Page 43 of Moonshine Lullabies

Collier…

My favorite part of making love to her was lying in the sticky aftermath of it on our sides, her leg up over my hip, my cock softening inside of her and slipping free with a little shudder from her as we kissed.

“I didn’t wear a condom,” I said. While I wasn’t worried one bit about disease – I knew I was clean and I trusted Jessie’s character enough that she would have stopped things if she wasn’t – what I was surprised about was that I wasn’t worried one bit about a surprise little one if it happened. Watching her with Tate, I didn’t think I could have picked a better mother for my child if I wanted one.

“I’m clean,” she whispered immediately. “You?”

“Absolutely,” I whispered. “I wouldn’t do that to you… I was sayin’, you know…”

She bowed her head and pressed her forehead against my chest and said, “I can’t anymore. One of the hazards of getting knocked up at thirteen an’ havin’ a small body,” she declared. “Had Tate when I was fourteen but the doctors said he would be my last. I hope the scar—”

“Hush now,” I said, caressing her cheek with my thumb and kissing her forehead. She had a seam of scar tissue right above her pubic bone from hip to hip – a Cesarean for sure, but I didn’t give a flying fuck about that. She was beautiful to me no matter what, and I told her as much. “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful, it hurts to look at you sometimes.”

She scoffed a laugh and said, “I don’t know how that could be.”

I leaned back and looked her in her golden-brown eyes that reminded me of a shrewd bird of prey.

“Jessie-Lou, I get hard to the point of pain just thinkin’ about you. There are times I see you, it damn near doubles me over.”

She blinked, dazed as what I said sank in and she touched the side of my face and put her lips against mine. When she drew back, she said, “Well, by all means, the next time that happens, if the situation allows for it, make sure to take some relief. I can’t tell you how wet you make me when I catch you lookin’ at me the way you’re lookin’ at me right now.”

Fuck, my cock started stirring all over again.

“You’re a deep woman, Jessie-Lou Gaudet,” I murmured, staring into her eyes.

She blinked, one long slow blink and her jaw worked as though she tried to gather her thoughts but nothing wanted to come out.

To spare her the need to say anything at all, I covered her mouth with mine and rolled her onto her back, pressing her back into the bed. She giggled against my mouth and the heavy that’d been between us the moment before lifted into something light and fantastic.

We showered together, riding high on the drunk or drug of each other before settling back into bed to cuddle and speak softly in the dark.

We made plans to travel together someday. Take a long ride together back to Tennessee to see where I came from and take the thrill ride that was the Tail of the Dragon.

She wanted to take me bow hunting and talked of gardening and canning – a couple of things she loved to do but hadn’t had the time or the help in recent years.

Eventually, our voices grew softer, our bodies grew lax, and the conversation turned to quiet as sleep overtook us.

It was all shattered when I got dropped back in a war zone – the crack and boom of gunfire all around us as Jessie screamed, and I held her down flat to the bed.

It took me a damn minute to realize that I wasn’t dreaming, and that I wasn’t drowning in heat and sand. It was gunfire without the accompanying explosions of rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices.

It took a moment further for my ears to stop ringing and for my locked-up muscles to realize that Jessie wasn’t screaming wordlessly and that she struggled valiantly to get me off her as her sleep-addled mind was locked on one thing and one thing only…

“Tate!” she wailed beneath me as she struggled to get out from under me. Something I couldn’t let her do. “Tate!” she screamed with worried and fearful heartbreak that only a mother could. I rolled us off the bed and pinned her to the bedroom floor as the cacophony of sound continued and her son’s name turned to wordless agonized screaming. I tried like hell to remind her, he wasn’t here. He was safe and at his friend’s and she was okay. That I had her, and everything would be okay.

The gunfire subsided after what seemed like an age and the roar of motorcycles departed, echoing off the deep night, pressing on the outside of the house.

“Let me up!” she cried. “Let me up!” she screamed. I struggled to get up off of her, grateful we was both moving and able to move.

“Let me see,” I demanded, checking her over, but she pushed me off, thrust me away, and threw herself against the door to her bedroom.

“Jesse, wait!” I cried, taking up my gun from the bedside table and going after her into the hall – both of us stark-ass naked.

She stopped in the hall which hung thick with dust and stared in horror at the holes riddling Cypress’s bedroom door.

She turned to Tate’s and stepped carefully over the debris-scattered hallway carpet and pushed open Tate’s door. Her kid’s bedroom was a ruin of broken glass and shattered plastic from the window and his chewed-up computer monitor, feathers drifting down from the ceiling from his shot-up pillow and goose down comforter.

“It’s okay, he’s not here. He’s okay,” I reminded her, as she slipped devastated to the bedroom floor.

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