I'm tired of running from the memories of the past. Tired of pretending to have all my shit together. I want to ask him to take me someplace.
Tired of having to be strong for everyone around me. Tonight, just for tonight, I want to lean on someone else. Even if that leaning takes the form of something hot and mindless and slicked with sweat, it will allow me to pretend, if only for one moment, that I am just a regular person. That I don't have to be strong all the time.
I take a single step closer to him. The muscles in his throat move as he swallows. His lips part, his breath is warm on my skin. His fingers spasm against my cheek.
No, the violence in this man is not gone.
And I'm afraid. Not of him but of what he represents. I'm afraid of my reaction to this man, to the violence in his soul. Fear and arousal are twisted inside me. I want this.
I want to do this without shattering.
But it might break open all the old wounds before I'm able to handle them.
"I don't live far from here." His voice is harsh. Rough and strained.
Like the man. Caged and contained by a fa?ade of modern life.
His thumb pauses against my cheek. His mouth is there, just there. A breath from mine. I am aching, hurting and needy all at once.
I close my eyes and lean in, resting my forehead against his. For a moment, the world falls away and it is just him and just me, and we are alone in the shadows and the light.
I'm terrified of taking this step. There's no going back after this.
And I want this. I can handle this. If I keep telling myself it, it will be true.
"I would very much like to go home with you." The words do not get caught in my throat. They flow between us, carrying the invitation, the request from my lips to his.
A shudder runs through him. I can feel the vibration in the space that separates us.
"Abby."
Both hands are cradling my cheeks now. As though he was holding something fragile and worth more than a thousand suns.
But it’s just me beneath his fingertips.
He says nothing more until I open my eyes. The storm is there, looking back at me. Watching. Waiting.
"Tell me what has you sad." Such a simple request. One that I think I love him for.
I slip from his touch and thread my fingers with his. I'm not sure how much I can talk about tonight. Not sure what I can resurrect without falling to pieces, something I'm trying desperately to avoid.
I take a deep breath and hold it until it burns.
When I finally speak, it's not what either of us is expecting. "I suppose you're used to being asked about war."
His fingers spasm against mine and it is a long moment before he answers. "Yeah." Another silence. "Though not as much here as you'd think. I thin...I think people here don't really want to know about it." He glances at me. "Or at least what they think they know about war."
I offer a half-hearted smile. "They're against it."
He makes a noise. "Right."
"There are a lot of assumptions about you. Because you're a veteran."
"I think I'm always one step away from becoming every stereotype they already think I am." He pauses. "I feel like every time I open my mouth, I risk finally meeting everyone's expectations. The angry veteran. Can't piss him off. PTSD might start acting up and he might snap and shoot the place up."
He's trying to be flippant but it fails beneath the weight of his bitterness. It surprises me, honestly, at the level of anger in those words.
"I get that," I finally tell him. "Not the angry veteran, but the expectations? I think it makes life just that much harder for me here because I'm always worrying how people will take what I say or do."
He holds the door open to his apartment building. It's an older brick building at the edge of campus. Not far from the bars and the old shops that were the first in the area to be gentrified.
I follow him silently down the worn carpet corridor to an old door that looks like it's been painted over a dozen times or more.
He pulls out his keys and opens it, letting me into his world, his life.
But I don't have time to take in his apartment.
As soon as the door closes behind us, he backs me slowly against it. I'm aware of his space at the periphery of my senses, but it is Josh who holds my attention.
His body is long and lean against mine, a solid wall of muscle that surrounds me. His mouth hovers just near mine. He does that a lot. This almost-but-not-quite-kissing thing.
It's driving me a little insane.
"You never struck me as worried about what people think." Soft words that are a balm on the ragged, exposed wounds I'm trying to bandage over once more.
"Maybe there's a lot you don't know about me." Sometimes, the truth is easier than a lie.
"What made you hurt tonight?" he whispers against my mouth.
"Maybe I'm trying not to think about it." I want to lose myself in his kiss, but he's holding himself apart. Just enough to make me contemplate serious bodily harm.
He makes a warm sound. "So you need a distraction?"
Oh sweet baby Jesus yes please.
But I can't talk. Because he covers my mouth with his and I am gone, sinking into the sensations he strokes to life inside me with each flick of his tongue.