Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101882 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
I massaged his scalp, feeling the tension tying him in knots with every touch. I wanted to ask him about the article but I couldn’t do it. Words seemed so incredibly trite compared to the pain that radiated off him.
“Another time we found an entire village massacred,” he said, voice rough. “Whole damn place shot to hell. Kids. Women. Men. Fucking donkeys. Goats. All of them dead, houses burning, you name it. You know what’s totally fucked up? We go in there and find this, call it in, but the next day we’re the bastards under investigation. Apparently there’s all kinds of people saying we did it. You know how fucked that is? You go to a country, you try to help the people there and they spend all their time and energy either trying to kill you or set you up.”
I stilled, wondering if I could believe him. Horse had no reason to tell me about this. Not unless he’d found my email account. But I’d been careful, really careful, clearing out my phone’s cache and cookies and browsing history. I’d never put the address into my email app, I only checked it on the website. Could he trace that?
“Do you know how insane this is? Bagger just died for this country in a war that’s gone on for ten fucking years, and people around here think they’re suffering if they can’t afford a new iPhone,” he said, looking up at me for the first time. The stark grief written all over his face tore through me and that’s when I knew. It wasn’t fake. Not this. Jeff was wrong about him. Horse might be many things, but he didn’t kill those people. The article said Marines were under investigation, but it didn’t say how the investigation ended. Even Jeff acknowledged Horse had an honorable discharge.
Horse didn’t kill those people. I knew it in my bones.
I felt such incredible relief that I trembled with it, but I didn’t say anything. Whatever else happened, I would protect Jeff. But that didn’t mean I’d give up on what I had with Horse. There had to be a way to walk the line between the two men I loved. I just had to find it. Horse leaned forward, pressing his head into my stomach, shuddering. His arms wrapped around my hips and he pulled me forward between his legs. I have no idea how long we sat there but it seemed like forever. He didn’t talk, just held me, shaking, as his grief poured out.
Finally the shudders eased and he pulled back. I looked down at him, running my fingers across the lines of his face, feeling the softness of his lips with my thumb. He reached up and caught my hand, tugging it to his mouth, kissing my palm. Heat flared in his eyes and he fell back on the bed, drawing me down to him.
We’d made love so many different ways in our time together. Urgent, slow, angry and laughing—but never like this. He held me like his life depended on it, hands digging into my hips and spreading my legs across his body as his hips ground up into mine urgently. I took his head between my hands and kissed him, long and deep, full of pain for his suffering and relief so intense I thought my heart might explode. I couldn’t believe I’d doubted him. I knew he was a violent man living a violent life. But what he’d told me, the way he suffered—that wasn’t a lie.
His cock pressed into me, long and hard as I rubbed myself across it. I wore a tee and panties and all he had on were boxers, but that was way too much. I wanted to be naked so I could take him deep into my body, give him my love until the sadness in his eyes changed to something else. Instead we ground against each other, too desperate for sensation to stop long enough to pull off our clothes. I let his lips go, put my hands on either side of his head and arched my head back, maximizing the pressure between us.
“You’re going to kill me,” he gasped, hands digging into my ass so hard it hurt. “It’s worth it. I’ll take whatever you have. I never want it to stop.”
I ignored him, focusing now on the pressure and need growing between my legs. Everything in my body wound tight and I realized I might come dry humping him like a teenager in the back of a car—that’s how much his body called to mine. I ground harder, feeling it just beyond me, and then it burst and I moaned, shuddering over him.
I rolled off, reaching down to slide off my panties. Horse shoved down his boxers just enough to free his cock, which sprang up long and hard between us. He reached toward me, obviously planning to pull me on top of him, but I stopped him. Instead I leaned over his lower body, wrapping my lips around his erection and sucking him in deep.