“Shut up, Cullen.” Swallowing, Sky stepped into his room, her eyes narrowing on his sling. On the blood pooling beneath his skin where the shrapnel had been dislodged. Slender fingers with light pink polish extended toward the bruising, Cullen making himself stand rock still as Sky’s hand hovered just above his flesh. His heart beat hard enough to make his pulse echo in his ears. “What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing of consequence.”
“He brought a piece of shrapnel with him back from Afghanistan,” Addie declared impertinently. “Apparently, the metal shard didn’t much like its residence disturbed.”
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
Cullen shook his head.
Sky pulled her hand back, a flash of hurt in her eyes over the tiny lie.
Fuck. Cullen tipped his face to the ceiling, his throat closing. It shouldn’t be so very hard to say yes, but it was. He was supposed to be protecting her. How the hell could she trust him to do that if he was whining about a bit of bruising? And yet, Sky wanted the unedited truth. Demanded it.
“It hurts like a bitch,” he whispered. “I’m not all right, Sky. Something is wrong.”
Her teeth grazed over her lush lower lip for a moment, and then her arms were around him, pulling him into her, her warm body folding perfectly into his. The scent of passionflower filled his lungs, the shooting pain in his shoulder a distant pulsing irrelevance. Wrapping his good arm around the one woman in the world who could enter his soul and chase away the demons lurking inside, Cullen held her tightly.
“I don’t like who I am without you,” he said into her hair, the truth spilling uncontrolled from his lips. “I need you.”
“I need you too,” she whispered so quietly that he could barely make out the words, as if she were admitting some colossal secret. Somewhere in the background, the sound of Addie’s footsteps approached the door, which opened and closed with a soft click. Sky turned her face up toward him, all big blue eyes and vulnerable uncertainty.
It was all Cullen could do to keep himself from pressing his mouth over hers, but one twitch of his shoulder was enough to remind him what happened when wounds festered. A shudder of fear ran through him, the thought of losing Sky just moments after getting her back making his heart race, but he made himself speak anyway. “Please tell me what happened in New York. I need to hear it from you.”
Sky pulled back, but he wouldn’t let her go. Not even an inch. His thumb grazed her neck in gentle encouragement.
The story came, starting innocently enough, but ending with Cullen shaking in rage. She’d been assaulted, betrayed, drugged—a fact that she still didn’t know—and thrown to the curb to let a bunch of misogynistic assholes keep their cocks happy.
“I’m sorry,” Cullen said. And damn it, he was. Sorry for not having listened. For not having been there to stop it. Sorry he hadn’t killed Jaden when he’d had the chance. “I can’t change what happened, Sky, but I promise there will never be a time I don’t listen. Not again. Not ever.”
A cautious smile touched Sky’s face, lighting the room. “That sounds almost docile,” she whispered, her fingers sliding tentatively along his face.
“I promised to listen,” said Cullen. “Not to agree.”
She snorted softly. Wonderfully. Then paused, biting her lip. “While we’re on apologies… I’m sorry about looking through the account. Everything pointed so strongly to you being with Addie that I —”
“With Addie?” Cullen paused for a second, looking at the door to the motel room through which Adrianna had shown herself out as he tried to work out what Sky might mean. “She’s family. Like a sister.”
“I know.” Sky drew a short breath. “She told me. I’m sorry to have assumed without asking.”
“We’ll both do better next time,” Cullen said. Because there would be a next time. Many, many next times, if he had his way. Now that he had Sky in his arms, he wasn’t letting her go.
“There is one other thing.” Reaching into her purse, Sky pulled out a packet of stapled papers, the motel’s logo at the top suggesting they’d just been printed at the business center downstairs.
“What is it?” Cullen blinked at the small text, images and graphs filling the pages with complicated-looking research into military tactics.
“A postaction analysis on the effects of field medical hospitals for indigenous populations in the Middle East and Central Asian theaters,” Sky said primly, then softened her tone. “What all that gobbledygook says is that even though the Taliban and other bastards attacked field hospitals, the medical mission saved lives. You saved lives, Cullen Hunt. More lives than you know.”
His breath stilled. He’d said no more than a few words to Sky about his nightmare, but she’d listened to every one.
“Anyway…” Sky swallowed. “I wanted to leave this with you.”
“Leave?” the word escaped him. He couldn’t help it. Did she mean leave the paper or leave? Fuck. He didn’t think he could bear it. “I… I don’t want you to.”
Sky bit her lip. “I don’t either. But I can’t do this halfway. You have to let me in, Cullen. No holds barred.”
“You might not like what you see,” Cullen whispered. “I don’t.”
“I’ll take my chances.” Reaching forward, Sky put her palm against his cheek. “I know research studies won’t chase away the dreams, but we will. One night at a time.”
Cullen released his breath slowly, his face leaning into Sky’s touch. The woman saw so deeply into him that it scared him shitless. But if there was anyone in the world he wanted at his side as he took the steps to healing, it was her.
Sliding his grip to cup the back of Sky’s head, Cullen sealed his mouth over her lips, the energy of the connection blasting through him like a lightning strike. Like a billion volts of electricity cascading across every synapse of his brain, every nerve in his system. This was how it always was with Sky. Powerful. Magnetic. Soul-wrenchingly raw.
36
Sky
Heat rushes through me, my mouth yielding to Cullen’s claiming kiss. The powerful taste of him fills my senses, rousing a deep primal need for more. More connection. More power. More him.
My breath quickening, I meet his tongue with mine and feel the rumble of approval vibrating through his chest. My hands come up, gripping either side of his thick torso, the skin smooth over hard chiseled muscles beneath.
As soon as my fingers close around him, Cullen takes over, not only with his mouth but with his entire massive frame. He steps into me, his hips pressing into mine, his chest brushing against the tips of my bunching nipples. Sizzles of heat and need spiral from my aching chest, heading all the way down to my sex, moisture already slicking my folds.
“Your shoulder,” I rasp, pulling away from the kiss, my mind struggling to get a grip on reality.
“My cock hurts a great deal more just now,” Cullen punctuates his words with a crass grunt in my ear, grinding his pulsing hardness against me in undeniable proof. His finger slides beneath my jacket and sweater, the rough skin of his calloused fingers sliding along my bare flesh as he takes my mouth again with renewed force.