Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) (4 page)

Her hips jerked as though she’d been shocked. “Too much,” she hissed. “Too sensitive.”

I stuck out my lower lip. “But I’m not done,” I pouted.

Julia pulled herself up to a seated position. “Sit,” she instructed, patting the space beside her.

I settled down on the bed.

“Stay.”

She was awfully fond of those one-worded commands that night.

Somehow, she was able to regain her feet. She stood at the foot of the bed and stripped away the rest of her clothes, shedding her bra and the dress that had become like a cotton hula-hoop around her waist.

She stood completely naked before me. I couldn’t help but reach for her, only to be lightly swatted away.

“Your turn,” she purred.

She wrapped her fingers around my ankles and tugged, causing me to slide down the mattress. No longer in a seated position, she was able to crawl on top of me and hover above my reclined body.

Her hair fell into her eyes.

“You’re so beautiful,” I murmured. I swept a defiant lock of raven hair away from her face.

She tucked her lower lip between her top and bottom teeth. “Don’t be getting soft on me now, Marine.”

“No, ma’am,” I replied.

Her fingers hooked beneath the waistband of my underwear, and I was only too happy to lift my backside off the mattress to help her guide the undergarment off my body. The bra came next. She swept the twin straps off my shoulders and softly kissed the skin they’d been hiding.

I sucked in a sharp, surprised breath when she tugged down on my bra, not bothering to unfasten the clip in the center of my back that held the garment together. My breasts heaved almost obscenely over the tops of the push-up cups. Julia toyed with one nipple with the tip of her tongue, drawing lazy circles around and around the perimeter of the spongy nub. I groaned loudly when she finally sucked it into her mouth. Her open mouth was warm and wet and her tongue continued to rub my nipples back and forth. She captured the aching nipple between her teeth and tugged. My hands went to the back of her head, and I threaded my fingers in her dark, glossy hair.

“Please, Julia,” I pled.

She looked up at me, eyes smoldering in the dim lighting of her bedroom. “What is it, dear?”

“I need you to touch me.”

“But I
am
touching you.”

“I need you to touch me
down there
.”

She left my breasts and pressed her mouth to my hipbone. “Do you mean here?”

I squirmed beneath her tongue and teeth. “A little lower and to the left.”

She slid farther down the mattress, grabbing my left leg as she moved. She maneuvered my upper thigh so my hips fell open, exposing my center to her even more.

“Is this what you wanted?” she asked as her lips ghosted against my kneecap.

My body produced an impatient whine. “
Julia
.”

She smiled and slid her hands up my inner thighs, stopping just as her fingers reached the area where my legs met pelvic bone. Her fingertips moved in small, light circles, nearly petting me. I was swollen and wet and ready for her.

She trapped my clit between her thumb and middle finger and pinched. The pressure on my clit but nowhere else drove me crazy. Her concentrated touch felt good, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

Her fingers slid over my pubic bone, bisecting my pussy lips and entering me on the down stroke. Up and down she manipulated me, spreading my arousal from my pelvic bone to my slit. She did this over and over until I thought I might explode—but not quite. I was impossibly wet. Even in the dark room I could see my arousal coating her fingers.

A third finger joined the second, causing me to gasp from its intrusion. My body gradually adjusted to the addition, and my hips began to thrust in time with her movements. I could hear the wet slap of my sex each time her fingers penetrated me.

I moved my hips faster still. At some point she stopped moving her hand entirely, until I was fucking myself on her fingers.

“That’s it,” she murmured her approval. “Use my fingers to get yourself off.” I watched her face and her dark gaze focused on the juncture between her hand and my pussy. “Make yourself cum, Cassidy. But know that it’s
my
fingers bringing you so much pleasure.”

My wanton desire—the intensity of my need—was a little embarrassing, but she didn’t taunt me by uselessly pointing out how badly I wanted to cum.

Sweat beaded on my brow. I could feel the faint trickle of sweat on my flexing abdomen. My body began to produce quiet grunts of exertion.

“Keep fucking yourself,” she rasped. “If you want to cum, don’t stop.”

I didn’t stop.

We lay naked in bed, partially covered by the bed sheets. Julia sat upright with her back resting on the padded headboard while I reclined beside her on my stomach, a little farther down on the mattress.

I traced a lazy finger around the perimeter of her bellybutton. “Promise me something?”

She rolled a lock of my hair between her fingers. “What’s that, dear?”

“Promise me this won’t ever change.”

The fingers in my hair stilled. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific.”

I pressed my chin to my breastbone so my hair fell in front of my eyes like a curtain. “The sex. Don’t … don’t …”

“Use your words,” Julia prodded.

I took a deep breath. “Don’t take it easy on me.”

A meticulously groomed eyebrow arched on her unlined forehead. “Is that so?”

“You know, because it’s already mind-blowing,” I rushed out in embarrassment. “And if it’s not broken, why fix it?”

She made a noise, but kept any additional comments to herself.

Her fingers traveled to my naked back where she traced along the long lines of my war wounds—the visible ones, at least. “Is this okay?” she asked.

Besides medical doctors, Julia had been the only one to ever touch my scars.

“Uh huh.”

“Does it feel strange?”

“A little,” I confirmed. “It’s like I’ve got bandages in the area surrounding the scars. The skin feels pulled tight, and yet I can’t really feel much of anything.”

“I’ll stop if you don’t like it,” she offered.

“I always want you touching me.”

+ + +

Afghanistan, 2012

We’re sitting in the rubble of what used to be the kitchen in our safe house. Everything is caked in a thick layer of concrete dust and sand. Bright blue sky has taken the place of the ceiling.

I don’t know where the buzzing sound is coming from. The I.E.D. blast left my radio intact, but there’s no reception, no messages coming in, which means no messages going out.

Over the past few days, Pensacola’s wounds have started to emit a rancid smell. We don’t talk about it. His eyes are closed, and he quietly groans while he sleeps.

Amir’s awake though. He’s always awake. He smiles his sickly sweet grin. He speaks to me in his native tongue. I’m not fluent, but I’ve spent enough time in country that I can understand the gist of his message:
You’re going to die out here. You’ll never see your family again. I’m ready to greet Allah. Are you?

I wipe at my eyes. They’re sunburned and sting from sand and grime. It’s certainly not from emotion.

+ + +

Julia stirred beside. With some difficulty, I raised my head from the pillow just in time to see her roll out of bed. I must not have moved all night as I slept. My neck was stiff and my left arm was asleep. The buzzing noise from my dream had bled into the morning
.

“Wassthat?” I mumbled. It was only my imagination, but the salty, dirty taste of sand was in my mouth.

She slipped into a short silk robe and cinched the fabric belt around her waist. “Breakfast.”

I rubbed at my eyes. If I had had a better grasp of the situation, I would have protested her answering the door in such minimal clothing, but my thoughts were still on the dream from which I’d just awoken.

I heard voices coming from the front of the apartment. I recognized Julia’s low, melodic tone, but the second voice belonged to a stranger.

I didn’t have the luxury of slipping into pajamas. All I had were the clothes from the previous day. There was an extra robe suspended on a hook on the back of Julia’s closet door. I pushed my arms through the armholes and tied the sash tight at my waist. The robe was slightly longer than the one Julia had put on, but the elegant covering was too fancy for my style. Unfortunately, Julia didn’t own flannel or terrycloth.

The voices in the front of the apartment had ceased by the time I left the back bedroom in search of Julia. I found her in the heart of the apartment. Her kitchen was large for a one-bedroom living space, but I knew she loved to cook, so its size had probably been a big draw. Connected to the kitchen space was a breakfast nook, half of a hexagon with floor-to-ceiling windows, just large enough for chairs and a table for two.

“What’s all this?” I asked, surveying the spread.

A little wheeled cart was piled high with breakfast foods. There was two of everything. Two hard-boiled eggs. Two English muffins smothered in jam. Two coffee cups. Two bowls of vanilla yogurt and granola.

“Room service.”

My eyes narrowed in confusion. “Room service in an apartment?”

“It’s a condo,” she corrected. “But it has many services similar to a hotel—valet parking, concierge, meal delivery,” she listed off. “My monthly HOA fees are nearly the same as my mortgage payment.”

“And here I thought I was fancy because my apartment has a doorman,” I remarked.

“Sit,” she instructed. “Eat.”

Not having to be told twice, I sat in one of the chairs in the breakfast nook and grabbed an English muffin from the tray. She would probably censure me or at least roll her eyes, but I ate half of it in one big bite.

Julia picked up a white teakettle from the serving cart and poured black coffee into two porcelain cups. “How did you sleep?”

“Like the dead.”

She set one of the cups and its saucer in front of me. “Did you have any dreams?” The question should have been innocent—normal morning conversation—but with us, the question was heavily weighted.

I chewed on my lower lip. I didn’t want her to worry about me, but I couldn’t lie. “Yes.”

Her shoulders went rigid. “Scantily-clad women fawning over you, I hope.”

“No such luck.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently.

“I’m okay,” I insisted. And I was. I’d had far worse nightmares. “Nothing happened. We were just in the desert.”

“I worried I might make you dream.”

“What? How?”

“I called you ‘Marine’ last night. Only afterwards did I realize that might not have been a smart decision.”

“The dreams happen, Julia, with or without you,” I shrugged. “You make it better though.”

“Do I?”

“When I get to wake up beside you, yeah.”

She brought her coffee cup to her mouth. Her lipstick was mostly rubbed off, but her lips were still a pleasant pink color even without the extra paint. The morning sun shone through the windows of her breakfast nook. The bright rays reflected off her hair, making it look almost iridescent. It reminded me of the feathers on a raven or a crow, but I kept those thoughts to myself. I doubted Julia would consider a comparison to a bird to be a compliment.

“God, you’re beautiful,” I marveled. I hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but my mouth always seemed to be one step ahead of my brain.

Her head dipped, and she ran her hand through her hair. “I’m a mess.”

“The most beautiful mess I’ve ever seen,” I remarked in earnest.

CHAPTER THREE

Afghanistan, 2006

I’m not in Kansas anymore, or in St. Cloud, Minnesota for that matter. The first thing that alerts me to this is the sound of rapid foreign tongue all around me. It’s oppressive, like the heat of the day, and it gives me a claustrophobic sensation as if I’m being choked out. I took language classes during boot camp, but I can’t identify a single word from this incessant stream of indistinguishable sounds. Everyone speaks too quickly for my rudimentary understanding of the language to be of any assistance. Hell, they might not even be speaking Farsi.

My unit is in Farah City, a small city in western Afghanistan. It doesn’t resemble any city I’ve ever been to. The whole world seems to have lost its color and I’ve been transported to a sepia-toned land. Everything is monochromatic—the earth, the buildings, the people—even the sky when a sandstorm blows through. We’ve been in country for a few days now, but my transport from the States to the Forward Operating Base in Farah has been a whirlwind of activity and disorientation. Getting into Afghanistan was harder than I imagined. My company boarded a Boeing C-17, the biggest airplane I’d ever seen. We couldn’t fly directly into Afghanistan, so we took a detour into the Manas airbase outside of Biskek in the neighboring country of Kyrgyzstan before continuing onto our final destination.