The thought of him dying clenched my heart, making it harder to breathe than the injury on my throat, but facing danger was his life. “I don’t want you to change. I fell in love with you just as you are.”
His lips quirked up a little. “I like it when you say it.”
It wasn’t the full smile that caused my entire body to react. The one that turned a hunky calendar model into a breathtaking man. I wanted to see that full, radiant one, so when he leaned in to kiss me, I turned my head slightly and said, “I kind of like it when you say it as well. I wonder who can say it the most in a twenty-four-hour period?”
And there it was, the smile that stopped my heart.
He said, “Challenge accepted.”
And I laughed before I lost myself to his kisses for a few more minutes.
“I love you,” he said, and I stuck out my tongue. “What I meant before you distracted me with I love yous―”
“That doesn’t count.”
He chuckled. “Focus, Athena.”
“Wait. We’re back to Athena?”
The laughter burst out of him, and he rolled onto his back, arms spread out as the beautiful rumble filled the air, taking the heaviness and the pain and everything we’d been through in the last weeks and flinging it into the air. I joined him, laughing, resting my head on his chest so the reverberation filled my whole body with its joy.
Our eyes met, the smiles so much better than the pain.
“Goddess, let me get this out.”
“I’m not stopping you. I love you. Why would I stop you from saying what’s in your heart when I love you so much?”
I showed him three fingers. In one swift move, he tossed me over onto my back again and had my arms pinned above my head with one hand while the other covered my mouth. I was still smiling.
“Jesus. This is important. Let me get it out.” He stared down into my face, and the smile that was making him all but glow started to dim. “How would you feel about me turning in my Trident for good?”
My heart bounced like a tennis ball gone berserk as I finally realized what he was talking about—giving up the layer of him that was all SEAL.
“Are you going to let me answer?” I asked, mumbling into the palm that covered my lips.
He removed his hand, staring into my eyes as if trying to read what I would say before it came out of my mouth. “I don’t want you to give up being a SEAL.” Surprise hit his eyes. “At least, not if you’re giving it up for me.”
He’d loosened his grip on my arms, my words settling into him, and I used the slack just like he’d taught me to, sliding away and off the bed. I stood at the side, a smile on my face. He lay where I left him, his grin back.
“That was pretty good,” he said.
“I love you. I have to―”
He moved so damn fast it was almost inhuman. He wrapped his arms around my waist and had me pinned to the wall, my legs going around him.
“I feel the need for some rules of engagement, Goddess.”
His lips coasted along mine, sliding over to my ear and then down, grazing the swollen mark with tenderness before trailing farther to my breasts that were still bare and lit up with desire. I gasped when he took one tender tip into his mouth.
“You…can’t set rules…around saying…I love you,” I gasped.
He stopped what he was doing, and my body groaned an objection.
“That didn’t count,” he said.
Then he returned his attention to my breast, and I completely forgot everything I’d been going to say as we lost ourselves again in our skin.
♫ ♫ ♫
Returning to the world of the living was difficult after having his hands bring me up to the skies where I did feel like a goddess. One he worshipped with fingers and a tongue and whispered words.
“Guess what?” he said, lips quirking.
“What?” I asked, trying to get my breath.
“I love you. I love you. I love you,” he said with a huge grin.
The words peeled through me like a bell he was ringing, and while I laughed, the thought of him ringing a bell at all made my smile disappear. I put my hand to his cheek, wanting to make sure he got to say everything he’d wanted to say about his naval career. So he knew I didn’t want him to give it up for me.
“I’m serious, Otter, I don’t want you giving up your career for me.”
He took my hand, kissing the palm. “Before Dr. Inez put me on leave, he asked me what I had to live for, and when I tried to tell him I was in service to our country, he threw our SEAL motto in my face.”
“What an ass,” I blustered, offended on his behalf.
He nodded. “He was. He is. And it did piss me off. But I get it now. This. You. Me. What we are when we’re together. It’s worth anything and everything. I don’t want to spend six months without you. I don’t want to go out on a mission, wondering if I’m ever going to taste you again, see you shudder in joy at my touch, challenge me to some new game with strange rules of engagement.”
My lips quirked, but I was worried that this was my brother’s doing. I sat up, forcing his hands away from me so I wouldn’t be distracted by his touch.
“This is because of Mac’s little speech in the car?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Ever since I came back from Africa…” He swallowed hard and looked at the ceiling and then back into my eyes. “Ever since Darren died, I’ve been floundering, trying to force myself back on
