The Top Gun's Return

muttered as the bed came up to meet him, a great pillowy softness that threatened to swallow him completely.

'Don't you want to undress? Get inside…' Her voice was fading into the distance.

'No. 'S okay…better this way…' He sighed and let the softness have him.

* * *

Jessie had more trouble than she'd thought she would falling asleep. It had been a long time since she'd shared a bed with anyone, and as big as this one was, with Tristan in it, it still seemed crowded. He had always been a cuddler. She remembered that, in the first years of their marriage, she'd had a hard time adjusting to the heat, confinement and distraction of his body entwined with hers. Eventually, though, she had gotten used to it, so much so that their bed during his absences had seemed unbearably empty. Then, during his last absence, she'd gotten used to that, too. Now, though he lay on top of the covers and she underneath them, the heat from his body felt suffocating to her. His quiet breathing seemed loud in her ears.

Eventually she fell into a restless, sweaty doze, painted with erotic dreams. In her dream, hands were touching her…a stranger's hands, rawboned and hard. They were stroking and caressing her body all over, and in her dream she moaned softly. She writhed and opened herself to the hands, inviting every imaginable intimacy. Heat suffused her skin and thumped inside her chest. She moaned again, lifting into the caressing hands, and felt a cool familiar tickle of hair on her belly. Her breasts ached and her nipples hardened in response to the sucking pressure that engulfed them. She whimpered when that same pressure found the throbbing place between her thighs. The heat became intolerable…the throbbing threatened to tear her body apart. She cried out…again…and again. And woke up.

But the crying went on. She sat up, shivering violently. The light she'd left burning in the bathroom threw stripes of light and shadow across the bed, but she didn't need that to tell her the terrible moans she could still hear were coming from Tristan's side of the bed.

Chapter 7

He was lying on his side, huddled in a fetal curl. His face was turned away from her and his arms covered his head as if to shield it from blows. The sounds he made would have been heartrending coming from anyone-a child…a woman…a stranger. Coming from her husband, who had always been so proud, so stoic and strong, they shocked her to the very depths of her soul.

'Oh, Tris,' she whispered. Tears were streaming down her face. He was right-her instincts, every nerve impulse in her body, compelled her to reach for him, gather him into her arms and stroke and comfort him, soothe away the terrible nightmare that was tormenting him so. She even put out a hand, holding her breath to confine her sobs.

Promise me…promise me…

As the sobs she'd fought so hard to hold back burst from her, she flung herself out of bed and lurched across the room to the bathroom. Pulling the door closed behind her, she fumbled blindly with the latch, then leaned against the sink and buried her face in her hands. Shudders racked her, and dry sobs that tore at her throat. Oh, Tristan…love, what did they do to you?

The shaking and sobs subsided gradually. Jessie nurtured and quieted herself with slow, deep breaths, then turned to the sink and washed her face with cool water. As she blotted it with a towel she was surprised to see that the image gazing back at her from the mirror above the sink looked remarkably calm. Only the eyes betrayed the fear and despair in her heart.

All seemed quiet now, in the room beyond the bathroom door. She listened with her ear to the panels, then cautiously eased the door open a crack. She heard nothing, at first-then, the faint rhythmic rasp of breathing. Opening the door wider, she saw a shape framed in the rectangle of light that stretched across the carpet toward the bed. Tris. He was lying on the floor, half on his side with one leg drawn up and one arm pillowing his head. Fear grabbed her throat and froze her where she was, until she saw that he was soundly, peacefully asleep.

* * *

When Jessie woke again she was astonished to find it was daylight, and even more astonished that she'd actually gone back to sleep. She'd been certain she wouldn't, lying stiff and tense in the great huge bed, thinking of Tristan on the cold floor, so near yet so far away in the private hell he wouldn't share with her. Which, damn him, he undoubtedly wouldn't because of his enormous sense of honor, and undoubtedly believed by so doing he was protecting her. The thought made her feel helpless and angry.

A cautious check showed her that the rug beside the bed was unoccupied, and she could hear the shower running in the bathroom. The sound, one she hadn't heard in a very long time, brought a nourishing and unexpected joy, and for a moment she allowed herself to bask in it, smiling to herself as she stretched and fidgeted herself into full wakefulness. Then the water sounds ceased and her heart leaped and quickened.

Suspenseful moments passed before the door opened. Tristan took one full step toward her before it evidently came to him that she was awake and watching him. Then he halted, framed by the doorway, his body silhouetted against the light.

'Hi,' he said, diffident and casual as a stranger, blotting his face and hair with the ends of the towel draped around his neck, 'hope I didn't wake you.'

'Oh, no…you didn't. What time is it?' Her voice was a sandy whisper as she scooted herself back and up on the pillows. Half sitting, she combed her fingers through her hair and then wiped her eyes with her hands, using the excuse of sleepiness to dispose of the tears that had sprung into them unexpectedly. Oh, Tris…what did they do to you?

She'd known he was thin; even through his clothing she'd felt the startling boniness of his body. But, dammit, she hadn't been prepared for wasted. Standing before her now, he reminded her of old photographs she'd seen of concentration camp survivors, the outline of his pelvis plainly visible under standard military issue undershorts, the long bones of his legs broken by the knotted knobs of his knees. His collarbones stood out like branches, and when he moved out of the backlighting from the bathroom doorway she saw that his ribs were crisscrossed with ropy ridges of scar tissue.

'Not that late. Just figured I ought to get in gear-call Al-let him know we made it back last night okay.' He tossed the towel over the back of a chair and, with a jerky, self-conscious gesture that reminded her poignantly of how graceful and confident he'd once been, reached for the undershirt he'd left hanging there. He threw her a crooked smile before he pulled the shirt over his head. 'Sorry. Didn't mean for you to see that.'

'Oh, yeah?' In the process of flinging back the covers and sliding her legs over the side of the bed, Jessie paused to glare at him, covering her true emotions with crankiness. 'What did you think you were gonna do, hide out in a monastery while you gained forty pounds?' Frustration and rage-frustration with her husband's all-too- familiar stubbornness, rage at the evil monsters that could treat another human being with such cruelty-made her tremble. She gripped the edge of the mattress and rocked herself while she fought to keep the trembling out of her voice. 'What did you think I was gonna do, cover my eyes and run screamin' from the sight of you?'

'Guess not.' His grin, emerging from the neck of his undershirt, tried briefly to cajole her before he turned away to pull on his pants.

'Dammit, Tris-so you're scrawny as an ol' hound dog-do you think I care?' She stood up, teetered, caught herself and went unsteadily toward him. 'All I care about-'

'-is havin' me back. Yeah, I know.' With his back to her, his voice sounded muffled and tight. He yanked the zipper of his black cargo pants and jerked around to face her. 'And there's nothing I want more than to be back, Jess, but I want to be back whole, you understand? I don't want to come back to you less than I was-' his voice cracked, and he clenched his fists and let them drop to his sides '-dammit.' Then he finished in a gritty whisper, 'I do have a