Chapter 5 Aiden
AIDEN
“What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?”
Jackson grabbed the bottle of water from my hand that I’d been using to wipe the grime and dust from my body.
It was bad enough that we’d been stuck in the desert for two days.
I couldn’t survive another minute with my body feeling so crummy.
I was already losing my mind just sitting here with nothing but dry land for scenery.
No phone. No tablet. No computer. It was all gone—burned in the fire.
And it’d all been my fault. Well, not really, but I’d left my laptop charger plugged in.
The cord had been frayed, so the core had been exposed.
It must have smoldered on the cushion, and somehow the heat must have caused a spark.
At least, that was what Jackson said when he’d looked at the remains.
The worst part was, he hadn’t yelled at me once. But neither had he looked at me.
Somehow it made me feel worse that I’d fucked up this badly.
“I’m just washing off the dirt,” I said.
“This”—he shook the bottle at me—“is drinking water. We’re lucky you stopped the fire from spreading with the dirt so we found a case intact. That’s what’s keeping us hydrated. No one knows how long it will take us to reach somewhere we can get help. We have to conserve our water.”
“I know that, but it doesn’t change that I am dirty. I hate it.”
“Aiden—”
“Don’t.” I scrambled to my feet. “I know what you’re going to say, all right? That I should be grateful that we’re unharmed. That it’s all my fault. But I can’t really think of the fact that we’re going to die right now. I just want a fucking bath.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. I turned my head to the side.
“I know it’s tough for you,” he said softly.
Until recently, he hadn’t called me that in years.
. “But try to bear it for a little while, will you? Tomorrow we’ll head out on foot and leave a trail in case someone finds the RV.
Your mother would know something is wrong and to contact the authorities if she doesn’t hear from us soon. ”
“She’ll probably think one of us killed the other.”
I winced and glanced at him. Would he be mad at me for bringing up the way we swiped at each other? For the past two days, we’d had fewer arguments. Hell, we hadn’t fought at all. Why did I have to bring up our disagreements now?
A bark of laughter tore through the air. I jumped in surprise. He so hardly laughed that I didn’t know what to make of it. Had the heat fried his brains?
Only one side of his face moved, but even so, he was still ridiculously handsome. He always had that rugged look about him. The scar just added intrigue to him. It made you want to stay away but also get close to him to learn more about him.
What more could I possibly want to know about this man? I already knew everything.
“You’re right. We can’t sit around and wait for help to come. We’ll have to help ourselves.”
“Do you know which way to go?”
“I have some idea. We’ll be fine. Come and eat. It’ll be night soon, and we should get back to the RV.”
He hadn’t said it, but I knew one of the reasons he wanted us to move out was the lack of food. The goods we’d brought with us had been caught in the fire. Some of it we could still eat despite being burned. It was better than starving and made me appreciate food even more.
Tonight’s dinner was canned soup, which I found disgusting but I knew better than to say it out loud. I hated the silence of the night, so I tried to make conversation.
“Do you ever think about going back to the Marines?”
Silence followed my question. He stared down at the flickering flame of the fire, lost in thought. For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me, but then he finally spoke.
“I think about it every day,” he said, his voice low and measured. “It’s a part of me, you know? I miss the discipline and the structure. The camaraderie of my fellow Marines. But…” He stared off into the distance.
“But what?” I pressed. He’d never talked to me about his time in the Marines. Not that I’d asked. It was like pulling teeth to get any information out of him.
“I feel too guilty about what happened.”
“The ambush?”
He raised his eyes. “You know?”
“Some of it. After you came home, I… looked into it. So many lives were lost.”
“Yes. I was the commander of the platoon. I walked those men right to their deaths.”
“That’s not true.”
He snorted. “What do you know?”
“That you’re a good man.” I inched closer to him, wanting to squeeze his hand, but I didn’t dare.
Instead, I drew patterns on the back of his hand with my finger.
“That you always give a hundred percent, even when it’s arguing with me.
” I chuckled, then sobered. “I was terrified when you came home. We didn’t know the extent of your injuries.
If you would even be functional. Until I saw you in the hospital, I wasn’t sure I would ever see you again, and it made me sad for all the times I argued with you when you came home.
I blamed myself. I thought that if I were a better stepson, you wouldn’t be off chasing one thrill after another but actually come home after a deployment. ”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Then why did you stop coming home?”
Because he didn’t return, Mom started bringing a different guy home every time.
Men Jackson knew nothing about. How could I tell him?
He’d abandoned her. Abandoned the two of us.
How could I blame her for seeking comfort in another man’s arms?
Hadn’t I sought comfort in the arms of the older men I fooled around with because of my daddy issues?
Twice abandoned. Was I really that horrible a son?
“I… I just couldn’t anymore.”
“Fine, don’t tell me!” I pushed away from him, but he grabbed my arm and tugged. With a gasp, I flailed my other arm, trying to steady myself. It was a lost cause. I crashed into his body.
Jackson caught me and held me against his body. A ripple ran through me. Being pressed up against him like this was electrifying.
My heart sped up. I stared at him. Into those dark brown eyes.
He swallowed. My eyes followed the movement of his protruding Adam’s apple and the expanse of his neck.
“Are you sure you want to know why I stayed away, Aiden?”
“Yes,” I gasped.
He raised his hand and rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip.
“Because when I came home that summer when you turned nineteen, you were all grown up. No longer the little boy I always had in my head. You were feisty and—”
“And what?”
“So fucking sexy in those dresses and skirts you wear.”
I reeled back as if he’d slapped me across the face.
“Wait a minute. What do—”
He shifted his head, and his lips came down on mine hard. Shocked, I opened my mouth, and he used the opportunity to shove his tongue inside. A loud moan rumbled from my chest.
Jackson tightened his arms around me and hauled me up onto his lap, deepening the kiss.
Passion exploded between us, and I felt like I was being consumed by a raging fire.
I clutched his shoulders as our tongues met in a heated dance.
He tangled his fingers in my hair, and suddenly all I wanted was to feel more of him.
Fuck.
Only a forbidden passion could burn so good.
“Jackson,” I moaned.
“Shh. Don’t speak. Just… please.”
His mouth came back down on mine while he reached around behind me and grasped my ass. A cry tore from my lips when he squeezed. Then he raised my skirt. The one he said he hated. But he didn’t really, did he?
He racked up the material to my waist and cupped me between my thighs. My cock was already hard.
“Fuck,” he swore. “You have no panties on.”
What happened to not saying anything? I’d gotten rid of them last night, no longer comfortable with the same string riding between my ass for days.
Jackson caressed my dick, spat in his hand, and caught my cock in his.
Snapping out of my daze, I reached for his zipper too. The zipper was already down when he grabbed my wrist.
“What is it?”
“I can’t…”
“You can’t what?” I shook off his hand and cupped his hard-on. “It feels hard to me.”
“You witch.”
The words should have sounded offensive, but I understood. I also was bewitched by his hand stroking my cock. I helped him out of his jeans, not surprised to find him going commando.
“Spit on it,” he said.
I spat on his cock, but he fanned my hand away.
His lips found mine in another passionate kiss of twining tongues and grazing teeth.
He took control of both our cocks, stroking me against him.
His cock was so rigid. Surely, they’d been mistaken that this man was impotent.
Nothing about the way his cock felt against mine said this man couldn’t perform in bed.
In fact, I wanted him to flip me onto my knees and sink his cock into my aching hole now.
“Jackson, please.” I bucked up into his palm.
“This is the only thing I dare to give you, Deni baby. And hope the sin isn’t so great that I won’t one day be forgiven.”
“Forgi-hnngh.”
Without warning, sharp contractions stabbed at my groin. Oh.
I grabbed his shoulders and cried out, losing myself in the sensation of our skins rubbing together as I came and exploded over both of us.
Mouth wide open, eyes half-closed, I watched him use my cum to lube up his cock and stroke himself fast. He hissed.
He released his cock, grasped me around the waist, and planted me on his lap so I was straddling him in reverse cowboy style.
He shoved my back until I leaned forward.
Then he flipped my skirt up, baring my bottom.
Jackson caught the fleshy underside of my cheeks and pinched.
Ouch, that hurt, but fuck, my cock grew hard again.
He didn’t stop. Just kept pinching my ass, which would definitely be red and sore tomorrow.
And all the time, he never stopped stroking his cock.
“Fuck. Fuck,” he hissed. His palm came down hard on my ass. I cried out and came again, even as he spurted all over my ass.
Shit, why hadn’t he come inside me?
Our harsh breathing filled the air. What now? My ass was sticky with the evidence of what we’d just done. My face felt prickly and sensitive from the stubble of his two-day-old beard.
And this man was my stepfather. One who didn’t have any form of erectile dysfunction at all like they’d claimed.
“At least we know there’s nothing wrong with your dick,” I said to inject some humor into the situation. Otherwise, I would be sick with worry. Somehow this was my fault. I just knew it was.
How was I supposed to face him?
“Up.” Jackson shoved me to my feet and stood. “Use some water and wash off. But only one bottle and don’t go deeper into the RV. The structure isn’t sound.”