34. Teddy
Teddy
“ F uck, I missed you,” I groan against Lottie’s mouth.
She grins, yanking me by my T-shirt toward my bedroom. “Good.”
I wrap my arm around her waist to carry her the last few feet to my bed.
I’ve been thinking about getting her right here since I landed at the airport in Greensboro.
She picked me up wearing a tight cropped tank top and leggings, and it took every ounce of effort I had not to rip it off her immediately.
In fact…I do just that. The seams of her leggings pop at the aggression. Lottie gasps, her eyes growing wide as she lies in the middle of my bed.
“You’ve been naked under there this entire time?”
She smirks. “I thought it would save us some time.”
I pounce on her, making her squeal. “You’ll be the death of me, you know that?”
“I sure hope not. I’d miss you too much.” Her soft tone spears me right in the chest. Lottie lifts my shirt over my head and tosses it to the ground. I do the same to her tank, grinning down at her when I see she’s not wearing a bra either.
I dip my head to pull her full tit into my mouth.
My fingers pluck at her other nipple until she’s squirming under me.
Lottie’s fingers spread through my hair, her nails scratching at my scalp.
She doesn’t direct me, just holds me close so I won’t leave her.
I have no plans of doing anything of the sort.
I run the flat of my tongue through the valley between her tits until I hit the dip at the bottom of her throat. “You’re addicting, baby. I’ll never get enough of you.”
Lottie cups my cheeks to kiss me. Her passion flows through every press of her lips against mine. I may never understand what she sees in me, but there will never be a day where I question her feelings for me.
“I need you, Teddy. Please?”
“Anything. I’ll give you anything.”
My words spur her on, and she pushes at me until I’m lying on my back.
We work together to yank my pants and boxers down until they’re pooled on the floor.
Lottie straddles my hips, channeling the siren I’ve come to see her as.
I scan her body from top to bottom, unable to stick to any one part of her.
The swell of her tits, the V between her spread thighs, the breathtaking look on her face as she watches me.
It’s all too much to take in at one time.
Her hips begin to slide across my length, the head of my cock hitting her clit with every pass. Her fingers dig into my chest. I can’t wait to see the marks she’s leaving on my body. I want to mark her in return.
Lottie lifts herself to slot my cock at her entrance. Then I’m pushing into her body, and it feels like coming home.
She is my home.
No matter what happens between us, she will always be the person who brought me back to life. No amount of worshipping her body will ever be enough to thank her for it.
Lottie’s hips grind against me in a maddening rhythm. I dig the tips of my fingers into her flesh, leaving indentions on her ass.
There’s no going back after this. I spent two days away from her, and every single minute of those two days, I was itching to come home.
I sit up, changing the angle and making her gasp. I press my forehead to hers. “You’re it for me, you know that?”
Her eyes fill with tears as she shatters around me. I have no choice but to follow her over the edge. She’s never given me a choice. It’s always been her.
Someone pounds on the door.
“It’s time to hide, baby.” Mommy’s mouth tries to form a smile, but she just looks sad instead. She grips my shoulder too tight, pushing me toward the bedroom.
I hate it when I have to hide. Sometimes, I’m in there forever. “Mommy, I’m hungry.”
“You can eat later.”
Later usually means tomorrow. It doesn’t matter.
We don’t have any food anyway. I follow directions, like the good boy Mommy always tells me I am.
I get behind the clothes in the closet. My blankie is already back here, and so are the toys I left last time.
My tummy growls. I wish I had hidden that granola bar instead of eating it for breakfast.
I can hear Mommy’s voice in the living room.
Then a loud smack. I scrunch my eyes closed and press my hand to my ears.
Tomorrow will be a bad day. Sometimes, after I hide, Mommy takes me out for breakfast. On the nights I hear her screams, she’ll be half asleep on the couch the next day with a bottle in her hand.
Maybe I’ll find another granola bar in the morning.
I wake with a start. Pain explodes in my body, making the memories of my childhood pale in comparison.
It’s radiating everywhere, yet not enough to knock me unconscious.
Someone screams next to me. Are my men dying, too?
I can’t move. I can’t even turn my head to see who is in the same pain I am.
Everything hurts so fucking bad. “You can wake up now, baby,” a voice whispers in my head.
“Teddy. Wake up.” The voice changes. “I need you to open your eyes. Come back to me, my love.”
The desperate tone is what snaps me awake.
My eyes fly open, my heart hammering in my chest. I’m in my room, in my bed.
Then my focus turns to the woman hovering over me.
Her brown hair hangs around me like a protective curtain.
It’s her amber eyes that hold me captive. They’re full of fear, relief, and love.
“You’re okay, my love. You’re here with me.” Lottie runs a cool hand across my sweaty forehead. It’s heaven against my feverish skin.
“Lottie.” My voice is hoarse. Was I the one screaming?
She gives me a soft smile. “Hi, handsome. I’m glad to see you back in the land of the living.”
“Sorry I scared you.” I sit up, needing some distance between my future sitting in bed beside me and the memories of my past hovering just under the surface.
My phone says it’s four a.m., which means I have no hope of going back to sleep.
I rub my palm against Lottie’s thigh. “Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll make us breakfast when you get up. ”
She gives me a look. “There’s no way in hell I could go back to sleep. My adrenaline is still pumping. How about coffee?”
I nod, more grateful for this woman than I could ever put into words. She isn’t pushing to talk about my nightmare or even looking at me with pity. She’s merely offering to keep me company despite the early hour.
She helps me get my prosthetic on with barely a glance.
It’s almost automatic, like she’s doing it without thinking.
To know she doesn’t think twice about me missing a leg is humbling.
It’s a good reminder for me to think about it the same way.
Sure, I have to make accommodations at times, but for the most part, I’ve been able to live a normal life.
Way more normal than I imagined when I was lying in that hospital bed after the explosions.
We walk into the kitchen side by side. Lottie, swimming in one of my T-shirts, yawns as she fills the water reservoir of the coffee maker.
“You should lie back down,” I implore.
She doesn’t even glance at me. “Only if you do.”
Stubborn woman. I add coffee grounds to the filter instead of arguing with her. She’ll do what she wants as she always does. Unfortunately, it’s one of the things I love about her.
My hand freezes over the On switch.
I love her.
I’m in love with Lottie Jackson.
On some level, I’ve known that for a while; my brain just never let me dwell on it long enough to be certain.
“Did you fall asleep over there?” Lottie’s teasing brings me back to reality.
“Just stuck in my head. Usually happens after a nightmare.”
“You can talk about it with me if you want.”
I turn around. Lottie is sitting cross-legged on one of the chairs at the table.
She’s leaning on one hand, her chin in her palm and her fingers curled against her cheek.
Her other arm rests on the table, her hand flat against the surface.
She looks so nonchalant that I almost believe she feels the same way.
It makes me want to laugh. I don’t because she wouldn’t understand, but the feeling puts me at ease.
She’s trying so hard to meet me where I’m at without pushing.
I’ve never opened up to anyone. Not even to the guys on my special ops team. With Lottie, the words are practically pressing against my teeth, demanding to be let out. I guess if it was difficult to talk to her, I probably wouldn’t love her as much as I do.
I step toward Lottie, cataloging every one of her features, until I lift her chin with my thumb and forefinger.
“I’ll tell you about it. But it’s not pretty, Lottie.
Nothing about my life has been pretty. At least, until you came into it.
I don’t want your pity. I don’t need to be coddled.
What happened, happened, and I’ve moved forward. ”
“I understand.” She tilts her head, indicating she wants a kiss. I oblige her, needing one more than she could ever know.
The coffee machine beeps, interrupting the moment. I grab down two mugs and, after doctoring Lottie’s how she likes, gesture with my head for Lottie to sit on the couch with me.
We drink in silence for a minute. I’m soaking up the feeling of having my girl tight against my body. I don’t want to return to my dreams, but talking about them out loud will help me shed the darkness slithering in my mind.
“My nightmares are normally centered around what happened on my last deployment. I only remember the moment leading up to the explosions. Then there’s this blank space until I woke up in the hospital.
My dreams are usually some variation of that day.
Most of the time, I’m watching my team die while I’m lying in a field across from them. ”
“Do you think they’re real memories or your brain supplying images for what you don’t remember?”
“I don’t have a clue. Probably a combination of both, if I had to guess.”
“Is that what you were dreaming about tonight?”
I shake my head. “As weird as it sounds, I was sort of having a dream within a dream.”
“Ooooo. Inception,” Lottie jokes. She kisses my shoulder, and I appreciate the levity .
I take a sip of my coffee to give myself a second before I tell Lottie the rest. “I started off dreaming about my childhood. You already know my mom was an alcoholic. What I didn’t tell you is that she was also a prostitute.
When I was really little, she would have the guys come to the house because she didn’t have anyone to watch me.
Every few nights, she’d have a John come over.
On those nights, she would hide me in the closet of our bedroom to keep me from seeing anything.
The thing we never talked about was how much I could hear. ”
I swallow the bile bubbling up my throat with a sip of coffee. The sound of my mom’s whimpers when the men were especially rough with her will haunt me until the day I die.
“When I was about ten, she started leaving the house at night. I was never sure if she was working or drinking. Likely both. I didn’t care either way, to be honest. I was just glad she wasn’t doing it in the house anymore.”
“What made you dream about her tonight?”
Taking a chance, I glance at Lottie. Her body is turned toward mine, her leg bent against the back of the couch, and her coffee cup resting on her knee.
Her other hand rests on my forearm to keep our connection.
The openness she shows me has me drowning in her gaze.
There’s not a hint of judgment or pity. She’s merely listening to my story as if it’s anything else.
“I don’t know for sure. I think it might’ve been a combination of meeting Jackson and Thia and joining his company.
Thia has a really shitty past, and she was open with me about what happened to her.
She wanted me to know why she believes wholeheartedly in Jackson’s company.
I appreciated the honesty, but it brought up my own demons.
Normally, they’re locked away in my head, but not tonight.
The weird part is that after dreaming about hiding in the closet again, I woke up on that field while my team screamed for help. ”
“That explains why you were screaming for help. ”
“I’m sorry you had to wake up like that.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m glad I could be here for you so you didn’t wake up alone.”
“I could hear you in the dream, telling me to wake up. Opening my eyes to see you there made me calm down faster than I ever have.”
Lottie sits her cup on the coffee table. “I had no idea what to do.” She wraps her arms around my bicep. “I was afraid to touch you because I didn’t want you to think I was a threat. I know waking someone from a nightmare can result in physical violence.”
“Fuck, if I ever did that to you, I’d hate myself.”
“I know. That’s why I tried to talk to you first.”
“Thank you for coming to my rescue.” I kiss the top of Lottie’s head.
“I’ll always come for you.”