“You carried me here.”
“You asked me to stay.”
She smiles. “I did.”
I swallow. “This is dangerous.”
“I know.”
I cup her face. “I’m losing the battle, Megan.”
Her eyes soften. “Then stop fighting.”
I close my eyes. When I open them, I’m lost. I kiss her, and she kisses me back.
I’m hers.
Completely.
Chapter eight
Megan
The cabin is hushed except for the low crackle of the fire and the soft ticking of the old clock on the mantel. We’re on the couch, laptops long forgotten on the coffee table, empty mugs pushed aside, the glow of the flames painting everything in warm amber and deep shadow.
Aaron’s arm is stretched along the back of the couch behind me, fingers just brushing my shoulder. My legs are tucked under me, one bare foot resting against his thigh. We’ve been talking for hours about the case, about Valor Springs, about nothing and everything. The kind of conversation that feels like foreplay, each word a slow stroke, building heat we both pretend we’re not feeling.
I’m wearing his navy flannel again. Sleeves rolled to my elbows, top two buttons undone, hem barely skimming the tops of my thighs. I’ve caught him looking, multiple times, his eyes darkening every time they drop to the exposed skin between the collar and the first button, tracing the curve of my collarbone, the swell of my breasts beneath the soft fabric.
I finally ask the question that’s been burning in me since the first night.
“How did you get this scar?” My voice is soft, careful. I reach up and trace the thin white scar that runs along his jaw with the pad of my finger.
He tenses, just for a heartbeat, then exhales, long and slow, like he’s been carrying the weight of those memories for years. His hand comes up, covers mine against his face. He doesn’t pull away.
“Special Forces,” he says quietly. “Eight years. Four deployments. Mostly classified. They left marks.”
I wait. Don’t push.
He looks into the fire, voice steady but edged with something raw. “Last tour, we got bad intel. We went in expecting light resistance, but walked into an ambush. Lost half the team in the first five minutes. I dragged two guys out, carried one over my shoulder while the other bled out in my arms. Took shrapnel here—” He touches the puckered scar low on his ribs. “Knife here—” The one on his shoulder blade. “And this one—” He lifts my fingers to the scar on his jaw. “Guy got close. Thought he had me. I thought I was dead. Then I wasn’t.”
His voice is steady, but I hear the cracks underneath, the weight of lives lost, the guilt he still carries, the scars that never really heal.
I lean in, softly pressing my lips to the scar on his jaw. “You’re amazing, Aaron.”
His breath hitches.
I kiss it again, lingering this time, letting my lips rest there. “You’re the man who carried me out of danger. The man who cooks me breakfast. The man who pays attention to how I take my coffee. The man who’s fighting every instinct because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.”
He turns his head, eyes dark, intense, full of something that makes my heart stutter. “Megan.”
I cup his face with both hands. “Stop fighting.”
He closes his eyes. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
I kiss him.
