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

His words destroying me, I wrapped my hands around the sides of his neck and held on. “Raid, sweetheart, please—”

He talked right over me.

“So I’m not leavin’, Hanna. I was a dick and I hurt you and I cannot promise it won’t happen again, so I won’t. And you are not wrong. This shit burns in me, what happened, what I saw, what I did. But most of all who I lost. Every one of those guys deserves to have their reward sittin’ in a porch swing or however that shit comes about. When I say those men were good men, there isn’t a word in the fuckin’ dictionary that describes how good those men were. And there are only four of us left who know exactly what that means. They died and I’m here and I found my reward and I’m not letting it go. Because if they were alive and they knew I let something that important slip through my fingers, they’d be pissed at me. And if they can sacrifice everything so you can have your porch swing and I can come home and have everything they lost, you can fuckin’ learn how to take the heat and give it to me.”

“Okay,” I agreed immediately.

I agreed so immediately, Raiden’s, “Come again?” was clipped and short with surprise.

“Okay, honey. I’ll learn how to take the heat.”

The room went completely still. Everything suspended. It felt like time stopped.

Then I gasped as, unexpectedly, I wasn’t against the wall anymore.

Raiden chanting, “Jesus, fuck, Jesus, fuck,” he had an arm around me and I was sailing across the room. I landed on my back on the kitchen table with Raiden bent over me.

His hands started to move on me, his mouth came to my neck and I wrapped him in my arms, turned my head and invited in his ear, “Take what you need.”

At my words, his body stilled. Then abruptly he stood up, taking me with him so I was seated on the edge of the table, Raiden standing between my spread legs. With a hand cupping the back of my head, he pressed my cheek to chest, his other arm around me. His body bowed so it formed a hard, strong shield around me, protecting me from nothing, but, Raiden being Raiden, instinctively still protecting me.

I kept my arms around him, pressed deep and held tight.

“Jesus, fuck,” he murmured.

I was silent.

Raiden fell silent too.

I gave it time.

Raid took it.

Then I asked gently, “You never talked about that with anybody, have you?”

“No.”

He only gave that to me.

I shut my eyes and held on tighter.

I said no more and gave it more time.

Raiden took it.

I opened my eyes and promised him, “Like the rest, that gift is just for me and I’m never going to share it with anybody.”

“Jesus, fuck,” he whispered.

I again went silent, but I held him closer.

It was Raid that broke it this time.

“That ‘okay’ you gave me, does that mean you’re still with me?”

“Yes, honey.”

I heard him draw in a deep breath.

Then he stated, “Right, then I need you to promise me something.”

“Okay,” I replied.

He pulled away, cupped my jaw in both hands and tipped my head back so he could catch my eyes in the dim light.

“I give you shit, you do not eat it. Like today, you give it back to me. We’ll work it out, Hanna, but we’ll do it like we did it tonight. Not you getting where my head is at and bowin’ to that in hopes you takin’ my shit eventually turns something in me. Today, I stepped far over the line and that is not cool. After I calmed my ass down, I spent the last two hours standing on your porch, thinkin’ if I put a little more strength in that throw you wouldn’t have landed on the bed, and the thoughts of what I could have done to you have been brutalizing me. That, babe, I promise I’ll check. The other shit, if it overwhelms me and I try to force it down your throat, you force it right back.”

“Agreed,” I replied.

He dug the pads of his fingers in slightly before they relaxed.

“Okay,” he murmured.

I lifted my hands to wrap them around his wrists and took a deep breath.

Then I cautiously said, “Honey, I hesitate to mention this, but I think today proves you’ve got some issues to work through.”

Both his hands slid back into my hair. He stuffed my face in chest and burst out laughing.

I found this reaction both a relief and a little weird, but even so, as usual I wanted to watch him laugh, but couldn’t because it was dark and my face was smushed to his chest. He didn’t stop laughing before he let me go, but bent at the waist, put a shoulder in my belly and hefted me up.

This action was more than a little weird and a surprise, so much so I straight up girlie shrieked, “Raid!”

He turned and walked out of the kitchen, ordering, “Quiet, babe, I got some issues to work through.”

Oh boy.

I knew what that meant.

“Um… maybe we should find alternate outlets to battle that burn,” I suggested to his back, my hands gripping his tee at his sides.

I became perplexed when he didn’t head up the stairs, but unlocked and opened the front door and strode out to the porch. He turned right as he swung me around. He was still holding me, but we were front to front and I frantically grabbed hold of his shoulders so I wouldn’t go flying when his hands slid down and yanked my knees up at his sides.