He sighed and pushed a hand through his unruly dirty-blond layers. The bedhead look was working for him in a big way. If he hadn’t just broken the rollercoaster ride that was my vagina from too many goes, I’d be ready to scream my way through the hills and valleys with him again. Alas, the sore, achy feeling between my legs confirmed that my pleasure center needed a comp day for sure.
“You really don’t want that shit in your head, Mia. Hell, I don’t want that shit in my head, let alone have you worrying about it.”
“Was it a flashback?” I knew he had those pretty regularly.
He shook his head, paused, and bit his lip thoughtfully. “Kind of, I guess. I was back there, in the hut. Things were different. At first, they had grabbed Gina like they did.”
I shivered, knowing exactly what those extremists had done to his ex. Repeatedly raping someone didn’t hurt only her. Wes had been forced to watch it happen day in and day out. “And what changed?” I asked softly, not wanting to spook him for sharing.
He inhaled, blinked a few times, and brought his hand to the layers of hair that had fallen in front of my face. For a few seconds, he rubbed at the strands between his fingers.
“She turned into you,” he eventually said.
“How so?”
His eyebrows furrowed, but he continued to play with my hair. His gaze was concentrated on my face as if cataloguing every feature with an intensity that he hadn't shown before.
“The hair was different at first. It was Gina’s dark hair only not black and silky like yours.” He frowned. “Then it was the lips.” With one finger he traced my pout. I responded by kissing his fingertip. “The nose lengthened in front of my eyes.” He ran that same finger down from my brow to the tip. “Still I didn’t believe…” His voice got gravelly, as if he’d gargled with a box of jagged rocks.
“You didn’t believe what?”
“I could believe it was her until her blue eyes turned a pale, pale green. Eyes I’ve only ever seen on one person…you.”
“Oh, Wes, God…” I swallowed the emotion that was clogging my throat. “It wasn’t me.”
He closed his eyes and pointed to his heart. “I know that here, but here”—he pointed to his temple—“the details get mixed up sometimes. And tonight was the worst. One minute it was playing out like one of the nights they’d taken Gina, but then she turned into you. And Mia…I wouldn’t have survived seeing that happen to you. I can barely handle it now, having seen it happen to someone I care for, but you? Jesus…the thought alone is killing me.”
I cupped his face. “Wes. I’m right here. I was never there. You survived something horrible. You watched one of the worst things possible happen to someone you care about. But it was not me. I wish there were some way in the night that I could get you to feel that. Take you away from that place, out of that line of thinking.”
Wes wrapped his hands around my naked back. “You are. What you’re doing. How you help me in the night. It’s getting better. I promise it is.”
Tears pooled at my eyes. “So me dragging you here isn’t making it worse?”
He smiled, did an ab curl, and slid me along his chest until our noses could touch. He kissed me long, slow, and so very deep, hand cupped around the nape of my neck to hold me at his mercy.
With little nibbles against my lips, he gently moved his face back an inch. “You’re the only thing keeping me sane. Without you, without our love, I’d have gone down a very nasty path. Mia, you give me a reason to carry on, a reason to live. You give me hope for what’s to come. Being with you is not a hardship. I wouldn’t have come if I thought being away from you was a good idea.”
I snuggled into his chest and kissed the space directly over his heart. “And if you hadn’t come, I wouldn't have this sparkly ring on my finger.” I wiggled my left hand so he could see, and I could see the diamonds glittering in the moonlight. It was spectacular and stole my breath every time I looked at the simple design. The style was just right for me and proved my man knew me very well indeed.
He huffed. “Don’t think for a minute that I wasn’t going to ask you the first chance I got. I bought that ring right after I left Miami.”
“Miami! But that was months ago!”
He chuckled. “Yes, but if you remember, we had very little time before you were off to Texas, and then I was on assignment. The assignment from hell.”
I cringed.
“After that, I needed to heal. Didn’t want you thinking that I was asking out of some kind of PTSD distress, or trying to pick up the pieces of my life in haste. I wanted you to know I was ready, seriously ready to commit to you and our life together.”
“I love you, Weston Charles Channing, the third.” I said and smiled.
“The third.” He mouthed mocking me.
So I gave him something else to mouth by shutting him up with mine.
* * *
The phone rang three times before she picked up with a breathless, “Hello.”