Love’s Suicide(64)
Author: Jennifer Foor

It took her a few minutes, but thankfully she fell right to sleep.

When I turned to look at Brooks, he was under the covers and I could tell his shirt was off. The blankets were up to his shoulders, but enough skin was exposed to show that he’d removed it.

I looked down at the large shirt I had on and then back to him. Since he’d seen me naked before, I couldn’t understand why I felt so nervous. He must have sensed the weird vibe too. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

I shrugged. “Shut up.”

“Kat, get comfortable and get in bed. I’m not going to make fun of you, if that’s what you think.”

I scrunched up my face. “It’s not that.”

I let my shorts drop to the floor and then unfastened and removed my bra without taking off the shirt. Brooks watched me the whole time, laughing at how I was doing it. “Since when did you get shy?”

“Would you stop?”

I climbed under the covers next to my daughter and turned to face Brooks in the other bed. He did the same thing, facing me and cuddling with his pillow. When he started laughing again, I tossed a pillow at him.

“Sorry, I saw this going a little differently.”

“I’m not sleeping with you, Brooks. I just left my husband.”

“I never asked you, did I?”

I felt like he was rejecting me and even if I was determined not to be with him, I still needed to feel wanted. I started to roll over to ignore him. “Whatever.”

“Look at me, woman.”

I turned once more, giving him an irritated look when I did. “What?”

He sat up and swung his feet forward off the bed. The first thing I noticed shocked the hell out of me. On his body, right where his rib cage started on the left side, was a tattoo. It wasn’t just an armed forces tattoo, an American flag or something tribal. It was a very large letter K.

He caught me staring and smiled as he looked down at it and grazed it with his hand. “Oh, this. I should probably explain. I guess I got it so long ago that I forgot you’ve never seen it.”

“When?” I sat up and faced him, completely in shock that he’d put that on his body. My heart was pounding wildly and I felt like I was shaking, even though I knew I was sitting still. “Is that… Did you…”

I stuttered through my words, shocked in disbelief.

“Kat, my heart belongs to you. It’s not a secret. I got this done when I first went to Afghanistan. We’d just shared that night in the hotel room, and even though you’d left me I still loved you the same. I guess some people would call me stupid, but I just knew you were the one. I was going to put it over my heart. Instead, I put it here,” he pointed to his side where the large K sat, “Because the moment you walked out of my life I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

I put my hand over my mouth so he couldn’t see it wide open in shock. “I don’t know what to say.”

He looked down at it again and touched his skin. Then he looked over at B. “Now, looking at what we made that night melts my heart even more.”

I looked down at the carpet, unable to hide my emotions from him. With B asleep we were all alone, back in a hotel room, like the night we’d been together the last time. “Brooks-” His name lingered on my lips.

“Come here.”

I shook my head, knowing that being with him would be considered adultery. It was like a force field was sitting between Brooks and me and I wasn’t allowed to pass through it. “I can’t.”

He reached over and placed his hand on my leg. “Close your eyes.”

I did what he said and felt him taking my hand. He pulled me slowly from one bed toward the other. When I opened my eyes I was standing right in front of him. His breath was on mine and feeling it gave me chills. “I can’t do this, Brooks. It’s wrong.”

He took a hold of the t-shirt and pulled me closer. Our lips were touching and I was falling hard for the man that I’d dreamed of being with him for as long as I could remember. “I’m not stealing from him, when you were never his to begin with. You didn’t belong to Branch and you sure as hell don’t belong to Bobby. A piece of paper isn’t love. Close your eyes and tell me you don’t feel it again? Tell me that you haven’t thought of that night we spent together every single day since it happened? If you don’t want this, then back up and go to sleep.”

His lips brushed over mine as he spoke and I was losing control over myself and my emotions. He wasn’t playing fair and resisting him, after losing him and then thinking he was dead, was making my decision impossible to fight. “I’m scared.”

Brooks stood up and looked down at me. His army shirt was being lifted up and my arms wouldn’t let me fight him. They raised as if he was controlling my body. I felt it pull over my head and the cold air hitting my ni**les. I was standing there in only a pair of underwear as he was backing us up onto the bed. Brooks didn’t look down at my body, nor did he try to kiss me. We got under the covers and he pulled me against his warm chest. My desire for him was making it hard to focus on what was really happening.

Brooks wasn’t trying to sleep with me. He didn’t want to push me into something I wasn’t ready for. All he desired was to be close to me. He wanted to hold me and never let me go.

Just like he’d done our whole lives, Brooks was protecting me. His love had gotten me through the most horrible of times and it was with that love that I was able to never give up hope that we’d be together again someday. I closed my eyes and rested my head on his bare chest. He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. “Don’t be scared, Kat. If you fall, I’ll catch you. I always have and I always will. Except, this time I’m never going to let you go.”

Chapter 37

While I lay there in his arms, I played with his dog tags, memorizing the numbers and the way the indentation of the stamping felt against my fingertips. Whether it was wrong or right, I knew I was where I was supposed to be.

Brooks kept running his hands over my back as we lay there quietly. I wanted to go to sleep, but couldn’t imagine it happening while being so close to him after all of the time that had passed. The obvious heat growing between my legs was a perfect indication of how starved I was for his affections. Even my body wanted to make up for all of the time that we’d been apart. In our room, hidden away from the rest of the world, nothing else existed. The three of us were all that mattered to me.