Hard Way (35 page)

She’d changed into a robe hours before, so it was a simple thing to open those folds. Only, he hadn’t expected her to be completely nude underneath. He groaned as he took her mouth again. They could never be gentle with each other. He was convinced of it now, no matter how much talking and working and fixing they had yet to do. It wasn’t in them to be gentle. Their passion wasn’t kind.

“Do me a favor.” He notched the head of his prick at her slick opening. Holding his breath. Waiting for her to meet his eyes.

She did. Those dark eyes he loved were blazing with a swirl of emotion that matched how surely he was drowning. “Tell me?”

“Never call me Dash again. I’m Liam. I’m
your
Liam.”

Another sob grabbed her by the throat, and she buried her face against his shoulder. It was such a simple act to slide into her body, but it didn’t
feel
simple. Their groans twined together. Deep kisses. Hands grasping and claiming. She pushed his trousers down. More sharpness from her fingernails, this time digging into the meat of his ass.

He bent to kiss her breasts. She released one hand long enough to shove his head down, harder, until he was sucking her nipples, one and the other, with his teeth across the tender skin between.

And all the while he thrust. She met every push of his hips, even when her crown hit the arm of the couch. Liam arched her back until he had free access to her throat and the tender hollow behind her ear.

“I’m here,” he said against her skin.

His gasp sped the cadence of her body’s questing need. He loomed above her. Such a petite woman, but she was his fighter. So tough, inside and out, who gave as good as she got. In his mind, they were making love. Yet their bodies were fucking. Jerky, quick motions that took his brain and spun it and spun it until all he knew was that Sunny’s sharp cry meant he could let go. He bowed his forehead against the armrest, right next to her neck, and used her body to find the satisfaction he’d given her. He grunted, then cried out. Even to his own ears it sounded like rage, something hurt and anguished.

Only the feel of her hands petting beneath his shirt brought him back, back to her, back to himself.

He rolled slightly to the side, making room for her to lie halfway against his body. The couch was barely wide enough to cradle them both. He gathered the scent of her hair and shuddered a potent exhalation.

“It was never about DC,” she said. “And it was never about Jake.” She propped on her elbow to look down at him. The touches she spread across his injured face and down toward where his heart hammered were as soft as the sound of her voice. “It was always this. This fear. I accused you of being two different people, but what was I? I played your wife for years, but underneath, I… Liam, I was splitting in two as well.”

He kept skimming his hands along her body, wherever he could reach. “I don’t understand.”

“I needed a life raft. I needed something of my own so that when you were shot down—
when
. God, I never thought it would be
if
. When you were shot down, I’d have some way to crawl free. How could I be your wife if a phone call like that was always there waiting for me? It was a stick of lit dynamite between us. Any happiness, any peace…how could I trust it?”

Her voice was thick with the tears that glimmered in the sunlight, infusing her nearly black eyes with flecks of gold and honey.

“I was pulling away.” She leaned down to kiss the notch at the base of his throat. “Because I didn’t think I could keep you. Not forever. You’d be stolen from me. I was so terrified of being alone, even there in the hotel when I didn’t know where you were. All I knew was that you weren’t beside me. And if you never came back…I wouldn’t be myself. Not ever again.”

He swallowed. “But you were always proud of me.”

“Yes. And I still am, because I thought it was what you wanted, and I was never going to ask you to give up what you loved. I just couldn’t be that woman anymore, the one waiting for the worst to happen.”

“It
was
what I wanted, a long time ago. Dad and expectations—and damn, I was so
good
at it. Why throw all that away? I kept waiting for it to feel right and to be like everyone else said it should be.” He shook his head. “It’s not what I want now.”

“Will you share that with me? No jokes now.”

“I want to raise our children.” Liam formed the words carefully. She tensed beneath his hands, but he kept caressing her, holding her, and talked on before she cut him off. He could see by her expression that she wanted to. “You said no jokes, and in return, I ask for no judgment. It was never some trick, Sunny. It was never a way to keep you at home or manipulate you. I haven’t been happier in years than when I was teaching those kids.”

“And I took that from you.”

“Don’t.” He kissed her forehead. “We’ve taken a lot from each other. None of it has been fair or easy, and hell, I don’t think any of it has been our individual faults. Just…coping.”

“I don’t want to cope anymore.”

“What
do
you want?”

“I’m done with politics. I want a job I can be proud of, one where I sleep here every night.” Her tears scalded his chest. “A husband who’ll be here and—”

She broke down and he pulled her close, choking on the lump in his throat. There, with his eyes closed, with her face pressed flush against his chest, he could say the rest of what needed to be said. “I’m going to need help, Sunny. Real help. I’ve come back safe every time, but I haven’t come back unscathed—not in my mind. I haven’t looked it in the face until now, and it isn’t going away.”

“That’s the first time you’ve said anything about it.”

“I know. And it probably explains a lot of…a lot of what we’ve been doing.”

“It was real,” she whispered. “It’s what I’d been hoping you’d share with me for years, because you never shared any of it. I just didn’t know how deep it went.”

“I won’t be controlled by trauma anymore.” Fuck, he’d said it. And he meant it. The tightness in his chest unfurled in a way that made the freedom he’d felt in their hotel room seem warped and desperate. “I don’t want it to control
us
. We can desire what we do, but not because I still have demons riding me. Tell me…”

She lifted her face and brushed a kiss across his lips. “Anything.”

“That list of what you want. Am I on it?”

A wobbly smile blended with her tears in a wrenching expression—the happy, the sad, the hopeful. His heart clenched, feeling all three in tandem. “It was never a matter of wanting to love you. I thought I could run, and that making the choice to go would hurt less than having it taken from me. I was so wrong, Liam.
My
Liam. I would’ve loved you no matter what.”

“You won’t leave.” It wasn’t a question, because he couldn’t let it be a question. Not anymore.

“And you won’t leave.”

“I won’t. I’ll serve out the rest of my commitment however Fang can finagle it to keep me grounded.” He tightened his arms. “I love you, Sunny. Do you believe that? Is it enough?”

She nodded and swiped away a few more tears. “I think these are the most honest words we’ve said since our wedding day.”

“We have a lot to make up for, then. Eight years of half selves. I won’t live that way anymore. And you won’t either.”

Sunny grinned now, still sad and ragged around the edges, but at least she was smiling. “I won’t, huh?”

“Nope. As your husband, this is my command.”

“Asshole.”

He let out another deep breath and stared at the ceiling. A shiver overtook him. She held him tighter, as if the warmth of her smaller body could fill the frozen holes and dents and scars inside his. Of course she could.

“I need to fly out this evening to go see Eric.”

“If you think you’re going without me…” she said, lying flat on top of him. She laced her hands across the top of his chest and rested her chin there. “…then you’re a complete idiot. As your wife, this is my inalienable opinion.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“Nothing about this has been easy. But I think I remember something about ‘for better, for worse’. Will you forgive me for not trusting that we meant it?”

“I love you, Sunita. My sunshine. We’ll forgive each other and hold on. Don’t let me go.”

They curled together there on the couch, where their new lives would begin. “Never, Liam. I love you too, and I’m never letting you go.”

Epilogue

Sunny adored her new job with the Clark County DA’s office, but being low chick on the totem pole made for late nights, especially when they were going to trial in three days. Her aching neck and back would be worth it soon. She was parking her Acura in the driveway at half past nine in the evening, but that meant they’d lock up the bastard who’d fleeced more than a dozen retirees out of their pensions with a Ponzi scheme.

Oh, hell. It was already worth it. She was proud of the work she was doing.

She let herself in the front door and dumped her laptop case and purse on a table in the living room. Toeing off her business flats let her toes suck up the coolness of the tile. She breathed a sigh of relief. So good to be home.

Even better would be if she could find Liam. He was on the roster to teach a class until seven thirty, which was part of why she worked so late. In return, she was able to spend extra time with him in the morning. Having breakfast. Reading the paper. Chatting about the day to come. All the little extras that she’d once missed so fiercely.

Now the house was still and almost silent. That she could hear the fridge meant wherever he was, Liam was being awfully quiet. If she hadn’t seen his car in the drive, she might wonder where he was.

Except Liam never left her to wonder anymore. She trailed her fingertips down the wainscoting in the hallway. A soft flush of remembered heat wound through her. The last time she’d touched that particular piece of wood, she’d bent at the waist while Liam had taken her from behind. She hadn’t been able to scream because of the gag.

God, she’d come so hard she’d seen stars.

They hadn’t had very many sessions like that recently, but she doubted she would ever get her fill. She was almost always hungry for her husband.

She smiled to herself when she opened the door to what had once been their home office—which had been privy to some rather outré behavior. Not anymore. Now, it was as innocent as could be.

Liam, her soon-to-be-former fighter pilot, was asleep in a rocking chair with a bundle of blanket-wrapped baby tucked in his arms. His head dipped so low that his chin brushed his chest. He wore a black tank top over track pants. One tiny fist poked out from the pink blankets.

Her heart swelled with such a rush of love that Sunny thought she would choke. She crossed her arms over her chest, holding the happy feeling so that she’d always, always remember it.

The room was painted in pastel pinks and purples. A rainbow covered two walls, arching over the window that looked out on their backyard. The crib in the corner was dressed with cream-and-black bedding and an already beloved stuffed plane that had been brought over by Major Haverty and his wife.

Sunny leaned a shoulder against the frame of the door and let air gather in her chest again. Every time. Every single time she saw a scene like this, she went somewhere special. It
was
special. She got the best of all the worlds. Her husband adored her, and he’d found a calling that fulfilled him in immeasurable ways. She was damned lucky to have found her new job with the DA’s office too. Not only did it mean a distinct lack of travel, but now she was certain she was one of the good guys.

And she got a darling, sweet-faced baby girl with a perfect cupid’s-bow mouth. Kavya was the second-best thing that had come into Sunny’s life.

Liam was the best father. She was completely sure of it. Even now, sleeping in the rocking chair, he had the sort of immovable grip on their daughter that said the world could fall apart and he’d keep her safe. His Air Force commitment would be up in a month, with Fang having made good on his promise to keep Liam earthbound.

The transition was ongoing—one that had started with twice-weekly counseling sessions to work through issues left behind after combat. He still went every other week. Re-entering civilian life would be easier than parenthood, and a damn sight easier than surviving a war zone, but all of it would require adjustments.

They’d faced worse. Now they had so much to anticipate.

Soon he’d be able to devote all of his daytime hours to Kavya and the Kawashima school. He would always be Dash to his comrades, but Liam was home for good.

Sunny shook his shoulder as gently as she could. She knew from experience that trying to take Kavya from his arms wouldn’t work. He’d startle and flinch, then insist on laying her down anyway.

He blinked sleep-bleary eyes up at Sunny. “Hey, you. Good day?”

She nodded, lifting a single finger to her lips. He looked down at Kavya. Together, they got the baby tucked into her crib. Sunny turned on a light display that splashed artificial stars across the ceiling.

She led the way back into the hallway. “No pacifier?”

“Nope. She wouldn’t take it. The daycare said she was a little fussy too.” He rubbed sleep out of his eyes. “She might be teething.”