Hard(43)

And nothing so perfect had ever layered me in such bliss.

It was as though a gentle curtain of serenity pulled over us. Sound faded. The lights dimmed. And everything that teased me amplified into such crippling pleasure I nearly wept against his hardened body.

Zach held me close, guiding me through the shivers, murmuring his own words that I couldn’t hear even if I wanted.

Anything we said to each other would reveal too much. Such a raw and uncompromising passion exposed everything.

And so we laid in a quiet peace.

Rested in the others’ arms.

And damned the consequences for another time.

A time that would come all too soon.





My vision haloed, blurred, then went black.

I dropped the barbell. It crashed into the carpet. Didn’t shatter the cement beneath, but I couldn’t be sure.

I couldn’t see. Anything. At all.

“Fuck.” I groped for a towel. “Damn it!”

The rough terrycloth brushed my fingers. I gripped it in a shaking fist and ground the towel against my face. Didn’t do shit, but I pressed hard against my eye sockets. It hurt almost as much as the fucking headache. At least my eyes were still there.

Christ, this was bad.

Fucking bad.

“Son of a bitch!” I pitched the towel across the room. I didn’t know where it landed. Didn’t care.

The migraines sucked, but this was something else. Shitty luck and shittier timing. I blinked hard. That helped. Another rub to my eyes, and the nothing shifted into grainy shadows. At least I wouldn’t fall on my ass trying to get to the bench with my stuff.

I downed half of my water. The rest dunked over my head. I was probably overheated or some shit. I pushed myself hard. No doubt I fucked something up lifting too much weight. I acted like a jackass.

My vision slowly returned. No need to bitch like a baby. At least the men in the squad weren’t around to witness such a weak-ass moment. I’d never hear the end of it.

Christ.

I could bluff a guy holding a four pair with just an ace high in my own hand, but I couldn’t fool myself. Hell, maybe it wasn’t worth fooling myself.

I imagined that something was still fucked in my head from the accident. But I wasn’t ready to face what happened after I confessed it to a doctor. I could either go in for help, or I’d damn my future chances at getting back to my squad.

All my training, the recovery, and the strengthening would mean fucking shit then. Twenty-four years old wasn’t the time to visit the VFW and collect my pension.

Son of a bitch.

My vision cleared. I could see enough of the machines and barbells to make it out of the gym. My headache disappeared the instant I hit the hall.

That worried me more than my faded sight. I could lie to a doctor if I had double-vision. And I’d get corrective surgery if the recurring blurriness was my body bullshitting me into nearsightedness. A headache like that was harder to hide.

By the time I reached the stairs, everything was normal. No pain. Not even a haze or fog clouding my sight. It was like nothing happened. Like I was perfectly fine. I used to argue nothing was wrong with me. No one believed me during physical therapy.

Fuck. Now I didn’t believe myself.

I wasn’t the type of man who took easy days. If I had it my way, all my workouts would focus on legs. I’d exhaust myself with exercise if it meant I’d get back to my job, where I could punish the real assholes. I’d destroy my body to protect my friends, family, and country. That was the meaning of sacrifice, and I’d give every part of me.

If the SEALs would take it.

But if I had another episode even half that bad and they found out? I wouldn’t be able to convince a child I was fit to serve. That’d be a problem.

A big fucking problem.

Headaches weren’t the worst of it. I still tried to rationalize last week, when I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. I wasn’t tired, and it was only the left eye, but my eyelid just…drooped.

It went away in a few minutes, but hell if I knew what that meant. Googling my random symptoms would only self-diagnose me with headaches and testicular cancer.

The doctors warned head injuries had a long recovery. We knew this. I expected it. Any complication was just a bump in the road back to the service. And if they got too big? I’d forge my own damn path. Use those parachuting skills for something besides trapping my ass in hostile territory.

I ran a shower, leaving the water cold. No sense overheating myself, especially when I stripped from a sweaty shirt and pants made sweatier in the moment of ball-clenching terror when my vision faded.

The water felt good. Not pool good, but it was a damn paradise compared to one minute showers of recycled rainwater in the field. The waterfall showerhead delivered a good spray. I pressed my hands into the wall and let the shower cascade over me until the tension rolled from my shoulders.