Burn for You (27 page)

“Why?”

“Because I’m pretty sure I’m going to find myself suspended today.”

“No, you’re not. Flaherty’s not going to say anything about what happened.”

“Like hell he’s not. That guy wanted my blood last night.”

“I got him to see things my way. Trust me. He’s not going to say anything.”

“How? How’d you manage that?”

She sat down on the leather sofa, curled one leg underneath her, and glanced pointedly at the cushion next to her, silently instructing him to sit. He sat facing her, one arm resting on the back of the sofa while she told him about her threat to Flaherty.

“I’d never let you lie for me,” Jason said when she’d finished. “It’s not worth it.”

“It’s not really a lie. I know that—from where you were standing—it looked like he was going to hit me. Besides, Mike knows he contributed to that whole situation. He was purposefully provoking you before that. So…he and I have an understanding now.”

Jason shook his head, not quite smiling, but looking more relaxed than he had since she’d arrived at his house. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“Yes, I do,” she said, returning his smile.

He cleared his throat, his tone turning serious once again. “Listen. I’m sorry I left.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” He grabbed her hand, his touch light, giving her the chance to pull away if she wanted, but she didn’t want to.

She clasped his hand back.

“Will you tell me about it?” he asked. “About what Flaherty was talking about?”

She sighed. She didn’t really feel up to rehashing this again tonight—this morning to be exact—but something told her Jason needed to repent. He needed to be there for her and to listen the way he hadn’t been able to when she’d told the story to Flaherty. Knowing this, she prepared for the emotional onslaught with a deep breath.

“PFC Harding—Blake—was a guy in my unit. I learned tonight that he and Flaherty went to boot camp together and became good friends.”

“And he thinks you killed this guy?”

She appreciated the disbelief in Jason’s voice. It was nice to know someone found the idea of her killing a person completely ridiculous.

“I was there when he died. When he killed himself actually.” He squeezed her hand, giving her the courage to let her memory take her back to that horrible place. “See, a few weeks prior, our unit ran into an IED attack. Harding took a hard blow to the head when we were thrown from the truck, and I always thought he was never the same after that.”

“PTSD?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose. But it was more than that. He was…altered. Like his personality did a complete one-eighty. He went from being this affable, funny guy to just constantly angry and sarcastic and mean. And I know that sounds like PTSD, but lots of us dealt with that, and this was different.”

She paused, trying to figure out how to explain it. She hadn’t done the greatest job explaining it to Flaherty, and in fact, she suspected he didn’t one hundred percent believe her side of the story, but with Jason, she could take her time. He was patient, giving her a chance to choose her words carefully.

“Even with PTSD, people are capable of being themselves, but there was literally no sign of the old Harding. I wondered if the part of his brain where his personality lived might’ve been damaged in the blast. I pushed the doctors to do scans again. I was convinced something more was going on. But no one listened to me. That initial CT came back clear and no one saw a need to do anything else.”

Sighing, she laid the side of her head on the sofa back, too emotionally spent to hold it up any longer. “I saw Harding sneaking into one of the convoy vehicles one night, and I got in the passenger seat. He told me—and not very nicely—to go away. But I didn’t listen.”

“What was he doing?” Jason asked, his gruff voice somehow soothing.

“Leaving. I tried to talk him out of it, but the more I talked, the angrier he got. He pulled out and drove about ten miles from camp. The whole time I was begging him to turn around. I was positive one of the night guards saw us leave. I knew someone would be following us and we’d both be in a shit-ton of trouble.” She paused, studying their intertwined hands. “I was so relieved when he pulled over.”

“You thought he was going to turn around.”

She nodded. “But he didn’t. He pulled out a pistol and shot himself in the head.”

He squeezed her hand and she squeezed it right back, fighting back the tears that always accompanied that terrible memory. “It happened so fast. He moved so fast. There was no time to try to talk him out of it. All of a sudden this shot rang out, and I was screaming.” Her voice fell to a feeble whisper. “I couldn’t stop screaming. I just kept seeing the blood and the gray matter from his br—it was—pieces of him were on me, and…I tried, you know? Futile as I knew it was. I wanted to put him back together.”

At some point in her story, Jason had scooted closer on the sofa to wipe the tears from her cheek with his thumb.

“I loved the army. I loved being a medic. I would’ve stayed in, but I couldn’t take the rumors. Everywhere I went that story followed me. Only the versions of it were twisted. Some people said I was a deserter, some said Harding and I were having an affair and I killed him in a jealous rage and tried to make it look like suicide. It didn’t matter that a full investigation had been done and no charges brought forth. They’d all tried and convicted me in their minds. So, when my contract was up, I got out.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, brushing her long bangs away from her eyes.

“When I came back to the states, I went to his grave—Harding’s grave. I wanted to say goodbye and…I don’t know…”

“Find closure.”

She nodded. “I sat in front of his grave, feeling this horrible heavy weight, this hopelessness that I didn’t think would ever end. And while I was sitting cross-legged in front of his headstone, a butterfly landed on my knee. Right on my knee. And it stayed there. It didn’t fly away. Have you ever been able to just hold a butterfly?”

Jason shook his head.

“Neither have I. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before, and I took it as a sign. I thought he was trying to tell me that there was still beauty in the world. That horrible as it seems sometimes, there are still moments of perfection to be had.”

“That’s why you have the butterfly tattoo,” he said, moving his thumb over the wing that peeked out from her v-neck t-shirt.

“Mmm-hmm. I wanted a constant reminder that life goes on. That things get better. And they did, because later that day, I got the call that I’d been hired by the Evanston Fire Department.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his, breathing deeply and feeling the tears evaporate from her cheeks.

She liked that Jason didn’t ask any more questions, that he didn’t try to talk the subject to death. She didn’t need to talk about it anymore. She’d had months of therapy to do that. She knew her mind was solid. The logical part of her brain understood that Harding’s death was not her fault.

But logic wasn’t always enough.

Logic might keep her sane, but it didn’t do squat for the rock of despair in her stomach or the suffocating pressure of guilt in her chest. Those physiological responses couldn’t always be talked away. It was why she ran—to replace those physical manifestations of emotion with the exhilaration of a good old runner’s high.

Needing that same kind of relief, wanting to feel something other than heartache, she nuzzled her nose against his. He could make her feel alive. His hands could chase away the sadness, the guilt, the despair.

She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to ask for what she needed, so she pulled back slightly, hoping if he looked her in the eyes, he’d see.

Those dark-edged, light-blue eyes had the same effect on her now that they’d had the day their photo had been snapped outside the hospital. His steady gaze—calm and comforting—drew her in.

It was impossible to say who kissed who. It happened so naturally—one moment looking into his eyes, the next closing hers to savor the feel of his lips on her mouth. The kiss was long and slow and somehow different from any that had come before.

He leaned her back on the sofa, never breaking the kiss while he covered her body with his own. Sighing with pleasure from the weight of him, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and they moved together. The rhythm was as hypnotic as his lake-meets-sky eyes, like waves gently lapping at the shoreline, like anything and everything that had ever brought her peace.

Closing her eyes, she focused on the sounds of their love making, the rustle of clothes being removed, the groans of the sofa beneath their weight, and her favorite, the hitch of his breath as he entered her. She raised her hips in time with his, loving the feel of his warm breath on her neck and drawing in the clean male scent she’d come to know as his.

He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, and because he’d learned her body so well, he changed his angle so that with each long, slow stroke, his pelvis rolled against her sweet spot.

She remained ensnared in his hypnotic gaze even as the beginnings of an orgasm started to steal her breath. She couldn’t look away, and she didn’t want to. Everything she’d ever needed was staring right back at her, reminding her that she was here, she was alive, and living was good.

* * *

Rule number one: No sleepovers. He was currently obeying on the technicality that
he
wasn’t sleeping even if she was. Staring at the ceiling with a naked Victoria tucked against his side, he knew there was little chance he’d drift off.

He’d never been able to sleep with someone else in the room. Not since he was a kid. He’d only gotten used to sharing a room with Preston because he snored like a lawn mower—a weirdly comforting reminder of who was with him. But boarding school had been four years of studying all night and catching catnaps during the day while his roommate was out.

He skimmed his fingers up and down the soft skin of her arm, and she hummed in her sleep, snuggling closer to him. God, he loved this. Laying here, listening to the even rhythm of her sleep breathing. He wanted to steal just a few more moments of this simple pleasure before he left.

And he would leave. He had to.

He was done kidding himself about this friends-with-benefits bullshit. Last night’s fist-to-face encounter with Flaherty made it glaringly clear to Jason that his feelings for Victoria had crossed some invisible line.

He knew it because the beast wouldn’t stay caged.

Not a week went by in his line of work where someone didn’t get physical. Jason had broken up more fights than he could count, had intervened in domestic disputes, and wrangled uncooperative and often violent drunks and addicts. But never in his six years as a police officer had he resorted to physical force when it wasn’t absolutely necessary. His use of force reports were truthful and by the book.

And how was that possible? Easy. Professional detachment.

He could pull the reins on his inner beast for just about anyone. Except for those who meant the most. When someone he cared about was in danger, there were no chains thick enough to hold back the demon inside.

And it was exactly that trait—that flaw in his character—that drove the people he cared about away.

But not Victoria. Not yet, anyway.

He shifted on the sofa, angling himself so he could see her face. Her cheek rested on his chest, right over his heart, and her expression was so peaceful, it was hard to imagine that not one hour ago she was replaying some of the most horrible things to have ever happened to her.

Maybe it was because of what she’d seen in her life that she hadn’t run for the hills when she learned what he was capable of, but whatever the reason, he didn’t deserve her loyalty. He didn’t deserve it because he didn’t know the first thing about being the man she needed. God, just look at what he’d done tonight. She’d shared that horrific story with him, and what did he do? Did he tell her that it wasn’t her fault? Did he assure her that she’d done all she could? Did he give her a chance to talk about what she was feeling now?

No.

No, he hadn’t done any of those things because he was too busy making love to her. Christ, he hadn’t even used a condom. Granted, she’d mentioned last week that she was on the pill, but still. They’d agreed using both contraceptives was smart, and he’d blown it tonight. Completely forgot because all he could think about was getting closer to her. He’d let his need to be inside her trump her need to talk about what she was feeling.

She deserved better than that. She deserved better than him.

Preston had warned him not to hurt her, and as much as it might sting to cut things off now, it would only get worse if he let this drag on.

Worse for both of them.

He brushed the back of his knuckles over her cheek, tracing her face, memorizing what she looked like in sleep.

Because he knew that after today, he’d never see her like this again.

Chapter 21

Victoria took pride in her ability to see the best in people. She gave her mother a pass on her meddling ways because…well, she meant well. She tried not to dislike Flaherty too much because she knew he’d been through a lot and had his own inner battles to wage. She forgave Jason’s sudden distance because she knew the last night they’d shared had probably freaked him out a little.

She was a silver linings kind of person. Someone always willing to extend the benefit of the doubt.

But after three days with no communication from Jason? Her desire to make excuses for him was wearing thin, and all she wanted to
extend
was her foot to his rear end.

“I don’t get it,” Camille said, passing Victoria another strawberry margarita. “You have this night of—what did you call it?”

“Soul-binding connection.”

“Right—this soul-binding connection—and then poof. He disappears. Without a trace.”

“It was hardly that mysterious. He left a note.”

“Note schmote. It didn’t explain why he’s being a tool.”

No, it certainly didn’t. In fact, the note was rather sweet.
Sorry I won’t be here when you wake up. Need to do some follow-up after talking to Flaherty. Help yourself to something to eat if you’re hungry. Wish I had another cream cheese brownie for you, but hopefully you like fruit.