It was clear to her after they dried off that Blue was caving, receding back into himself. There was something powerful going on here, and she was going to find out what the hell it was, no matter the cost.

He slipped past her to the sink, and she watched him as he flossed and brushed. He actively avoided her gaze.

She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. In the mirror, he closed his eyes and breathed out a hard sigh. She rubbed her face against his back, the muscles flexing in his shoulders and waist as he pressed his hands against the sink.

“Don’t hide what you’re feeling, Blue. It may work for a bulletproof mind in combat, but it doesn’t allow you to sift through everything and find out what’s at the core of your problem.” His face contorted in the mirror, and she tightened her arms around him.

“I’m not hiding.”

She ran her hands over his pectoral muscles, over his nipples, and hooked her hands over the hot, hard muscles of his shoulders.

“Yes, you are. Natasha broke you with it. You told her. You can tell me.”

His chest heaved, and he squeezed his eyes. “She did that against my will. I was out of my mind.” His voice broke on a long groan. This was it. The core of his issue. She had humiliated him, and Charlie could only guess, but his problem might be related to sex in some way, but it was shame that drove him. “I couldn’t think. She was like a brain probe, and she fucked me over both mind and body.”

“So take your power back, Blue. She’s dead, and you survived. You put her in her grave for the atrocities that she gleefully wrought on others. You did your job and your duty. You prevailed. You’re always who you are. You’ve always had the power. Take. It. Back.”

He shifted away from her and broke free. His breathing was deep and rapid, his eyes tortured. He stood there, his fists clenched, the anguish so clear on him it made her ache in every cell of her body, her heart clenching.

“Take it back, Blue!”

Charlie stared at him, her heart suddenly hammering, a sense of victory settling in her. This was going to be about stripping away a person’s pride and dignity. Whatever happened had shaped him into this amazing man. She’d never seen a man deconstruct ever in her life. Her knees suddenly unsteady, she braced her hand on the sink. She’d seen fear and she’d seen death up close and personal, but he collapsed into himself, the pain in him a whip with which he tortured himself. She rushed to him and grabbed his face. Breaking down completely was the start of getting back to where he wanted to be. Even though it was so heart wrenching to watch, it was necessary for him to face it. She knew that instinctively. That’s why she had been so attracted to his negative energy. She was fighting against her own breakdown. Part of it had happened during the shark attack, but there was more trapped inside, and with the final act of tying him, she’d get to her own problem, too. She needed him, wanted him to understand that.

Cupping his face, she stared into his oh-so-blue eyes. “This is about you, not her.” She ran her thumbs along his cheekbones. “You had a go-to coping method. You relied on your honor and your belief system, especially that warriors are tough and can handle anything. It’s just not true. You’re human. You have feelings and emotions and scars. That’s what makes you…you. I have no doubt you were as resilient as you had to be. But self-sufficient is your elite motto. Sometimes you need to lean on others and get emotional support; other times you need to give yourself space to heal or grieve or let things cool off; and other situations need swift and strong action to advocate for yourself or confront a situation head on. She didn’t just ambush you physically, my beautiful baby Blue, she ambushed your mind.” She tightened her grip. “But fuck her to hell and gone. She won’t win because I know you, and I know what’s in here.” She pressed her hand against his heart. “I know you. Take it back. You’ve always had the power.”

Blue remained motionless as if her words were blows that struck him dumb.

Then he closed his eyes with a soft cry of anguish and went to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his head just under her breast bone, his cheek against her stomach. “I don’t know how to get it back.” She felt his tears wash down her ribcage and over her stomach. “Help me, Charlie, beautiful, amazing Charlie. Please help me.”

She rocked him gently. “I will.” She lifted him up and faced him. “I want you to come with me. I want to show you something.”

She rubbed at the moisture on his face with her thumb.

“Anywhere. I’d go anywhere with you.”

---

That’s how he found himself in the passenger seat of her rental as she drove the dark streets of Panama City. He was completely without resources. She had no idea what she was up against. Or just how vulnerable and defenseless he was right now. Or…maybe she did. He hadn’t missed that she’d brought the rope with her, and his mouth went dry at the thought of her tying his wrists and ankles. He tried with all his might to push those memories away. Somewhere, locked down inside of him, was the courage he needed to face this. His association of his fear and his shame with the bonds that had enslaved him was all too real, unreasonable and instinctual.

But she had gotten to him back at her condo. He wanted to be whole again, get back to the teams. He wouldn’t survive losing his spot there. He knew it deep down. That thought, mingling with the realization of just how vital Charlie and his service to his country were to him, increased the gut-twisting turmoil in him. His entire body was strung so tight he felt as though he was going to snap.

Charlie seemed to think that was a good thing.

Maybe it was.

As she drove, his irritability and restlessness subsided the moment he smelled the salt and sand. With a soft sigh, he relaxed against the door as the ocean came into view. He was sensitized all over again and having a hard time keeping his arousal under wraps. He’d just had her, but he was losing ground moment by moment. She didn’t mean to tease him, but he was achingly aware of how willing she was to him and his needs. He wanted to drive her wild, feel her come against his tongue.

Just the thought of it was slowly, seductively driving him out of his ever-loving mind.

He needed the ocean, and she’d known that. That’s why she’d brought him out here into the sultry night that only made him more aware of how she turned him on just by existing.

He couldn’t argue with what she’d said to him about needing to break down before coming back. He so desperately wanted to come back.

She turned the car off the main road and onto a narrow pathway. The trail led to a secluded area of beach, the sand sparking off the light of the moon. The soft rise and fall of the dunes made him think of her breasts, and with that thought, he wanted to bare them to the shining light and watch her unravel as he sucked on her with his greedy mouth.

When she stopped the car and got out, he followed. The crashing of the surf gave them a modicum of privacy and seclusion. They had always provided a peaceful, solitary escape for him. Now, and during his childhood. Especially the first few months after he’d returned from Kirikhanistan, when the nightmarish memories of his capture overwhelmed him.

He had no idea why she’d brought him here, but it was clear she understood his love of the ocean, even as she found it her greatest foe.

Pale, silvery moonlight shimmered and gleamed off of Charlie’s thick, lustrous hair. He knew from experience that the heavy weight felt as soft and rich as it looked.

She started down the beach, past a sign he didn’t read. She flashed him a smile, lighting up her eyes.

“Be careful where you step,” she cautioned, her low, husky voice wrapping around him like a sensual promise she intended to keep. “Step where I do.”

The wind picked up, the warm breeze encouraging him to pull his T-shirt over his head. He tucked it into the back waistband of his sweat pants. She walked carefully, her head down as if she was searching for something. She paused, and a few quiet moments passed before she moved on. Then, she stopped, all her senses alert. Making a soft cry, she veered off, then knelt in the sand.

“Over here, Blue,” she murmured quietly.

He traveled in her footsteps, and when he reached her, she grabbed his hand and pulled him down next to her. “Why are we—”

“Shh, just watch.”

He followed her gaze and frowned. All he saw was a small hump of sand. He stared at the area and was just about to look away when the sand moved. It started to separate and crack seams in the tiny grains. Then a small, oblong reptilian head appeared. Then a shell. It pushed its way out of the sand and he saw the flippers. Sea turtle. He watched, fascinated, as the whole pile of sand moved, and before he knew it, dozens of turtles were emerging, boiling up from below. He heard the call of sea birds directly above them. The little guys had been spotted, and Blue wanted to scoop them up and get them all safely to the water.

“Don’t interfere,” she said as she looked over at him. “They have to do this on their own.” He watched anxiously as the small, round shapes picked up speed and were moving at a clip toward the water and waiting surf.

“She would have laid these eggs about sixty days ago, and usually her offspring totals about one hundred. The sand decides their gender, males for warmer sand, females with cooler.”

He watched as several birds dipped down, snapping up those little bodies, and he could barely stand to watch it. He went to move, and she set her hand on his arm.

“No,” she said. “Some will make it, and some won’t. It’s in them to head to the sea and safety. It’s what we all want.”

She turned to him as the first of the babies hit the wet sand and started to move toward the water, their very lives depending on the speed and getting to their destination, so they could live and grow. She brushed her fingertips over his face. “Some falter and die, but the majority make it to the water.”

He closed his eyes, her message clear. He had to make it to the water, and it meant going inward, deeply inward to find the courage he had lost. He couldn’t give in to the predator who had wrecked him.

“Okay, Charlie. All right. Tie me.” His heart beat hard, and his palms started to sweat.

She rose, her face soft and luminous in the moonlight. She took his arm and drew him to the surf, toward a rock where the waves crashed.

When they got there, she reached for his pants, and he stood there while she stripped them down. He stepped out of them. She pulled the rope out of the small bag she carried. “Put your back against the rock and sit with your legs out in front of you. Leave a bit of room for me to sit behind you.

He pushed against the barrier that held him back from his very center. “Balance,” he whispered.

“Balance,” she whispered back.

He slipped into the warm surf, the water flowing over him in a silky, wet caress that he welcomed. Even as he did as she’d asked, another nest exploded, and more turtles raced for the open ocean.

He looked out to sea as the water washed over him again, warm and giving, liquid and soothing.

She knelt down, holding the length of rope. “Just breathe and open your mind, Blue. Find your center. It’s still there, lost in the chaos, walled away. Find a place where you can break through.”

He wasn’t sure what that was, but he wanted to get there where he could set himself free, away from the trauma.

“Close your eyes, Blue, relax.” She slipped behind him, clasping his back against her chest, banding her arm across his suddenly sensitized nipples. He cried out as his body pulsed with her energy pouring into him.

She roughly grabbed his arm, the rope going around his wrist, but the sensation was different with Charlie’s exquisite power. She looped and knotted, his arms stacked and tied behind his back. Then she wrapped more rope around his chest, making knots under his arms to cinch the initial tie tighter. It pinched into his skin but set him on fire instead of making him cold.

Instead, it moved deeper and deeper, a kind of slow fire where it ate up the ground with each flare and every beat of the flames. Everything altered and changed: smell, the salt of the ocean, sharp and distinct, the sound of the waves, a booming, heady crash, the light of the moon, caressing and bright, and the taste of surrender in his mouth, tough and fragile.

She moved from around him, her palm sliding over his nipples again, her nails scoring his abdomen as she crisscrossed the rope around him, tying with a feverish gleam in her eyes.

She was open to him and he glorified in her own surrender even as she worked. His trust was something that he couldn’t hold back. She paused and looked at him, making strong eye contact as if she felt what he was projecting.

“Blue, so beautiful,” she whispered, her mouth brushing across his, slipping to his ear where she nipped him, down to his neck, his skin so sensitized, he cried out like her mouth was a brand.

The intricacies of the rope banding his body was beautiful as she tapped him, so he lifted his hips and she wrapped the length of rope lovingly around his lower body, creating a showcase for his hard, jutting cock. Then she moved down one leg in a lattice-like pattern, then the other until she got to his ankles.

Even as she bound him, she set him free. That was her intent. She was going to see that his personal power hadn’t diminished one bit.

“Charlie,” he whispered. “I can feel you, even when you don’t touch me.”

“The ropes, they’re an extension of my hands. I’m holding you. You’re safe. Find what you need, my baby Blue.” She brushed her fingers over his skin, and he shivered. The warm night closed in on him as she did an elaborate tie, moving to his other ankle, touching the spot just below his ankle bone. He let out a soft moan. It felt so good.

She pressed her fingers there, the pressure point hitting like an erogenous zone. He jerked, his dick getting harder, aching, but it wasn’t bad energy, it was something…more.

Then she tied his feet together. She started to knot, and he felt the bonds dig into him, tying him, making him helpless. He jerked, but she soothed him. “It’s all right. Find what you need.”

The ropes were tight, but he felt as if he was expanding. These implements she used causing a distance, allowing his body to make sense of the sensual input without being overwhelmed.

It linked him with Charlie, where she gave him an environment to allow him to open doors through his bound body. She was not his enemy like Natasha had been. She was a partner who wished to explore a space in which they both could find their own meanings. Deal with the frightening parts of their experiences and push forward with altered thoughts through waves of shared intensity. It wasn’t about being overpowered. It was about creating something together.

He opened his heart, cleared it of the chaos of pain, getting down to the core of his fear—being invalidated. As a victim Natasha disregarded his wishes, took from him something he hadn’t been willing to give—his body. She raped him against his will, but that didn’t mean she’d stolen his personal power. He saw the heat of it still pulsing inside him like a soft, golden glow that only got stronger as he stoked it. He saw the dark fear, and he rode it like a midnight stallion, breathed through that wild ride, pulling everything back to him with both hands open and grasping.

He saw the beauty in being broken down and in being built up. The way he could control panic and protect himself. It wasn’t about raw force, but a well administered brutality.

He claimed and acknowledged that he had never lost himself. He had just gotten blindsided. But, now, he could see.

He was present, feeling like he had the opportunity to completely let go and to be completely present at the same time.

“Power,” he whispered. “Freedom,” he shouted against the waves and the wind, against life and death, creation and inertia. It all coalesced in his chest as he met her steady, commanding eyes.

---

Charlie surged with the power Blue was generating. That was what she wanted for him, freedom from his torture because he’d never really left Kirikhanistan. He was still bound to Boris and Natasha.

She could feel the tension in his body, and she’d used that as a guide on how to knot, where to knot, and how much to tighten. She watched him as he communicated through the rope. “This is the moment,” she whispered, getting constant feedback from him, his reaction, body language, and the shared experience between them. He was changing, he was responding, he was learning and listening.

As the ropes had crisscrossed his body, Charlie felt the intensity of Blue’s manhood, the masculine energy he projected effortlessly, in the moment of that state of mind. The energy buzzed between them, and it had more to do with connection than it had to do with their chemistry. She’d never reacted so viscerally to a man before. But the moment she’d sat down next to him on the plane, he’d radiated his pain and suffering. Maybe it was because she was a rigger and understood the transference of energy. Maybe it was because he was very good at projecting it. Whatever it was, it had increased in tempo and intensity as she’d moved down his body, dragging the length of rope along his heavy thigh muscle to his ankle.

Charlie had sensed the resistance in him, realizing that there were still pieces from his past and his captivity that hadn’t fallen into place for him. She could understand that. All her own pieces had only just fallen into place over the past few days because of him.

He’d spent so much time denying what he knew about himself to be true that it had left him vulnerable. It killed her that he was keeping it from her. This wasn’t about sex, but it was tied up in violation. She would give him a safe space to understand that and find his own power again.

There was no resistance now, and Charlie felt the transference of Blue’s trust in her. It struck at something hard and deep inside her and hurt like hell. She closed her eyes at the pain, trying with all her might to absorb it. This was as much for her as it was for him.

The need for his trust was like a thirst that she had never quenched, not fully. That soft spot was her Achilles heel, and her eyes popped open as the hard knot inside her started to unravel. Oh, God. She stared at him, the water washing over him like a lover, making his skin glisten as the moonlight played with his shadowed curves and thick muscle. Blue’s physical form was exquisite, finely wrought. There was no debating that. Her eyes dropped to his groin where the scars were starting to go white, forever marking his body with what had happened to him. But it didn’t have to define him.

Her breath caught as her eyes travelled up his legs, then up his chest to his achingly handsome face, his full lips. He was staring at her, the blue of his irises almost black. He was so gorgeously bound.

She watched as he relaxed even more, slipping into something she called rope drunk. The place where he needed to be. His eyes went distant, his mouth dropping a bit open.

She felt it, the gentle tug of his will, the way he wanted her to move over him. She couldn’t resist as she crawled through the soft sand and swirling water, the waves pounding into her back, as tempestuous as the feeling moving between them.

“Yes,” he said softly.

She struggled to regulate her breathing. She had never felt this full, this strong, this soft. Female she thought, as her feminine energy suffused her, radiating out of her like spidery moonbeams. She straddled his lap, looking into his eyes, and she could tell he had never felt this powerful, this compelling, this hard. Male she thought, as she soaked up his masculine energy that he was projecting without even trying. Warrior. That defined them both. Healer. That also defined them as well.

Lovers. She gasped at the thought, and everything in her went liquid, pooling in her like the purest gold.

Oh, God. She loved him.

She was truly, madly, deeply in love with him.

And what he felt couldn’t be masked. Everything was just too raw between them. Too open, too needy, too fulfilled, too everything. He spoke his truly, madly, deeply love to her until it just mixed up inside her.

She took him, like they were meant to be here as the ocean surged and swelled with life, a living entity that made this planet habitable. She rode Ocean like a tempest, all air and force, and he was the beauty and power of the waves and water, deep secrets below the surface. None of it was sexual. They touched intimately, but there was no intercourse.

She sank into him, and worlds collided as they joined in the kind of dance that was as pure and true as the cosmos that swirled and whirled above them. He cried out, the intensity of their energy ramping up as they moved against each other in utter, blissful harmony.

“Kiss me,” he whispered. “Give me your breath.”

Cupping the back of his head, she breathed into his mouth, then covered his lips in a desperate, demanding kiss, and Charlie sighed in carnal pleasure, opening to the hard demand he projected. The taste of him tempted her, and he made a soft groan that told her to take more. Take it all, all he had. She held on to the back of his neck as he pumped, and she rode him, stars shooting off in her body as if they were arching in bright slashes across the sky.

At his urging, she drank from what he so willingly offered. He was so in control here. This bound man, without his hands to touch her, still had her by her throat, and there was nothing she could do but ride out every sensation, every scent, every taste, every touch.

Trust. Oh, God. She had always been looking for it and completely unaware that tying was giving that to her in a superficial way. But Blue was giving it to her in the most authentic, deepest way she’d ever experienced, and she craved more.

This was a dialogue between them, creating intense emotions, a dramatic joining of beautiful human artwork, and a deep mystical connection.

And then he touched her center, and she exploded, and with it came the knowledge that she had been seeking so very long. Her keening cry wailed across the beach as baby turtles sought sanctuary. Her heart twisted, and she looked at herself and the dark, still oozing wound that she had never let heal—trusting only herself had kept her safe. It had enabled her to survive and not have to really face all her own pain like she was now.

She dropped her head to his shoulder, tears sliding onto his skin, his harsh breathing and panting breaths like music in her ears. There was the truth, shining and ready to be embraced, if she had the courage to do it: It was her inability to openly trust and let people in.

Her inability to be vulnerable was her cage, and it had locked her away as effectively as a prison. She might be in the navy, but she wasn’t part of it. She’d never let anyone in. Not Steve, not her fellow divers…no one.

But she didn’t know if she could let go, and in that moment, she understood Blue’s struggle. His body told her he was ready to give her everything.

She wasn’t sure she was capable of doing the same.

In that moment, her world shifted, and she tumbled into a black hole devoid of stars.