Page 69 of Better Late Than Never

For now, we were sticking to Spain. A lot of coworkers were taking leave, especially those with kids who were enjoying their summer off from school. While everyone we knew spent their off time cooling down at the beach, we met everywhere we could, from Valencia to Sevilla, still being discreet and keeping our heads down.

So far, so good. And the more we did this, the less I was actually concerned about us getting caught. At work, we interacted on a purely professional level, though we might exchange grins now and then when we passed in the hall. Really, unless we did something to brazenly draw attention to ourselves, no one was going to notice and no one was going to care.

As we got into the scorching days of August, I couldn’t deny that any thrill I’d gotten out of doing something forbidden—and there hadn’t been much—was long gone. The thrill was in being with Alex. The sex, the long conversations, the jaunts to various parts of Spain, the plans for more adventurous trips later in the year—Ilivedfor that. After the loneliness of my separation had been compounded with the isolation of overseas orders, I craved his company as much as I craved the orgasms we drew out of each other.

There was only one thing missing, though, and it had nothing to do with wishing we didn’t have to keep this a secret. Even on our brief trips out of town, we still stayed in separate hotels, ostensibly in case someone who knew us saw us. And when he came to my house, he was always gone not long after the sun went down.

Lying beside him in my bed, still tingling all over from being ridden into the mattress, I curled closer to him. Sliding a hand over his thigh, I whispered, “It’s getting late.”

Alex sighed, trailing his knuckles along my chest. “I know.”

“You, um…” I swallowed, then pushed myself up on my elbow to look at him. “You don’t have to go.”

He blinked. “I… But Ishouldgo.”

“You shouldn’t be here at all,” I said dryly, “but I think that ship has long since sailed.”

His laugh was almost soundless. “Okay, fair. But staying…” His humor faded as he chewed his lip.

“You don’t have to. Just… You’re already here. There’s no reason you can’t stay all night. If youwantto stay, I mean.”

“I do, but…” Alex’s face colored, and he avoided my gaze. “I, um… It’s not…” He swallowed hard. “Keeping things on the downlow isn’t the only reason I haven’t suggested staying over or rooming together when we travel.”

“Is that right?”

He nodded but didn’t elaborate.

I found his hand and laced our fingers together. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. It’s…” He took a deep breath and finally faced me. “Look, you’ve been to combat. You know what it does to…” He gestured at his head.

“Of course I do.” Then the piece clicked into place. “Nightmares?”

Grimacing, he nodded and dropped his gaze again. “They don’t happen all the time. But when they do…”

“It’s bad?”

“It can be, yeah.”

I squeezed his hand. “Mine too.”

He looked in my eyes. “Yeah?”

“Mmhmm. I haven’t seen combat in about fifteen years… unless you count what I see at night.”

Alex swallowed again. “Still rough?”

“Oh yeah. It can be pretty bad.”

“So you get it.”

“I do.” I squeezed his hand. “If you’re worried I’ll be annoyed if one of your nightmares wakes us up—I mean, it’s just as likely to happen the other way around.”

His brow pinched as he studied me. “And you… you want me to stay over?”

I was kind of caught off guard by how vehemently I almost said,“Yes!”Because… yes, I really wanted him to stay over. Just the thought of falling asleep and waking up beside him made me ache with a longing I absolutely didn’t expect. It was something akin to what I’d felt during those long deployments—that cold, lonely, homesick feeling that was almost as hard to sleep through as all my psychological combat souvenirs.

I tamped down the impulse to plead with him, and I just nodded and quietly said, “Yeah. I do.” The uncertainty lingered in his eyes, so I pressed a kiss to the heel of his hand and whispered, “If one of us has a nightmare, we’ll deal with it. I, um…” I stared down at our hands. “I don’t want to put anyone through that, but I won’t lie—it’s always easier to go back to sleep when there’s someone else there.”

---