12. Ellie
12
ELLIE
At some point in the middle of the night, I rolled over and looked at my phone to see it was just after midnight. I wasn’t sure why I’d woken up, but I figured I might as well get up to pee since my body would likely wake me up soon to do it anyway.
As I was exiting the bed, I heard a noise. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. It sounded like a strangled groan, and then it got louder. I opened the bedroom door slowly and heard the noise again, louder this time, and realized it was coming from my living room. Knowing Wade was out there, I went over to make sure he was okay.
When I got closer, I realized he was still sleeping, but obviously having a dream – or from the sound of it, probably a nightmare. He started to jostle around quite a bit on the couch and started moaning louder. Then he started to whimper like he was in pain. I felt terrible and wanted to wake him but wasn’t sure what to do.
My brother had nightmares sometimes when he was home on leave and he stayed with Gran and me, but I wasn’t sure how Wade would react if I woke him. Just then, he swung his arm up high like he was swatting at something, and I realized if I didn’t wake him, he would fall off the couch that he was already perilously half off of now. I decided to approach slowly and call to him quietly to try to wake him.
He didn’t react the first time, so I moved closer. Crouching down next to the couch, put my hand on his shoulder and tried to shake him slightly to wake him.
It all happened so fast. One minute I was beside him, and the next he rolled off the couch in a swift calculated move and had me pinned to the ground with my hands above my head. He was straddled on top of me at the waist and breathing heavily as he pushed down on my hands to pin me in place.
“Ellie?” he gasped as he breathed heavily like he’d just run a marathon. “ Shit ! What are you doing? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” he asked as he quickly moved off me and helped me up.
“Where does it hurt? Did I punch you? Where did I hit you?” He asked the rapid-fire questions as he looked over my arms and face, sliding his hands gently over my skin as though he was looking for injuries.
I grabbed his wrists quickly and stopped him.
“Wade, stop. You didn’t hurt me,” I rushed to reassure him. “ I’m okay. I was just startled.”
He let me go and sat back on the couch with his elbows on his knees and hands on his forehead, cupping the sides of his head. He was still breathing a little heavy as he scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Sorry. You were having a nightmare, and I was trying to wake you,” I explained quietly since he seemed very upset. “ I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” he asked, clearly perplexed, as his brows furrowed. “ I just pinned you to the ground with all my weight because I thought you were attacking me, and you’re asking if I’m okay? Christ , I just threw you around and could have injured you. Your ribs likely aren’t fully recovered yet, and I almost broke you all over again. God , I’m so sorry.”
I understood why he felt bad about pinning me down, and even that he was concerned about my ribs, but what confused me was his automatic assumption that he would injure me on purpose.
“Wade,” I said, but his face was now buried back in his hands, and he didn’t look up. I called his name again as I reached for his wrists to remove his hands so I could see his face.
“Why did you automatically assume that you hurt me?” I asked.
He looked at me, but the mask on his face hid any kind of emotion.
“Wade, your apology wasn’t for accidentally falling on me,” I cautiously pressed. “ You apologized as though it was a foregone conclusion that you injured me. Do you think I would assume that because of Randall ?”
He stared at me for a few beats before sighing deeply and running his right hand through his hair. Then he looked back at me and started to explain about a woman named Candace , the nightmares, and the injuries he’d caused her.
Conversations I’d had with Tammy as well as comments his sister had made earlier today at his parents’ house started to come back to me.
“So, you and my brother huh?” Wade’s sister Whitney asked me, winking with a smile on her face.
“Oh no, we work together at the pub, and he served with my brother Jack , who’s going into the security business with him,” I told her with a smile.
“But he brought you to our family lunch, so it’s clearly more,” Willa said, and I could tell she was fishing. She was way off though, so I tried to explain to her.
“I’m not looking for a relationship right now, and Wade only sees me as his best friend’s little sister,” I told her.
She looked at me for a minute as the smile on her face grew impossibly bigger.
“Honey, any time you are within seeing distance, he can’t take his eyes off you, and just saying, but he hasn’t brought a girl home ever,” she started to say and then looked toward Whitney . “ He’s too afraid to do a relationship after that bitch Candace .”
There was so much to unpack in that comment that I wanted to know more about but didn’t have a right to ask. Instead , I just tried to wave off the significance of him bringing me, since I knew the only reason he’d brought me was because of what happened at the pub yesterday, but I didn’t want to have to explain that to his sister.
“God, Ellie I’m sorry.” Wade’s words startled me back into the here and now. “ Next time just let me have my nightmare but don’t come near me to wake me, okay,” he said, and I realized I hadn’t reacted to anything he said while I went back to the conversation with his sister the day before.
He’d probably mistaken my silence for being upset with him or even agreeing with him.
“Is this why you don’t date anyone?” I asked. He stared at me in confusion for a brief second before I explained. “ Your sisters told me as much.”
He huffed and rolled his eyes but brought them right back to me with such seriousness.
“My sisters meddle where they shouldn’t, but yes, Candace made me realize that I can’t do attachments, not until I get the nightmares under control,” he said.
“Are you seeing someone about that?” I pressed, knowing that some people who had served didn’t want to admit they had PTSD or see a therapist because they didn’t believe it would help.
“Yeah,” he said. “ I’d like to be able to help my sister out with her kids sometimes, but I’m too afraid to fall asleep and have a nightmare around them right now.”
As soon as he said it, he looked away, as though he didn’t really want me to know that part but it just kind of slipped out. I look at him and realized he was such a good man but was so afraid that his nightmares made him into a monster.
“Your ribs likely aren’t fully recovered yet and I almost broke you all over again. God , I’m so sorry.” That’s what he’d said to me just a few minutes ago.
It occurred to me he was comparing pinning me down on the ground just now to what Randall did to me over a month before. He looked so distraught over it, I knew I needed to set him straight and make him realize the two were not the same.
“Wade, look at me,” I said as sternly as I could to make sure I had his attention. “ What Randall did to me was on purpose. He did that with the sole intention of hurting me. What you did to your ex, and what happened just now, was an accident and out of your control.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted. “ I still could have hurt you, and I did hurt her. I’m a soldier, Ellie . Even when I’m asleep, my body is trained for combat, so when I fight, that response is fight to kill.”
I heard what he was saying, but I needed him to understand that there was a difference.
“I get that, but I also disagree,” I emphasized. “ The intention of the act absolutely does matter.”
He looked away from me like he disagreed, but also didn’t want to keep discussing this.
Looking at him, I realized he was everything I had ever hoped for in a boyfriend. Sexy , kind, protective, and smart. The kind of man I had always imagined. But he was never going to open himself up again—too afraid of hurting someone else.
He saw himself as damaged goods. I understood that. I felt that while I was with Randall and even after I left him.
Thanks to Katie , and even Tammy and Wade eventually, I found that other people saw me differently. They saw the good in me, even when I couldn’t see it myself. I wanted to be that for Wade . I wanted to make him realize what a good person he was, despite his PTSD . I also wanted to show him that I wasn’t scared of him and that I wasn’t scared to be with him. I knew I had to be the one to initiate it, though, because he never would.
I lifted myself from sitting on the floor to up on my knees and crept closer to him, where he was sitting on the couch with his elbows still on his knees. His hands were on either side of his face as he looked down, and his legs were spread shoulder-width apart. He looked up at me and tracked me as I got closer. I moved to position myself between his legs, my face just a few inches from his. I looked at his mouth briefly and licked my lips, remembering what he tasted like, and then looked up at his eyes to see heat in them, but also concern.
“Ellie,” he said in a low growl as he lifted his elbows off his knees and put his arms on the edge of the couch.
It was definitely a warning, but the way he growled my name like that, I felt that deep in my core. I knew what I wanted, and in that moment, I was going to make it happen. In part because I was selfish, and also because I wanted him to see that I knew he wasn’t a monster and I wasn’t afraid of him.
I put my hands on his knees and moved my face to within an inch of his, staring into his eyes.
My heart raced, and I felt my breath pick up as I focused on him—really seeing him. He wasn’t perfect, but neither was I , not by a long shot. Looking into his gorgeous milk chocolate eyes, I saw something beyond the hesitations, the uncertainties. Beneath it all, he was a good man. A man who cared deeply about his friends and family, was a hard worker, a protector, and carried the potential for something great.
I took a breath, my mind made up. I was taking the next step, and if he wasn’t quite there yet, that was okay. I was ready for the both of us. And maybe, just maybe, we could help each other heal.
I leaned forward slowly to at least give him a little warning and put my mouth to his. At first it was me kissing him, and after a few seconds of him sitting there frozen, I started to second-guess my decision. In the next instant, his hands were on either side of my face, thumbs along my cheeks and other fingers in my hair, and he was pulling my face, angling it to the side, and then he took over the kiss. He took full control. His tongue was now in the mix, and he tasted fantastic. I could get drunk off his taste.
I started to move my hands from the top of his knees back down his thighs so I could get closer to him. Wade had other plans because suddenly his hands were under my arms, and I was lifted off the ground and onto his lap. My nightgown rode up, so the bottom hem was bunched up at my sides and all that separated me from Wade was my thin layer of underwear.
He sat back onto the couch, looking up at me for a moment as if he were trying to soak me in and save it in his memory while simultaneously fighting with himself about what to do next. I licked my lips, tasting him on me.
“Screw it,” he mumbled and then pulled my face down to his and started kissing me again. My stomach fluttered as I became dizzy from his kiss. God , what this man did to me. I felt spasms between my legs, and my body moved of its own volition as I rolled my hips forward and felt his length beneath me. It rubbed against all the right places, and I heard a moan come from my mouth at the same time his kiss became more intense. My brain started to short-circuit as his mouth roamed from my lips down to my neck and collarbone. His beard roughly moving across my neck both tickled and felt amazing. His hands moved to my hips and pulled me closer to him, pressing me down into his hips.
“Wade,” I moaned as he thrust his hips upward hitting me in just the right spot, and I could feel my orgasm building.
His hands moved up my sides, and before I knew it, my nightie was gone. His mouth was on my nipple a moment later. My panties were soaked, and I was pretty sure my wetness was now making a spot on his shorts.
“God, Ellie , you are gorgeous,” he growled with his lips just inches away from my breasts. He stopped moving, appearing to take in my whole body with his eyes, but I was close to orgasm. I could feel it, and I didn’t want him to stop. I rolled my hips and mumbled his name.
“Wade, please.” The groan was barely above a whisper, but his eyes moved to mine at my words.
“Be sure, Ellie ,” he said, his tone serious but also strained, like he was holding back. “ We cross this line, we can’t go back.”
“I’m sure,” I told him, looking right back into his eyes so he understood my sincerity.” I want this, I want you.”
He grabbed me behind my thighs and lifted me so he could put me on the couch, sitting upright with my legs spread open and hanging off the edge of the couch. With Wade on his knees in front of me, his dick, while still inside his clothes, was perfectly lined up at my entrance. He leaned in and kissed me, his hands going to my neck. I moved my hands too, wanting to feel his chest. Then he pulled back and stared at me.
The desire was clear in his eyes, but he was also looking at me reverently, which made me feel bare and exposed, and not just in the literal sense.
He leaned in and put his mouth on my nipple, sucking hard. I let out a high-pitched noise that had never come from my mouth before. His hand started moving south and began swirling near my entrance, which sent tingles through my whole body.
“God, Ellie , you’re so wet,” Wade murmured, his hot breath on my chest.
His finger slid inside, and I felt my orgasm building again.
“So damn wet and tight,” he said as he slid another finger inside and used his thumb to rub my clit. “ Your pussy is squeezing my fingers so tight. I can’t wait to be inside you.”
His words set me off, and my orgasm ripped through me so fast, the only sound I could make was a gasp with Wade’s name barely coming out.
“God, you are beautiful when you come,” he said, but my eyes were closed and I couldn’t move.
I needed to focus on making sure I could get enough air back in my lungs. As I finally opened them, I saw him taking his shorts all the way off, reaching back, and grabbing a condom out from his wallet. He started to sheath himself and then looked straight at me.
“Be sure, Ellie ,” he said in a low voice. “ Once is not going to be enough with you, so I need you to be really sure.”
I still wasn’t sure I could speak, as I was still breathing heavy, so I reached down for his shaft and barely got my fingers to graze it when he grabbed my wrist.
“Ellie, don’t,” he said as he used a hand to block mine. “ You touch me, and I won’t last. I’m barely hanging by a thread here.”
“I want you inside me,” I said softly, my eyes directly on his.
In the next moment, he grabbed my legs and pulled me so that my butt was on the edge of the couch, and then he drove inside me. Hard . His cock filled me to the brim, and I felt full and stretched and amazing all at once. He immediately started moving in and out as he brought his mouth to mine and kissed me hard. Every synapsis in my body was firing, and I felt him move even deeper inside.
My fingers dove into his hair, and gripped tightly as I enjoyed all the feelings coursing through my body. My heart hammered beneath my chest. Dear Lord this man felt amazing.
“Wade,” I said, hoping he could hear the pleading in my voice.
Reaching back, I grabbed the cushion at the top of the couch to get leverage as he pumped in and out of me.
He removed his lips from mine as he drove deeper into me. “ Let go, Ellie .”
He moved his thumb to the bundle of nerves just above his dick, and I detonated.
Instantly, I felt warmth race through my body as my orgasm hit. I yelled out his name and then nothing. I think I may have blacked out. I vaguely heard him grunt my name, and then he slowed his movements.
With his face nestled in the crook of my neck, I could feel his hot breath on me, and I found I enjoyed that feeling.
“Damn, Ellie ,” he said, as his rapid breathing began to subside. “ I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
That wouldn’t be a problem. I was pretty sure none of my limbs were functioning anyway.
As I slowly came back to the real world, Wade walked into the room, completely unabashed by the fact that he was naked. He had a washcloth in his hands, and he knelt down in front of me and started to wipe the area between my legs with the warm, wet cloth.
“Are you okay,” Wade asked, concern written on his face. “ I didn’t mean for that to be so fast. I’m sorry.”
“I enjoyed it,” I told him, and I had.
I liked that I’d made him lose control. That he was so into me, so caught up in the moment, that he lost focus of everything else.
He leaned forward into the crux of my legs and kissed me on my lips. It was light and soft at first, but then he slid his tongue in, and it started to get intense. He broke away and put his forehead to mine.
“Jesus, one kiss, and I’m ready to have you all over again,” he said in a whisper, as though he didn’t mean for me to actually hear his thoughts.
I looked down, and sure enough he was hard again. I didn’t even know a guy could be ready that fast again. Didn’t guys need like an hour recovery time or something?
“Maybe we should try a bed this time,” I teased him. “ There’s one just down the hallway.”
I smiled up at him, and something flashed in his eyes. Then he closed them. He looked briefly in pain.
“Babe, I can’t be naked with you in a bed right now and not have sex with you again,” he said to me, almost distressed. “ And I can’t do that in Jack’s bed. There’s something sacrilegious about that, and I already feel guilty enough.”
“Oh,” I said in a low voice, frowning. That made me a little sad because I was starting to get excited about the idea of doing that again. “ What about your bed?”
I realized as soon as I said it what I was implying. He’d just finished telling me women in his bed scared him because he was afraid of falling asleep. And he’d just had a nightmare already tonight. I shouldn’t have suggested that. He clearly wasn’t ready.
“I’m sorry. I …” I started to tell him, but he cut me off.
“Let’s go,” he said excitedly.
He picked me up then picked my nightgown up off the floor and handed it to me before setting me on my feet. Then he grabbed his clothes and threw his pants on but was carrying his shirt. As soon as I got dressed, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the door, handing me my phone and keys as we walked out.
My mind was racing. Not only because of what we were about to do –again– but also the hurried nature of it had me feeling like I was forgetting something. My hands were shaking so bad as I tried to lock my apartment door. Wade suddenly came up behind me, took the keys, and did it for me. Once it was locked, I turned around to go to his place, but he hadn’t moved, and the front of his body was only inches from the front of mine. He took a small step forward and pushed me up against my door.
“Calm down, Ellie . Take a breath,” Wade said to me softly against my lips as he kissed me, slipping his tongue inside.
“I can’t calm down if you’re going to kiss me senseless,” I told him when he pulled back. I couldn’t believe I’d said that out loud.
His smirk returned to his face, and he grabbed my hand and walked me to his door. It was already unlocked. I realized he’d likely done that while I was struggling to lock my own.
We walked into his apartment, and I looked around his dark space and realized it was a mirror image of my brother’s apartment. I heard him lock the door and set his keys down. I turned to face him, and he came up to me, put his hands on my hips, and stared at me. I looked down at him, still shirtless, getting a close-up look at his tattoos. I’d seen hints of them before, but he had several more on his chest that I could see now were very intricate. Without thinking, I started to run my fingers over the ink. He had a tribal pattern that started on his chest and meandered onto his shoulders and the upper portion of his arms. In the middle of his chest was the Army logo with several small dog tags, each with a letter on them.
“What are these?” I whispered, pressing my fingers to the dog tags.
“Tags of the guys I lost overseas,” he said very matter-of-factly.
My heart ached for him because there were several tags on his chest. I ached for those soldiers too, who would never get to go home. I leaned forward and placed my lips on the logo, kissing him softly. I felt his hands at my hips squeeze a little tighter. I leaned back and looked up at him. His chocolate eyes were sparkling, even in the low light.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer me. He simply leaned forward and kissed me. It was hard, heated, intense. I felt that heat move through my body. His hands, which were at my hips, started moving lower. Down my back and to the backs of my thighs. The next thing I knew he was lifting me up and moving my legs to wrap around his hips. My arms automatically wrapped around his neck. Then we were moving. His lips never broke from mine until I was on my back on a soft mattress.
Despite having just had sex less than ten minutes ago, I could already feel a budding orgasm taking shape. Wade must have been feeling the same, because the fire in his eyes and the urgency of his hands and mouth on my body showed he needed this as much as I did. However , unlike before, he took his time. He lingered, unhurried, and deliberate. As though he was discovering the nuances of my body that he had skimmed over the first go round.
Later, I lay there, completely sated, half asleep, and wrapped up in Wade’s arms. I thought back to how crazy the last twenty-four hours had been, but knowing this was how it would end, I wouldn’t change a thing.