We didn’t waste any time. As soon as we were in Casey’s bedroom, we stripped out of our clothes and got into his bed. Not ten minutes ago, I’d still been scared shitless that he was out of my reach, and now he was under me, dragging his hands over my skin as his tongue teased mine. I still had enough awareness to be careful of his leg, but beyond that, my consciousness was dedicated to turning us on and getting us off.
You’re here, I tried to say with my hands and my mouth. And I want you to feel as good as I do.
Casey rolled me onto my back and straddled me. He broke the kiss and gazed down at me, blue eyes on fire with lust. “I won’t lie,” he whispered. “There has been one silver lining to being stuck on light duty.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His grin slowly came to life. “You.”
I blinked. “Are—”
He cut me off with a kiss, and I didn’t question him any further. No, he wasn’t kidding. Not if that deep, hungry kiss was any indication. We were here, and he meant it as much as I did.
I slid my hands down his back to grip his gorgeous ass. Then back up to his shoulders. All over him. I couldn’t get enough of him. Couldn’t touch him enough. The relief was right up there with how I felt after I’d finished a nightmare-induced drawing. The danger had passed. The panic was over. Everything was out in the open, and I was safe and okay, and . . .
And Casey was here. He was holding on as tight as I was, kissing me in a way that erased any worries I had that his heart wasn’t really in it. It was. So was mine. God, so was mine.
He shivered as he found a steady rhythm, our hips moving together as if we were fucking. Like it often was, his body was slightly off-center on top of mine, keeping the weight off his bad leg, and that was weirdly comforting. It was just that much more emphatically Casey. Someday his leg wouldn’t need the shift in balance, and I got a dizzying thrill out of the thought of being here long enough to experience that.
Because I’m not going anywhere.
Except he’ll have to—
No. Don’t have to think about that right now. We’re both here. That’s what’s important.
I was so light-headed and relieved, I almost wanted to cry just from the overwhelming barrage of feelings. I kind of wanted us to fuck, and I kind of wanted to blow him, but the first option meant stopping for condoms and lube and prep, and the second meant I had to stop kissing him, and I . . . Christ, I didn’t want to stop. Not now.
I kneaded his ass as he thrust against me, and Casey moaned.
“I love you,” he murmured against my lips. “God, Logan, I love you.”
“I love you too.” I held him tighter. “I’m—”
He kissed me hungrily, almost like he could taste the apology coming and didn’t want to let it. He rocked against me, rubbing our dicks together. The friction was as mind-blowing as it was addictive. I could think of a million ways I wanted him tonight, but it all boiled down to this—tangled up, touching and kissing. The rest was just details. He was here, and I was here, and condoms and lube and whatever else could wait until I’d thoroughly convinced every inch of my body that he wasn’t going anywhere.
The kisses got more demanding. We held on tighter. Rubbed faster. Groped harder. Hot breaths came in sharp huffs between soft groans and barely intelligible swearing. My heart pounded and my hands slid across sweaty skin, and . . . oh yeah, this was perfect. So good. So, so good.
Casey shuddered, a choked sound caught between our lips, and his thrusts were suddenly slick with cum. “Oh God, Logan . . .” He broke the kiss, letting his head fall next to mine, and shuddered as he breathed my name in my ear.
I gripped the back of his neck and thrust against him, and in seconds, I was coming too, adding my own semen to the mix as we both shook and jerked and gasped in between trying and failing to kiss. “Jesus, Casey.” I arched under him. “Fuck . . .”
He collapsed on top of me, and I relaxed under him. I didn’t think I’d ever been more blissed out than I was right now, beneath his body with my own still humming from the force of my orgasm. And that was to say nothing of the relief that we were even here. That we’d fixed our relationship. How had I not broken this beyond repair?
Eventually, Casey lifted himself off me. We mopped up the cum with a couple of tissues, then curled up close under the covers.
For ages, I just lay there and held him, letting his warmth soak into my skin. All the way here, I’d been running through every possible outcome, and the majority had been worst-case scenarios. This one had been a long shot, but here we were. He got it. He’d heard me—really heard me—and now . . .
I stroked his short hair and kissed the top of his head. I was almost afraid to say anything in case it threw us off again. How many times had my mouth gotten away from me and screwed up something good? I didn’t dare let it happen again.
When Casey spoke, what he said wasn’t something I wanted to hear: “You know I could still go to combat, right?”
My gut clenched and I closed my eyes. Apparently we were going to think about this now. Exhaling, I nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
He found my hand and laced our fingers together. “How is that going to work? With you trying to stay sober and all?”
I met his gaze. “You’re worried about me like you’re worried about your brother.”
“I can’t not be, baby. I know how much it hurts you to think about something happening to me. I don’t want to be the reason . . .”
“You won’t be.” I kissed him softly. “I’ve got my therapist and people who support me. And I was never an addict like your brother is. I didn’t want the booze—just something to drown out the demons.”
“There’s kind of a fine line between those, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. But I’ll be okay.”
“Even if I go to a war zone?”
I couldn’t help shuddering. For a moment, I said nothing and just mulled over the question. Finally, I looked in his eyes and touched his face. “I’m not going to pretend anything about this is easy. All I can do is take it a day at a time, work with my therapist as best I can.” I paused. “Maybe now would be a good time to take her up on the antianxiety drugs she’s been nudging me toward.”
Casey swallowed. “I don’t want you to have to be medicated just so you can be with me.”
“I’m not. With as much as my head fell apart because of the inspection and thinking about you going to combat, maybe I need more help than I thought. I guess . . .” I laughed humorlessly. “I guess I’m starting to wonder if I need to be medicated to be with me.”
His eyes widened. “Do you think it’ll help?”
“It’s worth a try.”
“But what if it doesn’t help?”
“Then I’ll try something else. But PTSD and everything that comes with it? That’s part of my life. It’s my reality. I lost a lot of years to it, and I don’t want to lose you to it too.” I brought his hand up and pressed my lips to his knuckles. “Just be patient with me.”
He studied me for a moment. “What if I get out?”
I blinked. “What?”
“I only have about two years left on my contract.”
“I don’t want you getting out for me.”
“I’m not. Now that being a SEAL is off the table . . .” He half shrugged. “There isn’t much left for me here.”
“What will you do if you get out?”
Casey met my gaze, and a soft, sad smile formed on his lips. “What will I do if I stay in? The career I wanted is gone. There’s nothing left for me in the Navy, but I’ve got the GI Bill and my VA benefits. That would be enough to get me on my feet once I’m out.”
My heart fluttered. “So you’d . . . Two years? That’s it?”
“Give or take a month.” He frowned, stroking my face. “There’s still a possibility of a combat tour during that time. But it’s not a guarantee.”
“I think I could live with that.”
Casey’s smile came to life for real. “Me too. In fact, I kind of like the idea of being a civilian again. I think I’m done here.”
I kissed him gently. “Well, if you do go, I promise I’ll take care of myself. And I’ll be here when you come back.”
“I want you to take care of yourself anyway,” he whispered. “And anything I can do to help . . .”
“Thank you.”
Casey searched my eyes. Touching my cheek, he said, “Think reunion sex after months apart will be as good as makeup sex?”
I laughed. “It’ll probably be even better.”
He chuckled but turned serious as he slid closer to me. “I know it’ll be hard on you if I go over there.”
“It’ll suck for both of us.”
He swallowed hard as he nodded. “Yeah. But that’s the game we’re signing up to play. If it’s not something you can handle, I—”
I kissed him, and held it until his lips relaxed like they’d given up on saying the words I couldn’t stomach hearing. Then I touched my forehead to his. “I know what I’m getting into. And no, it won’t be fun if you go over there, but it’s nothing compared to not having you at all.”
His breath gusted across my chin in a warm rush. “You definitely give me something worth coming back to.”
I smiled despite the lump in my throat. How much saner would I have been if there’d been someone here when I’d come back? Suddenly sleeping alone in an empty apartment without my brothers-in-arms sleeping nearby had driven me almost as insane as the nightmares. The warmth of someone else beside me wouldn’t have saved me from the PTSD, but maybe it would have made the nights a little more bearable.
I held him tighter. “I’ll be here when you come back,” I said again, and my voice was shakier this time.
Casey kissed me. As he drew back, he watched his fingers trailing down my arm. “You’ve, um, been going to a therapist, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You think . . . you think I can get her number from you?” He shifted. “I mean, if it’s not weird for us to both be seeing the same person.”
“It’s not. There are two others in the same office, though.”
He nodded slowly, and after a moment, met my gaze. “Maybe she can help me deal with all this, you know? With figuring my shit out?”
I cupped his face. “I can definitely get you her number. I’m sure she can help.”
“Thanks.”
I pressed a kiss to his lips before I said, “Maybe she can also help us. Together.”
“How do you mean?”
“Like, how to handle what we’re both going through without . . . well, without what happened the other night. For if and when you get deployed, and just in general.”
He gave another slow nod. “That might not be a bad idea.”
I held his gaze as I ran my fingers through his hair. “You’d really do that? I mean, not just for your own thing, but so we can make this work?”
“Of course.” He covered my hand with his and kissed my palm. “And it’ll make it easier for both of us if I get deployed.”
“Yeah. It will.”
“I know none of it will be easy, but whatever we can do to mitigate it, you know?”
I nodded. “Whatever it takes.” I draped my arm over him to pull him close. “And if you do go to combat, you can talk to me about it. Any of it. You know that, right?”
Casey moistened his lips. “That won’t . . . I mean, with your PTSD, do you—”
“It won’t do either of us any good to keep it out of each other’s sight.” I slid my hand up his back. “I’d probably be in a way better place now if I hadn’t kept it to myself all this time. I don’t want you going through what I did.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” He smiled. “I’ve got you.”
I smiled back and drew him in for a kiss. The conversation faded away, and we made out lazily. I didn’t know if we’d wind up fooling around again, but I was in no hurry to jump out of his bed. I just held him and kissed him and thanked God over and over that Casey had taken me back.
There was the possibility of deployments in his future. A lot could happen in two years, and if he was deployed, he was deployed. No way around it. Whether they’d be combat deployments? Anyone’s guess.
Being apart wouldn’t be easy. Knowing he was in a war zone would be hell. But I meant it when I said I’d be here when he came back. That he could tell me anything. Whatever I could do to help, I would. No doubt.
Because I loved Casey more than I’d ever loved any other man. Would it be easy? No. Worth it? Absolutely.
I prayed like hell he’d never see or do the things I had, and that he wouldn’t come home haunted and broken.
But if he did, I’d be here.
I wasn’t going anywhere.