Page 52 of Brutal Legacy

I placed my hands on the tile and let the water run along the ridges of my cock. My sister wasn’t wrong; I did live like a monk. My body was a line I didn’t let another human cross. It was the only thing I had left of my own. I had no silence inside my own head, no peace, no place to hide from the memories of war. But my body? That was mine and mine alone.

After Georgia, there had been no one else. I didn’t trust another woman to come too close. Lust was a stranger to me, and if it did come, in the night, alone with my memories, I just thought of the terrible things I’d seen, in far-off places. Atrocities. Soul-killing evil.

I’d been in theEsercito Italianolong enough to forget how to want, and then in theCol Moschinlong enough after that to forget I’d ever known desire in the first place.

I hadn’t been lying in the club when that woman attempted to hit on me. I wasn’t a whole person. I was missing some parts. Pretty important ones.

For the first time in over fourteen years, I felt those parts inside me wake up.

It was unacceptable.

Un-fucking-acceptable.

I lost track of how long I stood under that burning cold, but it wasn’t enough to cool the heat slumbering in my soul. The fire that one woman, and one woman alone, had ever managed to rouse.

I had a bad feeling, deep down in my gut, where all my best instincts came from…

I was already fucked.

After the shower,I froze out Georgia and her attempts at conversation. I bunked down on the floor near the door, and she lay in the double bed. After a while, despite the stress of the day, I managed to drift off. It was a skill learned in the military. You had to sleep when you had the chance.

In my dreams, I was lost in memories. Sitting in a truck, a second before the convoy is attacked. In a medical tent when the guy you sleep next to is brought in, legs blown away. Watching a target approach a school, ninety-nine percent sure that he’s got an explosive on him, waiting for permission to take him out.

I woke with a start, bolting upright in my makeshift bed on the floor, a knife gripped in my hand. My breath was rasping in and out, my body drenched in sweat. So much for the shower. Little by little, the room came into focus. I remembered where I was and who I was with.

Stiffly, I stood and looked over at Georgia, just a shape under the blankets with a dark rope of hair spread against the white pillowcase.

The dreams hadn’t been so bad in a long time. Feeling much of anything at all, thanks to this woman, was going to make everything worse. The silent storm inside me, always twisting and turning, threatening to drag me under, might actually get me this time if I couldn’t find a way to stop my walls fromcrumbling. They were there for a reason. To protect my mind. I needed them, and this woman threatened them. I needed to get away from her as quickly as possible.

I sat at the table. I had no gun to clean, so instead I laid out the knife collection I’d managed to accrue since Georgia had run to the cops. Since getting caught with weapons, while wanted by the police, wasn’t the smartest idea, I’d left them at the hotel. Collecting weapons was simply a habit at this point.

I took a soft piece of cloth and started to clean the blades, slowly and methodically. I supposed I could be doing anything, as long as it was slow and steady and gave me something else to focus on, but cleaning weapons had become my way of coping with the endless nights.

“What are you doing?” Georgia’s voice was rough with sleep.

I tensed. The last thing I wanted was to speak to her right now.

“I said, what are you doing?” she repeated, as if there was any chance I hadn’t heard her in the silent room.

She got out of bed and approached the table. A single spotlight shone over it, and she stepped into the light. She had an oversized T-shirt on and nothing else. Her dark hair was pulled into a long braid that snaked over her shoulder. Her face was bare and effortlessly beautiful.

Just like that, I was rock-hard again, putting the half an hour under cold water to waste.

“I heard you. Go back to bed.” My tone was not welcoming.

Despite that, Georgia perched on a chair and reached out to touch one of the knives. I caught her wrist tightly, stopping her motion.

I looked at her for so long, she shifted impatiently and raised an eyebrow.

“Ever killed anybody with a knife?” she asked, her hand twisting in my grip.

“Yes.”

She swallowed hard, her slender throat bobbing. A sure sign that she wasn’t as composed as she pretended. Her pulse jumped beneath my fingers.

“Were you in the military?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I had no intention of taking this stroll down memory lane. Not when the entire way was littered with mines that could end me.

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