by L. A. Witt
“You’ve got me. You know you do.” He leaned down to kiss my neck. “Anything you want me to do. Just say it.”
I didn’t say anything, but he got the message when I started herding him back toward the bedroom.
Naked, tangled, out of breath, we made out between the sheets. Our hands were all over each other. Everywhere we could press together, we did.
I pushed him onto his back and straddled him. “Your leg okay like this?”
“Uh-huh.” He grabbed the back of my neck and lifted his head to kiss me. His hips rocked, and I couldn’t help doing the same, and we both grunted as I thrust against him. The friction drove me wild. Casey was hot and breathless and alive, and he made me feel hot and breathless and alive, and I didn’t think anything could possibly turn me on more.
“You feel any better yet?” he ground out.
“Oh yeah.” I rubbed harder against him. “This is perfect.” You wouldn’t touch me if you knew how crazy my head is right now, but you don’t know, and you’re perfect, and . . . “God, Casey . . .” Forget not being able to get hard—now I was on the edge of getting off, and if he kept moving like that, if he moaned again, if—
“Oh shit,” he breathed. “Shit. Don’t stop. Baby, don’t . . .” Casey’s nails dug into my back. His head lifted off the pillow, almost like he was curling in on himself, and he didn’t breathe for a few beats before he forced out a single, hot huff and jolted under me. That was all I could take, and suddenly I was coming too, shooting cum all over both of us. The sight drew a groan out of me. I’d never had a thing for semen all over skin before, but for some reason, it drove me wild with Casey. Maybe because I still couldn’t believe some of it was my semen all over this gorgeous man. Or that he’d somehow dragged me back into the present and out of my nightmare enough to get turned on, let alone to come on him and make him come.
How do you do this to me, Casey?
I didn’t ask, though. For some reason, I was afraid of the answer.
Casey’s hair was still damp from the shower we’d shared. His head was on my shoulder, hair cool against my skin and between my fingers, and he was sound asleep.
I was still staring up at the ceiling, wide-awake. I wasn’t even sure if I couldn’t sleep, or if I just didn’t want to. Maybe a little of both. Nightmares came in packs, and I didn’t want to face another one that I couldn’t exorcise through a sketch.
The arm I’d wrapped around Casey’s shoulders was tingling, and I could barely feel my fingers, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t ready to let him go or even loosen my hold on him.
I did feel better, but I also didn’t. The dream hadn’t let go. Having Casey, naked and vulnerable, didn’t settle my nerves. At least in the dream he’d been covered in body armor. Not that it had helped against—
I tamped down that thought so I didn’t make myself sick.
Drawing after a nightmare usually helped, but tonight, it’d had the opposite effect. I wanted to tell myself it was because Casey had startled me before I could finish, but that wasn’t the whole story. The whole process had been counterproductive tonight. Pouring salt into wounds instead of numbing them. If he hadn’t interrupted me, I probably would’ve worked myself into a flashback or something.
What the hell? It had never been like this.
Because the dreams had never been about him.
They’d always been about me. My buddies. The past.
I closed my eyes and exhaled. That was it, wasn’t it? My nightmares had always been about the past. Tonight had been the future.
In my mind’s eye, I watched an IED take out a vehicle in a convoy with Casey in it, and I had to fight hard not to shiver and wake him up.
Even if he were sent back to a ship, he wasn’t safe by any means. If that ship got involved in some sort of combat, he’d be in the thick of things, shooting at the enemy. Maybe launching torpedoes, but quite possibly out on the deck, manning a large weapon or holding a smaller one. Enemies weren’t stupid—they took out the weapons and the men operating them first.
I closed my eyes and swallowed the lump in my throat. My arm was still asleep, but I curled it tighter around him anyway as I pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
It all went back to everything I’d told my therapist the morning before the records debacle had gone to shit—as long as Casey was on light duty, he was safe. Once he went back to full active duty, all bets were off.
And I didn’t know how to deal with that.
She wanted me to talk to him and work out how we both felt, what we both needed, and if we could make this thing happen. And maybe if we’d been able to do that the day she and I had talked, we’d have a solution by now, but we’d both been swimming in stress and chaos, and there hadn’t been an opportunity—never mind the energy—to talk about anything this deep.
Fuck. What if I really can’t handle being with him?
I didn’t ask about the nightmares. I wanted to, but every time I considered it, something in Logan’s expression warned me away. It was hard to tell if it was because he wouldn’t want to talk about it, or if I just knew deep down I didn’t want to hear it. Which probably made me a selfish asshole. That, or a coward. Or a really shitty boyfriend. All three, maybe? I did do my best to be there for him when he woke up thrashing—what else could I do?—but couldn’t bring myself to ask what the dreams were about.
Of course I knew what they were about. He was a combat vet. Chances were he wasn’t dreaming about being stuck in a Black Friday crowd at Walmart. I just didn’t know what I was more afraid of—hearing about what he’d been through, or the side comment about how I should be grateful my dreams weren’t like his.
Selfish asshole? Check.
Coward? Check.
Shitty boyfriend? Check.
But for three nights after the inspection, the nightmares woke us both up. I had no idea what had set him off, or even what he was dreaming about. He’d been willing to talk about them before, but now . . . nothing. What the hell was going on?
And had this been going on all through the inspection? Maybe because of stress? And if it was, why were they continuing? I felt bad because I hadn’t been with him much during that week. I’d wanted to be with him, but the lack of sleep had been too much to deal with. Now that the inspection was behind us, we should have been sleeping, but we weren’t, and it was taking an enormous toll.
So I started sleeping at my own place again. It helped, but only so much. What good did it do me to sleep away from him if I just lay awake worrying about him? What was the point of having nightmares about him having nightmares?
After the third night of sleeping apart, I shuffled into the office in the morning, clinging to my coffee cup like always. Logan looked about as well rested as I felt, and studied me over the top of his mug. “You okay?” The caution in his tone made it clear he was reading me right. God, now he was walking on eggshells.
“Yeah, I’m . . .” I sighed. “Just really, really tired.” And now that I was looking at him . . . “You haven’t been sleeping much either, have you?”
Logan shook his head as he put down his coffee cup. “Not at all. I thought it would be better for you if we weren’t . . .” His eyebrows rose. “But you’re still wiped?”
How can I not be? I’m worried about you.
“Yeah,” was all I said.
Logan got up and came to the entrance of his cubicle. Sarah wasn’t in the office, and Diego was off-base for a couple of days, so it was just us. Still, his closeness fucked with me, especially when he touched my face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “This . . . It happens sometimes. The nightmares and . . .”
I was long past caring if someone walked in and caught us, so I wrapped my arms around his waist and kissed him. “I know. But I miss having you there at night.”
Logan met my eyes, and a smile came to life. “I miss you too.”
“Stay with me tonight.” I squeezed his hand between both of mine. “If you have a nightmar
e, we’ll get through it. But I want you there again.”
“Are you sure?” He brought our hands up and kissed the backs of my fingers. “I don’t want you losing sleep.”
“I’ve been losing sleep without you.”
His eyebrows jumped, and then he laughed. “That’s about the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Cheeks burning, I chuckled. “Okay, it didn’t sound quite so cheesy in my head.”
“It wasn’t that cheesy.”
“It absolutely was.”
His lips quirked. “Okay. It was. But I liked it.”
“Good. So you don’t think I’m a complete dork.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed.
“Seriously, though,” he said. “I miss having you there at night.”
I swallowed. I kind of wanted to ask if the nightmares had tapered off, but that just brought me back to being a cowardly selfish asshole of a shitty boyfriend. I didn’t want to make our time together conditional.
And damn it, I wanted to be close to him tonight, dreams be damned.
So I smiled and put a hand on his waist. “Why don’t you come to my place tonight? For the whole night?”
Logan’s face lit up, and my entire body warmed. “Really?”
My smile didn’t take as much work. Not when I was gazing into those beautiful, enthusiastic eyes. “Yeah. Really.”
“Okay.” He kissed me lightly and murmured, “Think we’ll piss off your neighbors again?”
I laughed as I pulled him closer. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
A swift, sharp kick to my knee jarred me out of a sound sleep.
It hadn’t been my bad leg, thank God, but he’d narrowly missed.
I quickly slid up next to him and wrapped an arm around him. “Hey. Hey.” I held on tight, partly to comfort him and partly to contain him. “Logan. It’s Casey. Can you hear me?”
He stilled. Well, stopped thrashing, anyway. He was shaking so violently he was making my teeth chatter.
“You okay?” I asked in the most soothing voice I could muster. “Logan?”
One last shudder rocked him, and he sighed. “Yeah.” He put his hand over mine on his arm. “I’m good. Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Logan squeezed my hand. Then he sat up, and I thought he was going to get to his feet, but he paused and muttered, “Shit.”
“What?” I moved to the edge of the bed beside him.
“Forgot where I was. My sketch pad . . .”
“Oh. Shit. Maybe . . .” I hesitated before wrapping an arm around him. “Maybe we should do this at your place for a while.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He pressed his elbows into his thighs. With shaky hands, he rubbed his neck, letting his head hang.
I squeezed his shoulder. “You okay?”
He nodded wordlessly.
Except you’re not. We both know you’re not.
As much as I was afraid to, I finally whispered, “Tell me about them.”
Logan met my gaze.
“The dreams.” I swallowed. “What do you dream about?”
He chewed his lip. “My combat tours, mostly.”
“I figured.” I inclined my head, hoping he’d take it as go on.
Logan’s eyes lost focus. He sighed, shaking his head. “You really don’t want to know.” I thought he might leave it at that, but he scrubbed an unsteady hand over his face and grumbled, “You’re lucky. Believe me. I’d take a fucked-up leg over this shit any day.”
I gritted my teeth, but not hard enough to stop myself from snapping, “Goddamn it, Logan.”
He turned to me, eyebrows up.
“Quit using what happened to you to make what happened to me okay, all right? I get it. I fucking get it. Combat fucks people up. I know that.” Damn it. I shouldn’t have asked. I knew I shouldn’t have asked.
Logan blinked a few times, but then his expression hardened. “What do you want me to say? You asked what I—”
“I asked what you dreamed about, not for another reminder of my career getting yanked out from under me.”
He set his jaw. “You want me to feel sorry for you because you can’t go over there and get a head full of the bullshit that almost made me kill myself?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not discounting a damn thing you went through, but obviously you don’t get what it’s like to lose the only thing you ever wanted to be.”
“Yeah,” he spat, “I do.”
“No, you fucking don’t, or you’d back the fuck off about this instead of bringing it up every time you have a nightmare. I know what I would’ve been getting into, okay? I know. I didn’t just want a shiny trident. I wanted to go out there and fucking fight. I know that nightmares and PTSD were pretty much a guarantee, and it’s not a goddamned consolation prize to hear that I dodged that bullet, all right?”
“It fucking should be,” he snapped back. “You can be as mentally prepared as anyone, but going over there?” He shook his head, eyes still locked on me. “There’s no preparing for it, Casey. None. You have no idea what—”
“God, enough!” I put up my hands. “I’m trying to be here for you, but I don’t need you to sweep-kick my legs out from under me just to make yourself feel better.”
“What do you want me to say?” Logan asked through his teeth. “Do you want me to just not talk about what happened over there? Bottle it up like I have for the last—”
“No,” I snarled. “I never said you couldn’t talk about it. I just don’t see why you have to take a swipe at me every time you do.”
“I’m not taking a swipe at you. I’m—”
“For fuck’s sake. Enough.” I drew back from him, suddenly desperate for some breathing room. “I’m not going to fight about this, and I’m not going to keep butting my head against your trauma. Maybe . . .” I hesitated, then sucked in a deep breath through my nose. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
Logan blinked. “What?”
“Maybe this . . .” With every heartbeat, certainty sank in. I could have him go sleep on the couch. And then what? We could toss and turn in separate rooms while we dreaded how unbearably awkward the morning would be? Fuck. Why pull the bandage off slowly? This was miserable. I was miserable. I folded my arms tight across my chest. “You know what? Forget maybe. This isn’t a good idea.” I jutted my chin toward the door. “And I’m fucking done with it.”
“You’re done with—” His lips parted. “Are you throwing me out?”
Teeth clenched, I nodded. “Yeah. I am.”
“Casey, we—”
“No. I’m done.” I tightened my arms across my chest. “I’m having a hard enough time dealing with my leg and what to do with my career. I don’t need to keep getting kicked while I’m down.”
“So you—”
“Just leave, all right?” I avoided his gaze because looking at him pissed me off too much. “I’ll do any goddamned thing to help you cope with all this, but I won’t be your verbal punching bag.”
He was dead silent for a long time. Probably glaring at me, or maybe trying to think of something to say. Finally, though, he got up and grabbed his clothes off the floor. No one could get dressed as quickly as a soldier, and he was doing so at Marine speed, but it still felt like hours before he left my bedroom, sneakers in hand.
There was some movement in the living room. He’d probably sat down to put on his shoes. A moment later, the door banged shut behind him.
Eyes closed, I eased myself down, back against the headboard, and rubbed a hand over my face.
Well, shit.
Now what?
I replayed everything that had gone down since we’d woken up. I tried to look at it objectively even while I was still an emotional wreck, and I knew lack of sleep had to have played a part in things blowing up like that. We were both exhausted. Tempers were bound to run hot.
And even now, I wanted him. Jesus Christ, I wanted him. I was tempte
d to run after him and head him off before he got to his car, but I didn’t move. This wasn’t the first time he’d played that card—telling me I should be glad I didn’t have a head full of demons like that—and I didn’t need that shit. I couldn’t be with someone who eased his own pain by pouring salt into my wounds, even if that wasn’t his intention. There would always be a part of his mind that was damaged by war. There would always be a part of my uniform that was bare because of the missing trident. Those two things could coexist without me having to concede that my lack of a trident was worth it if I didn’t have to lose sleep like he did.
But still . . . now what?
This wasn’t over. I could throw him out, and he could leave, but we weren’t exactly out of each other’s lives.
“Aw, fuck,” I muttered, rubbing my tired eyes. Working with him was going to be hell. It was even odds if Diego and Sarah would give me shit or not. They weren’t usually the type to pass up an I told you so, but they were pretty good about knowing when to leave well enough alone. Like, not kicking somebody while he was down.
Hint, hint, Logan.
I sighed. I was supposed to be pissed, but being pissed was exhausting, and right now, I just hurt. I wanted Logan.
But at the same time, I was glad he was gone. I couldn’t live with the Bad Luck Olympics or the just be glad . . . games. Bad shit had happened to him. Bad shit had happened to me. It wasn’t a competition, and everything that haunted him didn’t change everything that had been taken away from me.
Including, I thought with a sinking heart, him.
I burned rubber on the way out of Casey’s complex. He wanted me gone? Fine. I was fucking gone. What the hell, anyway? Whatever. I was out of there.
I gripped the wheel tight. Driving after a nightmare/flashback. That was fun. A lot of fun. Yeah, this was a hundred percent what I needed to be doing tonight. Bright lights and dark shadows. Operating a vehicle.
Okay.
Maybe I needed to . . .
Not go home yet, but not be doing this.
I slowed down a bit and tried to think. Where to go? The liquor stores were all closed, but didn’t gas stations sell—