Page 14 of Talon
She didn’t say anything, not yet, as she went back to the living room and made herself comfortable on the sofa.“How can you have less space than this?What do you have a studio apartment?”The last had occurred to her on the short trip from the other room.That would have been the simplest explanation.
“Nope.I live in the old bunkhouse on the ranch.We’ve got two bunkbeds in each room and we each get a bed and a footlocker.It’s not bad,” he said with a shrug.“I’ve slept in worse places.At least I’m with people I choose to be with and not thirty men I was assigned to.”
“Thirty men in one room?”She couldn’t help the way her eyes went wide with surprise.
Talon nodded.“The Marines don’t care much about privacy or creature comforts.They’re teaching you to fight, and hopefully survive.Everything else is a luxury.”
She watched him for a moment, blinking a couple of times as she thought about it.She could see what he was saying.Though she hadn’t thought much about it, some parts of being in the military, might look much like her life had growing up.Target practice, learning to handle a weapon, including how to break it down and clean it, practice drills for whatever they were trying to learn or keep from forgetting.While life in the converted bunker she’d grown up in hadn’t been luxurious, she hadn’t gone without anything she needed, even if she didn’t have everything someone might have wanted.
Unlike most of the other kids at the nearly eighteen square mile compound built from a decommissioned military base, Madison had gone to school in nearby Edgemont.Dad had told her that he’d considered homeschooling her but in the end he’d decided she needed to know more than just how to survive.And the school system could provide a decent foundation education that he could build on where he thought best.It also gave him time while she was at school to get things done that he couldn’t take her along for.At least when she was young.As she’d gotten older, he’d done his best to teach her what he could.
Madison had done her best to learn it, though there were some things she still had a hard time with.She could disassemble, clean, and reassemble any of her weapons with her eyes closed, but ask her to do more than basic maintenance on an engine and she was lost.
“Where’d you go?”Talon’s question brought her back to what had sent her thinking in the first place.
“I was thinking about the military and wondering how similar it might be to how I was raised.”She shook her head, not wanting to explain her thought processes to him.She’d tried with a few people in the past, even Dad and few got it, though Dad had seemed to long about the time she’d turned eighteen.At least partly.He hadn’t always understood her, but after she got past what she thought of as the worst part of puberty, much of which was feeling misunderstood and missing the mother she couldn’t remember, they’d gotten close again.
Talon frowned, staring at the ceiling for a moment as if he was trying to remember something.She watched and wondered what he was thinking, but didn’t want to interrupt and maybe distract him, so she waited.
“You might be right.I was trying to remember what I’d heard about the community down there while I was growing up but either it wasn’t much, or nothing sounded real enough to believe.”
“Like?”She was willing to bet she’d heard it all already but wanted to see what had been said in Custer where he’d told her he was from.Middle school had been a particular kind of hell for her.She assumed it was for anyone who was even a little bit different.And the girl who dressed more like a boy than an almost teenage girl, got A’s in most of her classes, with little effort, other than the struggle to read the textbooks.Thankfully, she remembered nearly everything she read.Between that and growing up on the prepper compound south of town she was about as different as the little school she’d attended could dream up.
He lifted one shoulder and let it fall in a dismissive gesture.
“I never paid much attention to the talk, partly because it seemed so outrageous at the time, so I don’t remember much.I do recall someone saying it was a religious group, very tight knit, that’s why we almost never ran across them, they home schooled their kids so they wouldn’t learn all the evil things from the rest of us sinners or something like that.Like I said, I don’t remember much.”
Madison watched him for a moment, wondering if he was telling her the truth or if he was claiming not to remember so he didn’t have to tell her the horrible things that had been said about kids like her.
So what if he was?What did it hurt?Nothing.All it did was try to keep her from getting her feelings hurt about something that had happened more than ten years before.Did what they had said matter now?Not at all.Hell, it hadn’t mattered to her when they were saying it.At least not much.
She’d had a few friends her age, but not many.She’d spent more time with Dad and his friends, like Billy though he wasn’t the only one.They’d all taught her different things and she’d felt special that she was the only kid they all did this with.
Madison didn’t remember any of them acting like it was a hardship to have her along as they did whatever they were doing.She’d loved it.
“So it doesn’t matter that I’m a little different?”
“Little warrior, being different is what I like about you.If you’d been like every other woman I’ve met, I never would have looked twice.I probably would have still taken you to dinner, but I wouldn’t have insisted on getting your number and I wouldn’t have bothered to check in with you every chance I got.”He leaned close until his lips almost brushed her cheek when he spoke, his words so soft they were more a breath across her skin than actually spoken.“Being different is hot.Being strong and self assured is sexy.”He pulled back without saying anything more, just watched her.She wondered what he hoped to see.
“How sexy is it?”She leaned close, stretched a little and brushed a soft kiss across his lips.
Before she could pull back his hand came up, cupped the back of her head, and pulled her closer.His mouth covered hers in a kiss so filled with need and desire that she lost herself in his taste.The feel of his lips, the soft tickle of his beard against her skin.
The heat from his body warmed her and soon she found herself leaning against him, one hand pressed against his chest as she tried to keep from completely melting into him.Her whole body seemed to go onto high alert.Her breasts ached and heat pooled low in her belly.She wanted his hands on her, the question was, how to get him to do it?
11
Talondidhisbestto hide his surprise when Madison had brushed the barely there kiss against his lips, but he hadn’t been able to resist the urge to pull her close and give her a real kiss.When she moved closer, one hand going to his chest and the other burying deep in his hair, her fingers tugging at the strands, he didn’t bother to hold back the low growl that erupted from his chest.He liked the way she took what she wanted.
He used one arm to scoop her up from where she sat on the couch beside him, her body twisted a bit as their tongues continued to tango.In no time, he had her maneuvered so she sat on his lap, her groan into their kiss letting him know she wasn’t unhappy with the shift.
Talon hesitated for only a moment before he set one hand on her shoulder slowly moving it down her back to her waist.He worked his way forward, smoothing one hand around to her belly then upward to the swell of her tits.The other hand stayed low on her back, making sure she was stable as they continued to kiss.
He didn’t know how long they sat there, making out, their hands roaming each other’s bodies, until she pulled away, breaking the kiss.Talon let his gaze search her face, trying to read the moment, and hopefully how she was feeling.He wasn’t sure what was going through her head as she slowly climbed off his lap.
When she stood beside him, and held out one hand, he looked up, trying to figure out what was going on.
“I want to continue this, but not here.Come with me if you want to see where this goes.”
