Peter squinted his eyes her way and uttered a short “fine,” before turning to his computer.
“And you,” Diya said, turning back to Yoshi, “stay on Logan and Samantha. Also find out all you can on her, everything there is to know from what brand of underwear she prefers to how she takes her coffee. Everything.”
“You kissed me.”
Logan looked up at the sound of Sam’s voice.
Hell. The woman was gunning for bear this morning.
She’d twisted her hair up in some complicated thing at the back of her head, neck unprotected, just begging him to reach out and trace it with his tongue. She wore a high-heeled-boots-and-miniskirt combo that sent his fantasies off in cock-hardening directions. Crap like that really made it difficult to work. Scratch that. It made it difficult to breathe, never mind work.
Her talking about the kiss wasn’t helping. “I did,” he said, purposefully making his voice even.
Kissing her had been a mistake. At first, he’d told himself it was only for the benefit of anyone listening in on the devices, but that was a load of crap and he knew it. What would it matter to her eavesdropper if she had a boyfriend or not? If he’d been at her place as a friend or as a lover? It wouldn’t.
No, the kiss had been solely for himself. Solely because he couldn’t help himself any longer.
And then, once it started, he couldn’t stop. She melted into him and moaned and before he knew it, he’d pulled her in close, lining his cock between her legs just right. And it was so freaking right. So ever-loving effing right.
“But then you left.”
Her comment drew him back to the present and once again he had to fight to steady his breathing. Yeah. Leaving hadn’t been easy either. He’d had to draw on every ounce of control he had to walk out that door instead of hauling her upstairs to her bed.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Why did I kiss you or why did I leave?”
“Both.” She shut his office door behind her and stood watching him as though terrified of the answer. Damn, this woman. She really had no idea the kind of power she had over him.
Logan drew in a deep breath through his nose before answering.
“I kissed you because I couldn’t help myself,” he said quietly, eyes watching hers as they flared in surprise. “And I walked away because I’m not okay.”
She blinked slowly at that. “You’re not okay.”
She said this more as a statement than a question and he got the sense she was acknowledging a fact they’d both known for some time now.
Logan repeated the sentence over in his head. I’m not okay.
He hadn’t actually said that before and he felt a small blow at the acknowledgement. Both a blow, and in some ways, a relief. It was as though saying the words to her somehow helped him to move forward, no matter how small a step it was. I’m not okay.
In the Teams, anyone diagnosed with PTSI got pulled from any assignments requiring security clearance. It was so ingrained in him not to ask for help, not to admit there was a problem, it was hard to do so now, even though his clearance and status as a SEAL was no longer in jeopardy.
Saying the words relieved some of that, though. The stigma was still there, but he could breathe, suddenly.
“And what are you doing about that?” Sam’s question threw him off guard.
“Excuse me?”
“What are you doing about that?” Sam repeated in a tone that told him she thought he was an idiot for not having some plan to address this issue.
But how could he address it? What the hell could he do to get back to, well … he didn’t even know. Normal was what he guessed he should be striving for, but he didn’t even really know what that was. And, he knew after the things he’d seen and done, normal wasn’t an option anymore. Not for him.
“What am I doing about it?” he asked and he felt about as stupid as he sounded. Just keep parroting her words back to her. Freaking brilliant.
Samantha’s face softened and she smiled at him, but there was a sad patience to the smile. “What are you doing to get yourself okay?”
He wanted to get angry, to storm at her and tell her where she could take her suggestions that he simply do something. But he couldn’t.
When he looked at her, he saw she waited with no judgment on her face. Simply watched him as though she expected him to have a plan. When one wasn’t forthcoming, she tilted her head.
Were he not fighting the turmoil her questions seemed to have let loose in him, he might have thought the move adorable. Instead, he just fought the rising tide of panic inside him. Don’t do this, Sam. Don’t go there.
Whether she saw the panic in his eyes or simply knew him well enough by now to know this conversation wouldn’t end well, she turned to leave.
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him.
“You know, Logan, you deserve to be happy. You might not be like a lot of your buddies you talk about with families to feed and no prospects for a job. You might not be fighting critical injuries or learning to walk with a prosthesis or two, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be happy. You have every right to the same counseling and help they do. You need to stop punishing yourself for landing this job with Jack. You need to stop thinking you don’t matter just as much as every one of the men you fought with, even the ones who didn’t come home with you; who won’t ever come home. You deserve peace and happiness and everything you fought for overseas for all of us to have back home. You get to have it now, too. That’s part of the deal.”
Well, damned if she didn’t cut right through all his shit, straight to the freaking issue.
And then she walked out.
Well, hell.
Logan stared at the closed door for a long time and tried to figure out what he was feeling. He didn’t really have a clue, but he knew one thing.
If getting help, if finding a way to be okay again, meant he could have a life with that woman—even only a shot at a life with that woman—he wanted it.
He picked up the phone and dialed Chad’s extension.
“Yeah?” Chad grunted.
“How did you do it?”
“Uh …”
“When you came home,” Logan clarified.
Chad had been out of the military for years, but he’d been in spec ops, too. Logan knew Chad had seen some shit, but he seemed to have a life now. He was functioning all right. At least better than Logan was. He had a wife he loved and who loved him back. They had a daughter. Chad didn’t seem plagued by memories like Logan was.
Logan cleared his throat and continued. “When you came home, how did you—”
Chad cut in when Logan floundered again. “Hang on, man. I’ll be right there.”
Logan stared out the window until he heard Chad open the door behind him. Chad didn’t hesitate. He walked in and handed Logan a business card for a counselor. Ernie Green.
“This guy,” Chad said, pointing to the card. “Go see him. He’s a veteran, and he’s become a good friend over the years. He gets it. It doesn’t fix everything right away, but he can help.”
Logan nodded and Chad turned without another word and left the room.
Logan looked down at the card and took another one of those deep breaths he’d seemed to be needing a lot of lately. Sam’s words echoed in his head: What are you doing about it?