"Are you in pain? How much pain are you in?" She corrected herself. "And don't say I'm fine."
He couldn't help the curve of his lips at her petulant demand. He brushed one long strand of her hair behind her ear. "I don't hurt anywhere."
It was true. Even the throbbing of his wound had dulled. Give him a full night's rest and he'd be back at full speed.
Her gaze skimmed his face. What was she looking for? He was telling the truth.
Suddenly, she was leaning toward him. Her mouth brushed his and all thought fled.
Alessandra was kissing him.
And it was glorious. Like coming home. Like fireworks on a Fourth of July. Like perfection.
One of her hands threaded into the hair at his nape.
His hands curled around her waist. He couldn't get enough of her. His wife. His.
The primal thought broke through. He gentled his mouth and then pulled away from the kiss.
She wasn't his. Not anymore.
What were they doing? When she walked away from him in a few days, it was going to decimate his heart. Again.
But he still couldn't quite make himself let her go completely. He pressed his jaw against her temple as she panted, trying to catch her breath.
We probably shouldn't have done that. He bit back the words that would only hurt them both.
"I'm sorry I scared you," he said again.
She drew away. He let her go.
Though they were sitting a foot apart on the floor in front of the stove, his arms felt empty. His soul felt empty.
"Maybe we shouldn't have come here alone."
Her words battered him. If he'd planned better, if he'd had a team instead of stubbornly insisting it be only him...
"Maybe you're right."
He hadn't been enough to rescue Maggie. The thought slipped into his consciousness. A memory, a hazy one, of being half-frozen and holding Alessandra. He'd saidI should've found her. I should've been the one.
This was the true cost of his stubbornness, insisting that isolation was the only way. There was nowhere to hide when the painful past they shared jumped out in the open between them.
It had happened so long ago. But the pain was still there, eating him up. That pain felt new again, slicing him open inside. Making him bleed. Was it the same for her? She didn’t deserve that. Maybe being here was a chance for them to get this out in the open.
“When Maggie got grabbed—”
Her soft gasp interrupted him.
His hand crossed the chasm between them, curled around hers. And she let him.
“I tried to find her. I thought I was close but—” He shook his head. He’d found nothing. An abandoned warehouse that had been a dead end. No connection to the actual kidnapper.
She squeezed his hand, bringing him out of that terrifying place he’d gone to in his mind.
“That wasn’t your job. Not yours alone,” she said when he opened his mouth to protest. “You were a frightened father.”
He’d been terrified. He knew what evil men could do, had seen it firsthand during his time with the SEALs. Maggie had been helpless.