“What happened to your thigh?” she asked quietly, her fingers gently brushing over the bumpy, once raw skin of his upper right leg. It wasn’t a big area. Seven inches wide by nine long and, really, it had been nothing more than a flesh wound. But it was still ugly. And yet it was nothing like Ernie and Troy had suffered.

“IED,” he muttered, that same instantaneous guilt brewing fast in his gut.

“I saw the bottom of the scar in Vegas, but didn’t want to ask. It looks like it hurt.” She continued to touch him and he ground his jaw. He didn’t deserve this attention. This pity. He was still alive while Ernie lay in a cold, dark fucking grave, a hole the size of Nebraska in his chest.

“I’m breathing. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” he snapped, fully aware that this was his issue—not hers.

She shook her head slowly. “No, Brody, it’s not.”

“Yeah, it is. My buddies died and all I got was fucking road rash.”

“This looks likes more than road rash. It looks like—”

“It was burn, okay? Nothing a couple grafts couldn’t fix.” He cranked the water harder and raked a hand back through his hair, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. Wishing he’d pushed her away instead of pulling her in. But he’d been helpless to it, stuck in a continuous game of wanting something he knew better to think he deserved.

She couldn’t fucking heal him.

“Hey...” Lifting her hand to his cheek, she toed up and brushed a sweet kiss across his lips. “Let’s just get in, okay?”

He nodded. Even if his head stood firm in the belief that nothing could change this personalized version of guilt-ridden hell, his heart still held out hope that this woman would be his salvation.

He climbed into the tub with his boxer briefs on, kept his back to her just long enough to hear the rustle of denim hit the floor, followed by the soft whisk of her shirt through the air. He turned, lowering himself into the water, as she stepped away from her jeans, wearing nothing but black satin panties and a lacy pink bra.

“Holy shit,” he murmured, unable to look away, even when she wrapped an arm around her waist and glanced down at the floor, a blush even darker than her bra creeping into her cheeks. “Why you hiding from me, baby?”

“I’m not perfect either.” She wouldn’t look at him, just curled her toes into the tile and kept that protective shield slung across her belly. A belly that wasn’t cut like she worked out every day at the gym or even once a week, for that matter. Instead, she looked soft and curvy. Feminine. And every fucking bit as beautiful as he imagined she’d be.

“Come here,” he rasped, but she hesitated, opening her mouth like she might refuse him. “Dammit, woman, don’t make me come get you.”

“Just...hear me out, okay? I need to say this.” She pushed a hand back through her hair and fisted it, all the while sucking in and then blowing out a shaky breath. “We both have our issues and this is one of mine,” she admittedly quietly. “I don’t usually worry about whether or not I’ll live up to anyone’s expectations, because I know it’s almost never about me personally. It’s just my willing body that most guys care about.”

“Jesus, babe...”

She held up a hand. “I like you, Brody, and when you do things like text me late at night, hold my hand in the freaking grocery store, and eat the stupid vegetables I cook for you, it’s hard for me not to like you even more. Even when you tell me there are things about you I don’t know.” She tipped her head to the side and the emotion that lined her eyelids made him want to go out and beat the hell out of every bastard that had ever hurt her.

“You’re angry and feeling guilty and I’m scared to freaking death that I’m not going to be enough for you either,” she whispered, a small, vulnerable smile trembled on her lips.

He was on his feet and out of the tub in an instant. His hands found her hair and his mouth came down on hers without hesitation. He wished he could kiss all the pain and uncertainty out of her, or even load it onto his own shoulders, so she could see how friggin’ real this was to him, too.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured between sweet caresses of her tongue against his. “But I’ve gotta be straight with you about something.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she pressed her fingertips to her lips, looking up at him with so much fear in her eyes that it hurt—actually fucking hurt—to pull in his next breath.

She wasn’t the only one who was scared. Fuck, he was terrified. If he told her the truth and she ran, not only did he lose her, but he’d lose the only, barely-grasped thread of hope he found for his recovery, too. Somehow, her non-judging goodness had become tangled up with all the chaos in his head and, despite his efforts, he couldn’t separate them. She was his recovery.

“Just tell me.” She shifted back a mere fraction of an inch, but he felt her retreat like she’d put the whole damn room between them.

“Stay with me, sugar. Please.” He reached and pulled her back to him, chest to chest, belly to belly, hip to hip. Yeah, he was begging. Didn’t give a damn. His humility went out the window when the Corps sent him to therapy. “I can’t do this if you’re not with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He wanted to believe that. Hoped like hell it was true. Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out.

“Jenn...” He closed his eyes and gathered every ounce of strength and courage he could find buried beneath his rubbled insides. “I can’t deploy because the organization I’ve committed my life to rejected me.”

In the space where he hovered, somewhere between reality and the haven of numbness he’d spent so much time in this past year, he heard her whisper his name. Felt her fingers brush against his stomach and her lips press against his chest.

“I have PTSD and, according to the Corps, I’m too fucked in the head to be of any use to them. Not now, maybe not ever again. But you...” His eyes snapped open and the look of complete absolution on her face shook him to the core. “You make me feel like I’m needed. Like I’ve still got something to give and something to fight for, too.”

“You do,” she whispered, a silent tear falling down her cheek as she offered all her comfort to him. “God, Brody, you do.”

He nodded. “I believe it when you say it.”

“Then I’ll keep saying it. Over and over again, as often as you need to hear it.”

A moment of clarity broke through the perpetual fog in his head and he dropped his forehead down to hers. “That’s what I’m counting on, sugar.”

***

With her back to his chest, Jenny closed her eyes and let his voice and the soft massaging jets seduce her muscles and her mind into long-overdue relaxation. Even Brody, who’d started at the very beginning of the story he’d kept trapped inside for the past year, seemed more at ease than she’d ever seen him, despite the painful memories he shared.

“I didn’t even know my leg had been burned until we loaded up into the helo and the medics started cutting away my pants. In hindsight, I remember the blast rocking our ride, but what happened between then and me getting Ernie to shelter is gone.”

“You were in shock, but instinct kicked in and you did what you knew you had to do.” She smoothed a handful of water over his knee, tracing her fingertip over a raised scar. Not as angry looking as the ones on his thigh, but not pretty either.

“That’s from my first tour. Good ol’ barbed wire fencing,” he chuckled softly.

“Do you have more?” She wanted to know his entire story. Every little intricacy that made him this man with her right now. The one, who from the very start, had given her more of himself than he even realized he had to give. The man who still worried that he wasn’t enough.

“Yeah, but they’re nothing, you know? I’m intact. I’ve got all my limbs and everything works just fine. I see guys wearing prosthetics left and right and I feel guilty as fuck for that, too.”  He shifted uncomfortably behind her and she turned just enough to see his face.