“Ethan?”
The giggling came from under the bed and Trent knelt down to peer beneath it. Ethan was wedged into the far corner, as far away as he could get from Trent’s reach. Suddenly he was struck with the vision of another child, tucked beneath a bed like this one, but cringing instead of laughing.
The flashback punched him in the gut, catching him off guard as he was suddenly transported to another room in a dirty, bombed-out house.
“I escaped, Daddy. You can’t reach me!”
Trent sucked in a hard breath and shook himself mentally. He was home. His kids were safe.
He smiled and reached beneath the bed. He snagged a little foot and gave it a tug. Ethan giggled and kicked but Trent managed to drag the naked boy out from under the bed.
Ethan squealed as Trent carried him from the bedroom by his foot. He rounded the corner to the bathroom, his son hanging upside down in front of him, laughing hysterically.
Laura was washing Emma’s face when Trent walked into the bathroom. She flashed him a grateful smile as their son continued to squeal and squirm.
Her smile touched his soul. “I caught this for you. I think it’s a rare breed of naked fish.”
“I’m not a fish, Daddy!”
Ethan hung over Trent’s forearm, giggling like mad and looking at his father with absolute adoration in his eyes. Like Trent wasn’t a complete stranger. Trent stopped suddenly, overcome with the realization that his son actually loved him, the father who’d been absent for almost his entire life. He clutched Ethan to him and inhaled his clean, warm scent.
Ethan wrapped his arms around Trent’s neck and his little hand patted his father’s shoulder. “Don’t be sad, Daddy. Mommy will make everything all right.”
Trent swallowed and blinked rapidly. What could he say? He set Ethan down and knelt down to the boy’s level. “Yeah. Mommy always makes things all right.”
Ethan’s little black-haired head nodded and he wrapped his hand around Trent’s index finger, looking at Trent like he was some kind of hero. It struck Trent how small and innocent his son—his children—were. Trent wasn’t a hero. He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and swallowed. Again. He sucked in a hard breath, trying to keep the weight that settled on his chest from crushing his lungs. He needed to step back, needed to get outside.
A little hand pushed on his shoulder. “Daddy?” It was his daughter’s voice.
He opened his eyes, only now realizing that he’d squeezed them shut. He stared into little Emma’s golden eyes. He marveled again about how much she looked like a miniature version of Laura. “I love you, Daddy.”
His vision blurred, and he pulled his daughter and son close. Their tiny arms came around him, their little hands so small on his back. They were so fragile. Vulnerable. But they were safe. There were no bombs for his children. No men with guns to steal their dreams or send them down a dirt-strewn alley as human shields.
He stayed absolutely still and drank in their innocence, so completely grateful that they’d had Laura to raise them well. She had done that and so much more.
Alone.
The floor creaked and Trent looked up to see Laura step into the hallway. Her eyes were dark and filled with worry as she looked down at him holding their kids.
“Mommy, Daddy’s sad. Will you make him feel better?”
Trent smiled as his gaze met his wife’s. He couldn’t help it. His son’s innocent question had sent his mind to a less than innocent place. Laura blushed and Trent saw that he wasn’t the only one with a wandering mind.
“Daddy will be fine. Come on. Ethan, it’s time to wash up.”
“Daddy, will you read to me?” Emma asked. She thrust a book with a disgruntled cat on the cover.
He tipped the book back so he could read the cover. “Bad Kitty Gets a Bath?”
Emma nodded. “Bad Kitty is a bad, bad kitty,” she said solemnly. “She hates taking baths.”
He glanced at Laura, who stood watching from the door. There was a look of easy contentment on her face, as though tonight were just another normal night. As though this wasn’t the first time he had sat and done something so blessedly normal as read his children a bedtime story.
“Sure.”
Ethan washed in record time, joining them on Emma’s bed. Laura moved a blanket and sat on the opposite side of Emma. Ethan was pressed to Trent’s other side and Emma nestled between her mother and father. For once, there was no fighting. Only quiet snuggles at the end of a long day.
He paused for a moment, savoring the intensity of the love bursting inside him. This. This was what he’d missed out on.
He released a quiet breath. Then opened the book.
“This is how Kitty cleans herself,” he read. A smile spread across his face as he continued reading about how Kitty licked and licked and licked herself clean. Emma giggled when he got to the suit of armor needed for the bath.
The sound warmed something inside of him. He glanced over at Laura, his throat suddenly thick. She met his gaze as she stroked one hand over Emma’s head. “I think it’s time for bed, guys,” she said gently.
For once, they didn’t argue. Emma snuggled down in her blankets and Trent leaned down, kissing the top of her head. “Night night, Daddy,” she whispered sleepily.
“Night night, baby girl.”
He followed Laura into Ethan’s room. Their son lay on his back, and his arms went tight around his mother’s neck. “Night, Mommy.”
“Night, sweetheart.” Laura kissed him on his forehead, then stepped back to give Trent some room.
Ethan’s arms came around his neck and squeezed tight. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too.” He leaned back, brushing Ethan’s hair out of his face. He clicked off the light and closed the door.
And stood in the hallway for a long moment with his wife, unsettled by the power of his own emotions.
He loved this woman. This woman who gasped his name when his fingers slid through her hair. This woman whose fingers traced down his ribs to dig into the small of his back as he walked her backward toward their bedroom.
Trent traced her body with his hands until she arched against him. He cradled her face in his palms, stroking his thumbs over her cheeks. Slowly he lowered his lips to hers, teasing, tasting. He traced his tongue over her bottom lip and savored the shiver that ran through her and into him.
He wanted to hear his name on her lips when he teased her nipples between his teeth, when he kissed her swollen flesh and made her squirm with his tongue. He wanted to look in her eyes as she came apart in his arms.
She met his gaze and an urgency burned between them, all golden fire and brilliant desire.
“Laura.” Her name was a whisper on his lips, a hesitant question.
She surprised him. She didn’t look away. She didn’t tremble or hesitate. Her hands slipped up his chest, twining with his arms until her fingers framed his cheeks. “I want this.” She swallowed, then met his gaze once more. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”
Triumph soared within him and he kissed her, drowning in the taste and touch and feel of his wife. He breathed her in, devoured her, claiming her with every ounce of passion and pain he carried inside him.
The lifetime he’d lived before the war seemed like it had happened to someone else. There were two chapters of his existence: before the war and after. But there was one constant, one person who had always helped him. One person who kept the light in his soul from snuffing out beneath the darkness of war and pain and death.
As long as his wife was in the world, waiting for him, loving him, he had the strength, the will to go on. To come home, back to her.
Now, he guided her into their room and lowered her to their bed. He slid her top off her shoulders, revealing her soft skin, then moved her pants down, down, over her hips, dragging her panties with them until she was bare and exposed and swollen, then tugged until she straddled his lap, her entire body exposed for his every whim. He looked up
into her eyes while he slipped his fingers over her sensitive skin. Her nipples pearled beneath his thumbs and he pinched her lightly, reveling in her quick gasp.
He looked up at her as she straddled him, loving the feel of her body against his. Slowly, she dragged her nails from the twisting sinew of his forearms down, lower down his sides. He shuddered beneath her touch and a thrill of desire shot straight through him.
“God but I love your chest.” She leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss on the scar over his heart. He flinched as she dragged her tongue over the jagged red starburst that should have killed him. She paused, and kissed the center of the scar. “All of you,” she whispered.
His body tightened beneath hers and she shifted, sliding against his erection. He gasped and arched, trying to tug his hands out of his shirt. She wiggled in his lap until he was poised at the very center of her, her most intimate flesh just out of his reach.
“Not fair.” His voice was a grunt. But when he tried to thrust deep, she lifted her hips.
He swallowed and his eyes narrowed in the dim bedroom light. She traced her thumb back and forth over the scar on his chest. “It’s just a scar, Laura.”
She shook her head. “It almost took you from me,” she whispered.
“But it didn’t.”
She leaned down, tracing her tongue over the scar. Cold fire trailed over his skin as she blew on it and he shivered with barely restrained need.
In a single moment, he pulled his hands free and dug them into her hips, rolling her over until she was beneath him, and he pushed fully, deeply inside her. She shivered and wrapped her legs tightly around his hips even as she tugged him down, claiming his mouth.
She pressed her lips to his heart once more. “I’m glad you came home,” she whispered.
Slowly, he began to move, sinking deep inside her warm, welcoming embrace, his breath a groan as their pleasure built. A riot built inside her as she buried her face in his neck and bit back the fury that threatened to overwhelm her.
And when her release came, it was so intense, so full of pleasure and passion and hope, it stunned her. But it was the feel of her husband’s cheek pressed against hers in the aftermath of their loving that touched her soul.
In the hazy aftermath, they lay together, wrapped in the comforter on their bed. She shifted to study him in the dusky light. She leaned toward him and traced her index finger over the pale scar that lined his jaw.
“What?” he whispered.
“Tell me more about how you got this one.”
He tensed at her question and a quick bolt of fear shot through her that he would walk away, shutting her out like he had done before. Her hand rested on his shoulder, her fingertips pressed to his pulse. She felt his breath catch, his body tighten.
It was a long time before he spoke.
“Our Bradley got hit by a deeply buried IED outside Basra.” He sucked in a deep breath. His palm on her back tensed, his fingers digging into her back with the memory. “I got bounced out of the commander’s seat and knocked into my driver.” He closed his eyes and Laura’s heart broke for the pain in his voice. “I cut my jaw on the manual turret control.”
His brow knit together. He looked like he’d cracked the seal on a thousand bad memories and might never be able to banish them. She slid her fingers up to cup his jaw, tracing the scar once more. What could she say to that? What were the right words to say when he’d lived through something she could not even imagine. She pressed her lips to his heart. “I’m glad you were okay.”
He turned his face and kissed her forehead quickly. His breathing slowed but his words remained tight. “My gunner died that day.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed beneath her fingers where they’d drifted down to rest on his throat. “I’m sorry, Trent.”
He scrubbed his hand over his mouth. But he didn’t pull away. Laura didn’t dare move, afraid to break the moment and leave him alone and vulnerable. “Garanji was a good kid. His parents immigrated to the U.S. from Iran. He had a little sister, and he was always worried she was going to date an American boy instead of an Iranian.” He grinned. “One of my platoon sergeants used to give him so much shit.”
“Iaconelli?”
“Yeah. Reza’s Iranian, too. Part, anyway.” Trent’s eyes shimmered and reflected the glow from the fading sun. “He was pretty busted up when Garanji died.” He cleared his throat. “We all were.”
She didn’t say anything. What could she say? She’d been crying about being alone while Trent had been burying young soldiers in far off corners of the globe.
She suddenly felt selfish and petty, ashamed that she hadn’t understood—hadn’t known—the full story behind a simple scar on her husband’s body.
She closed her eyes. He’d chosen this, she reminded herself. He’d chosen not to share the roughest facts of his deployed life with her. What he’d gone through was hard but he hadn’t needed to walk that road alone.
She could never do what he did. His life was so different from hers, and her daily stresses and worries suddenly seemed so trivial.
They lay together in silence. Neither of them moved for a long time.
He shifted then, a rustle of fabric in the quiet evening. He pulled his arms around her and drew her closer. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“What are you thanking me for?” She found the words, but they barely slid past her lips.
He leaned closer, and their mouths were just a hint apart. His breath brushed against her lips. “For giving us a second chance.”
She wanted to speak. Wanted to tell him about everything she was feeling—her love, her fear, her uncertainty—but his lips pressed against hers, hesitant and questioning. She tipped her head and opened her mouth beneath his. His tongue stroked hers and with that simple touch, brilliant heat unfurled inside her.
His fingers pressed into her hair and angled her head so that their mouths could join more completely. She gasped as his jaw scraped against hers and need sparked between her thighs.
This was Trent. Trent who kissed her. Trent who made her feel this languid heat inside her. Trent who was holding her now, making love to her with his mouth, making her crazy—one slow, agonizing kiss at a time. She did the only thing a woman who loved a man could do.
She surrendered to the need and the heat and the joy and kissed him back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Laura walked into the headquarters on Monday sore and stiff and achingly happy for the first time in a long time. She was almost able to believe that they would make it, that things between them would continue to get better. That they were somehow stronger now than they’d been a few weeks before.
But the weight of the court-martial hung around her shoulders, a sobering reminder that just as things were starting to turn around in her marriage, they might be ripped apart once more.
She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the resurgent fear that squeezed around her heart.
She could lose him again. Just when she’d finally gotten him back.
Trent was supposed to meet her there in a few minutes. They were supposed to sit down with Patrick and go over the last bit of her testimony before the hearing in a few days. She was nervous. So much depended on the officers in that hearing having more faith in her husband than she’d had in him.
She walked down the hall toward her office, lost in thought. She rounded the corner and stopped short, nearly colliding with Lieutenant Randall.
Instantly, she took a step backward, needing space between herself and a thick-necked man who radiated violence. “What the hell did you say to my wife,” he spat.
“Good morning, lieutenant,” she said, emphasizing his rank.
“Don’t ‘good morning’ me,” he said. “What the fuck did you say to my wife?”
She took another step back, hating herself for backing down in the face of his anger. But then again, she wasn’t an idiot. He was a stocky man and if he chose to lose his damn mind and take a swing at her, it wasn’t goi
ng to be because she was an idiot and refused to back away.
“You mean the wife that you cheated on and gave an STD to? That wife?” Laura asked.
“She left me. She fucking left me.” He paced the small space like a caged thing.
Laura was grateful for the sounds of soldiers arriving for work in the ops office.
“And how exactly is that my fault?” she asked.
“She said you talked to her.” He rounded on her. “That you made her feel bad for fucking lying about your piece of shit husband.” A deep flush crawled up Randall’s neck, and he ground his teeth until she thought his jaw might fracture from the pressure. “Bitch, you ruined everything. Just like your husband. Always ruining a good thing,” he ground out.
“My husband is a better man than you’ll ever be,” Laura said quietly. “Now get the hell away from me.”
Randall stared down at her and for a flicker of a moment she thought he might actually hit her. Laura opened her mouth to speak but before she could get any words out Randall was yanked backward, slammed up against the wall. There was a sudden commotion as Trent pressed his elbow to Randall’s throat, twisted his fist in the man’s collar. “Watch your mouth around my wife, you little shit.”
“Trent, I’m thinking this is not a good way to get the charges dropped,” Patrick said lightly, glancing over his shoulder as a full colonel Laura didn’t recognize stepped out of the conference room. “I’m sure officers at the hearing would much rather see you two discussing your differences of opinion in a more calm, loving way.”
Trent’s nostrils flared. For a moment, Laura thought she saw his elbow press harder into Randall’s skin.
He released his grip and the LT coughed, rubbing his throat.
“Apologize to my wife,” Trent said, his words clipped.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Stay the fuck away from my family,” Trent hissed. He released him and Randall stalked off, his expression a hard mask of fury.
Patrick grabbed Trent when he made to follow Randall down the hall. “Unless you want to get deeply acquainted with prison sex, keep your damn hands off him.”
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