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“Come here.”
I get up and step toward the bed. “Why? Did you just desperately need to get a little bossing out?”
He chuckles and reaches out his left arm. “No. Come and lie down with me. You’re too far away over there.”
“But your bad leg—”
“My bad leg is all the way on the other side of my body. You can lie down right here, and you won’t bother it at all.”
I’m a little nervous since I really don’t want to hurt him, but I also desperately need to be close to him. So I climb into the bed and settle myself at his left side. He wraps his arm around me and pulls me even closer so I’m snug against him.
“Just in case the idea of bossing me around got you feeling certain ways,” I say, burrowing against him and inhaling the familiar warm scent of him, “I’m not in a sexy mood right now.”
His body shakes with silent amusement. “Me either.” He pauses. When he speaks again, his tone is sober. “I know things aren’t right between us. We had that fight, and you were so mad at me, and there’s a lot of stuff to deal with. But can we put all that on pause for a while? I need to hold you right now.”
My heart throbs with feeling at the words. I snuggle in. “Yeah. It’s on pause for now.”
“You smell clean,” he murmurs, nuzzling my hair.
“I took a shower.”
“I’m going to get you all smelly.”
“I don’t care about that.”
I don’t. Not in any way. I rub myself against every part of him I’m touching, needing to feel his heat, his strength, his life.
We lie together in silence for several minutes. I rub his flat stomach, and he strokes my loose hair.
Then he says softly, “I can’t believe you ran right into gunfire like that.” He doesn’t sound angry or disapproving or annoyed. He sounds almost affectionate.
“Well, if you didn’t want me to do that, then you shouldn’t have gotten shot.”
“You should have stayed behind cover.”
“Then you would be dead, and I wasn’t having that. I saved your life.” My mind can barely return to the intensity of the firefight. It’s easier if I just keep it out of my mind.
“I know that. You saved my life twice.” He presses a kiss against my hair. I can’t see it, but I feel it.
“Because you insist on doing all the most dangerous things. Someone’s got to have your back.”
I wait, expecting the normal protestations about how I need to stay out of danger, about how his job is to protect me. But they don’t come. Instead, he mutters in a voice so soft I can barely hear it, “Thank you.”
I tilt my head up so I can see his expression. “No lectures?”
“No lectures.” He lets out a long, thick exhale. “You were amazing. The whole time, you were amazing. Makes me feel pretty stupid about trying to stop you.”
I would have thought the words would make me feel better. I would have thought they were exactly what I wanted to hear. But for some reason they make my heart ache, my throat tighten. I hide my face against his chest and mumble, “I didn’t do that good.”
“Yes, you did.”
I hesitate since it isn’t something I want to admit after I was the one who insisted on being part of the assault team. But I need to share it with someone, and Grant is that person for me. “I was… I was terrified. The whole time. I felt frozen with it. I somehow managed to move, but I did it in this weird numb stupor—like it wasn’t really me doing it. I don’t know how I was able to get anything. I missed more times than I hit. I… didn’t do good.”
He combs his fingers into my hair and curves his hand around my scalp. “That’s how everyone feels in that situation. And it has nothing to do with how well you did.”
I’m starting to tremble now. I thought I was fine. Calm. In a decent emotional state. But now everything I’ve been holding back is rising up. “I didn’t want to… want to kill anyone. I can’t believe I did. I had to completely zone out in order to do it.”
He makes a sound in his throat and keeps caressing my head and back. “You did what you had to do. I’ve never wanted to kill anyone either. I go into a zone too.”
