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He gasped her name,voice ragged and raw, and then restraint shredded, he fell into her, witheverything. The tension. The guilt. The aching, unbearable need he’d held onto since she’d had the courage to open a connecting door into his space.
His face buried in the curve of her neck, breath stuttering. One arm slid beneath her, holding her to him like she was the last true thing he had in this world.
The man who couldn’t stop moving, lay beneath her, his erection softening, but his body still hard and delicious, velvet over steel. He was exhausted. The kind that came after battle. The kind that trembled on the edge of something exquisite.
She felt it in the way he clung to her. In the way his body shook with something too deep to name. She felt that wave of emotion shudder through him. The sharp breath he couldn’t release. The tightness in his jaw where emotion gathered and refused to fall. She guessed at the pressure behind his eyes that burned without spilling. The weight of it settled into her chest like a vow.
She understood. Without a word, she understood.
This wasn’t just his release. Nash had given her all that she could have wanted. Even through his fear, his restraint, his ache. This strong, formidable man gave her…himself. His surrender filtered through her like stardust, tightening her chest, her throat. Tears gathered, slipped from her eyes, wet against his shoulder. This was a man who had held the line for so long, who had carried every burden, every failure, everybrother lost, and now, finally,he let someone hold him back.
Her.
She rolled over and he followed like he was part of her. Grace cradled his head to her chest, arms wrapped tight around him, her fingers threading into his damp hair. She didn’t tell him it was okay. She didn’t need to. Shewasthe okay. She was his breath.His sanctuary.His damn swivel point, and he was hers. Same trauma, different incidents. Same guilt, same pain, shared scars, and a mission that burned in them for justice, for answers, for closure. Now that this had started, it was time to gather all their willpower and courage and forge ahead. OrdoTech was going down.
She closed her eyes, afraid of what would happen after they succeeded. She felt it surging inside her that she was falling for him. Not softly. Not safely.
All in.
That terrified her. Love wasn’t a mission. It wasn’t a target. It couldn’t be breached or secured. It could only begiven. Now that it had been, she wasn’t sure she knew where to go from here, and how to protect such a fragile and beautiful feeling.
She closed her eyes, snuggled into him as he pulled the sheet up over their heated bodies. It had been so early, they had a couple of hours before they needed to shower and go.
She smiled when he wrapped his arms around her and tugged her against him as if he couldn’t bear not to touch her skin.
A car alarm woke her, and she lay in warm, strong arms. When she opened her eyes, she sighed.
He slept like he’d earned it. Like he hadn’t in weeks. Months. Maybe longer. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, one arm draped across the sheet, his face softened in repose. She could barely breathe, watching him. Not because he was beautiful, though, he was, but because something about this sleep,this moment, felt like a blessing.
What she wanted from him might have always been this. Not just his body, not just the pulse-pounding intensity that had taken her breath and given it back in gasps. Butthis, the moment after. The quiet. The trust. The way they had touched more than skin.
She reached out before she could stop herself, her fingers drifting down the curve of his ribcage. Over the scar. That tender, brutal mark that had nearly killed him. That had made her fall even harder.
Her hand brushed the ridges of his abs, still defined, even in sleep. She remembered how the jock had fit him, perfectly molded to all that strength. How he’d moved inside her with such force, such focus, that she hadn’t just felt him, she’dbecomepart of him. He wasn’t just a man. He wasmotion. Muscle and will andmeaningwrapped into one devastating rhythm.
Still, the ache for him hadn’t ebbed.
It grew.
She didn’t just want him again. She wanted to give him something deeper than pleasure. Something no other woman had even known to offer. Not because they were unkind. But because they hadn’t seen the man beneath the myth. Theweighthe carried beneath the skin.
They had wanted the SEAL.
She wantedNash.
The man who’d lost his memories. The man who had learned to find comfort, or shame, in women who didn’t know the full of him. Who didn’t want to. Women who saw only the hero.
But she’d seen the grief. The struggle. The hesitation that lived between his breaths.
She would be the one to fight for the truth he couldn't name. Not with a rifle or assault, but with a search bar, a keystroke, a memory unearthed from the wreckage. She would give it to him. Not as mission data. As agift. A way for him to grieve.
A way for him to come home to himself.
Maybe hope wasn’t as unquantifiable as she thought.
Maybe ithummedunder her skin, steady and quiet, right here beside him.
He stirred with a soft groan, eyes fluttering open, still thick with sleep. But they found her immediately. His voice rasped low and warm. “Grace…”