“I…I…I…was jealous,” I stammered.
“Of what?”
I looked down at the floor and thought about how to explain myself, and then decided that the truth was the best choice. I took a deep breath and said, “The fact that her parents obviously loved her because they were always sending her care packages and came to visit her every few weeks. I was so envious and I hated her for making me feel so unloved, so I tortured her.”
“Like I said, we all do things that we later regret,” Brian said gently. “The question is whether we learn from our mistakes and avoid repeating them.”
“Oh, I learned alright,” I whispered. “I will never forget the lesson I learned.”
“What happened?”
“We bullied her so relentlessly that she tried to kill herself in order to escape,” I said in a small voice. “She didn’t succeed, but she never came back to school. I don’t know what happened to her, but I’ve always hoped that her life got much better after her parents took her out of our nest of vipers.”
“Stop beating yourself up,” he said. “Kids do cruel things because they learn their behavior from the adults around them. Do you still treat people that badly?”
“No! I’ll never be that cruel again!” I cried.
“Then let it go,” he said. “You’re not that person anymore, so stop torturing yourself as if you were.”
“You sound like you know a lot about this kind of thing,” I observed as I looked up at him. Brian shrugged and looked out the window on the other side of the room; his eyes focused on some point far off in the distance.
“Yeah, well, the military is kind of similar to your boarding school,” he said. “Only more brutal, I think.”
“You’ve obviously never lived with high school girls,” I said with a grim grin.
“No, that’s true, I never have,” he smiled a bit. “Maybe we should recruit them into the military as stealth fighters?”
I laughed out loud at the thought of the privileged girls from my boarding school having to rough it in the Iraqi desert. The image of spoiled girls knee-deep in sand and denied their luxuries pushed my laughter into high gear, and soon I was shaking in Brian’s arms as I imagined the way they would respond to being told what to do or how to do it. Brian looked down at me with concern as my laughter morphed into tears, and then pulled me close and held me tightly as the pain leaked from my eyes.
“You’re okay, Ava,” he whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” I wept. “You really have no idea what Dominic is capable of. He’s evil, Brian. He’s really, truly evil.”
Brian reached down and placed his fingers under my chin so he could tip my face up. With his thumb, he wiped the tears from my cheek and then bent down and lightly kissed the tip of my nose.
“I promise that I will not let him ever hurt you,” he vowed in a solemn voice. “No one will ever hurt you again, Ava.”
“Don’t make promises that you can’t keep,” I fiercely whispered.
“I don’t ever make promises I can’t keep,” was his equally fierce reply.
*****
I stared up at him as I considered his promise. No one had ever promised anything like that, and I was torn between wanting to believe him and wanting to ensure that I wouldn’t be disappointed when he ultimately broke his promise. Despite his willingness to give me all the space I needed and to also be there when the space turned into a dangerous situation, I still didn’t fully trust him. If I was honest, I didn’t trust anyone; not even myself. I wanted to believe Brian when he said he’d keep me safe. I wanted to believe that he’d figure out a way to keep Dominic at bay. But most of all I wanted to believe that what we felt right here and now was real, and that I wasn’t the only one who felt it.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered as he continued to stroke my cheek with his fingertips. “I can’t look away.”
I closed my eyes and sighed as he spoke. I wanted to believe him, but good sense told me that it wasn’t possible for him to be that invested this quickly. I shook my head to clear out the negative thoughts as I felt Brian slipping his fingers into my hair and gently comb through my thick tresses as he bent forward to lightly kiss my forehead. There was something so soft and simple in his actions, and I melted a little as he slipped his hand around the back of my head and pulled me up toward him so that he could brush his lips across mine. He lightly flicked his tongue against my low
er lip as he wrapped his other arm around my waist and pulled me tightly against his broad chest.
“I can’t…” I whispered.
“Can’t what?” he breathed into my lips as his fingers played with the loose strands of hair framing my face.
“I can’t do this, Brian,” I almost moaned as he bent his head and left a trail of kisses across my neck before heading farther south.
“Yes, you can, Ava,” he encouraged as he flicked the tops of my breasts with his tongue before slipping a hand under my T-shirt and running it up the side of my body. I shivered as I felt his fingers dipping into my bra and pinching my nipples into erect points that radiated electrical impulses straight to my clit. With one hand he reached around and unhooked my bra, and I moaned softly as he quickly pulled both it and my T-shirt up over my head before bending forward to capture one nipple between his lips.