Broken Barriers (Barriers Series Book 4) Read Online Free Page A

night, I basically had flashbacks of that convoy that went terribly wrong. Just a few hours ago, my body jolted up in a state of panic. My skin layered in a cold, wet sweat that soaked through my tank top and my boxer briefs. But, my nightmares always ended the same way… her soft voice calling out my name right before my eyes opened and reality set in.
    I sat here in the pitch-black of the night. The room only lit by the white light of the moon that seeped through the slats of the blinds. For nearly twenty minutes, I sat with my knees pulled into my chest. My arms draped over my knees with my head hung in defeat. The tears I wanted to cry wouldn’t come. They never did. Instead, I pounded my fist into the mattress a dozen or so times, releasing most of my pent-up anger into the soft pillow top, which in my mind was a hell of a lot better than putting a hole in the wall.
    After stripping my wet clothes off, I walked naked to the kitchen. My stainless steel dog tags rattled against my bare chest with each step. I grabbed a cold bottled water from the fridge before coming back to bed. The sleeping pill bottle had been within reach for nearly two years. That part of my life hadn’t changed, and I popped two more of those pills that clearly only gave me a couple of hours of nightmare-free relief.
    But remember, the Marine Corps said I was perfectly fine. I was good-to-go in life. My head was ‘in proper working order’ they said. This… this… was not good-to-go. I was sure there were plenty of other situations much worse than my own. I watched men suffer more horrific situations, for which I knew their so-called “Adjustment Disorder” might have never fully disappeared. But, they didn’t have the one underlying factor that plagued me daily…Courtney.
    My hands roughly scrubbed themselves over my face as I lay here watching a new day began. The faint sounds of some early morning boats out on the lake filtered through the cracked windows. Cool morning air prickled my naked skin that was exposed above the sheets. I let my head fall to the opposite side of the bed next to me. My eyes blinked slowly as I saw nothing but emptiness there.
    The blue-striped cotton sheet was a rumpled mess on the bed, looking as though two people had engaged in a fair amount of hot writhing sex on it. Only that didn’t happen last night. Ha! Sex? I had to laugh. What was that anymore? For the past year and a half, I’d had more sex with my hand in the most unspeakable places. Even worse…I was forced to watch porn on my laptop in my bunk surrounded by dudes. Grunts, moans, and wet slapping sounds muffled through the tiny speakers. As the guy on the screen pounded his rock hard dick into that slut’s pussy, three guys around me were all jerking off to similar images at the same time on their own laptops. It was like one big group orgy.
    I won’t even begin to verbally admit that the last time I physically had sex was here in this house with her . Now, that was not to say I hadn’t had my fair share of blowjobs from those bar whores that lingered where all the Marines hung out back in Camp Pendleton. Those chicks were only looking to latch on to the one that would be drunk enough and put a ring on their finger after they mysteriously ended up pregnant after just one night.
    I wasn’t that dumb and senseless. I went to college and worked at a law firm for quite a number of years. I might not have had my shit together, but that wasn’t to say it wasn’t squared away back then. My dick wasn’t stupid enough to get wrapped up in any of that shit.
    No, moron, your dick got wrapped up in something so much worse. Love. That bitch was about to damn near kill me if I didn’t get my head above water. The hell if I knew how long that would take. I did know I needed to take care of some long overdue business shortly; otherwise, I’d explode. If Josh had left sooner last night, I would have driven the twenty miles or so to the nearest strip club