Hallowed Ground (16 page)

“Do you trust me?” I asked, my breath choppy. Hell, I was amazed I could still hold a thought.

“With my life,” she answered.

“Then trust me with mine,” I pled and guided her to straddle me. “Because I don’t think I’ll survive if I can’t bury myself inside you right now.”

With a knee on either side of my hips, she kissed me, careful not to press against my chest. I reached between us, reveling in how wet she was, how ready. Then I lined us up and moved my hand to the curve of her ass. We had inches to spare; if we weren’t careful, she’d hit the wound on my thigh, but damn, it would be worth it.

“Birth control?” I asked, mentally high-fiving myself.

“Never stopped,” she promised and lowered herself inch by flawless inch, taking me inside the perfection of her body until I was completely enveloped by her. “Welcome home,” she whispered.

She was everything and everywhere, surrounding me, her soft skin in my hands, her taste still lingering on my tongue. She started to move, gently at first, testing our limits, and it was all I could do not to come, to surrender to the overwhelming need for release that screamed through my body, because I needed this to last.

“I love you,” she whispered against my mouth, kissing me deeply. “God, I missed this. I missed you.”

“I love you,” I promised, then angled for a deeper kiss, needing every part of me tangled in her. Her soul bathed me in love, her kiss intoxicated every sense, and the movement of her hips, the glide of me deep within her began to bury my demons.

Here was my salvation.

December was my saving grace.

Over and over she slid down on me, only to lift just before she took me too deep. But deep was where she loved it, where she lost her head, and I needed her to forget, to be just as lost as I was.

I snapped my hips into her, and she gasped. When she nearly bumped my shoulder, she bit her lip and leaned back instead, bracing her weight on her arms against the coffee table. The angle put every detail of her body on display, from the bounce in her breasts to the tiny, glistening beads of sweat on her skin. Damn. She was…exquisite.

Fuck the burning in my thigh. I pushed it away and instead concentrated on slamming my hips against hers, hitting her inside where I knew she needed it. She responded, clenching around me, our bodies falling into rhythm like we hadn’t been apart these last few months.

Her sigh turned to a groan, which grew to that sexy keening sound she made when she got close. Letting go of her ass, I used my fingers to stroke her clit, rubbing in time with my thrusts, barely holding onto the small shred of control I had left. I needed her to come around me, needed to feel her fall apart so she could hold me together.

With a cry, she came, shuddering over me. Uncaring of the damage I might cause, I dropped my arm and pulled her against my chest, taking her gasps as if they were oxygen and I was drowning.

I needed her close. “Closer,” I moaned.

She looped her arms around my neck, holding onto the back of my head as she rode me, kissed me, rocked back into every thrust.

The pressure hit at my lower spine, and I knew I was done. “I love you,” I swore as I held her against me, calling out her name as my orgasm ripped through me. The release was overwhelming, draining the last of what energy I thought I had, and we laid there for a few minutes, her head tucked under my chin. God, I was never going to move.

Unfortunately she did, kissing me gently before heading to clean up, then helping me out in that department on her return. I grimaced at the rending pain in my thigh as I got my boxers back on.

“Did you tear something?” she asked, dropping to her knees.

“If I did, it was so damn worth it.” I grinned, unable to contain how good I felt, or the peace that coursed through me.

She arched an eyebrow. “You’re going to be a difficult patient, aren’t you?”

“You could climb back on, and I’ll show you how difficult,” I suggested.

She shook her head and laughed, the sound healing me like another tiny stitch across the gaping canyon that had formed in the last week. “Let’s get you in the tub.”

We made it to the tub, and finally to bed, exhaustion conquering me. I took the pain pills Ember handed me and put the water back on the nightstand. She propped pillows around my shoulder and then snuggled into my other side, her head fitting exactly where she was meant to.

I was home. I would marry the woman who owned my soul.

I had lived.

Carter and Trivette had died.

My eyes snapped open in the darkness, Ember’s breathing already steady and deep next to me. I turned and kissed her forehead. Rizzo’s words bounced around my head, unwelcome and unavoidable. “I’ll make this life worth it to you, Ember. I swear.”

The pills knocked me out, but they couldn’t stop the dreams, the nightmares I’d grown accustomed to over the years, which had returned with vehemence since before the deployment.

I wasn’t sure anything would ever stop them again.

Chapter Eighteen

Ember

His gasp woke me.

I blinked, begging my eyes to focus on the hazy glare of the alarm clock that read 2:45 a.m. Before I could turn, I heard his arms sweep over the covers between us. I’d moved as soon as his breathing had evened out, scared that I’d accidentally bump the laceration on his thigh or the incision on his chest in my sleep.

“Ember?” he asked, his voice panicked, his breaths quick.

“Here,” I said softly, rolling on my side to face him. I caught his hand and set it to my cheek. “I’m here, Josh.”

His sigh of relief broke my heart wide open. What had he been dreaming of? The deployment? The crash? How long did I wait before I asked him what happened? Was he going to want to tell me? Should I even ask?

Damn it, I had no idea what to do, how far—if at all—to push.

He tugged gently, and I shifted closer, pressing against his side. “Do you need anything? Water? Meds?”

He shook his head and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Just you.”

“Nightmare?”

He nodded slowly, his chin rubbing the top of my head.

“Do you want to talk about it?”
Please talk about it.

“No.” His answer was whispered but curt.

“Okay.” I pressed closer, laying my hand just above his incision to feel his heart beat against his naked skin. Even with everything that had happened, my soul burned with gratitude that he was here. “But when you’re ready, I’m here.”

He swallowed, then nodded.

After the third time I woke to his panicked, searching hands, I stopped trying to give him space and slept closer.

After lunch the next day, as we were preparing to leave for Fort Campbell, Grayson called from Dover. Josh’s eyes had gone dead by the time he hung up the phone.

“Everything okay?” I asked, putting his noon meds in front of him.

“He’s got Carter,” he answered quietly. “Grayson will stay with him until he’s ready, and then he’ll take him to West Point for the funeral. Did Paisley get with Carter’s mom?”

“Yeah. Funeral is next Friday.”

“Morgan?”

“Sam flew to Alabama the day after her last final. She’s with her.”

His eyes squeezed shut, and my heart clenched. “Okay. Do we fly? Drive? Fuck this leg.”

“Jagger’s dad is sending a plane—no, don’t argue—it’s not like Jagger can get around easily in a wheelchair, and you would hate flying commercially with your leg, or being stuck in a car for fourteen hours.”

“Hotel?”

“Reservations made.”

“Captain Trivette? Do you know anything about her?” His eyes focused on his plate.

“Yeah. Hers is here, a few days before. We can make both.” It had only taken a quick call to Carol, the kind wife from the FRG, to get the details.

He nodded and looked up slowly. “You took care of everything.”

“That’s my job. I take care of you,” I answered with a smile.
In every way that I know how.

He squeezed my hand and gave me a look that melted me. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” I answered, as if that were reason enough for anything. Because it was.

His eyes dropped to my ring and lost a little of their life. “Listen, about what happened in Germany.”

I tensed. “The whole non-wedding thing?”

“Yeah. I hope you know that I want to marry you. I just didn’t want those circumstances. I didn’t want that to be our story. Our wedding day should be about you and me and our forever, not some rush job in a foreign country without our family. Not because you felt forced.”

“I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me.” It mattered when he’d said no.

He took my hand, his thumb grazing the diamond on my engagement ring. “It would have, eventually. This…moment—what we’re going through—it’s just a blip in our lives, something we’ll always remember but won’t dwell on. I didn’t want our wedding memories to be tangled up in that. Please tell me you understand.”

I came out of my chair and kissed his forehead, lingering for just a second to breathe him in. I was so lucky, so blessed to have him here. “I understand,” I whispered, then cleared our plates.

It wasn’t until after the dishes were done that I realized he hadn’t taken the pain medication.

“You ready?” he asked from the living room, dressed in a pair of basketball shorts and Under Armour shirt.

“You didn’t take your meds?” I asked, holding them in my palm.

He shook his head with a smile I knew he was faking, but I let it slide. “I’m fine. Besides, I’ve seen what they do to some guys, and I’d rather deal with the pain now than the withdrawals later. I’m fine. Seriously.”

I’m fine.
It was his damn mantra.

“Okay,” I said too quickly and then pocketed the bottle in my purse. If he changed his mind later, I’d have them.

“Ready?” he asked, standing in his PTs, using one crutch to keep the weight off his leg.

“Maybe we should get you a wheelchair,” I suggested, grabbing my keys and purse.

“No.”

“It would help keep the weight off that leg.”

He made his way to the porch. “No. Final answer.”

I totally mocked his manliness behind his back as I locked the door. “You’re far too stubborn.” Turning, I saw him perched at the edge of the steps with a wry smile.

“I know my limits.” His eyes shot skyward. “Sometimes.”

I became his crutch to get him down the steps.

“Oh man, I want to take my Jeep,” he said wistfully, looking at the closed garage where I kept her.

“As soon as you can bear weight, babe. Until then, it’s car city.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he moped, folding himself carefully into the passenger seat of my car. I’d pushed back the seat as far as it would go before getting him the night before.

“Okay, full schedule,” I said as we pulled out of the Starbucks drive-through, two white mochas in hand. Caffeine was a biological necessity to get through Josh’s afternoon. “Where do we start?”

“Airfield. They want me to meet with ASDAT.” His voice went flat.

“In English?”

“Aircraft Shoot Down Assessment Team.”

My hands tightened on the steering wheel, and my breath stuttered. “Because you were shot down?” I tried my best to keep my voice even.

The incident is under investigation.
That’s all they’d told us.

“Yes.”

My eyes darted from the road to where he stared out the window. “And…” I swallowed and pushed past the boulder in my throat. “…and Will was with you?”

He didn’t move a single muscle except the one in his jaw. “Yes.”

We pulled up to the gate and I handed the guard our IDs. He scanned both, handed them back, and waved us through. My mind reeled as I drove, questions firing faster than I could even process them, knowing I shouldn’t ask. I should wait until he told me.
But what if he never does?
“And Jagger’s aircraft?”

We parked in front of the battalion building, but Josh didn’t move.

“Josh?”

He looked in my direction, but not at me. “Jagger was shot down. We responded and were shot down, too. Carter survived the crash—” He swallowed, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath as his fist clenched the seat. “I can only go through this once right now. I just…can’t.”

I reached across the e-brake and squeezed his hand. “Okay.”

You pushed too hard.

Once we entered the building, my Josh disappeared and Lieutenant Walker took over. He gave me a nod and disappeared into a room, the door closing behind him. Soldiers led me to an empty conference room across the hall.

I set my coffee down and pulled out my GRE study booklet and iPad. If I was going to be stuck here for hours, I may as well get some work done.

An hour later, I was bored to tears, my eyes crossing. I hadn’t tried to cram this much useless knowledge into my brain since SAT prep, and that had been years ago.

You’re the one who wanted a doctorate.

In anthropology. Was I insane? I could teach while writing. Teaching was mobile, so I could move with Josh’s career, but not successfully at the collegiate level.
Are you really going to determine your career, your dreams by Josh’s?

I wanted to flick the devil off my shoulder. Of course I was going to take Josh’s career into consideration. That’s what marriage was, right? I knew he’d said he’d get out when his obligation was over, but lately he’d been hinting at doing a full twenty, just like when I’d first asked him over two years ago.

You’re commissioning. You’re going career.

Yes. That’s my plan.

But when he’d realized that it would cost him our relationship, he’d sworn that it would just be the obligation from his ROTC scholarship—that he’d get out when it was over.

I’ll resign…

I would never be responsible for you turning your back on this. I know what it means to you, what you feel your responsibility is. I won’t ever be the one who holds you down.

But what did that all mean now? Now that he was under even more years of obligation from flight school? Now that I’d adjusted to this life? Now that he’d been wounded? Seen his friends killed…again?

My cell phone rang, thankfully saving me from the downward spiral of my thoughts. Sam’s face flashed across the screen.

“Hey,” I answered.

“You sound exhausted,” she said, her voice just as weary.

“You can guess that from one word?”

“I can. How’s it going there?”

I stared at the door like I could see through it. “He’s in with the assessment team.”

“Yeah, Grayson said they’d have questions for him. Is he talking about it yet?”

“Not to me.”
Shit, that came out bitchy.

“Whoa, tell me how you really feel.”

I tapped my pencil on the glass topper of the table. “I have no clue what the hell I’m doing. He’s not talking, he has nightmares, and his favorite phrase is ‘I’m fine.’”

She sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“I know it’s wrong, but I almost wish I was allowed in that room, like I can’t help him if I don’t know what happened. I feel like there’s this chapter of him I don’t get access to, and it stings. I know it shouldn’t. I know he’ll talk in his own time, but I barely know what happened the first deployment. He never talks about it. And this one… God, Sam, what am I going to do if he shuts me out?”

“I can’t imagine, Ember. Just remember that he loves you, and give him some time. It’s only been a few days.”

“You’re right. I know that logically. Emotionally, well, I’m not the most rational over here.” A self-deprecating laugh slipped free.

“You have every reason to be upset. For Josh, for Jagger, for Will, and for you. I know he’s hurt. I know what he just went through is unspeakable, but this…it happened to you, too. You get to have whatever feelings you’re having. I wish I knew how to help you.”

“Me, too. I just want him to be okay.”

“I know. When do Jagger and Paisley get home?”

“Her email said tomorrow.”

“Good. You’ll have each other.”

“How is Morgan?”

Her sigh told me all I needed to know. “Breathing. Crying one minute, silent the next, mad as hell ten minutes later.”

“I’m glad you’re there with her.”

“Me, too. It almost feels like I never left, but everything is different without you guys here.” Her voice cut out for a second. “Oh, that’s Grayson. Call me if you need me, okay?”

“I will. Love you, Sam.”

“Love you, Ember.”

We hung up and I went back to studying. Another hour later the door opened, and Josh stuck his head through. He looked even paler than he had this morning, which was saying something. He was heading into Casper territory. “Hey, babe,” I said.

“You ready? We’re all finished.” His eyes looked flat, like whatever had transpired in that room had sucked the life out of them.

“Yeah.” I gathered up my things and dropped them into my messenger bag. “Where to next?” I asked him as we walked out slowly.

“Blanchfield,” he responded. The military hospital. Of course—he needed to check in with the doctors.

The hospital was huge. There was no way he was going to one-crutch it and come out the other side with a functioning left arm. It took several minutes of begging and the promise of sexual favors, but he let me put him into a wheelchair to the clinic.

“Besides,” I said, flipping through a magazine as we waited in an exam room. “It kept your leg elevated, right?”

He gave me a healthy dose of side-eye from the exam table, his leg stretched out on the paper liner. “It’s a good thing I love you.”

I blew him a kiss. “You look sexy in PT shorts.”

There was a knock at the door and a cursory pause before it opened. “Lieutenant Walker,” the flight surgeon said, glancing over his chart.

After introductions, Dr. Ortiz got right down to the exam, keeping it focused on his injuries and not how he’d received them. I did my best to keep my eyes off the sculpted lines of his chest and abs when he removed his shirt. I failed. Miserably.

After the exam, Dr. Ortiz sat on her stool to face us. “Laceration on your thigh looks good. No infection, and not swelling too badly. You need to keep off it for another week.”

“Staples?” Josh asked like a kindergartener.

She rolled forward, looking over the wound. “Another four days, and then I’ll take them out. How does that sound?”

“Like four days too long,” he answered.

She rolled her eyes in my direction. “He always like this?”

“Worse,” I answered. “He hasn’t asked you about getting on the ice.”

“Skating?”

His eyes lit up. “Soon?”

“Maybe once that cast is off your arm, Lieutenant.” Man, this woman had the mom look down pat.

“How long will that be?” I asked, putting the notes into my cell phone.

“Another five to six weeks, if I had to guess. We’ll get you in for an X-ray with ortho next week and see how it’s healing.” She jotted more notes in his chart. “Splenectomy incision looks good, too, healing remarkably fast.”

“Good nursing care,” Josh said with a smile, and gave me a wink.

Dr. Ortiz laughed. “Looks like it. He giving you trouble?” she asked me.