Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(21)

He turned away from her. Sat on the edge of the bed with his head hanging down. “I’m sorry. Scaring you is the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

She leaned toward him and pressed a kiss to his broad back. He was so tense beneath her lips. So warm and hard and strong. “One secret at a time.” Would that be so hard? They had to start somewhere. “I’ve told you about my nightmares. Tell me yours. Let me help you.”

She needed to help him. Couldn’t he see that?

His head lifted. He stared straight into the darkness. She didn’t think he was going to speak at all, but then he finally said, “It was right after I left the military. I’d gone…independent with some friends. One of my teammates—the person wasn’t who we all thought. A traitor. Leading us straight to hell. I had one chance to stop things. Kill or be killed.” His voice was wooden.

“You killed.”

“It turned out I was good at killing. Maybe too good.”

She rose onto her knees and wrapped her arms around him, pulling his back against her breasts.

Trace’s attention seemed to shift as he stared down at his hands. He’d taken off the bandages she’d applied so carefully before.

“I’d killed before, but that was in the line of duty. When I was following orders. This time, it was different. It was my friend. And I let my emotions get in the way.” He drew in a ragged breath. “I have a lot of memories that won’t let go of me. I went Black Ops six months after my enlistment. I did things…” His muscles were rock hard against her. “I wish I could forget them.”

Because the memories haunted him. “You don’t have to carry this alone.” She pressed a kiss to his neck, just below his ear. “I’m here, Trace. I want to help you.” She wanted in.

“You helped me back then.”

She frowned, but knew he couldn’t see her face.

“Every time I hunted, every time I killed, every time I thought I’d never taste anything but blood and death and the sand that got between my teeth or the snow that froze my bones…I’d see you.”

Her arms tightened around him.

“I’d imagine you dancing, up on stage, with all the lights around you. I’d see you, and the hell around me would vanish for a few seconds. You were my dream, when I was in a nightmare.”

Her lips feathered over his throat.

“I don’t have nightmares about that time…at least, I haven’t,” he said, sounding angry now. “Not in years.”

“But then Ben Sharpe came back.”

He nodded. “Ben worked with me in Black Ops. I saved his ass a few times—that tends to make a man loyal.”

But demons had started to chase Ben, even then.

“After I got out of the military, I brought Ben onto the independent team with me because I wanted to help him. He’d come to me, desperate, but working with me just made things worse.”

Because of the traitor?

“Ben brought them back,” Trace said. “But I’ll forget them again. I’ll shove the memories into the back of my head and lock the damn vault shut on them.”

He hadn’t looked at her while he’d spoken. Maybe it was easier for him not to see her when he saw the past.

“Thank you,” Skye whispered.

“For what? Scaring you? That’s not what I—”

“For giving me the first secret.” A glimpse into his hell.

He turned then, caught her, and rolled so that Skye was beneath him in bed.

“Thank you,” he told her, voice gruff.

“For what?”

“Without you, I would’ve been as lost as Ben.”

“No, you—”

He kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all of her passion, all of her love. She wanted to show Trace that she was with him, through good and bad, and everything in the middle.

His tongue slid over her lips. His hands trailed over her body. He knew where to touch her. Where to stroke and caress so that she arched eagerly toward him. Wanting all that he had to give her.

But he didn’t thrust into her.

Not even when she begged.

Instead, he put his mouth between her legs. He licked her. He tasted her. He drove her into a frenzy.

She came against his mouth. With her hands in the thickness of his hair. With her hips arching toward him.

Skye came that way, and she wanted more.

But Trace was the one in control. That fierce control that she wanted to smash into a million pieces.

He brought her to the brink of another release. Tears leaked down her cheeks. She cried out for him. Wanted more. “Trace, now, I need—”

He rolled away from her. Stood. His erect cock thrust out toward her, and Skye wanted it buried in her core.

She reached for him.

He backed away.

“T-Trace?”

His eyes squeezed closed. “Have you ever wanted something so much…so badly…but you were afraid you’d destroy that one thing if you actually took it?”

Her thighs quivered. Soft contractions still pulsed in her sex. “You won’t destroy me.”

His smile came then. Sad and cruel. “Oh, baby, you shouldn’t be so sure. Tonight, I’m weak, and you don’t want me without my control.”