SEAL'd Trust (Brotherhood of SEAL'd Hearts) Read online

  What was the point of staying in peak physical condition when you jerked it into your own hand every night? What was I going to do with four grand when this apartment already seemed too big for me?

  I needed a woman.

  I closed my eyes and conjured her.

  She’d be sweet and sincere. She’d have a juicy ass and puffy lips and long, soft brown hair that felt like butter between the fingers. She’d know how to make this horrible apartment pretty. I’d press her up against that kitchen counter and fuck her long and good, and she’d smile and look back at me with nothing but gratitude. An angel.

  I stroked until I was hard.

  She would look at my abs and understand what it took to get them. She’d admire me. She’d look at my cock like she was mildly surprised by its size. She’d have a kind, normal name like Melissa or Kate and she’d help me fill this awkward space with all those stupid things couples do. I’d tell her to hurry up and get ready. She’d let me hold her hand and buy her dinner. She’d let me fuck her every night, and she’d open her legs for nobody but me, whenever I asked…

  I came quickly and urgently. The old ‘combat wank’. I’d eventually have to get out of the habit of getting myself off as soon as possible. When I found a woman, I’d have to be in proper operating condition. I’d have to give no clue that I’d been jerking off alone for months in a dark room (ok, years), feeling sorry for myself.

  It’s all mission. I had survived the September incident in one piece and I was limping along with my business, one way or another. I was OK. I didn’t know how yet, but I was going to be OK. My next goal was beginning to take shape.

  I had to suck it up and try dating again.

  Chapter 2 - Kate

  I was done with fucking dating. For now, and maybe forever.

  I was done dealing with men who simply had no idea of all the women in this world who quietly made life comfortable for them. I had given the best of myself to a man who had taken me for granted, and now there wasn’t a man alive who would get anything from me anymore.

  Yes, it sounded bitter, but when your lifelong MO has been to play a doormat from a fifties sitcom, freedom can take on some strange forms for you. The first time he hit me, I felt bad for him. Isn’t that crazy? I saw that look of despair on his face, and he immediately launched into a big sob story about how terrible it was that I always provoked him, that we “brought out the worst in one another” and, stupidly, I felt bad for the guy.

  I could handle a bruise or two, but I was so far into that mess that I honestly thought he was the one who had to endure the worst consequences for hitting me. He told me how bad he felt. How unbearable the guilt was. I didn’t want to be responsible for hurting him and so I sat by his side, soothing him, telling him I understood and that we all make mistakes. The stupid asshole had me believing that we were both equal players in the drama that was our marriage. He did wrong by hitting me, and I did wrong by repeatedly making him hit me. So you see? We were even. We deserved each other.

  If being a bit of a cold-hearted bitch was what allowed me to get out and stay out of that crazy mindset, then so be it. I never again wanted to be in a position where a man could do that to me again. I actually could handle the bruises. I could handle a few slaps and a twisted wrist here and there. What really hurt was everything that came afterwards. He twisted my mind so badly that I was ready to say that I was the abusive one and he was the long-suffering husband.

  Well, never again.

  I had nothing now, but if he was out of my life, that was actually an upgrade for me. I left my job and moved out of my home town to get away from him. I sold my wedding ring. I dug deep and found the energy to file a restraining order against him and I left, although I had nothing to take with me, and nowhere to leave to.

  Our relationship had been a war. Sure, I didn’t sustain too many obvious injuries. Nobody read about my battles in the front pages of any newspaper, and there was no foreign aid to rescue me from the brutal dictator he became. But it was a war, and the moment I properly got away from him, I realized just how brutal it had all been. I didn’t exactly have PTSD. But I was almost there.

  With my meager savings, I rented a little apartment in a quiet retirement complex and bought some IKEA furniture on credit. I licked my wounds. I filled my fridge with food he never liked and never let us have, and I stayed up all night and tried to remember the person I used to be. Derek’s personality had been so large it just pushed mine out of the picture. After I left, I got that feeling you get after a bunch of loud friends finally leave your home for the evening and you’re left on your own. It suddenly feels bizarre to be by yourself, alone with your thoughts. My own personality now seemed so small.

  But I was still hot. I was 33 years old, for heaven’s sake, my life might have been well underway but it was nowhere near finished yet. I could give the bastard some credit where it was due, at least: he had policed my diet like a drill sergeant and bullied and insulted me if I gained so much as an ounce of weight. Consequently, I was a lean, toned 100 pounds and maintained my looks like my life depended on it. Because I guess with Derek, it kind of did.

  In any case, that was in the past. I was OK. It didn’t matter how I got here, I was here now. In time I’d find some good guy, maybe, if such a thing even existed, but for right now my mission was to try and regain those parts of myself I lost to that asshole and live a little again. Oh, and find a job.

  I double and triple checked the locks on the doors, closed the curtains and switched of all the lights in the apartment. There was something nice about squirrelling away in my room with just the side lamp and the TV. When I was with Derek, every evening seemed to disappear somehow. I’d be cooking, or cleaning up the mess I made from cooking, or we’d be fighting, or something would happen. I’m not sure how we ever passed so much time, but without him, the nights seemed impossibly long and empty.

  I clicked off the TV and hauled out a journal from under the bed. I had to force myself to think positively. To be proactive.

  On a fresh page I scribbled Makeover and underlined it three times. Then I made a list:

  1.Color hair.

  2.Hit the gym. Get toned up.

  3.Manicure and pedicure.

  4.Get a wax.

  My pen hovered on item number 4. I hadn’t been with a man in months. I bit the end of the pen and thought for a moment, then continued, deciding I wouldn’t cross it out. Don’t they say to dress for the job you want? I wasn’t going to jump into a rebound with any man. But Derek hated the idea of me getting a Brazilian wax, so, that’s precisely what I would do.

  5.Get a new perfume or something.

  6.Buy at least one outfit that makes me look amazing.

  I looked at the list again. None of it would come cheap. The money would eventually run out – did I want to be the woman with fancy nails and nothing in the pantry?

  I looked around the room. I closed my eyes and saw Derek’s angry face, heard him threatening me and telling me I would never leave because nobody in their right mind would want me. Yes. Yes, I did want to be that woman. Food was a matter of survival. But then again, conveying to the world that you gave a shit about yourself even though you’re at rock bottom – that was feeling just as important to me right now.

  It was soon late but I couldn’t sleep. I sat there stewing, thinking, wondering, stewing again. I cried a little, then got irritated with myself for still being so emotional about a break up that happened months ago, then I thought about what outfit I’d buy for myself, then I cried a little again. Then I decided I needed a cigarette. I climbed out of bed in my socks, threw on a robe and then, pausing for a moment, reached for the journal again.

  7.Quit smoking. Start tomorrow for real this time.

  I put the book back under the bed and went outside into the cool night. Not even the wind made any sound. The moon overhead looked like a reflection of itself in some inky water, and some clouds whispered along, like they were still going from
the momentum of the day but were quickly running out of steam. I lit up and took a deep, smooth drag on the cigarette. My last one, I swore it.

  The complex apartments were arranged around a large cul de sac and each one opened into a communal garden. Shielded a little by the shrubs around my patio, I could peak out and see the front windows of all ten of the other homes. All were dark, the inhabitants inside sleeping. I took another puff, then I saw him.

  I quickly ducked down low behind the patio shrubs and tried to focus my eyes. He hadn’t seen me. What was such a smartly dressed guy doing creeping around this late at night?

  Frozen, my eyes followed him as he skipped through the garden, crunched over the gravel just in front of my entrance way and made his way to the apartment three doors down from mine. My heart pummeled loudly in my chest but I didn’t dare breathe.

  He wound his way through some bushes and I watched secretly as he let himself in through the front door of what was presumably his apartment. He seemed mad. His movements were angry and impatient. The cigarette fell from my hands and I quickly kicked it off into the gravel. Before I had time to think of why I was doing it, I followed after him, hunched over and on tip toes.

  I froze and noticed a light flicker on behind the curtains. His living room wasn’t like mine – it didn’t face into the garden but off to the side. I snuck down into the walkway beside his house and tried to hug the shadows. The curtain was opened slightly. Through it a clearer band of yellow light came pouring out. Like a deranged moth, I couldn’t help but be drawn to it.

  I scuttled over to the opposite wall and hid behind some low bushes there, which concealed me as I looked through that narrow crack and tried to find his form again. And there it was. He passed several times across my range of view, and each time he did, another piece of clothing seemed to be missing from his body. He was getting undressed, tossing things aside, and even from my little hideout I could tell he was still mad.

  You’re so fucking disgusting, said a voice in my head, and it was mine but also Derek’s. He had always said I was sick. That normal women didn’t treat sex the way I did. He had said that women with strong sexual appetites always got that way because deep down, something was wrong with them. I mean, here I was, crouching down in the dark and literally peeking through the window to watch my neighbor undress. Maybe Derek was right.

  When the guy in the living room finally sat down on his sofa, I couldn’t believe that he did so in such a way that I could clearly see the whole of him through the split in the curtains. It was as though he was framing himself. I could no longer even feel my heart it was beating so loudly. My legs began to feel cold and achy, and I wondered about my chances of being discovered if I stood up and made a run for it now.

  He just sat there for the longest time.

  And I sat and watched him.

  He looked deep in thought, a fist resting on each knee like he was trying to talk himself out of something. I was mesmerized. I shouldn’t have been watching. He thought he was alone. The whole moment, the expression on his face, it all had such an outrageously unguarded feel to it that I felt like a criminal the longer I kept my eyes on him. But I couldn’t stop looking.

  The stranger’s life played out before me like a movie, and the rest of my world went dark. He was well built. When he reached a slow hand down to stroke himself through his boxer shorts, I gulped so loudly I could hear myself. I couldn’t decide if the expression on his face was sad or angry. He seemed to be far away in his own mind, his hand rubbing his crotch robotically. He was good looking, that much was obvious. But what was really exciting was how vulnerable he looked, completely exposed to my gaze now and utterly unaware. I was about to watch a man jerk off, secretly.

  When he pulled the lip of his boxer shorts down to release the head of a dark, thick cock, I couldn’t believe it. A moment ago I had been warm in my bed and wondering what to do with my life and now I was on a mini adventure, spying on this man as he… I watched as he closed a big fist round his dick and began to stroke slowly. His movements were not what I expected. He stared straight ahead, but not at me. Not at anything. I thought I saw his jaw and neck tense and release with each stroke.

  He was extremely well built. Suspiciously muscular, even. Some kind of hitman? A bouncer? A rugby player? His abs seemed totally, one hundred percent out of place in this boring suburban complex. He had a handsome, but serious face. He was thick around the shoulders but had surprisingly fine features. Maybe he was an athlete and had been out this late at night to cheat on his wife. What an asshole.

  I couldn’t ignore the thumping twinge between my legs. I wasn’t sure if I was turned on or just petrified I’d be caught. How surreal, that everyone’s lives could be so tightly packed together, one on top of the other, with just a wall or even a thin curtain closing us off from one another’s secrets. The thought that I was inevitably going to watch him cum sent a strange, icy thrill through me. I couldn’t tear my eyes off him. I felt like a tigress hiding in the forest, salivating over her prey. I barely noticed that the heel of my hand was now pressing urgently at that growing ache, as though I was afraid that getting too turned on would activate some kind of alarm and blow my cover.

  I watched in awe as his head fell loosely backwards and his mouth parted a little. He was as focused on his moment as I was focused on him. I was close enough to see how his strong body seemed to roll and twitch in response to the rhythm of his hand. It was a thing to behold: his firm, solid body, and the small shuddering movements that seemed to be threatening to overwhelm him.

  Derek had been my only partner. I had been a stupid, adoring virgin when I met him. I had never seen another man like this before. I never knew that a cock could be quite so… I wasn’t even sure.

  Without thinking, my hand matched his rhythm and I found myself trying to follow him, trying to keep pace with his even stroking. In the cold night air, the warmth rushing through my hips felt like a lit fire. Separated by a window and a parted curtain and some bushes and most of all, by the assumption of privacy, I was still connected to this stranger who I had literally first seen only a few minutes ago. He didn’t know it. But I did. I knew exactly what he must have been feeling, with each little shudder, since I was feeling it myself. What a strange sympathy I felt for him just then, secretly linked through the thin night air.

  When he came, I followed. The sight of his gently jerking body did wild things to me. I watched as his hand froze on his now tremendously swollen cock, and then he twitched sharply, his mouth slack in a silent gasp. He looked down at himself. I heard my own jagged breath in the silence and realized I was soaked through. I looked down to see that I was shaking. My legs felt weak.

  What the fuck had I just done? It was almost dreamlike. A sweet, delicious feeling of bliss lingered through me out there in the bushes, in the dark. When I looked up again I nearly died. The curtain was closed.

  Oh fuck. Oh shit.

  Had he seen me?

  Oh god oh go oh god…

  I don’t know how it happened but in around two seconds flat I had sprung out of the bushes and tripped back to my apartment, kicking up gravel stones behind me. I slammed my front door behind me and briefly wondered if a person could seriously give themselves a heart attack by fright alone. Chest pounding, my skin cold with shock, I stood there with my back against the door and tried to listen to see if anything awful was about to happen.

  But nothing did.

  Maybe a minute passed or maybe an hour did, but I caught my breath and realized that there was just the silence again, just the cold boring night. If it weren’t for my icy cold feet I might have been ready to believe that it was all just a strange dream. Something that happened in books or movies. Not something that happened to me, just like that. I turned to lock and relock the door a few times, as if that could undo a damn thing, and then paced a few times before striding back to the bedroom.

  “You’re such an idiot, Kate,” I said out loud to nobody in particular. />
  Who the hell did that? He was just some muscly bro a few houses down who was innocently jerking off in his own living room and I had to spy on him? I was pretty sure the story was meant to go the other way around. Besides, what kind of idiot just leaves the curtains open like that? If he didn’t want an audience, he shouldn’t have put on a show, should he?

  “Spoken like a true perv,” I said out loud again and put myself to bed.

  I ignored the fact that I was still wet. I ignored the fact that there was something strange and a little scary still buzzing between my thighs. Worst-case scenario somebody saw me out there. But nobody could ever prove that I had …well, liked it. At least the most humiliating part of my little nocturnal adventure would stay my secret.

  Of course, I couldn’t get back to sleep. A few minutes later I fished out the journal from underneath me and began to scratch in it again by the light of the side lamp.

  8.Give dating another try.

  I put the journal away again. Clearly, it had been too long. Clearly, I was some kind of sex-starved woman who’d resort to night-time voyeurism after just a few months out of a relationship. But I was OK. I was getting myself back together. Maybe I could let a man into my life, you know, on a casual basis only. Nothing serious though. Just a bit of fun to make sure I didn’t get rusty in that department. Someone to take the edge off these lonely nights.

  Something to… well, keep me sane.

  Chapter 3 - Max

  “Buddy, you are insane,” he said and gave a big, juicy laugh.

  I felt the tiny muscles and tendons around my patella quiver to stabilize the weight, and then when I was sure my form was right through the muscles of my posterior chain, I whipped the bar straight up, straightened out and pressed it high overhead, angling it slightly backwards with outstretched arms to balance all 220 pounds of it cleanly above me. When I dropped it down again, I felt it reverberate through the floor. Panting and feeling the blood rush back to my face, I looked at my brother Hugo and held out my hand for a high five, which he promptly gave me.