Hunted For the Holidays by Amber Bardan

Author:Amber Bardan [Bardan, Amber]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

Three

I reach up and undo the belt, freeing her. She rolls toward me. Time to face the music. Time for what I’ve been terrified of.

“Matty,” she whispers. Now, I don’t dare beg her not to cry. “How could you do this to me?”

My chest compresses under the weight of what I’ve done.

She’s not even talking about me buckling her to our bed and brutalizing her.

That’s the thing about my wife—she’s as wholesome as her award-winning, homemade apple pie. Everyone’s sweetheart. Darling of every church bake sale. My little pocket-rocket. Butter wouldn’t melt on her sweet pink tongue.

By day.

By night, she’s five-foot of pure hussy. Takes her six-foot-seven, rough husband anyway, anywhere—and fucking loves every filthy moment of it.

I grab her face and swipe away her tears with my thumbs. When it comes down to it, I’m not much good at talking or explaining. But she knows me.

She’s known me since kindergarten.

Libby knows I’m hurting worse than she is. That this last deployment almost killed me, both literally and figuratively.

“How could you keep this from me?” Her tears collect on my thumbs, and each one is a knife in my middle.

My brave Libby never cries. Not when I leave her, and not when I get back. She sends me off with a kiss and welcomes me home with many more. She keeps her worries for her prayers.

She knows I’d never have the strength to go, otherwise.

This time has been different.

What I’ve been trying not to imagine is right here in her eyes. Her lips work together over and over, and I see everything she’s been going through in the last month. Since she got the call no wife ever wants to get—her husband’s been injured in the line of duty. On a mission where she couldn’t even be told what happened or what country I was in.

“Wasn’t supposed to get clearance to fly.” I tuck her hair behind her ear. Want to see all of her face, even when it’s this sad.

“How did you?” She keeps her gaze locked on mine, and her arm draped over my waist, even though there’s somewhere else she wants to be looking.

No, I wasn’t supposed to get medical clearance to fly. Was told I’d have to miss another Christmas at home.

But then I wasn’t supposed to be up and walking unaided five days after surgery, either. They thought that was impossible. But they couldn’t understand the treasures I have motivating me to heal. One thing I’ve learned in my years of service is that human will is stronger than the body.

“I had something to come home to, I needed to recover for.”

Her eyes shut briefly, and then she does what she’s been avoiding. She leans back and looks at the angry scars on my hip. The stitches are out, and the wound’s healed, but it’s not pretty.

“Oh, Matthew.” She bursts into sobs and buries her face in my chest.

I wrap her up in my arms and hold her close. She’s not crying over battle scars.

She’s crying over how close we came to our last kiss goodbye.

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