GIVE ME SHELTER [18+]

NOTE - This is the first draft, so some errors may be present. This book will be available to read for free until November 23rd, after which it will become a subscribers-only story.

CHAPTER 1

Wade noticed the arrival of the moving truck through his kitchen window right after his first coffee had finished brewing. A couple of guys wrestled a mattress out of it, passed the short gate and then turned the corner around the house. He knew they were carrying it up the back stairs, to the apartment above his. He picked up his cup and strolled to the space between his kitchen and living room to watch them pass the back door that led to the yard.

The dull thudding sounds above him were random but constant for the next half an hour. The movers went back and forth, bringing in boxes, small pieces of furniture, plants. He tapped his phone to wake it up and glanced at the clock—it was ten past eleven on a Monday. He took a sip of his coffee, thinking how the trip he had returned from in the early morning hours had made him sleep longer than usual.

His stepmother, Irene, had informed him that she was about to look for a new tenant for the space upstairs just before he had departed for the two-week survival drill. His father, Edison, had bought the house as an investment when an SAS military base had opened just outside the town twenty years ago. Wade had purchased the ground floor from him. He had planned to buy the entire house, but then his father suffered haemorrhagic stroke.

Wade was now paying for the private nursing home his father had lived in for the past three years. Edison had a severe, permanent brain damage, had lost his ability to speak and didn’t recognize Wade or Irene anymore. Since Irene was a housewife, they had agreed she should begin renting the first-floor apartment again to supplement her income. Wade had plenty of space downstairs. He wasn’t at home that often anyways.

Irene had put up an online ad, since she hadn’t had much luck so far renting it to the locals. Wade knew that he, as a Special Forces soldier, was the reason people shunned this particular apartment. The locals and the operatives tended to keep some distance between them.

It was easier that way. The rules didn’t apply to the operatives as they did to the locals. Even the police tended to avoid the complications when dealing with them, not that they caused many problems. They policed themselves quite rigorously and answered only to their superiors.

Wade concluded that Irene must have found an outsider for a tenant.

The movers returned to the truck. They carried out a standing mirror and something that looked suspiciously like a large cat-tree. He shuddered involuntarily. He despised cats. He considered them too shifty; too fucking audacious for their size and general uselessness.

He caught a flash of color from the corner of his eye as it passed the top window of the back door. He frowned and quickly moved to the back room he was using for storage to catch another glimpse. All he had managed to see was a whip of a blondish braid before it had disappeared from his view. He frowned harder and stomped over to the kitchen again. And then he saw the new tenant.

It was a girl.

Her back was turned to him while she was chatting to the movers. That braid hanging from the top of her head looked kind of messy, as if it was struggling to wrangle her lush, thick hair. She wore a sky-blue sweatshirt that looked a size too large, and washed-out jeans that were definitely a size too-large. He thought that the outfit made her look formless.

He shook his head in mild acceptance of his own bafflement with the fashion of today and leaned against a kitchen island. He waited for her to turn around so he could see her face. He wagered how it must be sunken; hollowed out like the rest of her.

This was probably why he hadn’t heard her footsteps, or her moving about upstairs. She hadn’t made enough noise to wake him up. She probably couldn’t—she looked tiny. He watched her more closely as her hands reached back to fix that weak hold her hairband had on her hair. The sleeves of her sweatshirt slid down, revealing her ghostly thin forearms. He revised his initial, ‘formless’ observation. More than anything, she looked underfed.

One of the movers jumped into the back of the truck and returned with a small potted plant. She took it from him with a fervent nod, as if she was thanking him. She waved them goodbye and watched them leave as if it was close family she was separating from. She was hugging the plant over her midriff when she finally spun around.

Facing down, she shuffled slowly toward the corner of the house. Her hair was darker at the roots. The blonde highlights were outgrown; were weaving in at least an inch away. Several strands curled softly around her forehead and ears. She slowed down before she redirected herself towards the short, brick boundary wall. She crouched down, and plucked out a wild daisy that grew along it. She lifted her head as she smelled it.

His next impression was how she looked tired.

The natural, sun-kissed shade of her skin had an ashy undertone. It reminded him of that sickly colour patients recovering from a long-lasting illness acquired. There was not a hint of red, not even pink in her slim cheeks. Her eyes were thin and long, slightly upturned at the ends. He could make out their dark, dull color, but the eyelashes were long and plentiful. Her lips were clenched, appearing smaller and paler than they probably were, but he could make out their delicate lip divot.

Overall, he thought that she looked okay, if a tad boring.

And then she smiled.

Dimples formed in both of her cheeks. Those shrunken lips stretched, somehow became fuller. Her perfectly oversized front teeth dug into the bottom one, the rest forming a slightly uneven, natural line. Her eyes turned soft and as warm as his coffee; appeared mystically charming now, framed perfectly by those silky eyelashes.

He coughed as he swallowed the drink down the wrong pipe.

He had to go to the sink and pour himself a glass of water to flush it down. By the time he had turned back towards the window, she was gone. He heard the faintest patter of her feet against the back stairs.

He picked up his phone and dialed Irene.

“Wade, you’re back?” she answered with a happy tilt in her voice.

“Yeah,” he confirmed and got straight to the point. “Whom did you rent the upper floor to?”

“Oh, have you met her?” she chirped, continuing without waiting for his reply. “She just picked up the keys from me on the way there. Seems like a lovely girl. Very polite… A bit quiet, perhaps. She moved from some village near Manchester. Works from home as an English tutor or something.”

Wade let out an annoyed sigh at these murky facts.

“You probably won’t even notice she’s there. I don’t see her making much noise,” Irene reasoned, the volume weakening as if the phone was further from her mouth. “Doesn’t have any family in the country, the poor girl. She came over to study… something, but then stayed.”

“She’s a foreigner?” he asked with apprehension.

“No, not really. Her parents are expats. They live in Cyprus.”

He hummed in acknowledgment.

“When are you gonna go see your dad?” she asked, her voice gaining volume again. His fingers tightened around the phone.

“As soon as I can,” he muttered.

Wade waited a bit for her to say what he knew was coming.

“Wade, it’s been a month now.”

“I know.”

“Go and visit him.”

“It doesn’t make any difference if I go or not,” he said.

“I’m sure he knows you’re there,” she said gently.

“I doubt it.”

“Wade—”

He cut her off. “When I find the time, alright?”

She sighed. “Okay.”

“I have to go.”

“Want to come over for dinner on Friday?” she asked hopefully.

“I’ll let you know.”

“I’d love to see you.”

His teeth clamped shut.

“I’ll let you know,” he repeated firmly.

“Okay.”

“Bye, Irene,” he said with finality.

“Bye,” she said with defeat.

He realized he hadn’t asked about the girl’s name only after he had hung up. Irrelevant, he thought. He was bound to learn all about her soon. He’d pick up on everything else she might not want to share using his instincts and his training.

He finished his coffee and washed the cup. He showered and dressed. He grabbed his phone and car keys and left the house. Then he jumped into his car and drove off to the base for a debriefing starting at noon.

He and his squad mate, Greyson, went to the local pub afterward. There weren’t a lot of venues to choose from in their small town. This one was slightly more acceptable because the patrons were used to them and would leave them alone. Nobody expected lively banter from them. And then, there was Josie.

She was a regular fixture at the pub. She was about his age, maybe a year or two below thirty. He wasn’t sure exactly and he didn’t care. She was vibrant and confident; most men found her extremely attractive. It helped that she was a prettyish, black-haired, blue-eyed vixen with a figure full in all the right places. She flirted with everyone but fucked only a select few. Wade knew she was a natural brunette because he was one of them.

As soon as she noticed him taking a chair at the bar, she sashayed over to him. The weak light danced over the scales of her purple dress, making her barely contained boobs appear even more voluptuous. Wade liked her boobs. He particularly enjoyed squeezing them while she blew him.

“Look who’s back,” she drawled and leaned her elbow onto his shoulder.

“Hi, Josie,” he said, treating her to a relaxed smile.

She craned her neck to look at Greyson.

“Hello, Greyson,” she said pointedly to him. He jerked his head once in greeting without sparing her a glance. He rarely engaged in conversation with people he considered ‘outsiders’, and Josie fell into that category.

She didn’t bother with Greyson either. She knew them both too well by this point not to try.

“So… later?” she asked Wade. He nodded. She left them alone to have their drinks.

They drank in relative silence. It was always like that when they’d return from training. They had just spent two tough weeks together after years of serving side by side. They were bonded in ways that made small talk obsolete.

An hour later, Wade drove Josie to his place. The lights of the entire top floor were on.

“Who’s upstairs?” she asked.

“Irene got a new tenant,” he replied.

She didn’t ask more about it. Wade knew she wouldn’t. He liked that about her as well. She didn’t prod about the things that didn’t concern her. She was as selfish as he was, and she knew exactly why she was there.

Several minutes later, she was on the floor between his legs. His cock was in her mouth. He didn’t even pull his jeans all the way down. Just enough to open his lap and lean comfortably against the back of the armchair. He kneaded her full, bare breasts while she gagged on him, working him as aggressively as she always did.

He sometimes thought that it resembled therapy. He’d suffer for weeks in training or combat and she’d suck all that stress out through his dick. He’d fuck her afterward just because he thought it fair for her to get some pleasure out of it as well. He’d prefer to come in her mouth and send her away, but even he wasn’t as much of a bastard as that.

And he did like her in an impersonal, removed way. Or, he appreciated her lack of deeper interest in him. It matched his. What they had was an unspoken but mutually understood agreement. It was uncomplicated, forgettable and exactly what he needed from a woman.

She was a loud fuck tonight as well. Wade sometimes found her screeching off-putting. Fake and over the top. He didn’t think he fucked her that well—he knew he didn’t really try that hard. But he never shushed her. He suspected that she believed it turned him on more, so he let her scream. The only thing he wanted was release. And if she maybe had to scream to finish sooner, he was fine with it.

He drove Josie home afterward. She kissed him on the cheek as a goodbye. When he returned to his house, one of the top windows was still lit. A shadow moved deeper into the room when he exited the car. He felt he was being watched while he walked to the front door.

He planned to acquaint himself with this new tenant tomorrow.