His breath was coming in shuddering gasps as her lungs fought for enough air. Her hips pumped faster but erratically as she struggled to keep up with his thrusts.
Suddenly, his arousal thickened inside her. The clench of her abdomen around him was sudden and hard. She cried out as he groaned and his arousal pulsed deep inside. Rapid waves of clenching flowed along him and he responded with another pulse. They clung to one another, breathing hard, even as her clenching continued to milk him and his pulsing made her clench. Just as she thought it might never stop, his hips jerked once and he was still.
Her entire body shook in response as they both fought for breath. The tension inside her finally released and the spasms slowly faded. He was still stiff inside her but, without warning, her legs began to feel heavy. He must have sensed it as he lifted her off and lowered her so she could stand. No sooner had her foot touched the floor, though, than he picked her up. In moments, she found herself on her bed. She collapsed back into the soft comforter and in the distance she heard the water stop. She wanted to open her eyes but the lids were incredibly heavy. Something soft was moving over her skin.
“Logan?” she murmured.
“Just a towel,” she heard him say. “Sleep.”
• • • • •
That was the smell of coffee. Jules slowly opened her eyes to narrow bands of sunlight streaming in through the edges of the wood shutters. Curled up on her side, she looked at Logan’s empty pillow. Only the deep hollow in it said he’d been there. She reached out under the covers to his side of the bed and it was cold. He’d been up for some time. The angle of the window light said it was probably mid-morning.
It was warm under the comforter and she kept it pulled high against the cold air as she turned toward the door. Small noises were coming from the living room and the smell of coffee grew stronger. She noticed the crutches propped up against the end of the bed and her white terry cloth robe laying next to it.
She couldn’t help but grin as she tossed back the covers, put on the robe, and used the crutches to hobble to the dresser for a quick brush of her hair. In the living room, Logan crouched in front of a blazing fire in the fireplace.
“A fire!” she said, crossing the room.
Logan stood and turned to her, his smile more bright than she remembered.
His tousled dark hair and two days of beard leant the boyish face something of a lumberjack look. His blue eyes glinted with more than reflected firelight and they were focused on her lips. As he stepped in, his hands went around her waist. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, she tilted her face up to him and he kissed her. Their bodies softly came together and his lips gently pressed into hers. Her heart raced as she gripped the handles of the crutches but, as quickly as it’d begun, he drew back. Her eyes opened to him beaming down at her.
“Good morning,” he said.
She knew she must have the most crazy grin on her face.
“Good morning,” she replied.
He let her go.
“There’s coffee,” he said, heading to the kitchen.
She leaned the crutches against the wall next to the brick facade of the fireplace. Carefully, she sat on the wool rug, just in front of the hearth, careful not to use the sprained ankle. The fire crackled in front of her and she was suddenly reminded of the lean-to. Logan came back with two mugs of steaming coffee. He was back in the polo shirt and jeans and she could clearly see the stitches on the side of his knee through the rip. The dressing was gone, no doubt soaked in the shower. As he set the mugs down on the bricks in front of her, she looked up at him.
“I need to put a new dressing on that,” she said.
“In a bit,” he said. “Enjoy the fire.”
He sat next to her as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and drew her over to lean on him. She handed him a mug and took the other but she couldn’t stop thinking about his knee.
“You say it’s less painful now?” she said. “Your knee, I mean.”
“Mmm hmm,” he said sipping coffee.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, shaking her head.
There had to be at least thirty stitches. The bullet had left a shallow trough that the ER doctor had simply closed. Though it’d probably been the most expedient solution, Jules wasn’t sure it’d been the best.
“The shrapnel came out,” Logan said.
Jules stared at him, his face only inches from hers.
“The
shrapnel?
”
He finally told her the story, from the downed CC-130 and the deaths of the crew to his eventual extraction by RCAF forces. His voice became quiet, especially when he talked about killing those two men. Out of all of it, that had been the worst. She remembered that yesterday he’d said he’d chosen not to kill someone. He eventually became quiet and she laid a hand on his knee.
“Sometimes they leave the shrapnel,” he said. “I was told that trying to remove it can cause more damage than just letting it work its way out over time. It may take years, but eventually it comes out.”
Though what he said made sense, it still shocked her. The body naturally tried to surround and move foreign particles to the surface but she’d never thought about something the size of shrapnel. Or a medical treatment that was simply to leave it alone.
Images of Logan rubbing his knee popped into her mind. It’d been painful. How could it not be? But he’d never said anything.
“So the bullet dislodged the shrapnel?” she asked quietly, as she set her coffee down.
“Or the running,” he said. “Or a combination. It seems as though my knee is a metal magnet.”
He set his mug down next to hers.
“However it started, the shrapnel is gone and a couple of ghosts with it,” he said quietly, looking into the fire, the smile gone now. “The old wounds are starting to close.”
She looked into the fire as well, felt his arm around her, and listened to the crackling of the flames and popping of the wood.
“I’ve waited a long time,” he said.
She nodded, hardly able to imagine what it must have been like. To carry the emotional and physical scars created by the war, not able to leave one behind without the other.
“It must have seemed like the shrapnel wasn’t ever going to move,” she said.
“That’s not what I was waiting for,” he said.
She looked up into his face.
“I was waiting for you,” he whispered.
She blinked at him.
“For me?” she asked, but even as she said it she understood–the divorce.
He’d said in the mountains she was on the rebound. She remembered all the flights and their conversations. Not until she thought she’d lost him did she really understand how much he meant to her. How much she loved him.
“In the forest,” he said. “When you said you heard my voice?”
With a start, she brought his face into focus.
“Yes?” she said. “Never say die.”
He grinned a little but shook his head.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She frowned a little, perplexed.
“Are you sure it wasn’t that I love you?” he asked.
A smile slowly erupted on her face as she looked directly into his eyes.
“I love you too,” she said, quietly.
He beamed back at her but then he suddenly stood, stooped, and picked her up.
“In the plane,” he said, as she wound her arms around his neck. “When I said I wanted as many kids as I could afford, you never said how many you wanted.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
“Lots,” she finally managed to say.
He grinned at that.
“I’m done with waiting,” he said, heading to the bedroom door. “Aren’t you?”
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Copyright © 2013 Hazel Hunter
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