I don’t know if I can settle against him, but he needs me. It’s in the timber of his voice, the sadness in his eyes, the arch of his brow. So I nod, and he helps me shift so I’m on my side, the sleeping bags cocooning us. He’s chilled, and for as long as I’ve known him, he’s always been warm.
“Intel is everything in war. We had this new guy working the radios. And he screwed up. Forgot to encrypt the signal. So the enemy knew exactly where my team was going to be. But they didn’t know why we were there.”
The rumble of his voice soothes me, and the hard knot in my chest lessens slightly.
“We were pinned down on the side of a mountain. No way up or down. I lost three men in the fire fight. The rest of us…we ran out of ammo. Couldn’t raise ComSat on the radio to have them send backup. So…we surrendered.” Ryker takes a deep breath. “Five of us. Hab, Ripper, Gose, Dax, and me. We knew they’d make our lives hell. Knew we’d be separated. Tortured. But…we didn’t have any idea how bad it’d be.
“They knew who we were. Capturing a Special Forces team? Taking their commander alive? Shit. They were celebrities. Hab died pretty quick. Lucky bastard.”
Lucky?I peer up at Ryker, but he’s not here with me anymore. He stares at the ceiling, his arm around my back, but his mind—and heart—back in Afghanistan.
“For a couple of months, we were paraded in front of every Taliban bigwig, beaten to shit, starved. And then…they sent us to Hell.”
“Where were you before?” I ask to bring him back to me.
“Somewhere near the Uzbeki border. In a wood and cement block building where we could sometimes see the sun.” Longing tinges his voice, and he sighs. “That place was a fucking paradise compared to Hell. The insurgents dug out a massive cave system under a mountain. Built a dozen cells. A couple of deep holes they’d throw us down and cover with plywood. If you went into the hole, you stayed there until you were so disoriented, you didn’t remember your name.”
“Ryker,” I whisper, but he doesn’t hear me.
“It’s easy to turn a person into an animal. Easier than most people expect.”
Running my fingers over one of the jagged scars across his chest, I try to comfort him, but he covers my hand with his and holds me still. For an hour, he talks. The stories they all stuck to—as long as they could. Ripper’s disappearance. How for months, they’d torture him in front of Dax, trying to break both of them. I can sense this strong, capable man struggling not to fall apart in front of me. His voice roughens, and he’s so tense, I fear he’ll shatter into a million pieces.
“As bad as it was,” he whispers, “there are worse things than a life of torture.”
“My God. What could be worse?”
He flinches, like he forgot I was there, and buries his nose in my curls, inhaling deeply. “You always smell like honeysuckle,” he muses.
“Ry?”
With a sharp shake of his head, he gazes down at me. “Getting out. Trying to…fit back in with society. Reclaiming a normal life.”
“You wouldn’t go back there…?”
“Fuck no. But at first? I couldn’t sleep. Anywhere. Everything smelled too clean. I spent fifteen months surrounded by the scent of shit, fear, sweat, and blood. Catching a few minutes of sleep at a time on rocky, uneven ground, usually tied up. Even the hospital floor was too soft for me.” Ryker shifts his legs under our sleeping bag blanket and almost chuckles. “I hadn’t seen a blanket—or even a shirt—in six months. The nurses weren’t thrilled to come into the hospital room and find me naked on the floor. I scared them.”
“I’m sure you didn’t—”
“I wasn’t a man then, sweetheart.” He plays with a lock of my hair, his voice going raspy again. “The quiet killed me. Screams, begging, the shouts of our guards? That’s how I could tell my men were still alive. My year out? I had to find a horror movie on TV just so I could catch a couple of hours.”
Silence fills the room, and I want to ask Ryker how he found his way back. I feel so lost. Except…he had fifteen months of torture a million times worse than I could have imagined. And I was Kolya’s plaything for a day.
“You want to know how you forget the secret? How you don’t turn to something that makes the whole world fall away? How you know even if you’re tempted, you’re strong enough to resist?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“You find something real. Something to hold on to.” Cupping the back of my head, he threads his fingers through my hair and kisses me. My entire body reacts to his possessive claim, the rumble in his throat, the hardness of his cock pressing against my stomach. By the time he pulls away, I’m wet and all I want in this moment is more. More kissing. More touching. More…Ryker.
But he rises up on an elbow and holds my gaze. “This is real.You’rereal.We’rereal. I won’t lie to you and tell you it’ll be easy. But I will promise you one thing.”
“What?” I’m not proud of the need in my voice or how my fingers are digging into his side.
“You’ll never be alone. I love you, Wren.”
I draw in a sharp breath, and he cuts off my reply with a chaste kiss. “Don’t say anything, baby. Please. Just…let me hold you tonight and trust me to keep your demons away—like you’ve banished so many of mine.”
32
