into beautiful, breathy wail. The flood of heat and spasm triggered my orgasm, and I folded Shannon into my arms as I emptied myself into her. We fell to the bed, still panting and moaning, and not wanting to leave her constricted too long, I loosened the knot at her back. Lines and grooves marked her skin, and I dragged my lips over each one. Those kisses told her how much I missed her, how thinking of her got me through the worst of this deployment, and none of the issues in my life were greater than what I felt for her right now, even if my words didn’t.
“Why do you do that?” she asked, her voice heavy with exhaustion as I kissed the indentation between her breasts. “Why do you like tying me up?”
I traced the crossed lines on her chest, and a touch of remorse gathered in my gut. I wanted to mark her in a primal, club-her-over-the-head way but I didn’t want to hurt her. “Because it quiets you down,” I said. “There’s so much in your head, all that noise and stress. Forcing you to obey me turns it off, and I’m selfish. I want you all for myself.”
“Damn,” she murmured. “I was hoping for some story about discovering a rope fetish in your baby SEAL days. Or some Top Gun sexytimes with a hot instructor, and instead of fighter jets, it’s knot tying?”
“Yeah, no hot instructors. No sexytimes,” I said.
She dipped her chin down before speaking. “I’m selfish, too. For you.” She hesitated and glanced away, her teeth pressed into her lower lip. “Before me…did you always?”
“No, Shannon,” I said.
“No long, sordid history of breaking hearts and destroying tights?”
“None of that,” I laughed. “You’ve broken hearts, though.”
She shook her head, frowning. “The closest I’ve ever come to such a thing is blocking creepy boys on Internet dating sites.” Her fingers brushed over my shoulder, and her eyes followed the jagged scars. “These are new.”
Nodding, I rolled to my side and pulled Shannon to my chest. I’d ignored the pain in my arm while I was inside her, but now, without the pleasure of her body to drive it away, I was sore. “Not every mission goes to plan.” She opened her mouth to say something but a low rumble from her belly beat her to it. “I made spaghetti.”
“You are too freaking handy, commando,” she said. “Fixing the bathroom sink. Cooking spaghetti. Bondage with tights. Destroying my vagina.”
We ate in bed, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, while watching the last half of the second season of Game of Thrones. Everything felt new, different, as if I’d only now—in this iteration of us—earned the right to steal tomatoey kisses or rest my hand on her inner thigh while debating plot points.
“We’re going to San Diego,” I said while the next episode launched, “in two weeks.”
“Thanksgiving is in two weeks,” she said. “I have commitments here.”
“We’re going to San Diego.” I tilted her chin up and gazed into her eyes. “I recall you getting out of those commitments just fine last year.”
*
“I’m going to murder your phone,” I whispered into Shannon’s hair. That buzzing was annoying enough to bruise my brain. “No more phones in the bedroom.”
“Mmm, it’s my alarm,” she mumbled. She twisted away from me to reach for the side table. I caught her around the waist and hauled her back to my side once the noise ceased.
“Sleep, baby,” I said. Her skin was warm beneath my lips, and I wanted to kiss every freckle on her back. “It’s too early.”
“There’s a little something nudging my thigh,” she said.
I shifted, fitting my cock to her backside. “Nothing little here.” My hand slipped up her leg and settled between her hipbones, rocking her against me. “I’m keeping you in this bed all day.”
Shannon reached over and patted my leg. “That’s a really nice idea,” she said.
Her hand ran down my leg, squeezing, and then her nails scratched back up. It was such a simple, unassuming gesture, and yet, it had my body fizzing with awareness. The battle for Shannon’s affection was the hardest I’d ever fought, and it wasn’t over, but it was turning the corner.
“But I have to meet your sister for lunch,” she said with a sigh. “So, if you don’t mind—” She wiggled against my cock, and laughed when I groaned into her back. “—I’ll be going.”
“I do mind,” I said, sliding my hand between her legs. “I’ll call Lo. Explain the circumstances. She’ll understand.”
“I’m in enough trouble with her over skipping lunches.” Shannon arched into me, and fuck…she felt incredible. Hot and precious and mine. All mine. Always mine. “You really should tell her you’re here,” she said, her words breaking as I found the spot that made her mindless.
I leaned over to look at Shannon. Eyes closed, lips parted, forehead wrinkled. Exactly as I wanted her. “You’d like me to stop? And call my sister? That’s what you want right now, peanut?”
“If you don’t fuck me right now, I’m going to beat you with a dildo,” she said, her fists curling tight around the sheets. “You can call your sister later.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.