Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
She studies me intently, seeing into me and reading between the lines that I’ve done my best to obliterate. I don’t want people to see, and I don’t want them to know. I’m not ashamed, but my life? It’s private. It’s off-limits. I’ve never had the slightest urge to let anyone in, but here we are, in my backyard with the trees and the water and the moonlight. Ephemeral bites her bottom lip, waiting without demanding that I tell her anything else, just letting it come, and it keeps coming and coming like a tide I can’t hold back any longer.
“The rest is obvious history. I worked hard, found some hidden talents, and ended up working in special ops. And just like so many others before me, when that was over, I was lost. By then, my mom and brothers were living in the city. I’d been sending home pretty much everything I was making. They had a good apartment—a two-bedroom. Mom was down to working just one full-time job, and my brothers went to a good school. They both excelled at sports, and Marcus got the help he needed. Sean was set to graduate in a few months, and he was going to a state college on a full scholarship for wrestling. I was so proud and so, so happy they were living this life without me. But coming back was a mistake. Like so many others, I found it nearly impossible to integrate back into regular society. The issue was never violence. There was never a scary moment where I wasn’t in control of myself. It was the opposite. I was so shut inside myself.
“Finally, my mom took a day off work. She was there when I woke up, set for another day of ghosting around the apartment. She told me I had to leave. That I had to find something else to fill the rest of my life with. And that I needed to talk to someone.”
Ephemeral rubs her arms together, and I notice the goosebumps along them. The wind has picked up even more, and she’s obviously cold. I slip out of my black hoodie and hand it to her. She hesitates but eventually slips it on over her T-shirt.
I’m not a feral beast of a man. Before Ephemeral, there was no woman who affected me. I appreciate the beauty in people like an artist or a sculptor, and then I move past. I’m unprepared for the jarring chain reaction that happens when I see this tiny woman dwarfed by my massive sweater. It’s so big that it goes down to her knees, covering her shorts as well. My cock swells, punching against my zipper until I’m hard as lead.
Over a sweater.
My sweater.
Could it get any more caveman?
Never ask if something could get more of something. Because the answer is always yes. When she smiles softly at me, I imagine kissing her sweet mouth and kissing her until she begs me to strip her out of her clothes and taste her sweet body.
I almost reach out. Almost. But then she speaks, and her tender voice, devoid of pity and rich in understanding, digs under my skin and swells inside me. “It must have been hard to hear someone you loved and trusted telling you that you had to leave. Even if she meant well, it would have felt like a betrayal after your sacrifice.”
It’s been so many years now that I have almost no reaction. “I didn’t take it well. I didn’t think of what I was doing as a sacrifice, but I was angry. There was no way I was in the right frame of mind. I felt like I was getting kicked out. As though my family took what I was offering, but they didn’t really want me. Like they didn’t care. For years, when my mom and brothers tried to reach out, I refused to answer. They didn’t want me. They wanted the money, which I continued to send.
“Because of my past, I was an ideal candidate for security. I got hired and excelled. Long story short is that the boss there was a good guy. Ex-service himself. He gave me the name of someone he’d talked to, and she sorted me right out. By then, the anger was completely gone. I just didn’t know how to fix what was broken. She helped me work on myself. With the contacts I’d made, I started my own security firm. I knew people and met others, and in short order, we’d created a good thing. It kept rising and rising and getting bigger, fast. With just a few high-profile jobs, I had the money to expand, to take on more of those same jobs, and hire more people.”
My heart does something horrible every time I think about my family. It contracts with regret, but right now, it squeezes at the look on Ephemeral’s face. She doesn’t care about the company right now or about the money. That’s not what’s important. I watch her lips work around the words, her eyes boring into me to judge if it’s safe to ask.