Hallowed Ground (8 page)

“Josh…”

“December?” He gave me another long lick.

“I want you.” My fingers sank into his short hair.

“You have me,” he promised, pausing to suck at my clit. My muscles were locking, tension building through my entire body as he continued, the pleasure so deep I swore I could taste it on my tongue. “I need to see you come apart.”

He didn’t have to wait long. My back bowed as he sucked at me again, my orgasm ripping through me with a searing heat and leaving me limp with tiny aftershocks.

He moved over me, settling between my thighs. I felt him hard at my entrance and lifted my hips. “Josh,” I urged.

“I love you,” he whispered, melting my heart as he sank into me, my inner muscles quivering. I’d never been happier to be on birth control, that we were secure enough to not use condoms anymore. There was nothing compared to the sensation of him sliding within me, skin-on-skin.

He felt so damn good, like he was made for loving me. I guess that was right, since I knew I was made to love only him. “I love you, too,” I said, my breath choppy.

He kissed me, our tastes mingling as he began his steady, powerful thrusts. I felt the muscles of his back start to tremble with the effort to restrain himself. “I’m okay, Josh. Let go,” I urged, rocking my hips, swirling against him.

“Not until you do. I love to feel you come around me, the way you tighten. It’s incredible.” He buried his face in my neck and kept his rhythm, his words stoking the fire in me again, building the spiral.

“Again?” I asked.

“Again, and again,” he ordered. “I’m marrying you, December. Do you know what that means?”

How did he have the brain power to talk? My thoughts were consumed with the motion of his hips, on using the bed to push more powerfully against him. Luckily he didn’t wait for me to answer.

“It means that every night I’m going to make love to you. Every night I’m going to lick you, suck you, kiss you until you come. Then I’m going to slide inside you so deep”—he followed his words with a powerful thrust, stealing my breath—“that you’ll never be able to get me out. Even when I’m not with you, I’ll be there, with you, reminding you that you’re mine. Every. Delicious. Incredible. Inch. Of. You. Mine.” He punctuated each word with a thrust, and I whimpered. That sweet pressure had built again, wiping out every thought, and I wrapped my legs around his hips. I simply hung on as he used his whole body to love me, to tell me again what we both already knew—our souls, our hearts, our bodies, all of us belonged to the other. In giving ourselves over, we gained so much more than we could possibly ever lose.

“Josh,” I whimpered, the tension unbearable, hanging on the cusp of release.

His thrusts picked up precisely how I needed, as if he knew exactly what I craved. He slid his hand between us and changed the angle so he could slide deeper. Then he locked eyes with me and used his fingers to push me over the edge, until lights fired in my vision and my body shook with the force of it.

“Yes. God, yes,” he moaned, his thrusts finally becoming as uneven as his voice. “You’re so beautiful when you come.” His face tightened, and I gripped him with my thighs, swiveling my hips in the way I knew would push him past the point of return while my body still shuddered in waves. Then he met me, finishing with my name on his lips, his face buried in my neck.

He was perfectly heavy on top of me as our breathing regulated, the sweat cooling on our skin. As usual, he rolled to his side, pulling me with him, always scared that I couldn’t breathe under him no matter how many times I assured him otherwise.

“And that, Mrs. Walker,” he said with a kiss on my forehead, “is how we’re going to spend every night of the rest of our lives.”

Except when you’re deployed.
The thought intruded, but I shoved it back, unwilling to lose this moment to bitterness.

“You set a pretty high standard,” I said with a smile, a scrumptious lethargy settling over me.

“You deserve the best,” he said, his voice trailing off in a tone of almost-sadness.

I looked into his eyes, letting all the love I had for him fill my fingertips as I trailed them down the stubble on his cheek. “Then it’s a good thing I have you forever, because that’s all I want, Josh. Just you.”

He pulled me closer, settling his chin on the top of my head, both of us unwilling to say what we were thinking.

There was a chance our forever would only be these next few days.

Chapter Eight

Ember

Zero Day.
He zipped up his MultiCam-printed backpack, and I sighed with the barest form of relief I could muster under our circumstances. He hadn’t found the note I’d tucked inside his headphones. Good. He’d need a pick-me-up once he was in the air.

“You don’t have to go with me,” he said, his gorgeous brown eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “It’s three a.m. You could go back to bed.”

I zipped his hoodie around me and shook my head. “I’m not ready to let you go.”

He ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “Yeah. Me, neither.”

I swallowed back the panic, the fear that had gradually clawed its way into my throat since last night.
Be strong, but don’t hold anything back. You’re scared? Tell him. You’re proud? Tell him. Leave nothing unspoken.
Mom’s words ran through my head as we walked out the front door. Josh closed it behind us and then locked it, the sound way too final for my liking.

He loaded his last bag into the back of the Jeep, and I looked up to Jagger and Paisley’s darkened house. Jagger left tomorrow on a different main body flight, and I’d be lying if I didn’t envy them this last twenty-four hours.

Time felt so relative right now. Where these few hours might not have meant anything a few weeks ago, right now they were everything and not enough.

The roads were dark as we wound our way to Fort Campbell. Josh held my hand, pressing kisses to my palm every so often as we kept a charged silence. What was there left to say?

Too much for a twenty-five-minute drive.

We pulled into the drop-off line, and as our turn came, Josh hopped out of the Jeep and handed over his massive duffel bags stenciled “Walker, J” on the bottom in spray paint.

“Nothing like curbside check-in,” I tried to tease once he’d gotten back in.

“Fly army.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

He parked the Jeep in front of the hangar and almost pocketed the keys. “Wait. You might need these.” He handed them over, the weight heavier than it should have been. Everything about this morning felt heavy, oppressive, like a boulder had parked itself on my chest and was gradually stealing my ability to breathe.

Our eyes met in the dim light of the dashboard. I would have given anything to pause this moment, to keep us here for just a little longer where I could see him, feel his heartbeat. But that wasn’t the life I’d signed on for, and I was stronger than this dark feeling creeping along the edges of my heart.

We were stronger than any deployment.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked me.

“Are you?”

“I have to be.” He tucked an errant strand of my hair behind my ear.

“Same here.”

He nodded. “Shall we?”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath and stepped out of the Jeep.

His backpack slung over one shoulder, he held my hand as we filed into the hangar with the hundred or so other families who had gathered to send off their soldiers.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He kissed my cheek and disappeared into the sea of MultiCam.

I sat on the lowest bleacher, everything in me going blessedly numb as I looked around. Soldiers stood huddled in groups, laughing and talking. They were newbies, the right shoulders of their uniforms lacking the combat badge Josh had on his. They had never been to war, never seen the horrors, or lost friends.

A few fathers held sleepy-eyed children, stroking their hair. I couldn’t help but think of the last time Gus had hugged Dad before he left.

No. Don’t let that in. Not now.
I had to hold myself together for the next hour.

My eyes skimmed the bleachers to the right and locked onto an older soldier. His wife sat stoically next to him, her arm looped through his, her head resting on his shoulder, her eyes a vacant stare. He turned and placed an absentminded kiss on her forehead, his eyes focused anywhere but there. If I had to bet, I would have said they were on their fourth, if not fifth, deployment. She had the same gracefully defeated face Mom had worn when she’d dropped Dad off that last time.

That kind of look only came with years of waiting, strength, and weariness.

“Hey,” Josh said as he sat down next to me, jarring me from my people-watching.

“All signed in?” I asked.

“Yeah. Now we wait for them to call formation.” He wrapped his arm around me and tucked me into his chest.

“How long do we have?”

“About another half hour.”

Thirty minutes. How could I fit all of my love into such a short amount of time? My thumb stroked the platinum band of my engagement ring, and I reminded myself that we had forever. This was just a hurdle. “You have the international cell packed?”

“Yes. I’ll pick up minutes once we’re in country. I’ll never be out of contact for long, I promise.”

I nodded. That was one advantage of this being Josh’s second deployment. He knew the ropes already. While I’d never be so needy as to call the cell phone, because only God knew what he could be doing, I took huge amounts of comfort knowing that I could text him in an emergency.

“Remember to have the complex come out and look at the water heater. I should have done it before I left. I’m sorry.”

“Stop. You did everything you could, and our house is brand-new. I can take care of just about anything that pops up, so stop worrying.”

He kissed my forehead, lingering. “Worrying about you is my primary job. I just fly helicopters to pay the bills.”

“I’m stronger than you give me credit for.” God, I hoped that was true. Josh had seen me at my lowest and watched me rebuild my life, but this would take a strength I had to develop all on my own.

“I know how strong you are, December,” he whispered. “Even that won’t change how much I worry about you.”

Then don’t leave me.

We sat there, our arms locked around each other, our heartbeats counting down the moments until he’d be called away. They were the best and worst minutes, flying too quickly. I had never loved him more than I did in that moment. I had never been as scared.

It’s when you realize how close you are to losing something that you finally comprehend just how precious it is.

Mom was wiser than I’d ever given her credit for.

A voice came across the PA system. “Ten minutes.”

Josh sat up straight. “Let me walk you out.”

“What?” I asked, looking up at his stone-set face.

“I don’t want to be with all these people. I want it to be just you and me.” A muscle in his jaw ticked.

“But I don’t want to leave you early, even if it’s just for that minute. I’ll watch you go.”

His face cupped my cheeks. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk away if I know you’re watching, December. Please, for me. Let me walk you out.”

“Okay.” He took my hand and walked me past the desperate embraces of the families around us.

The early morning air cooled my heated cheeks as we walked back to where the Jeep was parked. He unlocked the door for me and opened it. Then he opened his arms.

I walked into them, breathing in his scent until my lungs were full. My fingers clenched his uniform. “I’m not ready,” I whispered.

“I know.” He settled his chin on the top of my head. “Nine months, babe. Then I’ll come home, we’ll get married, and our life will start.”

I nodded, fear choking the words in my throat.

He leaned back, tilted my chin, and kissed me. Our lips clung as though they couldn’t bear the thought of being apart, either. “Nine months,” I whispered against his mouth.

“You got it.”

“I love you.”

He rested his forehead against mine. “I love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

I nodded, like his words could keep him here…keep him alive. “Okay.” We broke apart, and he turned me to the Jeep door. “Call me from the first step?”

“Of course. Text me whenever you want. I won’t get it in the air, but I’ll check as soon as we land.”

“Okay.”
Stop saying okay. None of this is okay.
There was no choice here. I couldn’t ask him to stay. I had to be okay, whatever the hell that really meant.

“See you soon,” he said with a half smile that was adorable, even if fake.

“See you soon,” I echoed.

As he turned to walk back toward the hangar, everything in me slowed, stilled. My heart stuttered; my breath froze in my lungs.

What if this was it? What if that was our last kiss? Our last
I love you’s
? What if the next time I held him in my arms, it would be through the cool wood exterior of an unwelcoming box? What if he never came home?

What if this was Dad all over again?

I sucked in air with a desperate gulp, and his name was a cry on my lips. “Josh!”

He turned, his arms already open as I raced into them.

“I love you. I love you so much that it hurts to breathe when you’re not here. I know I’m not supposed to say this. I know I’m supposed to be strong, and unbreakable, but I’m so damn scared.” My voice broke on the last word, tears clogging my throat and my eyes. They started to fall, soaking tiny wet spots into his uniform.

“I know, baby. I know.” His chest shook as he took in a breath.

I pulled back enough to look at his face, gorgeous even in the minimal streetlight. “I don’t care
how
you come home. I don’t care what parts of you are broken, or bleeding, or…anything, just as long as you come home. As long as your heart is beating, I will want you, do you understand me? I don’t care what happens there as long as you come home. Please? You have to, because I’ve built my world around you, our future, and I don’t know if I could survive losing you, Josh. And I know that’s selfish, and unfair, but I need you!” My voice rose with every word until I could barely make them out.

“Shh,” he whispered before he kissed me. Our mouths met in a final fury of love and fear all mixed with longing and the salt of our tears.

“December, I swear—I
will
come home to you. There’s no force on this earth that could keep me from you, do you understand that?”

“Promise me,” I begged, hating myself even as it slipped out of my mouth. I was asking the impossible, for him to tell the future, for him to give his word on something he could never guarantee.

He searched my eyes, time slipping by so quickly I was sure the world was on fast-forward while we stood still. “I promise I will do whatever it takes to come home to you.” He sealed his promise with a last kiss and let me go slowly.

My arms fell from around his neck, and he stepped back, the distance between us already more than the twelve physical inches.

“You and me?” he asked softly.

“Against the world,” I promised with a smile, my voice shaking.

A nod and a smile later, he left me standing next to his Jeep.

I climbed up into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed. Unable to reach the pedals, I scooted his seat closer. Then I adjusted the mirrors. Just like that, I’d slipped into the driver’s seat of our future, and I was responsible for taking care of it until he could make it home.

I held myself together, sniffing back the snot that tried to drip down my nose from unshed tears. This wasn’t glamorous, or movie-worthy. There was no waving the handkerchief or kissing through the bus window one last time as I stoically sent him off.

This was unedited pain and gut-wrenching fear in its rawest form. It wasn’t even the thought of knowing it would be nine months until I could hold him again. Hell, that was the best-case scenario.

It was the true, paralyzing fear that I’d never get that chance again. Had I said everything right? Kissed him long enough? Showed him how much I loved him?

Music. That would help. I turned on Josh’s radio, and immediately shut if off. Elton John’s “Rocket Man” was definitely not what I needed to hear right now.

I rode home in complete silence, the only noise the hum of the engine and the tires on the highway. It was almost five-thirty by the time I pulled into our driveway and set the parking brake. My hands fumbled with the key, but I got the door open.

I stumbled up the steps to our bedroom, where I saw a single white sheet of paper on my pillow with a Hershey’s Kiss.

Dear December,

I’m so sorry you’ll be sleeping here alone for the next nine months. I’m so sorry that I can’t kiss you when you need it, or hold you when you sleep. But know that the miles that separate us are only in distance, never heart. When I lay my head down, no matter how far away I am, I’m always there with you. Love like ours can stretch across the entire universe, so a few thousand miles is the least of our worries.

You own my soul,

Josh

I put the Kiss on my nightstand and sat down on the edge of our bed, which he’d already made up. His clothes were on the floor near the hamper, and his Av’s beanie hung precariously on the doorknob. It looked like he could walk in at any moment.

But he wouldn’t.

Not for another nine long months.

I pulled his hoodie closer and buried my nose in the neckline, breathing in Josh’s scent. Then I laid down on his pillow and let the tears come.

I cried for love, for the pause our life was going to undergo. I cried for the choices I’d made that brought me here again, watching another man I loved going off to war. I cried because I was deathly afraid—afraid that I wasn’t strong enough, capable enough, that all my bravado was just that, and I’d crumble under the strain.

I cried because the deepest, darkest parts of me wondered if that was the last time I’d ever feel his skin under my fingertips or taste his kiss.

I cried until my eyes ached and the sobs stopped shaking my body—until exhaustion lulled me to sleep on a tear-soaked pillow.

I let myself sleep for a few hours, let it take away the misery while my body recovered.

When I woke up, I got into the shower and washed the morning off me. Then I got dressed, went downstairs, and poured a cup of coffee. I’d missed one class, but if I left now, I could catch the last two.

It was what Josh wanted, and it was what I needed.

Deployment or not, the sun still shone, the earth still turned, and I had a life to live.