Somebody's Angel (#5 in a Military Romance / BDSM Romance series) (Rescue Me) (30 page)

Anxious much, Angie?

Did she hope to see Marc while here for the weekend? She hadn’t heard a word from him since he’d returned from Italy, and she’d been too stubborn to return his text then, thinking he needed a little more time to suffer.

Who’s suffering now?

She wanted to know how the meeting with his father had gone. From what Karla had said on the phone, he hadn’t been at the club for weeks. Maybe she should ask Adam to check on him, if he hadn’t already. What the hell had happened in Italy?

Angelina and Savi sat down to share a cup of tea at her kitchen table while waiting for Karla to join them. She and Adam had gone house-hunting again. They decided recently they needed something bigger than originally planned, although the way Karla made it sound, their budget was stretched pretty thin already on Adam’s pension and his cut of the money brought in from club memberships, sales, and the stipend they paid him to run the Masters at Arms.

Angelina glanced down at her watch. Darn. Stopped again. As she smacked it a couple of times, she peeked at the one over the stove. Marisol wouldn’t be picked up from school for another hour.

Savi hadn’t shared anything about her experience at the club, so Angelina didn’t pry. What happened at the club was private, and she respected Savi’s privacy. Angelina didn’t really know her all that well yet, but apparently she confided in Karla, so at least there was someone she could talk with besides Damián. Sometimes you just needed to talk with another woman, especially when trying to sort these Doms and their issues out.

Angelina wished she could confide in someone about what had caused her and Marc to break up. Well, maybe they hadn’t totally broken up yet…

Oh, who was she trying to kid? He’d texted a message inviting her to dinner as if nothing had even happened. How could there be any hope of reconciliation if the man remained entrenched in denial?

The sudden knock at the door caused Savi to jump and then hold her breath. Fear. Who was she afraid of? Angelina remembered the woman’s meltdown on Christmas morning and reached out to pat her hand. “I’ll get it. I’m sure it’s just Karla.”

A moment later, after a peek through the peephole confirmed it, Angelina opened the door wide and held out her arms. Karla walked into them.

“I’ve missed you so much, Angie! You two have to work this out and come back home soon!”

The two hugged tightly. Angelina nearly gave in to tears. Instead, she managed to put a lid on the raw emotions threatening to overflow. “I’ve missed you, too, sweetie.” She’d ignore the part about working it out. That ball was in her stubborn Italian’s court right now.

Karla pulled away and scowled at Angelina. “Good Lord, woman! How much weight have you lost?”

She didn’t realize she’d lost enough for it to be noticeable, and she certainly could stand to lose a few pounds, but she’d left her appetite behind with Marc. If Luke didn’t make her eat when they shared a meal once a day, she’d have lost even more.

Most days, Luke was busy with his horses and furniture making. She’d lined up some new catering jobs, not realizing until then how much she’d missed her clients and her business. A local restaurant was letting her use their refrigerator and freezer during the off-season until she could get back into her house in Aspen Corners. She also pitched in mucking stalls and refilling water and feed containers to help repay Luke for giving her a safe place to land.

In an effort to deflect the conversation away from her problems, Angelina patted Karla’s expanding belly. “Probably about as much as you’ve gained. Karla, you look absolutely radiant.”

Karla’s blue eyes flashed. “Well, I’d be a whole lot more radiant if Adam would stop trying to wrap me in cotton balls to keep me safe. We haven’t had sex in weeks. How will I ever survive this deprivation until six weeks after the baby is born?”

Angelina took Karla’s hand, needing that connection to her friend more than ever, and led her toward the kitchen table indicating a chair. “Sit. Has he said why he’s refusing to have sex?”

“Oh, I know why. It’s just not a logical reason.”

Angelina didn’t want to pry, but Karla looked at her and then Savi, who had been preparing another pot of water for the three of them to enjoy some herbal teas. Karla shared, “Adam and his first wife lost their only baby at birth.”

Savi turned toward Karla, her hand shaking so badly she had to place the empty mug she’d just taken from the cupboard down on the counter with a thud. “How awful. I can’t imagine what I’d have done if anything happened to Mari.”

Angelina stroked Karla’s arm. “You have to admit that would mess with anyone’s head.”

“I know, but Adam’s not being rational about it. He thinks he did something while having too-rough sex with Joni that caused the baby’s umbilical cord to wrap around their son’s neck, but Doctor Palmer explained to him again this morning that it was just a freak occurrence. She said babies turn somersaults all the time without anything going wrong and without it having anything to do with sexual activity.” Karla’s face suddenly grew concerned, and she stroked her belly. Angelina stroked her arm, not realizing how much women had to worry about when pregnant.

“But he’s blamed himself ever since, and nothing either of us says has changed his mind. He’s the most stubborn—”

“He’s afraid of losing you or the baby.”

Savi’s soft-spoken words captured both Angelina’s and Karla’s attention. At a dinner party at Marc’s after Adam and Karla had come home from their honeymoon, Savi had been intimidated by Adam. Apparently, going to the club last week had changed her opinion of him if she was now defending him.

“Karla, the man lost his first wife to cancer, and before that, his baby died. I think we can understand how worried he might be that he could lose someone else he loves.”

Karla stroked her protruding belly and sniffed loudly. “Okay, I’m being a brat. I’ll concede there’s a perfectly logical reason for him to feel the way he does.” She met Savi’s gaze again with tear-filled eyes. “But I have needs! He’s opened up this whole new world to me, and now I can’t even get him to touch me.”

Angelina thought she must be exaggerating. “Not even gently?”

Karla grinned a bit sheepishly. “Okay, I’m also being overly dramatic. Occupational hazard. Yes, he’ll touch me.” Karla closed her eyes and smiled. “He strokes my belly in a long, sweeping motion when he cradles me against him, and he talks to them—
us
.”

Angelina ignored the pang of jealousy as she watched Karla’s face transform. The love of her life. A baby on the way. Karla had it all.

Still, Angelina couldn’t quite picture the big Marine in question talking to his baby in the womb that way. Would Angelina ever experience that scene with Marc? She cleared the knot in her throat. “That sounds really sweet to me.”

Karla opened her eyes and gazed at Angelina. “Oh, it
is,
and I love it. But it only turns me on even more and makes me want him to touch me in other places. As soon as he realizes I’m getting into it, he stops as if I’m going to break or explode or something, and he pushes me away. Man, how I wish he’d let me explode again. I’m so frustrated I could—”

Savi spoke up again. “Karla, be patient with him.” The other women turned their attention to her. “It sounds as if he has some guilt and abandonment issues. You aren’t going to be able to reason with him. His perceptions of the situation are based on what are, to him, very valid reasons. They are just different from yours.”

Savi had been a social worker before she’d fled to Colorado last December. The mention of abandonment issues brought home something Angelina had read about online while learning about the lingering emotional baggage sometimes experienced by adults who had been adopted. She so wanted to ask questions and find out how she might be able to reach out to Marc during his identity crisis, but—

The teapot whistled. Angelina rose and helped pour tea, carrying two of the mugs to the table while Savi brought her own. The three of them sat in silence and doctored their mugs with sugar; Savi added cream to hers.

Perhaps Savi could help Angelina understand Marc’s issues without her having to reveal why she wanted to know. She’d seen some of the symptoms of abandonment in herself as well, stemming from the loss of her father almost eight years ago.

“Savi, how would fear of abandonment stemming from a childhood event affect an adult?”

“It’s often worse for someone who suffered a traumatic abandonment incident at a young age.”

Marc had lost his mother and been adopted at the age of three. “What if he was too young to even remember what happened?”

“Even pre-cognitive children form impressions of their environment that can haunt them later.” Savi’s gaze grew distant a moment before she refocused. “Any traumatic loss of a loved one can lead to recurring problems later in life until the person deals with that loss and works through it. Incidents with being abandoned again as adults can trigger those suppressed or forgotten feelings, even if they don’t consciously remember the original abandonment or understand why they feel the way they do.”

That certainly seemed to be the case with Marc. “How might someone with a fear of abandonment react?”

Savi stirred her tea slowly, weighing her words. “Often, they’ve come to expect everyone in their life will abandon them. They may even jump the gun to avoid the inevitable break-up. It’s easier to accept they weren’t the victim of another abandonment if they leave the other person first.”

Karla’s eyes opened wider. “Or they do things to drive the other person away, shut them out, to keep from being hurt again!”

Savi nodded. “The expectation of being abandoned again becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Before Angelina said something too personal about Marc, Karla chimed in again. “Adam was sixteen when his father was killed. Could that have triggered him to have issues at a later age?”

“Possibly. His later losses of the baby and eventually of Joni just reinforced that sense of losing the people he loved. He probably experienced a sense of being out of control. I’m not saying this happened, mind you. I haven’t spoken with him enough to know, but he may even have gone into survival mode, cutting himself off from others emotionally.”

Karla nodded and grinned. “He tried to, at least. I managed to batter down his defenses, but it took a very long time.”

“Not surprising. At the very least, he’s going to do all he can to make sure that the people he loves will survive whatever may come their way. That’s a daunting responsibility.”

“He’s a Marine. He feels that responsibility to all of us in his newly formed ‘family’ every day.”

“Right. He isn’t going to jeopardize your health and safety, no matter what. Often they can go from survival mode to hyper-controlling, not realizing there are things beyond his control.”

Karla snorted. “You try telling him he isn’t in control.” Her eyes widened. “Dear Lord! I didn’t realize how deep-seated this could be. I have my work cut out for me, don’t I?”

When her face broke out in another grin, Angelina had little doubt Karla would bring Adam to his knees before this baby was born.

At the moment, though, Angelina wanted to direct the conversation more to Marc’s issues without revealing whom she was asking about. She wouldn’t break her promise to keep Marc’s past a secret until he was ready to tell their friends. She’d just have to ask questions that appeared to relate to herself.

“I lost my papa when I was seventeen. I never really thought about that leading to later relationship problems—” Something suddenly became clearer to her, too. “I always avoided attachments with men, letting my brothers keep most of them away. When I finally trusted one enough to enter into a more intimate relationship with me, he shattered that trust and abused me.” She didn’t want to think about Allen Martin either. With Marc, though, maybe she’d fallen too quickly. Did the kink dynamic lower her defenses or otherwise get her involved with him too quickly? Or had her leaving Marc been more of a self-preservation tactic, seeing as how he had been distancing himself from her all these months? Had she just wanted to beat him to the
finish
line of this relationship?

Dio,
which one of them was messed up the most by the losses of loved ones? But Angelina, for one, didn’t want to keep repeating this cycle. “What might help ease that fear of abandonment?”

“Developing a sense of trust.”

She laughed, but the sound was bitter even to her ears. “Well, let’s not start out with anything too easy.”

Savi gave her a sympathetic smile. “I know. I struggle with the same problem, albeit for a different reason.”

So many women at the club seemed to have issues with past abuse. Karla and Grant were the exceptions, as far as she knew.

Without a doubt, Marc didn’t trust Angelina. She’d inadvertently played right into his negative expectations by leaving him, the very thing he feared most. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t called or reached out to her. At the time, she’d thought leaving him might be the wake-up call he needed, but instead she may only have succeeded in causing Marc to distance himself further to avoid more pain and hurt.

She’d only managed to meet Marc’s very low expectations.

Savi’s voice drew her back to the conversation at hand. “Karla, I suggest you talk with Adam. Express your needs to him in a non-threatening way.”

Karla smiled. “You mean I can’t grab his cock and demand that he service his horny wife—
Now
?”

Angelina grinned until she watched the color drain from Savi’s face before she picked up her mug to take a sip. Savi set the mug down again. “No. That wouldn’t be very helpful.”

Karla reached out and touched Savi’s hand, but the woman pulled back. “Sorry, Savi. I was just kidding. Or maybe not. I’d love to get that close to his…
him
again.” She grinned. No, clearly Adam didn’t stand a chance.

Savi regained her composure. “When you talk with him, try to identify his needs, Karla. If you can get him to go back to any of the major losses in his life, have him tell you what might have helped him then.”