Once Burned

by L. A. Witt

  So I grinned and squeezed his thigh. “You know where to find me.”

  “I do. And I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  After my shift, I couldn’t get out the door fast enough. I needed to grab a shower and get to Mark’s. I could’ve showered at the club, but I needed to go by the apartment anyway to stash two foil-wrapped sandwiches and containers of steak fries in the fridge. God, what a relief to have some food for the next couple of days, even if I did feel a little guilty about it. Since Mark had brought me lunch, I hadn’t technically needed the free meals my boss allowed every four hours. But given how little there was in my tiny fridge and how little cash I had to put anything in it, I didn’t feel that guilty.

  And thank God the cooks never questioned me; they were in similar boats financially, and one of them even had kids to feed. I didn’t know how he did it. I was just grateful he never ratted me out to Hank for abusing the free-meal privilege.

  With the food in the fridge and my conscience only kind of nagging at me, I peeled off my clothes and got in the shower.

  The water was hot but not quite hot enough. I still felt cold all over. Still shaky. Still not quite together.

  Maybe I should cancel tonight. I needed to stay home. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and my nightmares and the aches and pains and panic that were flaring up. Not that they ever went away completely.

  Except I didn’t want to be alone—I wanted to be with Mark. When he’d come into the club tonight, he’d had no idea how much he’d settled me. Because suddenly there was a meal I didn’t have to worry about affording. There was company who didn’t judge me and actually went out of his way to be with me. After being on edge all day, I’d been able to breathe for a little while, and I wanted more of that.

  And besides, the best thing to pull me back together had always been to focus on living my normal everyday life, and the fact was, my normal everyday life included being with Mark. I wasn’t avoiding my problems by going to him—I was living in the now.

  So I got out, got dressed, and headed over to his place.

  The long kiss hello didn’t feel quite right.

  The playful glances on the way up the stairs? Those took more work than they should have.

  Then we tumbled into his bed, and his arms were around me, and I knew this was a mistake. His kiss was hot and his hands were all over me, but now that I was doing something that should have made me wild, I realized how utterly numb I was. How hollowed out and bled dry I was from being pounded into the ground by my past trauma and present anxiety. Sex? I was better off trying to balance an aircraft carrier on my chin.

  But how the hell was I supposed to bow out tactfully?

  Fuck it. I could do this. Once I got into it, I’d be fine, and I would get into it. I would. Any second now. Even if my heart wasn’t in it, my body could catch up. Right?

  “Missed you last night,” Mark murmured against my lips.

  “Missed you.” It wasn’t a lie. I had missed him. I’d just spent more time missing being sane and safe and wondering what it felt like to not be on edge. Maybe this was what I needed—to lose myself in someone who’d hold me and make me feel good.

  I held him tighter and kissed him deeper, tapping into every reserve I had for energy and enthusiasm. I could do this, damn it. If nothing else, I could get him off and make sure he went to sleep satisfied.

  We rolled onto our sides, still kissing and groping. Every time his hand drifted toward my cock, though, I’d casually redirect it. Not slapping it away or grabbing his wrist—just guiding him toward my nipple or my ass or my leg.

  Then his hand slid beneath the back of my jeans, and he pressed against me, and there was no way he missed how there was only one boner between us. His.

  Cold panic and hot embarrassment shot through me, but then resignation settled in.

  I wanted him. I wanted us to be naked and fucking, and I wanted to come in him or all over him or down his throat . . .

  But it wasn’t going to happen. My body just wasn’t into it.

  Mark broke the kiss. “What’s wrong?”

  Damn it. Unlike me, the jig was up.

  I pulled back but didn’t look at him. “I’m sorry.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I legitimately wished the ground would open up and swallow me. Couldn’t we have waited a little longer for my mental shit to start interfering with our sex life? Son of a bitch.

  “Diego.” He touched my shoulder. The unscarred one. I tried not to think about whether that was deliberate, and it made my skin crawl even more to think he was avoiding touching the scars out of disgust, but I was also kind of glad he wasn’t touching them. I didn’t know what I wanted him to do. In a voice so soft it almost made me cry, he asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m . . .” I raked an unsteady hand through my hair. It was damp, and I hoped it was still from my shower and I hadn’t really broken into a sweat. We’d barely even done anything.

  “You’re shaking.” Mark touched my face, and when our eyes met, his were wide. “What’s wrong?”

  Fuck. There was no point in trying to hide anything from him, and I didn’t have the energy to come up with a lie.

  “It’s, um . . .” I wiped a hand over my face, but it didn’t help. Not when I couldn’t stop the shaking. “I had a bad night last night. Nightmares and shit. It’s from . . .” I shuddered. “From being in combat.”

  “PTSD?” he whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you ever seen a psychologist about it?”

  I jerked my head up and glared at him. “How the hell would I pay for that?”

  Mark’s lips parted. He blinked. “You . . . you have VA benefits, don’t you?”

  I started to shoot back the answer, but then I remembered Mark didn’t know my story. Or my predicament. Heat rushed into my cheeks, and I felt like an ass for biting his head off. Lowering my gaze again, I rubbed my neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t . . .” Fuck, I was too exhausted to even put it into words. “I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes and pushed out a breath. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, and God I want to be into this tonight, but I—”

  “Hey. Come here.” He wrapped his arms around me. My pride wanted me to pull back and insist I was fine, but damn it, I couldn’t help sinking into the warm comfort of his embrace. Mark kissed my forehead and murmured, “We don’t have to do anything tonight. If you’re this rattled, you’re not going to enjoy it.”

  “But I don’t want you getting blue balls just because I’m—”

  “Diego.” He tipped up my chin and looked right in my eyes. “We’ll fuck again when we’re both into it. If it wasn’t obvious, I do enjoy being with you even when we have clothes on.” He kissed me softly. “You want to just call it a night?”

  I felt guilty as hell, but his suggestion made the fatigue soak deeper into my bones. Calling it a night was pretty much my only option. I started to draw back. “Yeah. Let me get dressed and—”

  “No.” He tugged my arm. “I meant call it a night here.” He ran his palm up my back. “With me.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” His smile was sweet. “Sex isn’t the price of admission for sleeping in my bed.”

  I swallowed, not quite believing him.

  He kissed me gently. “I mean it. Even if you didn’t want to fool around tonight, we can just sleep. I . . .” His cheeks colored a bit, and his shy smile pushed all my buttons. “I like having you here, you know?”

  I moistened my lips. “I like being here.”

  “Then stay.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ll have to take off early in the morning, but you know where the coffee is. Just make sure you lock the door on your way out.”

  “Okay. I will.” I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Fair warning—when this happens, I usually get nightmares. Bad ones. Especially when I’m . . . When it’s been . . .” Clearing my throat, I tried to roll some tension out of my shoulders. “Just . . . I might, uh, flail. Yell. T
hat kind of thing.”

  “I know,” he said with a shrug. “You’ve done it a few times.”

  I blinked. “I have?” Fuck, I thought you’d slept through those.

  “Yes. And it’s okay.” It sounded almost patronizing, but then he added, “During deployments, when we were in port, a buddy and I used to get hotel rooms so we didn’t have to sleep on the ship. He’d done three tours in Iraq.” Mark brushed a strand of hair off my forehead and emphatically repeated, “It’s okay.”

  I studied him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. There had to be some way this was a deal breaker for him. Whatever we were doing, it was way too new to weather something like this.

  But he just cradled the back of my neck and pressed a tender kiss to my lips. “Should we get ready for bed?”

  Speechless, I nodded.

  In minutes, we were down to our boxers and curled up under the covers in comfortable silence. Mark had his head on my good shoulder and his arm slung across my stomach, and that bone-deep chill I’d been trying to shake off for days was no match for his body heat. His warmth was soothing. Maybe I didn’t have what it took for sex tonight, but I was apparently starving for affection and contact, and Mark was giving it to me in spades just by lying against me.

  The more he relaxed and the more his breathing slowed, the more I relaxed too. It was hard to panic and get lost in the past when there was someone right here who was calm and serene. There were no bullets, no mortars, no screams—just the easy, steady breathing of a man falling asleep while he held me protectively.

  As he drifted off, I kept stroking his hair.

  How can you be everything I’ve tried to avoid and still be perfect for me?

  I closed my eyes as a sick feeling settled in my gut.

  When are you going to see what a train wreck I am . . .

  . . . and leave?

  The room was still dark when Mark got up to go to work. He kissed me on the cheek, and I was just awake enough to catch something about “text you later” and “see you tonight” before he was gone.

  I slept for a few more hours. By the time I rolled out of his amazingly comfortable bed, I felt a lot better than I had in the last couple of days. Still kind of shaky, and now with some nerves about how long Mark would keep me around, but I’d rested, and that made all the difference in the world.

  While I showered in his bathroom, I tried to recall if I’d had any freak-outs last night. I knew I’d had nightmares—the fear still skittering through my veins was a dead giveaway—but had I woken him up? I couldn’t remember. They must not have been that bad, then. At least not for me. Hopefully they hadn’t been for him.

  I made it through the day on autopilot. I was more rested now, which helped contain the feeling that I was about to start climbing the walls. The anxiety was better as long as I didn’t think too much about last night’s failure to launch.

  It wasn’t the first time that had happened—just the first time it had happened with Mark. One guy had ghosted me afterward. Another had accidentally sent me a message on Grindr that was supposed to go to someone else. Something to the effect of That guy I was fucking last night turned out to be a limp-dicked basket case. A third hadn’t been so great with things like social cues and knowing when to make a joke; the full-page Cialis ad he’d cut out of a magazine and given to me had been the end of our little fling.

  If that part of last night didn’t bother Mark, then he’d have questions about the other part. The part where I was shaking and distracted and warning him about nightmares. He’d spent enough time with me and we’d talked enough that he had to be putting the pieces together. It was just a question of how long he’d hold out before he finally brought it up.

  Turned out the answer to that was—not long.

  That evening, after I’d finished an early shift at the High-&-Tight and gone over to Mark’s place, we were standing in his kitchen, making uneasy small talk while we sipped coffee, when he went there.

  “I’m curious, but you don’t have to answer.” He watched me, and his voice was soft as he asked, “What happened?”

  My skin crawled under my clothes, and I tried not to squirm. As much as I didn’t want to talk about it, I suddenly wanted him to know. Like I needed him to know something had actually happened and I had a right to be this traumatized, and I was a fucking idiot for even thinking that because—

  “Hey.” He touched my wrist and stilled the shaking I hadn’t noticed. As he gently took my coffee so it didn’t slosh all over us both, he added, “I mean it. You don’t have to answer. I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s okay.” Releasing a breath, I turned my hand over under his and laced our fingers together. I wondered if he noticed how damp my palm was getting. “If we’re going to be doing . . . whatever it is we’re doing, it’s only fair you know what you’re up against.”

  His brow furrowed.

  “It’s, um . . .” I cleared my throat, gently freeing my hand so I could fold my arms across my chest as if that could keep away the inevitable chill. “Okay, so the burns.” I tilted my head, letting my chin indicate my scarred shoulder. “I was in a convoy that was ambushed.”

  Mark shuddered. “Always convoys, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Convoy detail is scary as fuck. You can sit around the base for days and nothing will happen, but the minute you leave in a vehicle . . .”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard. Iraq or Afghanistan?”

  “Afghanistan.” I took a deep breath and lowered my arms to my sides. “We hit a small IED. Not enough to kill anybody, but it was enough to destroy one of the wheels on our Humvee.” I sighed, absently wiping my hands on my jeans. “So, we had to stop. We knew it was a trap, but I mean, we still had to unfuck the disabled vehicle before we could keep moving.”

  Mark shifted as if he was getting as twitchy as I was. He probably knew exactly where this was going.

  “My buddy and I were posted as guards while they worked on fixing it.” I licked my lips, wondering when my mouth had gone dry. My heart was beating faster, an echo of the scared shitless feeling I’d had while I’d stood there next to our crippled vehicle. I could still feel the desert sun biting into my exposed skin and burrowing through my layers of protective gear to heat everything underneath until I was sweating like crazy. I’d had to take my glove off for a minute to fix the strap on my rifle, and I’d burned my finger on the sun-heated barrel of the M5. I’d sworn, stuffed my stinging hand back into the glove, and not had a clue just how minor that pain was about to be.

  “Diego?” Mark’s hand brushed mine, startling me back into the cool, comfortable room. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

  “I can. It’s okay.” How long had I been drifting in my own thoughts?

  “You sure? You’re sweating bullets.”

  I wiped my hand over my forehead, and I wasn’t sure what bothered me more—how wet my fingers were or how badly they were shaking. I thought about cutting off my own story, but I’d started. I was already shaky and queasy. Might as well see it through so I didn’t have to work myself up to it again.

  I took a deep, unsteady breath. “So, the insurgents . . . they distracted us with another explosion and some gunfire. While we were focused on that, they rammed the Humvee with a car. I was trying to help one of my guys who’d been injured, and the fuckers did it again.” I tapped a finger on my knee. “That’s how I jacked up my leg. And while someone else was trying to get me to safety, they threw in a projectile. I’m not even sure if it was a grenade or another IED or what, but we saw it coming and tried to take cover. We didn’t have time to get far, so I got hit with a bunch of shrapnel and burned the fuck out of my shoulder.” My scarred skin itched under my T-shirt. I sighed and couldn’t help running my hand over the spot where the swallow used to look pretty damn awesome. “Pissed me off that my tattoo was wrecked. That fucker hurt, you know? And now it’s messed up.”

  He grimaced sympatheticall
y. “I bet. Is there any way it can be redone?”

  “Not on this side. I’ll have to get what’s left removed, and then maybe get a new one on the other side. I mean, they can tattoo over scars, but the skin is so rough right there . . .” I shook my head. “It would look like shit.” Scowling, I muttered, “It already does.”

  Mark ran a hand up my back, and to his credit, he didn’t try to insist the tattoo looked fine.

  I didn’t want to talk about my tattoo, so I went on. “My first tour wasn’t even that bad, to be honest. We took fire a few times, but we were mostly hot and bored. The second time, I knew as soon as they put me on convoy duty that it was going to be hell. And it was. Since we came back, four guys from my unit have killed themselves and one has tried. To be honest, I think my head was fucked up before I got hurt.”

  “Was it?”

  I nodded. “It was my second tour, so, you know, I’d already seen a lot. Shit goes down in war zones. That’s the way it is. The nightmares sometimes come from the explosion, but also from what happened about three months before that.”

  His eyebrows rose, a silent bid for me to continue but with unspoken permission to stop if I wanted to.

  I continued. “The short version is we were in a village. One where there’d been some heavy fighting. We were trying to flush out a cell of insurgents, but we got ambushed and got pinned down, and one of my buddies took a shot to the leg. High caliber. Lot of damage. We had two of those QuikClot bandages on him—the ones that can stop even really bad bleeding—and it wasn’t enough.”

  “Jesus,” Mark breathed. “That must have been a hell of a wound.”

  “It was. Even after the firefight was over, he needed a medic, but then they got pinned down.” I pushed out a ragged breath. “One of the other guys, he and I did everything we could with what we had, but my friend bled out while our medics were taking fire two hundred yards away.” I shook my head slowly. To this day, I could still hear Samson calling out for his mom, his cries getting weaker by the minute until he fell quiet for good. “I’ve never felt more helpless in my life.”