I suck in a breath. The air stabs my lungs with what feels like a thousand icicles. Along with it, I become aware of the earthy musk of truffle hunted down by pigs in a forest in Umbria, the warm prickly notes of cinnamon, the sharp sneeze-inducing bite of mountain grown peppercorns, and below it all, the iron-rich buttery weight of world class Wagyu that was delivered just this morning.
The scents are nothing like the searing choking smell of the desert, which tasted of pulverized stone, ancient dust and the scorched metal tang of a Humvee baking under the white-hot sun. Nothing like the roughness of sand, burned until it's glass-sharp and able to tear through the soles of my military-issue boots.
Nothing like the hair-raising, chilling screams of dying teammates from my last mission.
It finally sinks in that I’m not in a godforsaken country in the Middle East. I am here. With her.
My wife doesn't speak. She stands there, one hand still on my wrist, her thumb resting over my pulse. She's counting. Monitoring. Waiting.
"I'm—" My voice cracks. I tug my hand over my face and try again. "I'm fine."
"You're not." Her tone is factual, not accusatory. "But you will be."
The cold seeps into my bones. My hands are still shaking, but the tremor is less violent now. The vise around my chest loosens, just a fraction.
"Someone dropped a pan," I manage. The words taste like ash.
"Ollie slipped on a wet patch. The pan's fine. He's fine. Service is running."
I nod, but I don't trust myself to speak.
Harper shifts, so she's standing directly in my line of sight. Her face is calm and open. There’s no pity in her eyes. No fear in her features. She seems steady and in control. My safe harbor in this emotional melee.When did I go from viewing her as the cause of my unraveling to my safety net? My port in the torrential storm of emotions threatening to crash over me at any moment.
"You're going to stay here for three minutes. You're going to breathe. Count to four on the inhale, hold for four, exhale for six. I'll stay with you."
It’s the first time someone else has been in control of my breath. And it doesn’t feel like I’m losing control. It feels like I’m sharing the burden of the effects of my PTSD with someone else.
"You’re bossy." I half smile.
"When I need to be." She doesn’t smile.
Her gaze is serious. Every line of her body is intent. All of her attention is focused on me, and I like it. A lot. She turns me on when she’s authoritative. She turns me on. Period. All the time. And fuck it, I’m done fighting this attraction to her.
"You need to be on the line," I rasp.
"Mark can handle the pass for three minutes." She doesn't blink. "You taught him well."
I close my eyes. Count. Inhale—one, two, three, four. Hold. Exhale—one, two, three, four, five, six.
The rhythm is familiar. It's the breathing technique they drilled into us in the field. The one that keeps you functional when the world is collapsing around you.
My world just collapsed, in a different way. Not because of the PTSD flashback. It’s because I acknowledge to myself that…I need her.
Harper doesn't move. She's a silent anchor, her presence grounding and comforting and arousing, at the same time.
After the third cycle of counting, my pulse starts to slow. The freight train becomes a drumbeat. The drumbeat gentles until it feels almost normal.
I open my eyes.
Harper is watching me. Not with judgment at having seen her boss breakdown. Not with the satisfaction she could have in watching the man who used the circumstances to make her marry me.
Not with the clinical detachment I'd expect from someone who’s here only as a caregiver.
She's watching me with great care. The way she’d watch a saucereduce. Patient, attentive, and fully engaged. Waiting for the exact moment that it's ready.
"Better?" she asks.
"Getting there." I’m feeling fine. But I don’t want her to take her fingers from my skin.
