by Cara Carnes
Had he forgotten he’d called Logan?
“Jesse?” Ellie took a step forward and splayed her hand out on Jesse’s scarred back. Tension radiated from him in thick waves. “What’s wrong?”
“I should’ve called someone to sit with you while he examines you.”
“You’re here and so is Mom.”
“I should go.”
“You leave and I’ll follow, Jesse. You aren’t running from this. Or me.”
“I hurt you,” he growled.
“Let’s take a look at Ellie,” Logan suggested.
Jesse warily stepped aside. He prowled the area like a caged animal looking for an escape, but remained close as Ellie sat on the sofa and let the doctor assess her.
“Looks like you’re already doing most of what I would recommend,” Logan said. “Take a couple Tylenol if you haven’t already.”
“She’s got a TBI,” Jesse argued.
“I’m aware. She’s been healing nicely. The accidental blow she took isn’t to the same region.” Logan glanced at Jesse. “We can take her to the ward and run a scan to make sure.”
“Good. Let’s go.” Jesse walked toward the door.
Ellie’s heart hurt. Jesse’s sole focus was on making sure she was okay. He didn’t have on a shirt or shoes. She looked down at her hastily donned clothes and realized she’d put on Jesse’s T-shirt inside out. Her shorts were on backward.
“Let me get dressed.”
“It won’t take a minute. You’re fine,” Logan said. “Jesse, get some shoes. Then we’ll go.”
He grunted but headed back toward the room.
“Are you okay, Ellie?”
“I’m fine.”
“Nightmare?” Logan asked.
Ellie nodded. “We fell asleep.”
“I can message Sinclair.”
Ellie wanted whatever was best for Jesse, but she didn’t want a lot of people involved. Too much of a big deal was being made about what was clearly an accident.
“He has every right to be worried, Ellie. Soldiers suffering from PTSD battle this issue a lot. It’s one of the most prevalent reasons why the Warrior’s Path participants are here recovering. Soldiers like Jesse were trained to kill. Waking up unaware of where they are with those skillsets is dangerous,” Logan said softly. “You need to chat with Doctor Sinclair about this.”
“I will, but I’m not letting him use this as an excuse to run away from me.” She glared at the doctor. “I’m not losing him to that hell he survived.”
Ellie was okay. Jesse let the relief burn out the worry as they returned to the cottage. Her mother was no longer in the recliner—a fact he filed away as Ellie clutched his hand and steered him back toward the bedroom.
His heart thudded hard in his chest as they approached. He should’ve made an excuse and left her back in Medical, but he’d needed to see for himself she was okay.
Then he’d leave.
Until his nightmares were back under control, he couldn’t risk spending nights with Ellie, even though he craved them like a drug. Anger and self-loathing rode him hard. He’d lost enough because of those monsters. He deserved another shot at the dream he’d once shared with Ellie. Or half the dream.
He could live without having kids with her.
And sex…
As long as he could make her come and fall apart in his arms, he’d die a happy man.
None of that was possible right now because he was a ticking time bomb every time he shut his eyes and slept. There were zero guarantees he wouldn’t have another episode—one that could eventually hurt her far worse.
The bedroom was in shambles, but Ellie didn’t seem to notice. She slid her flip-flops off and leaned down to blow two candles out. The movement hiked up her shorts in the back. A groan escaped him as he admired her gorgeous ass and the strip of soft inner thigh now visible. He wanted to strip her bare and feast on her once more.
Maybe then he could forget the bruises developing around her face—a mark she’d wear for days because he’d hit her.
Damn.
“Stop thinking about it,” she said.
“I can’t control what I think,” he said.
“You can do anything.” She turned and smiled as she stripped off his T-shirt, which fell to the floor.
Anticipation zinged beneath his skin as she shimmied out of her shorts. Totally bare, she smirked and headed into the bathroom. Jesse hadn’t felt this alive around anyone since he’d returned home.
Damaged.
He’d left the cottage without a shirt. The realization had come a few moments after Logan put her into testing and returned a few moments later with a T-shirt. Nothing had mattered except making sure Ellie was okay.
The light pelting of water against tile sounded from the bathroom. The shower.
“Come shower, Jesse.”
His mouth dried. The bathroom was eight steps away, and the bedroom door was only six. Another twenty-one and he’d be outside—where she’d be safer. But leaving was impossible when the temptation of a wet and loving Ellie was so…
“Jesse.” She appeared in the entryway to the master bathroom. “Come wash my back.”
He stood frozen into place as she disappeared again. Wash her back?
Confusion drew him into the web of temptation. Steam rose from the warm water. Ellie stood beneath the spray, head tipped back so the drops hit her neck and trickled downward to slope off at her breasts. The smile she offered when she turned demanded he approach.
“This is nuts,” he declared.
“Why?”
“Ellie, I hit you. We can’t…”
“You didn’t hit me, Jesse. You struck out at whatever was in your nightmare. I happened to be in the way.” She squeezed shampoo into her hand. “Now, are you going to get undressed and get in here, or am I doing this alone?”
“This is serious,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I know, but I refuse to focus on the negative of tonight a second longer. I want to take a shower with the man I love, then crawl into bed and sleep a little more. Later we’ll wake, eat breakfast with Mom, and then we can sort through a solution for this problem. And that’s all this is, Jesse,” she said as she lathered up her hair. His fingers itched to handle the task. “A problem, just like all the others we solve every single day. I’ve said it before. There’s nothing we can’t figure out or conquer together.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Bullshit.” She stepped under the spray. Soapy water cascaded down her body. His skin heated. His heartbeat accelerated.
Dare he give into the temptation? She’d seen his scarred back and torso and most of the damage to his legs the first time he had a nightmare at her place. Few had seen what was left in his groin. Scar tissue covered the majority of the area. He’d lost his left testicle. Skin grafts had replaced the worst of the damage on his shaft, but his dick was…gross.
Not that any cock was pretty. His was…
“Jesse,” she whispered.
He startled at her proximity. Wet and impatient, she rose on her tiptoes and drew his face down. Fiery tingles burst within him when their mouths touched. The kiss was deep and commanding—an all-in fusion of tongues and lips.
“That’s more like it,” she commented, her lips scant millimeters from his. “Now let’s get you undressed so we can enjoy this hot water. I have to admit I’m in love with the water heaters out here. It’ll be hard to return to the rental.”
Ellie wasn’t ever returning to the rental, but Jesse kept the thought to himself. They had enough between them right now. Awareness marched along in a trail of goosebumps wherever she touched. The delicate trace of her fingernails along the scars on his upper chest didn’t register physically as it once had. Too much nerve damage would prevent him from ever experiencing the physical sensation fully, but the feather-soft contact was enough.
Jesse swallowed. “I’ll feel it more if you touch harder. Nerve damage numbs most physical contact.”
Her eyes widened. A fiery glimmer of anger swept across her face. The protectiveness made his heart swell. If given half a chance, the beautiful woman who owned his heart and soul would kill every single bastard who’d hurt him.
Ellie leaned forward and kissed the deepest gouge along his chest. He froze a moment, then relaxed as his mind processed where he was. The reminder was enough. She reached for the button to his jeans.
“I’m not…” Jesse paused. “I’ll keep them on.”
“No.” She undid the clasp of his jeans and dragged the zipper down. “You’re mine, Jesse James Mason. I want to see you, memorize every inch of you. Love every inch of you.”
“There’s nothing worth loving, Peanut. I’m a heap of scars and gnarled flesh.”
“You’re so much more,” she whispered. “We all have scars. They’re the reason you are the incredible man I love today. Don’t you dare hide a single one from me. You earned them surviving, staying alive to come back to me and your family. I love every single one of those scars, Jesse, because they’re proof of your love and a testament to the strength and resilience it took to come back to us.”
“You got me through,” he whispered into her ear. “When the darkness and pain threatened to consume me whole, you were there.”
Jesse kissed her as she helped him pull his pants and boxers past his hips. He severed the kiss long enough to remove them completely and then claimed her mouth quickly as the need to taste her overrode any latent concerns.
Ellie loved him.
He was safe with her.
She laughed when they moved beneath the warm spray. Raised on tiptoes, she lathered up his hair, then filled her palm with a large dollop of soap. She washed and massaged her way across his shoulders, down his arms and chest. Every inch of him received the Ellie treatment—stroke, massage, cleanse, and kiss.
When he moved to do the same with her, she intercepted with a shake of her head. “Next time.”
Yes. There’d be plenty of next times. Just because he couldn’t sleep in the same room as her didn’t mean he was letting her go—even if that would be the smartest move.
Their kisses turned molten—a fiery tango that danced beneath his skin and pooled at the base of his dick.
What the fuck?
Jesse froze a moment, but Ellie continued. She lathered his lower stomach and knelt as she repeated the methodical treatment his upper chest had received. Eyes closed, head back, he fought the fear and apprehension within him.
Peanut.
The name was a whispered plea between them as tingles burst beneath his skin and across his stomach in an arrowing path downward. She caressed along the scar that started beneath his naval and angled downward, where it ended in a half dozen circles of puckered skin.
Cigar burns.
She touched each one, kissed it. Then continued.
Weakness plagued him a moment. His knees buckled beneath the onslaught of sensations crawling within him. His dick twitched.
Jesse tightened, unsure what was happening. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think…
“Jesse,” Ellie whispered against him.
He glanced down where she knelt, eye level with his crotch. Tears glistened within her gaze—a fact he noted because his back blocked water from hitting her. Her hands splayed on his thighs. Massaged.
Then she leaned forward and kissed his shaft.
Doctors had made tremendous progress in restoring most of the skin there, but scar tissue made the area less sensitive than it’d once been. Ellie took the semi-hard cock in her hand and pumped. Once. Twice.
Fuck.
Jesse gritted his teeth as his entire body swayed beneath the contact. Fear spiraled through him a moment, but he kept his gaze on Ellie. He wasn’t in the hole. He wasn’t in the hell room.
He was with Ellie.
Arousal.
Need.
She licked along his shaft, but he felt nothing. Resentment flashed through him. He’d once shot off like a rocket at the slightest flick of her tongue on his dick.
No response didn’t halt Ellie’s attentive ministrations. She continued massaging his thighs, then stroked his abdomen.
“Tell me what you need,” she demanded as she wrapped her hand around his semi-hard cock.
“Harder.” He panted with shallow breaths as his awareness honed in on where she gripped his dick firmer than before and stroked. Hard.
A groan escaped him. She stood, claimed his mouth. Her hand continued working him. Need consumed him as he thrust forward. This wasn’t how he wanted it.
Jesse had never expected to have a hard-on again. Sex wasn’t an option.
But it was.
“Inside you,” he said, too consumed with the carnal lust attacking him to say more.
With a groan, Jesse lifted Ellie up until her legs wrapped around him. He ran a hand between them to work her clit and found her aroused. Ready.
“Peanut,” he groaned as he thrust into her.
“Jesse.”
She clung to him as he pumped inside her slick, tight heat. The sensation was a fraction of what he’d once felt, but a million times more than he’d ever expected to have back. Tears burned his eyes as he kissed her.
“I love you,” he said, his voice low with raw emotion.
“Jesse.”
He held onto the release longer than he expected, but nowhere near long enough. He wanted to spend an eternity buried deep within Ellie. He thrust one last time and gave into the sensations. Ellie’s entire body tensed with her own orgasm moments later.
He somehow remained standing despite weak knees. His entire body was mush—so relaxed he damn near floated with the sensation. Ragged breaths sawed from him. He rested his forehead against hers and smiled when she smiled.
“You’re amazing,” he declared.
“Funny, I was about to say that about you.” She wrapped her arms around him. “I love you, Jesse James Mason.”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t…”
She placed two fingers over his mouth and shook her head. “Don’t you dare apologize to me for anything we share or do.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever…”
“I’m all in, Jesse. Whether we ever do this again or not, I love you. Nothing matters but having you in my life again.” She smiled. “That was amazing.”
Jesse grinned. It’d been way beyond amazing for him.
“I know we’ve got a lot to work through, Jesse, but this proves we’re on the right path. Nothing is keeping us apart this time. Nothing.”
“Until I get the nightmares under control, I can’t sleep in the same bed as you, Ellie. It’s too dangerous.”
“We’ll work something out,” she whispered. “Come to bed and hold me. Besides, you need to decompress and journal that dream out.”
Jesse nodded. He’d stay awake and watch her sleep. Right now he couldn’t imagine leaving her alone.
Ellie remained quiet and napped off and on as Jesse scribbled in his journal—the only one she’d yet to read. Tension coiled within his arms whenever they rested around her a moment, then he’d return to the book he’d placed beside them on the bed.
They’d had sex.
Ellie’s entire body still hummed with the release. Euphoria kept her from sleeping. Despite the unexpected and extremely pleasurable turn of the evening, there were a few things unresolved. Things she couldn’t leave until later because she suspected one was very, very important.
“Jesse, who is Marine?”
He tightened beside her. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Is it a person?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, his voice higher than before.
“I love you. Nothing you say or share will ever change that, Jesse. None of the journals mentioned someone with that name,” she broached. “Cord shared files with me. None of them did either.”
“Cord needs to mind his own damn business,” Jesse clipped.
“He loves you.” Ellie repo
sitioned herself to be behind Jesse. One of his journals had mentioned no one having his back when he needed it. It would be her new mission when they were alone—to have his back while he slept.
And they would sleep together. One way or another, she’d excise the nightmares keeping them apart. They’d lost far too many nights as it was. She wasn’t about to let some phantoms stand between them.
“Then he’d best leave it the fuck alone.”
Ellie wrapped her arms around Jesse’s middle and rested her head on his shoulder. “I love you, Jesse. I’m here to listen whenever you’re ready to share. Don’t keep it bottled up inside you. Those bastards don’t get another second of your life.”
21
Ellie opened The Arsenal office and waited as Harry, Hermione, and Dobby entered. The three headed to their favored positions along the full-length window near her desk. Sun splayed into the area.
Ellie doubted she’d be allowed to stay for long, but there were things to do and commandoes didn’t do paperwork. She sat at her desk and groaned when the chime above the door went off. Glancing up, she watched Bree and Sara enter with Ariana in tow.
“What are you doing here?” Bree demanded.
While Ellie found the instant reprimand annoying, she was thankful they didn’t ask immediately about her black eye. For once she was thankful The Arsenal’s rumor mill worked with a proficiency the tri-county gossip mongrels could only hope to attain one day.
“Are you okay? I should’ve stayed at your place—crashed on the couch or in the spare room.” Bree reached for Ellie’s face, then pulled back.
“I’m fine. The bruising will go away in a few days. Now, I have emails to check. Invoices to enter. Payroll to process.” She glared at her friend. “I literally just walked in. You can’t yell at me for at least half an hour.”
“Is that so? Is that in the TBI manual?” The blonde crossed her arms and looked at Sara. “She’s stubborn.”
“She’s bored,” Sara said. “I can help with stuff. I can file and whatnot.”
“Thanks,” Ellie said. “That can wait. I just want to process a couple checks and payroll, then I’m done. I swear.”