The next morning, I woke up to Adam’s fingers tracing the scars on my back. I was splayed over his chest, in the same position in which I’d fallen asleep.
“Hey.” He tugged on my hair.
Reluctantly, I lifted my head to smile at him.
He scowled and my smile evaporated. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just wondering how the hell it’s possible for you to look this good first thing in the morning.”
“Superior breeding.”
Adam laughed. “Smart ass.” He swatted me. “Move. I need the bathroom.”
I rolled off, watched him sit up, ease his leg to the floor. He stood with a soft moan and stretched, the muscles in his back and thighs rolling in the most enticing way. There was a tattoo on his shoulder I hadn’t seen earlier -- a set of dog tags draped over an American flag. He walked to the bathroom, still limping, not the least bit embarrassed to be naked. In the mirror, his eyes met mine and his lips parted in a happy grin.
“Like what you see?”
I swallowed. “Yeah. I really do.”
“I know.” His grin widened.
“How? How do you know?”
Adam merely laughed and closed the bathroom door.
I hugged a pillow to my chest and sighed. What was I going to do? What the hell was I going to do? I was in love with a man who didn’t want to be loved, who had emotional scars that ran deeper than his physical ones, and maybe even a death wish.
I heard Belinda’s voice in my head. Drama, drama, drama.
“Regrets already?”
I turned, saw Adam leaning on the door frame.
“No, I was… thinking about Belinda.”
He sat down next to me, took my hand. “Princess, you need to put that behind you. Whatever went wrong with Belinda and you… you may never find out what it was.”
I shook my head. “No. I refuse to believe that. We’ve been friends since kindergarten, Adam.”
“Yeah, well my mother’s been my mother since I was born. And I still don’t know what went wrong there, either.”
I blinked. “Are you telling me you’re okay with that?”
His teeth clenched. “I have to be. If I let it, it tears my gut apart. So I push it away.”
I considered that for a moment. “I… don’t know if I’m that strong.”
Two fingers brushed my jaw, tilted my face up. “Of that, I have no doubts.” He kissed me, a slow sweet kiss to drown in. I pulled away and covered my mouth, horrified I hadn’t yet brushed my teeth. Adam laughed and took my hand. “I have a huge favor to ask you.”
Adam’s brown eyes were earnest. I waited for him to ask.
“Tomorrow morning, I have an appointment. A military thing.”
Right. The summons yesterday from the Major.
“I know you’ve already missed a ton of school and I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
My poor blinded-by-love heart thudded happily.
“I need to get my uniform from the cleaners. I need a haircut.” He tugged at the ends of his hair to illustrate. “Crap. I need a cane or something. The crutches are too bulky.”
