The drill runs for hours. We plant our explosive charges on the dummy rocket sites, and watch from a high hill as the shit billows up, sending thick black smoke into the air. The choppers come roaring in when it's over, and we pile into them like ants after honey, lifting off into the smoky sky.
There's a strange thud in my chest, a sickly feeling that has nothing to do with the imminent danger we're about to face from the latest geo-political inferno.
Why does it feel like everything inside me goes up in the blaze? I can't get Delia out of my head. Not even when ninety percent of my focus is on the drill, the mission, everything I've been trained to do to keep the red, white, and blue flying free.
It's hellish, but we get through it with flying colors. We always do.
By the end of it, Commander Jones comes up behind me, slaps me on the back. He's an older, bigger man with a face that always turns beet red from barking orders and bulldozing his way through the harshest ground.
“Haven't seen you move like that since Kirkuk, Cleveland. Keep it up, and we won't have a repeat.”#p#分页标题#e#
“It's going to be completely different over there than Kirkuk if we're called up,” I tell him. “The Norks are better equipped than the Iranians any day. We're going to need more practice for all this fresh blood.”
He nods and smiles. “What? You think I don't already have it on the books? Get some sleep tonight, Cleveland, we're going to be drilling hard over the next week until everything's picture-fucking-perfect.”
“You think it's really gonna happen?” I cock my head and feel my eyes narrow.
The commander frowns and lets out a grunt. I already know what he's going to say in words, but his face tells me everything I need to know.
“That's up to the boys in DC to decide. If they do, we'll be ready to give 'em hell. Our worries begin and end right there.”
Yeah, hell, I think. He's not exaggerating.
It'll be the most dangerous mission I've ever been on once the order lands. It's easy to draw parallels with fire and eternal torment when you're talking about war.
But for me, I can't imagine anything worse than eternal silence, torn away forever from the forbidden chick I can't pry out of my skull.
Fuck. I need to see her again. I need to feel Delia wrapped around me.
Her arms, her lips, her soft, wet cunt...
We fucked over our week in Vegas together more than I ever gave it to any woman, and it's still not enough. Our last night together, feeling her draw every drop of come from my balls, is burned into my head for life.
My head's spinning at about a thousand miles per hour, and it's not just the week long drills and imminent war threat driving me loco. It's her.
I don't break my promises, dammit. But Delia's underneath my skin, alive and perfect, singing to me like a Siren. I can still feel her pheromones caressing every fucking pore, igniting some primal chemistry in my blood.
I can't forget her. Can't ignore her. Can't.
We made a vow to get this shit out of our systems and then forget it as soon as we returned from Vegas.
It's the first vow I've ever hated, and I know what I need to do. I'm going to march in and shatter the miserable piece of shit into a thousand pieces.
IX: Unforgettable (Delia)
It's been a day since we stepped off the plane together, and he dropped me at home. My heart sank when his lips pulled away from mine. He told me he wouldn't be coming back.
Bracing myself with a hundred inner pep talks on the plane didn't do a damned thing. It hurts.
I spend the whole day cooped up in my room, straining to force out something on my laptop. The words just won't come. Not when Chris flashes in my mind every time I type the word SEAL.
Hell, it's not just him. It's everything that's happened.
The way he led me through town like a brash, possessive playboy, confident as ever. The men he killed. All the times we fucked in our room, discovering layers of ecstasy I didn't even know existed, coming unraveled on his cock again and again as he spent himself inside me our final night.
God. There's a fiery pulse between my thighs every time I think about it.
On the flight back home, curled up against him, I seriously believed we might be able to put it all behind us. Maybe we'd actually gotten it out of our system with all the wild, screaming, sheet ripping sex we'd had.
But by the second day, I'm a fucking mess. I close the laptop, ignoring the latest passive-aggressive warnings from Professor Thosser about dragging my feet. I need to get out of the house, so I go for a run.
Dad and Evie are mysteriously absent. When I get home later, I see the screwed up bitch in the hall, berating our cleaner, Maribell, for something she probably didn't do.#p#分页标题#e#
Evie looks over the poor woman's shoulder and gives me the evil eye. I put on my best bitch face and glare back, before heading to my room.