My legs still felt shaky when I stepped off the bed. The room smelled like sweat and sex, the air thick with what we’d just done. Levi watched me cross to the bathroom, his eyes dark, his chest still rising and falling a little too fast.
“Don’t even think about staying out here,” I tossed over my shoulder as I flicked on the light.
He huffed out a laugh that sounded wrecked. “Bossy.”
I laughed, too.
The bathroom filled with steam as the water warmed. When I stepped under the spray, it was almost too hot, needling across my skin in sharp prickles that slowly softened into warmth.
I heard him come in before I saw him. Then the curtain moved, and his body slid in behind me, big and solid and familiar in ways I’d spent two years trying to forget.
We didn’t speak at first.
Water rushed over us, drumming against his shoulders, rolling down the curve of my spine. My back pressed to his chest,his hands resting light on my hips, like he wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to hold.
I covered one of them with my own.
He exhaled, a long, quiet sound against the back of my neck.
“You okay?” he asked.
I could have lied. I almost did.
“Not even close,” I said, instead.
He nodded against my wet hair, like that was the only answer he’d expected.
We moved slowly, almost awkwardly domestic for two people who had been trying to claw each other apart a few hours ago. He took the soap, lathered it in his hands, then ran them over my shoulders, down my arms, careful around the places he’d held too tight.
It should’ve felt intimate in a suffocating way. Vulnerable. Exposed.
It did.
And I still let him.
I turned to face him, water flattening his hair, droplets tracking down the new scars on his chest. My thumbs brushed one near his ribs before I could stop myself.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked.
He looked down, then back up. “Wrong end of a door frame,” he said lightly.
“Liar.”
A corner of his mouth ticked. “I’ll tell you, someday.”
“Someday is a coward’s word,” I said, but my voice came out softer than I meant.
His gaze held mine, steady. “Then let’s call it a placeholder,” he said. “Until I can figure out how not to make it worse.”
That was the problem with him. Even when he was infuriating, he still sounded like the man who had once stayed up all night trading stories with me in the desert, the one who’dmade me believe there were still people in uniform who gave a damn about more than orders.
I took the soap from his hand before my thoughts could spiral.
“Turn around,” I said.
He did, obedient for once, bracing his hands on the tile. I dragged the bar across his shoulders, over the muscle-corded length of his back, following with my palms. He was mapped in scar tissue, some pale and old, some newer and pinker. I traced one that crossed his spine diagonally.
“You didn’t have this when we …” I started.
