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 f**ked 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 f**kin’ 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 f**kin’ 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 f**kin’ 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 f**kin’ porch swing of all f**kin’ things, lookin’ right out of a f**kin’ movie. So cute. Christ, no joke, it hurts even to look at you and believe you’re real. So f**kin’ sweet, I remembered there’s a God and He actually likes me. You go over there, far f**kin’ 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 f**kin’ clue. And every day since I clapped eyes on you, finally understanding, it f**kin’ destroys me.”