“Just tell me.” She shifted back a mere fraction of an inch, but he felt her retreat like she’d put the whole damn room between them.
“Stay with me, sugar. Please.” He reached and pulled her back to him, chest to chest, belly to belly, hip to hip. Yeah, he was begging. Didn’t give a damn. His humility went out the window when the Corps sent him to therapy. “I can’t do this if you’re not with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He wanted to believe that. Hoped like hell it was true. Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out.
“Jenn...” He closed his eyes and gathered every ounce of strength and courage he could find buried beneath his rubbled insides. “I can’t deploy because the organization I’ve committed my life to rejected me.”
In the space where he hovered, somewhere between reality and the haven of numbness he’d spent so much time in this past year, he heard her whisper his name. Felt her fingers brush against his stomach and her lips press against his chest.
“I have PTSD and, according to the Corps, I’m too fucked in the head to be of any use to them. Not now, maybe not ever again. But you...” His eyes snapped open and the look of complete absolution on her face shook him to the core. “You make me feel like I’m needed. Like I’ve still got something to give and something to fight for, too.”
“You do,” she whispered, a silent tear falling down her cheek as she offered all her comfort to him. “God, Brody, you do.”
He nodded. “I believe it when you say it.”
“Then I’ll keep saying it. Over and over again, as often as you need to hear it.”
A moment of clarity broke through the perpetual fog in his head and he dropped his forehead down to hers. “That’s what I’m counting on, sugar.”
***
With her back to his chest, Jenny closed her eyes and let his voice and the soft massaging jets seduce her muscles and her mind into long-overdue relaxation. Even Brody, who’d started at the very beginning of the story he’d kept trapped inside for the past year, seemed more at ease than she’d ever seen him, despite the painful memories he shared.
“I didn’t even know my leg had been burned until we loaded up into the helo and the medics started cutting away my pants. In hindsight, I remember the blast rocking our ride, but what happened between then and me getting Ernie to shelter is gone.”
“You were in shock, but instinct kicked in and you did what you knew you had to do.” She smoothed a handful of water over his knee, tracing her fingertip over a raised scar. Not as angry looking as the ones on his thigh, but not pretty either.
“That’s from my first tour. Good ol’ barbed wire fencing,” he chuckled softly.
“Do you have more?” She wanted to know his entire story. Every little intricacy that made him this man with her right now. The one, who from the very start, had given her more of himself than he even realized he had to give. The man who still worried that he wasn’t enough.
“Yeah, but they’re nothing, you know? I’m intact. I’ve got all my limbs and everything works just fine. I see guys wearing prosthetics left and right and I feel guilty as fuck for that, too.” He shifted uncomfortably behind her and she turned just enough to see his face.
“Just because we can’t see your biggest wound doesn’t mean it’s any less important. Or any less heroic.”
“Don’t say that. Christ, just...don’t.” He swiped at his face with a wet hand and droplets of water clung to his lower lip. So she turned, and leaning in on her knees, licked it away.
“Say what, Superman? That you’re a hero?” she breathed against his mouth. “That you’re not one of the most incredible freakin’ human beings I’ve ever met?” Another kiss, this one a little harder, more insistent than the last since Brody’s walls stayed firmly in place, his eyes open and his lips barely participating.
“I have worse nightmares now than I did as a kid. For all I sweat during the damn things, I might as well piss the bed, too. That ain’t exactly commendable shit.”
“We didn’t need new sheets in Vegas.” She brushed her lips along his jaw and then down the thick cord on the side of his neck, refusing to be deterred.
“That’s because you were there,” he rasped, and the vibration of his words tickled her tongue. Goosebumps spread along her bare skin like a slow-burning fire.
“Ah, so having someone in bed with you...that helps?” She didn’t want to think about him with another woman—or women, for that matter—but this was about him right now, not her.
“That’s just it...” One of his hands coasted up her back, the callouses on his fingers scraping gently over her vertebrae until he reached the hooks of her bra. Then his touch reversed, trailing all the way down to the band of her panties. “It’s you, Jenn. Only you.”
“Me?” She lifted her head, eyes wide.
He nodded. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“How do you know that? We’ve only slept in the same bed that one time.”
He lifted a shoulder and slid a hand under her ass, pulling her into his lap. “Best sleep I’ve had in months. Talking to you before bed helps, too. Not always, but I can usually get a few uninterrupted hours.”
“But...” Why hadn’t he told her this before? “We don’t talk all the time. In fact, we hardly even texted this week.” He’d been busy with work and she’d tried not to come off as too needy.
“I know.” He brushed the damp hair away from her face. “I didn’t figure it was fair to use you like my own personal dose of Ambien without you knowing. I wanted to tell you before it happened again and then you showed up today.”
Wow. “I’m not sure what to say. I mean...” Part of her loved that she could help him that way and another part of her worried that maybe he was just—
“No,” he said quickly, answering her unfinished thought. He folded his arm around her lower back, anchoring her in place, with her thighs hugged against his hips, warm water pulsing against their skin.
“Dammit, Jenn, that’s not why I want to be with you. It isn’t even part of the reason, though you’ve gotta admit—it’s damn coincidental that the one girl I can’t stop thinking about also happens to be the only person who’s been able to calm all this crazy shit in my head.”
When he tipped her chin so he could see her face, she closed her eyes, shuttering out all the confusion and, God help her, hope still rolling around in her head. He wanted to be with her. To hear him say those words with such conviction...
“I found out I’d been grounded right before Christmas, and the only people who know why are the guys in my battalion and my friggin’ shrink. I haven’t even told my parents.” He sighed and his breath feathered against her face, making her shiver. “Please look at me,” he pleaded, his voice gentle. “I need to see your eyes.”
A complete sucker for this man, she slowly gave him what he wanted and he let out a shuddered exhale, his arms tightening around her in a shaky embrace. God, he was handsome.
“That. That right there is why I can’t get you out of my head.” He pulled her head down to his, the tip of his nose brushing against hers as he peppered kisses over her mouth and along her cheekbone. “You know the truth and you don’t look at me any differently than you did that first night.”
“Why would I?” she whispered.
“The same reason you worry I might only use you,” he countered, a small laugh rumbling in his throat. “It’s what we know, babe. It’s what we’ve come to expect, even from people we thought cared about us.”
“But you’re the same man here.” Fingers spread wide, she dragged them over his heart.