21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (23 page)

“You’re too nice.”

He shrugged. “I don’t have time for pretty words or empty compliments.” He added more food to her little plate before wiping his fingers on a napkin and taking a drink of his beer. “Do you want something else to go with this? Steak? Chicken? Fish?”

“What is it with you and food?”

“You’re nervous. Which means you probably didn’t eat much today. You’re cold. Which means your system is crashing. You’re sweet. Which means you are sitting there feeling bad about not being something else instead of just relaxing and being who you are. Food can help with two of those and we’ll work on the rest. Now, eat.” The conviction and honesty in his words laid her soul bare and she reacted to the order.

Again.

She picked up a barbecue wing with both hands and turned it around in her fingers before taking a bite. Brody was right. He was a stranger. He’d come there, vetted by 1Night Stand, just like she had been. He wasn’t a crazy or a psychotic. He was beyond kind, orders notwithstanding. But she didn’t even reject the command in his tone, if anything it just made him sexier.

“I was raped.” She admitted this to the chicken wing, careful not to look at him. “I don’t remember it. I don’t remember him. I don’t even remember who it could have been.” The words slid out of the rusty vault on a hint of tears, but she blinked them back. Five years of therapy might finally pay off. “I was at a party and then I woke up, in my own dorm room, naked, used, and bruised. No one saw me leave with anyone, and no one reported anything amiss. It took me three days to even call it in and by then it was too late. What evidence they could gather was never enough.”

Putting the chicken wing down, she dared a look at Brody. His expression remained steady but there was a fierce edge to the air around him. “I don’t know who he is or why he did it or if it really was rape. Maybe I consented. But I just never got past it. I did therapy, I changed schools, I threw myself into my work and here I am trying to look at a guy and not wonder if I’ll wake up tomorrow and not remember any of it.”

The whole idea was ridiculous. Critics called her work cold, divorced of emotion, and empty of passion no matter how clinically beautiful. She thought if she could get past her hang-ups, she could find that passion they said was so sorely lacking. She thought the service offered by the 1Night Stand would be perfect.

Safe, sexy, and simple.

Her stomach twisted around the food she’d eaten. Dropping the remnants in her fingers on the plate, she leaned back. “And before you say anything, I won’t be offended if you want to bail. I thought I was ready for this and now I’m not so sure.”

“You don’t know me, Shannon, so I’m going to forgive that insult to my honor.
I
would be offended if I walked away, so please don’t suggest it again. Whether anything else happens tonight or not, I’m having dinner with the sexiest woman I’ve seen in a long time. She’s smart, she speaks Italian, and I really need her to stick around.”

“Why?” She couldn’t help but ask the question.

Brody gestured to the stage. “They’re going to sing again, and I’m not really going to understand it if I don’t speak the language.”

She twisted to see the couple strolling onto the stage while the house lights dimmed and the stretched-too-thin feeling warping everything inside of her relaxed. Slow, sensuous piano notes drifted across the hushed whispering through the club. Brody’s leg abandoned hers and a soft swishing pulled her attention back to him. He’d slid over in the booth and when his gaze caught hers, he tapped the spot next to him. Her heart pounded. Terror and excitement engaged each other in a fierce tug of war.

The singer’s low, husky voice sang in the sultriest notes. Shannon could stay safely where she was, and keep her distance. Or she could gather up the dregs of her courage and swap to the other side of the table.

Brody said nothing, merely watching her as the woman sang of the approaching night. If she sat there and remained a coward, he wouldn’t think any less of her. It didn’t matter that they’d just met and barely spent an hour together. She’d read it clearly in his even expression. He was on board with anything she wanted to do.

The hell with it
….

Pushing her cup away carefully, she slid out of the booth and joined him before she changed her mind. The seat was warm from his body and the heat bolstered her flagging confidence. Brody smiled as he edged forward a bare fraction and murmured, “Tell me what they’re singing about.”

The whisper of his breath tickled her ear and she looked away from the singers to find his face just inches from her own.

Dear God, he’s even more beautiful up close
…

Brody braced one arm against the back of the booth, not quite allowing it to touch her. Everything about her screamed fragility, but a core of strength lay beneath her fragile exterior. The quaver in her voice when she confessed why she’d come on this 1Night Stand shamed his earlier thoughts. Thankfully, he’d never voiced them so he had no apologies to make. He could wish she knew who had assaulted her. Breaking a man’s legs was easier than destroying a ghost.

“I am guessing this is a play in several parts because they are singing of seeing each other the first time and their first meeting.” Shannon shifted toward him, her voice pitched low.

He remained completely still. He’d met enough girls in foster care, girls who’d been abused, girls who’d been molested, and more than one who fell in with the wrong boyfriend and perpetuated that cycle. It took strength to act. It took more strength not to react.

“It was a dark day, she was so alone, not a friend to lean on, and then he came. He brought the sun with him, chasing away all the dark shadows in her life. She did not learn to breathe until he was there.”

The little catch in her throat was back. The emotion quivering in her shivery tones beckoned to him. He’d never been one to walk away, not even from the most damaged of situations. He’d protected his fair share of strays through the years and every instinct screamed to protect this one.

“He remembers the day as she does, the clouds on the face of the moon, the stars blotted out, with only heaven’s tears to bathe in and then she walked in and the sun tumbled from the skies to walk along the road, warming his path and bringing him home.”

Brody spared the singers a glance. The pair stood at opposite ends of the stage, their backs to each other. The gulf between them was as palpable in the music, their song, and in Shannon’s voice.

“She wants to always walk in the sun, but knows that even the brightest of days must give away to night and though they had to say goodbye, she carries the sunshine in her breast and will nurture it there.” A low sigh escaped on the last word, but the man’s voice picked up the descant and carried the song.

Despite the Italian and the soaring strength of his voice, he sounded nothing like the woman he romanced in song. His words were blunted, climbing one above the other in anger, worry, and need.

“When the evening falls, and the daylight fades, he hears her calling within him. He wonders if he is sleeping and that thought pulls him away, but then she is there and it holds him completely, keeping him close though he is so far away.” Absorbed by the music, Shannon relaxed and her shoulder brushed his chest, lightly at first, but when she turned to continue translating the slender weight of her pressed against his side.

“She is alone as she walks into the room, the shadows around her, but from another world, where no other can follow, she hears him call to her. She follows him in her dreams, where she can cross over, never feeling close to home when he is so far away. In her dreams, he is searching, forever lost, forever hoping, clinging to the driftwood of memories, memories that tie them together.” Her slender fingers curled into a fist and Brody studied the whitening knuckles. Letting go of his beer glass, he reached over and laid his hand over hers. Her soft, sharp inhalation pressed her closer to him. But he forced his fingers to relax, to drape over her hand as though a cloak, a human shield against the sadness ebbing in the song.

Her breath escaped in a whispery hiss, but she neither pulled away nor stiffened further. As the man took up the song again, she might have even relaxed. Or maybe it was Brody’s imagination.

“He knows he will be waking soon and she will not be there when he opens his eyes, and though he is leaving, he must try to go on believing that their time together in dreams is real. He doesn’t know the reason, but it is as close as he can come to home across that ocean of reason. He will hold fast to it and he will find his way to her again.” She went silent, the music rolling over the man’s last note and then the stage went black. The applause, when it came, cracked like multiple gunshots through the reverent silence.

Shannon jerked and Brody wrapped his arm around her. “It’s okay,” he murmured and her shaky laugh relaxed the tension in her shoulders. Squeezing her once, he loosened his hold so she could shift away if she chose.

As the lights came up and jugglers bounced onto the stage to lighten the gloom created by the singers, she dared a look at him. He met the nervous gaze with an easy smile. “You’re really quite good at that translating.”

“Thank you. I did an exchange program in Florence when I was in high school.”

“I’ve never made it to Italy. I’ll have to go now.”

“I loved it. I always said I would go back, but I’ve never had the time or the money.” A flush stole over her face. “What is it about you? I just keep saying the first thing in my mind. I’m usually a lot more filtered than this.”

“I like this. So don’t change. What did you love most about Italy?” He glanced up and caught the waitress’s eye. With a jerk of his chin, Brody nodded to the coffee cup and held up two fingers.

“The art, the history, the feeling of walking down the same roads that the Medici’s traveled, where the riots happened, where some of the greatest artists came to study, and the greater artists built their magnificent monuments. It was home to Michelangelo, del Verrocchio and so many others. The Renaissance was born there. I didn’t think I would ever get tired of the city, and my host family was wonderful. They took me to see everything, willing to spend hours as I sketched, and studied.” The wild light in her eyes transformed her from simply lovely to absolutely stunning.

“You’re an artist.”

The blush rising in her cheeks added another facet of loveliness. “Guilty.”

“What kind of art do you do?”

Shannon hesitated as the waitress brought over two fresh cups of the cinnamon coffee. Brody slid her hand over to the cup and gave her a light squeeze before staging a strategic withdrawal. She was still sitting right next to him, her leg pressed against his, her shoulder leaning against his chest and his arm around her back where his fingers could just toy with the collar of her jacket.

He could stand to let go of her hand.

“I’m a sculptor and it sounds a lot more glamorous than it is.”

“I don’t know.” He cocked his head and looked at her with a smile. “I think you’re pretty glamorous.”

She paused, coffee cup halfway to her lips, and burst out laughing. It was the first real laugh he’d heard fall from her lips since he’d arrived at the club. It was rich, throaty, and filled with life. The laughter created sparks in her amber eyes, heating them as though a candle flickered just behind the irises. The sound reached inside of him and gathered his guts up in a fist, shaking him to the core.

“I’ve been called a lot of things. But never glamorous.” She set down the coffee cup and twisted toward him. Her thigh slid along the seat until her knee tucked up. The casual contact sent a flood of heat into his stirring cock.

“Do these look like glamorous hands to you?” Shannon held up her fingers. Slender and evenly shaped, they boasted little to no nail length. Her knuckles were scraped, every single one, and the skin was torn, red and fleshy along the edges. Frowning, he caught her offered wrists, turning her hands out so he could inspect the callused palms.

“No. They look like strong, capable hands unafraid of getting dirty, doing hard work, or reaching out to grasp what they want.” They looked like the hands of any Marine after weeks in the desert—parched fingers, cracked and blistered from the heat, and cut and scraped from the work.

Her eye twitched and Brody lifted her hands to his lips where he could lay a kiss to the tips of each hand. “A lot like the very smart, sexy woman in front of me.”

“How do you do that?” Her eyes widened a little, but her smile dazzled.

“Do what?” His brows rose in quiet challenge.

“Turn a negative into such a positive. I can’t possibly be what you imagined for tonight.”

“I work with what I have and when you spend your life with very little, you learn to appreciate every nuance of what is there as opposed to what might be. I had no illusions about tonight, so please stop picturing me as some brute who just wants to take you out to his car for a quickie in the back seat. I don’t have time for beggars or bullshit. I like you. You’re funny. You’re smart. You’re sexy. You don’t eat a lot.” The corner of his mouth quirked up at her second burst of laughter.

“I like you, too.” The words bounced with the weight of her smile. “I thought it was ridiculous to sign up for a one-night stand….”

Brody lowered her hands, holding them lightly. He enjoyed the fact that she didn’t pull away. “Why did you sign up?”

“I don’t want to be a downer.”

“Honesty isn’t a downer. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But I would like to know.”

He didn’t push, but he also didn’t pull his gaze away, not even for the crazy carnival characters laughing and dancing on the stage. The room faded behind her, a blurred background where the only sharply defined image was her sweetheart face creased by indecision.

“I make men.” Her lips twisted as though she thought better of the statement, so Brody waited for it to play out. “I make sculptures of men. It’s what I specialize in. I love the male body, the shape, the contours, the strength, the rugged and the soft. I love every part of it. But ever since college, one teacher after another, one art critic after another, has said my work is too cold, too clinical and it lacks passion.” She nibbled on her lower lip.