Serve ‘N’ Protect by Tee O’Fallon
Chapter Twenty-Five
As Markus and Ghost walked with Cassidy from his SUV to her house, he automatically glanced up and down the street, searching for anyone or anything out of place. Mansfield was being held without bail, but nearly a decade in the military followed by a law enforcement career left him with an ingrained sense of caution that would probably never go away.
With every step, his palms sweated more. Afghanistan was a lifetime ago, but another kind of war was taking place inside his head, one that reminded him of that song by The Clash. Should I stay or should I go?
“See,” she said, inserting the key into the door. “You survived Christmas Day with my family.”
True, he’d survived, but he’d felt like an intruder. The same as he’d felt as a child in his own home. No matter how much he understood the psychological basis for what he’d become, old wounds never seemed to heal.
When Cassidy pushed open the door, the security system beeped until she entered her code. Rather than follow her inside, he stood on the porch, still holding open the outer door. The symbolism wasn’t lost on him. He couldn’t go in, but nor was he ready to close the door.
Ghost made the decision for him, trotting into the living room and settling on the floor in front of the coffee table.
“Come inside. It’s cold out.” She’d already taken off her jacket and hung it on the coat rack. The tiny gold beads on her red sweater glittered as she rubbed her arms. “I thought of something else you could give me for Christmas, and you could give it to me right now.”
She tugged him inside, closed the inner door behind them, then threw her arms around his neck and landed the sweetest, hottest kiss on his mouth. Staying or going now? That was a no-brainer.
Her body molded to his like she was made for him, her thighs pressing against what was quickly becoming an uncomfortable bulge beneath his jeans. Her tongue swept the inside of his mouth, teasing and torturing him to the brink of insanity.
It was like someone flipping his on-off switch to full-on mode. Blood shot to his groin and his brain shorted out. This felt so good. It felt so right.
And that terrified him.
Together, they climbed the stairs, leaving Ghost to chomp on his bone. Inside her bedroom, he began stripping off her clothes, his callused fingers lingering over every square inch of her skin that he touched. When she finally stood naked before him, he kissed the hollow of her throat, trailing his lips down her collarbone before sucking one nipple into his mouth.
Her sweet, honeyed scent was all around him. In his lungs, on his clothes. Gently, he walked her backward to the bed, laying her down, then stripping off his own clothes. As he did, he took in the beautiful, naked sight waiting for him.
She’d propped herself on her elbows to watch him undress. When she hiked up one leg, his cock jerked impatiently. Luckily, he’d stuffed the remaining condoms in her bedside drawer and quickly rolled one on. He hesitated at the tug of war going on inside his head. His conscience threatened to hold him back, viciously fighting his body’s craving to sink deep inside her, joining their bodies and their souls.
“Markus.” She crooked her finger. “I want you. Now.”
Those were the words he needed to push him over the edge.
He lay down next to her and fastened his mouth on hers, sliding his tongue between her lips and taking all that she offered. He skimmed his hand up her thigh and over her scars, not stopping until he reached her warm, wet folds.
As his fingers contacted her slick flesh, she arched off the bed, and he began pumping his fingers in and out of her sex.
“Oh, yes. That’s it. God, yes.” Cassidy’s eyes were shut, her body bowed and her muscles taut. “More. Go deeper.”
Her wish was his command. Keeping his thumb rubbing her slick, sensitive clit, he thrust his middle finger deep inside her channel, pumping slowly in and out.
“Faster. Faster.” She licked her lips, moving her hips to meet his thrusting fingers.
Oh, man. Watching her this way, with her eyes closed and her body shuddering, made him impossibly hard to the point of pain.
Her body started to jerk and her eyes flew open. “Markus, please,” she cried. “Get inside me.”
With his heart pounding, Markus eased the tip of his cock into her, grinding his teeth to keep from coming on the spot. She was tight, gripping and stroking as surely as if her hand were wrapped around the length of him.
Her breath came faster now but she was right there with him, on the brink of combustion as their hips slapped together.
Pressure began building in his balls, rising to the tip of his cock until he could barely hold on. He focused on the beautiful woman beneath him, watching her blue eyes heavy with desire, feeling her body begin to tense with the first tremors of her orgasm.
She dug her fingers into his forearms, then threw back her head, crying out his name as she bucked and writhed. He pumped faster, letting the pressure he’d been holding back explode with his own release.
He didn’t want to move. If he could freeze this moment in time, he would. Knowing that wasn’t possible, he rolled onto his back, taking Cassidy with him so that her head rested on his chest and her hair draped over him in a cascade of blond silk.
“Markus.” She lifted her head, a gentle smile curving her kiss-swollen lips. “I love you.”
Reality struck, sharp and painful like another knife to his back, only this time the pain was dead center in his heart.
He was a dick of the highest order. Sleeping with her again had been selfish. He could have said no, could have walked away and never looked back. But when she looked at him, he caught a fleeting glimpse of that mysterious thing missing in his life, and yet every time he reached out to grab it and hold on for dear life, it moved farther and farther away. As it was doing now.
Emptiness took up residence in the pit of his stomach, and his blood ran ice cold. He could never give Cassidy what she needed because he didn’t know how, wouldn’t know it if it slammed into him.
Love.
Markus’s heart seemed to stop beating and he couldn’t breathe. The same emotion he’d been struck with his entire life when it came to expressing his feelings crashed down on his skull. Fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of facing his emotions without being subjected to the sick terror of disappointment. Fear that he would be hurt if he let his emotions out of the box that was his twisted, damaged brain.
He opened his mouth to say something, but words wouldn’t come. How could they when he had no idea what to say?
The light in Cassidy’s beautiful eyes faded, as did the remnants of her smile. She blinked rapidly and her lips tightened into a grim line. He knew what she’d wanted him to say, that he loved her, too. Did he? Christ. Whatever he felt for her was stronger than any emotion he’d had for a single human being in his entire life. But that wasn’t enough.
“My family throws the L word around all the time. It’s just our way.” She rolled off him, but not before he glimpsed the hurt in her eyes. Hurt he’d put there.
Shit. She was lying. “You meant it differently, didn’t you?”
She sighed, then nodded. “I didn’t mean to say it so soon. It just slipped out, but I won’t take it back.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to.” Part of him didn’t want her to. He forced her to face him again. “I’m sorry, Cassidy. I shouldn’t have let things get this far. I’m not like everyone else. I told you, I don’t feel things the way most people do, the way I should, and I probably never will.”
“I know, and I understand. Really, I do.” Her lips trembled and that tightness in his chest worsened. The look of sadness and pain in her eyes was killing him with every beat of his heart. “When you’re in love, you’ll know it. The person you love is the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning and the last thing you think of before you go to sleep. Even when they’re not with you, you think about them. They’re always in your thoughts, and it makes you feel good. It makes you feel whole.”
Whole. He was damned good at his job. Personally and emotionally, he was a complete and utter failure and would never be whole.
She touched two fingers to his cheek. When he tried to clasp them, she tugged her hand away, and her voice shook. “It’s okay. Love is a gift, a special gift, but you don’t have to accept it. Expecting something from you that you’re not prepared to give is too much to ask.”
Damn, but she’d just used virtually the same words on him that she’d used on her ex-fiancé, making him no better than that dickwad.
“You should go.”
“I should go.”
They’d spoken at the same time.
Cassidy rolled onto her side, facing away from him. She didn’t make a sound, but her body shuddered, as if she were holding back gut-wrenching sobs.
Goddammit.
For a moment longer, he hesitated, willing the words she needed to come bubbling up from somewhere locked away in his heart. He reached out, intending to touch her shoulder, but stopped.
All those years, he’d tried to love his father, only to have it thrown back in his face time and time again like a piece of dirty laundry. What would happen if he found a way to love Cassidy, fully and with everything in him, to finally give that part of himself that he’d kept buried for so long, and she left him?
Cassidy might love him now, but the fact was, eventually she’d come to her senses and realize that he had never been good enough at all.
The battle was lost, and he was the loser.
With his heart feeling as if it were shriveling inside his chest, Markus rose and dressed quietly. Not once did Cassidy turn to look at him. She was stronger than he was.
Once dressed, he turned to leave. Grief and despair closed his throat so tightly he thought he’d choke on it. For several seconds, his feet refused to move, refused to walk away from her. Once he did, he’d never come back.
He rubbed his sternum, as if that could ease the painful ache setting up shop inside his chest. It didn’t. Somehow, he got his feet to move, and just before walking out the door, he turned to look over his shoulder one last time. She’d pulled the comforter over her body, as if needing yet another barrier between them.
Markus went down the hallway to the stairs, feeling as if he were in a funeral procession. At the bottom of the stairs, he looked around the living room, taking in all the warmth and joy of Cassidy’s Christmas decorations. She’d brought that into his life. Warmth and joy. Now it was gone.
“C’mon, boy,” he said to Ghost, who lay sleeping by the sofa. “Let’s go.”
Ghost lifted his head then stood, watching as Markus opened the front door. Then Ghost did something he’d never done in the four years they’d been partnered and living together. He refused to obey.
“Ghost, we have to leave.” He opened the door, motioning with his hand.
Still, his dog didn’t budge, but kept watching him from soulful eyes, as if telling Markus what he already knew.
I’m an asshole.
“Ghost,” he said more sharply.
With his big head hung low, Ghost reluctantly rose and walked slowly outside and onto the porch.
As Markus pulled the door shut, his hand tightened on the knob. In less than an hour, he and Ghost would be gone. That was all the time it would take to pack up their lives here in Leonardtown.
He took the porch stairs, turning to glance up at Cassidy’s bedroom window. How could running away be the right thing to do if he’d be leaving the best part of his life behind?