Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me) (31 page)

She wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t think he wants to talk about those times in his life.”

“Well, if he doesn’t let it out—or recognize that it has had such an impact on him—he’s going to have trouble getting beyond having those distorted perceptions that are holding you both back from having the intimacy you need.”

Angelina felt lightheaded. She’d messed everything up with Marc. Rather than try to understand his needs, she’d tried to force him to meet hers. How could she undo the damage now?

“Angie, are you okay?”

Angelina looked up at Karla and nodded. She forced herself to smile, hoping she masked some of her inner turmoil. Great. Now
she
was the one wearing the mask.

She turned to Savi. “How do you get someone to remember something buried too deep?”

Savi scrutinized her for a moment. “Well, some have tried regression therapy, hypnosis, and other techniques. I’m not sure there’s empirical evidence showing that those things work, but there have been some who reported individual successes.” When Savi looked at her, Angelina was sure that sharp counselor’s mind could see right through her cover.

Angelina wished she could go to the club tonight to talk with Marc again, but she’d promised to watch Marisol so that Savi could have another session with Damián. The difference in Savi today from when she’d first met her on Christmas morning was astounding. Savi had a spark in her eyes that hadn’t been there earlier.

Angelina remembered her own first sessions exploring this kink lifestyle with Marc. He’d definitely lit a flame inside her, too. Images of her being chained to the center post as he flogged her left an aching emptiness inside that no one would ever fill.

No one except Marc.

She closed the door on those memories. Too painful.

Savi needed her time with Damián at the club tonight more than Angelina needed to try and patch things up with Marc. Besides, she knew where to find Marc any time she wanted him. Clearly, this analysis approach wasn’t something she would try to do on her own, though. What if she failed and only hurt Marc even more?

Chapter Fifteen

M
arc swung the ice axe above his head and heard it sink into the ice with a satisfying ka-thud before he maneuvered to the next ledges. His shoulders ached and his biceps strained as he pulled himself up the frozen face of Lodgepole Falls. The sharp crampons on his boots sank into the ice below him, helping him gain traction on the slippery surface. Sweat broke out on his forehead with his efforts. While he’d been out here on the mountain nearly three weeks, using his store manager’s hunting cabin as base camp, he hadn’t challenged himself this hard during the entire trek.

The sun was warmer today than he’d expected, but the temperatures were still cold enough, despite the fact that it was mid-March already. Escaping as far as he could into nature where no one could invade his thoughts or physical space, he had chosen this particular site based on his experience with it and his ability—even in these late-season, thinner ice conditions. He’d also chosen to climb solo. No partner, no rope; pushing his own limits.

Probably not the wisest move he’d made lately either. He hadn’t been climbing all winter, and his muscles weren’t at peak conditioning. He’d feel the consequences tonight for sure. Not to mention he was having a damned hard time focusing on this climb and not on what—or rather whom—he was running from.

At least the hero ice made it easy for him to look capable of doing something right. Every placement sank into the soft ice on the first swing.

But some fucking hero he was. He couldn’t save himself, much less win the girl.

The exertion of reaching the next foothold blotted out all thoughts but those needed to ensure his safety.

Almost. Adam had texted him over the weekend saying Angelina was visiting Denver.

She’d left him. Packed up and moved out. Okay, so she’d said she’d be gone when he got back from Italy, but he hadn’t believed she’d do it.

What the
fuck
had happened to his controlled, orderly life?

No amount of soul-searching these past few weeks had helped him sort this out. Normally, the mountains held all of the answers, but they were sadistically silent this time.

When he met Angelina last fall and she moved in with him, he knew he’d found the only woman he would ever be able to love. But the love he had to offer hadn’t been enough for her. Just when he thought he’d gotten his shit together, a couple of weekends with his family in Aspen turned his life upside down. Now Angelina was gone.

Hell, could he even say the people in Aspen were his family? He had no clue who he was, where he came from. His life was full of secrets and lies, not unlike the ones he’d perpetrated on Angelina and even Pamela. Neither had deserved that, but maybe that’s all he knew. As long as the lies were told with good intentions, they wouldn’t hurt anyone.

But that was yet another lie he told himself. Both women had been hurt by him.

He kicked into the ice to plant the front points of his crampons and then stood on them before swinging the axe again. Missed.
Merda.
He’d been climbing nearly an hour and already was exhausted. His muscles strained as he fought to land the axe on the next try.

He hadn’t climbed with wrist-attached tools for years, because they gave him the screaming barfies, a feeling somewhere between wanting to scream and wanting to barf at the same time when he lost circulation to his hands because of the straps.

He grinned. Not unlike the pain he felt when Angelina had topped him and removed that first nipple clamp. No wonder she didn’t like those things. But she’d taken the pain for him many times, and he’d sucked it up for her.

He swung the axe again. Got it. Now the other one.
Ka-thud.
Success on the first attempt! He pulled himself up, the steel points on the toes of his boots easily sinking into the plastic-like ice. The temperatures and sunlight had warmed up the ice enough to make climbing a breeze. Not that brittle ice he encountered on colder days.

Sweat trickled down his back as he continued to strain muscles he’d neglected for months. Maybe describing ice climbing as a breeze wasn’t the right term. He hadn’t been gone more than a few days at a time since Angelina had moved in. He hadn’t wanted to be away from her that long.

Now she was gone, and he’d been out here for weeks. He took a moment to let the raw beauty surround and envelop him. The wind whistled through the spruce and fir trees below in the valley between the peaks. A hawk screeched overhead. He spotted it, despite the glare of the sun, soaring on air currents as it sought its next meal.

Women weren’t like the mountains he loved. These rocky slopes were predictable, constant. Okay, not really, but they were a helluva lot more stable than the women in his life had been. Maybe more stable than any of the people in his life had
ever
been.

Out here, away from people, Marc felt at peace. From what Solari had said, he’d been running to nature for comfort and solace his whole life.

So why couldn’t he find either today?

Thoughts of his biological father brought on memories of Gino. Even though Siena wasn’t the same as their birthplace in Brescia, he’d been haunted by dreams of Gino ever since he’d returned from Italy. Disjointed images of Gino. Always the big brother, good and bad. They’d fought, as brothers often do, especially just before Gino enlisted, but Marc was surprised that more of the memories he’d been flooded with lately were of a Gino he’d forgotten about since that time. The Gino who had always tried to guide and protect him. In the absence of a healthy paternal role model in their early years, Gino had assumed that role. Despite being only three years older, Gino had taught the young Marco a lot about life and how to build character.

“Don’t let them see you cry.”

“I didn’t, Gino.”

Ka-thud.
Now more than halfway up the face of the falls, he groaned as he pulled himself up a few more feet.

He’d fought his whole life to keep his emotions hidden away. He thought being strong meant never losing that iron-tight grip on his self-control. But how much control did he really have?

Marc stretched and swung the axe again. His foot slipped on the wet ice, but he quickly regained his hold by sinking the steel points into a new patch. Enough had slipped away from him lately. He wouldn’t let a fucking frozen waterfall get the best of him.

Gino’s words continued to bombard Marc as though his brother were right there with him. His voice was older now, perhaps during Gino’s college years. Marco became a bit of a wild child. He’d always chosen nature over his classroom studies, and when it came time to choose a college program, he’d been lost. One thing he knew for certain, he wouldn’t be following Gino on the MBA route.

“Set your goal and then map out a strategy to get there. Just break it into smaller components. What is it you like to do?”

“Hike. Camp. Ski.”

Gino tolerated the outdoors more than enjoyed them. In a resort community, the things Marc loved were a commodity to be bought, sold, and marketed by Gino and his family.

Surprisingly, instead of telling Marco he needed to be more mature and responsible, Gino smiled.

“Then get a degree in recreational studies. You need to find a calling in life that is fulfilling for you. One you can enjoy. Otherwise, you’ll just wind up resentful, bitter, and unhappy.”

Marc stopped and looked over his shoulder at the mountains and valleys stretching behind him for miles. He hadn’t remembered that conversation until now. Gino had accurately described how Marc felt the time he’d been forced to help run the resort in his brother’s absence after Gino joined the Marines.

Before that, though, Gino helped steer Marc toward the degree he had earned. How had he forgotten that? The view blurred, and he blinked until it cleared again.

His gut knotted remembering those months after Gino’s death when he tried to fill his brother’s shoes, knowing Gino wouldn’t be back at the desk ever again.
Dio,
but he’d been so fucking miserable. He could never replace Gino.

But he didn’t need to. Gino had never demanded it of him. Even his parents hadn’t stopped loving him when he’d left home to join the Navy. Sure, Mama had been bitter at first, but she and Papa had shown up to sit by his hospital bed in Germany when he’d been injured. It became clear to him then that she’d been worried about his safety, not about the bottom line at the resort.

Ka-thud.

Almost there.
Focus, man
.

But if Gino had cared so deeply about Marc’s welfare, why had he turned around and stabbed him in the back by stealing his girl away, even if it had turned out to be one of the best things to happen in Marc’s life? He shuddered to think what life with Melissa would be like.

His mind flashed back to the moment he’d found Gino screwing Melissa. Marc had blocked out the visual memory for years, focusing instead on the fight that ensued afterward and the distance it created between the brothers—a chasm that would never be bridged. Something didn’t mesh with the memory he’d had all this time, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Mr. and Mrs. D’Alessio, we regret to inform you…”

Mama’s scream in anger and grief ricocheted through his head. When she’d been given the news Gino had been killed in Afghanistan, she’d clung to Papa a moment before beating her fist against her husband. Neither had shed any tears that day, but Marc hadn’t either. In fact, he had yet to cry over the loss of his brother.

“Don’t let them see you cry.”

Papa had thanked the uniformed Marine and the Navy chaplain for fulfilling their duty and coming to tell them about Gino’s fate.

Mama and Papa might not have cried, but they had taken the news of Gino’s loss as hard as any biological parent would. Marc had seen that haunted look in their eyes when they came to visit him in the hospital in Germany, too.

Clearly, it hadn’t mattered to Papa that Gino and Marc weren’t his sons by birth. He and Mama had raised them almost their entire lives. Marc had never thought about becoming a parent before but knew he could learn to love, protect, and nurture an adopted child as much as one he’d helped make himself.