A SEAL's Strength (Military Match Book 2) by JM Stewart (14)

The following morning Gabe lay in the dark, staring at the shadowy ceiling above him, his hands roaming the curves of Steph’s body. She lay naked on his chest, her skin warm and soft. They’d been lying there for some time now, nothing between them but the moonlight streaming in through the window.

She’d come over for dinner last night. He’d ordered takeout, Chinese this time, and although he’d rented a movie, they hadn’t made it that far. Like the previous weekend, they’d ended up naked and wrapped around each other. Dessert had taken an erotic twist, and one thing had led to another.

He couldn’t sleep, as usual, and the restlessness of her fingers over his belly told him she wasn’t asleep either. Yet despite them being as close as two people could get, she’d gone a little too quiet. She’d always been the talker of the two of them, so when she went quiet, he’d always known it meant she was pondering big things. He had a feeling she was making some sort of decision, and the thought of the outcome had anxiousness caging his chest.

Since their lovemaking in the kitchen yesterday, something had changed between them. He’d needed her then, to hold her, to connect to her, on the most primal level. For the first time in months, his nightmares had returned. Sleeping in an unfamiliar place had apparently disoriented his senses. Steph’s warm body in the bed beside him, though, had calmed the choking haze of grief and panic he’d woken with.

Christ, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this close to someone. Like they were one soul. It was a walking fucking cliché, but he could see it in Steph’s eyes, feel the power in her tender touch, in the way her body curled into his. She didn’t just hold him; she clung to him. Even now her body might as well have been a second skin.

Her silence had his mind going in too many damn directions.

“I can feel you thinking up there.” He lifted his head and pressed a kiss to the curve of her shoulder. “Don’t shut me out.”

Seconds ticked out in more unbearable silence, and his gut twisted. Would she even tell him? Had he pushed her too far? He hated the thought, but he couldn’t fix what was wrong if she wouldn’t talk to him.

After a few moments, she slid into the space beside him and laid her head on his shoulder. “Last weekend I told you there was something I wasn’t telling you. Do you remember?”

He couldn’t forget. There’d been too much distance between them then, too.

He wrapped his arm around her back, stroking his fingers along her spine. “Does this mean you feel comfortable telling me now?”

“Not entirely, no, but I need you to know. It’s my one regret.” Her hand slid over his belly, her slender fingers sifting through the hairs there in an idle fashion. “I loved you back then. That’s what I didn’t tell you, and why, sometimes, I can be so distant. You were the first man I really loved and the first man to really hurt me. So you’re both ends of the same spectrum for me, Gabe. Good and bad, pain and bliss.”

His chest squeezed, a sick sensation churning up his gut, and a million more questions popped up right behind it. He’d always known he’d hurt her, leaving the way he had, but he’d never realized to what degree.

He reached up, stroking her cheek with his fingers in an attempt to soothe, to connect. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

She let out a short bark of laughter. “Because I knew you didn’t feel the same way. You were very driven by your career, and I knew I was only a stop along the way. Back then it was enough.” One shoulder hitched, and her voice lowered to a husky murmur. “I missed you when you left, though.”

He wanted to ask if what they had now was enough. Or something like it. A next step. For the first time since Julia’s death, Steph had him pondering the possibility of more than just weekends full of great sex. A real relationship even. He wasn’t sure he was ready for much more than that yet, though. The forever part. And Steph was, even if she was too scared to go after it. She’d all but told him that on their first date. She might not want to get hurt again, but Steph was a permanent kind of girl.

Instead, needing and craving that connection to her, he reached between them and curled his hand around hers. “So why tell me now?”

“Because I need you to know.” She tilted her chin and peered up at him, watching him with careful eyes for a moment. “I know I promised you a month, but I’m not sure how much longer I can do this with you.”

Suspicion itched at the edge of consciousness. “What aren’t you telling me, Steph?”

She let out a heavy sigh and rolled over, turned her back to him, and tucked a hand beneath her pillow. “It doesn’t matter. I’m a rebound for you, Gabe. There’s only one way this ends.”

For a moment all he could do was stare at the shape of her body and process. Steph’s words echoed in his head like that old record player his mother’d had when he was little. I loved you. His stomach twisted, guilt rising like a typhoon over his head. He’d been deluding himself to think they could simply enjoy each other in the here and now and worry about the forever part later.

That he could get back those years they’d lost, like it was nothing.

It would never be uncomplicated with her, because she wasn’t just any woman. She’d been his best friend once, and she cared. She was right. She needed and deserved a man who could whisper those three little words back to her, and he couldn’t be that man. At least not yet. Oh, he wanted to be. God, how he ached to be. Maybe someday he’d get there, but asking her to wait, to hang her hopes on something that might not happen, was selfish at best.

He’d hurt her enough.

He snuggled up against her back and wrapped an arm around her, tucking her securely against him. When she didn’t push him away or stiffen, relief flooded his chest. Their relationship suddenly seemed more finite, and it scared the hell out of him. He had a feeling he was going to have to let her go, and the thought alone had a sick sensation twisting up his stomach. He was losing her. Again.

He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “I never meant to hurt you. You have to know that.”

Her hand slid along his arm, soft, slender fingers finding his where they rested at her waist. “I know.”

He blew out the breath he’d been holding. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but it went a long way to easing his conscience.

“I don’t blame you for wanting to end this, for whatever the hell that’s worth. I need you. I can’t begin to tell you how much. And not just anybody. You. But it’s a profoundly selfish need.” He tightened his arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to the back of her shoulder as if somehow that would make up for the pain he’d caused her eleven years ago. “You deserve the forever guy, Steph, and right now I don’t know if I can be the man you need. Not yet.”

He was ready to move on with his life, but to let himself fall in love? With Steph? His entire marriage to Julia, he hadn’t forgotten or stopped thinking about or missing Steph. It’d had him questioning his marriage, hell, questioning himself. What kind of husband still missed an ex-lover? What kind of person did that make him?

“I also have Char to think about in all of this. If she gets attached, she ends up a casualty.” He ached to somehow soothe the wound he’d clearly created, but what the hell could he do? Steph deserved complete honesty, and it was about time he gave it to her. Even if the thought of never seeing her again made his chest want to cave in.

She released his hand and rolled back to face him, lying so close their noses practically touched and her soft, minty breaths puffed against his lips. “Thank you for being honest with me. For what it’s worth? I don’t regret the time with you. You were exactly what I needed. You restored my faith in the male population.”

“Glad I could be of service.” He forced a laugh, praying it didn’t sound as false as it felt. He appreciated the sentiment, but right then laughing was the last thing he felt like doing.

Her echo of laughter faded as quickly as it came, and silence once again moved over them, growing heavy with all the things they weren’t saying to each other. A vise had a permanent hold on his chest, and his gut churned with a mixture of regret and sadness and a need impossible to fulfill.

He rolled onto his back and lifted an arm. Steph snuggled up to his side, once again resting her head on his shoulder. Her hand settled, warm and heavy, on his stomach. For a moment they lay in silence, this time comfortable but aching. He turned his head, pressed his nose into her hair, and inhaled, breathing her in. His lungs filled with the soft scent of her perfume combined with the clean aroma of her shampoo. He wanted to remember that scent to get him through the lonely nights to come.

He tightened his hold on her, his chest threatening to cave in. He had to let her go. Again. Only this time she was the one walking away. “So what now?”

Her body tensed against his side. Several seconds ticked, the air between them no longer relaxed and intimate but tense and too damn quiet. Once again they were strangers, and he fucking hated it.

Finally, she tucked her forehead into his neck. “I’ll leave in the morning.”

Relief shuddered through him. He’d never been gladder to hear those words. He still had to give her up, but at least it wouldn’t be tonight. The finality of the moment settled over him, leaving him cold. History, it seemed, really was doomed to repeat itself.

“Gabe?”

Her voice came as quiet as the night around them, a bare murmur in the darkness. He turned his head toward hers, stroked her back, soaking in the feel of her against him. “Hmm?”

She rubbed a hand slowly over his belly, gentle and soothing. “Thank you. For understanding, I mean.”

“I’ll be honest, Steph. I hate the thought of not seeing you again, but I want you to be happy.”

He also hated the idea of her with someone else, but he kept that thought to himself. She didn’t need to hear it. It also wouldn’t serve any purpose except to make them both feel worse than they already did. Who’d have thought a simple fling could lead them here?

He pressed a kiss into her hair. “Like I said, I can’t ask you to wait. I think you deserve better.”

Gabe woke the following morning to an eerily silent house. Light filtered in through the sheer curtains on the bedroom window, filling the room with a play of sunlight and shadow. Outside, dozens of noisy, happy birds had what sounded like a conversation, chirping back and forth to each other.

As he blinked up at the ceiling, the deafening quiet slid over him, sinking inside him. Instinct told him Steph had left sometime in the early morning. He turned his head, staring at the empty pillow beside him. Only his memories and the indent her head had made told him she’d ever been there. Sliding his hand over the sheets, he found them cold as well.

He closed his eyes against the chest-crushing ache, allowed himself a moment to wallow in self-pity, then forced himself to release the heavy emotions and opened his eyes. What he needed was to get back into his weekend routine. Keep himself busy.

So he sat up and, after pulling on his shorts, reached for his crutches and got out of bed. He usually took off the prosthesis after dinner each night, using his crutches until after he had his shower the next morning. It was just easier, and it gave his leg a break. Now it would be part of the routine, and this morning he desperately needed it.

He and Steph had made love all night. He’d taken his time, savored every inch of her. He’d burned every moment with her into his memory. The scent of her skin. The tremor in her voice when she cried out. The luscious sound of her laugh, deep and throaty and honest. Even the simple luxury of sitting with her at the breakfast bar and chatting over a late-night cup of coffee.

He wouldn’t get that luxury this morning, and the knowledge sat hard and heavy inside of him.

As he rounded the corner, heading into the kitchen, a piece of paper on the counter stopped him cold. It sat in front of the first seat at the breakfast bar, folded in half, with his name neatly scrawled across it in smooth, flowing handwriting.

For a moment he could only stare at the page, his heart hammering in his ears. The need to pick it up, for that one last connection to her, hit him with all the force of a meaty fist to the gut, knocking the breath from his lungs.

He turned instead and made his way to the coffeemaker. He emptied yesterday’s contents and set a new pot to brew before forcing himself to face that note. The paper shook in his hand when he finally plucked it off the counter and opened it.

As he stared at her words, processing slowly the moment he’d arrived at, that familiar ache settled in its place inside of him. He was alone. Again. His life would go back its new normal. He’d bury himself in work during the day and Char in the evenings and weekends. Every night he’d try to sleep while lying in bed pondering the fucking ceiling.

He tried to convince himself he didn’t feel broken, that loneliness wasn’t eating a hole in his chest. He’d never again get to see Steph’s bright smile or hear her addicting giggle. Or fall asleep wrapped in the softness of her embrace. She’d go back to seeing other men, would move on with her life, none of which included him.

And he had to let her do it, because what the hell could he offer her? A handful of promises?

He swore under his breath, wadded the note, and hurled the paper ball in the direction of the living room with all the frustration winding through him. It sailed over the island and dropped somewhere on the other side. His shoulders tensed to the point of pain, and Gabe pivoted, dragging both hands through his hair.

He fucking hated this place in his life. He’d been here for too damn long, living somewhere between regret and grief. First when Julia died and now with Steph’s departure from his life. He’d hated letting her go the first time and despised it even more now. It was like watching the never-ending cloud cover close off that tiny, brilliant gift of sun, leaving him once again in depressing shades of gray.

And he missed her. Goddamn it.