Chapter 7 #3
Zenko’s grin turned predatory. “Better collect soon, trucker.” His weight settled fully against him for a moment, and Shaun wrapped his arms around him without thinking, holding him close rather than worrying about anything else.
When Zenko finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against his, their lips still close but not quite touching.
“Damn.”
Shaun could hear the wonder in his own voice when he answered, “Yeah. Damn.”
Zenko rolled over to the side so he didn’t crush him. “I…” His voice trailed off, and Shaun could see the uncertainty cross his face. Whatever Zenko had been about to say, he clearly wasn’t sure it was the right thing.
He knew that feeling. He reached over and pressed a finger against Zenko’s lips before the man could find the words, and shook his head.
If that man opened his mouth right now, he just knew he would say something that would screw up the afterglow, and that was not acceptable.
He reached over the side of the bed for the towel he had dropped there earlier and cleaned them both up before pulling the covers over them.
Then he rolled into Zenko’s side, letting himself settle against the warmth of the man beside him.
He felt Zenko inhale as if to speak, but, again, he got there first.
“Shut up. You are going to wake up wrapped around me anyway, so do us both a favor and hold me so we can both get some decent sleep instead of pretending I’m not in the bed beside you, ’k?”
He smiled when Zenko’s arm came around him without another word. Maybe he was getting too comfortable here, but after everything that had happened, sleeping beside someone who made him feel safe was something he wasn’t willing to question tonight.
Zenko maneuvered him until he was facing the other way, his back settling against Zenko’s chest as the man buried his face into the back of his neck.
Shaun linked their fingers together over his chest, the simple contact doing something to him that he wasn’t ready to examine too closely.
This didn’t feel like home. Nope, not one little bit.
Liar.
He woke in a cold sweat, his heart pounding so hard he was sure he was either going to have a heart attack or a stroke.
For a few seconds, Shaun couldn’t remember where he was.
The darkness pressed in around him, his breathing coming too fast as the last fragments of the nightmare clung to him.
His body had already decided there was danger before his conscious mind caught up.
He shifted, reaching under the pillow until his fingers closed around the handle of the K-Bar he had stashed there every night since Zenko had given it to him three nights ago.
The familiar shape settled his breathing by a fraction, the weight of the knife giving his body something solid to focus on while his mind fought its way out of the nightmare.
He hadn’t had a nightmare since he’d been rescued from that cave.
He should have expected it. It was part and parcel of being active military.
The nightmares of the lives you’d taken and the ones you hadn’t, the ones who went on to take more lives that might have been saved if you’d gotten there first.
“Shit.” Shaun dragged a hand over his face, trying to clear the last remnants of the nightmare from his head as his grip tightened around the K-Bar.
“Shaun?”
“Fuck.” Zenko’s sleepy question had him moving automatically, and a split-second later his back hit the wall on the other side of the room as his body dropped into a defensive crouch.
By the time the fuzz cleared from his mind, Zenko was sitting up in bed, staring at him with his mouth hanging open.
Shaun froze when he saw the expression on Zenko’s face, the reality of what he had just done cutting through the remnants of the nightmare.
“Shaun?” Zenko repeated.
There was a slight hint of disbelief in Zenko’s wary tone, and Shaun’s stomach tightened. He knew exactly what Zenko had seen, and there was no explaining away the way he’d moved.
Shit.
I screwed up.
Fuck.
Slowly, Shaun eased out the tension in his toes and worked his way up his body, relaxing one muscle at a time until he was able to convince his body that his fight reflex wasn’t needed right now.
“Sorry,” he told Zenko. “I was having a nightmare and didn’t know you were there.”
“Didn’t know I was there?” Zenko’s voice held a note of disbelief, and Shaun’s stomach tightened again.
He watched warily as Zenko slowly moved farther up the bed before swinging his legs out from under the covers.
His mind swung back to the feel of all those solid muscles pressing him into the softness of the mattress as Zenko rubbed against him.
He couldn’t have stopped his dick from hardening if he had wanted to.
He didn’t want to. He wanted fucking more, needed more.
Shit, Zen had asked him something, hadn’t he? Yup, that was it.
“Yeah, I thought I was back in the cave.”
“And you always whip a K-Bar out from under your pillow when you are threatened?” Zenko asked, and Shaun felt the trap closing around him.
Shaun just knew what was coming next. In his head, he was pretty damn sure the sarcastic bastard that was his inner voice was saying, wait for it… Wait for it. Fucker.
“Are you trained, Shaun?”