Chapter 7 Three Years of Silence
Marlene's hands were still trembling when she reached for the button of his jeans.
He hadn't moved from where he hovered above her, his weight braced on his forearms, his forehead pressed to hers.
Their breathing had barely steadied. She could still taste herself on his lips, still feel the ghost of his tongue between her legs, still feel the aftershocks flickering through her like heat lightning on a summer night.
But it wasn't enough.
Her fingers found the button she'd unfastened what felt like hours ago. The zipper, already split, gave way under her palm. She pushed the denim down over his hips, and Gideon made a sound—low and rough and caught somewhere between a groan and a warning.
"Marlene." Her name was gravel in his throat.
"I want you." She said it without hesitation. Without embarrassment. The words came from a place that existed beyond shyness, beyond the careful modesty her father had tried to stitch into her bones. "All of you."
Gideon lifted his head. Those deep brown eyes searched her face, and she let him look. Let him see the certainty there.
"You're still shaking," he said.
"So are you."
He was. She could feel it—the fine tremor in his arms, the way his chest rose and fell against hers in ragged rhythm. Three years since he'd been stateside. She remembered him saying that. Three years since he'd let himself want anything this badly.
"Help me," he said.
She understood.
Together they worked his jeans down past his hips, past his thighs.
The fabric caught on his knees, and he kicked them free with a motion that was almost violent in its urgency.
His boxer briefs followed—black cotton, worn soft—and then there was nothing between them but heat and shadow and the orange streetlamp light that had witnessed everything.
Marlene looked at him. All of him.
Scars she'd already traced. Muscles she'd already mapped.
And now this—the length of him, hard and velvet-skinned and pressing against her hip with an eagerness that made her breath catch.
Her hand found him without her telling it to.
Her fingers wrapped around him, learning the shape, the weight, the way his whole body went rigid at her touch.
"God," he breathed. His eyes squeezed shut.
"Look at me." She threw his own command back at him now, soft but steady. "You made me watch. Now it's your turn."
His eyes opened. Dark. Desperate. Devoted.
Her thumb traced the ridge of him, and his hips jerked forward into her grip.
The sound he made was strangled. His hand came up to cup her jaw—that same tender gesture from the diner, from the hallway, from every moment that had led them here—and he kissed her with a depth that stole what little breath she had left.
"I don't have—" He broke the kiss, forehead pressed to hers again. "I wasn't expecting this. I don't have protection."
Marlene's heart clenched at the admission. At the consideration beneath the hunger.
"Nightstand," she whispered. "Top drawer."
He reached over her, the length of his body stretching against hers, and the friction drew a gasp from them both.
She heard the drawer slide open. Heard him fumble through the clutter—old receipts, a paperback she'd never finished, the box she'd bought months ago on a whim she hadn't fully understood until tonight.
The foil packet crinkled.
She took it from him. Ripped it open with fingers that were steadier than she felt. And then she reached between them, rolling the condom down over him with a care that bordered on reverence. His breath hissed through his teeth. His arms trembled.
"Marlene." Her name was a prayer now. "Tell me you want this."
"I want this." She guided him to her entrance. Felt the heat of him pressing against where she was still wet, still open, still aching from his mouth. "I want you."
He pushed forward.
Slow. So slow.
Her body resisted at first—not from reluctance, but from the sheer overwhelming reality of him.
The stretch. The pressure. The way he filled her inch by devastating inch until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began.
Her mouth fell open on a sound that had no consonants, only breath, only the shape of his name repeated like an incantation.
"Okay?" His voice was tight. Controlled. Like he was holding himself back by the thinnest thread.
"Yes." The word came out tearful. Joyful. "Yes, don't stop—"
He didn't.
He sank into her fully, and she felt him in her throat, in her chest, in the place behind her ribs where loneliness had lived for so long she'd forgotten it was there.
Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her ankles crossed at the small of his back.
And Gideon—this man who'd been a stranger two hours ago, this soldier who'd driven into her town on fumes and instinct—buried his face in the curve of her neck and let out a sound that was almost a sob.
"Three years." His voice broke on the words. "Three years since I felt—"
She didn't let him finish.
She rolled her hips.
The motion was instinctive. Ancient. Her body knew what to do even as her mind reeled.
Gideon groaned against her throat and began to move—slow withdrawals that left her gasping, slow thrusts that filled her so completely her vision blurred at the edges.
A rhythm built between them like a heartbeat finding its pulse. Slow. Deep. Deliberate.
His hand found hers on the pillow. Their fingers intertwined.
"Look at me," she said again.
He lifted his head. His eyes were wet. She didn't mention it.
The streetlamp painted him in gold. Every scar on his chest gleamed—the one on his collarbone, the one on his ribs, the one on his shoulder that she'd kissed what felt like a lifetime ago.
He thrust deeper, and her back arched off the mattress, and she watched his face change—watched the control slip, watched something raw and desperate break through the careful mask he'd worn since the diner.
"Harder," she said.
"Marlene—"
"I'm not going to break." She freed her hand from his. Reached up. Her nails found the scarred plane of his back. Raked down. "I've been waiting my whole life for someone to stop treating me like I'm fragile."
Something snapped in him.
His next thrust drove her into the mattress.
The headboard knocked against the wall—once, twice—and somewhere in the building, Mrs. Calloway's television clicked back on, drowning out the sound.
Gideon's pace shifted. Faster now. Deeper.
His hips slammed against hers with a force that bordered on punishing, and Marlene welcomed it.
Craved it. Met every thrust with a roll of her own hips that made him curse under his breath.
Her nails dug into his back.
Hard enough to leave marks.
He hissed—not in pain, but in something that sounded like relief. Like her claws were an anchor, keeping him tethered to this moment, this bed, this woman who wasn't afraid of his scars or his history or the ghosts he carried in the hollows of his eyes.
"That's it," she breathed. "Let go."
His hand slid under her lower back. Tilted her hips. The new angle made her cry out—a sharp, startled sound that dissolved into a moan as he found a spot deep inside her that sent sparks spiraling up her spine. Her nails raked down his back again. Left red trails from his shoulders to his ribs.
"Marlene." Her name was a growl now. "I'm not going to last—"
"Then don't."
Her heels dug into his backside, pulling him deeper.
Her inner walls clenched around him, and she felt the exact moment his control shattered.
His rhythm faltered. His breath caught. And then he buried himself inside her with a groan that seemed to come from somewhere ancient—from before the tours, before the scars, before the apartment that never felt like home.
She felt him pulse inside her.
The sensation—the knowledge that she'd undone him, that she'd given him this after three years of nothing—pushed her over the edge for a second time.
Her orgasm rolled through her like a wave, gentler than the first but deeper, spreading through her limbs until even her fingertips tingled.
She held him through it. Held him as he shuddered above her.
Held him as the last tremors rippled through them both and the streetlamp outside flickered once, twice, and steadied.
Gideon collapsed.
Not entirely—he caught himself on his forearms, kept his weight off her, but his forehead dropped to the pillow beside her head and his breath came in ragged gasps that matched her own. She could feel his heartbeat hammering against her chest. Could feel the slick of his sweat against her skin.
Her nails were still pressed into his back.
She loosened them. Flattened her palms against his shoulder blades. Felt the raised welts she'd left behind.
"Sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to—"
"Don't apologize." His voice was muffled by the pillow. He turned his head. Met her eyes. "That was the first time in years I felt something real."
Marlene didn't have words for that.
She kissed him instead. Soft and slow. Her lips barely brushing his, her hands stroking the back of his neck, her body still joined with his in the most intimate way two strangers could be.
They stayed like that for a long moment—breathing together, trembling together—as the radiator clanked to life in the corner and Mrs. Calloway's television murmured through the floorboards.
Gideon pulled back first. His eyes searched her face.
"I should—" He gestured vaguely downward. "Take care of the—"
"Bathroom's down the hall." She touched his jaw. "Come back."
It wasn't a question.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Slipped out of her—she gasped at the loss—and disappeared into the dark hallway. She heard the bathroom door close. Heard water running. Heard the old pipes groan in protest.
Marlene lay in the rumpled sheets, naked and sore and still trembling. The streetlamp kept throwing its orange light across the ceiling. She traced that familiar zigzag crack with her eyes and felt, for the first time in three years, that her apartment wasn't empty.
The bathroom door opened.
His footsteps padded back down the hallway.