Initiate and Ignite (2 page)

“Listen…” Xerxes began to speak before he even turned around, “…I don’t know how much these sessions are helping. I know they say there is no such thing as a lost cause, but I’m feeling more lost by the minute.”

Xerxes shrugged his shoulders and let out a sigh. He ran his fingers through his hair and finally turned to face her. For a brief moment she saw his face relaxed, yet vulnerable. In a blink, that exposed part of him was gone and he fixed a blank stare on her.

There he goes again, putting his emotions into a tightly sealed box, but not tonight soldier.

“Let’s not focus on ‘fixing’ you. I don’t think ‘fix’ is the right word for you. I believe we need to relax you,” Celine said while moving slowly to the CD player hidden in the wall and let the flowing sound of Miles Davis
Blue in Green
fill the air. As the melodious horn filled the room, Celine closed her eyes to the music. Her hips swayed and she could hear the swish of her dress as she pirouetted and sashayed until her cheeks were warm. She opened her eyes, chanced a glance at Xerxes face, and noticed his lips pursed into a frown. A frown was not going to discourage her. His downturned mouth did make her notice for the first time, in the six months she had been seeing him, that he had the most kissable lips. Shaking her head slightly to halt the thoughts coming to her mind, Celine smiled in response to his frown.

Keeping in time to the music, she placed her hands on his shoulders, her fingers lightly caressing his taut muscles. Sliding his jacket off his shoulders, she let it fall to the floor. The key was to get him to focus on the here and now. Firmly, she let her hands run down the length of his arms, feeling the toned and hard lines beneath her hands. Still swaying to the music, she guided his hands to her hips. The heat of his warm fingers was burning her through the fabric, and she hadn’t felt such a tingle since her first date.

“Don’t worry about steps. I’m not drilling you to dance a waltz. Just sway with the music,” Celine whispered her intent in his ear and his hands clutched tighter.

His hips began to rock with hers, their bodies colliding at the pelvis, his movements becoming more confident. Soon his hands ventured from securely at her waist to the small of her back. The informal hold was a sign he trusted her somewhat and was giving in to the music.

Taking a deep breath, she dared to press closer to his body, molding herself against his chest, hoping he wouldn’t retreat. Breathing in his scent, Celine felt herself begin to relax and let go of thinking of him as a client. This was a man, a man in need, and she was the one who could fulfill that need, as soon as she figured out exactly what the need was. His hands came up higher, finally resting on her bare back.

As they swayed, Celine became determined that Xerxes establish an anchor. Even if that anchor meant her, she would freely give her time to see Xerxes make a breakthrough and become able to face his fears.

“Is this a new form of therapy?” Xerxes had a voice that should have been bottled and sold as a sexual stimulant. His breath, warm on her ear, tickled the tendrils of hair that had fallen out of her chignon during her pirouettes. She let out a chuckle and pressed her body into his.

“I wouldn’t call this therapy. Would you?”

“Not according to any book I know. My self-medicated therapy to keep deploying didn’t help either.” His shoulders shrugged, but she kept a firm hold on him.

“Why did you keep deploying?” Her question wasn’t a trick or a ploy. She had a genuine curiosity about what made this brooding soldier tick. Xerxes sighed, but he didn’t retreat. He pulled her closer and took the lead in their dance.

“My first deployment. I admit I was green under the gills, but what I saw turned me into a true soldier, although I don’t know if that was a good thing.” Xerxes grabbed her hand and gave her a spin before bringing her body back to his. It was a smooth move, although not typical of what she’d seen of the man so far. She remained silent as he returned their dancing to the pace she’d originally set.

“The first week, during a routine checkpoint, my company spotted a fifteen year-old kid walking up to our Humvees. Nothing out of the ordinary. There were always kids coming up to get a good look at the ‘Americans’. But this kid had a wild look in his eyes. The dumb kid was about eighty yards out before we noticed this wasn’t a typical kid. He was doing this run-type shuffle and we thought he could have been hurt, perhaps seen one of the guys on our card deck of insurgents.”

Xerxes shook his head but gripped her waist tighter. She wasn’t going to press him to continue the story, but she could tell it weighed on him. Holding her feet still, she halted their dance. She merely stayed there with her head on his shoulder, feeling him breathe in and out.

“Sixty yards in, he starts waving his hands in the air. Orleans, Skaggs and Boston had started to run toward him, thinking he was in trouble. That’s when we noticed this kid was strapped around his waist with enough explosives to take out the whole caravan.  He had grenades in his hands. His hands had grenades in them. Fifty yards in, Orleans and Skaggs hit the deck and Boston slid down a sand dune. I had very little time to think. I aimed my rifle and fired. I shot that kid. It was my first kill and he was a kid. Not a crazy man you see on the propaganda networks, not some wizened old crony with gray in his beard. He was a kid. Almost the same age as my nephew.”

Xerxes took a breath. He pulled her away from his shoulder and his eyes bored into hers. She knew that look. It was searching for someone or something to make sense in something so senseless.

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Hell no! I got home from my first deployment and everyone was making a huge deal out of ‘killing the baddies.’ No one ever asked or said some of the bad ones were merely kids. I wasn’t about to celebrate the fact that I’d killed a kid. He was a kid.”

The look in his eyes was feral, angry, but most of all, it was hurt.

“So I kept deploying, hoping that I’d find at least one bad guy who looked like those men on those cards, thinking I could atone for that one kid. Everywhere I looked, it was just more kids, teenagers, groomed to hate. It’s kind of hard not to become disconnected.”

“I can understand why you would disconnect. And I think we’ve found what you need.”

The quizzical look he gave her made her smile. His gaze dropped to her lips, and in that moment, that merest of seconds, he turned from a wounded soldier and client, to simply a man. A man staring at her with the most amazing and engaging eyes she’d ever seen. Clearing her throat, Celine had to remind herself that this was about him and his emotional needs, and not about her, or those sexy eyes or sensual lips of his.

“What you need is an anchor, Xerxes. Something that will bring you back when you start having those feelings. It can be anything. Considering you opened up the most to me just now than you had in the last six months, perhaps your anchor is…music?” She ended her discovery with a question.

She still wasn’t sure how he would take her suggestion. What she got was more unexpected than his impromptu sharing a moment ago. He smiled. That smile made her stomach flip over, twice. His teeth were remarkably white and straight, but his smile made his whole tanned face become more animated and alive. It was like she was seeing him for the first time.

“I don’t think so, darling,” he said as he spun her around and brought her back to his chest and held her close. As puzzling as it was, she didn’t feel like questioning what he meant. She let him take the lead and dance them around the floor.

Perhaps it was her mind playing tricks on her. She’d like to think she’d always kept the relationship between her and Xerxes one hundred percent professional, but in his arms now, she questioned why she always made him the last appointment of her day. Maybe it was because she wanted his face to be the last face she saw before she settled in for the evening.

“I’ve never tried to dance with a client before, Xerxes. This isn’t typical.” Celine felt like she needed to defend what she was doing in his arms, as if there was some sort of code of conduct she signed. The only code she was going by was her own personal morals, and she didn’t want to feel like she was taking advantage of someone.

“I wouldn’t think it was typical for you, and if I had any inkling that it was, you wouldn’t have seen me after the first session. I’m a Marine, Celine. I’m trained to spot inconsistencies.”

“Then you and I are a lot alike. I’m trained to spot them as well. Care to tell me what you think your anchor is, since I’ve been trying to figure it out,” Celine said. She didn’t expect him to twirl her around and dip her in a move that could have been in a Fred Astaire movie. When he pulled her into his embrace, and wrapped his arms around her, her body involuntarily shuddered with delight.

“My guess is that my anchor,” Xerxes said as he looked her up and down, “is you.” His gaze strayed to her lips again. She knew he was going to kiss her even before he licked his lips. It was the look in his eyes, and she wasn’t going to stop him. Her eyes fluttered closed even as he took his time leaning down to her lips.

The kiss was as soft as a whisper, at first, dancing across her lips, leaving the memory of his mouth on hers. Working with Xerxes over the past months, she’d always kept her distance, letting him find his own pace with their sessions. Now, in his arms, she realized the months of touching him, trying to soothe him, she’d formed an attraction to him that went beyond his mere physical appearance.

He raised his head from the kiss, his deep brown eyes burrowing into hers, making her feel hot, desired, wanton and scared shitless all at the same time. She met his gaze unwaveringly, and tried to read his expression. It was lust for sure. She’d seen that plenty times before. However, Xerxes lustful look contained just enough longing to make her womanhood clench.

“Will you be my anchor?” He asked as his lips descended on hers again, this time, the light kisses were gone. His tongue plundered her mouth as if he was on a mission to capture every single one of her breaths and inhale it as his own. Over her mouth, his tongue raked against her lips, his teeth nipping the corners, his hands roaming over her bare back. Every motion whipped up a frenzy of lust that made her feel faint. He broke the kiss, and she had to take in big gulps of air.

“Anchor me, Celine. Be the calm in the midst of the noise.”

He continued his kisses down her neck. She knew this could be dangerous, but it was as exciting as it was dangerous. Celine wanted more than anything to be that anchor, but she couldn’t risk his own well-being.

“Do you understand what you are doing, Xerxes?” she murmured. She hoped to God he hadn’t ‘checked out’ and he wasn’t doing this in delirium. The kisses he rained on her throat, tonguing and licking her collarbone made her suffer from her own delirium.

“I’m establishing you as my anchor. You are passion in the midst of a compassionless war. You make me feel when I’m having trouble feeling anything.”

Well, at least he knew what an anchor was and he was using it correctly. Celine found it hard to think after that because he brought his hands to rest underneath the curve of her breasts. He gave a hard squeeze and she gasped. He recaptured her lips and began to explore her mouth once more.

This time she kissed him back with as much ferocity as he showed. Her arms circled his neck and her fingers intertwined in his dark hair. She loved the feeling of the soft follicles on her finger tips and relished running her hands through Xerxes hair and down his cheek. His grunt of passion as he pulled her body closer to his let her know he was definitely in this moment.

Her body molded to his as if they shared the same skin. The dance wasn’t forgotten. They swayed while kissing and pushing clothes off of each other. Their swaying brought them to the foot of the stairwell, and it was then Celine realized that Xerxes was a very powerful soldier. It must have been him who’d coordinated their steps so that her back was facing the steps. Her heel hit the foot of the stair, and the feel of the carpet on her skin made her open her eyes. Xerxes opened his eyes and looked at her deeply, longingly, burningly and passionately. His eyes told her all she needed to know: unspeakable pleasure ahead.

“Sit on the steps.” Xerxes voice had always been deep to her ears, but even his tone had dropped an octave. The spoken command made his chest rumble, and she could feel the quake against her breasts. Her already erect nipples became even more pronounced as she sat in the middle of the stairs. The feeling of the cool sheer fabric against her sensitive nipples only aggravated her desire. By the time Xerxes sank to his knees, she was already breathing heavily. Almost on their own volition, her legs opened and Xerxes immediately dropped his head to her thighs.

He kept eye contact with her as he hiked up the hem of her skirt and grabbed one of her legs and put it over his shoulder so her ankle rested in the middle of his back. Only when his head dipped did Xerxes’ powerful eyes leave hers. Without preamble, his mouth was on her mound. No teasing, just straight for the prize, and Celine loved it. His mouth engulfed her labia, sucking the outer lips in and then releasing and licking them as if he was trying to soothe the ache he put there.

Her back arched off the steps and she reached for Xerxes’ hair because she needed something real in her hands to keep her mind on this planet. His tongue wickedly danced over her clit, making her back arch even more. Xerxes took his time, lazily licking every fold, as if he was indulging in a meal. His wet tongue slid over her entrance, slurping up all the juices that poured out. An orgasm ripped through her unexpectedly, causing her to buck and grind her pelvis into Xerxes’ waiting mouth.

As her breathing returned to normal, and the lights behind her eyelids began to fade, Celine managed to open one of her eyes in time to see him pull the hem of his shirt out of his jeans and up toward his head. Her eyes roamed over his abdominal muscles as they rippled in conjunction with the rest of his body. As the shirt disappeared, it was breathtaking to finally see the full front of him. His thick muscles looked so tight she salivated at the thought of licking every single line and contour of his skin. Watching was not good enough as she began to slide the thin straps of her dress off her shoulders. Her breasts happily bounced out of the sheer material and she sighed in relief as the cool air touched her skin. The sight of Xerxes licking his bottom lip made her bite her own lip and run a hand over her sensitive breast.