Captured at Nightfall (Capture My Heart Love Story) (33 page)

“Wow. What’s with the beard?”
Allie laughed and scrunched her nose.

Matthew
snorted. “We all wore them. To blend in.”

Now
Allie snorted. “Blend in, huh? I’m not so sure about that.” Big, flaming-red-bearded, muscle-building Viking types tended to stick out in Allie’s book.

Matthew
chuckled. “Yeah, well. . .”—he rubbed the back of his neck—“the red
is
kinda loud.” He looked at Allie and grinned. “A couple days of dust and grime and the color wasn’t near as bad.”

“Ewe.”

“Jay—that dirty, rotten bastard—nicknamed me Lucky because of it.”

Oh, dear.
The image of Matthew in a green top hat and shiny, black boots had her giggling. “Lucky?”

Matthew
glowered. “Yeah. Asshat told the whole platoon we’d always have breakfast, because I could shit Lucky Charms.”

Gross boys!
“That’s horrible!” Allie giggled into her hands.

He shook his head. “
Jay
.”

Allie
wished she would’ve been able to meet him. “But, how come Jayce doesn’t have a beard?”

“This was taken right before he flew home.
Stacy was scheduled to have a C-section a couple days later.”

“Ah.”

Matthew bent over the duffle bag and pulled out a few other random papers, a heavy-duty Kevlar vest, a well-worn t-shirt with a reclining grey seal on the SEAL team four logo, a folded up flag in the shape of a triangle. Holy crap, he even had some medals in there. “She bent over to pick one of them up. “My goodness, Matthew. Why aren’t these hanging up on a wall or something?” She ran her finger down the edge of a silver cross.

Shoulders shrugging, he dove back into the bag.  Voice muffled through the thick canvas fabric, he said, “The pictures, I
can’t
look at. But the medals and shit . . . it’s hard to explain. We’re trained as silent professionals. We’re not in this for the glory. I didn’t do any of the shit I did so I could get some trinket from a flabby-ass politician. I did it because it was what was right.”

Oh,
Matthew.
“I think your shining armor might be showing again.” Allie smiled when Matthew’s back tightened.

After a few seconds he ros
e, holding a green and brown camo patterned, bedazzled nightmare of a scrapbook. “You romanticize me all you want, baby. As long as I get laid, I’m good.”

“
Pssht
.” She rolled her eyes. “You are
such
a man.”

Matthew
’s teeth parted to make way for his predator’s smile and he towed her into his room. He pulled her down onto the bed and flopped the bedazzled nightmare open. Inside the front cover, in tightly looping scrawl, it read:

Matthew,

Since you’d never do this for yourself, and because it drives me crazy to look at your pictures all stuffed in that disgusting, old shoe box, I stole them and made them fabulous. You
will
thank me for this later!

Love,

Your favorite sister-in-law in the whole, wide world,

Stacy

PS: Don’t kill Jay. I told him he wasn’t allowed to play with clippers ever again.

             
“What’s that about the clippers?” Allie gave Matthew wide eyes.

“Oh,” he chuckled. A long finger traced up the center of his chin. “He thought it’d be funny to give me a racing stripe.”
Matthew made a motion with his hand up his chin and over the top of his head. “Buzzed a path from my beard to the back of my head.”

As
Matthew started to flip through the pages of pictures encompassing his BUDS training, up to his life in the teams, Allie felt her throat get tighter and tighter.

“
Matthew?” she finally whispered.

He turned, brows arching as he noticed the change in her posture. “What?”

Allie dropped her eyes, feeling suddenly shy and overexposed. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” The line between his brows grew deeper.

“Why are you showing me this?” Her teeth bit into her lip and she shook her head. “For that matter, why me? Why did you chose me? What do I have that makes you want . . . I dunno. To get better.” She winced.
Geeze, she sounded like an idiot.

After a full thirty seconds of silence, he growled, “Isn’t it obvious?” His voice had dropped to a deep whisper.

No.
“Not to me.” Matthew was this exotic creature. All claws and teeth and beauty. Savage and honorable, and . . . and absolutely incredible. Allie was more of your average, everyday house cat in comparison. What on earth could have caught his attention, pushed him so far to stay with her, caused him to commit to getting his life back on track? Every day she spent with him was an adventure, something she both cherished and quailed from. She felt as if she were riding a crest of euphoria, something magical and too good to be real. She was so afraid that when reality caught her at last she’d be crushed. There just wasn’t any real reason that they should be together.

Matthew
shook his head. “You don’t see yourself clearly at all, Allie. You consume me. Every second we’ve been together it’s been all about you. Since I saw you that first night in the ring, I was changed. You make me feel alive. Resurrected. Like there’s something worth living for again. When Jay died, I died right along with him. I was shit. Had to give up on the teams because I was jacked up so bad. Even if I could go through the motions—which I did—I forced my body through the rehab and came out okay. But every time I got into battle, I couldn’t hack it emotionally. I’d completely fall apart. My heart rate would go crazy and my mind would end up back in that fucking place with that dagger at my throat all over again.

“I’ve been a ghost,
Allie, haunted and lost in death’s shade. And then you came along, fell into my life somehow, and lit a path back to the living.” He grabbed her hands. “You have this way of looking at the world. It’s not like you’re naive. You’ve gone through too much to be anything like that. But, the way you look at everything gives me hope. And I think I can live again. I
want
to live again.”

He scrubbed both hands over his face. “
Fuck
. I’m an idiot. I don’t know what the fuck I’m saying.” He dropped his hands and Allie’s breath was stolen away by the sight of those piercing, world-weary eyes. “Allie. I love you.”

So
. . . heavy. . .

Where am I?
Allie blinked heavy eyes and tried to figure out what was crushing her chest. As the room came into focus through her sleepy haze, she locked her gaze with the rhinestone travesty that was Matthew’s scrapbook sprawled out at the base of his bed.

Oh.
That’s right. They’d spent the night going through his old navy pictures. But . . .

“Oh, shit.” They’d fallen asleep.

Together
. And for the whole night.

Shit, shit, shit!

She looked up and met a bright, bronze crop of beard that was coating Matthew’s square jaw. His head was burrowed into her throat, his thigh wrapped around hers, his body creeping half-way on top of hers, his hand curled possessively around her breast.

This was so not good.
She went as still as possible, praying he’d stay asleep until she could figure out a way to get herself untangled.  He was going to hit the roof when he realized they’d slept in the same bed all night.

What
if he’d tried to strangle her again?

He’d never have forgiven himself.

Slipping her shoulders to the side an inch at a time, she held her breath. When she’d gotten her upper half free, Matthew’s lips tightened and he muttered something that Allie couldn’t make out. Brows pulling together, he let out a loud sigh as his arm constricted and she was dragged against him again.

Well, shit on a turtle.

Her shoulders were now hanging halfway off the bed while the rest of her body was obviously not going anywhere.
Now what?
Giving up on ever getting free, Allie mashed her head back in one of the pillows and released a heavy sigh.

She looked down at their tangled limbs. They were both still fully clothed, other than their shoes, which had been discarded when they
’d first gotten home inside the garage. Matthew was still shirtless, of course, wearing just socks and his jeans.  There was something so adorable about the sight of him like that: his hair mashed up on one side where he’d been laying on Allie, it all sticking up at wild angles across his head; his eyelashes a dark set of brown crescents against a pale, scruffy cheek.

Allie
pursed her lips.

There was
an innocence to him.

Asleep, right in this moment,
Matthew carried none of the hell that was his constant companion. But why now? Sleep seemed to be the fiercest time for his PTSD, where his nightmares were able to freely torment him.

Allie
froze as Matthew stirred again and his arm wrapped even tighter around her body.

Oh . . . boy.

Can’t breathe, Matthew
, her thoughts gasped.

Matthew
half-growled, half-mumbled and rocked against her. She’d never woken up to horny-as-hell Matthew. Regular horny-as-hell Matthew was always a treat, but there was something so domestically appealing about the idea of waking up to a man making love to you in the morning. It would have been hot, had she not been terrified about the actual Matthew-waking-up part. Once his brain caught up with what his libido already had registered, she was done for.

Long fingers traced the sensitive skin of her stomach and outlined the rim of her belly button, before heading to other parts.

Oh,
she moaned internally. She had to stop this.

Damn it. Weren’t military guys supposed to wake up at the drop of a pin?

With a gulp, she pulled Matthew’s hand up into hers. “Matthew?” she squeaked.

Uh, oh
, that did it.
A pair of sharp, green eyes popped open and her heart dropped to the bottom of her stomach.

All color drained from his face and he threw himself off the other side of the bed.

“Son of a
bitch
.” Wild eyes met hers, stretched open with terror as they ran over Allie’s body, probably surveying for bruises or broken bones. “Allie. Oh, shit.
Shit
.” His hands scrubbed over his face and he looked like he was going to be sick. “What are you doing here?”

Allie
pulled herself up into a sitting position better equipped for bracing against the explosion that was just now beginning to mushroom around the room.

“We fell asleep.” She swallowed, refusing to balk beneath the icy gaze that was trying to bore her into the ground. “It was an accident. It got late and we must have dozed off; but, I’m fine.” She raised her arms to demonstrate that all her limbs were still in working order.

Matthew just scrubbed his hands over his face, glanced at her, and then repeated the scrubbing again. “I can’t believe I”— cold, angry eyes met hers —“you have to go. Now.”

“But—”

“Are you kidding me? No buts, Allie. I am gonna fucking lose it and I don’t want you in here right now. Just. Give me some space for a minute. I need to cool off.” With that, he stalked into his bathroom and slammed the door.

Allie
’s shoulders slumped forward as she dropped her head. She was sensing a pattern here with the whole get out stuff. Sleeping over at Matthew’s house was certainly an interesting experience. This whole relationship thing was not going to be an easy road with this man.
Ever,
she had the feeling. They were going to have a lot of work to do if they were ever going to get to some kind of . . . what was she even expecting from him?

A non-
screwed up happily ever after with her completely screwed up boyfriend.

Oh, right.

Of course.

Hands rubbing the rest of the sleep from her eyes, she ignored how amazing it had felt waking up with
Matthew, regardless of his python tendencies. Sleeping together long term was probably a way yet down the road to recovery for them.

But, oh, how she hoped.

Yesterday had been so incredible; they’d made such strides it had been easy to fall into the trap of thinking things would be doable. Not like she didn’t still think that they were doable; she’d just kind of forgotten how hard an uphill battle they faced. And now that she knew exactly what demons were in Matthew’s past. . . .

L
ast night had been . . . indescribable.

Allie
couldn’t even think about what he’d told her without tears burning. Simply too horrifying to be reality. No one person should have gone through what Matthew had. Mental toughness was one thing, but that was . . . a nightmare in every sense of the word.