“I wasn’t lost. I was taken.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” His voice got big.
“You didn’t have to—”
“Don’t say that to me,” he warned.
“You didn’t have—”
“I’m not kidding!”
“You didn’t—”
“Miro!”
“You—”
“This is funny to you?” He was incredulous, and it showed in his flushed face, furrowed brows, and hands balled into fists.
I shrugged with one shoulder, since the other one was covered in bandages and tape.
He moved fast and hovered over me, hands on either side of my head. Up close, I saw the pain in his eyes, how puffy they were, raw and red, and the slight tremble in his lower lip, the muscles cording in his jaw and neck. I heard how rough his breathing was.
“Miro,” he rasped.
I slipped my hands around the sides of his neck and slowly lifted toward him.
“It’s not—I can’t—you’re not replaceable.”
“I know,” I said, smiling as I brushed my lips over his.
“It’s not funny.”
“No,” I agreed, coaxing, my voice husky as I kissed him again, longer the second time, my tongue running over his bottom lip.
He shuddered, the full body kind, and I felt the roll of desire tumble through me. His need was obvious; he had to be shown that I was okay, and me holding him down was necessary. The problem was, at the moment, I couldn’t.
“I was gonna give up,” I confessed, and when he leaned back, I saw how focused on me he was, listening. “But then I thought, that’s not me. I don’t do that, and Ian, you, would miss me. I’m not just your partner at home, in bed. I’m your partner on the job and I have your back.”
He nodded slightly.
“So there was no choice. I had to get back to you.”
His eyes filled. “There was nothing I could do.”
Oh, he was hurt down deep. “Are you sorry?”
“What?”
I had to dig it out of him or it would fester and become something we couldn’t get past. “Are you sorry you started up with me?”
He squinted, obviously lost.
“If you didn’t love me, it wouldn’t have felt like that.”
He searched my face.
“But… if you didn’t love me,” I repeated, slower, “it wouldn’t have felt like that.”
It took him several breaths to answer as I petted the sides of his neck and kissed his left temple and his right cheek and nuzzled the corner of his mouth. “Yeah.”
I lifted both eyebrows, questioning. “Yeah, what?”
“Yeah, it’s worth it,” he growled. “Yeah, I felt like I couldn’t fuckin’ breathe, but—I wouldn’t change it or… even if I could go back, I wouldn’t.”
“You could change it now,” I apprised him. “We could go back to being—”
“That would be easy for you?”
“That would fuckin’ kill me,” I swore, gripping him tighter. “But you have to know what you can do, what you can gamble on and what you can live with. I do it whenever you’re deployed. I hold my breath the whole time you’re gone.”
I saw it hit him, the reality of what I was telling him, the truth of it. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah,” I said, letting him go. “You think it’s your job and it sucks being away from me and your life, but for me—it’s like that.”
“’Cause you don’t know.”
I nodded. “I never have any idea when you’ll be back.”
“Or if.”
“I don’t do ‘if,’” I retorted, suddenly annoyed. “I never do ‘if.’”
We were silent, staring at each other.
“Okay,” he finally said.
“Okay, what?”
“Don’t be so quick to offer me an out next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“Make sure,” he grumbled as he leaned in and kissed me, tipping my head back and opening my mouth.
Dominant Ian full of hunger was a huge turn-on, and my dick noticed, hardening fast.
“Miro?” he asked before he kissed me again, continuing his lazy, decadent assault, each drugging kiss becoming another and another, sucking on my tongue, feasting on my lips, pressing me down, his warm hand on my chest. When he tried to pull back, I fisted my hand in his Henley and held him where he was. “Oh, you want me,” he said arrogantly, breaking the kiss to grin at me, bumping my nose with his.
“Could you—” I had to swallow hard to get my voice back. “Get in my lap?”
His chuckle was deep and sexy, and I couldn’t stifle my groan. “I’m sorry, what did you need?”
I squirmed on the bed, which made him smile, and to see it with how wrecked he looked made me deliriously happy. It was clear that Ian Doyle loved me very much. I could see it all over him.
“Just lay there and be good and don’t tease me. You have at least three more days until you’re even out of here, let alone ready to engage in any sexual intercourse.”
“What if I get a note from the doctor?”
He shook his head. “That fuck took a rib out of you,” he finished, and I saw the pain flicker across his face.