That had been the whole point of jumping back into the dating pool with serious intentions in mind. Finally, after years, he’d been ready to seek out his second chance.
And he believed he’d found it on the first try.
Well, that had been a huge mistake on his behalf. Unfortunately for Michael, he’d made a tactical error.
Riley was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and he’d not brought him relief, but instead added to the torment.
Once upon a time, Michael had been a soldier who fought wars that he had no business fighting. He was a Marine who did what he was told, and found honor in it. Somehow, he’d managed to stay alive—but by the skin of his teeth.
There was only one reason he’d managed to survive.
In the sandbox in Afghanistan, he found someone to help carry the trauma that they all had. Michael had found a man who meshed so perfectly that he’d known on day one that he was going to marry him at some point.
When the heart knew, it knew—until it was cut from his chest.
He’d been embedded with a liaison of multiple soldiers from the allied forces.
The United Kingdom.
France.
Canada.
Italy.
They were the best of the best from each of those countries, sent there to Afghanistan to take care of business for their governments.
They did icky things under the guise of patriotism.
No.
Shock.
There.
While he was bedded down on a base with other soldiers from around the world, something miraculous had happened.
He found a person he believed to be his other half. In close quarters, he was able to get to know a Scottish soldier who caught his eye.
Oh, and did he ever catch his eye.
It had been love at first sight—the first and only time in his life that he’d felt that punch to the chest as he was taken down with Cupid’s arrow.
The man had been gorgeous, outrageously funny, and overwhelmingly sweet.
Graham Lainey was Black Watch, and he quickly became the center of his world. They did patrol together, and they watched each other’s six.
They’d saved each other countless times as the world went to shit around them.
Until they didn’t.
As their time together was coming to an end, Michael knew he needed to solidify their relationship before they were separated.
The last thing he wanted was to lose the man he’d become so fiercely protective of, and overwhelmingly attached to in that short time.
In three years, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Graham Lainey was meant to be his husband.
Only, war waited for no one.
