Page 53 of Holding Out

“Several times.”

“But—?”

“The part was expensive and that door was only for service people.”

Lines appeared in her forehead.“Then they’re just assholes.”

It would have been so much easier for him to believe that, but he knew it wasn’t true.He hadn’t given them a chance to do the right thing.“I didn’t tell them why it was a problem.They didn’t even know I’d served.”

She took that in quietly.

“I was going to fix it out of my own paycheck, when I had some spare time, but then one day the door slammed, and the next thing I knew I was standing in the middle of the lobby yelling something—I don’t even know what—and I’d scared the hotel guests half to death.And it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, so they fired me.”

“I know you said Jake and Nate don’t know.Have you ever talked about it with anyone?”

He shook his head.

Her eyes moved over his face, assessing but not judging.

“What happens?When you have an episode?”

“I go back to—”

His throat was tight, and he wasn’t sure he could get the words out, but her expression was so—calm.

“This one night.There was a surprise attack.”

It was always that fucking night he went back to.

“Six guys died.I was the platoon sergeant, so the men were my responsibility.”

He didn’t—hecouldn’t—say the rest.That he’d had a chance, maybe a slim chance, but achanceto change the outcome, and he hadn’t taken it.

She reached out her hand and he grabbed it, not caring that he was probably hurting her.

“We went to bed and everything was okay.And we woke up in the middle of a battle.That’s what happens in the flashback.I’m in one place and then I’m in the middle of a firefight.”He didn’t explain the other part.How the flashbacks, like dreams, sometimes incorporated people who hadn’t been there in real life.Marina, usually, but other people too, from time to time.Family, friends.

Becca squeezed his hand, which made him realize he’d been crushing her in his grip.He eased off.

“That sucks.”Her voice was steady, level.Kind, but not pitying.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling at the understatement.

“In the flashback—”

But whatever she’d been about to say, she shut her mouth abruptly, and when she opened it, she asked, “Do you think it would help to tell Jake?”

“Probably?”

She smiled at that.

On a whim, he pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed it.He barely touched her skin, but the now familiar spark leapt between them, setting his skin alight.He grunted, and her smile ticked up a couple of levels of intensity.

“So, um, thinking about the continued sexual education of Becca Drake,” she said, a tease in her eyes.“I’m still a beginner.If you’re really afull-service operation, I’d think you’d need to provide an overview of all the positions—”

Heat flushed him and swelled his cock as he did a quick mental review of what they’d left out.“Well, that’s true.We only covered missionary.”

“—and it’s not really a completepackagewithout blow job training—”

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