“Cuddle?” My sweaty skin still red and tingling with pleasure, I began to kiss my way down his chest, intent on sucking his softening cock into my mouth to make it hard again. “What kind of girls have you been dating?”
“The wrong ones,” he said, threading his fingers into my hair. “Obviously.”
My heart swelled a little at his answer. After so many years of thinking he hated me, I hadn’t realized what a great guy he was behind the wall he’d put between us. Now that the wall was down, I wanted to keep it down. I wanted to smash it down.
Which is why—I think—after licking his cock and balls clean with the flat of my tongue, I tried to engulf his shaft in my mouth in one stroke. And that was a mistake. Because I was nearly blinded by the crack of pain I felt in my sore jaw when I opened wide to take him.
I’m not sure if I yelped, or screeched or moaned or all three. But Jake seemed to know exactly what had happened as he reached down for me, and it was a stark reminder of just how we’d got to this place. “Motherfucker,” Jake said, bitterly. I didn’t think it was just because blow jobs were temporarily out of the question. “You do realize that the reason I wanted you to go to the cops was so that I wouldn’t have to break this guy’s face, right?”
Uh. No. That had really never occurred to me. “You don’t seem like the face-breaking type. At least not outside of the boxing ring.”
He snorted, as if I didn’t know the first thing about him. “I’m supposed to protect you, Nicole. I’m your…”
I think he was going to say stepbrother.
I didn’t want him to say that—desperately didn’t want him to say that—so I quickly filled in, “Lover?” It sounded kind of old-fashioned, and vaguely European. But I couldn’t think of a better word.
And it worried me when he didn’t reply.
“Can I get you something for your jaw?” he finally asked. “Some aspirin or some more frozen vegetables to hold against it or something? I think there are some carrots in the freezer still.”
Oh, he was retreating. I could feel it. He was retreating from me again, and I just couldn’t let that happen. Not given the way I felt or the way he just made me feel. I was only a kid in high school the first time he pulled away from me. But I was twice as strong as he thought I was, maybe even stronger than I knew, and I wasn’t letting him go without a fight this time. “No, Jake. I don’t need aspirin. I don’t need frozen carrots. I need to know what you meant when you said you hadn’t felt anything since the war and that you weren’t sure you could feel anything.”
Jake’s eyes dropped away, but I rested my head on his belly, staring up at him, making it clear that he was either going to have to answer me or push me away with his bare hands. Otherwise, I wasn’t going.
“I can’t…I can’t explain it really.”
“Try,” I said, holding his hand.
He made a little sound of disgust, then finally gave in, speaking in clipped tones, revealing as little as possible. “After tromping around in sand waiting for an IED to explode, I just felt. I dunno. Detached. Numb. Food isn’t even right. It’s like I can’t taste anything.”
The food thing was interesting. “But you liked my potatoes.”
He met my eyes. “I like everything
about you, Nicole. I came home because it was the last place I remember feeling stuff strongly. But now I think maybe it wasn’t the place, but the girl. I’m not feeling numb right now. Not with you. Nobody could ever feel numb with you. You always turn up the voltage all the way. And now I feel anything but numb.”
My heart squeezed in my chest, and I brought his hand to my lips to kiss. “Me neither. Not numb. And not miserable. And not wishing for more drama or whatever. Just happy, which is weird.”
“Happy isn’t weird.”
“Sounds like it might be, for us. I think we might be pretty fucked up…”
He laughed, darkly. But at least it was a laugh. “You think?”
“Maybe we should get some help for it.”
He stopped laughing. “Like what?”
“The army pays for counseling, right? I mean, I’m flattered that I can make you feel stuff. More than flattered. I’m kind of dying of joy to hear that, and terrified that you’re going to make me fall in love with you and break my heart.” Oh god, why did I say that? Hoping he’d forget I ever uttered such a thing, I rushed forward with, “But it sounds like there might be more going on in there than really hot sex or romance or whatever we’re doing can cure.”
Jake was quiet a long time.
Then he said, “Fuck.”
“It’s not a bad thing,” I chirped, worried that I’d pushed things way too far. “I’m not trying to say—”
“I know what you’re trying to say,” Jake interrupted. “You’re giving good, sensible, responsible advice. Which is my thing, not yours.”
I grinned, relieved. “Maybe we’re rubbing off on one another.”
His eyes narrowed lustfully, and he trailed a hand down my breast to cup it. My breasts really loved that. And also loved when he said, “Maybe we should do a little bit more rubbing off on each other…”
It was tempting to get distracted by him and call a halt to this awkward conversation. More than tempting. I wanted almost nothing more than to climb on top of him and ride him until we were both screaming. But when someone cares about you, and you care about them, you do the hard stuff. You don’t lose control. You find it. That’s what I was learning.