Chapter 15
Josh
She's not telling me the truth. At least not all of it. I haven't known her long but I know she's a pretty straight shooter. She is hurting tonight. I know this. I can see it as clearly as I've seen anything in my life.
And she came to me.
I slide my tongue against hers, needing, wanting to make her tremble. It's a need inside me, burning for her. Only her.
I want to take away the pain and make her forget her own name.
I cradle her face in my hands, kissing her deeply, tasting all of her. Her scent surrounds me, something warm and rich and smooth. She makes me forget. Makes me feel.
And feeling something other than dead inside is so f*ck
ing rare for me these days.
I slide one fingertip down the smooth line of her throat. Her pulse scatters a ragged beat beneath my touch and she makes a warm sound deep in her throat.
"I like that." A throaty whisper in the darkness. "You have talented fingers."
I smile against her mouth. "I haven't even gotten started yet."
Her arms thread around my neck. "Yeah?" She nuzzles my throat, her breath hot on my skin. "What else do you have planned?"
I stiffen. I know she means it as a joke, but it hits me in the soft parts below the waist. I kiss her to hide my reaction because I have no f*ck
ing clue what I've gotten myself into.
I have no idea how to do this. How to f*ck
the woman in my arms senseless while hiding what the war has done to my body. To my f*ck
ing soul.
But there's no time like the present to figure it out.
Abby is here. In my apartment. And I am not going to waste this opportunity to love her like I've been dreaming to.
I lift her then, sliding her legs around my waist, never breaking the kiss, never losing the sweetness of her mouth on mine.
I make it all the way to my bedroom, glad that it is at least laundry day so everything is piled in one corner as opposed to scattered around my space like it normally is.
My relief is misplaced. I trip over a goddamned shoe and stumble to the bed, twisting just in time so that Abby falls on top of me.
"Wow, those are some impressive reflexes you've got there." She's smiling down at me but I'm borderline incoherent. She's straddling my hips, her body pressed to mine in all the right places.
Panic spikes through me that she'll figure out just how f*ck
ed up I really am. I pull her down, rolling until she is beneath me.
She is fire in my arms. Burning, liquid fire penetrates the dead zone inside of me.
I want to feel her body pressed against me. The warmth of her skin against mine. I crave her. She is more than a need to me.
She is hope.
And she has demons she's been hiding from the world. As confident as she comes off in class, I can’t help but see the insecurity she tries to hide. As badly as I want to strip her naked and taste every inch of her body, I have to do this right.
I lean back then, tugging her with me until she's sitting up in my bed. I can smell myself on her and it hits me center mass with a sense of belonging. I want to see her in my clothes.
But not right now.
I swallow. My mouth is suddenly dry and I am very much not sure about how this whole thing is going to go down.
But it's better this way.
I watch her watching me slide the buttons of my shirt open. One by one.
I'm not exactly accomplishing the whole hiding thing but I don't have to get naked for her to see me. She'll probably figure things out before I'm ready to tell her anyway.
Her eyes darken as I drop my shirt to the floor. Her eyes are drawn to the black ink etched into my skin. She is still, so still she might be a statue, frozen in ice. Her chest is barely moving as I lift the t-shirt over my head.
I'm not sure she's seeing me. Or if she's even in the room with me.
I don't know if it is something specific in the color splashed between the black lines, or if it’s about the tattoos in general.
I stand there and let her be, let her absorb my own private hell drawn in full color over my body. It's been a few months since I had anything new done. My skin is healed, the ink immortalized in my flesh. For now. I'm drawn to the pain. It's like fighting. A delicious slide of a needle into your skin. It takes over every single thought until all you can feel, all you crave is the pain.
It’s forever before she moves.
She crawls slowly into my space. The heat from her body warms my skin. I close my eyes. I want her fingers on me. I want her to touch the darkness and know that it's me beneath the violent ink spread across my body.
She circles behind me. I bow my head, knowing what she finds there.
The First Cavalry Division patch stretched across my back. The black horse head and the black slash across the bright yellow shield. And in that shield, the names of my brothers.
Each name. Permanently carved into living flesh.
"How many times did you go?"