I beat back the blisters and told him, “We need to talk.”

“You need to be gone,” he returned.

“I need to apologize. That was—”

He leaned toward me.

“Bitch, get the fuck outta my sight!” he roared and all my skin boiled away.

I braced against the pain. “Raiden, please—”

“Hanna, trust me, you stand there two more seconds, I’ll make you gone, and babe, you do not want me to do that.”

He’d do that. He would. He’d been physical with me before when he had a point to make. And his face told me he was not making threats.

Thus I didn’t wait two seconds.

Not even one.

I ran to the door, even though he was still in it, and my heart splintered when he got right out of my way.

He didn’t call after me. He didn’t even come out to the landing at the top of the stairs. I knew because, stupidly, when I was in my Z, I looked up.

The door was closed.

I hit the button. My baby purred, I reversed and tested her speed and maneuverability on the way home.

She did not fail me.

I did this crying.

Because a Boudreaux didn’t cry unless she was in a place she could do it.

And my baby was that place for me.

* * *

Eleven fifteen that night…

I was driving home from my warehouse in town. The afternoon slid by without me able to take my mind off Raiden, so I piled my SUV with finished afghans and went into town, thinking that work would keep my thoughts occupied, so I’d done it for hours.

This, incidentally, was an unsuccessful endeavor, but at least all my shipments were ready for the post.

I cleared the woods around my house and my heart started thumping when my headlights fell on Raiden’s Jeep parked in front of it.

As I drove down the side drive, I saw him illuminated by the porch light, standing on the porch, leaning against the post he’d leaned against when, just days before, he said beautiful things to me.

I looked away, rounded the house and hit the garage door opener.

I parked my SUV next to my Z and shut down the ignition. I hurried out, hit the garage door button and hustled out the side door of the garage and across the yard toward the house.

I saw Raiden’s shadowed frame rounding the house.

I stopped myself from running, but hurried up the back steps, keys in hand. I now had two locks on the backdoor (there were two on the front door too; Raiden put them in as he said he would on the day he said he would) and I had the key ready that luckily unlocked all of the new locks on my house, so no fiddling with switching keys.

Just unlock and in, and maybe, if I was lucky, I’d get in and keep him out.

The outside light lighting my way, I yanked open the screen door and got both locks unlocked, but not before I heard Raiden’s boots on the steps behind me.

I didn’t look back. I pushed in and let the screen door fall behind me.

Except it didn’t shut for two beats.

He was in.

Since any further efforts to keep him out would be futile, I left the interior door where it was, tossed the keys on my kitchen table and moved through the kitchen like he wasn’t there.

I didn’t make it even halfway.

Two arms closed around me from behind and my back slammed into Raiden’s front.

My body went stiff.

I felt his face in my neck.

“I’m a dick,” he whispered into my skin.

Men thought they could get away with a lot if they admitted that.

Sometimes it worked.

Sometimes, like this time, it didn’t.

“You need to leave,” I stated.

His face came out of my neck, but his lips went to my ear, “Hanna—”

“You need to leave,” I repeated firmly.

“Baby—”

“I crawled across a floor for you and I said one thing out of kindness and concern and you walked out on me, came back, called me a bitch and kicked me out.”

“Honey—”

“No one calls me a bitch, Raiden.”

“Give me one second—”

“No one makes me crawl across a floor.”

His arms got tight and his voice went low. “You dropped to your hands and knees yourself, honey.”

“Because I trusted you then. I don’t trust you now.”

One of his arms shifted up, his hand curling around the side of neck and he whispered, his voice thick, “Listen to me.”

With a mighty heave, I tore from his arms. I whirled, lifted a hand and shoved him in the chest, all the while shouting, “You need to go!”

His hand caught my raised one and held it firm.

“Baby, listen to me.”

I ripped my hand from his and took two quick steps back.

“No. I was wrong. I thought I could withstand the heat, but I can’t. I wanted to go slow. You pushed us to go fast and I didn’t have enough good times stored up. Your smiles, your laughter, there wasn’t enough to take the heat. You’re a criminal, Raid, and I accepted that. This, I can’t accept. I don’t know what hideous thing happened to you over there except I know it was hideous. But there weren’t enough good times when you were the Raiden I know you are to beat back the Raiden that fucked up shit that happened to you forces you to be that gives me the times I need to endure the inferno within. You lose control of that and I’m close, it doesn’t just consume you. It consumes me.”

“I don’t want you to know what happened in that hellhole, Hanna,” he returned.

“You think that hasn’t escaped me?” I shot back. “The subject barely comes up before you shut it down, but Raid, if you think I don’t feel the squeeze of the elephant always in the room, you clearly think I’m a bigger idiot than I actually am.”

“You feel that squeeze, babe, and you can still breathe. If you actually knew, you wouldn’t be able to live with that shit. You wouldn’t be able to sleep. Your mind would go over it and over it, and since you weren’t there, you’d make shit up that would torture you, but I promise you, none of it would be as bad as it actually was.”

“I believe you,” I retorted. “What you don’t understand since you won’t let me talk about it is that I’d rather live with that torture, the pain of which I would eventually be able to control, than let you hold onto that pain without even a little release so you can learn to live with it.”

He went silent but the air in the room got heavy.

I ignored that and declared, “You need to leave.”

“Hanna—”

“Leave!” I shrieked, losing it, hands straight down at my sides in fists.

Then I was going backwards, tripping over my feet, and I would have gone down if Raiden’s arm wasn’t around my waist.

Then I couldn’t go down because my back was flat to the wall and Raiden’s front was pressed to me.

Not this again.

I couldn’t help it. It freaked me out when he did this so I started panting.

“You know why we do that shit?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t even know what shit he was referring to, but that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer because he was scaring the pants off me.

He didn’t need me to answer.

He kept going.

“It’s not for God, babe. And it’s not for country.”

My chest pressed repeatedly against his with each breath.

Raiden went on.

“It’s for pretty girls with tanned legs that go up to her goddamned throat who ride asinine bikes and who’ll drop to their hands and knees, crawl to you and take your cock, moaning against it, making you so fuckin’ crazy you think your dick’s gonna explode in her mouth.”

Oh God.

“Raid—”

“You might think that’s jacked, but it’s not. It’s the goddamned fuckin’ truth. Whether you got that in your bed before you go or hope to find it when you get back, that’s why you do it. You do it for her. You do it to keep her safe. You planted kids inside her, or you hope to, you do it for them. You get home in one piece, she’s your reward.” His body pressed into mine and his face, partly shadowed, came to within an inch of mine. “You’re my reward, Hanna.”

My reward.

Oh.

My.

God.

Raiden wasn’t done.

“I didn’t know it. When I was over there doin’ what I had to do, I didn’t have any fuckin’ clue. I didn’t know until I saw you laughin’ with Paul Moyer. Jumpin’ up and down with Bodhi, all excited about shiny ribbons on your goddamned bike. So into me you could barely talk when you ran into me. Sittin’ outside on your goddamned fuckin’ porch swing of all fuckin’ things, lookin’ right out of a fuckin’ movie. So cute. Christ, no joke, it hurts even to look at you and believe you’re real. So fuckin’ sweet, I remembered there’s a God and He actually likes me. You go over there, far fuckin’ away, you see shit, you do shit, you get through it knowin’ that’s home. That girl in the porch swing, knittin’ a goddamned afghan and drinkin’ wine, carefree because you sweat and bleed so that’s what she can be.”

Listening to his words, the tears didn’t bite the backs of my eyes.

They spilled over in streams.

“Sweetheart—” I whispered brokenly.

“And you know what gets me?” he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “What gets me now is the guys who bled out in the sand and they didn’t have that. They died never understanding. They died not gettin’ even a taste of their reward. They thought they were protecting home and country, but they didn’t even know what home was. I feel for the women who lost their men in that sand, Hanna, it guts me. But their men died havin’ that. Knowin’ why they died. Knowin’ exactly what home means and knowin’ it’s worth it. Those guys who didn’t have it, they died without a fuckin’ clue. And every day since I clapped eyes on you, finally understanding, it fuckin’ destroys me.”

His words destroying me, I wrapped my hands around the sides of his neck and held on. “Raid, sweetheart, please—”

He talked right over me.

“So I’m not leavin’, Hanna. I was a dick and I hurt you and I cannot promise it won’t happen again, so I won’t. And you are not wrong. This shit burns in me, what happened, what I saw, what I did. But most of all who I lost. Every one of those guys deserves to have their reward sittin’ in a porch swing or however that shit comes about. When I say those men were good men, there isn’t a word in the fuckin’ dictionary that describes how good those men were. And there are only four of us left who know exactly what that means. They died and I’m here and I found my reward and I’m not letting it go. Because if they were alive and they knew I let something that important slip through my fingers, they’d be pissed at me. And if they can sacrifice everything so you can have your porch swing and I can come home and have everything they lost, you can fuckin’ learn how to take the heat and give it to me.”

“Okay,” I agreed immediately.

I agreed so immediately, Raiden’s, “Come again?” was clipped and short with surprise.

“Okay, honey. I’ll learn how to take the heat.”

The room went completely still. Everything suspended. It felt like time stopped.

Then I gasped as, unexpectedly, I wasn’t against the wall anymore.

Raiden chanting, “Jesus, fuck, Jesus, fuck,” he had an arm around me and I was sailing across the room. I landed on my back on the kitchen table with Raiden bent over me.

His hands started to move on me, his mouth came to my neck and I wrapped him in my arms, turned my head and invited in his ear, “Take what you need.”

At my words, his body stilled. Then abruptly he stood up, taking me with him so I was seated on the edge of the table, Raiden standing between my spread legs. With a hand cupping the back of my head, he pressed my cheek to chest, his other arm around me. His body bowed so it formed a hard, strong shield around me, protecting me from nothing, but, Raiden being Raiden, instinctively still protecting me.

I kept my arms around him, pressed deep and held tight.

“Jesus, fuck,” he murmured.

I was silent.

Raiden fell silent too.

I gave it time.

Raid took it.

Then I asked gently, “You never talked about that with anybody, have you?”

“No.”

He only gave that to me.

I shut my eyes and held on tighter.

I said no more and gave it more time.

Raiden took it.

I opened my eyes and promised him, “Like the rest, that gift is just for me and I’m never going to share it with anybody.”