Chapter 9

Sleep won’t come.

I don’t try to force it any more. When I was on active duty, sleeping wasn’t a problem. I could’ve slept standing up if it was necessary to get the energy needed to complete the mission, but now? My thoughts aren’t as easily silenced.

And for once, they’re not torturing me with images of the past, the mistakes I’ve made, the people I’ve lost, and—the rest.

Tonight, it’s Hannah caught in my mind. She’s tiptoeing through it, in those pink PJs, talking too much, saying too little, and telling me everything I need to know without words. She wants me. But she doesn’t actually want me. She wants my body, she wants the thought of me, rather than the reality of what I am.

I check the time on my watch.

It’s past three in the morning, and it’s been hours since I got here.

Lying here isn’t achieving anything. So I push myself up and walk through to the kitchen, keeping quiet so as to not wake Hannah. I pour myself a glass of water and drink it, then make my way to the bathroom but stop.

A noise. Imagined?

No. I trust my instincts.

That was something, but what was it?

Soft and?—

A tiny, muffled moan penetrates the quiet.

My hands ball into fists. What the fuck?

Another moan. Coming from Hannah’s bedroom.

This can’t be happening, but it is. I’m inches away from the door to her room, which is right across from the bathroom, but I can’t move.

Because she is in there, and she is moaning. And I swear to fucking God, it is like every part of me is on high alert, like I’m living for the next sound.

I take a step toward the room and stop myself.

She wants you.

You can’t.

I won’t.

This could be anything. This could be her having an inappropriate dream, and she doesn’t need me hanging out around her bedroom listening in on her private?—

“Yes.” Her voice is laden with desire, muffled, so quiet, that I definitely wouldn’t have heard it if not for the fact that I had gotten up. “Savage, please.”

Fuck. Oh my God. Holy fuck.

I’m in front of her door, my hands at my sides, staring at it like I can see through the wood. Like I haven’t pictured her touching herself, touching me, a million fucking times in the last couple of years.

“Savage,” she whispers, and her moan is punctuated by the wet sounds of her playing with herself.

My cock is hard as rock, and I bite the back of my fist to keep myself from kicking that fucking door down and taking her.

Hannah’s breathy little moans, accompanied by those forbidden fucking sounds, are driving me to the brink. I press both my fists to the doorjamb, either side of her bedroom door and hang my head, staring directly at the wood.

You can’t. You won’t.

You can’t. You won’t.

The words reverberate through my mind, as she pleasures herself, and in that moment I feel so fucking connected to her, I can almost taste her. I can just about picture being the one to give her the pleasure she’s wringing from her body.

Her pace grows frantic. “Oh God, Savage, yes.” The last moan is a little louder than the others, like she can’t hold back, but it’s still muffled, and I picture her, pressing her face into her floral pillow, crying out, her hand down the front of those shorts.

Yes, Princess. Come hard.

There’s silence afterward, and I stand there for a few minutes, trying to bring myself back down to earth. She is Hannah Taylor.

I am me.

Nothing will ever happen.

She can come and dream about me, but I can’t?—

The door opens, and Hannah steps out and right into my chest. She lets out a horrified scream and starts banging on my chest like my pecs are bongo drums. It would be hilarious if I wasn’t harder than a fucking granite dildo.

I take her by the shoulders and hold her out. “It’s me,” I say.

Hannah’s screams die slowly. “S-Savage?” She peers up at me with those sapphire blue eyes. “Savage? What the hell are you—?” And then it dawns on her. I witness the realization flashing across her face, that I’m out here, and she was just touching herself in there, whispering my name. Moaning it. She gulps. “You… What…? You were…? Huh?”

“I was getting some water,” I say.

“Water?” She turns her head in the direction of the kitchen.

“And then I was heading to the bathroom.”

“Bathroom.” Her head swivels toward the bathroom.

“Yeah. You opened your door just as I was heading in.” It’s a blatant fucking lie, but if she can tell, she doesn’t call me on it. I keep her away from my body, away from the evidence of my arousal for her.

Hannah sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, then pops it free, and my resolve is weakening so fast, it’s criminal. I’m no better than this stalker, standing outside her door and listening to her make herself come.

Moaning my name.

“You good?” I ask.

“Y-Yeah.”

“This is why you need an escape route,” I say. “Banging on your attacker’s chest is not the best defense mechanism.”

“I was just going to use the bathroom.”

Hannah’s not hearing me, even though I’m trying to taunt her and get her to fight back. To forget about what happened so I can too.

I purposefully keep my focus on her face and don’t let it wander lower.

“Go ahead,” I say, stepping back and gesturing toward the door.

Hannah hesitates. She stares at my bare chest, eyes wide. “Goodnight.”

I nod, and Hannah darts into the bathroom. I head back to the living room to wait for my dick to calm the fuck down. I plump the pillow she gave me, resisting the urge to break something.

This is a fucking recipe for disaster, us being around each other, but now that I’ve agreed to help, I can’t go back. I’m going to bury this memory deep fucking down and never touch it again. Hopefully, Hannah will do the same.

The toilet flushes, and Hannah’s bedroom door shuts a couple of seconds later. I wait a while then get up and use the bathroom myself, staring at myself in the mirror of the sink, at the gray streaks in my beard, the tattoos. A lifetime stares back at me.

No matter what, I can’t fuck this up. I won’t break Cash’s trust in me. I won’t lose another person I care about.

Who? Hannah or Cash?

I go back to staring at the living room ceiling.