Dear Soldier: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Read online

  Another pulse moves through me, urgent, hungry, primal.

  “How are you going to stop him?” she asks. “You can’t stay here forever. If I call the police, they’ll do their best. They always do their best. But he knows how to play the system. He’ll just lie low for a while until everything settles down, and then he’ll pop back into my life. It’s how it always goes.”

  I bite down, tension moving through my head. My forehead feels like it’s cramping with the rage moving through me. Every predator’s instinct in me is singing out for battle, for gun smoke and sand and roaring men and the immediacy of violence.

  “I will not let anything happen to you,” I snarl again, deeper and firmer this time. “I swear it, Zoey.”

  Her eyes widen, beautiful and innocent and mine. “How can you stop him?”

  “You’ll stay with me.” I make the offer without thinking. It feels like the only thing I can do, not just the right thing to do. “I live in a penthouse with security monitoring the building twenty-four-seven. There’s no way he’ll be able to get to you.”

  She stands and paces over to the window. It’s only a short walk. Something drops in my stomach when she stands silhouetted against the setting evening sunlight, the sun blistering around her.

  She has a perfect shape, her hips outlined gorgeously, making me want to sprint over to her and grab onto her childbearing hips. I imagine driving my manhood against her ass, grinding up and down so she knows this is real.

  “Why would you do that?” She doesn’t turn as she asks the question, as though she can’t bear to look at me. “We don’t even know each other. And you said my letter was presumptuous.”

  “No. I said that was what I was going to say. But it was a bullshit excuse. Your letter was…” I trail off, searching for the right words. “It hit me deeply, Zoey. It hit me deeper than anything I’ve ever felt if you want the fucking truth.”

  Anger tinges the second half of the admission, rising from a defensive place deep inside of me, the place that has told me not to get close to anyone because it’ll only end in pain.

  She turns, her cheeks glistening with tears.

  Does this woman really have no idea how beautiful she is, how perfect?

  Even after crying, she glows radiantly, as though her womb is sending signals through her body, calling out to me to pump into her with everything I have. I’d unleash myself like the beast I am, burying my hands in her beautifully fleshy hips, pulling her toward me with each thrust, her young fresh pussy tight around my manhood, squeezing me intimately to let me know how badly she wants me to make her pregnant.

  “I meant it,” she says. “It is okay.”

  I smirk as I swagger over to her. Maybe I’m trying to hide how much emotion she’s prompting in me. “You can’t know that. You don’t know what happened over there.”

  I pause when we’re bare inches apart. Her scent is as intoxicating as the rest of her, whirling around me with messages hidden within her scent. The base of my manhood throbs at the closeness, willing me to embrace her.

  “What happened?” she murmurs.

  I laugh gruffly. It’s either that or let out a berserker’s roar.

  “Something bad. But I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  She nods shortly. “Okay. Fair enough. But if we’re going to be roommates, you should get used to sharing stuff.”

  Fuck.

  Is that a sassy smile trying to lift the corners of her mouth? It’s like sunlight appearing between gray clouds on a sad day, so unexpected and sudden it causes an answering flurry inside of me.

  “Does that mean you’re going to stay with me?”

  “When you grow up in the system, you learn not to turn things down out of pride. Right now, let’s face it, I’m screwed if I stay here. He knows where I work. He knows where I live. He can strike any time he wants. But if you mean it, if you’ll really let me stay…”

  “I mean it,” I say passionately. “I won’t let him hurt you. I’ll escort you to work if that’s what it takes. Or, fuck it, you can quit your job and stay with me rent free until you figure something out. Anything to keep you safe.”

  She gasps and I wonder if I’ve gone too far.

  At the same moment, the helm of my manhood twitches, and my underwear rubs torturously against my length.

  It’s the way her mouth stays open after she gasps, making me envision what she’d look like with my cock plunged between her lips, the way her stifled moans would fill the air as I instruct her to rub her needy young slit.

  I need to calm down.

  I’m going to savage her if I don’t relax.

  “Are you serious?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “But… I don’t understand. All of this because of a letter?”

  No, you perfect silly young thing. It’s not because of a letter. It’s because I’ll never be able to live with myself if I let anything happen to you.

  But I’m too conscious of what she told me about Jerry to tell her the full truth. I can easily imagine her viewing my sudden interest – and that’s putting it mildly – as too much too soon.

  “Because you seem like a great person.” Again, this is mild as fuck compared to how I truly feel about her. “And I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened to you. Come stay with me, Zoey, and I’ll use some of my contacts to try and get a handle on this Jerry situation.”

  She bites her lip, which makes it insanely difficult not to reach up and palm her big full beautiful breasts. It’s the way I imagine her biting her lip when I bring her to a shivering orgasm when my hand is pressed against her sex, grinding up and down over and over until her body begins to quiver and sweet sticky cream squirts all over my palm.

  “You’d really do that for a stranger?”

  You’re not a stranger. You’re the future mother of my children.

  I remind myself to be cautious, to take it slow…

  Even if I know that I won’t be able to hold myself back once she’s living in my apartment.

  “Yes. Now go and pack your things. I don’t trust myself to stay calm if that piece of shit returns.”

  She nods and walks over to her bedroom door, and then pauses, standing in the threshold. “Thank you, Zack. This is all so crazy. Jerry coming back… you visiting me… you know, it’s a lot to take in. But thank you. I don’t know what I’d be doing right now if you weren’t here, but I know it wouldn’t be good.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” I tell her firmly.

  She doesn’t have to worry about anyone trying to hurt her ever again.

  I’d kill before I let another man lay his hands on her.

  I’d die, if it came to that, to protect my woman.

  She belongs to me.

  Now and forever.

  Chapter Seven

  Zoey

  What the heck am I doing?

  I try to make sense of it as Zack drives us through the city in his sleek black sedan. The back seats are covered in my suitcases, two bags, and a few canvases I couldn’t bear to leave behind knowing that Jerry could return at any second and wreck my apartment. I know he’d take great delight in destroying my art, the thing he thinks brought us together in the first place.

  I’m in a car with a complete stranger – a stranger I’ve cried with, a stranger who saved me – and I’m going to stay at his apartment.

  It sounds like one of the stupidest things I could possibly do when I think of it in those terms. Surely escaping the clutches of Jerry only to slide into the grasp of another man is a foolish decision.

  And yet I feel a sense of comfort wash over me when I glance over at Zack, his face framed by the setting sunlight, his stark blue eyes glimmering as he scans the road as though he’s searching for Jerry.

  I think about all the ways this could go wrong, all the torture and pain that could result from this decision. But I don’t feel any panic flurrying through me.

  As crazy as it is, I tr
ust Zack.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks, in his gruff voice.

  The growling quality in his tone sends flurries of excitement moving through me, as my overactive mind imagines what it would be like to prompt that same snarling under different circumstances. I imagine him standing over me, his powerful body heaving, as he lets out shivering growls of lust.

  “About how crazy this is.”

  “Yeah.” He laughs dryly. “I know what you mean. This isn’t how I planned on my evening going either. But there’s no damn way I’m leaving you so that freak can return.”

  “But you don’t know me.”

  He smirks, glancing at me briefly as we come to a red light. We’re driving away from the rundown area of the city toward the upscale neighborhoods I never have a reason to visit.

  “We’re going around in circles. Yes, Zoey, I don’t know you. But…”

  He trails off, a habit of his I’m starting to find really infuriating.

  It makes me fill the blank space with what I think – what I wish – he was going to say.

  But I feel like I know you, a mind-made version of him whispers. I felt like I knew you the second I laid eyes on you. Don’t you see, Zoey? We’re meant to be together.

  Crazy vignettes assail my mind, images of Zack standing at an altar in a suit, smiling at me as I walk down the aisle. I see him leaning forward to brush a tear of joy from my cheek as I hold our firstborn child in my arms.

  I feel the passion that would – that will – ignite in me when he puts his arms around me and whispers that he loves me, that he’ll always love me.

  Jeez, I really need to rein in these stampeding fantasies before I completely lose control and I can’t think clearly about any of this.

  Even that’s a joke. I’m not thinking clearly now, not even close.

  He nods to the rearview, leaving his last thought aggravatingly unfinished. “You’re a talented artist, Zoey. That’s beautiful.”

  He’s talking about the painting I started about a week ago, a ship caught in a whirling storm, the sky as steely as Zack’s hair. The ship is a tiny lost thing in the center of the piece, almost swallowed by the raging sea.

  “Thank you.” There’s a ball in my throat. I have to push past it to get my words out. “I… It’s about the day my parents died.”

  What the heck? Why did I go and blurt that out?

  Surely it’s enough that I’m lumbering Zack with my Jerry-related problems. He doesn’t need all my childhood issues stacked on top of that.

  “What happened?” he asks as the light changes and he continues driving us through the city.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I turn to the window, watching the gleaming fronts of the expensive apartment blocks glide by. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  I whimper when his hand comes to rest on my knee.

  Warmth flares up and down my thigh, making my sex tingle with even more force than was already captivating me before. It’s like he’s starting a fire deep inside of me, hissing beneath the surface, and all it takes is a single touch to fan it into wildness.

  Does he know what he’s doing to me, or is he just trying to be nice?

  “You can talk about it if you want.” He gives my leg a squeeze. My lips feel so sensitive, brimming with intoxicating friction as they rub against my panties. “I’ve heard talking can help… not that I’m the poster child for it or anything.”

  He removes his hand, which causes both regret and relief to shiver through me.

  The regret is obvious. That comes from the need to have his hand press even firmer against my leg, for him to smooth it up, and up, until he’s pressed against my sex and coaxing the pleasure lying dormant there.

  The relief flares messier, a combination of shyness and fear… fear that I’ll do something silly like grab onto his hand and let out a moan, looking at him with lust painted as plainly on my face as my artwork is painted onto my canvases.

  “It’s not a big deal,” I murmur, which is a lie. Of course, it’s a big deal. “When I was eleven, my parents used to take me out on their boat. We’d go fishing or just sit out on the water, enjoying a picnic or just lounging in the sun. Sometimes my mom would paint. That’s where I got my love of it, my mom.”

  I wait for him to say something, to give me a signal he’s bored of my sob story. Part of me longs for him to interrupt me so I don’t have to continue.

  Maybe it’s the madness of all that’s happened this evening, but my emotions feel absurdly close to the surface, not buried deep like I normally prefer.

  I glance at him. His jaw tight, but when he looks at me, there’s something like acceptance in his expression.

  “There was a storm. It came out of nowhere and it was bad. My dad told me to stay below deck until it was over. I was so scared, such a little coward… I hid down there, crying like a baby until the storm was over. I heard them screaming, Zack… my mom, my dad, I heard them yelling at each other, even over the storm. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe that’s just my mind playing tricks on me.”

  I clasp my hands together, willing myself to stop, screaming at myself that he doesn’t care about this, there’s no way he cares about this. But I can’t stop now that I’ve started. It’s like a hydrant has burst inside of me, the water pressure causing it to blast unceasingly.

  “They were both killed.” I blink back tears, but they have ideas of their own and flow hotly down my cheeks. “And I did nothing.”

  “What were you supposed to do?” Zack growls, bringing the car to a stop outside yet another gleaming upscale apartment building. He turns to me with a stern expression on his face. “You can’t blame yourself, Zoey. Think about what you said to me in your letter. It’s okay.”

  “But I could have—”

  “What?” His voice whips sharply. “You could’ve stopped the storm? You could’ve magically changed the weather? You were eleven. That was… what? Ten years ago?”

  I nod. “I’m twenty now, so almost.”

  An unreadable look passes across his face. I wonder if it has anything to do with my age. I remember from his biography on the letter-writing brief that he’s forty-two. Maybe he thinks I’m too young for him.

  If that’s the case, he’s alone. I love how much older he is than me, how experienced, how mature. I love his iron-colored hair and the look of seasoned capability in his eyes.

  Stomping down in my mind, I cut off the path my thoughts are taking.

  It doesn’t matter. He’s not thinking of me in that way.

  “I mean it.” He reaches over and places his hand on my shoulder, squeezing so that rioting sensation moves through me, setting my nerves alight like a fireworks display. “It’s a goddamn tragedy. But it’s not your fault.”

  I reach up as instinct drives me. It’s a crazy thought, but it’s like my body is driving my movements, forcing me to clasp onto his hand so we’re one step closer to the ultimate goal… to a swollen belly and a life growing inside of me, to a future shared.

  But this is a stranger.

  I scream the words in my mind, trying to make them matter, trying to make them real. But they feel like a lie, irrelevant, pointless.

  Gripping onto his hand, I hold on for support, desperate to believe him.

  “It’s hard not to blame myself.”

  “I know.” He nods. “I understand that, better than you know. But it’s different, you were a kid, Zoey.”

  “Different to what?” I ask, certain I saw something glimmer across his features just then, something unspoken and concealed.

  He bites down for a moment, his hand tightening on my shoulder. I think he might share it with me. But then he sighs and removes his hand, nodding to the backseat.

  “Come on. Let’s get all this upstairs. I’ll show you to the guest room.”

  There are a thousand things I want to say, I want to ask. But I can’t bring myself to press too hard, especially when he’s doing me such a massive favor by letting me stay.

/>   Chapter Eight

  Zack

  I sit on the edge of my bed with my hands clasped together, my cock so hard it feels like it’s going to explode out of my pants. After getting Zoey settled in the guest room, I had to say goodnight before I lost control and leaped on her.

  I keep trying to remind myself of how Jerry predatorily advanced on her, telling myself that she’ll react with shock and disgust if I do what amounts to the same thing.

  But…

  Fuck.

  How am I supposed to fight this feeling?

  She’s a twenty year old curvy goddess, with gorgeous round and plump breasts, with legs so thick and bountiful I almost claimed her tight young slit in the car when I had my hand on her thigh. I was sure I heard her whimper quietly when I squeezed onto her leg, sure there was some tension moving through her.

  But what if I’m misreading the signs?

  I’ve never felt anything even close to this for a woman before, a scorching heat that claims me with primal passion, that sets every inch of me alight in my need to possess her.

  I hear her moving around in the next room, maybe setting up her painting supplies, maybe just getting settled for the evening.

  My cock gives a pulse when I think about her changing out of her waitress’s uniform and into some short pajama bottoms, showing her creamy legs, and maybe a tank top without a bra…

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  The thought of her nipples turning hard and showing through the fabric makes my balls feel like they’re swelling to twice, no three times their regular size.

  My seed pulses and my length grows even more, as though it’s trying to make me erupt right now.

  I stand without giving myself time to think about it, moving over to the wall and pressing my ear against it. I can hear her breathing through the wall, high-pitched, full of something I can’t read.

  My predator’s mind tells me it’s lust making her breathe so enticingly, that she’s next door as consumed with desire as I am, that she’s just waiting for me to charge in there and make her mine.

  I close my eyes and imagine her bent over the edge of the bed in those pajama bottoms I hope she’s wearing. I imagine walking up behind her and pulling her shorts down, revealing her pink panties, a spot of wetness telling me how soaked her hole already is.