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“Does it hurt?” she blurted without thinking. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”

His laughter followed her as she fled to the kitchen. Sitting at the table, she dropped her head onto it with a bang, mumbling, “You and your big mouth, Deidre.”

A few minutes later, the scraping of a chair had her looking up to find Casey sitting beside her. “It’s okay to stare, Dee.”

“But it’s not! I was shocked, sure, but I knew I would eventually see you without the prosthetic. I guess I wasn’t prepared for how painful it looks. Is it always like that?”

“No, but I don’t usually wear it as often as I have been either.”

It hit her quickly that he was wearing it because she was there. “I don’t understand? You wear it because I’m here?” At his nod, she felt sick to her stomach. “Why?”

“You’re y

oung, Dee, and I wasn’t sure how you’d react to seeing my stump. But lord are you mature.” He laughed.

She smiled. “Does it hurt?” she repeated, feeling a little more comfortable about asking him now.

“Some days. Today it does. The skin is cracked and swollen, so I have to be careful about how much I put this on.” He patted his leg.

“What happened?”

Sighing like he didn’t want to relive it, she began to tell him to forget it when he started speaking. “Our unit was patrolling a restricted area in Kabul when we came under gunfire. I was hit in the chest twice and stumbled and slipped an IED out of place; the explosion took my foot clean off. Doctors did the rest.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.” She was horrified at how close to death he’d come.

“I’m alive because that man,” he pointed out the back door as Dom was coming in, “saved my life. If it weren’t for his training and confidence and sheer determination, I wouldn’t have made it out of that hole alive.”

“Oh please, Case, first thing out of your mouth was ‘pity sex’. We both know it’s the only thing that got you through half the shit that came after.” Dom laughed, but he had an edge to his voice she’d never heard before. Like there was more to it than that.

“This is true,” Case mumbled looking down.

“Did it take long before you got to come home to your family?”

A sad look crossed both their faces at that.

“My family wasn’t impressed with my decision to enlist with Dom. The people in this house, they’re the only family I’ll ever need,” he said thoughtfully, getting up and leaving the house, but not before she saw the sad look flash across his face.

Shit.

“I didn’t…What did I just do?” she whispered in horror.

Looking to Dom as he watched his best friend leave, he assured her. “Nothing, Dee. It’s something he still struggles with.” But she felt like she’d ruined the small yet huge steps they’d made that night.

Ten

Lying in bed later that night, Dom held Deedee as close to him as he could. They’d made slow, sweet love earlier where Dee had promptly passed out over an intense orgasm that she said was on the painful side in all the best ways. His ego had been particularly proud of that.

He’d loved her deeper and held her tighter, needing that connection a person could only get being buried so deeply into the other half of their soul. After Casey had walked out, he felt the need to cement his ownership of Deidre. He needed her feelings for him to be as strong as his were for her. If her fire and passion were anything to go by, she did.

He worried about Case when he got that look on his face like he’d had leaving the house earlier, knowing his family was a sore subject for him. Dom had been the one to deliver the news of their son’s injury to them, and the cold detachment from both parents had even hurt him.

When Casey’s own siblings had shown no interest in helping him recuperate, Dom had stepped up and brought him to his home. Got him to and from physical therapy and any other appointments he had. Made sure he never overdid it at home, but six months later, Dom had been called back for another tour. It lasted eighteen months, and by then, Case had been so deep into his new coping mechanism of abusing drugs, alcohol, and women that Dom could do nothing for him until the other man was ready. For a couple of years, they’d lost touch. Casey was sick of Dom trying to fix him, and Dom was sick of watching his best friend waste away.

Some days he still pondered the thought that if it weren’t for Jax coming into his life, he might have lost Casey years ago. It was a sobering thought. He could still clearly remember the day that Case had been injured. The moment his life had forever changed. They’d been sent to patrol an area in Kabul that had yet to be secured by the forces. It hadn’t been swept for IED’s or Taliban insurgents, and they’d paid the price.

Two teams had been sent in that day, the first, which was theirs, was to do a general sweep. Find any civilians and get them out safely. Locate possible hideouts for the Taliban and make sure it was safe for team two.

As they were escorting the villagers out, a few rogue Taliban soldiers had caught them off guard, opening fire on their unit and the people they were getting out. They’d lost three of their men that day and about a dozen civilians—four of which had been kids under six, and one woman was pregnant. He counted that day as his biggest failure.