I leave her when she's finally asleep. It's around eight a.m. when I sneak out, leaving a note for her on the bathroom mirror. As much as I want to stay, to be there when she wakes up, she was right about her apartment. The silence is too much, crawling over my skin, drawing me closer to the edge of panic.

It felt so good holding her, talking. Remembering the feel of her body, the tight way she'd grasp me, drawing me into her. So quick and urgent, always afraid of getting caught for violating General Order One that forbade all the fun sins.

She'd been worth it then and she’s worth it now.

I'm not going to risk my own issues colliding with hers. She's barely able to deal with her own bullshit. I'm not going to dump anything more on her lap.

I've got a bottle of Jim Beam that can handle those problems.

I let myself into The Pint and toss back a couple of shots. The immediate burn spreads out from my throat to my entire body, dulling my senses. My brain is fuzzy, like it's floating on pure cotton. A couple more shots and I'll be ready to start working, losing myself in inventories for Eli.

Work has always been an escape. A place for me to avoid the noise in my head when everything else fails. The latest shipment is only partially sorted and unboxed. I crank up some smooth country music and start moving, sorting, unboxing. An extra crate captures all the packing materials.

The sun has long since crept up over the skyline outside. Inside the basement, the air is damp and cool. I'm slick with sweat, the work soothing the angry edge of my memories.

She's probably going to be pissed that I left her. But the silence started crawling around my head, bringing with it darkness and fear and too many memories that weren't the kind I wanted to recall.

I remember too damn well how it felt to touch her. To hold her. Then to hear her screaming on that godawful day when everything went to shit. It was the last time I touched her in Iraq.

I felt the scars on her body last night. Thought about my own from that same day.

I can still hear her screaming as I held her back from going into the wreckage of her CHU. I can still see the blood and smell the sulfur and the deafening acoustic echo that slammed around us when that mortar began the twelve hours that would mark the beginning of the utter destruction of our lives.

Twelve hours of fighting back an assault on our base. Twelve hours of defending ourselves against a ferocious violence that, had we failed, would have been broadcast to the world.

All of it slammed back into me around four a.m. It's been a long time since those particular memories hit me so hard, and I don't know what to fucking do with them. Normally I'd find a willing partner and take her home. Bend her over the bed and lose myself in a sexual haze for a few hours of deviant pleasure.

But that doesn't feel right, now that I've finally reconnected with Kelsey. And even though we're not together again, part of me feels like I should be loyal to her.

I finish unpacking the shipment. Move the boxes to one side and look at the disorder around me. The shelves need to be reorganized. Maybe by year? I bring down an inventory sheet that itemizes what we have and I start comparing it to consumption rates. I can see that the expensive stuff moves slower but turns a much bigger profit.

The numbers are a good distraction. A break from the memories hammering through my brain.

"You think you're funny?"

My heart slams against my ribs. "Jesus Christ, how do you keep doing that?"

I turn in time to see her advancing toward me. "You think you can just sneak out and leave like that?"

I lift one eyebrow. "Your reaction is a little over the top right now." It's never going to end well when you're trying to explain to someone who is acting like a fucking insane person that they are acting…like an insane person.

"Really?" She pushes me back against the wall and my temper flares.

"What did you want from me? You wanted me to fuck you senseless when you were barely conscious from being so goddamned tired? Is that what you wanted? Me to fuck you while you were vulnerable? What the hell does that say about me? Or you, for that matter."

"Nothing that hasn't been said before," she snaps. "You think it's over the top to wake up, dreaming about your hands on my body, dreaming about feeling you inside me, only to wake up alone?"

I fight the urge to smile as realization slams into me. It's a superhuman effort. "Wait, you're pissed because…you're horny?"

She narrows her eyes at me. "You think that's funny? You think I wanted to wake up alone? When I fell asleep this morning, I wanted you. I wanted this." She reaches for the front of my pants where, yeah, I'm already getting hard. This is the most erotic fucking thing I think I could have ever imagined. I pinch myself.

She glares at me, her hand fisting my cock and driving me fucking wild. "What are you doing?"

"Making sure I'm not dreaming." The pain is sharp and bright and yeah, I'm not asleep. I close my eyes and grind into her palm, the pressure sweet and dark and tight where she grips me.

She pushes my pants open, freeing me. The air is cold against my cock but then her fist is tight and hot. "You don't get to leave me like that," she whispers against my lips.

"I'll never make that mistake again." She slips her thumb over the sensitive tip of my cock. "Sweet Jesus, do that again."

I'm definitely on board with this little fantasy. If I close my eyes, I can smell the desert around us, and the basement encases us like the bunker where we used to sneak away.

I grip her hair, tipping her mouth to mine. She's open and moist and hot, her mouth warm and wet. "Please," she whispers against my lips.

I know what she wants. I know how she wants it.

I turn her away from me, pressing her against the wall. Sliding her pants down her hips, exposing her where I can see the smooth wet silk of her body glistening on her thighs.

It's what I need. What I crave. I may never get another chance at this. I need this. I need her.

Open. Exposed. Swollen.

And waiting. For me.

Only me.

The wall is cold against my palms, the air a cold contrast where I'm aching and wet. I need this.

I couldn't walk down those stairs and say the words I needed. I latched onto the anger, the frustration, finding the courage in the blur of emotion and arousal to ask him for what I needed.

He knows what I need. What I'll always need from him.

He's behind me, his erection pressing against my rear as he tips my neck back. I'm fucking aching for him to fill me. I arch, trying to urge him home. To please fill me, complete me. End the burning ache inside me in the way that only he can.

He nips at my neck, his fingers sliding around the crease of my thighs to stroke me where I'm swollen. He's teasing me, his fingers slipping through the silky wetness to circle me. "Please, Deacon." I rub against him where he's silk and solid heat against me.

I reach behind me, urging him lower, between my thighs. The friction of his cock through my heat is enough to break me. I shiver against the movement and slide my hips against him, riding him in an erotic twisted dance.

I grip him then, holding the tip prisoner at the entrance to my body. I shiver at the sensation—just there.

And then he moves, slowly, a little deeper. My body stretches to accommodate him. It's been so long since I’ve felt this delicious pleasure. I groan as he takes his sweet, agonizing time. His fingers stroke me as he fills me, drawing the erotic sensation deeper in my body.

"You're so fucking tight." A growl near my ear, his breath hot on my skin. His breath is rough on my neck as he fills me completely, a sharp, biting pleasure. I rock, needing him to move, to fucking move.

He pulls out then, slowly enough that he's driving me goddamned wild. I push against the wall, shifting to drive him deeper.

He grips my hips, his fingers dragging me against him, and he finally pushes into me. Hard and fast, it's exactly what I need. What I remember. The quick burst of pleasure that drags me under, away from the world, away from the nightmares and into a writhing mass of sensation and heat and sexual need.

I close my eyes, meeting him thrust for thrust, arching against him, opening, drawing him deeper into me. Harder—the world falls away until all I can feel is Deacon, his body, his fingers, his breath, his cock. Surrounding me, filling me, taking me away from this life and into something else. Something wild and raw and complete.

He drives into me until my arms are weak, until his skin is slick against mine, until my release starts as a shudder then spirals wide to drag me into the void. It spirals wide to pull him under with me, a bright, shuddering nirvana in a burst of color and sensation.

His breathing in is the only sound, the feel of him pulsing deep inside me the only sensation. I rest my cheek against the wall; his fingers thread with mine.

Complete.

"That's all it took?" she asks after a long silence.

I'm not really sure what she's talking about. My brain is foggy and I'm not sure all my limbs are going to keep working at the moment. I want to stay here, to never move. I'm already softening but I don't want to slip free of her body.

She shifts, though, and turns in my arms, and I can feel the cold slap against my cock as her warmth leaves me. I lean against her, fixing her pants, then drawing my own over my hips. I feel drugged. Heavy.

I want to sleep.

She cups my cheek and brushes her lips against mine. "Thank you," she whispers.

I lift one eyebrow, coming back to myself slowly, as if I'm waking from a dream. "For…"

"Letting me use you."

"I thought we discussed this." I kiss her softly. "You can use me any time you want."

She smiles against my mouth. "Did you get everything out of your system with your rage stacking?"

"Is that what I was doing? Rage stacking?"

"I've never seen anyone stacking alcohol so violently. You're lucky you didn't break anything."

"This shit's expensive. Eli would kill me if I broke a bottle."

I step back, putting space between us, unsure of where things are heading at the moment. It's an odd sensation, being wrapped in a cloud of latent arousal and cautious uncertainty all at once.

"Yeah, well, he's forgiven a lot worse," she says, tucking her hair behind her ear and adjusting her clothes. She finally looks up at me. "How did we used to do this in Iraq? I don't remember it being awkward."

I rub the back of my neck. "I think it involved making sure no one would spot us coming out of the bunkers at the same time and sneaking back to our respective sleeping quarters or duty."

"Should we sneak upstairs and make sure no one suspects anything?"

I grin then. "I don't think anyone is here this early."

The silence is a live thing between us. "So, ah, I slept really well last night," she says after a moment. "Did you?"

"A little bit." The truth, for once. I didn't sleep at all but it was better than climbing the walls in my own apartment, praying for daylight. "Don't we have the cadets today?"

"Yeah. Which reminds me that I have to scramble to do the reading before class. Can't discuss it if I haven't read it." She takes a single step toward me. "So listen, I, ah, I'm happy to repay the favor tonight, if you, ah, need help sleeping."

I slip my hands over her hips, tracing her hipbone beneath my thumb. "Yeah?"

Her palm is warm on my stomach.

"Yeah."

"What about…everything?" I cup her face, sliding my fingers through her hair. "The last time…"

She presses into my palm. I can convince myself she needs the connection as much as I do to retread this old terrain. "The last time, neither of us was really dealing well with anything from Iraq. Staying drunk for a month isn't really healthy, no matter how much we tried to lie to ourselves that we were both fine." She closes her eyes. "I'm willing to give it a shot. And hope that maybe, the nightmares will leave me alone."

I lower my forehead to hers. "One day at a time then?"

She nods. "One day at a time."

It's the best we can do.

It's more than I ever hoped for.

I'll take it.