Long Road

Author's Note: While I recommend reading Chapter 2 to continue the flow of the story, it is again not entirely necessary. I understand that the story can get confusing with so many flashbacks, so I am trying to just limit them with each chapter. I am not entirely sure how long I will keep this particular series going, a lot will depend on your responses to it, and a lot more will depend on the time I have available. There is still a lot more to be told, and I will finish at least this part of the story. Thank you for reading, for your constructive criticism, and above all I hope you enjoy the latest chapter.

-aka_Mike

...

As I pulled my bike on to the familiar parking spot, I noticed that her car was not there.

"Hey, you" I said as she picked up after three rings.

"Hey babe," her cheerful reply came through, "did you get in already?"

"Yeah, I just pulled into your apartment complex, are you almost done over there?" It was not unusual for Angie to work late Fridays when I was coming to visit. This way she could spend as much time with me without being distracted with work.

"Well you know where the spare key is, let yourself in and I should be home in about half an hour. Do you want me to pick up some food?"

"No, babe," I replied, trying to contain myself, "I'll make you some dinner when you get here. I'm just really in need of getting into my favorite place."

"You have no idea how horny I am," she whispered into her phone, "I hope my favorite seat is ready to be worn out by Sunday." Angie enjoyed riding me as I sat on the couch in her living room, it gave her the ability to ease herself onto my cock and also allowed her to move her hips and use me as a human dildo to make herself orgasm over and over again. Her incredibly athletic body and stamina helped her be able to ride me like that for hours if need be, often leaving me a slobbering mess begging to cum.

"Prove it," is all I would need to say to get my point across that she needed to hurry and finish her work. Our relationship had begun as fuck buddies, but eventually it had morphed into a more loving one, with both of us having an insatiable desire for the other.

"Make sure you remember my apartment rules when you're in town, baby" she cooed, "no clothes."

"It better be just a rule for you and me, punk" I said in a playful fashion. She was more that aware of my incredible rocky past, and knew that I had more than a few trust issues. But she also knew that I trusted her tremendously, I guess love can make you stupid.

"You know it is, lover" she said with that fucking voice that melted me. If her voice didn't do it, her incredibly beautiful green eyes surely could without much effort. I often found myself starring into her eyes and forgetting what we were talking about. "Ok baby, let me finish up here and I'll see you at home shortly, and trust me you'll feel how tight my little pussy is from missing out on your incredible cock for these long ass weeks we have been apart."

"You really need to hurry your little ass over here," I said, my cock stirring already, "I want some of that Angie pie." She gulped hard as she imagined my tongue playing her clit like a harp, "love you and can't wait to see you."

"God, I love you too" she said in her excited voice, "I'm hurrying" she said before she hung up.

...

A few days passed between my encounter with Leyva, Harper's roommate and what I pleasantly discovered dynamite in bed. We hadn't much time to get together, the exams and hands on skills tests were taking up a majority of our time, and the few hours that we did get together were focused on preparation. Ann's attempts to contact me decreased slowly with each day to almost none, and like DS Harris had predicted the distance and passing of time greatly helped forget what little I knew about her encounter with the douche. I was actually beginning to return to my normal self, just as the next weekend pass was over the horizon. As I sat on the floor of the common area, shining my boots and listening to the lectures from my digital recorder, two sets of feet stood in front of me. I didn't even need to look up to know whose feet they belong to, these two had become a constant companionship lately.

"How can I help you, ladies?" I asked in my now usual cheerful tone whenever I saw these two creatures." I pointed and offered them a space to sit next to me as I pulled the ear buds so that I could listen to them.

"Do you have any plans for this weekend?" Layva asked nervously.

"Because we were hoping that you could help us study some of the hands on stuff" Harper finished.

"Umm," I stuttered, truly unable to come up with anything that did not involve some type of fantasy between these two gorgeous creatures. It was strange, I had never before looked at another women so closely, I guess Ann had changed a lot in me with her fucking "revenge."

"Get your mind out of the gutter" Leyva said with a smirk, "sorry to tell you that you aren't going to get that lucky. It's that time of the month for me, but I can't speak for all concerned..." she gave a mischievous look at Harper who blushed before continuing, "we really do need help with the hands on. DS Harris and DS Anderson said you pretty much have it down and that they didn't think you would mind helping us out."

"First of all," I began with my most sarcastic tone possible, "just because the roller coaster is broke doesn't mean they close the entire amusement park." Leyva playfully punched me in the arm as both of them giggled at my comment, "and second, yeah I don't mind helping you guys out. But you'll have to pay my tutoring fees."

"Ohhh, yeah?" Harper said with a curious tone, as if she was reading my mind, "guess I'll have to pay for both of us, roomie." It was Leyva's turn to blush as Harper leaned in and softly kissed my lips, "you should do some laundry tonight, handsome." As the two giggling women walked away, I struggled to pick my jaw off the ground.

...

As I waited for Angie to make it out of work, I looked around the parking lot from her balcony. Years of experience had made me cautious, or as she would call it simply paranoid. There were times where I really wanted to tell her all that I had hidden in those closets in my mind, both during my time in uniform and out of it. Once I was convinced that there was nothing out of the ordinary, I got started in her kitchen, ready to make one of her favorite dishes, softly using my phone to fill the silence in the apartment with whatever my playlist had selected. My taste in music was varied, I listened to just about anything that stirred some emotion in me which made for strange looks and more often than not requests for my playlists. Once upon a time, even the sound of a car engine had me running for windows, weapon drawn and a mental layout of whatever place I was staying at. Even to this day, I would subconsciously reach for my absent weapon whenever I was in Angie's apartment, her refusal to allow me to keep my weapon was well warranted.

Only once had we come across some of my brother's workers, they had approached me very respectfully asking me if they could join us. They were a nice couple, both in their late 20s and before Angie could say anything I spoke to them in that cold tone that often drives a small chill on people's spines. "Why did my brother send you?"

"He didn't Dae..."

"Then I suggest you keep looking for a less crowded table, friends" I cut them off before they finished that sentence.

"Babe, don't be rude," Angie said while she was looking at her menu before she looked up and saw the look in my eyes. Quickly understanding that something was amiss, she added, "but you guys maybe should look for another table elsewhere." I refused to leave her alone for the rest of the night following that little encounter. The couple moved away while I pulled my phone out from my pocket, Angie quickly placing her hand on mine. This was her way of calming me down before the storm, she knew that much about my temper.

"He knows better than to..."

"It's fine, babe" she interrupted, giving me that smile that melted my heart and squinting her nose ever so slightly as she continued, "I knew there might be issues when I got stationed in your hometown. Let's just enjoy our night, they moved away from us already. Even if that bitch keeps looking at you." A slight pang of jealousy crossed her eyes and it darkened them slightly.

"She is looking at me to make sure I don't walk over there, babe." I placed my debit card to pay for the bill our post dinner dessert had been ruined by the intrusion, and I continued, "I'm pretty sure that my brother is clueless about it. Probably they were out on a date and decided to come talk to me to clear up any confusion."

"One day, my love" she added, "you're going to have to tell me what this whole family business thing is about."

"One day," I replied as I leaned and kissed her soft lips, the coconut flavor of her lip gloss overloading my taste buds, "how about we go check out that bar you've been talking about?" That smile appeared on her face as I said that, her eyes lighting up the whole room. Damn those eyes.

As the waiter returned my card and we made our way out, the couple stood up. I held my hand letting them know that all was fine, and they cautiously returned to their seats. Angie of course did not miss this interaction and with a smile directed right at the couple, she completely disarmed the entire situation. As she held my hand, we both walked out and headed to her car, she would not ride on my bike if we were going to drink even though we both knew I would end up driving her car since my tolerance for alcohol was so much higher than hers.

"Why were they so scared of you, babe?" Her carefully chosen words pierced through my walls as they always did, this was her way of asking about my past.

"I was never known for my patience and temper,

mi vida

." I often addressed her with Spanish pet names which she loved, "those two are relatively new to the organization. At least as far as since I myself left. But as they say, legends live forever, even if the legend is for unkind reasons."

"What name were they about to call you?" Damn, she was perceptive as hell, no wonder I fucking loved her so damned much, even with her own fragmented past.

"Daemon,

amor

," I replied, "they were about to call me Daemon. That was my..."

"So your brother's name is not really Angel, is it?"

"No, sweety, its not." He had given me that name both to reflect my personality and to contrast his own,

Angels and Demons

, he often got a kick out of that whenever he would introduce us to new clients. We had been together for a year now, and every time we talked her curiosity grew with each one of my truthful answers. I remember the first time she asked me about my past, she was sitting next to me at work when I asked her if everything was ok.

She had been crying, even though she had washed her face a few times and had reapplied that thin layer of makeup she often wore along with eye drops for the red in her eyes. What gave her away though was how her breathing had changed. She wasn't sobbing, but her breathing was much deeper than normal. When I explained this to her, her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

"My breathing, are you serious?" After that exchange I learned that she had been seeing a guy, nothing too serious but he was pushing for more.

"Let me guess," I interrupted her, "he gave you the 'I'm leaving and I'm not sure if I'll come back so send me away with a smile' line?"

"Yup," she laughed, that sound was almost divine, "if he hadn't said that I probably would've fucked him brains out then and there." She stopped and looked at me as she said that, her face blushed for a second as she looked down at the ground, "I can't believe I just told you that."

Barely concealing my erection, I laughed and turned to my screen, "well," I said, "he was almost a very lucky guy." A week later, she was in my apartment having a few drinks after work when she broke the tension of that encounter by adding more tension.

"I haven't gotten laid in almost a year," she whined, "my dildos are almost completely worn out." As I spat beer out from the shock of her comment she laughed again, that melodic laugh of hers.

"You have got to give me a warning before you say shit like that," I jokingly complained, wiping the beer from my mouth and looking at my now soaked shirt, "damn it, now I have to take this fucker off and hang it before I start smelling like a brewery." I took my shirt off to reveal a "wife beater" shirt underneath, I could see her breathing again changed from her normal pattern.

"Well if we are taking shirts off..." she said as she too revealed her own tank top under her t-shirt, a bra that barely contained one of the best set of tits I had ever seen was slightly visible. I gulped loudly, trying to make it look like I was joking, but my pants became even tighter around the crotch area. "My eyes are up here, buster" she said when she noticed I was completely captivated by those luscious breasts.

"That's not gonna help matters," I said before realizing that my mouth was still running, my brain had momentarily shutdown any common sense.

"What does that mean?" She leaned forward as she asked.

"Well, the fact that you have some strikingly gorgeous eyes," I replied, "even just looking at them gives me the same reaction as..."

"As what?" Her fake innocence clearly revealed that she knew the effect she was having on me; she continued to lean forward, her hands on her knees. Her face reddened a little, I was unsure at the moment if it was from the alcohol that we had already drank or if it was from arousal.

"Well as seeing you in those shirts..." I quietly said.

"Well, if my shirt bothers you so much," she began, before I could protest her putting her t-shirt back on she surprised me by removing her tank top, showing me her black bra that was clearly a size too small for her breast. "There, is that better?" I dropped my beer as I reached out for her, embracing her passionately and placing her on my lap. She straddled me as we kissed both our mouths hungry for each other in lustful desperation. "I'll take that as a yes" she remarked, feeling my steel-like cock pressing against her own jeans. As she reached out to remove my own tank top, she saw the scars for the first time, our passionate moment coming to a screeching halt.

"It's a long story" I said in automatic response. My chest, back, abdomen, legs, arms, almost my entire body was littered with scars like the moon covered in craters. Her hands began to slowly trace the longest of my collection of scars, one that ran completely across my chest just below the nipple line. She leaned me forward to follow the path of the scar when she noticed the ones on my back.

"Oh my God" she exclaimed, clearly our romantic moment was gone. I dreaded what would come next, "how did you get all these?"

"Like I said," I replied, unconsciously reaching for my tank top, "it's a long story."

She ripped the shirt from my hands, and ever so gently she leaned her head forward, carefully tracing the path of my scars with her lips. Each kiss was loving, as if she was trying to erase them with each touch of her mouth, her hands freely roaming throughout my entire upper body. "How did this one happen?" She had moved to another scar, this one in my lower back and other than the one across my chest, the one that usually caught people's attention.

"Stab wound," I casually replied, "the guy had seen far too many movies and thought that if you turned the knife it would make the wound untreatable."

"Why would someone stab you? Were you being robbed?" She sat up straight, looking into my eyes.

"Well, he was trying to kill me." She couldn't control her shocked expression as I said this, "but to be fair I was trying to kill him as well."

"Holy shit," she replied, climbing off my lap and headed towards my kitchen. She opened my refrigerator and retrieved two beers, then made her way back onto my lap, again straddling me. "You know, some of the nurses at work always talk about your eyes."

"What do they say?" She was trying to change the topic of conversation, clearly uncomfortable with the turn of events, but I wasn't going to complain about it. It wasn't one of my favorite topics either.

"Well," she began, stretching her back like a cat before continuing, "most of them say that you have these deep eyes that show a lot of pain and suffering. It's a weird balance between all the beautiful things and all the terrible things. Like your eyes have seen far too much, too soon, and they are always looking far ahead. But when you look at someone," she paused to take a long drink from her beer, "well one of the nurses said that when you look at me it's like nothing else matters around you. Like I am all in your world, as you look at me with those piercing brown eyes of yours that change color depending on your mood. It's simply breath taking, and I absolutely love it."

"Well I am glad you like my eyes" I said as I took a drink of my own beer, before she continued.

"But just now, when you started talking about the guy that tried to kill you, well your eyes were far away again. There was this emptiness in them, and all I wanted to do was hold you." She moved to hug me while she finished, "if you want to tell me the story, I am all ears."

"Not much to tell, love, that happened in Fallujah in '04, during the siege. My group was called in to help secure some contractors that had been trapped in a building, they were being suppressed by small arms fire and shoulder fired grenades. While our sniper identified targets, we moved about trying to break through their lines in order to reach them. After about 30 minutes of engagement, we moved in and found that two of the contractors were injured. I started life saving procedures, one of them had taken a round to the side and was having issues breathing, the other had taken one in the leg and it was broken.

"When I moved in past a nest of insurgents, one of them got up, he had been pretending he was dead. That fucker drove his knife into my back but my aid bag got in the way so he couldn't completely get the right angle of attack. Because we were a fast strike team we didn't have time to grab all our equipment so I didn't have my body armor on, as soon as I felt the knife penetrate I turned and elbowed him in the face. When he fell, I drew my Beretta and put three rounds into his head."

She stared blankly at me, "you almost died." She took a gulp from her beer as if she was trying to make sense of what I had just casually told her, "you killed a man and you just sat there and told me the story as if you were telling me the most basic thing in the world."

"Well, it wasn't the first time that I've come close to death," I said, immediately regretting it.

She looked at me with her mouth open in shock at my revelation, "your life should be a movie." She reached out and kissed me again, her mouth trying to steal my breath as her hands returned to the multiple scars throughout my body.

My own hands began to caress her body, carefully I rubbed her back, drawing a low moan from her lips. I moved my mouth towards the side of her neck, nibbling at her skin as my hands made their way to the bra strap. Years before, I had perfected the art of unclasping those damned hooks with one hand, and as her bra swung free she moved her hands to remove it. I held her hands in place, moved them back to my body as I reached for the straps myself. Slowly, with my fingertips just barely touching her skin, I lowered the straps from her arms, feeling the soft skin of her arms as I continued kissing her neck. Her skin was covered in goosebumps by the time her bra fell onto my floor.