Chapter 26
The Humvee rumbles beneath us, the desert wind blowing sand against the metal and dust swirling around us. I stare through the windshield, but I’m not looking at anything. Even with the horizon before me, all I see is her.
I thought walking away a decade ago would hurt her less than a lifetime with the man I had become after Afghanistan.
I was wrong. Deep down, I knew. Neither of us was better off.
It’s the real reason the women who followed her were fleeting and meaningless.
My heart belonged to Reese. It belongs to my baby.
Sighing, I pull my hands from the steering wheel and drag them down my face, groaning into them.
This… Us… It’s not the real world. We’re living on borrowed time in a war zone.
We are bound together by my duty to protect her.
For as seamlessly as she slipped into my life, she could just as easily be torn out the second we step back into the real world.
Light shimmers off her blonde locks when I turn to face her, finding quiet determination written in every line etched into her face. My chest aches at the sight of her with the kind of longing I thought I’d buried years ago.
“This,” I whisper, my voice rough, “right now… this isn’t real.” Even though I want it to be.
Reese turns toward me, eyes wide and already tearing, emotion trembling underneath the surface. “It doesn’t get any more real than this, Chris.”
I shake my head, fingers tightening on the steering wheel again. “You don’t understand—”
“Then make me,” she fires back.
Even with the air conditioning fizzling through the vents, the air in the Humvee is suddenly stifling.
I grab at my chest, like I can’t breathe.
After shoving open the door, my boots hit the dirt hard, and I quickly climb out.
The air outside feels thinner, but only slightly easier to breathe.
I pace beside the SUV, my heart pounding.
The past is loud in my head. Gunfire. Screaming. The night that rewired who I am. And the guilt of making Reese suffer for it grates like sand under my skin.
A car door slams, abruptly pulling me from my thoughts as Reese climbs out of the Humvee. The soft wind whips her hair around her face, and she looks at me with raw emotion. She looks furious and heartbroken at once, like every emotion she’s kept buried is suddenly spilling out of her at once.
She rounds the SUV, walking straight to me. She doesn’t stop until she’s close enough that I can see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “The years,” I choke, forcing the words out past the lump in my throat, “the hurt… the pain I caused you… that doesn’t just go away.”
She blinks, desperate to hold back the tears trying to break free. “I can forgive you, Chris.”
I stare at her blankly, my brain comprehending so little of what she just said; she may well have been speaking in a foreign tongue. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she insists, softly but with certainty, reaching up to run her fingers along my jaw. “Because I have. But you… You need to forgive yourself.”
I laugh under my breath, but there is no humor in it. “You think it’s that simple?”
“It’s not simple,” she whispers. “But you deserve your own forgiveness. You didn’t do horrible things because you’re a monster. You did them because monsters hurt the people you love.”
“I don’t deserve you.” Tearing my face from her hands, I look away because I don’t deserve the tenderness in her eyes, either.
“Maybe.” Reese’s hands slide back up my neck until both of them are gently cupping my face and lightly pulling my gaze back to her. “Maybe you don’t. But what do you want?”
What I want…
I’ve spent ten years trying not to want what I do right now. Ten years of convincing myself that she was better off without me. A decade of believing that I wasn’t a man worth coming home to. What I want—what I’ve always wanted—is her. But wanting her and deserving her are two different things.
“Reese…” My voice is as raw as my emotions. “What do you want?”
“You,” she states without a moment of hesitation or hint of fear. Just the plain, unbridled truth. “Because I love you.”
“Everything I did… It’s because I love you, baby.
” My hands find her waist, drawing her in.
She comes willingly, like she’s been waiting for this as long as I have.
Her hands slide around my neck and into my hair, and when her mouth meets mine, it’s like being set on fire. And fuck, I just want to burn.
My arms snake around her, pulling her tighter, as her heart races against mine. The desert wind whips around us, tousling her hair against our kiss, as her fingers curl through my locks like she’s afraid I’ll disappear again if she lets go. She whimpers into my mouth, and it’s my undoing.
Kissing her deeply, my hands drag down her spine and over the swell of her ass, before gripping her thighs and lifting, wrapping her legs around my waist. I take two steps, wedging her firmly between me and the door of the Humvee.
Her limbs tug tighter around me, and I grind my rapidly hardening cock against her.
My lips travel from hers, over her jaw, and to her neck.
“Daddy is never leaving you again,” I promise, peppering the words from her ear to her collarbone.
“Do you mean that?”
“Oh, baby… I’ve never meant anything more,” I whisper, trailing kisses over her chest.
Our lips crash together so urgently that our teeth clash.
My tongue delves into her mouth, and I swallow her moans as we needily grind against one another.
It’s messy and imperfect. Yet, it feels like the first honest and real thing we’ve done.
When we finally pull apart, we’re both breathing hard and aching with need.
Holding the hem of her shirt, I lift it over her head as I let her fall back to the ground.
She finds her footing as I kiss between her breasts and remove her bra.
After dropping it to our feet, I suck her pert nipple into my mouth.
She leans into my touch as I swirl my tongue around the tight, sensitive peak.
After kissing down her stomach, I kneel before her.
I take my time enjoying the saltiness of her skin as I unbutton and unzip her pants.
Reese shimmies her hips as I pull her pants and panties over them, my lips leaving kisses in the wake of her waistband.
“We’re miles from anywhere,” I growl against her thighs as I unzip each of her boots.
After pulling them both from her feet, I rid her of her pants. “No one can hear you scream out here.”