Chapter 31

“Shh.”

She woke to find a hand over her mouth, and she bit it, hard. The owner of the hand grunted and resolved into Hunter.

“You were making a lot of noise.”

“Because your hand is in my pants,” she pointed out. The other one was hot against the crotch of her flimsy panties, which were now wet flimsy panties.

“You liked it. You were rocking against it.”

She wasn’t going to argue about that. She could feel how swollen she was and wondered how long she’d been moving against him, but she put that question out of her head and resumed the rhythm she’d left off.

“You fell asleep waiting for me to finish putting the girls to bed,” he whispered. They were staying in two adjoining rooms at a hotel near the airport.

“Sorry,” she whispered back. Only she wasn’t. Not anymore. Hard to be sorry about anything when he’d found exactly the right spot to rest his palm against her. Ungh.

But it wasn’t quite enough. Not the pressure against her anatomy, not his other hand idly swirling near her nipple. She arched her back to try to get more of both, but he failed to oblige. He was doing it on purpose, the bastard, teasing her. She moaned and closed her thighs around his hand.

“Tell me a story?”

She smiled into the dark.

“Was it good, even the first time? Was I nervous? I bet I desperately wanted to completely and totally snow you. Ruin you for all men for all time. That’s how I felt the first time in the tree house.”

“I don’t think so. If you were, you sure as hell didn’t show it—either time. You were super in charge, super alpha. Sexy.” Her whole body flushed, remembering the power of his body over and in her.

“Make that sound again.”

“Which one?”

“The one you just made.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. Like a breath and a moan. Were you thinking about it?”

“Yeah.”

“About me fucking you that first time?”

Earlier that evening, while the girls had been reading in the other hotel room before bed, he’d reread all the emails they’d sent back and forth while he was deployed. It wasn’t quite as good as getting his memory back, he’d told her, but it came damn close. In one of them, she’d referenced a discussion they’d had about dirty talk, and he’d made her rehash the conversation. It had taken place early in their days together, when he’d sworn aloud during sex, then apologized, and she’d told him she liked the word fucking, even used as a verb. She’d told him she liked dirty talk, the way it felt in her own mouth, as if the words had weight and shape, something she could swirl her tongue over. And she liked it in his mouth, the words twining and insinuating, amping her up faster than touch.

Oh, really? he’d said, giving her a look that said the girls’ bedtime couldn’t come soon enough.

Really, she’d said, smirking.

He slid a finger easily into her, then another. In. Out. A pace just slow enough to make her desperate for more. “Hunter.”

“Mmm-hmm?”

“I wanted to spoil you for all women that first night, too. I wanted to blow away your reasons we shouldn’t be together. I wanted you to forget all of them.”

“There were no good reasons we shouldn’t.”

“Well, except the girls. Being careful of their feelings. That was legit.”

“Which we pretty much sucked at.”

“Yeah.” His thick, strong fingers between her legs were muddling up her thinking. “We tried. Neither of us was counting on amnesia.”

“And PTSD.”

They both got really quiet then. He didn’t remove his fingers from inside her, but his movements stilled.

“You—gonna be okay?” she asked.

He took his hand away and sighed. “Not yet. Not completely. But I’m here. And I think I’ll get a little more okay each day, with setbacks. I’ll get some help. I’ve got a therapy referral, and Jake gave me some info about counselors and groups.”

“Is that—would you do that? I know guys aren’t always into that stuff.”

“If it were just me? No. But I’ve got the girls to think of, and you. So I want to do whatever I can to be okay. And if it means sitting and talking it out with someone, whatever, I can handle it. Sometimes that’s what it takes to man up, you know? Doing something that’s out of your comfort zone. Plus, it does help to talk to other people who’ve been there. Nate said some stuff to me that really resonated. He said, ‘It’s hard to be the one who survives. You’re supposed to be grateful to be alive, but that doesn’t mean you are.’ ”

His words made her heart hurt. “You feel like that? Like you aren’t grateful to be the one who lived?”

“Sometimes.”

“Like—you wish it weren’t that way?” She was holding her breath.

“You mean would I off myself? No. No fucking way. But does it feel like it’s all wrong? Hell yeah.”

“When that happens—when you feel like it’s all wrong—tell me? And I’ll—” She hesitated. “I’ll make you forget. Just for a little while. Just as long as you need to, to be glad you’re alive.”

He rolled her over, his mouth searching hers out in the dark, and when he found it he gave her the most overwhelming sensation of coming home. In the dark, he blew a breath out, and she reached for his hand and held it, hard.

“Would you do that now?”

His voice was low and a little shaky.

“God, yeah. Any time. Every fucking time.”

And she did.