Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Theo
I find out something new about July that night.
Big meals make her sleepy.
We sit on the floor in front of her coffee table and share noodles and potstickers while she goes over the finer points of her Yerbi pitch. I’m absorbing every word she’s saying, but I’m also highly aware of how fucking good this feels. Having dinner with July while she sits inches away from me, smelling like a shower. Can she tell my heart is lodged in my throat the entire time?
I will die before I hurt this girl.
On purpose.
Look at her. She’s so delicate. Shy at times, though her sense of humor is shining through more and more and, damn, she’s funny on top of being intelligent and sensitive and sexy as hell? I’m going out of my mind here. I’m fucking crazy for her. But she’s as new to men as I am to civilian life, isn’t she? And here I come, a bull in a c hina shop with my nightmares and PTSD and specific physical needs (her).
Is my mounting obsession good for this girl?
It can’t be.
Once again, I’m barely holding it together, restraining myself from taking her buck naked on the living room floor. Without mercy. Windows open while she screams my name, her ass cheeks slippery with sweat and her own wetness, my hand clenched around her throat. Are these raw, graphic urges a product of the violence I experienced overseas? I don’t know, but my heart protests the treatment my cock wants to inflict on her. And with every minute that ticks by, my lust pulls ahead in the race.
She’s nodding off in my lap now, a fork of noodles still held loosely in her hand. Finally, that hand drops and her head falls back against my shoulder. July in a nightshirt with a scrubbed face, totally limp in my embrace is a wonder I never expected to be given. She must trust me to let her guard down so thoroughly and I don’t take that for granted. Hell no, I thank God I was in the right place at the right time to meet this phenom.
I should tuck her into bed and keep her safe while she sleeps, like a good man.
Nighttime is here, though.
I know what’s coming.
I’m all worked up with the hunger to fuck and I’m going to be trapped in a nightmare, as soon as I close my eyes. Some nights, I don’t have them, but I’ve started to sense when they’re coming, like garden snakes slithering up the back of my neck. The combination of physical need and mental desperation isn’t going to be healthy around July.
I should leave.
But I’ll hurt her feelings all over again. She thinks if I stay, she’ll help me, but she can’t. My mental scars are exactly that. Scars. They’re permanent. Can’t be swept away or smoothed out, no matter how incredible she is.
July makes a sleepy sound in my lap and my entire body starts to beat ominously, every fiber of my being longing to lay her down, climb on top of her and press down on her until we’re one. Until I don’t know where she ends and I begin, her goodness soaking into my skin, easing my constant agitation and uncertainty. I want to lock us together and throw away the goddamn key.
I want to get her pregnant.
OH FUCK. YES. THAT’S WHAT I NEED.
My head tips back, breath shuddering out in the direction of the ceiling. I turn her gently as possible in my lap so she’s facing sideways, starting to shake when her ass twists in a half revolution on my erection, scalding come dribbling into my briefs. Oh shit. She never put her panties back on from earlier. Unzipping my pants would be so easy. Just work myself right in for a nice, hot blast. No protection.
“You’re a fucking animal,” I mouth to the quiet room, wrestling back my sickness.
I want to be good for her. How do I do that when all my sexual frustration is channeled straight into her? I can’t even jerk off to ease the sting of arousal. My cock wants July’s presence, touch or nothing. Her pussy or nothing.
I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.
Vowing to be the man she deserves, I stand up with her in my arms and carry her toward the bedroom, gently laying her on one side of the mattress. Covering her with a blanket, I stare down at her beautiful, curled up form for several minutes, before I carefully join her on the mattress. On the other side, where I hopefully don’t reach for her in the throes of a nightmare, my hands suddenly turned into weapons.
But despite my prayers, that’s exactly what happens.
I close my eyes briefly and open them to a red haze. An early morning firefight. I’ve been here before, and it ends with tortured screams of grown men. It ends with the realization that there’s no way out. No way home. The only way to make it to the next day is kill more people. Survive. Keep my bones and blood inside my body. Dust singes the insides of my throat, my eyes burning from the heat, the grit that never leaves the air.
A barrage of gunfire erupts, and I reach for a weapon, but there’s nothing.
Why am I wearing jeans?
“What are the fucking orders?” I shout, hoarse. “Which direction—”
“Theo?”
It’s the softest, sweetest voice and it doesn’t belong here. Oh God, no. It’s July. I brought her into battle with me. No, no, no. I need to put her somewhere she won’t be vulnerable to a flying bullet or an explosive. There’s nowhere like that out here, though, and I can’t see her. Can’t find her in the haze of smoke.
“ July! ”
“I’m here. You’re in my bedroom, Theo.” Her touch ghosts over my chest, her fingertips caressing the sides of my face. “It’s okay.”
“It’s a trick.”
“No—”
I pounce on top of her July, covering her with my body, a hand clapped over her mouth. “Keep your voice down while I figure out where to put you. There’s a safe house, but I can’t see it. I don’t know which direction we came from…”
Her arms wrap around me. Tight. Is she scared?
She must be terrified. This place makes mincemeat out of grown men.
“Theo,” she says, turning her head to escape the muffle of my hand. “You’re having a nightmare.”
“Please, please, baby, be quiet .”
“We’re not in danger, I promise.”
“It’s a trick,” I say again, my voice pleading now for her understanding. Doesn’t she know one false move could get her killed? “You’re never safe here.”
“Theo—”
“What would I do if something happened to you?” I snap into her neck, because, Jesus Christ, her smooth skin is like a siren calling to me in the middle of a dust storm. She’s the only pure thing for a million miles. The light at the end of a hellish tunnel. I suck on the soft skin of her neck and drag that suction up to her ear, becoming more and more aware of her tits mashed to my chest, the way she molds to my hard muscles, like she was made just for me. I’m in the cradle of her thighs, and fuck, this is no time for a long, heavy ache to form between my legs, but the heaven of her is so tempting when all a man knows is hell. She’s salvation.
“We can’t…we can’t fuck here,” I rasp, licking the shell of her ear, burying my face in her fragrant hair and groaning at the light, innocent smell. “Out in the open. We can’t…”
“Kiss me, Theo. It’s okay.”
“I…” My heart is slamming up against my eardrums. Or is that gunfire? I don’t know. I don’t fucking know, but the horrific soundtrack of war fades slightly when I feel her breath on my mouth. And I just sort of sink myself into the mouth she’s offering, plumes of light streaking across my vision at the warmth and delicacy of her lips. How her thighs seem to settle wider as I fall further into the whimpering slants of her mouth. “Did you come all the way here for a fuck, baby?” I mutter, gripping her jaw in my hand and turning her head, lapping at her pulse, that sleek column that holds so much life. “You must need it so bad.”
“I do,” she whispers, her fingers tunneling through my hair. “I need you.”
A rain of bullets whizzes past my ear and I tense up, my hand dropping to her throat and gripping it hard. “ Stay quiet .”
I don’t realize my eyes are closed until I open them to assure myself she’s nodding. And her eyes are gorgeous, but they’re full of trepidation. Obviously. We’re in enemy territory. She’s not safe. But…God. I shift my hips around, and it’s enough movement to feel the heat of her cunt through my jeans. Enough to know she’s not wearing any underwear.
“Did you come here to get pregnant?” I’m just so confused as to why she would risk her life to come visit me in the middle of hell. It makes no sense. Unless… “Are you ovulating? Is that why you took this risk, July?”
She’s trying to answer, but she can’t because my hand is locked around her throat.
She’s pulling at my fingers, her eyes widening in alarm.
Denial spears me on an intake of breath, and I loosen my grip slightly.
“Th-Theo—” she gasps.
“We’re going to have to make it fast,” I mutter, lowering a hand to unzip my jeans, huffing and puffing while I fish my aching dick out of the denim, not daring to stroke it, lest I spill a drop anywhere but her pussy. “You came here so fertile for Daddy, didn’t you?”
I press the head of my shaft to her gash, rubbing it up and over her clitoris, my muscles flexing with gratification when she sobs my name. “Daddy.”
A shudder passes through my balls, and they turn to lead, full of painful, molten lust. I know damn well I could come without a single thrust. I could simply let her name pass through my head and my admiration of her would splatter between her spread legs. But she’s here to breed. She made this risky trip to get on her back for me, so I could mate her and that’s now my only reason for breathing. Impregnating her is the mission.
“I can’t play too much or I’ll explode.”
“I know,” she whispers, opening her mouth for my tongue, taking it with the eager mewls of a virgin. “I love…”
“You love what?” I say, tonguing her mouth crudely, the head of my cock nestling into her sopping wet entrance, trying to widen it for that first sacred pump.
Her eyes are half mast, but they’re showing enough of her iris to see the dark sparkle of excitement. “I love those explosions.”
I can’t describe the sound I make. It’s a keen of arousal so steep, I might die of the impact when I come down. Temporarily, I let go of my cock, the weight of it sagging my hips, my fingers finding the slot among her slick flesh and knuckling my middle finger deep, jiggling her roughly, because I don’t have much longer. The enemy is closing in and she needs my sperm. “You come here with this tight cunt and ask for a quickie? I need hours, little girl. You’re barely taking my finger.”
There’s a commanding voice in the back of my head, warning me that I’m going to hurt her, that I’m being too rough with a virgin, but there’s also a hail of gunfire and shouts to take cover. There are plumes of dust and helos passing overhead. We’re in some kind of structure, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe. Nowhere is safe. And nowhere is safe enough for this sweet thing beneath me with her legs spread.
She’s not even safe with me.
I choke on that realization, even as I’m pressing a second finger deep, deep, deep, twisting my two digits in a one-eighty, again and again, while her pussy clenches around my knuckles, her breath catching like the sensation is new…and she likes it.
“You need your first fuck from your Daddy. Say it.”
“I need my first fuck from my Daddy,” she gasps.
I should take it as another, more serious warning when the words fuck and Daddy from her sweet mouth nearly send me into a frenzy. I rip her nightshirt straight down the middle and spit on her tits. One, two. I spit a third time on her panting mouth, fist my dick and enter her with a grated expletive while she licks my spit up and screams, my mind seeming to expand to an uncomfortable degree, light and color spinning clockwise around me, before narrowing down to her. There’s nothing but her and the perfectly painful squeeze of her pussy, her nails drawing blood on my back and the sound of my snarls as I begin moving in a merciless rut.
The war surrounding me threatens to intrude, but I burrow into the palace in my mind where only she exists and I try to stop it, I try with all my might to keep my pain from rushing toward July, taking out its misery on her, but the pleasure she’s giving me absorbs too much of my focus. The hot stroke of her cunt, her throat, caught mid-swallow in my hand, the velvet softness of her skin against my coarse body, which grinds her down, groaning into her ear, my lower body scooping and slamming into that tiny place I could barely fit my fingers. My balls must be in too much shock to lose the battle with lust, at least not right away and it buys me time to experience the woman beneath me. Her heels digging into the bed, her hips wiggling, wiggling, as if she’s trying to find a comfortable way to receive my girth, the sounds of slapping wetness coming faster, faster, my grunts growing more and more urgent.
I grab the headboard for purchase and hear her hoarse intake of breath.
Was I cutting off her air?
No. No, I wouldn’t do that.
Who could do anything to harm someone so perfect?
“Theo,” she whimpers, her eyes glazed over. “I’m scared.”
My heart almost leaps out of my chest. “I won’t let anything happen to you, baby,” I vow, leaning down to latch our mouths together, my hips never slowing, only picking up the pace, the frame of her bed beginning to bash off the wall. “I’ll protect you forever.”
“Theo!” she screams against my mouth.
“I know. It’s a crime to be so fertile and have nothing to grow.” My drives turn brutal, concentrated, preparing for what my body is about to do, a crack forming in the headboard beneath my hand. Or maybe the earth is shaking from the battle outside. “But I’ve got our baby right here, July. I’ve got that fat come you love so much.”
Our sweat is making it almost too easy to slip up and down her naked body, slicking my path to every pound. At some point I take her wrists in mine and shove them beneath her butt, elevating her hips and angling me to deliver the hot spend that threatens to release at any second. I’m scared. Those words shout at me from an unseen source in the room and I look into her eyes for reassurance, finding them anxious and dazed, her hips working her pussy furiously in my lap, helping my length slam in and out. And she bites me. Bites me enough to leave blood on her lip, her cunt twisting violently around my shaft, her desperate moan filling my head.
“I…I…” she starts, her wetness sluicing around the trunk of my dick, thighs vibrating in a blur. “Oh God, it’s happening!”
“Christ, baby, I’m coming with you,” I manage, before my sperm breaks free and floods July’s breach. I shove deep as possible with a roar, my body convulsing on top of her smaller one, her thighs twitching around me while I break. That’s exactly what I do. I break. I give myself over to the tender mercy of her body and let it heal me, let it pleasure me, my cock jerking inside of her narrow passage over and over and over, making my eyes tear from the pleasure-pain. “Wasn’t that worth coming into battle for, little girl? Came for a load and you left with enough for six, didn’t you?” I drag my cock in and out to stroke out the final drops of seed. “No one comes as hard as I do for you. No one , sweet July.”
Slowly, I come back to myself, my body sated and my heart thundering with love for the woman beneath me. I love her, I love her—
And that love recoils in horror when it sees the bruises around her neck.
The blood on her chin.
Red handprints on her jaw, her throat, her upper arms.
Her hands are still pinned beneath her hips. I’ve been holding her prisoner.
Lifting my gaze, I see the crack in the headboard and it all comes back to me. Her telling me she was scared. How brutally I just fucked her. A virgin. How I took solace from the battle in her body, unfairly. And there was no battle.
We’re in her bedroom. She trusted me to sleep beside her and I…
I choked her. Didn’t prepare her enough. Possibly got her pregnant without any kind of rational discussion first. No wonder she was scared. Why didn’t I stop when she said she was scared? Am I a monster?
Quickly, I release her wrists, climbing off her ravaged body and burying my head in my hands, starting to pace beside the bed. “Oh Jesus, July, what have I done?”