Torres.
Golden boy. Clean cut. Smooth voice and puppy dog eyes like he’s never had to beg the world for mercy.
He doesn’t know her the way I do.
He doesn’t know what she sounds like when she breaks. What she smells like under my shirt, curled into my chest like she could sleep through a war if I was holding her. What her breath tastes like when she moans my name through syrup-sticky lips.
He doesn’t fucking know that her skin glows under kitchen light.
Or that she cries when she cums. Or that I still dream about the way she said please—not because she was scared, but because she fucking trusted me.
And now?
Now she’s giving him that smile?
That laugh?
That soft voice?
I clench my fists so tight my nails cut skin. She’s playing medic and I’m playing ghost because that’s what I am now.
The bastard who left.
The coward who watched her fall and didn’t reach out in time and now she’s standing there, brushing a loose curl behind her ear, laughing at something he said, while every part of me burns from the inside out.
Outside the tent, sand shifts under my boots. The scent of diesel mixes with sweat and heat. A spotlight above flickers, buzzing like it’s annoyed I’m still breathing.
Jealousy doesn’t just bite—it guts.
It rips through bone and reason and whatever self-control I’ve got left and fuck, I want to storm in there and drag her out by the wrist. I want to grab her, slam her up against the side of the truck, and remind her.
Who made her melt. Who made her scream. Who made her fucking his but I don’t move because I’ve already ruined her once and I know if I touch her now, I won’t stop.
Torres is leaning closer.
His hand brushes her arm and I see red.
He’s touching what I bled to protect.
My vision tunnels. My mouth tastes like iron.
I shift my stance, thumb tapping the side of my thigh like a trigger. One second away from walking in there. One breath away from losing the war I’ve been fighting inside my chest since the day I saw her name on the deployment list.
But then she steps back.
Not far.
Not enough.
But enough for me to breathe.
Barely.
She’s still smiling. That soft, flickering thing that used to be mine at 3am in my bed and I wonder if she’s pretending. Or if he’s already winning.
A voice behind me snaps me back.
“Yo, Kingston—briefing at 1800.”
