Chapter Eleven
Ash, Neil and I walked out of alleyway and around to the parking lot where the truck was parked. The sheriff, Mario and Barb and Gary Woods were having a smoke outside the bar. I tried to shake off Ash’s hold but he clung to my hand as we approached the little group.
“Phew.” Barb waved her hand in front of her nose. “What’s that smell? Something’s stinking up this joint tonight.”
Ash ignored Barb’s remarks and walked right up to the sheriff. “You might want to have a look at the dumpster behind the building,” he said. “I took care of some trash that might be of interest to you.”
“Dang it, boy.” The sheriff dropped his cigarette on the ground and squashed it with his boot. “You didn’t do anything silly, did you, son?”
“Only what had to be done to protect my girl.”
His girl?
The eyes of everyone in the group turned to me. Barb gawked. I’d tried to prevent this very thing from happening, but Ash had disregarded all my warnings. How was I supposed to keep him safe when he did stuff like this?
“Gary,” Ash said, “I’ve known you for a long time. You’re a decent man. I haven’t decided yet what to do about the lease, but I can’t do business with you if your foreman’s out of control.”
“Excuse me?” Gary said.
“You heard me. Charlie Nowak has been harassing Lia. Today, he tried to trap her in the dumpster. I judge a man by the quality of his friends, and Charlie is rotten piece of shit.” Ash turned to Mario. “I’m going to take Lia home now.”
“By all means,” Mario said. “You okay, hon?”
I nodded, because I couldn’t speak. The night had rattled me in all kinds of violent ways, but my brain was stuck on two words. His girl. I’d never been anybody’s girlfriend. People had died just for being my friends.
We drove out of town with our windows cracked open to dispel the smell clinging to us. Neil found the stink fascinating. From his perch on the backseat, he kept trying to bury his nose in my hair.
The darkness hurled a dusting of fine snow at us. The truck’s headlights illuminated thin flakes swirling in the wind like silver. Ash concentrated on the driving. My heart and my brain waged a fierce battle. It hurt like hell, but the brain won at the expense of the heart.
“We need to clarify some things,” I said.
He glanced at me. “I was afraid of that.”
“Tonight you called me your girl in front of all those people.”
“Yes.”
“It was a dangerous thing to do,” I said. “And it’s not true.”
His knuckles whitened about the wheel. “Here we go again.”
“I mean it,” I said. “I appreciate your help. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t showed up. But you don’t have to tell everyone and their mothers that I’m your girlfriend in order to protect me. Now we have to do something drastic to dispel that very dangerous myth.”
“Lia,” he said in that stubborn tone of his. “You are my girlfriend.”
“I’m not.”
“But you are,” he insisted. “You told Gunny Watkins. It was your idea in the first place.”
“I’m your caretaker. Remember? I’m not your real girlfriend. I’m your pretend girlfriend.”
“Maybe at the beginning,” he said. “But you don’t like pretending and neither do I. I might be a tad literal sometimes, but here’s how it goes. I promised you I’ve got your back and I do. You said you were my girlfriend and, as it turned out, you are.”
“Ash, please,” I said. “You can’t even flirt with the notion. I can’t love anybody.”
“I know.” Resignation tainted his voice. “Because people suffer when they love you, people die. I admit it, it’s pretty damn grim.”
“Don’t you dare make light of the danger.”
“I’m not minimizing the danger. I believe you. But right this minute, you’ve got another problem.”
“What is it?”
His eyes burrowed into my head. “You like me.”
“I don’t.”
“I don’t mean to be cocky, but you have feelings for me. You take care of me, but you also care for me.”
“How would you know that?”
“I’ve got ears to hear and eyes to see,” he said. “I’m not a total fool. The things you do for me? You care for me. I think you may even love me. I’m not letting go of that. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how I got so lucky, but hell, I can’t complain.”
I willed my mouth to close. “It’s not true. It’s not possible. It’s not safe.”
“Sorry,” he said. “You. Love. Me.”
“Don’t say it, Ash, please. He’ll come. You’ll die.”
“Who, Lia? Tell me: who will come?”
The memory hit me, Red’s chilling grin as he squeezed the trigger and killed a stranger right before my eyes. “Did you see the way the motherfucker looked at you?” Red had asked me as the man bled out in the alleyway. “No respect.”
“Ash, you have to leave now.” I panicked. “Or maybe I’ll leave. Yes, that may be the safest course of action. He’ll never have any reason to come here if I take off.”
He stared at me as if I’d grown horns. “I’m talking about love here and you’re talking about bolting?”
“Stop it, Ash.”
“Then help me out, please. I’m dating a girl who keeps her go bag packed.”
“You’re not dating me and I’m not your girlfriend,” I snapped. “Don’t you understand?”
He shrugged. “You love me and there’s nothing you can say or do that’ll change that. So I think we should just accept that and move on.”
I threw my hands up in the air. I’d squared off with Mount Everest and it wasn’t about to move. “You’re crazy, you know that? You drive the right kind of truck, because your skull is thick as a ram’s. You’re reckless.”
“And you look pretty when you’re mad, even if at this moment you’re also very stinky.”
He turned the truck onto a snow-dusted gravel road. I realized I hadn’t been paying attention to our route or to the fact that the snow had ceased falling and the night had cleared.
“Where are we?” I said. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He parked before a rusted gate topped by a sign that said Trespassers Will Be Shot.
“What are you doing?” I said when he opened the door. “I don’t want to be shot.”
He hopped down from the truck, limped over to the gate and, after fiddling with the lock, opened it and motioned for me to drive the truck through.
“What now?” I said to Neil as I slid over to the driver’s seat. “Your owner is the most maddening human on the planet.”
Neil grumbled in what I interpreted as complete agreement.
Ash closed the gate behind us and climbed on the seat next to me. I drove the truck for a while, edging potholes as big as moon craters and mounting rock beds that tested the Ram’s clearing. We passed an abandoned rock quarry and the remains of an old mine.
“What’s all this?” I said. “The road to the end of the world?”
“Almost there,” he said.
At last, the headlights illuminated the end of the abysmal road, where an old cabin stood like a relic of a time gone by. The rocky slopes of a spectacular mountain rose behind the cabin, framed by the brilliance of a million stars.
“Wow.” I turned off the ignition and took in the extraordinary sight. “What’s this place?”
“Welcome to Heaven.” Ash too stared at the sky. “This was our family’s original homestead. We’ve been using it as a hunting cabin for generations.”
“Is this part of your lands?”
“The best part, if you ask me,” he said. “Come on.”
We stopped by the rustic cabin but only briefly. It was one room, with an old heating stove and a pair of bunk beds at one end. I was surprised because even though it was obviously very old, it was clean and provisioned. The cabin had no electricity or running water, which probably explained why Ash had chosen not to live there when he returned to Copperhill. He lit a miner’s lamp and, after grabbing a bag from an old cabinet, motioned for me to follow him.
The night was clear but cold. The stars lit our path, along with the lamp. Neil led the way down a deer track that ran along a tumbling creek. The song of water on stone enlivened the narrowing canyon and appeased my frazzled nerves. The track dead-ended at the base of the mountain. Neil, Ash and the light disappeared into what looked like a crack in the mountain.
I peered into the fissure suspiciously. A cave? Not another dark, confined place. I couldn’t handle any more of that tonight.
Ash reappeared briefly, holding up the lamp and grinning like a toddler with a secret. “Come on.”
“But—”
“I promise, you’re going to like it,” he said, before disappearing again.
I stepped into the crack with trepidation. My steps crunched on a bed of gravel and sand. I took a deep breath and scurried across a short, natural tunnel to emerge at the other side, where I came to a dead stop and gawked.
I stood in a hanging valley perched between high peaks that rose dark and silent all around me. The valley opened up to what would have been an expansive view of the range during the day. In the darkness, it looked like a roiling sea, frozen beneath the stars. A tumbling creek crossed the vale and dropped over the edge. Neil stood like Simba on top of a boulder at the crook of the valley, framed by a cloud of steam.
I edged my way around the boulders and entered yet another world, where three hot springs bubbled and steamed to the side of the creek where they formed deep pools. The air filled my lungs with the bland scent of rock and minerals. The miner’s lamp burned at the edge of the middle pool, casting a magical glow on the frothy water.
Ash stood waist deep in the center of the spring. Steam wafted from his upper body. He looked like some divine creature fashioned from granite, a spawn of rock and water, nature’s exquisite work of art. The scars made elegant patterns on his body, like mineral veins on marble. The pool hissed and gurgled around him, warbling the same jubilant notes that played in my heart. Water dripped from his head and torso, worshipped his body and celebrated his existence, claiming him as surely as I longed to claim him. The current foamed and fizzled against his skin, an intimate caress that had me dripping too.
“That pool over there is too hot,” he said. “That one over there is not hot enough for a night like this one. But this one, this one’s perfect.”
It was perfect, but only because he was in it.
“What are you waiting for?” Ash said. “Come in.”
Two sets of old arguments seesawed in my mind. Not in the plan. Very tempting. Not smart. But I stank. It was a great reason to justify my impulse. I’d have to take off my clothes. The mere thought had my stomach churning and my face burning.
“I won’t look.” Ash turned his back to me. “I promise.”
The disconnect between my brain and body widened. The sight of his broad shoulders and back didn’t help. Then my brain kicked in. Don’t do it. Bad idea. Run, run now. I turned around to go back to the cabin, but instead, I found myself shedding my clothes with astonishing swiftness. In my head, a fresh new voice cheered me on, urging me to seize the moment, to live beyond survival, to live for the sake of living.
The spring welcomed my body with a delicious embrace. I immersed myself in the hot pool until the water closed above my head. I held my breath and stayed underwater for as long as I could. The tiny scrapes I’d inflicted on my scalp stung at first. Then the sting went away, replaced by an increasing sense of full-body healing. My muscles relaxed. The knot in my stomach loosened up. The cold fused into my bones melted along with the fear. I looked up. Beyond the layers of flowing water, the galaxy smiled down on me.
When I finally came up for breath, the air that poured in cleared my lungs and refreshed my senses. The stink of the dumpster was gone for good. Where I stood, the water covered me comfortably all the way to my armpits. Across the spring, Ash sat on a rocky ledge, staring at me with a look that curled my toes.
“Nice?” he said.
“More like magical.”
His smile rivaled the sky. “Want to come over?”
“I... I don’t know.” I gulped loudly. “Yes and no?”
“Okay,” he said. “I get that.”
It was only a flicker in his stare, but I was like a satellite tuned exclusively to his channel. Despite his best efforts to conceal it, a look of resignation dulled his eyes. So many questions. Should I? Could I? I was tired of fighting myself, eroded from resisting my impulses. I knew what he wanted—no—what he needed. I needed it too. Could I do it for him? Could I do it for myself?
I traced the spring’s swirling whirlpools with my hands. “I’m really scared.”
“Because you think someone will try to hurt me if he thinks we’re together?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been to war,” he said. “I’ve volunteered to go on missions with piss-poor odds for success. This is my life too. Don’t I get to pick the risks I take? Don’t I get a choice?”
“You’ve been away for a long time,” I said. “You were hurt. You were in the hospital for a while. Have you considered that maybe this isn’t a choice on your part?”
“Ah.” His lips pressed into a tight, white line. “Let me get this straight: my personal shrink thinks I’m drawn to her out of necessity or reaction rather than choice.”
“Admit it,” I said. “Given our situation, it could be.”
“Christ, Lia.” He shook his head. “You’re so smart and yet you can be so clueless. It’s like you’re tone-deaf or something. You never know how people really feel about you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Jordan,” he said. “The guys at the bar. Me. We’re all into you, and you don’t even notice.”
“That’s not true.” Why would anyone in their right mind want me? “But here’s something that’s true: you’re healing quickly. Anytime now, Gunny Watkins will grant you a full medical release. You’ll be able to meet new people, go places—”
“And where would you have me go?”
“Wherever you like,” I said. “You’ll be healthy and free.”
“What about you?”
“I can never be free.”
“Hear me out,” he said. “And try not to be mad at me.”
“Mad at you?”
“Gunny Watkins gave me the medical release when she called that day in the truck a while back.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“She said the doctors were very pleased with my progress. The evaluations all agreed that I’d met the major milestones, physically and psychologically. She said I should be able to manage my own recovery.”
I’d been out of a job for a while and didn’t even know it. He’d gotten his coveted medical release. Days ago. The sand shifted beneath my feet. I wasn’t sure where I stood.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugged. “Why do you think?”
“I don’t know.” I reeled. “You never wanted a caretaker—I mean, caregiver. You should’ve been delirious with joy on hearing the news.”
“You’re right. I never wanted a caretaker, that is, until I met you.” The look in his eyes softened. “I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want you to bolt the moment you learned I’d been released from your care.”
I tried to wrap my mind around that. “I... I don’t understand.”
“You’re going to make me talk about it, aren’t you?” He took a deep breath. “Okay, I guess I’ll have to make the effort. I’m not good at saying stuff people want to hear. I’m no good at talking, period. I do, Lia. That’s who I am. Can you understand that?”
Perhaps I could.
“All my adult life, it was all about being a SEAL,” he said. “I lived for the mission. I gave each mission my all. Nothing else mattered. Then we got ambushed and blown apart, and all hell broke loose and we fought like devils to get out alive, but not all of us did—”
His voice fractured. The pain in his eyes was more than I could bear.
“What I’m trying to say is that life becomes very clear when you’re dying,” he said. “The golden hour is a century of pain and wisdom. You don’t regret what you did. You regret what you didn’t get to do. Four months is a lifetime in a hospital bed. Plenty of time to think. When the pain allows it, you spend a lot of time figuring out what you’re going to do differently if you survive. You think about who you’d want to spend your time with if you could, about what matters.”
He paused, wet his lips and continued. “I swore to myself that given the chance, I’d live differently the next time around. It was hard to come home, but I did. It was the first step. And there you were, at the lake, in the cottage, at the one place I could bear to be, my only possible destination, where only I could find you.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Maybe I was just in the right time at the right place?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “You were there, waiting for me, as if God Himself had executed a precision drop and delivered me an exclusive lifeline.” His gaze slid down my neck. “And just in case I missed the point—’cause He knows, and everyone else in my life knows, that I’m as dense as they come—you were wearing my stone.”
“Your stone?” My hand followed his eyes to the little pendant I wore around my neck, the one Wynona had made for me. My fingers closed around the carved obsidian.
“I found that stone when I was a child,” Ash said. “It was shortly after my parents died. Nona and I were walking around the lake and I thought it was precious. Nona laughed and convinced me that it was rare but only because it was special to me. I didn’t know she’d kept it all this time until I saw it embedded in your pendant. She made sure with the design that even if I was out of my mind and mad with pain, I’d notice it.”
“How?”
“Do you know what they used to call SEALs when the program was first established?”
I shook my head.
“Frogmen,” he said. “Some still call us that. The skulled frog is a respected symbol for SEALs. That’s why Nona carved her stylized version of it on that stone.”
“Are you saying that Wynona chose me for you?”
“Chose you?” He laughed. “No, she’d never admit to that. She raised a rebel. I’ve always made my own choices and they were very different from hers. But I think she saw something in you. She even left me that note in the safe, reminding me to trust my judgment. She wanted me to notice that you were special. And I did.”
That Irish jig? It blared in my head to the tune of a full orchestra. And my heart? It joined in the ruckus, swelled to impossible proportions, full with the emotions rocking my world. I sent my gratitude to the stars, where I was sure Wynona’s soul looked down on us tonight. I sent a good scolding her way too. She’d been party to this mess.
“Lia, I know what I want,” Ash said. “The question is whether you want the same thing.”
“Ash...” I faltered. “You may need a new mission, but I’m not it.”
“You’re absolutely right.” His eyes fastened on me. “I’m crazy about you, but you can’t be my new mission. That would be screwed up. Our new mission—should you choose to accept it—would be us.”
My heart exploded in my chest. My inner self danced wildly beneath the stars’ fireworks. Not even in my most elaborate dreams could I have imagined I’d love a man, a marine, a SEAL. And that he’d love me.
“I... I don’t think you understand.” I gnawed on my lips. “If something bad happened to you, I wouldn’t forgive myself. I wouldn’t want to go on. I don’t think I could.”
“Lia.” He started toward me then reversed the impulse and held back. “Give me the choice. In time, we’ll deal with the rest. You’ve got to trust that I know what I’m doing. I want the choice. Please.”
The look on his face scattered the last of my defenses. My resolve dissolved into the hot springs. It was as if the minerals in the water were corroding the shell I’d painstakingly built around myself. But there was something else, something I didn’t know if he could understand.
“I don’t know if I can...” God, I didn’t even know how to say it. “I don’t know if I can—you know—stand it.”
“It?”
It took him a moment to realize what I meant. Who could blame him? It was beyond me why anybody in their right mind would want to grapple with a screwed-up mess like me. Sex terrified me. Memories of pain and humiliation shaped my only knowledge of it. But since I’d met Ash, sex had also begun to intrigue me and, even now, as I looked into Ash’s eyes, something shifted in me.
I’d tried. I’d read everything I could get my hands on. I’d researched the matter at length. I’d even talked to a counselor at the shelter for a few sessions. She’d taught me the steady, breathe, cope technique that allowed me to get by most of the time.
The trauma had been difficult to overcome, but I’d been determined to free myself from Red’s hold at every level. I’d worked hard to transform myself from victim to survivor. I’d tackled each step on my way toward recovery, but this moment was the summit of all of those steps and I didn’t know if I could stand the final test. Was I ready?
“There’s something else...” The words refused to come out of my parched throat. I tried to explain several times, then lowered my eyes and slumped in defeat.
“What is it?” Ash asked softly. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“That’s the problem,” I mumbled. “I... I can’t.”
Ash’s stare caressed my face and perused my soul, deconstructing me as he tried to make sense of me, my reluctance, my fears. I groaned inside, wallowing in a surge of desperation. He needed to know, but I couldn’t explain, not now. If I did, I could fall apart for good.
“Perhaps we can table this one for later,” he suggested.
I shook my head. “You need to know...before...before you make your decision.”
“My decision has already been made,” he said with mind-boggling certainty.
“You could change your mind.” I gulped dryly. “This could change your mind.”
Mount Everest rumbled. “I doubt it.”
“I understand if it does.” I took a step back and then another, until I crouched in the shallow end of the pool, with my knees bent beneath me and my heart pumping hard in my throat. “But you deserve better. You should have a choice too.”
I turned around and straightened my knees. I rose from the pool until the water lapped at my hips. The night’s cold fingers tickled my skin despite the waves of steam wafting from me. Water trickled down my body like tears. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered, baring my back for him.
I knew what he saw, grooves, notches and nicks from the belt and buckle that had permanently scarred my back, the little round blotches from the burns that puckered between my ribs and the countless other scars that littered my skin. He saw my shame too, a life of pain, and all the things I couldn’t talk about.
After a little while, I dared a glance over my shoulder. Ash wasn’t shying from the sight. On the contrary, mouth straight and brow furrowed, he stared at me, taking a hard look indeed, absorbing the dreadful story written on my body.
“Lia?” The restraint in his voice was a mix of compassion, outrage and kindness. “Turn around. Look at me.”
I submerged myself in the pool and concealed the scars beneath the water, banishing them to the realm of anonymity, where they belonged. I took a deep breath and turned to face Ash. The warmth beaming from his eyes soothed my stiff shoulders as surely as the steaming current.
“I’ve seen what you wanted me to see,” he said. “I won’t lie. It makes me mad as hell to know that you had to live through that. But those scars on your back? They don’t change the way I feel about you. They do, however, help me to understand the depth of your fears.”
I didn’t repulse him. The sight of me didn’t dissuade him. He didn’t judge me, didn’t think less of me, didn’t reject me outright. I let out the long breath I’d been holding.
“You’re so brave,” Ash said from his side of the pool. “I love that about you. But you don’t have to be brave all the time. Not when I’m around. We can wait.”
The only man I’d ever been with would have never said anything remotely like that to me. Red didn’t believe in delays, consideration or patience. His methods of operation relied on brute force, torture and blackmail, on coaxing and tricking people into doing what he wanted. He enjoyed the suffering that came with it, the pain of others, especially mine.
The contrast between one man and the other was almost too much to bear.
But the fear. God, I quaked inside and out. Could I really wipe the memories clean from my mind’s hard drive? Could I overcome the terror trained into my body? Could I conquer the fear, dread and anxiety that permanently knotted my soul?
Steady. Ash was there, just on the other side of the pool. Breathe. I dug my toes in the sandy bottom and pushed my body through the spring. Cope. I took a second step, and then another. The intensity in his eyes sustained me through the crossing. I focused on those eyes and kept going, until I stood before him, with only a few inches of churning water between our bodies. He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He was as still as he could be, as if he feared that if he moved, I might scatter and fly away like a frightened little sparrow.
In truth, part of me wanted to bolt. Fleeing was something I was used to doing. Staying, now that was hard. But there was another new part of me that refused to run, emboldened by desire and driven by need. And that part of me? It was determined to stay for the night.
I took a deep breath, reached out and caressed his face. He closed his eyes. I trailed the dark stubble growing along the line of his jaw and traced his lips’ defined lines. He kissed my fingertips. I leaned closer and breathed in the air he exhaled, before I pressed my lips to his.
I kissed him. I kissed him. And I kept kissing him, allowing my lips to explore his mouth, persuading him with my kisses that I wanted this for him, but also for myself.
He groaned against my mouth. “Jesus, Lia.”
I was familiar with his body. How could I not be, after tending to his wounds and helping him heal? I’d slept with him for many nights. I was used to his shape, slumbering next to me in the darkness, to his scent, mixing with mine on the bed’s sheets, to the steady cadence of his respiration, as familiar to me as my favorite song.
But this was different. My hands explored him in a new way, openly and directly. I enjoyed the width of his shoulders beneath my palms, the span of his chest rising and falling under my hand and the raised outline of his nipples tripping against my fingers. I gave myself permission to follow his body’s tapering lines, trailing the water dripping down his chest. I inched closer. His arms opened like a gate.
I stepped into those arms of my own volition. I trembled when our skins met. For a moment I just stood there as if perched at the edge of a great abyss. Then his arms closed around me and he drew me against his body, where I discovered firm ground and safe anchorage. It was as if my flesh was made of malleable putty. My body molded to his. My breasts snuggled against his chest, my belly nuzzled against his stomach and my thighs brushed against his thighs.
“You can’t expect me to keep my word if you do that,” he murmured.
I looked into his eyes. “I want to please you. I need to please you.”
“Sweet Jesus.” His eyes sparked with blue fire. “Are you sure?”
I kissed him.
“Lia...”
The way he said my name was a poem. How could a sound hold so much power, passion and warmth?
“Don’t be scared.” He caressed my hair away from my face and brought me even closer, until his erection pressed hot and hard against my groin. “It’s just me, wanting you.”
He wanted me. Me. And I wanted him too. I could do this. I would do this. I set the fear aside. There was no need to be scared. This was Ash, the man I’d pledged to heal. This was his way of needing me and my way of healing him—and myself. I softened against his hardness, as drenched inside as I was outside.
His lips seized my mouth and stole all of my breath. His body burned, and my body—it flared with the contact. I swear the spring got hotter from the furnace burning in my lower belly.
The feel of his hands traveling down my back made me dizzy. His fingers flowed over my spine, accepting the ugly scars, soothing the old shame. His hands were hot and strong as they cupped the halves of my ass and rubbed his cock against me. My body’s jolts of pleasure reflected in his eyes.
He gathered me in his arms and cradled me on his lap, caressing my body with his gaze. The contrast between the hot water and the cold air tightened my nipples. My impulse was to cover my breasts.
“Don’t.” He lowered his head and kissed my hands. His perusal was as gentle as his touch and without judgment. “You’re so beautiful.” He kissed one of my breasts. “You’re like a gift from heaven.”
I let out a nervous giggle. “Given that we’re in Heaven, that might be a bit over the top.”
“Over the top?” He smiled. “No, Lia. You just can’t see yourself right now. Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe you. Beautiful doesn’t do you justice tonight.”
If the world had ended at that moment, my life would’ve been perfect. If lightning would’ve struck me down, I would have died a happy woman. God knew, I was already humming with need, buzzing with the thrill of being in his arms, still a little afraid but fully engaged. It was his smile that fueled the fire melting my heart like a marshmallow on a stick.
Ash’s hand claimed one of my breasts. His touch was a promise of joy. He lowered his mouth and secured my nipple between his tongue and his palate. He suckled on it, first gently, then with more suction. Both of my nipples bloomed like spring buds. My body replied with bursts of pleasure to every tug. It was as if he’d found the secret dial to my need.
His hand slid between my legs. His fingers glided over my sex, soft but earnest. I startled, but he held me in place. “Just learning the lay of land,” he murmured between kisses.
“But—”
“Hush, baby, let me do my recon. You’re going to feel really good.”
I could sense his need, not just his physical need, which was strong and tugged on my desire like a powerful magnet, but also his need to be trusted. So I let him touch me.
“There it is.” He appropriated my clit between two fingers and rubbed around it, before stroking it ever so lightly while he kissed me. “Doesn’t that feel good?”
Good? More like superb, fantastic and phenomenal all at the same time. I didn’t know that my body could feel that much pleasure. Moreover, I didn’t know he could crank up my need with nothing but his touch.
His strokes were gentle. His finger meandered. “No, don’t close your legs. If you don’t like it, just tell me.”
It was only a knuckle at best, but his touch sent me to the very edge of an orgasm.
“Christ, you’re so warm and slick.” A shiver rattled his body. “Do you want to show me how you like it? Do you want to show me where you like it best?”
I pressed my face against his neck. “I think you’re doing just fine. Can I... I mean, may I touch you?”
He smiled, took my hand and guided it beneath the water. He hissed quietly when my hand slid over him. He was hard and yet straightened and thickened even more between my fingers. I swear, every part of me sizzled with the contact. The effect I had on him built my confidence. I ran my hand up and down his cock, enjoying the feel of him, growing his bulk as surely as I was growing my own excitement.
He kissed me some more and murmured. “I won’t last too long if you do that.”
“Then don’t.”
His gaze was glued to my face. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” And for once, I was completely and utterly convinced.
Still caressing his cock, I braced my knees on the ledge at either side of his lap. He brought me closer and, spreading his hands over my ass, took command of my hips. I lay my forehead on his shoulder as he nestled his swollen tip against my sex.
“We’ll take it real slow.” He kissed me. “Say the word, and we’ll stop.”
My body tensed. A moment of sudden panic had me clenching all my muscles. But any fears I harbored scattered as he lowered me onto his cock and entered me. I was stunned. There was no violence to our coming together, no pain. Instead, safe in the fold of his embrace, I expanded and deepened for him, moistening his way with the sort of private oil I didn’t know my body was capable of making. Outside, the spring water bubbled hot, harsh and playful. Inside, my body’s primal spring flowed thick, lush and rich with liquid pleasure.
It was the most amazing sensation I’d ever experienced and it left both of us breathless.
His eyes met mine. “Okay?” he said gruffly.
“Okay,” I rasped, enthralled.
“Just a little more...”
Oh, my God. Having him in me was incredible. We fit nicely, like two pieces of a multidimensional puzzle designed to join together. I felt whole, grounded, centered. He felt solid in me, firmly entrenched, fundamental.
“Jesus, Lia.” The stars sparkled in his eyes. “You feel so good. You’re so wet and tight. Do you want to move for me?” His hands nudged my hips. “I’d really like it if you moved for me. I need you to move for me.”
I rolled my hips and smiled when I spotted the thrill on his face. I rocked on his lap and he grew inside me. I was the earth to his root and he was the root to my tree. He groaned and I moaned, and together we climbed up desire’s steep ladder, three rungs up, one down, trying to prolong the pleasure that raked us, trying to push each other to feel beyond reason, until we were both at the very edge of someplace I’d never been to before. I clung to him as if he was the only rail between me and the abyss.
His face was control’s strained mask. “I want you to come for me.”
“I want you to come with me,” I managed to say as he thrust in me.
“After you—”
“Together.” I whimpered, nearly out of my mind. “I want you to come in me.”
“Oh hell, there’s nothing I want to do more than that,” he muttered hoarsely. “Are you sure?”
He was asking a long, complex, relevant set of questions, but for once I knew what I wanted and I couldn’t stop to explain.
“Please?”
The way he bore down on my body had me gasping for breath. There was no holding back now, no illusion of control, no sane way to prevent the blast that launched us into the space we could only share with each other.
I clung to Ash through the journey. I broke through my mind’s boundaries, shattered my old limits and freed myself from my body’s sorrows. My sex grasped, clenched, gripped, experiencing glory, convulsing with bliss. I vaulted from one orgasm to the next, convinced I’d reached my highest peak, only to launch higher, even if I wasn’t sure I could survive the thrill.
And then Ash closed his eyes and shuddered. A quiet groan rattled his breath and escaped between his lips. He came deep inside me, his essence dissolving into my being, his goodness erasing the past, his seed extinguishing my body’s dread, washing away terror with joy and anguish with elation. I came again, for him, for me, for the pure joy of it.
When it was done, I relished every ounce of pleasure he enjoyed, every shudder, groan and caress, every drop he contributed to my being. I couldn’t fathom how I’d survived the pleasure, because every part of me had been touched, kissed and moved, and I wasn’t the same.
He helped me out of the pool, or perhaps I should say we helped each other, because his legs seemed as unsteady as mine even though his hold on me was stronger than ever. I liked the way I smelled—fiery, like molded metal newly steamed from the forge; metallic, like the hot spring itself; strong, like Ash. I liked the way I felt too, clean, inside and out.
Ash enveloped me in a towel he pulled out of the bag and, hugging me to his chest, kissed me. “Jesus, Lia. That was...”
“Good?” I hoped it had been as powerful for him as it had been for me.
“No, not good,” he said. “Incredible, out of this world, extraordinary.”
“Extraordinary is good.” I stood on the tip of my toes and kissed him. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he said, gathering me in his arms.
“For teaching me joy,” I said. “And for bringing me to Heaven.”
* * *
We went back to the cabin and made love several times after that, if only for the pleasure of discovering pleasure itself. Perhaps we were making up for the nights we’d wasted, for they’d been a waste, I was convinced of it now. We slept on and off, distracted from our dreams by the novelty of being together. I’d been loveless and scared of sex most of my life, but now, in between bouts of pleasure, I learned that love and sex entailed different emotions, but when they happened at the same time, as they did when Ash and I were together, they were an extraordinary force.
Somewhere in the early morning hours, when I lay on my side with Ash curled about me on the bottom bunk, I opened my eyes and heard him sigh.
“Such a deep sigh,” I murmured in the darkness.
“If you only knew.”
“What?”
He shrugged behind me.
“No, I mean it, I want to know.”
“It’s sort of silly.”
I kissed his callused fingertips. “Tell me.”
“Okay, but don’t laugh.”
“No laughs guaranteed.”
His arms tightened around me. “I dreamed of this.”
“You dreamed of you and me crammed into a narrow bed in the middle of nowhere?”
He chuckled. “More or less.”
“When?”
“In the jungles of South America, in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. At night, when I lay in my bunk waiting for a mission, or in the field, when we took turns napping. And later in the hospital, when I didn’t think there’d be a day without pain and sorrow in my future.”
I’d felt the same way so many times in my life, and yet here I was, with him, my body delirious with pleasure, my heart brimming with joy.
“You mean to tell me that you fierce warriors of the world don’t spend every free second fantasizing about having wild sex with a triple D centerfold?”
“No, ma’am.” He kissed my ear. “I dreamed of this, exactly this, lying with someone soft and beautiful, craving her body and her craving me. I dreamed of you, even though I didn’t know your name back then.”
I blinked away the tears. My gut tightened. The fear came back, fear that this exquisite moment was just a passing fad; that Ash wouldn’t be in my bed tomorrow; that he’d die; that I’d die.
“Ash—” My throat tightened.
“Stop it, Lia, that part where you tell me off wasn’t in my dream, so don’t say anything. Can’t a guy get to live his dream every once in a while?”
A dream. I was a dream to him. “Whatever you want, you can have it.”
“Don’t make me idle promises,” he cautioned. “I’m addicted to you. If you were one of those prescription pills? I’d be completely hooked on your body and I’d have to have you all the time. Think about it. Despite the excess, I wouldn’t mind more of you right this minute.”
“What excess?” I said.
He tilted my face and found my mouth. His hands came around to stoke need that didn’t need encouragement. He glided into me and pleasure deleted everything but him from my brain.
Hours later, my mind registered the distant sound of a rattling cell, but I was too far into my dreams to care. When I next opened my eyes, Ash’s kisses tickled my face and the tricolor horizon on the window announced the sun’s glorious rebirth.
“Come on, sleepyhead.” Ash propped me up and slid my arms into an enormous flannel shirt. “Got to go.”
“Go where?” I knuckled my eyes, half-asleep.
“To the cottage.” He put on my shoes, picked me up and, still bundled in the sheets, carried me out into the morning chill and perched me on the truck’s front seat. I could sense the change in him as he clicked on my seat belt. He’d gone from sweet lover to all business and I was too woolly to figure out why.
“Your owner is in a hurry today,” I mumbled to Neil, when the dog climbed on the seat behind me. Neil wagged his tail and licked my ear while I smoothed out my tangled hair and tried to make sense of our rush.
Ash got in the cab, drew a handgun from the glove compartment and tucked it in the back of his pants. I frowned. What on earth was going on? I started to ask, but he flew out of Heaven, driving the jarring road as if it was a six-lane highway. The truck rattled like a can full of dominoes and all I could do was hang on for dear life.
His phone rang as we shot out of the gate and turned onto the much smoother country road. He answered curtly. “Report?”
He listened as someone spoke. The lines between his eyes deepened. My stomach sank. I had a bad feeling about this one. Ash’s contributions to the conversation were succinct and sporadic.
“Where?” he asked. “How?” He listened some more.
I cocked my eyebrows and mouthed, “What’s happening?”
He raised a hand and motioned for patience, even though I had none of that to spare. Then he proceeded to test me further by listening for several long minutes.
“Affirmative,” he said after a while. “Negative, not yet.”
By the time he ended the one-sided conversation, he’d been on the phone for a good twenty minutes and we’d arrived at the cottage. There were three vehicles lined on my driveway, including a state-of-the-art RV that I recognized on the spot.
“What’s the deal?” I said tentatively.
Ash parked the truck, engaged the break and looked at me for a second too long. “Don’t be mad at me and try to roll with the punches.”
Something huge was coming down the pipeline. “Uh-oh.”
He bracketed my face with his hands. “Whatever happens, remember this.”
He kissed me, and I don’t mean a peck in the lips. He kissed me in a way that said hello and goodbye, good morning, good afternoon and good-night, please understand, I’m sorry and yeah, another big fat do-try-to-roll-with-the-punches.
For a moment, my brain cut out. I was back at the hot springs and at the brink of bliss. All of that from a kiss? Then he stopped kissing me and I went into immediate withdrawal. Before I had time to react, he handed me his phone. A text message glowed on his screen. It could’ve been copied from a first-grade reader. My stomach plummeted as I read three simple words.
Rat in trap.