Killian Read online

  She laughed and smacked my hand away. "You're incorrigible."

  "Big word. Don't know what it means," I lied, grinning. "If it means hard, then yeah, I am." I held her palm against my cock.

  Her hand traveled down the length of my cock, cupped my balls. "You're not disappointed we didn't have sex?"

  "Fuck yeah, I'm disappointed," I said. "I'm going to the store first thing tomorrow and buying the largest fucking size box of condoms they have. Fuck it. I'm going to buy everything they have in stock. Then I'm coming here, and I'm going to stick my cock in you so many times you're not going to be able to walk for a week."

  River laughed. "Is that a promise?"

  I kissed her slowly, catching her lower lip in between my teeth and gently pulling on it as I slipped a finger inside her. Then I let her lip go. "That's a fucking promise."

  She was quiet for a minute, her focus entirely consumed by what my hand was doing between her legs and by what she was doing with my cock. "Wait. So you watched my movies this afternoon or what?" she asked, her voice dropping in volume and becoming breathier as I fingered her.

  "I looked you up on the internet on my phone after I left here," I admitted. She paused, mid-stroke.

  "And?" she asked. "Did you find out all my secrets?" Her tone was light, but the way that she looked at me wasn't.

  "Nah," I said. "Secrets should be left alone, don't you think? I just wanted to see what movies you were in so I didn't feel like such an idiot for not knowing who you were."

  She looked at me for a long moment, and then leaned close to me, kissing me on the lips. It was soft, tender this time. "You're a good man, Elias," she said.

  I didn't answer her, didn't explain to her that I was one of the Saint brothers, that in the eyes of the residents of West Bend we were definitely not good men. I knew what it was like to have secrets you didn't want to reveal.

  I just let her keep doing what she was doing with her hand on my cock, while I brought her to orgasm again. Afterward, she slid down my body, took me in her mouth, her hands on my thighs.

  Later, she lay with her head on my chest and I stroked her hair absently, looking at one of the pictures on the wall, this black and white photograph of the mountains outside of town, an area I recognized from years ago. I could hear her breathe, slow and deep, but every so often I felt her eyelashes brush against my skin, so I knew she wasn't sleeping. All the same, she was quiet, and seemed content enough just lying here.

  I felt content enough too, which was a weird fucking feeling for me.

  "I haven't done anything like this since- oh hell, I can't remember how long it's been," River said, finally breaking the silence

  "Like what?" I asked, half-listening.

  "Fooling around like this but not having sex."

  I ran my hand up and down the middle of her back. "So?" I asked. "How is it, not having sex?"

  She chuckled. "Pretty good," she said. "Of course, I've been going without for a while now."

  "What do you mean?" I asked. "You had a fiancé." I didn't want to fucking talk about her fiancé, and I found myself being the one to bring him up. I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, probing into River's past.

  "Yeah," she said. "We hadn't exactly been having sex. Not for a while."

  "Oh," I said. I didn't know why the fuck I felt so pleased to hear her say that. It's not like her sex life was any of my business. I just didn't like the idea of some other guy touching her. I felt strangely territorial about her. It wasn't like me. "Me either."

  "You either what?"

  I exhaled loudly. "Sex. I haven't had sex either - not in a long time," I said, intending to leave it at that. But my fucking mouth just kept talking, as if of its own accord. "Not since the explosion."

  I didn't know what the fuck my problem was - I wasn't self-conscious about the prosthetic when it came to anything else. Everything else in my routine was back to normal.

  Except when it came to women. I hadn't let anyone get that close to me.

  I didn't feel like trying to explain that bullshit to her. I didn't think I understood it myself.

  River didn't move, but I felt her palm, warm on my chest. "I'm glad it's you, you know," she said.

  I didn't ask what she meant, just pulled her tighter against me and closed my eyes.

  18

  River

  The early morning sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating everything inside in its cool glow. I ran my fingers lightly across Elias' chest, watching it rise and fall as he breathed in deeply, dead to the world. I glanced over at the clock on the desk - seven in the morning. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been awake this early when I hadn't pulled an all-nighter partying or touring with Viper's band a couple years ago.

  I slipped out of bed and padded quietly across the floor to the bathroom, trying to be as silent as I could when I ran the water to brush my teeth. When I came out, Elias was awake. "Sorry," I said, suddenly feeling self-conscious, standing there naked in front of him. "I tried to be quiet. I didn't mean to wake you."

  "It's all right," he said. "I usually don't sleep this much at all, actually." I watched him slip on his leg and stand up, hearing it click into place. He walked by me to the bathroom, his cock hard, and slapped me lightly on the ass as he passed me. "But seeing you naked is waking me up now."

  When he came out of the bathroom, he took off his prosthetic again and laid down beside me on the bed, pulling my head against his chest. He didn't say anything, but I could hear his heart beating, rapid, underneath my ear.

  "How did you lose it?" I asked.

  "IED - Improvised Explosive Device," he said. "I'm - I was - EOD." He paused, looked at me before explaining. "Explosive ordnance disposal. We clear bombs. Cleared, I mean. I used to clear bombs. Obviously, I cleared one with my leg. That's not how you're supposed to do it." He laughed, then cleared his throat. "Sorry. Gallows humor."

  I rolled over onto my side, rested my hand lightly against his chest. "Where were you deployed?"

  "Afghanistan," he said.

  "You're not in the EOD anymore?" I asked. For someone who wasn't in the military, he sure had a military look about him. I'd thought that when I first saw him, with the buzzed haircut and the tattoos and his general demeanor.

  He shook his head. "Medically retired," he said. His words had a tinge of disgust.

  "You don't want to be retired?" I asked.

  "Hell no," he said. "I could do my job just fine with the leg. I wanted to deploy again."

  "So what happened?"

  Elias rolled his eyes. "Retired because of PTSD, which is bullshit," he said.

  "Because you don't have it?"

  "Hell no, I don't," he said. "That’s just what they called it. Got medically retired instead of getting administratively discharged for a repeated pattern of insubordination.” He emphasized the last phrase and rolled his eyes, but continued talking. “I was on limited duty because of my leg. Couldn’t fucking deal with all the bullshit paper pushers I got assigned to. Fucking caused more problems than when I was in EOD. Ended up getting into it with my lieutenant, this douchebag who’d never deployed, gone outside the wire ever.”

  “Outside the wire?”

  “So you've got a base or a camp when you’re deployed, right?” he asked. “The perimeter is the wire. Fobbits like him, they stay inside the wire during deployment. Don’t fucking understand how the real world operates.”

  “You got kicked out because you got into it with your lieutenant?” I asked. “That seems like a pretty harsh response.”

  Elias shrugged. “I guess it was a little more than just getting into it. I punched him in the face. Went to captain’s mast for it.” He must have seen the confused look on my face, because he elaborated. “That’s when you have to go up to see the old man - the commanding officer- he decides your punishment, knocks you down in rank and that kind of shit.”

  “So he kicked you out,” I said.

  Elias shook his head. “