“Better make it a week, captain. A measly weekend just won’t do for me.”
“Thank the blessed gods for that, because I’m going to need lots and lots of long baths in that tub together before I’m even close to recovered from being separated from you, Cherry Girl.”
I held her close up against me and worried. I couldn’t shake the feeling of gloom that hung in the air and feared I might be losing my mind. I tried to remember that as I left for my tour this time, I was leaving England with the girl I loved waiting for me back home.
Elaina would wait for me. She’d needed the reassurance that I would always be her man, but we’d worked that out. I’d promised her there was nobody else who could take my heart away from her and I meant it with everything I had in me.
I closed my eyes and held her and prayed. I prayed that everything would play out, and fate would be kind, and my beautiful girl would be here for me when I came home.
12
Four weeks later
I woke with the weight of dread pressing on me. I’d be returning to active duty in the morning so the day was our last one together for more than ten long months of separation. The SAS might have me on a plane bound for Afghanistan within a day, but my heart would stay behind in London with Elaina.
The last twenty-four hours had been a marathon of emotional highs and lows and…sex, my need to claim her again and again a compulsion that I couldn’t hold back and couldn’t bear to deny.
“How am I going to say goodbye to you at the station in the morning?” she asked in a soft voice, her hand brushing over my chest back and forth.
“I have no idea on this earth how I’ll walk away from you. I just know that if you don’t help me out by being strong, then the SAS will have an A.W.O.L. situation on their hands.”
“That sounds very bad.” She moved her hand up to my mouth where she traced my lips with her finger.
“Absent Without Leave is very bad.”
“I finally got a letter from the International Placements office yesterday. I’d been waiting on it for a while, and there’s a place for me in Italy. I was setting up to go away as an au pair before you came home on leave. You know about how I’ve been taking Italian and French in school, right? Well, I’ve been taking the courses so I could actually speak to my host family when I got a placement—”
“No. I don’t want you to go.” I moved over her and held her face. “Please promise me you won’t go to Italy.”
“Why, Neil? It’s just a job.” Her eyes searched mine. “And I’ll be busy while you’re away, and that’ll help me pass the time. It’s going to be dreadful here without you.”
I could imagine some Italian count or wealthy playboy sweeping her away just as soon as he got a good look at her. “Ten months, my sweet beautiful girl. That’s all I ask. I’ll be home and we can go wherever you want then, bu
t please wait for me. I—I just can’t bear the idea of you not here waiting for me. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I want you here where I know you’re safe and with your family if something…happens.”
“Nothing is going to happen,” she said firmly. “Everything is going to be perfectly fine, Neil.” Then her blue eyes softened and she smiled at me. “Okay, I won’t go to Italy if it’s so important to you. I’ll find a job somewhere in the city. There must be a corporation that needs French and Italian because of international business.”
“Thank you.” I breathed out in relief before kissing my way down her body, pulling the sheet away with my teeth. The sheet peeled off, revealing her beautiful body in all its bare-skin glory.
“I need a picture of you like this to take with me,” I blurted.
Her eyes widened but then she relaxed, as if she thought about it and decided I wasn’t being a pathetic skeeve, but just a desperate bloke in love who was trying to hold onto her through any means possible.
“All right then,” she said shyly. “You can take pictures of me.”
So, I snapped some naked photos of my beautiful girl and would take them off to war with me. The pictures would help me to remember how sexy beautiful and generous she was, how she smiled and how she spoke, how she smelled like flowers and looked like a Greek goddess, when I was alone at night with only my memories…and my hand.
****
Elaina had stepped out to the shops to buy our dinner while I packed up my things. She would keep my flat organized for me and also had use of my car while I was away. I loved the idea of her being here in my place even if I wasn’t going to be here with her. It would help me to know we were together even when we weren’t.
The doorbell rang and I wondered who it could possibly be. My goodbyes had been said to anyone who mattered. My father knew I was going and had sent his regards in an email. Typical. We conversed via written text, never on telephone, and rarely in person. He usually commanded my presence to his house if he felt the desire to see me. I didn’t feel welcome in his home, so we were good.
Ian and his mum had already done a big send-off dinner for me, and I’d had the talk with him about Elaina, and how he needed to look out for her in my absence. And most importantly, keep that cocksucker, Tompkins away from her. My mates had been by to wish me off, promising pints in the pub upon my safe return.
I opened my door to find Cora standing on the other side of it and was really glad that Elaina had gone out. Seeing Cora at my flat would not make her happy. Not at all. Elaina really despised Cora and had made her feelings known from the very beginning that she was persona non grata. I got it. Tompkins was the same for me with her.
“What can I do for you, Cora?”