Page 45 of Entangled in Them

His entire body was bunched in tension. “It didn’t even explode properly. If it had, I would have been dead.”

“You’re lucky, then,” I said softly. “Lucky to be alive.”

“Some days, perhaps. Others, I’m not so sure.”

The gravity of what he was implying sank in and turned my heart cold. I hated to think of anyone believing that being dead was better than being alive. I’d had plenty of those moments myself in the past and I understood the utter, futile darkness of it.

“Why are you on the floor?” I asked him, wanting to move away from the subject. “I heard you call out.”

His face tightened, his lips thinning with a pain I suspected was more emotional than physical. “I forgot.”

I didn’t understand. “Forgot what?”

“About this.” He gestured toward the missing limb. “I tried to get up to go to the bathroom and forgot about the leg.” He shook his head, and still wouldn’t meet my eye. “Sometimes it happens, where I’m dreaming that I’m normal again, and then when I wake up, that dream stays with me, and just for that split second, I’m the person I was before I went to Iraq. Then I try to get out of bed, and reality literally comes crashing back down on me.”

His voice was laced with pain, and my heart broke for him. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that might be like—to wake up thinking everything was normal, only to be brought down with the shock and humiliation of falling.

“Do you want me to get Dillon?” I offered, feeling helpless.

He shook his head. “No. I don’t want him to see me like this.”

“Dillon wouldn’t mind. He cares about you. He would want to know if you were hurting.”

“I said no, Rue. I’m fine. I can handle it.”

He didn’t look fine, or like he was handling things right now, but I pressed my lips together, wishing Kodee, at least, was here. Ryan would have allowed Kodee to see him like this, I thought.

Ryan’s shoulders shook, his head still down. He hadn’t met my eye this whole time, but he had nothing to be ashamed of. He’d been serving our country. He was a goddamned hero, but right now he was pure vulnerability. I’d never seen this side of him. He was normally so cold.

I scooched closer to his side, wedging myself against him. I put my arms around his shoulders and laced my fingers in the back of his hair. He resisted my touch, his body rigid, but then he gulped a sob and collapsed against me, his face pressed to my chest. He cried, shaking in my arms, while I held him. Silent tears slid down my face, and I squeezed him hard, feeling his pain as my own. I’d never have thought it—cold, hard Ryan being the one who’d break on me. He was hurting so badly, and I wanted to take away his pain with kisses and swallow his pain as my own.

“Shh, it’s okay,” I crooned, gently rocking with him in my arms, my fingers in his hair, my nose pressed to the top of his head. “It’s okay, it’s all going to be okay.”

I had no idea if that was the truth, but it felt like the right thing to say. I squeezed my eyes shut, sending fresh trickles of empathetic tears down my cheeks, and held him tighter.

His tears finally dried, and he lifted his head from my chest then tried to look away from me. I caught his face in my hands, cupping his cheeks beneath my palms. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be ashamed.”

He finally met my eyes, his rimmed with red. “I didn’t want you to see that.”

“I’m glad I did,” I said softly. “It makes me understand you better.”

We were so close, our bodies pressed together, his face in my hands. I acted without thought, simply giving in to what felt right, wanting to comfort him, and only knowing one way of doing that. I leaned in and kissed him.

The kiss wasn’t like kisses I was used to. It wasn’t rough or possessive, or angry or forceful. It was two people testing each other for the first time, other lips pressed, hesitantly at first, but then our mouths opening. Both our tongues sneaked out, finding the other, and the atmosphere suddenly changed, that jolt of arousal firing within me.

Ryan must have sensed the change, too. He tensed in my arms, and I immediately knew I’d done the wrong thing. I broke the kiss and did my best to lean away, though we were pressed close in the confined area, both still squashed in together down the side of the bed.

“I’m sorry.” I shook my head, my cheeks burning. What the hell had I been thinking? “This isn’t what you want, is it?” I gestured to my body. “I mean, you’re not into women.”

He twisted his lips. “Guys are normally my thing, but I’m attracted to someone based on who they are, not what kind of genitalia they have. It’s not about your body or if you’re female or male. It’s about who you are and what’s inside. That’s what I’m attracted to.”

My heart swelled. He’d never even given me a hint that he might have found me attractive before. Quite the opposite.

“I had no idea...”

“Perhaps I was fighting it too hard. I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Having you here confused me.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

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