Page 68 of The Arrangement

“I’m going to touch you, okay?” His hand came into my periphery, and I nodded vigorously. He placed it on my chest and mirrored the movement by taking my hand and placing it on his. “I want you to breathe with me. Feel how the air expands my chest. Hear the sound it makes. Just breathe in and breathe out. Nice and slow.”

My breathing was mostly back to normal when I shoved James’s hand out of the way and moved to sit on his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and straddling him. “Is this okay?” I mumbled into the side of his neck.

He released a shaky breath, then tentatively wrapped his arms completely around me and held tight. “Whatever you need, baby boy. Whatever you need. Green all the way.”

I relaxed more heavily against him and focused on the sound of our heartbeats syncing up like our breaths had. “What happened?”

He gave my body a brief squeeze, then began rubbing my back. “We went out to Bayou’s Basin, where we split a bottle of wine and neither of us was roofied. Afterward, we walked out onto this little pier they had lined with twinkle lights. All the way to the end, so it felt like it was just us and nature.”

I could almost picture it. There was still a hazy quality to it, though. “Sounds romantic,” I commented without thinking. “Then what?”

“We talked a little about the name of the shop. You’re still on the fence and beating yourself up about not considering it sooner, even though you shouldn’t.” I huffed into the side of his neck, but he stoutly ignored my interruption. “You guessed right that we ended up making out. When that got a little out of hand, we opted to come back to the apartment. You were a tease the whole way back.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” I inserted cheekily.

He made a sound in his throat that said he didn’t buy that for one second. “Anyway, we got back, somehow made it up the stairs without dying.” I snickered because I could all too easily imagine what that had probably looked like. “Then...” His voice faltered and his hands stalled.

I tried to pull away enough to look at him, but he wrapped me tighter. “Then what, James?”

“Then I fucked up,” he said thickly.

“I don’t think—”

“I did, Marc. I fucked up. We were kissing, and you were being your usual ridiculously sexy self and driving me wild. I wasn’t thinking. I should have known better.” The catch in his voice scared me almost as much as his being unwilling to let me look at him or the giant gaping hole in my memory of last night. Hesniffed, and I realized he was either fighting back tears or had already lost. “I… I pulled your arms over your head and triggered an episode.”

I jolted in surprise. “But I don’t have episodes.” Not that kind, anyway. Plenty of spirals, and I wasn’t denying I had PTSD, but I’d never had anepisodeas far as I was aware.

He placed a soft kiss on my bare shoulder. “You definitely do, baby boy, and it scared the absolute shit out of me. You’d think with all the training I’ve received over the years to handle that sort of thing I would have been better equipped…” He paused long enough that I wasn’t sure if he planned to continue. “But that training focused more on fight-or-flight reactions, with a heavy focus on fight. But you…froze, completely dissociated. I’m not even sure if you ever fully came back. I was so worried this morning…” He trailed off, and I tightened my hold on his neck while his words sunk in.

I didn’t remember last night because, in a sense, I hadn’t actually been there. My mind had literally noped the fuck out. That wasterrifying. “Did I say anything?” I felt his entire body stiffen beneath me.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

Short answer? No. Long answer? I felt like I kind of needed to. “A little. You don’t have to go into details. It’s unnerving not being able to remember anything.”

“You believed you were in the cave where you were held captive,” he whispered.

Okay, we didn’t need to dive any further into that. No more details necessary. Nope, no sirree. This time when I moved to pull away, JD let me sit back enough to look at him. Seeing his red eyes affirmed my suspicions from earlier, and I couldn’t help myself from reaching out to brush the dampness from his copper lashes. “Thank you for being there for me.”

He scoffed and looked away. “I’m the reason you needed someone to be there for you in the first place. Fuck, I stayed up most of the night researching what had happened. I’d never seen anything like it. Combat I can handle, but…”

I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. His blue eyes were swimming again, the fear he felt floating right alongside the guilt. I placed a chaste kiss on his lips before resting my forehead against his. “You didn’t put me in that cave, James, and I was bound to have an episode eventually.” I leaned back to look him in the eye again and stroked the side of his face, his stubble scratching my palm. “Hell, if I’ve been dissociating during them, who’s to say how many I’ve had over the years.” His eyes widened with horror, and I huffed a laugh, prompting him to frown.

“I hardly think this is a laughing matter, Marc,” he grumbled.

“I know you’re right, but also, fuck it. What’s one more invisible demon, am I right?” I added with a smile. Oh, he did not like that. His scowl intensified, and I was seriously tempted to make a crack about turning his frown upside down while literally using my fingers to lift his lips into a smile.ButI also recognized that would be taking it too far, so instead I sighed and gave him a soft smile. “Look at the pair of us. Surviving actual firefights only to have PTSD ruin all our fun.”

He ran his large hands over my exposed thighs, and I sank deeper into him. “About that, talking with Andy has made me really look at how my prior forays into therapy have gone. I’m realizing that I never really gave it a chance. I’ve been thinking about finding a new therapist, possibly one outside the military, maybe someone who can help me unpack all of my family drama as well as the Army shit.”

My smile broadened. “I think it’s great that you and your brother are rebuilding your relationship. He shared with me that he and Mitch deciding to go into counseling wasn’t an easydecision and it was a long time in the making, but it’s the best thing they’ve ever done.” JD looked at me long enough to make me uneasy. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“Not at all. I was actually wondering if you would ever consider therapy for yourself.”

I was all set to scoff and flippantly dismiss the idea, but his steady gaze held my tongue. If therapy was fine forhim, why couldn’t it be fine for me too? It didn’t make me any less, not in his eyes. And frankly, right now, those were the only ones I gave a fuck about. Seeing the fear in them earlier when he talked about my episode… I didn’t ever want to see that again. Plus, maybe it could help with my spirals. That’d be a nice bonus.

“Hey,” he said, squeezing my legs with his big ass mitts, “you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. It was only a thought.”

“No, it’s not that. I’ll… I’ll look into it.” His face noticeably relaxed, but to my surprise, something inside me did as well, as if making the decision to seek help had impacted me just as much. Huh, go figure. I cleared my throat and shimmied off his lap, not at all interested in parsing out what that meant. “We should probably get dressed and head downstairs.” I glanced at the side table where he’d set his to-go mug. “Ah, that explains the cups.”