I hold his eyes, palms to his neck. “I can take it, Rev. Whatever it is, I can take it.”
He closes his eyes. “Between assignments, when I was a Recon. Had leave. Went back to New Orleans.” He says it all one word,N’awlins,but in a way I could never replicate, even being from the South myself. “Don’t know why, to this day, but I had a rental car, just driving. Old haunts, shit like that. Happened past that house. The last one.” Long pause, very long. “Heard it. A sound I fuckin’ dream about even now. Don’t dream about combat, don’t have no nightmares about friends fuckin’ dyin’, buddies gettin’ their heads blown off right next to me. I dream about that fuckin’…satanicmonster. The shit he did to me. Saw fuckers get tortured for information, Mike. Saw that shit. That motherfucker? He did shit that would make professional torturers lose their fuckin’ lunch.”
I can’t speak. Don’t try.
“So you understand where I’m comin’ from. Why I’m telling you.”
“Okay,” I manage.
“Heard him wailin’ on some kid. The smacks. The cryin’—an’ when you cry, that’s when he got brutal. Got off on that shit. Knew he was about to start breakin’ the poor kid’s shit. And I—I went berserk, Myka. Legs moved on their own. I was in my head, but I couldn’t do a goddamn thing to stop myself.” He’s quiet another moment. “Broke the door in. Saw him in the back room. Had this kid—” he cuts off, shakes his head. “Killed him. Bare hands, I killed that fuckin’ monster. Wasn’t quick, either. Ain’t sorry, won’t ever be sorry I did that shit.”
“Oh, Rev.” What is there to say?
“Left the kid there. The body. Told the kid to run. Knew he wouldn’t say shit. Clear he never did. Guaran-fuckin’-tee you there wasn’t a single person at that scum’s funeral.”
He does that thing with his hand, pulling it away and looking at it, as if he can see the blood running down it—this time, there actually is, from when he punched the doorframe. It’s still seeping.
So I do what I did last time—this time literally. Wipe his battered, torn knuckles on my shirt and the kiss wounds. Press his palm to my face. “He wasn’t innocent, Rev. If anyone deserved to die like that, it was that…person.”
“Wasn’t a fuckin’person. The Devil incarnate, is what he was.” He meets my eyes. “Scared of me yet?”
I shake my head. “No, Rev. I’m not.”
He huffs a laugh. “Fuckin’ nutcase, babe. What’s it gonna take?”
“Nothing, Rev. I told you I could never be afraid of you.” That’s a lie, so I give him the truth. “For one moment, I was. But then I understood. And even when Iwasafraid, for that moment, I still knew you weren’t going to hurt me. I was afraid of your intensity, your anger. I was afraid because it came out of nowhere.”
“Never hurt you, Mike,” he breathes. “Never. Not fuckin’ever.”
“I know.”
“Kill anyone who tried.”
“I know.”
“Myka…”
I rip his shirt off. “Shut up and make love to me, Rev.”
“Door’s not locked. Not sure it will.”
I climb off him, start peeling my clothes off. “Better figure something out, then.”
He braces a chair under the handle, strides back over to me. Kicks out of his jeans, boxer briefs, boots and socks. I’m already naked, reaching for him.
There’s no foreplay. He doesn’t eat me, I don’t suck him. There’s no clawing, no dirty talk.
He just covers me, slides into me, fills me. Moves in me. I gasp, wrapped around him, arms and legs. He kisses me, soft and slow.
We make love.
We don’t talk.
It lasts for…I don’t even know. An hour? More?
I lose myself in him. Lose track of where he ends and I begin.
He moves slowly, gently, gliding into me with power and grace. He loves me with sweetness, all the wild subsumed, the rough harnessed and but briefly tamed.
