Battered Not Broken (45 page)

“I got the results of my tests yesterday,” she said after fetching a condom from the drawer. A flush of heat crept into her cheeks as she approached the bed. “The ones I requested during my hospital stay.” She’d received a phone call from the lab the previous afternoon.

“Yeah?” His eyes seemed bluer than ever, trained on hers in a way that made her heart pick up pace.

“We should be fine to stop using condoms after I finish my medications. I tested clean, but the antibiotics I’m taking could interfere with my birth control. But after that we can rely on it. I mean, if you still want to.”

“Hell yes I still want to.” He reached out and laid a hand on her hip, squeezing.

Her nerves buzzed beneath his grip, fluttering close to the surface of her skin. “Okay.” Her voice came out closer to a whisper than she’d intended.

“Come here,” he said. “I can wait until then to stop using condoms, but I can’t wait any longer for this.”

Chapter 24

She slid onto the bed and straddled him, reveling in the almost undetectable burn that snaked its way up her inner thigh muscles as she planted a knee on either side of his hips, stretching the joints where her legs met her hips as she lowered herself. “I wish we didn’t have to worry about the antibiotics. Until now I didn’t realize how hard it would be to put on a condom one-handedly.”

“We’ve got two good hands between us.” He slid his good hand down his torso, stopping when his fingers brushed her wrist where it hovered near his hard cock.

Awkwardly, she tore the foil package open and pulled the condom out.

He pinched the tip.

She guided the latex sleeve down his shaft, her fingertips sliding easily over his firm flesh. There was something about sharing the task that set her insides on fire, sending fresh moisture creeping from between her thighs. God, she was ready.

When he was totally sheathed, she didn’t waste any time in sinking down, letting the tip of his dick part the lips of her sex.

He gripped the base of his cock, holding himself steady so that the head plunged straight in instead of slipping against her incredibly slick skin.

She’d grown tighter than ever during their medically and circumstantially induced period of abstinence. The way his hardness stretched her channel as she sank lower and lower made her want to wail. But his entrance had left her breathless, so she gasped instead.

He fucked her from below, his strokes deep but gentle. “Not hurting you, am I?”

She shook her head. The motions didn’t hurt her arm at all. They might have a few days ago, when she’d first been released from the hospital, but she’d healed enough since then for this.

“Good.” He rocked her with steady motions, his rhythm searing her from the inside and warming her outside, too.

She’d felt close to him over the last few days, an attachment that had been forged by pain, violence and a love she’d finally admitted out loud. But this was different. It was physical but peaceful, forceful but not aggressive. It was a give and take that perfectly matched the tempo of her heartbeat, that pushed her to the edge of pleasure without aggravating the wounds that harsher events had left her with a week ago. And it melted something inside her, softening all the strange and bitter feelings that had crystallized in her heart and mind over the past seven days.

So when she came, it wasn’t just a physical release, but a mental one, too. Her entire body trembled as her inner muscles pulled tight around the hard shaft of Ryan’s cock, sending her rocketing to a peak with a shuddering gasp.

Maybe her quick climax had taken him by surprise. He groaned and slid his good hand between her thighs, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her clit in a circular motion.

The extra stimulation went straight to her core, amping up her orgasm as she sank lower, letting all of her weight rest on his thrusting hips.

He didn’t seem to mind the burden. He kept fucking her with unrelenting intensity, his fingers working magic against the hard bud of her clit.

She tightened all her internal muscles, purposely gripping him as tightly as she could. The resulting sensations were so intense they almost bowled her over. In her mind’s eye, she could see herself falling forward, sprawling across his chest as he plunged into her from below, making her entire body move in response to his. She held out for the sake of her arm, willing strength into her thigh muscles. Riding him never really felt like work until he made her come so hard that her bones seemed to turn to jelly.

The next few moments passed in a haze of spasming muscles, hard thrusts and rushing breath. When they were over, Ally opened her eyes, which she couldn’t remember closing in the first place.

Ryan was staring up at her, his eyes half-hooded but bright blue beneath the fringe of his lashes. His lips were parted, their curves full beneath the fading scars of his last fight. He wasn’t breathing as hard as she was, but he hadn’t come yet, either.

Bearing down with her hips and giving him a deliberate internal squeeze, she pushed him over the edge.

He groaned and swore, squeezing his eyes shut as he thrust hard, tunneling deep inside her and withdrawing a moment later to do it again and again, touching the same hidden place each time.

Coming twice had left her so tender inside that it almost felt as if she were climaxing again, her pleasure plateauing at an incredible level, punctuated every couple moments by the friction of his cock against her drawn-in walls.

When it was over, it was a welcome relief to slide off of him and recline on the mattress at his side, simply allowing her breathing to slow, growing a little steadier with each passing moment. The tension that had been plaguing her for the past five days had been reduced, leaving her feeling miraculously light.

After a while, he finally helped her dress. She’d mostly given up on bras after coming home from the hospital – they were impossible to hook with one hand, and sharing the task with Ryan was more trouble than it was worth when they weren’t going to be leaving the apartment anyway. So when he helped her into a black t-shirt, her nipples stood out small and hard beneath the soft fabric.

His gaze lingered on them when she turned to face him.

“My parents called when you were in the shower this morning.” His tone was remarkably calm for someone who’d thrown his phone so hard it had broken less than two weeks ago when his parents had reestablished contact. “They mailed plane tickets. Sent them via overnight express. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

Ally swallowed a slight knot that had formed in her throat. “When is our flight?”

“Four days from now. I told them we’d need a little time to tie up loose ends.”

Ally nodded, her mind whirling. Four days. How would she spend them? What would she do, and what wouldn’t she, before leaving the city she’d spent her entire life in?

“On one of those days, I’d like you to come with me to Quantico.”

“Quantico?”

He nodded. “I’m going to take my Marine Corps friend up on his offer before we leave. It might be my last chance to see him for a while.”

“Are you sure you want me to come?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He shot her a faint grin, his first smile in at least a week. “At least if you come along, it’ll look like I’ve accomplished something during the past year.”

Her lips trembled then curled into an involuntary smile. “Some trophy girlfriend I’ll make with my arm in this sling.”

He shrugged, raising his own injured arm. “We match.”

“Yeah, we match like a pair of cracked salt and pepper shakers match.”

“I’ll take that. It makes me look a little less pathetic.”

She leaned in and wrapped her free arm around him, letting her belly press against his and her breasts be compressed against his chest. “Are you sure you want to return to New York?” She had to ask. He’d been so dead-set against it so recently.

“Absolutely sure. The shooting, Manny and everything really put things into perspective. Keeping you safe is a lot more important than my pride. Besides, I’m going to pay my parents back for the moving expenses. And I’ll accept a job, but I’ll work for my paychecks, too. It’s not like I’ll be living off their charity.”

Ally squeezed him tighter, breathing in the scent of laundry detergent that saturated his shirt and savoring the fainter notes of his unique, masculine smell. “I spoke to mamá this morning. She wants to stay in Frederick County with my uncle.” Maria had a brother who lived there, about an hour from Baltimore, and she’d gone to stay with him after Ally had been discharged from the hospital.

“Is she sure? Because if she wants to come to New York, I’ll make it happen. She won’t be alone and she won’t have to struggle.”

“She doesn’t want to move that far away. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to visit my father.”

Ally would miss her mother and worry about her to no end, but she understood. The thought of spending the remainder of her father’s last year in prison two states away hurt just to think about. She’d do her best to make it back for infrequent visits, but still… It wouldn’t be the same as before, and before had never been enough.

“Well, it’s her choice. Maybe when your father finishes his sentence, they’ll consider moving to New York together. Seems like they both could use a fresh start.”

“Maybe.” Ally took a deep, fortifying breath, savoring his scent. Four days and she’d be on a plane to New York, where she’d live indefinitely. With Ryan. Sometimes, she was afraid she’d wake up and realize that the past month had all been a dream – alternately sweet and nightmarish, searingly hot at times. But the healing bullet wounds in her arm reminded her that the past few weeks had been anything but a product of her imagination, and Ryan’s touch grounded her. “So you’re sure about all of this. Really sure?”

Ryan held her gaze. “I used to have nightmares every night about Afghanistan. Dreams where I was still out in the desert, stuck in a mission that wouldn’t end until the Humvee I was riding in drove into the range of some shitty but bizarrely effective homemade bomb. And I’d know it was coming, but I wouldn’t be able to stop it.

“Other times I’d dream that I was going back to be a part of the Marine Corps again, to put my uniform back on and return to the desert to do it all over again. Part of me would be terrified and another part of me would be so fucking glad I couldn’t stand it, because maybe if I could go back I could redeem myself, be a part of something again and stop my life from coming to a standstill where all I did was hurt and wait for it all to be over. But you know what I’ve been dreaming about for the past week?”

“What?”

“You being shot. Me losing you. It all ending just after you came into my life and lit up all the dark corners, making me feel like maybe I didn’t fuck up so bad after all. Or at least, if I did, I could get over it, and there was more to life than being angry and empty and bored with the whole damn world.”

Her pulse picked up pace, each beat marking a moment that let his words sink in a little deeper.

“I dream about losing you because that’s become my worst fear, because even when I’m asleep my brain doesn’t stop trying to work out a way to keep it from happening. So yeah, I’m sure I want you to come to New York with me. I’m sure I want to live with you. I want to be with you more than I want anything, and I’m not afraid to admit it.”

She breathed a sigh, his name on the tip of her tongue. It definitely seemed that the shooting and subsequent events had emboldened him. And if he could be brave enough to say what he was really feeling, she could be brave enough to accept it. “Then I’m not afraid to go with you.” She had been, at first, but no more.