Redeeming Justice (20 page)

“The thing is, I’m on the pill. Have god awful periods.” The blush deepened. “Anyway.
I thought you should know after the way I behaved in the truck.”

The way she behaved in the truck? Jesus. Who the hell was she kidding? He let the
encounter get completely out of control knowing full well that he should have stopped
things before he slid into her body. At least he was sorta sure he could have stopped
her. Thing was – she affected him on such a primal level maybe he was kidding himself
about that.

“We were both in that truck Meghan, and I don’t want to hear anymore about it.”

She nodded and gave him a worried smile. “Now here’s the other thing, Alex…”

He wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear what she was going to say. Something about her
tone freaked him out.

She must have picked up on what he was feeling because she quickly added, “I know
this may be something you don’t want to hear but it’s important that I say it out
loud, okay?”

He nodded but didn’t have a clue where this was going.

“It’s about David. David and me.”

His gut clenched. She was right. He didn’t want to hear it especially if what she
had to say included regret for having let him inside her body. He might have been
a pig for taking her like that but he didn’t want to hear about her fiancé or deal
with the possibility that she felt as he did, that they’d disrespected the young man’s
memory by what they’d done.

“Are you sure that talking is a good idea? I’m not a complete prick Meghan. Maybe
we should wait till you feel better.”

She shifted her position, sitting cross-legged with her forearms resting on her knees
while she clutched the water bottle in her hands. He didn’t even try not to notice
that he had a clear shot of her panties, and she didn’t seem to care. With the riot
of auburn curls hanging on her shoulders she looked every inch a naughty temptress
and it was all he could do not to reach out and touch her. He would have given his
eye teeth right then to slid his hand into those silken panties and see if she was
as wet as he remembered.

The minute she started talking, he pulled his thoughts out of her underwear and focused.

“I’ve never spoken of this to a single soul, Alex. But I think you need to hear this
as much as I need to say it.”

He’d faced almost certain death in combat but nothing scared the shit out of him more
than whatever put that sad, confessional tone in her voice.

“David was my teenage crush. He and my brother Mike were BFF’s. They were a couple
years older than me and I tagged along after them like a puppy dog, eager to join
in their antics. We were always together, hanging out, getting in trouble. And they
were my protectors too. You can imagine,” she said while pointing at her chest, “that
once the girls came on the scene, every horny teenage boy in a twenty mile radius
was intent on feeling me up. I think that’s why I never dated or looked for a boyfriend.
I had Mike and David. Eventually David took on a protective role. To a teenage girl,
that protectiveness felt like love. He took me to prom, my parents loved him; knew
his parents too. It was all so predictable. During my first year in college he suddenly
announced one day,
like literally one day
, that he was shipping out to the Middle East. He’d been ROTC in college but whatever
was going on was way more than reserve officer stuff.”

Alex nodded understanding what she was getting at. David hadn’t been regular Army.
Or even a Marine. He was CIA and a relative newbie to their base in the months after
he’d been promoted to commander.

“Your eyes tell a lot Alex, even though you’re not saying anything.”

All he could do was look at her. It wasn’t in his purview to talk about things that
went so far above his pay grade.

“Everyone just sort of assumed we were boyfriend and girlfriend so it seemed natural
to fall into a relationship even though it wasn’t entirely true. He was off in a war
zone doing God only knows what and it felt like my duty to be his emotional anchor
back in the real world. I wrote long letters full of stupid stuff.” She glanced at
him and winced. “You’d know all about that.”

Alex shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.

“As time went on, our friendship really did grow into something else. As a dreamy-eyed
college student I imagined it was love, and he certainly cultivated those feelings.
It was like he needed the reassurance or something. It was weird but I didn’t realize
that until much, much later. Over the next two years he came home a few times and
like the dutiful girlfriend I was always on hand. Mostly we spent time with his folks—seeing
us together gave them some peace, as if he wasn’t in constant danger. There wasn’t
much of anything physical between us to talk about and I’d always figured it was because
I was Mike’s little sister. God, I was so painfully naïve.”

She looked away from him but he saw the blush she tried to hide.

“Anyway – to make a long story short, he came home for two months, just in time for
my university graduation. We hung out and played like kids. It was so nice. I could
tell something was up with him but figured it was whatever he was doing. I was just
trying to be the perfect, supportive girlfriend. Coming from a family of first responders
it felt like my patriotic duty. Keeping the home fires burning and all. Right before
the time came for him to leave, he suddenly asked me to marry him, totally out of
the blue. I said yes, and everyone was happy. His parents cried, mine were ecstatic.
Only Mike seemed less than thrilled.”

She stared off into space, lost in her memories.

“Not too long after that I overheard David and Mike in the midst of a fierce argument.
Mike screamed at him that it wasn’t right that David should use his sister but for
what I couldn’t figure out. He was furious about something and I imagined it was because
he hadn’t sealed the deal with an engagement ring. Later I would see the omission
was a warning sign that passed right over my head at the time. After that I headed
off to grad school and the letter writing continued only something changed. Shifted.
Maybe it was because I was a bit older, wiser, I don’t know. But I started to see
that when he talked about the future it was in past terms. Like a re-telling of how
we grew up. Christmas dinners with his folks, summer camping trips, rooting for the
Red Sox. He never ever spoke of kids or having a family. Never shared his dreams for
what he thought our future would look like, it was all weirdly anchored in the past.
That was also when he started talking about the Justice Team. There were other squads
and people he talked about too but it was mainly you guys.”

She looked uncomfortable but kept on. “He had a particular fascination with Cameron.
Talked about him like he was the second coming of Christ. It creeped me out and I
got jealous. That was when I started
really
reading between the lines and connecting the dots. It wasn’t normal that my fiancé
would write long, passionate letters about some random dude. I remember one where
he referred to him as a hottie. Right then and there, I knew. David was gay. I have
no idea whether he’d even admitted it to himself. It was
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
. I think Mike suspected, and that was what their argument had been about. He hadn’t
proposed with a ring like a man in love with his long time girlfriend should because,
well…because I think the proposal was some last ditch hope on his part for a normal
life. Maybe if he just went through the motions,
you know
, everything would magically be alright.”

Alex was speechless. The story she was sharing wasn’t anything like the one he’d created
in his imagination. Plus, the part about Cameron was an eye-opener.

“I didn’t get the chance though to set things right because he never came home. His
parents were devastated. They tried to give me his grandmother’s engagement ring because
they felt he would have wanted me to have it. I didn’t take it of course. Their devastation
meant that no matter what, I was never,
ever
going to let my suspicions see the light of day. It was one thing to lose an only
child and the promise of his future and all the things to come, and another altogether
to find out posthumously that it had all been a lie. Once, and only once, Mike and
I talked about it. We got shit-faced drunk sitting in the dugout at the neighborhood
Little League field one night. David was his best friend. I was his little sister.
He cried. I cried. We said things that needed to be said. I think he was relieved
that I suspected. It meant he didn’t have to keep that horrible secret alone.”

He heard the pain in her voice and died a little inside. The loyalty she showed to
David’s memory humbled him.

“So you see, David and I were
never
going to be married. We’d never been intimate beyond a few lackluster make-out sessions.
You’re not shitting on some dead guy’s grave by making love with his fiancée. I was
still a virgin when he died, crying tears for a man who loved me but just not in that
way. Two years later I went out and relieved myself of my virginal status with a drunken,
sordid romp while on a cruise with some girlfriends who totally egged me on. They
thought they were helping me get over a broken heart. I just wanted to move past the
whole thing and screwing some macho asshole was the means to an end and a moment in
my life that I’m the least proud of.”

When she finished, the silence in the room was deafening. Alex was struggling to wrap
his mind around everything she said. Meghan watched him with an intensity that let
him know she’d had a hard time telling him all that. Now that he understood, a huge
weight felt like it had been lifted from his shoulders.

There were probably things he should say but his mind was blank. Sometimes actions
speak louder than words so he put his hand on the nape of her neck and pulled her
forward until his lips met hers. His intention had been to tenderly kiss her but the
gentleness was quickly replaced with a rapacious need that exploded between them with
a vengeance. Her admission had loosened him from the restraint he’d been clinging
to.

He plundered her mouth with no remorse. Swirling his tongue with hers, Alex coaxed
a fiery response from her, encouraging her with his lips to join him in the flames.

Grabbing hold of her he hauled Meghan across his lap kissing her with a searing passion.
Only her slight wince at his touch stopped him from pinning her to the bed. Remembering
her headache and the sunburn, he eased off until she calmed in his arms. Her need
was great and while he wanted nothing more than to sink inside her delicious heat,
Alex knew this wasn’t the moment.

True, her confession had given him a measure of peace but there was still a fuck ton
of crap he needed to consider. Things he had to make sense of before this went any
further. She didn’t know the type of passions that drove him, and he wasn’t just thinking
about the remnants of guilt he felt for his part in David’s death. It was time for
him to stop running from himself too.

Meghan was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. Sharing her truth with Alex had been
powerful. More so than she expected. His voracious kiss had shocked her until she
fell into it with helpless abandon. This was what she wanted. His passion. The power
of all that masculinity focused on her. It made her feel feminine and wicked. Right
then she would have gladly done anything he asked of her. The thought was shocking
and a little scary. She hadn’t known this side of her even existed until he’d unleashed
it.

When he ended the kiss she groaned aloud in disappointment and frustration. “Why did
you stop?” she cried out.

The look he gave her blazed with desire but he didn’t come back to her mouth. Instead
he sat perfectly still but kept a hand on one of her legs.

“Thank God you told me that, sweetheart. It was killing me to want you so bad while
some other guy’s memory hung between us.”

He slid his hand between her thighs and ran two fingers along her silk panties.

“I want you Meghan but you should know there’s nothing gentle or tender about that
want. Right now, this very second all I can think of is ripping your nightie to shreds
and devouring every inch of your body. My tongue wants to feel you come while I lap
up your sweet fluids. My cock wants to bury inside your wet pussy and fuck you till
you scream. I want to take you hard and fast, over and over. There won’t be any hearts
and flowers when I do, baby. That’s not who I am. I like it rough, wild, and dirty
as fuck. Wanna make you do things that good girls shouldn’t even know about.”

Oh my dear sweet God. Rough, wild, and dirty as fuck? She hoped to survive the experience
and nothing,
nothing
was going to stop her from giving him everything he wanted. But her head was thumping
with the mother of all headaches and wherever the sun had kissed her skin, it felt
like fire.