Motherfucker, I came inside her. I hadn’t meant to, had totally thought about grabbing the condom in my wallet to cover myself before sliding inside the heaven of her sweet pussy, but I’d lost my fucking mind at her taste. One lick, and some sort of animalistic need rose within me. I hadn’t just fucked her. I’d claimed her. And I wouldn’t be letting her go again.

“You’re going to have to get up,” I said as I stumbled out of bed. “We need a shower after that.”

She groaned, looking half dazed and tired. A fact that made my chest swell with something close to pride. I’d done that—fucked her so well she couldn’t speak. And I definitely had plans to do it again. Not yet, though.

I leaned over her, trapping her underneath me, grinning when her arms came up around my neck and her body turned into my hold. “Stay for now. I’ll come get you in a minute.”

She mumbled something that sounded like okay as she fell back to the mattress. Exhausted. Sated.

Fuck yeah.

I headed into the bathroom alone, figuring I could let the water run hot before I brought Anabeth with me. I wanted her pliant and accepting, wanted her just as soft and warm as she had been minutes before. Shoving her under a cold spray of water would ruin the moment. As would making her stand in the chilly bathroom and wait.

Turning the shower taps to hot, I caught a reflection of myself in the mirror. Caught a glimpse of the body I hadn’t had when I was a young man. Something made me stop and look, made me rise to my full height and truly see what I tended to overlook every day. Me…the adult version.

Bigger, a little hairier, and definitely more solid than I’d been all those years ago. The muscles had come with age and a fitness routine born from years of SEAL training. With beach workouts and boot camp and hell weeks, the foundation of which stayed with me to this day, driving me to continue to build and strengthen and make sure I ran at top form. But the scars…those had come with missions. With good and bad plans and directions. Those had come with experiences and stories I’d never wanted to share with anyone else. I hadn’t really thought about them in years, hadn’t catalogued each one and given consideration to the hows and whys and whos behind them. But with the knowledge that Anabeth would see them—the one woman who’d known all of me before I’d earned a single mark on my body—they seemed to almost glow. There was no missing them, no hiding them. No brushing off the past I’d lived or the things I’d done.

This was me. All of me. And she’d have to accept the good with the bad to have me. If she even wanted me.

The woman herself appeared behind me, watching. Those blue eyes I’d stared into a million times in the past catching mine before sliding over my body the same way my own had. My mouth went dry, and I stood rigid. Oddly worried that I wouldn’t pass her inspection. Almost more so that I would.

“This one,” she whispered, tracing a long, wide scar that wrapped around the right side of my chest and waist. Thin but deep, the scar looked almost snakelike against my skin.

I grunted, staring at her face. Unable to look away as I laid out my history. “Knife fight in Afghanistan. Guy had planted IEDs along the highway and taken out two Army transport units. We were sent in to remove the threat.”

“And did you?”

“I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t.” I grabbed her hand, forcing it down to another scar. Smaller, thinner, and right against my hip bone. “As SEALs, we were all supplied with an Ontario Mark 3 knife and taught to use them for survival. We were also trained to be physically fit and to push our bodies to the absolute limits. The IED guy was good with a knife—better than me—but he didn’t have my endurance. I lost a fuckton of blood but kept fighting, kept driving into him until the last plunge.” I pressed her hand against that little scar. “This was his final try to fight back before he died. He nicked the bone, and it still hurts sometimes when the weather turns extra cold.”

She hummed, leaning down to kiss that little scar, not looking disturbed by the story I’d told. Not taking her hands off me either. I breathed a little easier at that. Anabeth took a step to the side, her hands warm and teasing against my shoulders. My cock responded to her touch, to her nearness. I was ready to take her, to pin her to the vanity and fuck her until she broke. Until she came screaming my name again. But she seemed to want this time to look and feel the changes that had come with our separation. So I waited. Wanting and needy, but patient. I’d always been so fucking patient with this girl.

“This one.” She kissed my shoulder with her hand on my arm. With a hold on me that felt tight and real and perfect. I didn’t need to see to know which scar she meant.

“Sniper fire.”

She stiffened, her nails pinching as she grabbed me tighter. “Aren’t snipers usually, like, really accurate?”

I laughed low and rough, remembering. “Yeah. And if it weren’t for Gage, the sniper would have been much more accurate. Fucker realized the guy was on the roof just before I did and dove for me.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “He’s got the matching scar on his opposite shoulder. Bullet went through him and into me.”

“That’s…a good friend.”

Understatement. “He’s a brother to me.”

She hummed and moved around in front of me, leaning against the counter. “I don’t think he likes me much.”

“You’re a threat.”

“To him?”

Not even close. “To me.”

Her face went still, her eyes locked on mine. I didn’t want to talk about the end, though. Didn’t want her to acknowledge the fact that she’d be leaving eventually. Because there was no way I would let her go. There was also no way she was ready to hear that. So I stayed quiet, waiting her out.

Eventually, she sighed and ran her hands over my shoulders again, watching as her fingers pressed into my flesh. As I flexed under her touch.

“I don’t know these parts of you.”

I pulled on her hand, bringing her closer so I could wrap my arms around her and lean down to take her earlobe into my mouth. The one with three silver hoops in it—the one that didn’t have any holes the last time I saw her.

“I don’t know these parts of you.” I ran a finger along the piercing through the cartilage in her ear. “What’s this?”

“It’s a Daith piercing. Helped relieve my migraines.”

“I didn’t know you got migraines.”

“I didn’t. They came up in the last four years or so.”

I hummed, thinking about how much we’d both missed. How much we needed to learn and relearn about one another. Once we had the time.

But all that could wait, because I had a naked and willing woman in my arms. And I refused to waste another second.

“C’mon, Firefly.” I grabbed her hand and dragged her into the shower behind me, my lips kicking up on one side as I watched her heavy tits jiggle. “I want to get you clean so I can make you dirty again.”

Her laugh echoed against the tiles. “Dirty, huh?”

I grabbed her ass and lifted her, loving the way her long legs wrapped around me. Groaning at her wet pussy meeting my abs. “I plan on getting you filthy.”

And I did. I fucked her against the tiles first then bent over the vanity just as I’d wanted. Took her on the floor of her room when I couldn’t stand to watch that ass sway as she walked to the bed. I buried myself inside her for hours, in every position, using every trick I’d learned to keep her trembling and needy. To please her. And never once did I reach for a condom. Never once did she ask me to either. It was stupid and irresponsible and risky, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed her bare and raw, nothing in between us. Nothing in the way.

Because there was a whole lot of shit already keeping us apart.

---

Anabeth

I woke up aching in places that hadn’t hurt in years and wrapped in the arms of the one man who’d ever made my heart hurt as well as my body. He slept on without me, looking absolutely delicious. And big. My god, the man had gotten so big.

Quiet and careful, I rolled away from Bishop and out of bed. I needed a moment to myself, a minute to think, and a strong cup of tea to soothe my nerves. Last night had been tremendous, but morning had come. And with that, things would change. They’d have to.

I padded downstairs with the lights off, the early-morning dawn hidden behind that heavy, gray sky. I was tired of rain. I knew the tendencies of the season—that the front would blow past before winter came roaring in—but the memories of late summers spent outside trying to find shelter from the endless water falling from the skies over Justice haunted me. I didn’t want those memories—didn’t want to think about what we’d done and found out there in the woods. The abandoned logging roads, the ancient hunting stands in the trees. The old barn where my life had almost ended.

Bishop’s heavy footfalls pulled me from that thought spiral, forcing me to focus on the man himself. The sexy, sleepy man with the mussed hair and the tired scowl on his handsome face. The one who made my heart come to life in a way no one else could.

He walked into the kitchen shirtless, thick, gray sweat pants hanging low on his hips and that damn V of muscle over his hip bones making me stupid as I stared. No man in real life had that—only celebrities and people paid to work out. Bishop shouldn’t have had that, but he did, and I wanted to lick up and down that trail over and over again until he—

“Need coffee.”

His grumbled declaration yanked me from my dirty thoughts and had me smiling. “Miss didn’t drink coffee.”

He shot a glare my way before dragging his eyes to the kettle that had begun to whistle. Looking absolutely miserable. “Caffeine?”

“I always figured you for a morning person in your adulthood.” I nodded toward the table and opened a cabinet, pulling out what had to be the least-used appliance in that kitchen. “Miss understood that her guests might like coffee even if she didn’t, so she bought herself one of these pod-making things a few years back.”

I plugged in the machine and grabbed the directions, unsure how to use the thing. Bishop appeared behind me, all warm and giving me no personal space as he pressed his body against mine and wrapped his arms around me…

To reach the coffee machine.

“I got this,” he said before planting a wet kiss against my neck. “Make your tea.”

We worked side by side, me pouring water and steeping tea, him pouring water and staring at that machine as if his irritation alone would make the thing brew faster. I held my tongue until he’d taken the first sip, until he moaned much like the way he had last night when I’d taken him in my mouth. A favorite memory for sure.

“Feel better now?”

He hummed and sighed. “Someone kept me up too late last night.”

“Oh, really?” I took a step back when he focused those gray eyes on me. “You’re going to blame all that on me? As if you didn’t want to be woken up with my mouth on you.”

He once again shifted into predator mode as he took a single step in my direction. “Oh, I wanted it, all right.” He set his cup down and slipped in front of me. Crowding me against the counter. Pressing his hips into my stomach and proving how much he wanted me. “Still want it. Your tea ready?”

The change in conversation threw me, and I had to think about his words before I could answer. “Yeah. Should be.”

“Good.” He reached for the sugar bowl, the one Miss had always used. The one still filled with cubes instead of granulated sugar. “One or two?”

“Just one.”

He dropped a cube in my mug and handed it to me. “Let’s sit for a few. I need to finish this coffee to get my brain moving.”

Something about his face in that moment, his sweetness at remembering the sugar, it called to me. Weakened my resolve. Weakened my filter.

“I missed you so much.” My whispered declaration caught me by surprise, filling me with a sense of dread. We’d already fought over this—we didn’t need to revisit it. Luckily enough, he didn’t seem to want to either. Instead, he held me tight. Breathing me in as I clutched him to me. As I leaned into his chest, needing to chase the feeling of comfort I received whenever he held me close. Needing to take a moment and appreciate that we were there, together. Again.

Bishop rubbed my back, curling his body around mine as he whispered, “Missed you too. Every day. I didn’t pine for you, but…”

“It never stopped hurting.”

“No, it didn’t.” He sighed again, pulling me tighter for a few seconds before letting go. “C’mon, Firefly. Let’s sit and enjoy the morning. There’s nothing we can do about the past right now.”

No, there wasn’t. So I followed him to the table, and I simply smiled and took a seat when he yanked two chairs close together so we didn’t have to be separated. I drank my tea as he sipped his coffee, both of us unwilling to stop touching, to be apart, to put space between us. And all the while, I fought to keep my hands from shaking. He’d notice that, and he’d ask about it. He’d want to know what had me ready to cry right there at the table.

And I still couldn’t tell him. Could never tell him.

He’d missed me, and I’d missed him—every day, he’d said. Every day for the fourteen years we’d been apart. That deep ache had never left me for even a day, and I’d hated it. Hated that I’d fucked up so badly. Hated that there would be no coming back from those mistakes. Hated all the years apart and the pain and the lost time together.

Hated that Bishop would never talk to me again once he knew the truth.

And as much as it pained me to think about, as much as it was the last thing I wanted to think about, part of me hated Finn Kennard for his part in destroying us.