“You don’t have to—”
“You look and feel fine here, too,” she affirmed, not wanting him to offer her an out. She didn’t need an out. She needed to make him feel that he was worthy of her, that she appreciated the fact he trusted her enough to tell her, show her.
Dane’s entire body remained rigid beneath her touch. Ignoring his obvious discomfort, Stella stepped into him, resting her cheek against his back and wrapping her arms around his waist.
“Did you think this would turn me off?” she asked.
“I’ve never shown anyone,” he murmured. “It’s not exactly a time I want to talk about.”
Stella pressed her lips to his back, then moved on and placed another kiss, then another. “I wasn’t in the mood to talk anyway, cowboy.”
Her lips traveled all over until she moved to the front and placed them on that ink over his chest and shoulder. Taking his face between her hands, Stella forced him to meet her gaze.
“You’re still wearing too many clothes.”
He kept that dark, pained gaze locked on her. “You don’t deserve this.”
Stella threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his lips to hers. “I know what I want, Dane. Now stop talking.”
Dane surprised her by nipping at her lips, then easing back to slide his fingertip down the valley between her breasts. “Have your way with me.”
The low, rumbling words filled the space between them and Stella wasted no time in removing those jeans that hugged his lean hips so deliciously.
Dane may be imperfect in his mind, but to her...well, he was the most perfect, stable, comforting aspect of her entire life.
Now she had to figure out what to do when he chose to leave.
Twelve
“Get down!”
Dane fell to his stomach, using his elbows to crawl away from the knoll. The blast shook the ground. The air was filled with the sound of men screaming in pain. And then something hit his back so hard, the air left his lungs.
One second everything was chaos and hell, then it was quiet and hell. His back burned like nothing he’d ever experienced, but he couldn’t lose himself in the pain. He needed to get to his buddies. Reese and Bagger were on the other side of their Humvee. If he could crawl to them, they could somehow get out of here.
With each pull he took to move himself forward with his arms, the pain in his back seemed to intensify. There was something heavy pressing against him. If he could just get to his buddies, maybe they could help each other.
But the quiet seemed to grow. Being out in the open, shouldn’t he hear something? Those cries moments ago had stopped, leaving only his own grunts as he dragged himself to the front of the vehicle.
Dane looked around the front, fully expecting to see his comrades, but there was only one person. Stella. She smiled at him.
“Help me,” he cried. “Help.”
She squatted down and smirked. “Help you? Like you helped me lose everything? You’re on your own, Dane. That’s how you like it anyway.”
“Stella, please.” He just needed this weight gone. He couldn’t breathe, and the pain had him fading fast. “Stella. Stella.”
He kept calling for her. Why wasn’t she answering him?
“Stella!”
That weight on his back finally shifted, then something kept pounding against him. Over and over. Dane pushed away, tried to pull in a breath, but he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. He was dying and Stella had walked away.
“Dane.”
He jerked up, panting. The frantic tone in Stella’s voice had him blinking against the darkness. With the sheet pooled around his waist, Dane gripped the edge of the fabric and attempted to regain some normalcy to his breathing.
Her hand went to his back and Dane cringed, still not used to the touch there and not ready to be consoled after the same damn nightmare that had plagued him for years.