Page 76 of A Dish Best Served Hot

His voice deepened. “Tell me about this one.”

She ignored the way his voice made her wet and focused on answering his question. “It’s the outline of a lioness head because my last name is León.” The lines were relatively simple and there wasn’t much detail to it besides the eyes, which looked almost real.

“Yes, what’s the story behind the style? It almost looks unfinished.”

“It’s not finished,” she said.

“Is it new?”

She shook her head. “It’s the first tattoo I got actually.”

“Why isn’t it done, Lola?”

“Because I realized that I would just have the one lioness.” She swallowed. “Lions are supposed to live in prides. It didn’t seem right to have her alone without pride mates.”

He was quiet for a long time. “This is how you really see yourself—a lonely lioness, incomplete because she doesn’t have a pride.”

She nodded against his chest. “A one woman pride.”

He squeezed her tight. “I think today has made it clear that Rosie idolizes you and I already told you how I feel about you. You’re not alone anymore.”

She wanted to believe that, but even as she basked in his love she couldn’t let go completely. “Now you go,” she told him. “How did you get that scar.”

Saint shifted in his spot, obviously uncomfortable talking about it. “I got hurt on one of my missions as a Green Beret.”

“Oh my god,” she whispered. Of course, she’d assumed as much, but hearing it brought back into the forefront of her mind that he’d been to war.

“But the mission was still considered a success.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the mission, Saint. I care that you were injured.”

“It wasn’t bad. Just a few cracked ribs.”

He thought cracked ribs weren’t bad? Lola opened her mouth to inform him otherwise, but then he said something worse.

“And I was technically impaled, which is where the scar comes from, but it wasn’t that bad.”

“Stop saying it wasn’t that bad. Impalement is bad!”

“It missed everything vital and I walked away from it. Other people didn’t walk away.”

That gave her pause. She guessed that when you look at it that way having broken ribs and being impaled with something seems way better. Still it wasn’t good. “Tell me the whole story,” she said. She’d been reluctant to mention or discuss his time at war mostly because they had never seen eye to eye and she didn’t want to fight with him, but it seemed important now for her to open that door. If they were going to be together they needed to be able to talk about it.

“I can’t say much, but we were tasked with retrieving a hostage. We’d done recon and had a solid plan, but...” He paused, thinking.

“Plans are wont to go off course.”

“Exactly. There was an explosion. I went through the floor and landed on some kind of rod. Two of my unit and the hostage landed next to me. There was an older woman on the floor too. They were all in worse shape than I was. I still don’t really know how I was able to do it, but I got them all out and was able to hide them safely until we were found.”

“The rest of the unit?”

“Gone.”

“Oh, Saint. I’m so sorry.”

“Can you believe that they gave me a Silver Star Medal for that? I did what I was trained to do, but they treated me like some sort of hero.”

Lola thought he was definitely a hero. He’s saved himself, two of his fellow soldiers, and two civilians.

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