18. Eric
ERIC
I was sure Ambrose was going to split me in two.
I didn’t think I’d ever felt as full. I knew it was partly because he hadn’t prepped me or given me a chance to adjust until he was all the way in.
I could barely draw in breath. My instincts yelled at me to push him off, to get away, but my cock wanted more.
And my heart… Damn it, I’d let this man do anything to me if it made him smile the way he was right then.
He stroked the inside of my wrist, which he still kept pinned to the bed. “You’re doing so good. I can feel you squeezing my dick.”
“It feels like your cock goes up to my damn throat.”
He smiled, his eyes lighting up. He was fucking beautiful like that. “Take your shirt off. I want to see your body.”
He eased out a tiny bit, then drove back in, making me gasp. “I suppose you deserve the view.”
“Asshole.”
“I never told you I was going to be nice. I actually think that’s part of what you like about me, isn’t it, Sheriff?”
I hated how easily he saw through me, and yet I also loved it. I loved that he saw the real me, saw what I wanted and needed. He was rough with me but also caring. Ambrose thought he was a monster, but when it came to what mattered, he was one of the kindest people I’d ever met.
I was terrified of how deeply I felt for him. What chance did we really have of keeping this going when both of our instincts were to run from any connection this deep? “Please let me see you.”
Ambrose lifted his shirt, pulled it over his head, and tossed it on the floor.
Then he gripped the backs of my thighs, pressing them tight against my body, giving himself even better leverage to pull back and drive into me so hard my breath whooshed from my lungs.
I reached over my head again, pressing my hands hard against the headboard, needing to brace myself.
I was sure this was going to be a rough ride.
He gave me hard punishing strokes, one right after another, with no break.
I could only imagine the stamina he’d built up.
I bet he could keep going like that for ages unless I pushed him enough to make him lose control, to make him come before he was ready.
I reached for him, gripping the back of his neck and yanking him down.
He kissed me, then started to pull back, but I held on. “Do you have any idea how good it feels to have you in me like this? I’m so full it hurts, but I don’t fucking care because it’s you, giving yourself to me, desperate to have me. I’m the one man who can make you need this.”
His eyes were wide, and he stared down at me, then he seized my hands, pressed them to the mattress, and really let go, fucking me hard and fast. I wrapped my legs tight around his hips. I wasn’t about to let him go. We were going to ride this out together until we both exploded.
“You’re mine, do you understand that?” Ambrose growled.
I smirked up at him. “Maybe it’s me that owns you.”
“No. I’m calling the shots here. That’s how it has to be.”
“Is it, or do you think you could give yourself to me? Do you think you could let go with me? Let me be the one to tell you it’s time to come.”
“Fuck you, Eric. I can’t?—”
“You can. You can let go.”
He shook his head frantically. He was trying to pull back, to pull out of me, to end this intimacy, but he’d asked for this. I clamped my legs tighter around him. He wasn’t getting away.
“I want you to come, Ambrose. I want you to spill yourself inside me. I want to feel the wet heat as it gushes from your cock. I want to be marked by you. I want everyone to know I’m yours and you’re mine.”
Ambrose made a strangled noise and squeezed my hands harder. In that moment, I didn’t care if he broke my fingers. I was going to have this. I was going to push him until he gave in to what he needed.
I worked my hips, grinding against him, close to coming myself just from my cock rubbing against his abdomen. With Ambrose, I might be able to come without him touching me at all, just from him telling me all the filthy things he wanted to do with me.
“Eric. Eric, please.”
“Give in to it. Come for me. Give me every drop.”
Ambrose cried out as he pumped against me, driving in harder than he had before, making me gasp. I was so full, and then I felt the heat of his release. He pumped himself against my ass and gave me everything I wanted. The look on his face shifted from fear and anger to bliss.
When I could tell he was fully drained, I took advantage of his sex-drunk state and flipped him over, putting myself on top. I wrapped my hand around my cock and jerked myself frantically. I knew it would only be a matter of seconds before I was coating his chest with my cum.
He stared up at me, eyes glazed, mouth hanging open.
“Eric, are you… I want you to…”
“God, yes,” I cried out as I let go. Ropes of cum landed on Ambrose’s chest and stomach. He stared down at himself when I was finished.
I hung over him. His cock was still in my ass, but I felt his cum dripping out. I looked up at him and smiled. “I love what a fucking filthy mess we are.”
He nodded then ran a finger through the cum on his torso and brought it to his mouth, sucking it clean like I had done the night before. “Mmm. So good. That was…”
“The best sex of my life.” I finished for him.
Slowly he nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Jesus, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
He laid his arm over his face.
I tensed. Was he going to end this now? After that, could he?
His words shocked me. “I think you should know why I’m… like this. Because I can’t promise I won’t… That I can be… stable.”
“I just want you to be you.”
He moved his arm to his forehead and looked at me. “You do?”
“Yes. Jesus, Ambrose, surely you know I’m not expecting you to be someone else. If I was, then… I wouldn’t have done this.” Was that true? I wanted it to be true. “You should know some things about me too.” If he could be that brave, then so could I. “Do you want to get cleaned up before we talk?”
He shook his head. “If I don’t do this now, I might never tell you.”
“Okay. At least let me get some water.”
“Hurry.” I was disturbed by how frightened he looked.
“It’ll just take a few seconds. I have bottles of water in the fridge.”
When I returned with the water, Ambrose had propped himself on my pillows. I handed him a bottle, and he drained almost half of it in one go. I did the same with mine.
He smiled. “That took a lot out of us.”
“It did.”
“Come here.” He held out his arm, indicating I should lie against him. I didn’t think there were many people he’d cuddle with, and the realization gave me another jolt to the heart.
“Can I take this off first?” I asked, starting to unbutton my uniform shirt.
“I guess.” He winked at me. “I told you I’d fuck you in it.”
“You can do that anytime you like, but right now, I want to be naked with you.”
“Yeah. I think I need that.”
I removed the shirt and tossed it to the end of the bed. Then I lay against him, using his chest as a pillow. It wasn’t soft, but it felt perfect to have his warm skin under my cheek.
Ambrose stroked his hand up and down my back. “Did you know I didn’t tell anyone when I decided to join the army?”
I shook my head.
“It was stupid, but I didn’t want my life dictated by my family. They had already decided Dax’s role would be extracting information, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before they designated a place for me, and I’d be stuck in it for the rest of my life.”
“But you work with your family now.”
“I’m more like a consultant, and it’s different now with Remington in charge.”
I nodded, not sure I truly understood but willing to take his word for it.
“I’d never really had to answer to anyone.
My dad died when Dax and I were eight, and our mom took up with another man not long after that.
They traveled most of the year, and we were left with nannies, all of whom could be easily bribed.
I spent most of my summers out in the bayou at my great-uncle Etienne’s place. ”
“That’s how you got to know Beau.”
“Right.”
“Why didn’t Remington’s family take you in?”
“Remington and Lance’s mother died about the same time as my dad.
Uncle Bébe was too grief stricken to deal with more kids.
It wasn’t until he remarried that he insisted on pulling us into the family business.
He hadn’t gotten along with my mother, and she’d done what she could to keep us away from him, not wanting us to grow up under his thumb. ”
Ambrose drew in a long breath and blew it out slowly. “I wanted you to know the background, but none of that is what really matters. None of that is what made me like I am.”
I frowned. “Maybe it affected you more than you realize.”
“It probably made me capable of what I did, but leaving for the army was… It was something I needed to do, but I immediately regretted not saying goodbye to Dax. I hurt him, and things weren’t the same with us for a long time.”
“They’re better now?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. I finally realized I couldn’t hide from him.”
“Have you told him what you’re telling me?” I assumed he had. He and Dax were probably closer than even my sister and me.
But Ambrose shook his head. “I’ve never told anyone the full story, not even Dax, but I want to tell you. If I can. I don’t know if the words will come.”
The pain in his voice weighed on me. I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to do this, that I was sure his brother would listen, but I could tell Ambrose needed to talk, and I was the person who was there for him now. I would be whatever he needed.
“I sailed through my initial training,” Ambrose said.
“After everything I’d taught myself living out in the bayou and the need to stay in shape to be part of a family like mine, I was well prepared for everything my commanding officers threw at me.
As soon as I could, I applied for a special forces position.
That training beat the shit out of me. I wondered how people from cushier backgrounds made it through it at all, but I survived and became a Green Beret.
I was so fucking proud of myself. Dax was proud of me too.
“I saw all kinds of shit that would’ve left anyone scarred.
I did things that made me sick to my stomach, but they were what needed to be done.
Had that been all my career included—what came to be almost daily horrors while I was deployed—I’m not saying I wouldn’t have been affected, but I wouldn’t have come back like I am.
Broken. Unable to even be around my family for long, much less anyone else.
” His voice cracked on the last words, and I reached up and stroked a thumb over his cheek. “Tell me what you need.”
“Just stay here like this. It’s nice to have the heat of you against me. I feel so cold whenever I think about what happened.”
I pulled the covers up over us and wrapped my arm around his waist, hugging him tightly. “I’m here.”
“My unit was embedded in a village working with some allies.”
I knew better than to ask him where the village was. He was likely already telling me more than he should.
“We were told to prepare for a strike against a group of insurgents that were encroaching on us. Our supply lines had been cut, and we were running low on ammo and had no air support. If we didn’t make a move that allowed us to get out, we would have run out of food.”
Ambrose paused, and I caressed his chest, trying my best to soothe him.
“I led a group of soldiers to their camp, and we took them on in hand-to-hand combat. It was brutal, not because they were the well-disciplined, vicious men we’d been warned about, but because they kept telling us they wanted to be our allies.
They begged for their lives as we killed them, and in the end, we learned they had been telling the truth. ”
His choked voice had me looking up at him. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. I pulled him into my arms, and he buried his face against the side of my neck. I slid a hand into his hair, petting him, holding him, wishing there was something I could do as sobs racked his body.
I couldn’t imagine how I would feel after killing someone then learning they had wanted to be friends, that they were innocent.
I had so many questions. I wanted to know how it had happened.
Was it intentional on the part of his commanding officers, or was it a true accident?
I didn’t ask. Ambrose might not be able to say even if he wanted to.
I would listen as long as he needed me, but now wasn’t the time to push him to tell me more.
What he’d told me was enough to make me understand the level of pain I’d seen in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry.”
Ambrose nodded against my shoulder. “I stabbed a man as he begged me to listen to him. I stabbed him right through the heart, and I’ll never forget his face. Never.”
I kissed Ambrose then because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.