Mad Minute Page 6

  A couple of hours passed then, as they talked about their jobs, their squads, their families. Don had a shrapnel wound in his bicep that had taken the service unexpectedly, much as the loss of Nathan’s leg had ripped it away from him. By three o’clock, Nathan was sober and ready to climb back on the bike. He still had the meat of the run ahead of him, traveling one town over to pick up a donation check for the club and foundation.

  Don walked outside with him and stopped with his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. Nathan turned at the touch, staring into the face of this unexpected friend.

  “Son, if you ever find yourself in that place again…” Don paused, and Nathan knew he wasn’t talking about the bar they’d just exited, but the dark state of mind Nathan carried around. “Give me a call. Don’t do anything stupid.” A squeeze and a wave, and the door closed behind him.

  Nathan stared at the bar for a minute, feeling better than he had in a while. Might be time to come clean to Kirby and Oscar about where his head was. Circle the wagons, because he knew all he had to do was mention the emotions swamping his mind and they’d be on him like flies on shit. Invasive as hell, but that was why they had such a good success rate. Intensive involvement, aggressive intervention, and determined support.

  No matter his mind was tangled up in the past, ideas shooting through his head as fast as his brain could conjure them, like the bullets from a gun set on a hill to make a stand. Mad minute, it was called, where the gunner let loose, sixty seconds of unrelenting assault to clear the way for friendlies to do what was needed. Either advance or retreat. “I need a mad minute.”

  Kirby would know what he meant. All he had to do was say so.

  “Nathan?” Cathy’s voice sounded flat, far away. “Baby?”

  He blinked.

  Her hands rested on him, palm to skin, fingers tracing tiny pathways along the ridges of clenched muscles. Nathan turned his head and saw fear on her face—not for herself; this was sorrow mixed with terror, and he knew he’d caused that look. “I wasn’t going to come home.”

  She froze for a split second, a stutter of movement he would have missed if he weren’t focusing a hundred percent of his attention on her. She hadn’t expected honesty from him, and that hurt. “Okay.” Her tongue swept out and across her bottom lip, and he wanted to capture it with his mouth, wanted to know if she still had any desire for his touch, his kisses. “What were you going to do?”

  “Stay here, long as I could.” He leaned back against the couch, comforted when she eased closer. “Was gonna stay until I couldn’t anymore.”

  “And now?”

  She’d asked the thousand-dollar question of the week. Maybe the year. “I know you gotta go back. There’s work and school, and everything. House.” She didn’t respond to any of his prompts, and he remembered his thoughts of her coming here to seek a divorce, something to finalize the unwilling limbo he’d forced her into by leaving as he had. “So, you don’t want a…divorce, make it legal or something? Really?”

  “What?” The shock was real, unfeigned, and he sagged in relief. “No, Nathan. No.”

  “I can’t go back, Cath.” He shook his head. “Every part of our lives back there is wound up in the man I used to be, and when I’m there, that’s all I see. Then versus now. And, baby, the differences are haunting. Here—” He gestured back towards the street, in the direction where the clubhouse stood. “I can be me. The one I am now.”

  “You’re still both of those, Nathan. In my eyes, there are no differences between then and now, but I think…I think I understand.” When she looked at him this time, it was with glinting wetness in her eyes, and a hopeful upwards tilt of her lips. “No, I know I do. I understand.” She touched his face, the caress gentle and soft. He closed his eyes as her fingers trailed along his jaw. “I understand.”

  “I fuckin’ love you.” Nathan twisted to face her and reached out, fingers digging into her hips as he pulled her into his lap. She adjusted, slung a leg across his thighs and straddled him, holding herself slightly off his legs. “Do you love me? Can you still love me, like this?”

  She didn’t answer him with words, left them both in an oasis of quiet. Instead, she leaned close and pressed her mouth to his. Chaste and soft, this wasn’t a lead-in for romance but an effective affirmation of the nonverbal kind. Nathan gave himself over to it, the tip of his tongue tracing along her lips in his own silent request, and she opened so sweetly he groaned, long and low. Hands on his shoulders, she met him kiss for kiss, until they were both breathing heavily. He broke away and stared at her, the flush of arousal giving her face color. Her eyes were dark, pupils blown with desire.

  “This place got a bedroom?” Her lips bowed when she gasped at the question, a surprised intake of breath that told him she was entirely onboard with the idea. “There’s never been anybody for me but you, Cath. Always you.” He tightened his fingers, holding fast to her, letting the knowledge bolster his courage that she might love him still. “If you want me, still want me, that is.”

  “You silly, silly man.” She kissed him again, this time leading with hot and wet action, their tongues twisting and stroking, teeth biting gently. She pulled back, then kissed along his jaw until she was whispering into his ear. “Always and forever, my love. I want you more than you can know.”

  He remained still while she climbed off him, her every movement sinuous and sensual. Then she turned all business as she leaned down, fingers grasping his belt. She braced and out of habit, he put his hands on her shoulders, ready to balance himself. “On three,” she muttered, then counted down. The height of the couch worked in their favor, but she conducted the lift as smoothly as Oscar could have. A moment later and he was balanced on his good leg, thigh muscles complaining. Crutches retrieved, he nodded at her.

  “Lead the way, beautiful.”

  “I love that. I don’t think I ever told you, but when you call me beautiful like it’s my name? I love that, handsome.”

  “Same, baby. Same.” Crutch wedged under his arm, he reached out and gripped the back of her neck to pull her close for another kiss. He whispered, “Show me the bedroom,” against her mouth and felt her quiver. “Come on, baby, light my fire.”

  “You’re so cheesy.” She was laughing now, which was his intent, because he had to slow them down a little. There were things to discuss before he’d be sleeping with his wife, and even as he mentally acknowledged the reality, he knew how fucked up that was, since there had been months and months to get it right and he’d been a coward and run, fled into the middle of the country, leaving her hanging on behind him, making her responsible for their whole lives even as he abandoned her.

  The therapist had used the term self-loathing during a session. It’d been one single time the man had slipped up, mentioning how hard Nathan was on himself, and he’d latched on to the word. He did loathe himself, because there were so many ways he could have reacted to what had happened, to losing his leg, to having his brains scrambled—and none of that shitty talk about how that exempted him from being responsible for his own actions. Nathan was a fan of owning your mistakes, and so many months ago, he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.

  He followed her up the hallway, seeing more homey touches everywhere he looked. They passed the room Katie slept in, and he stopped short, looking around at the princess theme. “Looks like something pink exploded.”

  Cathy came back and stood next to him, laughing softly. “Oscar didn’t know what else to do with it, I think.”

  “Seems a lot of work to go to for a weeklong visit.” Her laughter trailed off, and he thought again about all the small personal touches he’d already seen. “It’s not really just a visit, is it?”

  “Nathan—”

  “Tell me, Cath.” He didn’t turn, kept his eyes on the room his daughter would sleep in tonight, and the next. There was a picture on the nightstand, him holding her in his lap. From here he couldn’t see the wheelchair he knew was there and couldn’t remember Cathy ever ha
ving a camera the couple of times he’d allowed them to visit him in rehab. Katie was smiling at him, hand on either cheek as she smushed his face for a kiss. The absolute joy in his daughter’s face caught at his breath, and he ground out the demand again. “Tell me I get to keep you.”

  “I want my family. Katie wants her dad. And I know, deep in my gut, Nathan, I know you want us, too.” Her voice quavered, and he dropped his weight onto a crutch for support as he reached out for her hand. Cathy’s fingers were tight around his, cold as ice and trembling. “I wanted to wait to tell you, to make sure you would be okay with it, but we’re set to move here at spring break. My job’s willing to let me work remotely, with just a couple of trips a year back to the main office. There’s a good school here in Mayhan, and Katie? She just wants to be where you are. Where we both are.”

  The barest glimmer of hope that he could have everything made his throat tight, and he blinked away any evidence of moisture before he turned to face her.

  Nathan nearly strangled on the words but pushed through because he needed to know. “You heard me earlier, right?” She nodded. “You know what it means, all of it? You heard—” He paused a moment and gulped desperately at the choking knot in his throat. “You heard it all, right?”

  “Nathan.” Her eyes swept closed, and she pulled in a shallow, quick breath. “I heard everything you said, every word. I heard all that, and the things you didn’t.” She took a step backwards, and his heart stuttered in his chest, thinking it a retreat. Then she smiled, and it felt as if the sun had broken through the clouds overhead, beaming down on him. “I heard your love, and your fear.” Shadows crawled over her face, but then that smile blanketed him again. “I’m choosing to hang on to that love, Nathan. I want to hold tight to that, want to use it to wedge my way back into your heart, your life. I want you. I’ve missed you.” Her voice broke, cracked through the middle, then firmed back up as she visibly pulled herself together to finish. “Missed you so much. You’ve missed us, too. And just you saying that tells me that this is the first step back to where we need to be. This, you and me, right here, this is us choosing each other and choosing to move forwards. This is us picking us.” She held out her hand, fingers curled in invitation. “Pick us, babe. I will upend our world if I get a chance to rebuild it with you. Gladly move across the country if it means we’re together. I’ve done it before.” He nodded. She had, too many times. Him in the field and her handling the whole shebang. “We’re here for a week, then gone for about eight. Can you wait that long to be us again?”

  “Oh fuck no.” He swept the crutches in front of him, and now she was moving faster, leading the way towards the bedroom. Nathan pursued her, body swinging in an arc as he tracked his willing prey until they were in the bedroom and she was poised in front of him, eyes shining with so much love.

  Standing close to her, he rested one crutch against the edge of the bed and leaned in, cupping her cheek in his palm. “I want us.” He kissed her, lips moving across hers softly. “Want us, so much.” Her fingers circled his wrist, holding him steady. She’d always been there for him in every way. “I don’t…” He paused for a breath, then finished, “I don’t want to disappoint.”

  “You. Oh, you. My Nathan. You’d never, ever disappoint.” She shifted against him, lithe body pressed tight to his. “I want only what you can give.” Her fingertips scratched aimless patterns through his hair, nails dragging against his scalp, something he’d loved, something she’d always done, something he hadn’t realized he’d missed like fuck until he had it back. Like everything else about her, the memories of how good they were together had been stuffed deep into a dark corner of his mind. “The most important part of anything that happens between us is it’s you and me. Us.” She offered her lips again, and he took them harshly, with bruising force, stirring sweet moans from her throat. “Us.”

  “I’ll need a minute,” he whispered against the column of her throat. “There’s prep time we didn’t have before.” She hummed soft and low, the sound stirring through his cock, providing an unexpected stiffening and shifting against the loose pants he wore. Maybe not so much prep as I thought. “And I don’t want to put a damper on this.” He slipped his hand across her belly, catching and caressing her breast, lifting and plumping the flesh. “But there are parts of me that won’t look the same.”

  “Nathan Smith,” she mock growled, running her teeth along the edge of his jaw. “You think I’m only in this for your looks?” The laugh she gave was light, trilling with humor, and bright with love. “While on the outside you are the handsomest man I know”—he endured an eternity waiting, and she gave it to him with another nip, another sweet kiss—“I’m all about how you are inside.”

  “How am I inside?” With his crutch wedged into his pit, his fingertips found a way under her shirt, and he curved around to pluck at the fastening on her bra. Restricting clothing loosened, he tweaked and pinched her nipple into a hard bud, peaked and ready for his mouth. “What do you see when you look at me?” Face dipping to her chest, he nuzzled her shirt up so his mouth was against her skin and he could draw her deep, flicking the hardened nipple with his tongue, laving softly across the puckered flesh. “What do you see, baby?”

  Hands gentle as she cradled his skull, she held him to her breasts, back arching as she offered herself to him, moaning softly when he suckled hard. “I see the man I married.” A flick followed by a gentle bite set another moan free, and he smiled against her skin. “The man I love. I see the man I chose to create another human with.” Nathan breathed in the scent of her, the woman he’d known for years, the aroma of her arousal something he’d missed. His brain had recognized her even before his body, back at the clubhouse, the pattern of her indelibly etched on him.

  He matched the crutches together and shoved them under the bed, pivoted on his good foot until his ass was against the mattress, and sighed in relief as Cathy slipped between his thighs. She pressed close, as if she’d never been absent from his life.

  “I love you.” He cupped her jaw in both hands, pulling her in for a kiss. Her lips had shed any chill from the outdoors and were warm and supple underneath his mouth. Again and again, he kissed her, working side to side, then focusing on her full bottom lip, plucking and nibbling until he drew gasps and moans from her. His words were punctuation for each caress, tokens of love and faith spoken for her ears only.

  His arms lifted at her urging, and his shirt joined the crutches on the floor. Cathy’s fingertips trawled lines across his chest and shoulders, drawing strands of fire along his tattoos and scars, but this fire left him hard and aching instead of groaning in pain. “You’re real, Cath. Really, really here.”

  “I’m here, babe, always will be. There’s nowhere else I want to be.” Hot and wet, her mouth moved across his chest, teeth dragging a rough path over his nipples. “Always you.” Her clothing floated through the air, both of their hands in constant movement. Connecting, reassuring, arousing.

  The clink of his belt buckle broke the bubble surrounding them. He covered her hands with his. “Hold, Cath. I want to.”

  “I’ve seen, Nathan. I’m not afraid of what happened to you. I’ve seen, and I still love you.” Her head lifted, fingers threading between his as their gazes locked. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Maybe I am.” Nathan struggled to control his breathing, suddenly deep and quick as if he’d run blocks at a sprint, something he wasn’t able to do anymore, but he could sure fuck things up fast. “Maybe I am, Cath. I don’t want…” Her head swung back and forth slowly. “You gotta just…give me a minute.”

  “I’ve read about the surgeries, Nathan. I know what happened. What you’ve endured.”

  “That’s…clinical. Not the reality that I live with every day.” He blew out a shaking breath. “I wanna show you my way.” She gave his hands a squeeze and nodded, standing nude in front of him. He let his gaze map her stunning curves, each inch of exquisite flesh so well known. “You’re gorgeous, baby. Go
rgeous. My beautiful wife.” She shrugged, and he dipped his head, lapping at her nipple. “I want you.” His dick gave a twitch behind a still-closed zipper. “So fucking much.”

  She stared at him, and her eyes narrowed, giving her an uncertain look for only a moment. Then Cathy stepped away, holding onto his fingers until they no longer reached. Circling around him, she flipped back the covers and settled in the center of the mattress. Arms lifted, palms crossed underneath her head, she studied him with a calm, steady gaze. “Show me.”

  Confidently on display like that, unafraid of what he’d say or think, no matter they’d been apart for months, she was modeling the kind of courage he’d need to get through the next few minutes. “Woman, you humble me.”

  “No, babe. I love you.”

  With a deep breath, he pushed off the edge of the mattress and stood, back to her. She’d already been seeing the evidence of that last mission, that last route walked with his brothers. Shrapnel had shredded his upper back while he’d been crumpled over the fender of the Stryker, pinned to the wall, blasting through his tissue when an RPG hit the top of the building directly behind him.

  He listened carefully, but her breathing didn’t change, didn’t vary. He bent double, worked to grip the sock covering his lower limb inside the socket between his fingers, and pulled tautly. Holding it there, he let go with one hand and used a fingertip to depress the lock pin. The familiar vacuum released its hold on his leg, and he pushed, letting the leg fall away. Balancing easily on his remaining leg, he slipped the sleeve down and off, drawing it right-side out by habit. He draped it across the prosthesis and shoved both underneath the bed, alongside the crutches.