Liquid Lucidity (A Novella)

Chapter Eleven

Despite Hannah's best efforts, she'd succumbed to sleep watching television in David's bed. There was no chance of her going back to her apartment after that call. The moment David arrived home, she needed to see for herself that he was okay. And since it was daylight by the time she heard the front door open and close, she wouldn't have seen his headlights if she'd gone to rest in her own bed.

When she awoke to the sounds of him shutting the door and the metal of his keys hitting the table, Hannah pushed herself out of the bed and walked down the hallway to find him sitting on his couch in complete silence, elbows propped against his knees and his chin resting against his clasped hands. There was gauze wrapped around the bicep of his left arm, but other than that, it seemed only his spirit was tainted from the events of the night before.

"Look at me, Dav—id."

His head tipped back and forth above his hands. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Not ready to see how you look back at me," David muttered.

Strange how he'd just killed someone, yet his fear seemed to stem from how Hannah would react to it. Yes, he may have taken a life, but she could never see him as a killer. So Hannah walked over to him, her steps sluggish from the lack of sleep, and ran her fingers through his shoulder length chestnut hair. "I could never be scared of you."

"Wouldn't blame you if you were."

"Well, I'm not. Just wish you had—n't gone and played the hero. You could have been killed, Dav—id."

"They'd be ironic. Survive four tours in Iraq  and end up gettin' taken down by a low life shitbag lookin' for some quick cash to pay off  his dealer."

David's head drooped a bit as she continued running her fingers through his hair and it laid to rest against her stomach. "I thought the days of me taking someone's life were passed me."

Hannah wasn't aware he was military, though it didn't surprise her when she thought about it. It was the reason why his eyes had so much darkness behind them, why he looked like he'd lived so many lifetimes of pain. "Please look at me."

He let out a heavy breath that sunk through her shirt and heated her skin before he separated from her just enough to look up.

"What do you see?" she asked.

"Everything good in this world. The kind of good that shouldn't be around a guy like me."

"I'm where I want to be, so don't even try p-push—ing me away bec—ause it won't work."

David shook his head, then slid his arms around her legs. "I got no intention of pushing you away, honey. I should, but I'm too big a coward to go back to livin' my life without you in it. Just wish I was a good enough man to deserve a woman like you."

Those simple words sent her mind into a frenzy, as if all her thoughts had just been tossed into a blender. 

As she felt David's lips press against the fabric of her shirt, that blender was turned on high. "You're the one who should be pushing me away, Hannah. I'm no good for you. The man I was before I went overseas would have been treated you right. He would have charmed your parents, held the door for you, taken you on fancy dates, been given the green light by your friends. 

"I ain't that guy anymore, Hannah. Now I'm the guy that doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger. I'm the guy that swallows that shit whole and carries it around with me everywhere I go. You shouldn't be around that sort of shit and you should run like hell away from me."

Yet all she wanted was to do the opposite, to feel the tender touch of the rough man she'd somehow tamed by her mere presence in his life. And she felt every last one of those touches like they'd branded her skin in the best possible way. The way his fingertips glided against the back of her legs and the way his hot breath felt against her stomach.