Page 36 of Branded By the Cowboy

And fuck that.

I shift beneath her, brushing her hair back from her face so she has to look at me. “No. Not for years.”

Her brows lift. “Years?”

I nod. “Not since I got back from Afghanistan.”

Her breath hitches. “Oh.”

She doesn’t ask what happened there. Not yet. Maybe because she already knows enough to fill in the blanks or because she understands what it would cost to say the words out loud.

“I… didn’t want to be touched,” I admit.

Her eyes soften. “Thank you. For trusting me with that.”

I swallow hard, nod once, then run my knuckles gently along her jaw. “Can I ask you something now?”

She blinks up at me, wary but open. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Why’d you wait?” I ask, voice low. “Why me?”

She moves slightly, fingers tracing an absent pattern over my chest. “I don’t know. I guess I never trusted anyone before. And I was waiting for something that felt like more.”

I stare at her, breath caught somewhere between guilt and awe.

“And I didn’t know it until it was already happening,” she adds, her voice quieter now. “Until you kissed me like I was something worth wanting.”

I close my eyes for a second, trying to hold it together. Because that’s the kind of thing that breaks a man open—softly. Quietly. Forever.

“Luna,” I whisper, pulling her in tighter.

She presses a kiss to my chest, right over the place that hurts most. “Well, too late now. You’ve got it anyway.”

But as I tuck the blanket around us like it’ll keep everything from slipping away, her body soft and warm against mine, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s giving more than I know what to do with.

Luna falls asleep, fitting against me so perfectly, her body made to soften all my sharp edges.

I tell myself to rest. To stay here in this moment. But something restless stirs in my chest.

I stare at the dark ceiling while her breath ghosts over my skin. The air in the room feels too still, too quiet. And all I can think is:What if I can’t be what she needs?

She deserves someone who isn’t haunted. Not a man stitched together with scar tissue and duct tape. Not someone who wakes up half the time expecting sand in his teeth and blood on his hands.

Eventually, exhaustion drags me under.

And then I’m back there.

Kandahar.

It was dry and hot and blinding, the kind of heat that crawled into your lungs and stayed there. We were laughing—Beckett, Delano, Cord, Cooper, Marlowe, and me—moving fast, sharp, and smooth. Until the blast came.

No warning. Just heat. Sound.

Everything flipped. Screams. Sand. Blood.

I wastrapped. Legs crushed under twisted steel, lungs burning from dust and smoke. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fuckingmove?—

I bolt upright in bed, heart jackhammering, chest slick with sweat. My throat is raw. I don’t know if I screamed out loud or inside my head, but Luna stirs beside me.

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