Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
July
I’m half an hour late to work.
I’ve never even been one minute late.
My reflection looks back at me from the elevator doors, a woman with a distinctly mysterious look in her eye, some light bruising on her jaw from her boyfriend’s demanding grip, a skirt that hugs curves that I never stopped to appreciate before. My hair is up in a top knot, slightly mussed, my mouth noticeably swollen.
I smile back at myself, laughing under my breath.
Who would have thought it?
I’m a sex kitten.
A sex enthusiast , to be honest. Perhaps I’ve only made love twice in my whole life, but those two times seemed… advanced. Newbie or not, I’m competing at the professional level and oh my goodness, I’m not just competing, I’m winning. I can still feel the hugeness of him inside me, his soldier’s body mashing me into the door, his hips slamming up into me so frantically, I swore he would die without me to satisfy him. And lord, that’s a heady feeling. One that I covet…in a somewhat dark and twisted way.
I don’t know how I’m going to focus on work today.
I might just bring this home and lick it all fucking night. How about that?
My knees snap together and I moan…
And I’m still moaning when the elevator doors open.
Vikander and Dierdre stare back at me.
“Oh!” I clear my throat, willing the pinkness to flee my complexion. “Sorry, I was meditating. Terrible commute. That’s why I’m late.” Stop rambling. Can’t . “And now I’m meditating to calm the stress. Have you tried meditating? Does wonders.”
They blink at me in unison.
My boss uses her forearm to keep the elevator door from closing. “My God. Look at you. Did he hold you hostage in some…some warehouse last night?”
“You’re a mess,” Dierdre says, pursing her lips while she peruses me, top to bottom.
“You’re thirty-one minutes late and you have the presentation of your life on Friday,” Vikander says. “This man is not good for you.”
“Really?” I say, without any forethought, my lips curling into a dazed smile. These two women who always make me feel so silly and small are not going to best me today. “I feel… great. ”
Dierdre reaches into the elevator and yanks me forward by the wrist. “This man assaulted one of my friends, then he has the nerve to walk into a work function and just drag you out of there like a caveman? It’s only going to get worse, July.”
“We’re not just your co-workers and boss,” adds my boss, clicking along in her heels to keep up with us. “You need us to guide you! You’re so gullible!”
I stop in the middle of the hallway, ordering myself to be patient with them. From the outside looking in, Theo must look like a walking red flag. I’m operating on a gut feeling about him and I can’t expect Dierdre and my boss to understand that, can I? Even if their refusal to treat me like a smart adult is beginning to rankle. “I would be concerned, too, but you’re going to have to trust me. Theo is going through a lot, he’s been through something unimaginable…and he’s rough around the edges, but he makes me happy.”
“Theo,” Dierdre spits. “Sorry, but you sound like a woman blinded by good sex.”
“That’s a fair point,” I sigh. “The sex is really, really, really good.”
“How good?” my boss asks, throatily, before waving off the question. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. The point is, we’re saving you from yourself.”
I frown, not liking the direction of the conversation. “How exactly are you doing that?”
They exchange a glance that verges on guilty. “I’m keeping you here working late tonight,” says Vikander, briskly. “You need to focus on the Yerbi presentation, July. Not a man. Maybe refocusing your energy on work will remind you what’s important. Your health, your career, your safety. You can’t put those in jeopardy.”
“I can’t stay late tonight,” I protest, remembering my promise to Theo. Not to mention that fact that I don’t want to work late. I’m just beginning to enjoy my personal life for the first time. Now it’s being stifled?
“You will if you don’t want me to pass off the presentation to someone else,” my boss says with only a slight air of regret. “I need to see a clean draft in the morning, complete with illustrations. And a clean backup plan, too.”
My heart sinks into my stomach. “But my deadline was Friday morning. Tomorrow is only Wednesday.”
“I want to be prepared.”
Heat prickles my eyelids. I’m starting to wonder if I was asked to take on this project simply because my boss and Dierdre didn’t feel like doing it themselves. “This feels illegal,” I mutter under my breath.
Dierdre sniffs. “Assault is illegal. Ask your boyfriend.”
Eat a dick, Dierdre.
I don’t say those words out loud, but honestly, just that fact that I’m thinking them is a small victory. Right? And I desperately need a victory right now, because I’m being manipulated and railroaded by two people who think they know what’s best for me. I want to walk out. I want to stand up for myself and tell them to shove their weird intervention up their butts, but I don’t quite have the courage. Despite the confidence I walked into the office with this morning, I’m still exactly the same girl.
Aren’t I?
Wishing desperately that I was back in Theo’s arms…or better yet, basking in the warmth of his contagious admiration, I swallow hard, my shoulders hunching on my way to my desk.
* * *
Theo
After leaving July’s, I go buy a cell phone. My first one since returning from active duty. I need to be able to get in contact with July. No more leaving our meetings to chance or wondering if something happened to her if she’s running late. There are features, too, that I’d forgotten about until now. Such as tracking. I want to know where the fuck she is at all times. I want her to know where I am, too.
I want pictures of her stored in my phone.
Text messages from her that I can read back, whenever I want.
The fact that I have none of these things is suddenly a very pressing problem.
Looking down at the shiny new device in my hand, I vow to fill it with pictures of my girlfriend tonight. I’m going to take pictures of her being cute, like when she cleans her glasses with the hem of her shirt and has to squint for those eight seconds, because she can’t see. Or when she comes out of the shower in a nightshirt. Or when she presses her nose into my jaw and nuzzles it around. I want a goddamn picture of that.
I want to put my entire cock in her, pin her down with it and snap a photo of her face.
I want her to take selfies with my phone while I’m giving her head.
I want around a million pictures of those sweet, motherfucking tits.
I’m going to use up half the memory on this thing within a week.
Noticing my familiar surroundings, I realize my feet have led me to the sidewalk outside of July’s work building. My stomach muscles pull taut, my heart climbing up into my mouth. Go in there and get her. That’s my impulse. Take her home and spend the day worshipping her body, the only body that tempts me or gives me relief.
My woman’s body.
But I can’t follow through on the urge, because she’s working. Her work is important to her, and I want her to succeed. Not to mention, I made a vow to myself to be better, to do the work to rejoin civilian life in a healthy way, so July will be proud to call me her boyfriend.
Instead of storming the building and kidnapping July, the way I want to, I untuck a business card from my wallet and make my first official call on my new phone.
Mark, my Army buddy, answers after three rings. “Hello?”
“Mark, it’s Theo.”
An amused puff of air. “You finally got a phone.”
“Calling you is easier than looking at your ugly face.”
A laugh bursts down the line, followed by several beats of silence. “Why are you calling?”
I inhale deeply and let it out, glancing up at July’s building. “I’m ready to see the therapist. As soon as possible, actually.”
“Wow. I thought you’d be in denial over needing help for a lot longer.”
“Surprise.”
“What changed your mind?”
An image of July sitting down across from me in the café blinds me to everything else on the sidewalk. I see nothing but her, pushing those glasses up her nose and reaching out to touch my arm, her touch turning me back into a human. “I met a woman.” Christ, my throat is suddenly tied in a knot. “I met the woman.”
“That’ll do it!” Mark laughs. “So you need to see the therapist and get cleared for security work in order to buy this woman a diamond ring. Am I on the right track?”
“Yeah,” I rasp. “Might need an advance.”
“She’s that special, is she?”
I almost turn around and charge the building. Who the hell are these walls and elevators and security guards to keep me from my other half? “She’s a walking miracle.”
Mark makes a warm sound, and I hear the tapping of keys in the background. “As luck would have it, one of our guys had to cancel his therapy appointment today. There’s an opening. How fast can you get to the west side?”
“I’m on my way.”
It’s funny how one chance encounter brings me back to the land of the living. I complete my first therapy session that afternoon and it’s nothing like I expected. The therapist is a former soldier himself and even so, didn’t try to relate to my experience or wrap it up in a neat little bow with some psychological terminology. He listened. Asked minimal questions. Validated the horror I experienced with reactions that neither jarred me or pissed me off.
Unbelievably, I’m looking forward to going back.
Hours later, it’s 5:09 and I’m standing outside of July’s office building.
She isn’t there.
I’ve been standing here since a quarter to five. She never comes out.
I check the bar I found her in yesterday. She’s not there, either.
I’m beginning to panic when I see her co-worker walk out the building, along with another woman I don’t recognize.
“I feel a teeny bit bad forcing July to work late,” says the one I haven’t met. “She already works her ass off.”
“It’s for her own good,” drones the other one. “The more time she spends at the office, the less time she spends with that monster. She’ll thank us when she comes to her senses.”
Monster.
They’re talking about me.
My bones threaten to melt down into the pavement. Did they see her bruises? The bite marks? July was walking a little differently this morning, thanks to the rough ways I took her last night and this morning. Did they notice?
A lot like the morning I fled July’s apartment, my brain tells me to do the same now.
Leave this woman alone, so I can’t hurt her.
I can’t do it, though. I might as well walk into oncoming traffic, because leaving her would be worse than death. And I promised her I wouldn’t disappear again. I don’t break promises to my girl. There’s also a part of me, maybe the tiniest spark of progress from therapy that denies what they’re saying. I’m not a monster.
I’ve just been through something monstrous.
I’m going to get through to the other side. For the man I used to be.
For July.
As the women walk by, I turn my back and duck my head, so they won’t clock me. When they pass by, I unclip a security card from one of their pockets and slip inside the building, the need to see July and reassure myself that we’re on solid ground multiplying by the second.