When Matt enlisted in the Army, his family cut him off financially. He’d already been admitted to Princeton, his path to taking over the reins at Intech when his father retired nearly written in stone. We’d all been surprised when he’d announced that he was joining the military, that he wanted to serve. I’d been so worried about him, but also so proud. His parents had just been angry. My family, equally so. The relationship that had cemented my father’s ties to one of his most important contributors had gone from a source of pride to a repugnant association overnight. Both of my parents had tried to get me to break up with Matt, but I’d refused. As far as I knew, he hadn’t spoken to his parents since the day he left for basic training. I knew that for all intents and purposes they’d written him off, but murder?

“Do you think your father is behind what happened to you?”

He didn’t answer me for a beat. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe he didn’t know I was involved.” He released a frustrated sigh. “I want to think he isn’t capable of that, but …”

Yeah. I knew what he meant. Absolute power, and all that. Our fathers ruled their respective kingdoms wholly unchecked, the world theirs for the taking.

“I need to see those papers.”

I nodded. “I can go to the bank when they open tomorrow. I’ll call in sick.” Not the best start at a new job, but whatever. Hopefully, I’d win some brownie points for having worked on the holiday.

I didn’t know what to say next, where to go from here. There were so many questions in my head, so many feelings unresolved between us. And more than anything, I couldn’t ignore the worry that something between us had been lost and was now irretrievable.

Was this really it? Were we really over? I’d missed the breakup, apparently. One minute we’d been in love, the next he was gone. And now he was back and I was somehow supposed to look at him differently? Just forget everything between us?

“Can I stay on your couch tonight?” Matt asked. “I don’t want to leave you. Not until we figure out what’s going on. It’s not safe for you to be alone right now.”

He was right, of course, and still, the idea of having him this close to me and not having him at all felt unbearable. Everything about this felt unbearable—too much hurt, too many memories, too much emotion bubbling up inside of me when everything in him felt like a void.

I nodded, practicality winning out over my stupid heart.

“I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow.”

I walked to the linen closet, pulling out a folded-up quilt, heading back to my bedroom and grabbing an extra pillow off of my bed. The adrenaline had worn off somewhere along the way, and the shock had dulled to something else that flooded me with melancholy.

I hesitated, but I made my way to the bathroom, grabbing some ointment and disinfectant from my medicine cabinet. Everything about him screamed, “I don’t want anyone taking care of me,” but I couldn’t resist.

What now? He was back, but he wasn’t really. Would he stay to figure out who was responsible for his friends’ deaths and then leave? He hadn’t really even answered my question, had left blanks in the time he’d been away.

I’d never stopped loving him. Not for a second. As much as my heart had ached inside me, that love had kept me company when he’d been gone. It was as though we were in different places in our relationship. In my head we’d continued on, and apparently for him everything had ended.

He looked at me now like I was a stranger, as though we’d never meant anything to each other. Was there someone else? How was it possible that I loved him with everything I was, everything I had, and he’d moved on?

He’d promised me that he’d love me forever. Where did forever go?

I went back to the living room and stopped in my tracks.

I watched, unable to tear my gaze away, as Matt pulled a gun out of the waistband of his pants with brutal efficiency, as he divested his pockets and boot of knives and another gun, setting the weapons on my ruined coffee table. His boots came off next, then his socks, his hands at the button of his pants, and even though I knew I shouldn’t stand there gaping at him, I couldn’t help it.

His pants hit the floor, and then his shirt, until he was only wearing a pair of black boxer briefs that hugged his upper thighs, cock, and ass.

A noise escaped my lips, somewhere between a gasp and a hum, and Matt turned, our gazes connecting across the living room.

My nipples tightened; an ache settling between my thighs. I didn’t bother pretending that I hadn’t been staring and I definitely didn’t shy away from looking my fill. If he was going to sleep in his briefs in my living room, then I wasn’t going to be a blushing virgin about it. Besides, I couldn’t have looked away even if I’d wanted to.

It wasn’t just his personality that had changed.

He was hard in ways he hadn’t been hard before. His face had lost the last vestiges of youth, his cheekbones angular and defined, the beginnings of lines around his eyes and mouth that spoke more to the life he’d lived since we last saw each other than his age.

He’d always been an athlete; I’d spent years going to his soccer games and cheering him on. Once he’d joined the military, he’d bulked up, but this was a different sort of bulk. He had the kind of body that looked hard from use and not because he spent hours in the gym. He was all muscle, his smooth, tan skin decorated with puckered scars. A slash here. A round scar there. A lump formed in my throat.

There it was—proof that he’d been shot. His stomach, his chest.

How did he survive?

And then I saw it.

There was ink on his skin now, swirls on his bicep that hadn’t been there before. But that wasn’t what knocked the breath from me. On his left pec, near his heart, he had a letter inked on his skin. A “K.” My heart clenched at the sight of my initial on his skin, at the knowledge that he hadn’t forgotten me, that despite his coldness now, I had taken a chunk out of him much as he’d done to me.

Matt held my gaze as though daring me to say something. I couldn’t.

“I brought you a pillow and blanket,” I sputtered, choking on all the words I wanted to say. “And some medicine for your face.” My fingers curled around the bundle in my arms.

I wanted to touch him. To run my fingers over his puckered skin. To lay my palm over that “K” and to feel the beat of his heart. I wanted to stroke his beard. Wanted to feel for myself that he was real. That he was safe. God help me, I wanted to kiss him. Wanted him to fuck me. The need, the desire to feel alive, to confirm that he was alive, thrummed through me like a madness that wouldn’t be contained.

I didn’t want sweetness. It was clear as day that whatever feelings he’d had for me had disappeared and I didn’t know if I had any hope of them ever returning. Right now, I didn’t care. Right now, I wanted an escape. And maybe to pretend that nothing had changed, that we were still too people utterly in love. Easy enough when my heart remained constant.

He felt like a stranger. Looked like a stranger. Talked like a stranger. But the arousal filling me now felt very familiar.

There hadn’t been anyone else. Ever. He’d been my first kiss. My first time. My last kiss. My last time.

In this moment, I didn’t really care about anything else.

I waited for Matt to walk toward me, to take the pillow and blanket from my hands. He didn’t. He just stared at me, his gaze intense, eyes dark.

Fuck it.

I walked to him on shaky legs. I didn’t stop until I stood right in front of him, inches away. So close that it forced my head up to look at him, so close that our skin nearly touched. I set the bundle down on an end table that had somehow escaped the same ruination the coffee table had suffered.

Matt’s head lowered, his gaze narrowed. I swayed toward him slightly, my body recognizing that look, the hint of emotion lingering in his eyes.