Fighting Redemption(59)

“Ryan,” she breathed as she moved over him. He was inside her, and right now, she needed nothing else except for him to stay there.

“Mmm?” His eyes locked on hers.

“Harder,” she moaned. She wanted it to hurt. She wanted to never stop feeling him, even when he wasn’t there.

His hips snapped up at her command and she cried out, her fingers digging into his shoulders. With one hand gripping her hip hard, Ryan splayed the other across her belly. He rubbed, moving upwards until he rolled her nipple sharply in her fingers. Fin’s head fell back when he leaned in and took the other in his mouth, sucking deeply.

Oh God, what this man made her feel. Even as her legs trembled, aching from their straddled position over his hips, Fin felt she could keep moving like that forever.

Ryan scraped his teeth over her skin, biting the tender skin before pulling free. Both hands now on her hips, he slammed inside her, her body jolting with the force as pleasure shattered her apart.

“Fuck,” she heard him mutter as her body clenched around him. Her eyes fluttered open to find him watching her intently. His lips were parted, his cheeks flushed, and when he came, all his muscles pulled tight as he ground his body inside her, growling her name wildly.

Fear rising swiftly, Fin buried her face into his neck. She wanted him like this forever, wrapped around her like she was all that mattered. But his words came back to haunt her.

“I’m still broken, Fin, and I don’t know if that will ever change.”

Peeling herself away, she knew that no matter how much love pulsed between them, she wasn’t enough and it was possible she never would be.

“We should probably go now,” she told him.

“If you say so.” Ryan’s lips curled and life sparked in his eyes, making her heart ache unbearably.





After a quick shower, Fin and Ryan arrived at her parents’ house. His heart had been in his throat the entire drive as Fin crunched and ground the gears of his beloved car. He didn’t yell once, and if that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was.

Fin had a tendency to get far too distracted with scenery rather than keeping her eyes peeled to the road. Usually he found her sweet inattention endearing, but not when it involved driving his car. Even the relief he felt when Fin pulled into the driveway wasn’t enough to take his mind from the nerves seeing Mike and Julie evoked.

Julie had cried the moment he stepped through the front door and leaned up to fold him in her arms. He had to hand the pie off to Mike in order to hug her back. Mike had stood there, fighting his own tears, and it hurt to see his tough exterior worn down with so much grief.

The dinner that followed had felt almost normal—as long as he kept his eyes from the empty place where Jake used to sit.

“You’re part of the family, Ryan,” Mike told him later that night as they both sat on the back patio after dinner. “To us you were simply another son.”

“Thank you, Mike,” he murmured.

“Your mum and dad, they were never your parents, we were. We still are. Don’t stay away anymore,” he ordered. Picking up his beer and holding it in both hands, Mike cleared his throat. “Now tell me what happened.”

After setting his drink on the table, Ryan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and focusing his eyes on the cream coloured pavers he’d helped Jake and Mike lay so many years ago. “It was a nest of insurgents, sir,” he began, his stomach pitching at having to relive the memory. “We were dropped near the mountains for a patrol that was going to take us inside enemy territory. They weren’t supposed to be there. We were quiet and careful, but they must have seen us coming from miles away. By the time our patrol was deep in the mountains with dawn approaching, we were surrounded. It didn’t look good so we radioed for support, but they came too late. Jake ran for a clear spot to take out a PKM that was stopping us from retreating when someone high up on a ridge fired down on him.” Ryan swallowed, the image of Jake falling vivid in his mind. “I was supposed to cover him,” he whispered. “I ran out into open fire and dragged him back, but he was already gone. It happened so quickly.”

God. The blood. He could still smell it. The metallic tang of it had been thick in the air as it flooded over his hands and soaked into the ground. He rubbed a hand across his face, but the smell, the fear, the hollow ache—it all lived inside him and was something that would never be wiped away.

“Ryan.”

He looked up in surprise. Mike was standing in front of him, holding out his hand, and he hadn’t even heard him move. As he stood up and took hold, Mike wrapped him in a hug.

“I’m so sorry, sir. I carried him back to the chopper and I didn’t let go.”

Mike pushed him back to look at him. “You put yourself on the line to get to him,” he said gruffly. “He was never alone. Thank you, son.”

Ryan nodded, hoping that one day he could accept Mike’s words and move on. Returning to Afghanistan without Jake wasn’t going to be the same. This time he’d be going for Jake rather than with him, and it was going to hurt like a goddamn motherf*cker.

“I’m going back,” he told Mike.

Mike took a deep breath. “When?”

“Two weeks.”

They both spun around at the sound of a plate shattering. Fin stood there looking at him, pale and mute as a tea towel hung carelessly from her fingers.