No Regrets, No Surrender(23)
Son of a bitch, she got off and he was the one hurting right now. She caught one of his hands on the upward stroke. “Zach….”
He pulled his hand away and gave her a stern look. “No touching, sweetheart. I’m already reminding myself that you aren’t up for this yet, and it’s taking everything I have to not pick you up and take you right against the wall.”
A quiver rippled through her belly and wet heat soaked her sex. They used to do that. He loved walls. Hell, he loved any hard surface. For all his beauty and his charm, he loved it rough and wild.
“God, babe…don’t look at me like that.” The words were nearly a groan, and he wrapped the towel around her and shuffled away before she touched him. He stuck his head out the door and into the bedroom. “Logan!”
The man in question appeared within seconds, his gaze snapping sharply from Zach to her. “What’s wrong?”
“Help her get dressed so I don’t do something I regret later.”
No matter how much she tried to tell herself that wasn’t a rejection, the request stung. Jazz folded her arms in front of the towel and squirmed back, not that the low counter tops really hid her emaciated form.
“I got this, go walk it off.” Logan didn’t have to make the offer twice. Zach practically fled the bathroom. All business, Logan scooped her up, towel and all from the toilet seat and carried her into the bedroom. “You want your uniform back on or something else?”
“MARPATs.” The word shouldn’t be that hard to say.
Logan set her on the bed and unzipped her bag. “I’ll unpack this when we get back from seeing James.”
Fantastic—from orgasm to rejection to the head shrinker—her day was complete. Logan carried back a Marine green T-shirt, bra, clean underwear, and her MARPATs. Her fingers went to her bare neck and swallowed the tears clogging her throat. “Where are my tags?”
“They kept taking you back in for surgery and had to remove them.” He tugged the chain out from under his own shirt and her heart squeezed. Her tags hung on the chain. He draped the them around her neck and the metal, still warm from his body, tingled against her skin. “Better?”
Strangely enough, she did feel better. Not quite trusting herself to speak, she nodded once.
“Okay, babe. Let’s get you dressed and fed. Clock’s ticking.”
***
The psychologist turned out to be a nice-looking guy in his thirties. While his hair wasn’t clipped to standard, it was neat and matched his business dress appearance. She’d eaten the burger Logan sat in front of her and tried not to notice when Zach joined them—still damp from his second shower and dressed once more. She lied that the burger was good, ate at least half of it. It sat inside her stomach like a lead weight. The stilted conversation ended quickly enough because they had to get her to the appointment.
James dismissed her escort much to their chagrin and wheeled her into his office behind closed doors. For ten minutes, she’d sat there, saying nothing—aware of the doctor’s assessment.
The silence weighed on her.
“How does this work?” They were the first words she managed since their introduction.
“We talk. We don’t talk. It can work a variety of ways. How do you want it to work?” An easy-sounding answer to a not-so-easy question. She turned her attention to the great picture window overlooking a landscaped courtyard populated by trees and flowering plants.
“I don’t know. I prefer rules and regulations. Procedure.” All of which was true. She specialized in making things happen. She managed men, supplies, and intelligence.
“Makes sense, you’re a Gunnery Sergeant. You’re used to managing situations and people.”
Except that she couldn’t manage at the moment. The joke was on her. She clenched her left hand into a fist. Her right hand ignored her save for a rude twitch of her middle finger as though flipping herself the bird.
“Yes.” It was a better answer than the one screaming inside her head.
“Procedurally speaking, therapy is about what you need. So if you want to make a list of conditions or topics, we can focus on those one at a time.” He made it sound so simple. She shivered. The room was too cold.
“I don’t know what’s relevant.” Lists required assignment of priority and value.
“Everything is relevant.”
She laughed, the humorless sound harsh to her ears. Was desiring two men relevant to being blown up? Did her body’s lack of cooperation have a priority over the desire to fuck them? She had no hair, she barely looked like a woman, and her life as Marine could very well be over. So what use would they ever have for a broken Marine?