It feels like an eternity passes before she finally opens her eyes. It takes everything I am to remain calm, to keep the anger and frustration out of my voice.

I don't think I'm successful.

"Stop doing that."

She tenses beneath my touch. "Stop doing what?"

"Stop downplaying everything. You were involved in a major attack downrange. You defended our base. You evacuated our wounded when you were hurt yourself." I brush my lips across hers. "You're allowed to have nightmares. You're allowed to have panic attacks. All of those things are incredibly normal reactions to completely abnormal situations."

She closes her eyes again. "It's not that easy."

I want to shake her, to repeat my words until she internalizes every single syllable. But I don't. Because I know how that choose-your-own-adventure can end.

"I know," I say instead.

Her lips press into a humorless smile. "It's not the same for you."

"I know that, too." I swallow. "I never noticed how things were different for you back at Hood. How when guys wanted to buy a round of drinks, they always assumed you were just the waitress, not one of us." I release a deep breath.

She frowns. "When did you get so perceptive?"

I nuzzle her nose with mine. "I notice everything about you, Kels," I whisper. “I didn’t before and I lost you. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

She closes her eyes and lowers her forehead to mine. An impossible silence stretches between us but it’s a good silence, something warm that binds us together.

"I'll concede that it's been a teeny bit difficult being around you and not being able to touch you."

"You could have touched me any time you wanted."

"Pretty sure you set some pretty clear boundaries,” I say dryly, reminding her of the no-touching rule. I close my eyes against the hurt of that memory. My mouth goes dry, the kind of dry that you get after an all-night bender when you forgot to drink anything non-alcoholic along the way. "I don't remember much about that night. Other than the you-never-want-to-see-me-again part."

She is infinitely still. We've never talked about that night or the month leading up to it. Or the deployment that led up to that.

"I woke up," she admitted softly. "I couldn't remember what we'd done. I couldn't remember where I was or what I was doing. I spent a month with you and I don't remember any of it. Except the nightmares. Those I remember." She scrapes one thumbnail along the top of the other. "I thought I was fine after Iraq. But spending thirty days drunk off my ass wasn't normal."

"I shouldn't have reacted the way I did." Regret grips my throat tight, closing off the air I desperately need.

"The Army put you on orders for Fort Bragg. Pretty sure they would’ve frowned on your going AWOL to keep your crazy-ass fuck buddy from losing her shit."

I swallow and fight the urge to tell her to stop talking about herself that way. I remember this from Iraq. This crushing sense of self-doubt she carries with her like an added weight in her assault pack, making the load that much heavier to haul.

She won't hear me. She never heard me downrange. She won't hear me now. But maybe I can convince her in other ways.

I have to try. Because I can't keep living like this, close enough to touch her but still frozen out of real connection.

I need that with her. I can't do half measures. I can't do just good enough. Not anymore.

I need all of her.

I slip my fingers into hers, threading them together and lifting them between us. "I wouldn't be standing here today if I didn't think what we had was worth fighting for. Even the fucked-up shit we did in Iraq and afterward. I want all of it. The good. The bad. I want to be the person you trust with that." I press my lips to our fingers. "Don't ask me to walk away again. Because I don't think I can do that."

Her fingers spasm beneath mine. It's a physical thing, this slight pressure moving away. It's a terrible thing, being vulnerable.

"Is this what normal people do when they're with someone else?"

I smile. "I have no idea. Mostly because I don't know what ‘normal’ really means."

She curls the edges of her lips in that way she does that drives me up a fucking wall. "I've heard it's very boring."

"After getting blown up and shot at and dealing with crazy-ass soldiers, I'll take normal. Or whatever variant of that we end up making."

She makes a noise. "Making ‘normal’? Is that what we're talking about?"

I slip my hands around her waist, drawing her closer to the edge of the counter until I press between her thighs. "I'd like to take you back to that bed and show you what making ‘normal’ looks like in my world." I lean in, my lips close to her ear. "It involves a little…" I trace the edge of her ear lightly with the tip of my tongue, then blow gently on it.

She shivers and tilts her neck in silent offering.

"I think I'd like to see what you call a little normal." Her voice is throaty and deep. Arousal tightens my skin against my bones and I press against her some more. She rocks against me, her thighs tensing around me as I pull her close, grinding slowly against her.

"Challenge accepted."

It turns out it's easy to fall back into this with him. To feel his body press against mine as he backs me slowly into the bedroom. To pretend that the intervening years since Iraq haven't happened and that everything between us is, well, normal.

It's not. And it never will be. But for a little while, I'm going to close my eyes and pretend.

He turns me and his body is strong at my back, hard edges rough against my skin. He slides his fingers over my stomach, just below the edge of my T-shirt, stroking, soothing. Petting. Until they slip against my lower back, my spine. Soft. Firm. A thousand sensations as his fingers continue to slide over my body.

I feel him shift but don't open my eyes. Not even when he presses his lips against the small of my back. "Tell me about your tattoo."

I'm distracted by the vibration of his voice up my spine. I want him to keep talking, to feel the juicy sensation arc between us. "The lotus…it grows in mud and dirty water." His tongue traces over the outer edge of the ink and my knees nearly buckle with the intensity of the connection. "It grows into something beautiful. In yoga, it symbolizes being grounded." He scrapes his teeth over the dimples at the base of my spine. Heat floods my body and I bite back a groan. "But also reaching toward the divine." The last word is a gasp, riding on a hit of pleasure.

His fingertip traces the edge of the flower once more, dipping below the line of my panties to the upper crease of my ass. Teasing, his touch is electric. Like the feeling of om in yoga, I can feel my body vibrating with his every touch.

"I like it," he whispers against my skin.

"Mmmm. Please do that again." A groan, just short of begging.

"Do what?"

"Talk with your lips against me. I can feel your words vibrate through my body."

He makes a deep noise in the back of his throat that I feel in my breastbone. I'm burning for him in a way I haven't burned in…since him. No one has ever touched me the way he does.

"You want me to talk dirty to you?" His voice travels up my spine and down between my cheeks to throb against me where I am swollen and aching.

"You could read a cereal box." I clench my hands by my sides, wanting badly to reach between my thighs and stroke myself where only his voice has been so far. "Just keep talking."

I press them together, the pressure on my clit intense and electric. My sleep pants are thin. Barely any barrier between us and he knows it. His fingers slide down the small of my back, pressing into the crease between my cheeks. Slowly drawing closer to where I need his touch.

"I could tell you about my thesis," he says. I try not to laugh and I'm distracted by the erotic vibration of his voice that's going straight to my core. "But I don't think that's very sexy."

Close his fingers slide, a very gentle pressure against the opening of my body. I push against his hand, wanting more. Needing his fingers, his voice.

Needing all of him.

He presses his cheek against the small of my back, nudging my thighs apart with one shoulder. His palm traces up my inner thigh, skimming close but not close enough.

"I was worried about you tonight. I worry about you when you don't come in to work." A gentle kiss, revealing the skin beneath my pants as he pushes them down. My body feels like pure fire and heat. Burning and needing more. "Other times, I think about you like this. Or on your knees in front of me." My pants draw down, over my hips. "I love the way you look when you're like that. Hips up, your thighs revealing your beautiful pink pussy."

Hearing the word is jarring, laced with erotic power. I’ve never had a lover talk dirty before. The emotional hit of it being Deacon, telling me what he sees, what he wants…

He urges me to the bed, to the position he's describing. I'm happy to oblige but he doesn't kneel behind me.

Instead, he folds around me, resting his cheek on the curve of my ass. His palm slides up my inner thigh, closer. So close.

"I love seeing you like this. Open. Trusting."

And then he touches me. His palm is hot against my thigh and his thumb circles the slick opening of my body. Gently, but each stroke is pure electric current.

My body spasms as he strokes me, circling the entrance, creating heat and energy. Light bursts behind my closed eyes. I press back against him, begging him with my body to fill me. Sounds are locked in my throat, trapped whimpers. I am primal need contained in a mortal shell. Burning. Aching. Needing.

Still he circles. And talks.

"Do you know how good it feels to slide inside you, Kelsey? How it feels to have your tight body squeeze my cock?" He presses against me now, his thumb barely sliding inside me. I shiver, the closest I've been to orgasm denied in…ever. My entire body is tuned to the vibration of his voice.

He shifts his index finger, running it the entire length of my clit as he presses his thumb more deeply inside me.

I am completely undone. Exposed. Vulnerable.

And more aroused than I've ever been by a simple touch. A few words, laced with meaning and depth.

I spread my thighs, opening more, parting for him. Begging him to take me over the edge. To send me into the next life.

To complete me with his touch. His words.

I rub myself against his fingers. "Please."

There is no pride. Only pleasure, only need. Raw, aching pleasure.

He slides his finger against my clit again, increasing the pressure, increasing the tempo. His thumb slides more fully into my body; not the completion I need.

But I'm too far gone. I rock against him, urging his fingers where I need them, urging his touch to finish the journey started by his voice.

And then he shifts and he is behind me, filling me, stretching my body, claiming me. Completing me. He's big and tight inside me and then he taps my clit, slipping his finger through my slick heat. One caress and I fly apart, shattering around him even as he starts to move, joining his own pleasure in mine.

His pleasure, linked to mine. One spirit. One body, connected by more than physical touch.

Reunited in absolute serenity.