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Evie never expected to wake up alone in Maddox's big and decadently comfortable bed, but before she even opened her eyes, she knew he wasn't there. His enveloping warm presence that had surrounded her all night was gone, even though she was now curled around an army of soft pillows. At first, she thought maybe he was in the kitchen, but after finding it disappointingly empty, she considered he might have gone out for coffee, but when multiple calls and texts went unanswered, she flickered between worry and feelings of absolute dejection.
...because you're a lousy lay...
King's words put a batch of fresh worry scurrying through her head, and on its heels, visions of herself passing out after orgasming. Ugh. Who does that? She'd been prone to fainting since she was a kid, but incidences had always been around mental anxiety and stress, not sex. Though she wondered if that was the reason, she'd always subconsciously held back with men. The frenzied feeling of building up to an orgasm was stressful for her, and the ambivalent mix of deliciously wonderful feelings with the flashes of bad memories left her polarized to let go. Maddox wouldn't have it. He'd kept inciting her forward, teasing her further until she was chasing that amazing feeling like a puppy after a treat.
Her body pulsed with the heated memory, and she tightened her thighs, indulging her womanhood with the ripples. She sank back into the corner of the L shaped couch and stared around the quiet house. Now fully dressed after completing a full search for a note of some kind, anything to explain his strange disappearance. When nothing came to her, she pushed away another growing sense of doom that crept through her system.
Something must have happened with his work, she reassured herself for the ninth time in the past minute. She opened her phone, checked the battery, sent herself an email just to make sure everything was working fine, and scrolled through her social media before she gave in and checked her messages again. She pursed her lips then yelped when her phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hi, it's me."
She frowned. "Jason?"
"No, Angus. I need some help."
"What?" She let out the breath she'd been holding.
"Can you come down here and talk to these guys? I need someone to vouch for me and—"
" What are you talking about? Where are you?"
He cleared his throat. "Cop shop. I need you to down here to bail me out. They never give me a hard time when you come."
"Are you serious? Why are you calling me? Where's good'ol Angie?"
"She's in a different cell, look are you gonna come down and help me or what?"
"It's the what."
"Are you for real right now? After all, I've done for you, you're not gonna help me out?"
"What have you done for me? Please do tell."
"Evelyn, I only have a few minutes left of phone use, so can you save your smug bitchiness for later? I'm in trouble down here and if I can put aside all the shit things you've done to me—that you let your boyfriend do to me... I was going to be the bigger man and drop the charges I was gonna put up on him, if you can show a little appreciation and come down here and post my bail."
"Wow. Just wow." Her head actually spun with his warped sense of logic.
"Evelyn, come on. I used my one call to call you. I thought we were friends? You're the one who said I should call you anytime I needed someone to be there for me."
"Are you even listening to yourself?"
"Hold on a minute. Ya, ya I know the time, she's going to bring down my bail."
"No, I'm not." Evie realized he was speaking to someone in the background but felt compelled to sharply denied his assurance.
"Evelyn, Jesus, are you turning your back on me too? I thought you said you'd never do that. So much for your promises."
She puffed out a breath. "How is trotting Colin up to my breakfast table keeping your promise to me?"
"All I did was reunite you with your past; give you a chance to work things out—"
"Goodbye Angus."
"Wait! Evie—I'm sorry! I'm sorry for everything. Angie means nothing and I shouldn't have sprung Colin on you like that, but I've been feeling so low lately and—"
She clicked off the phone then immediately pushed away the reflex barrage of guilt at having done so. It was a knee jerk reaction for her to feel shame when saying no, even when it saved her own personal wellness.
She looked around the quiet masculinity of Maddox's Livingroom. It was time to shake that habit and be done with putting toxic people's feelings ahead of her own emotional health. She had to be finished with Angus and be so over King. Now that she'd crossed over that gorge that at one point, she'd been terrified to even step into, she couldn't afford the mental real estate to care what those two thought about her, or what Colin did or had done to her anymore. She was in a good place now, and needed to protect her peace.
She twisted her mouth and looked toward Maddox's bedroom. Screw it. She didn't do anything wrong last night. It was him who played her like a violin, tapped into what made her tick... or cum rather, then had her like a marionette on a string, orgasming all night on his demand. All she did was relax for once and enjoy it. She would not allow herself to apologize for it now.
She jumped off the couch and collected her scattered clothes. If he saw fit to be the take off before morning type of man, she dropped the sheet and slid on her underwear, then there was nothing she could do about it. That was on him. She wrapped the skirt around her hips and deftly connected the halter's clasp beneath her breasts. It was his choice to be that guy; the one who disappears before dawn, even when it's from his own bed. She grimaced at how ridiculous that sounded when said out loud while she grabbed up her purse and jabbed at her cell phone's taxi app icon, accidentally hitting the photo app.
Oh, good Lord, her eyes widened as she gaped at her selfie image. She looked fucked. Literally like a woman who had just rolled out of bed after engaging in wild bestial fornication all night. She clicked off the phone and returned to the bedroom to shower then rummage around for something more appropriate to wear in a cab home.
*****
"It's been almost a week, Tori. People don't just up and disappear for a week without a word." Evie and Tori stood on either side of the flagpole in front of the school. This early in the morning it was still cold, so as they talked their own breath puffed out before them.
"They do in the Army." Tori zipped her teal blue puffy coat up to her neck. "Geez, I knew I should have grabbed my hat."
Evie flipped up her coat's hood. "First of all, he's in the Navy, not the army. And second, I can probably declare him legally deceased after all this time."
"Don't be so dramatic. You can only do that after seven years. He's probably on some secret soldier thing. Like I told you days ago, I'm sure it all comes with the job of being a soldier's girl."
Evie dug in her deep pockets for her mittens. "Well, there's an oxymoron if I ever heard one because half of your duo description is missing. All I am is a girl, because there's no soldier around to go your soldier's girl theory." She clapped and rubbed her mitted hands together. "Has Georgeman said anything?"
Tori rolled her eyes as she put on her own mittens. "When it comes to his work, all he says is... I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you, like that's funny when not drunk."
"I just wish I hadn't been so... you know... dry." Evie looked around the make sure no one was close enough to overhear her.
"Girl," Tori straightened from the pole as the first limo turned into the school's laneway. "Come see me when you're so dry a massage therapist rings your bell on his table."
"Oh my God, please tell me you didn't." Tori gaped at her friend.
"I grabbed his hand so he wouldn't move while I rode it out." Tori shrugged as they walked toward the line of cars now slowing in the loading zone. "Just thought I'd put it into perspective for you."
Evie twisted her mouth. "Mission accomplished."
"Just think of all this as a test of how well you deal with his sudden disappearances, because I'm sure it's something you'll have to get used to. It's who he is." Tori pulled the back door open of the first limousine while Evie moved down the line to the second. She knew Tori was right but had to put it out of her mind as the line of limo car doors opened like shutters with the drivers and children pouring onto the sidewalk.
"Mornin', Miss Tori, Miss Evie," Hannah and Christos Gabridinas, the Greek Ambassador's two children, greeted as they tumbled out of the official embassy vehicle and ran to line up at the front doors.
Evie moved onto the next limousine, the official transportation for the children of Madam Ambassador to South Africa.
"Morning, Miss Evie! I have three fidget spinners today!" Holeka, the ambassador's only child hopped out of his seat.
Evie proceeded through the drop off duty until she unloaded the last child from the end limo and the lead vehicle was cleared to pull away. As the line slowly snaked down the exit lane, she led the line of children inside.
"You going outside?" Tori already had her group organized and about to walk down the hall to their classroom.
"Absolutely. We have the first outdoor block today." And her group needed to run off their early morning energy before she even attempted to get them settled down in the classroom.
"Okay, guys, line up please." Her children resembled an image of connect the dots more than any semblance of a line.
After herding them through the front hallway to the yard exit area, she swiped her security card through the pad and pushed at the heavy doors once the locks lit up and clunked the steel bolt open. She turned to her group. "Guys, come on..." she sighed and waved three boys back to the group, as she shouldered the door open. "This is not a line. This is—" she froze and tried to make sense of the horrible sight before her. "Oh my God!" she choked out a whisper.
"Get inside!" A huge man, dressed in so much body armor and equipment he looked like something right out of a movie, barreled toward her.
"Inside!" he yelled and pointed at the security doors.
She blinked and stared before her eyes darted to the yard, where more heavily armed men dressed like the first man, were down on their stomachs, others on one knee were firing their massive weapons into the forest while sharp blasts fired back.
"Teachers," she vaguely heard the principal's voice over the PA system. "We have a code red emergency lockdown... I repeat a code red emergency lockdown..."
She screamed as a bullet cracked the security glass beside her. Galvanized, she slammed her hands out to the door jambs to prevent the children from running by her and outside into the yard.
"Inside! Inside!" She realized it was Maddox hollering at her as he sprinted toward her. "Close the doors!" He was now moving into slow motion as she pulled the security doors closed while pushing the children backward and behind her. Maddox turned and slammed backward into the doors, hard enough to force her unceremoniously onto her ass. She turned over and scrambled to her feet, her group of children all standing like horrified statues around her.
"Alright, everyone turn around and walk to the gym. Just like we practiced a hundred times before." She used a calm voice as she gathered the shell-shocked children and herded them into the nearby gymnasium seconds before the lights went out.
"Routine, routine. Everyone sit down, hold hands if you like, and curl up like we practiced."
Her fingers shook as she grabbed the duty walkie-talkie from the wall and clicked it to vibrate before she slithered from one child to the next, performing a head count. "You guys are doing so well. I'm so proud of you. Remember, absolute silence, even if it's dark," she whispered before she pressed in the number of children she had with her, all accounted for, using Morse code.
The only sounds in the gym were that of the children sniffling and weeping in the darkness. She was tempted to weep right along with them. What was happening out there? Was Maddox, okay? Where had he come from? Was this really a drill or for real? The bullet that cracked the glass beside her sure felt real enough.
Five minutes stretched into ten, as she soundlessly prayed as those ten minutes evolved into fifteen. Real or not, Maddox had just saved her life and that of her children. She had almost walked them all out to the yard.
Hot tears burned behind her eyelids.
"Teachers, we have an all-clear," the principal's voice came over the speaker. "Please start the post-lockdown procedures."
Evie pushed onto her knees and stood up, amazed she could stand on such shaking legs. She worked on autopilot, systematically reassuring the children that everything was fine while she shepherded them to their classroom through the battalion of police, fire, military, and emergency service attendants now swarming the halls.
The school did this every six months, ran a complete lockdown drill with all the bells and whistles. She'd been so preoccupied with her harried personal life she'd lost track of the calendar time. The last time they'd had a drill was just before Maddox had started on.
Evie looked at every person she passed in the hallway, head to toe and all over their pounds of body equipment, for Maddox. She'd never seen him in his full-out soldier gear before so wouldn't be surprised if she overlooked him in the sea of similar looking GI Joe outfitted men.
"Okay, everyone. You know the drill. Take out your post-lockdown activity kits." She strode through her room after she got all the children undressed and into the classroom. Now that it was over, they were all excited and chattering as she alternated between watching them and looking out her window.
"Congratulations, teachers, we have a record response and drill time this term. A special bravery note goes to Miss Evie's class for stellar management under the most pressure this morning, being caught off-guard on their way outside."
Evie gaped at the loudspeaker as her children squealed in delight.
"We were the bravest, Miss Evie?"
"Yes, you all certainly were," she lavished them with additional praise and defrag discussion while they coloured in their lockdown books. Once they returned to quietly working, she watched the activity in the play yard drain of all the security personnel, EMTs, and official watchdogs of their lockdown procedures.
The moments when she pulled the door closed as Maddox ran toward her kept replaying in her mind. She had closed the doors on him. What if he'd been running to get himself to safety? She had left him out there against a hail of bullets. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, he was standing right there, hand flat against the glass on the other side of the window, looking down at her with a bemused look on his face.
Painful relief seized her body. Thank God he was okay.
"Miss Eeeevieeee, Patrick just stole my crayons!"
Evie looked back to see the two children on the ground, Jada straddling Patrick while she reached for the crayons clutched in his hand.
"Their mine, Jada!" he hollered at the top of his lungs.
Evie dashed over to the melee, but by the time she had garnered a new peace in the classroom, Maddox was gone from the window.
*****
Maddox, still wearing his tactical gear, didn't even get a chance to knock on Evie's door before she pulled it open.
"Oh, my God, do you know how freakin' worried I was?" She gripped his equipment chest straps and yanked him inside her house. "What the hell is the matter with you?!"
He looked down at her wild, staring eyes and smiled. He'd missed the hell out of her this past week, pleased to have gone through the clearance that got him back to active duty, but thinking about having to leave her without explanation plagued him the entire time. He ran his eyes over her body and enjoyed the flares of heat that fired up his dick.
"You always answer the door like that?" His little hellion was wearing his fatigue shirt, and it barely covered her thatch and ass.
"Oh, you never mind that. I grabbed this from your closet the other day to wear in the cab." She reached around him and slammed her front door.
"You wore just that in a cab?" His heart pounded into an unhealthy rhythm of protective possessiveness.
"You could have been killed out there today on the yard. And no warning! You didn't even give me any kind of warning."
"We don't usually get a warning before we're killed in action." He smiled and winked at her.
Her big eyes widened to the size of plates. "Is that supposed to be funny? Because it's so not funny. First you disappear, then you re-appear under a hail of bullets. Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I couldn't even process what I was seeing."
"Well, my warning shot got you into action, so, it was all good."
"That was you?! You're the one who shot at me? In the glass!"
"Yes ma'am. Got you moving and in the game, your entire class safe and accounted for. You did me proud. Georgeman's block had a class in the hallway running around screaming... and that was the teacher."
"Stop it, that's not true. No teacher does that," she punched him in the shoulder then exhaled a huge breath. "I felt so bad, closing the doors on you—leaving you out there."
"It's my job to stay out there. That's what I do."
"You're still a big, fat jerk for scaring me to death after screwing my brains out, then taking off to God only knows where or who else's bed, only to show up days later to save the day like nothing's wrong! You're out of your mind, you know. Brain-damaged even."
He chuckled and dipped his chin, so he was closer to her eye level. "I like this. Having you worried about me." He put his hands around her hips and pulled her up tight against him.
"Of course, I was worried." She let him walk them into the living room.
"And jealous of other women? That's new." He sat down on the couch with her straddled around his hips. "Why would you think that?"
"Because," she hawked down at him, "it's been my experience that when a man takes off before sunrise, it's a clear sign that he's done with you."
He studied the way her body played beneath his fatigues. "How could I be done with you? I just got my start for Hell's sake. Plus, I left you in my bed. I've never brought a woman to my bed, let alone left her there." He cupped the swell of her ass and brought her soft apex closer into him. "I should get out of all this rough gear."
"Don't bother, Houdini, you aren't staying." She tried to wiggle out of his grasp.
His muscles reflexively tightened, keeping her in place. "Kiss me."
"Ah, no. Think you can just disappear then reappear then demand sex?" She snapped her fingers.
"Ya... I sure do." He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. "It's something you're going to have to get used to."
"Jason, this is serious," she half breathed, half yelped as laid her down on the bed.
"I'm very serious." He stripped off his outer gear and crawled over her, tugging at his belt and zipper. "Popsex is serious business in the Navy, so take a lot of notes, because it's what I'll want every time I come back home."
"You're crazy, there's no such thing as popsex, what is that even?"
"Post operational sex and I assure you, it is about to be very real."
He rested on one elbow and kissed her, using his knee to spread her thighs as his fingers searched for the inside of her panties. "Get used to it, because I'll want you ready for me every time I come home." He pulled off her shirt then tugged down the scrap of silk to her knees, smiling against her lips when she reached down and pulled the material off one leg.
"I'm going to want to be inside of you," he reached for her hand and guided it to his heavy balls, moaning when pushed down his pants then stroked his dick between their bodies. When she spread her naked legs, he wasted no time thrusting inside. "Just like this, for the time I get back until the next day. The longer I've been away, the longer I'll stay in you. The more intense the mission, the more intensely I'll need you." He bucked and fucked her in long, slow strokes, making sure he circled his hips and pressed hard on her special place.
"Oh, God, Jason," she breathed out his name each time he pressed her into the mattress. "I don't know if I can handle... that kind of... life." She sighed and raised her hips and rubbed herself against him.
"Yes you can. You can handle the life... and you can handle me." He slid his on her clit until she writhed beneath him, squealing as he incited a sudden orgasm through her pussy. "Fuck, you feel so good." He could only take so much of her quick pulses around him before he had to let go and pound himself into her. In seconds his balls tightened and forced him to rear up and arch while his dick jerked uncontrollably inside of her.
"Admit that you're my woman now." He pressed his forehead against hers while his body contracted and released between her soft thighs. "I want to hear you say it, I'm the only one."
"Oh God, Jason yes... you're the only one."
He loved the feel of her quivering with the lingering effects of her orgasm. The orgasm he gave her in under three minutes. Satisfied, he rolled them to their side, and stroked her shuddering body.
After several moments she ran her hand over his shirt and down to his pants. "You were right. You should get out of these clothes."
"Naw," he reached down and pulled her leg over his. "I like having you naked while I'm fully dressed."
"And there's the blatantly display of macho sexism."
He held onto her thigh and slid himself inside of her again. "Guilty as charged. I can't fucking get enough." he moaned in her ear as he pressed himself deep, rubbing his hard hips against her soft womanhood. She moved her body in time with his while he rolled on top of her and humped her down into the bed. When she circled her legs around his back, she spread her hot pussy apart for his tight balls. And they banged against her ass, making her shake and moan and writhe against him until she whimpered and shook beneath him in orgasm. The pulsing grip she had on him sent him over the edge and rendered him helpless against the violent twitches of his dick pulsing into her.
For the longest time, the only sound in the room was their combined breathing and pants until he languidly stretched himself along her side body.
"I'm going to miss this when you're gone." She heaved out a sigh and relaxed alongside of him.
"I'm not goin' anywhere."
"I mean when you go back to Virginia or wherever it is, you'll go."
"Dam Neck is only an hour away. And nothing will keep me from you when I'm back stateside." You're fucking finally my girl now. I'll always come back to you."
"You better, because now I'm trusting you with you my heart, so you better not let me down."
"I won't." He frowned darkly at her. "And you better wait for me every time I'm gone and stay out of trouble and away from other men."
She snorted. "Please..."
"Don't make me have to piss a circle around you before I leave."
She threw her head back and laughed then shrieked when he rolled her body beneath his. "You're out of control."
"Try me." He looked down at her.
She wrapped her fingers around his dog tags and pulled his face to hers. "You'll never have to do anything so crazy. You're the only one who gives me orgasms."
"Don't you forget it." He folded her into his arms, loving the way she settled into him with complete orgasmic and satiated bliss.
*****
THE END
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I hope you liked Her SEAL to Slay Dragons.
It's the first book in the SEALs N Sorority Sisters stories.
I was inspired to write Evie's story for all the women out there who feel they have sexual quirks. We're all normal ladies. We just like different things!
You can find more of my books here.
Happy reading ☺
Alexandra