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“What’s the other part?”

Lucas blinked again, eyes going distant. He wasn’t fully here anymore, dragged into a memory that affected him more deeply than his childhood. I knew in my gut that this was the harder story to share. The words came slower, every one laced with long-buried emotion. His fingers tightened on my hip, and he leaned down to press his forehead to my shoulder—and to kiss the place where it met my neck.

“I lost someone. A teammate. We were pinned down, and he was wounded. He’d been shot in an ambush we’d walked right into. We should have known. I should have—” His words broke off. He finally pulled back enough for me to see, and his gaze was full of misery. “I carried him. We were so deep in shit where we shouldn’t have been, but I carried him. They shot me too. Not enough to keep me from walking and fighting like hell to get us both out. But when we made it back...”

He trailed off, and I guessed the rest, though I waited for him to say it. Reaching up, I smoothed my hands over his shoulders, feeling the scars I’d felt last night.

Lucas looked at me and nodded. That’s what these were from. That day, when he’d carried his friend.

“When we reached our base, he was dead. I was too late.” He closed his eyes.

“You didn’t kill him,” I said softly.

“I know. I’ve... had a long time to go over everything. Process it. I know it wasn’t my fault, but I know it will never feel that way. I was too late to save him. And—”

He kissed me hard, covering my body with his own. Our fingers tangled together, and I savored the feeling of his skin on mine. It was a luxury I’d never imagined having again. I couldn’t identify the emotions on his face when he broke away. “I didn’t want to be too late to save you.”

A tiny gasp caught in my throat. My chest ached for him, for what he’d been through. I recognized the haunting in his eyes. It was the same haunted gaze that I saw in the mirror every day.

I slid my hand back down, laid it over his heart. “You aren’t. You weren’t. You did save me.”

Lucas’s eyes went dark. “Not yet.”

“No,” I said, holding on to him. He had to know. “You pulled me out when I was drowning when I didn’t think I’d ever come back up.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “When I wasn’t sure that I wanted to.”

His mouth on mine was the only answer he gave. It was the only one that I needed. There were no lies in what I’d said.

I lost myself in him for a while, and he in me. We were a tangle of limbs and hands, shuddering breaths and desperate moans as the sun brightened the sky.

Clever fingers moved lower, and lower still, stroking into me, moving until he found a spot that drew cries from my lips. And then he didn’t hold back, using that spot to bring me to pleasure, watching my face every moment. Like he was studying me for every reaction, every shudder and writhing movement.

“I love watching you,” he whispered.

I flushed what had to be a deep shade of red to bring that smile to his eyes. “Why?”

Instead of a verbal answer, he spoke with his hand once more. Pleasure spiraled straight out from it until I was writhing, shuddering on his fingers, breathing yes and more.

“Because I like making you feel good,” he finally said. “And because watching you come is so fucking hot that I can’t breathe.”

The haze of the orgasm still clouded my mind, but I felt him, hard and pressed against my hip. But when I reached for him, he pulled slightly away. “You won’t let me return the favor?” I asked.

“Not today.”

“Why?” For a second, worry barged into my mind. Was there something wrong? Had I done something?

He stopped the thought in its tracks. “Nothing is wrong. You have no fucking idea how much I’d like your hands on me.”

“Then why?”

“Because.” He smiled. “Not everything is an even exchange. It doesn’t have to be. And you never, ever owe me for pleasure that I choose to give you.”

I blushed again. That hadn’t been my conscious thought, but now that he’d said it, that had been in my head. An apology was on my lips, but I pulled it back. He wouldn’t want that. “Okay.”

He settled beside me, gathering me close. It was still early, and it was nice to relax in his arms. But it was day now, and it couldn’t just be the two of us anymore. Not with what was waiting for us outside these walls.

“What do we do now?”

“Everyone is reaching out for information. We have contacts, sources that civilians might not have access to. We’re going to get eyes on Nathan, figure out where he is exactly, and move from there. It’s a battle of information first.”