Page 22 of The Hero I Can't Resist
I struggle to ask the question. I don’t want to ask anything I shouldn’t, but I also want to learn everything I can about Zach. “Your therapist?”
He grunts. “Yeah, he helped me see a few things.” He pauses, and I see his chest rise and fall with hisbreath. “I was dealing with survivors guilt. Hell, I still am.”
I search my mind, thinking back to what I know about his past. I remember Logan telling me about the bombing a few years ago, but I don’t know a lot more than that. All I knew was that Zach was okay. “What happened?” I ask.
I’m holding my breath, waiting for him to answer me. I’m about to tell him to forget it when he starts to talk.
I lie silently, listening to him, trying to hold back the horror as he tells me the story of his past.
“We were on a mission in Afghanistan. It was supposed to be a simple mission. In and out. There was an IED that went off… Fuck, it was horrible. There were seven of us on that mission. Randall died. The other five are permanently injured and scarred. I’m the only one that walked away without a scratch.”
I reach across the middle of the bed and put a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, Zach. I’m so sorry.”
His muscles flex under my palm, but he doesn’t pull away. “I’ve lived with the guilt for years now and didn’t handle it the best way. I took every mission Icould. I didn’t take any time off—the more dangerous, the better. It’s like I wished that something would happen to me… as if that would relieve some of what I was feeling.”
When he stops talking, I’m barely holding it together. I lean my head on my hand, hovering over him. “Zach, we may not have seen each other in a very long time, but I know you… I know the man you are. I’m sure you’ve tortured yourself since the incident, but we don’t know why these things happen. There’s a reason you were uninjured. We may never know why… but it wasn’t for nothing.”
He sighs softly, and I continue. “Think about the people you’ve saved since then. Heck, Zach, there were seven of you, and the men that were injured made it back home. That was you. If you had been hurt too, who’s to know if any of you would have made it home.”
He rolls toward me. Somehow he finds me in the darkness, landing a kiss on my forehead. “Thank you,” he whispers.
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s the truth.” I put a hand to his chest, over his heart. The steady thud under my palm calms me. “I hate you’ve had tocarry this guilt, Zach, and I’m sorry about your friends. I really am. How are they now?”
He puts his hand over mine as if he’s holding me to him, wanting my touch. “Well, Davis married my sister. I gave him shit about it for a while, but man, he loves her. He’s a good dad to my niece and nephew.” He pauses. “Jason is blind, but half the time you wouldn’t know it. He gets around and ‘sees’ more than a seeing person does, if that makes sense. He’s married too. As a matter of fact, all of them are. Kanan, Elias, and Colter. They’re all happy.”
My heart breaks a little because I can hear the wistfulness in his voice. He wants that. It’s like I can hear the yearning. “You deserve to be happy, too.”
He shudders and answers thickly, “I’m working on it.”
I want to slide over and wrap my arms around him. It’s like I can feel the sadness coming off of him in waves, and I can’t just lie here without doing something.
I scoot toward him and stop.
My breathing picks up, my heart starts to race, but I don’t let myself stop.
I scoot closer, and Zach almost sounds panicked. “Skyler… what are you doing?”
I scoot again, and this time, I’m flush against his body. I feel him all around me. I’m trying to control my breathing, but it’s hard because every small move, small breath or anything, and I’m even closer. The warmth of his bare chest heats me up. The scent of his soap and all that is him envelops me like a tight hug.
I press my cheek against his chest and wrap an arm around him. He tenses, but I don’t stop the hug. I stroke my hand up and down his side. He groans. “Skyler…”
“Zach.” I say his name softly.
He doesn’t say anything, and I start to feel like this is a bad idea. I’m about to let go of him when all of a sudden his arm goes around me, and he pulls me half on top of him.
“Baby… we shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be in this bed with you, and I shouldn’t be touching you.”
Hope flairs in my chest when he seems to hold me tighter. “Why? Why can’t we do this? I mean if we both want it.”
He groans again and buries his nose in my hair. He inhales deeply, and I swear he seems like a man on the verge of losing control. “Sky… I’m supposed to be protecting you.”
I part my legs, fitting the “v” of my thighs over his. He’s hard, and his manhood is pressing against me.
I rock against him. “You will protect me. I know you will.”
He pushes me to my back and hovers over me. His hands are locked on mine against the bed, over my head. His eyes are wild as he looks at me. “Who’s going to protect you from me?”
I lean my head up. “I don’t need protection from you.”
