Page 75 of Fight for You
I stood in the doorway, torn.
Every part of me needed a shower. Grit lined my skin like a memory—remnants of violence and justice against Hagarty. But I couldn’t make myself leave her.
Not like this.
She lay on the far side of the bed, facing the wall, curled around a pillow like it was the only thing keeping her from unraveling. Her silence screamed louder than any sob. Grief without sound. Wounds without fresh blood.
I tugged into flannel pajamas and hovered awkwardly at the foot of the bed.
Sand. Mud. Concrete. That was where I slept. Where I belonged. Even here, in the comfort of a cabin, I hadn’t claimed a mattress since I was a kid. The Marine warred in me—a true operator denies himself comfort. That still held rank over the rest of me.
Until her voice broke through the stillness.
“Please …”
The sound of that single word cracked something open in my chest.
Her voice was soft. Hollow with the sound of tears. “I already feel dirty when—when stuff like this happens. I understand I can’t have you until we get married. I respect that.” Jordyn inhaled shakily as if the next words cost her more than she had to give. “But if you don’t hold me … that will break me even more than I already am.”
I didn’t move. Not at first. Jordyn’s words struck deeper than I could brace for. Because she didn’t ask me to fix anything. Make the pain go away—truly. Maybe I thought I could do that all this time. Make the pain go away. She didn’t ask me to prove something. She asked me to be here. To bear the weight of this moment beside her.
Thiswas true intimacy. The kind no one had taught us whenwe were trying to survive.
She’d just cracked open the disconnect between us. The place where she reached for physical reassurances, and I hesitated—not from a lack of love, but from a lifetime of guarding it. She had learned to equate touch with proof. With safety. With value. And here I was, loving her with restraint when what she needed most was not distance.
She was trying. Trying so hard to unlearn what others had weaponized against her. And I needed to meet her there without fear of breaking my own vow of celibacy to God.
For the first time in years—since war zones—I, Jamie MacKenzie, slipped beneath the covers. Not as a Marine. Not as her protector.
As her man.
I pulled her into my arms from behind, holding her close. Jordyn’s body responded like a taut thread that finally had a reprieve. She let out a broken breath and curled closer.
She was alive. Safe. In front of me. Right where she belonged. Something in my soul—long dead and probably just as cold as she’d perceived over the past five months—stirred. Awake.
“Thanks. Didn’t mean to be so dramatic.” Her voice was hardly above a whisper. “I dunno. I’m supposed to be used to … this.”
“No!” The side of my fist slammed against the headboard. “No, you’re not supposed to be used to a man trying to rape you! And I’m not supposed to allow this to happen to you, JorJor. It shouldn’t happen.”
Jordyn didn’t speak, but the grip she had on my forearm seemed to say,I know.
“Unfortunately, some truly awful people exist in this world. And I can’t erase them all, but I’ll be damned if I don’t erase the ones who try to take you from me.”
I angled my body just enough to kiss her ear and then whispered, “I will never leave you. I won’t take from you. Listen, stopme if this is the wrong time to say this, but please, don’t confuse my restraint with disinterest.”
“I’m trying not to,” she murmured, burrowing her body against mine. “I’m listening.”
“You already have everything I am, Jordyn. My heart. Loyalty. A promise of a future. I just want to give it to you the right way.”
She turned in my arms, cheeks damp with tears. “I don’t want to ruin this by wanting too much.”
“You’re not ruining anything.”
Her chin trembled as her hand slid up to the side of my face. “Then I’m good where we are in our relationship, Jamie.”
I pressed my forehead to hers, letting the quiet fall between us.
I’d stokedthe fire again sometime last night, then pulled Jordyn back into my arms. Now, I awoke to the scent of pine and ash. Pale winter light filtered through the frosted windows.
