Protecting Her: A Romance Bundle

“You… your…” I drop his hands and step away from him, shock coursing through me at a million miles an hour. The army means war, and bombs, and death. He cannot honestly mean this. “You signed up.”

“Oh yeah, but I don’t leave until after college. I have to complete here first.”

The tight knot in my chest loosens, but only a tiny bit. I guess there’s a positive in the fact that he isn’t leaving right now. I don’t have to give him up right away, and also, I might be able to talk him out of it. I, of course, have a lot of respect for the military, who doesn’t? But I never thought that I’d have to give up the love of my life to the cause. If he does this, I’ll never see him, he’ll be at risk every single day. I won’t be able to hack it.

“So, you aren’t actually signed up, right? You just registered some interest. You haven’t committed…”

“Nope.” He pops the p proudly. “I’m a fully signed up member, ready to start basic training as soon as.”

Sickness swirls, my head spins, it’s like I can’t stand up anymore. I collapse back onto my bed and clutch onto my forehead in shock. How can he go from not sure what he wants to do with his life to committing to the army? It’s crazy. And dropping the bombshell on me like that is just too much too. I don’t know how to feel.

“Take a look at these books,” Jordan continues on as if he doesn’t see how tormented I am by his words. “Look at all the benefits. It’s wild. The money, the travel, the comradery. It’s just what I need.”

“You really want this?” I ask quietly while giving him a desperate look. “You’re sure.”

He clutches onto my hands once more and gives me the brightest grin I’ve seen from him in ages. “Rusty.” Calling me by the nickname he’s turned from nasty to sweet does something to my heart. “I haven’t ever wanted anything as much as this. Just hearing about it made me realize just how happy I can be. We can be.”

“We?” I rasp out. “So, I am included in this future plan of yours? You do still want me?”

Making such a massive choice without consulting me does make me feel a bit pushed out. I can’t help it. He’s planned to throw himself into dangerous situations, all around the world, leaving me alone for most of the time, and he’s put his signature on the dotted line without even talking to me about it first. I can’t feel anything else.

“Of course, I still want you.” He throws his arms around me and embraces me tight. “I have done this for you, for both of us, so we can have a future together. I want us to be together forever, you know that.”

I do feel a little better to hear him say that, but I’m still stunned to the core. “Yeah, okay… I guess.”

“You guess?” Jordan pulls back and grins at me. “You’re going to be a world-famous journalist anyway, traveling the country, the world probably. I just don’t want to be left behind. I want to have something too.”

I nod, drinking that in. I suppose he’s right in a lot of ways, I made my future choice without consulting him too, albeit years before we got together, and couples go through separation all the time. It’s normal for a lot of people. I suppose I’m mostly worried because this time together here is intense, we get to see one another all the time. It’ll change when we leave college. But it has to do that anyway, it’s called growing up.

“Okay,” I nod slowly, hoping I can finally come on board with this when the time comes. “Well, that’s amazing. I’m really happy that you’ve found something to be passionate about. It’s awesome.”

He opens up the books and starts flicking through random pages. The excitement is palpable, it’s clear that he truly does want this. What sort of girlfriend would I be if I stood in the way of his dreams?

“I’m going to have to go to the gym a lot more. I need to really be at the top of my game. I have to be strong, powerful, I need to beat basic training with flying colors and now I have a head start…”

I nod slowly and drink in his words as much as I can while he speaks at a million miles an hour. This isn’t quite the white picket fence existence I imagined. I guess I thought at one point we would have kids, a cutesy little life somewhere in the country. I do want to be a successful journalist, but I also want the family life as well. If Jordan is going to be gone most of the time, living in some war zone, that picture looks very different. It’s lonelier, sadder, so much quieter. I don’t know if this is exactly what I signed up for.

I glance up at him, blinking the tears back. I guess I’ll just have to make the most of what I have right now. We still have two years of college together to survive, and its very nearly summer. Our first year here is practically done, so we can go back to our home town and continue on with our very romantic love story there. I’ve been worried that it’s going to be strange away from the college bubble, I feared it might put a strain on us. How wrong I was to worry about the here and now when me and Jordan have a much scarier hurdle to overcome.

“I love you,” I blurt out without much thinking, interrupting him as I do. “I love you so much.”

He circles his arms around me and kisses me hard, his lips filled with a deep possessiveness. He does genuinely want to keep me, I can tell, but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. Our future is now uncertain and that’s a horrible sensation in the pit of my stomach. I’m going to find it much harder to dream now.

I guess the pressure is on. I really need to make sure I’m successful now so I can have my own life to lead in between the times where Jordan is nowhere to be seen. I hope we have enough love to survive it. If I can be strong and not fall apart for his sake then we might have a fighting chance. This is all on me.

“I love you too,” Jordan murmurs back. “So damn much, and that’s why I’m proud to finally be able to offer you something. I’m much closer now to finally giving you everything that you deserve.”

As long as I don’t think of the cost, we might just be okay…

8

Jordan

The kiss deepens, I can feel Veronica really get into the heat of the moment. Okay, so she might not have reacted in the over the top happy fashion I expected her to, but that’s okay. I don’t mind. It’s a shock, obviously. I didn’t tell her this is what I was planning, so it’s come from nowhere. And I suppose it’s a bit of a bold choice as well, but we’ll be fine, she’ll soon come around to see that. She’ll soon be as happy as I am.

I push her back onto the bed until she’s in a lying position and I move my mouth from hers, down over her throat and towards her collar bone. She writhes desperately beneath me, groaning and moaning as she gets into it. The same passion takes hold of me and I feel a desperate stiffening in my pants. I’m a man now, I want to celebrate that, so I hook my fingers over the top of her trousers and I slide them down. I brush my hands over the delicate soft skin of her thighs as it’s revealed to me, relishing her half naked body as if it’s the first time I’ve seen it. It always feels that way with Veronica. Everything feels new every single time. I love it.

Just as I’m about to drag those sexy little panties down too, Veronica wraps her legs tightly around me and uses some crazy strength to flip us around so I’m the one lying on my back looking up at her. I’m star struck, I wasn’t expecting that to happen, nor was I expecting to see that deeply desperate look in her eyes. Usually, we share a little bit of laughter as we make love, we make it fun too, but today I don’t see that in her. She really does seem different. It has to be my news, it must have stunned her deeply. I need to make her see it’ll be okay…