“The strongest…” he pulls a face, like he hates the word, “trigger,it’s a feeling. An emotion. Feeling like I made a mistake, and someone else is going to get hurt because of it.”
I don’t say anything.
He heaves a breath. “On our last tour, I was the patrol leader. The others followed my orders, and I screwed up, I made a mistake. We got captured. We were imprisoned and tortured until a hostage recovery team showed up. But our captors only tortured the others, not me. They—they starved them, then gave me food in front of them, and beat them if I refused to eat. They choked them. Cut them. They killed my teammate Damon in front of me. Dragged it out for weeks. Never thought I’d berelievedto see a friend die.”
Horror wells up inside me. I don’t even want to think of what it must have been like for him. There are things too dark to let yourself imagine. “How long were you there?” I whisper.
It’s too much. He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again, his whole body freezing. I stay still in his arms, breathing softly until he relaxes again. There are tears in his eyes. He’s shaking. “Sorry,” he mutters, wiping his face. “Shit. Few months.”
“Do you want me to call you a dipshit again?” I offer.
He closes his eyes. “Please.”
“Okay. You little dipshit.” The word comes out far too gentle. I roll over and reach up to stroke the blush touching his cheeks. “Kenta said you're getting worse.”
“Kenta talks too much.”
“He’s worried about you.”
He’s silent for a bit. “It’s not been this bad in about four years,” he says eventually. “I used to have flashbacks maybe once or twice a month. The last week or so, it’s been every damn day. Multiple times a day.” His voice breaks a bit, and he clears his throat. “I... don’t know what’s happening.”
Lightning flashes outside, illuminating him. For a moment, he doesn’t look like my big, strong bodyguard. He doesn’t look like an ex-soldier. He just looks like a scared little boy. My heart hurts. I run my fingers through his hair. “You don’t want to go to therapy?”
He sucks in a sigh between his teeth. “JesusChrist, not you, too. Kenta gets on my back about this every bloody time.No.”
“Why? Therapy’s great. I use it all the time.”
“Do I need a reason?” He snaps. “It’s my goddamn brain, if I don’t want some bloody shrink poking around in there, that’s my business.”
His words are angry, but he doesn’t pull away from me. We just lie there in silence for a while. My eyelids get heavy.I feel his breathing deepen against my neck, as if he’s about to fall back to sleep.
“What if it’s me?” I whisper.
He flinches. “What?”
“I think I’m the reason your PTSD symptoms are getting worse.”
He snorts. “How the Hell would that work? You don’t exactly look like any of the guys that caught us, princess.” He reaches out to touch my hair. “The face, maybe. But none of them were blonde.”
“Ha, ha. The timelines match up though, right?” I rub my fingers into the hem of his shirt. “You got worse after meeting me.”
“It’s probably just the stress of being around someone so terrible,” he says flatly. “You’re Hell on my nerves, woman.”
I roll over to look him in the face. “I am, though, aren’t I? That’s what I mean. I think when you worry about my safety, it triggers that feeling. That feeling that if you make a mistake, I’ll get hurt.”
He shakes his head. “That doesn’t make sense. I’ve never had this issue with a client before. Not inyears.”
I smile against his skin. “Well then,” I say casually. “I guess you must just care about me.”
He scoffs. “I do not.”
“No? What other explanation do you have?” I nuzzle into his collar. “I think you do. I think youcareabout me.”
“No.”
I nudge his throat with my nose. “I think youlike me.”
I feel his jaw flex as he grits his teeth. “You’re a job. That’s it.”
