He slammed into me one final time, groaning into the crook of my neck. I held him tightly, folding my arms around him, my hands smoothing over his slick skin.

He moved to pull out of me, but I squeezed my legs around him. “I don’t want you to go,” I whispered.

“I’m too heavy.”

“It’s a good weight.”

He braced his arms on either side of me and looked down, framing my face in his hands. His fingers played with my hair, brushing my cheeks.

I smiled, sated, replete, wondering how the hell I could have stayed away from him even this long. From the moment I met him that night at Maisie’s we could have been doing this. “It was even better than before and I didn’t think that was possible.” I practically purred the words.

“You know what they say? Practice makes perfect.”

“Then we should practice. A lot,” I teased, deliberately not thinking about how very permanent that sounded. I wasn’t going to let myself think about where this was going—if anywhere. That would only make panic creep in.

I didn’t do relationships. I was sure to f**k this up. I killed the thought. You just said you weren’t going to think about the future.

He rolled to his side, slipping from me. Immediately I felt bereft, hollow inside. I tugged the comforter over me, watching as he rose from the bed, admiring his taut backside as he removed the condom and disposed of it in the trash can. Turning, he strode back to the bed and slid in beside me, his warm flesh surrounding me and affecting me all over again. My softness melted into his hardness. His arms felt like muscled bands around me.

My fingers skimmed his muscled shoulders and biceps. He really was too beautiful. I would love to paint his body, all the shadowed dips and muscled swells.

“So this is afterglow?” I grinned against his chest, turning my face into the curve of his shoulder. “Now I get it.”

He chuckled. “You had doubts of its existence before? Like it was all some urban legend?”

“Something like that. I mean I’ve heard . . .” My voice faded and I bit my lip, embarrassed. What was I supposed to do? Share the stories I’d heard from my friends over the years?

His fingers trailed through my hair. “What have you heard?”

“Um, nothing that prepared me for this.”

“Careful. You’re inflating my ego.”

“As if it’s not inflated already.”

His fingers slid down to tickle my side and I jumped. “Hey, you’re making me sound like I’m some arrogant man-whore.” He lifted up on one elbow to watch me, still tickling me so that I writhed and squealed under him.

“No, stop, stop!” I laughed breathlessly, tears streaming down my face.

His touch eased up on me then, his fingers just grazing my ribs tenderly with the rough pads of his fingers. “Yeah, and that just wouldn’t be true ’cause the only girl I’ve even wanted to be with since I got back here is you.”

I stilled, my smile evaporating as he gazed down at me intently, his expression as serious as a heart attack.

He continued. “When I came back here, I just went through the motions. My mom was gone. My grandfather, too. I worked. I ate. Went out. I didn’t have anything or anyone. I was even thinking about reenlisting.”

My chest grew tight, felt constricted as I looked up at him, thinking about that. That one night’s chance encounter had put us in each other’s paths. We could have never met. He could have shipped back out and I could still be that same girl going through the motions, moving from one hookup to the next. Just the idea made my heart hurt.

“What about your cousin? Beth?” I asked, searching for something normal to say when I was totally freaking out inside over a hypothetical.

The slight smile that curved his well-carved lips faded. He eased back down on the bed. I propped myself up on one elbow to look down at him now, concerned I’d said something wrong. “Shaw?”

He dropped an arm over his forehead, staring up at the ceiling. “Beth doesn’t want anything to do with me. She and my aunt. They’re not even inviting me to Beth’s wedding.”

“What?” Outrage coursed through me. “Why—”

“I remind them of Adam.”

My mouth worked, hunting for the right words, but there were none. “That’s not fair.”

He exhaled. “I can’t blame them. They lost their brother. Their son.”

“He was your cousin, too. Your friend. You lost him, too.”

“Yeah. I know. But I was supposed to look out for him. He joined because of me.”

“That can’t be your—”

“He joined because of me . . . so he died because of me.”

I shook my head. “That logic is just . . .” I lifted a hand and brought it down on his chest, pressing firmly, as if I could somehow convey the utter wrong of this. “It’s just screwed up.”

“Beth tried.” He shrugged on the bed like it was nothing. Like he wasn’t talking about his family rejecting him. Like it didn’t hurt. But I knew. I knew just how painful, how devastating it could be. “She’s always been Little Miss Fix-it. Whenever Adam and I got into fights as kids, she would force us to make up. One summer in high school we were all drinking out at the lake and Adam’s girlfriend tried to kiss me. He took a swing at me, but Beth set him straight. She wouldn’t let anything get between us. We were family then.”

“You’re still family,” I whispered even as I realized how ridiculous those words were coming from me. What did I know about family?

“Beth came over here shortly after I got back.” His hand slightly tightened in my hair. “She wanted to know about Adam. About what went down over there. How it happened. The family isn’t given many details, but she sat at my kitchen table and told me she had to know everything. She had to know how her little brother died.”

“And then what?”

His chest lifted on a breath. “So I did what she asked. I told her. Everything. And now she can’t look at me. Now she sees that . . . the image I gave her of Adam. Dying. I am that memory for her.”

“That’s not fair,” I repeated, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “You did what she asked. You told her—”

“Yeah. I did. I thought it was the right thing. She deserved the truth. Closure, I guess. I would still do it again even knowing now that I would lose her.” He looked at me then. He brought his hand to my cheek. “Look at you. You try to act so tough, but you’re just a big softie, Emerson.”