Something is still off between me and Summer. Not even the baby shower earlier today could dispel the tension between us.

I know exactly what it is.

It’s Alexei.

That fucker is following us everywhere. He has to be. He knows where she works, but I don’t want to scare her any more than she already is. I can’t do that to her. I can’t do that to the baby.

I bring in all the presents from the shower and stack the boxes in piles in the living room. She’s waiting in the bedroom, her hair lit by the soft light, and in the dark hallway, I pause and look at her.

“Summer.”

She turns from her spot at the foot of the bed. There’s that look in her eyes. It’s still there.

And yet…

She beckons to me, and as we climb onto the bed she pounces, tearing at my shirt and clothes. It’s harder for her to do these days, now that her belly is so big, but she climbs on top of me and pushes me back against the pillows. I take her hips in my hands and devour her mouth. She breaks the kiss and bends to my collarbone, biting at the skin, leaving pinpricks of pain and passion across my chest.

I can’t resist her.

She was irresistible before the pregnancy, and now, God’s honest fucking truth, it’s hard to look at her. Her body is that luscious with her glow. She’s always soaking wet, and tonight is no exception.

Summer lifts her hips and lowers herself onto my hard length, her belly heavy between us. My cock twitches inside of her—fuck, she feels good. She closes her eyes and rolls her hips in slow circles, hands braced against my chest.

In the dim light of the bedroom, I can still see her face.

I knew it. Something’s wrong.

Her mouth is pressed into a serious line, almost a frown. She’s not panting with the usual enthusiasm and furious joy that normally overtakes her when we fuck.

I put my hand to her collarbone. “Stop.”

Her body stills and she opens her eyes. “Why?”

“Are you enjoying this?”

She raises one eyebrow. “Yes. Are you?”

“You don’t look like you’re enjoying it.”

“I look how I look.” Summer tosses her head back.

I run the pad of my thumb over her cheek. “Look at me.”

She lowers her eyes to meet mine.

“I said what I did last night in the heat of the moment. I was panicking. It was stupid. I never should have said it.”

She casts her gaze down at my chest.

“Sunny, look at me.”

Her blue eyes catch all the available light.

“I’m not leaving you, Sunny. I’ll never leave you.”

“Is it the right thing—” Her voice breaks. “Is it the right thing, to stay together?” She shakes her head, once, sharply. “Of course it’s the right thing. I didn’t—I mean, should we stay in the city? Should I quit my job?”

“No, and no.” My resolve grows with every word that comes out of her mouth. I’ve been running from the past. I’ve been running from what happened with Alexei. I’ve been running longer than that. I’ve been running from what happened in that Humvee. And before that, I was running from my father, from the kind of man I never wanted to become. “I’m taking care of it.”

“I want—”

“You want to know more, and I’ll tell you everything.” I inch my hand a little closer to her throat. She’s not a breath play kind of girl, but the slightest pressure there is always rewarded with a gush of wetness between her legs. “But right now, you can relax. You can forget. Forget last night ever happened.”

Her hands tense against my chest, gripping the hair there, when I reach between her legs, finding her clit beneath the fine, soft hair decorating her pussy. It’s been a while since she felt good enough for a shave or a wax. The feel of it beneath my fingers makes me so hard that I’m excruciatingly aware of the blood rushing from my head to my cock.

I circle her clit, my hand close to where I’m inside her, and she gasps. “Do you promise?”

“Forget it ever happened,” I growl into her ear. “And I promise I’ll make you come until you beg me to stop.”

* * *

It takes a lot of orgasms to make Summer beg, but she does it at last, a final trembling wave moving through her body, a heaving, gasping moan.

Then she leans in, curling up against my side, and falls asleep without another word.

Her breathing is slow and even within seconds. I give it a few minutes before slipping from underneath the covers. Both of us could use a warm washcloth. I tend to myself in the bathroom and then heat a clean cloth, taking it back into the bedroom where Summer is sprawled across the bed. She stirs a little when I dip the cloth between her legs, murmuring something about how great I am.

Someday, she’ll be right about that.

Once the washcloth is hung over the towel rack in the bathroom, I climb back into bed next to her. I fall instantly into a dream.

I’m in the Army, but it’s not the same Army. Everything is different. The uniforms are all wrong, but the squad leaders are still assholes. I’m struggling to keep up. Where the hell is my prosthesis? I’m late for a drill and I look for it, realizing too late that I have both feet. Shit.

“Into the Humvee,” someone shouts at me, so I climb in. Wes is in the driver’s seat.

“I fucking hate you,” he says. “You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?”

“Don’t do this.” I look out the front window, but I can’t see shit. He shifts the Humvee into drive and we trundle away on the gravel road.

Wes drives with his teeth clenched, his eyes narrowed. He’s not wearing his helmet. I try to tell him to put it on, but the words stick in my throat. I don’t think we’ve gone far enough when he stops the Humvee and gets out.

“Wes!”

He’s gone, but then he reappears at my door, yanking it open.

He’s standing there with Alexei’s wife.

“What are you—?”

He hauls me bodily out of the Humvee. I’m bigger than he is. I’ve always been bigger. It doesn’t matter. I can’t do anything to stop him.

“Here it is,” he says. “Here’s what you get, for being such a piece of shit.” I scramble to get my feet underneath me as he pushes me forward, his fingers light on my shoulder blades.

I see it too late.

The land mine.

One of the ones re-buried by the Taliban after the Russians blanketed all of Afghanistan.

I feel the hard metal beneath my foot.

“Three, two, one,” Wes counts, and the mine explodes.

* * *

Agony. My foot is in agony.

It’s both on fire and frozen, the pain all-consuming, and I react with my entire body. There’s a strange howling. It takes me a second to realize what it is: it’s me.

I grab for my left foot—anything to relieve the pain, anything, but it’s not there.

I shout out a string of curses into the pillow. I don’t know where I am. My vision is clouded red with pain.

“Day. Dayton.”

There’s another screaming twist of pain in my foot and I reach for it again, my hands scrabbling at the sheets.

“Dayton. Listen to my voice. Focus on my words.” A gentle touch brushes against my shoulder. It feels far away.

“Straighten out your back.”

I’m twisted, bent over in the bed, but I didn’t know it until now. I grit my teeth and force myself upright, force my head back to the pillow.

The pillow in my bed.

I sense a palm against my forehead, the back of a hand against my cheek, whisper soft.

“You’re at home in your bed,” the voice says. “If you put your hand out, you can feel the sheets.”

I stretch my hand out hesitantly. It takes a minute to register. There are sheets. There’s no gravel path, no punishing heat. The sheets. Of my bed. At home.

“We’re together at home. Your foot is hurting you, but you lost your foot during your deployment. It’s not there anymore. Does that help?”

“No.” It’s the one word I can manage to say.

“Take in a deep breath and relax your legs.” I fucking try. “I’m running my hands down your right knee, down your right shin.” The hand follows the voice. A shifting on the bed.

“Now I’m going to run my hand down your left knee. And your left shin.” The hand is on my knee, on my shin. “All the way down to your ankle. I’m putting my fingers around your ankle and squeezing, very gently.”

“Fuck.” The pain lessens by the slightest degree.

“I won’t do that too long. Now my hand is on the top of your left foot. Very gentle. A slight pressure.”

Where she touches, the pain recedes, enough that my mind clears along the edges.

“I’m going to bring my hand down to your toes. One, two, three, four, five. And then to the bottom of your foot. Here’s the ball of your foot. Here’s the heel.”

I resurface.

The pain swirls away, down to the dull ache that’s my constant companion, and I push myself upright in the bed. Summer sits up straight, looking at me, her body still.

“Holy Christ.”

She moves toward me, but her belly stops her. “Day?”

“Hey.”

“Oh, my God.” She crawls over my legs and curls up on my lap, letting out a quick breath. “You scared the shit out of me.”

I can still feel the remains of the nightmare as it flees. “I scared the shit out of myself.”

There’s a pause.

“Are you okay?”

I take stock. I’m tired. It’s the middle of the night. But nothing is extreme anymore. Sleep beckons at the boundaries of my mind. I lay back against the pillow, taking her with me. “You should be a counselor.”

Summer shifts, curling into me. “You should see a real one.”

I don’t deserve a real counselor.

But—

“I’ll do it,” I tell her, as I fall back into what I hope is a dreamless sleep. “For you.”