Spencer was quiet for several long beats. “I’m not going to be embedded forever,” he said softly, almost as if he couldn’t believe he was letting himself speak. “Tell you what, sometime down the road, you get leave, you still want to burn up my sheets, you let me know. I’m not fucking you in this sorry excuse for a rowboat—”
“Kissing?” Bacon couldn’t contain his hopefulness.
“Ha. I don’t trust myself to stop at a kiss.”
Bacon hummed his approval for that notion. He liked knowing that he had Spencer’s control on edge.
“And someone still won’t tell me his name.” Spencer leaned over, teeth grazing Bacon’s neck before he retreated.
“I—” Bacon was about to tell him, about to claim a kiss he knew he shouldn’t take, when he heard the drone of a helicopter. He moved apart from Spencer, readying his gun in case it wasn’t their guys. The sound of the chopper was quickly joined by the noise of a motorboat churning through the ocean toward them. Dawn was almost upon them, and like it or not, they were about to get company.
Chapter Eleven
Spencer felt Bacon retreat back into his warrior persona—body going stiff, no more quasi-cuddling him under the warm-you-up excuse, no more joking, and no more flirting. He was damn good at yanking that mask back into place. He might say he didn’t need anything special after an ordeal like that night, but Spencer wasn’t so sure.
Bacon’s radio must have crackled to life because he was muttering something into his comm set. “No, no injuries.”
Apparently Bacon wasn’t counting his finger or whatever he’d done to his ankle.
To Spencer he said, “The chopper is going on. They’re dealing with injuries on the mission and need to do an emergency extraction. We’re going back with the boat crew for now. They’ll get us on another chopper eventually to get back to base, but they need to prioritize the guys who need medical attention.”
“Are you sure you don’t?”
“A twinge in my ankle hardly counts.” Bacon scoffed even though a short while later, he grunted and grimaced while transferring to the SEAL boat. The boat crew got their craft on board, and then they sped over the waves, the speed jarring after the long time floating aimlessly.
“I’m a medic.” One of the boat crew came over to where they sat. “You need anything, Mr. Bryant? Nausea meds? Fluids?”
“I think I’m good.” Spencer gave Bacon a pointed look until he rolled his eyes.
“Fine. Fine. Think I might need to re-splint my finger.” Bacon thrust out his hand. “And I did something minor to my ankle, but seriously, I’m fine. What do we know about injuries on the island?”
There was a long pause, some sort of unspoken communication going on between Bacon and the medic, before the guy shrugged. “Not sure I’m at liberty to say.”
Spencer took that to mean it was bad, very bad, something confirmed by the terse whispers between the medic and Bacon as he leaned in to splint Bacon’s finger and examine his foot. The medic pushed water on both of them and disinfected the scrapes on Spencer’s hands that he’d forgotten he had. Another boat crew member came up and whispered something in Bacon’s ear, and he went pale.
“Fuck.” He squished his eyes shut and breathed heavily for several moments. Turning to Spencer, he said, “I know you probably won’t get it, but this...being helpless, waiting for news, not being there helping my brothers, guys I’ve known a decade now, is so much worse than anything I did out there. This fucking sucks.”
“Can you tell me anything?” Spencer wanted to touch Bacon, reassure him somehow, but he didn’t dare.
“Bad injuries. No casualties yet.” Bacon put a whole world of pain and worry in that yet. “I’ll have to let the LT brief you on what happened—he’ll skin me alive if I reveal too much.”
“Understood.” There was really nothing left to say. He wasn’t the praying type, and offering to keep the injured men in his thoughts felt hollow. Even though he was a reporter through and through, he wasn’t going to pump a clearly distraught Bacon for more info. All he could do was sit there, hope that Bacon knew he wasn’t alone, that his presence was enough to keep Bacon from the loneliness he professed to hate so much.
Eventually they transferred to a larger ship, a carrier of some kind, where they were picked up by a transport plane. Spencer had been through a lot of terrifying things in the past twenty-four hours, but taking off on the carrier was right up there. Took a true leap of faith. They sat on jumpseats, but the second they were airborne, Bacon took off his seatbelt and sprawled on the metal-clad aisle. He looked utterly exhausted—heavy eyes, messy hair, and pale skin. The flight was mainly empty, and the medic who had been with them on the boat brought him some blankets. Spencer tried to sleep himself, but the plane was cold and drafty and his mind a muddled mess.