Chapter 840
Her words carried the full weight of her ordeal, a clear appeal to the bond they once shared. But his face remained a blank wall.
A flicker of hurt crossed her features, sharp and real. His coldness was a rejection she hadn’t anticipated.
She made a decision. A gamble.
Her hands went to the front of her uniform jacket, her fingers finding the top button.
Jarrod’s jaw tightened. “What are you doing?” he growled, his voice a low warning.
She didn’t answer. She undid the first button, then the second, then the third, pulling the stiff fabric aside to expose the pale skin of her collarbone and the top of her shoulder.
It wasn’t a gesture of seduction. It was an unveiling of a battlefield.
Her skin was a roadmap of violence: a puckered, star-shaped scar from an old bullet wound; a thin white line from a knife; a patch of rough, discolored tissue from a burn.
These were not just her scars. They were their scars.
She pointed to a long, jagged line running from her shoulder toward her neck. Her voice trembled slightly. “Remember this one? Kandahar. You pulled me out of that Humvee seconds before it blew. They almost had to take my arm.”
Her finger moved to the burn mark. “Mogadishu. We were pinned down in the market for eighteen hours. You gave me your last magazine.”
She was laying out the evidence of their shared past, a past written in blood and sealed in fire. Each scar was a testament to a moment when they had saved each other, a permanent record of a loyalty that transcended rank and regulation. She was reminding him that their connection wasn’t just emotional; it was visceral, etched into their very flesh.
Jarrod’s gaze dropped to the scarred skin. His breathing, which had been perfectly controlled, hitched. It was a tiny, almost imperceptible falter, but she saw it. She heard it.
She had reached him.
Emboldened, she stepped closer, but the brace stopped her from closing the distance completely. The edge of her open jacket brushed the hard outer frame, not his chest. The contact made the physical truth impossible to ignore: whatever history stood between them, metal stood there too.
She tilted her head back, her blue eyes searching his, filled with a desperate, hopeful longing.
“I’m back, Jarrod,” she whispered, the words a raw plea. “I came back for you. We belong together. We always have.”
She raised her hand, her fingers reaching to cup his jaw, to feel the familiar rough texture of his skin.
Just as her fingertips were about to make contact, his eyes refocused. The brief flicker of memory extinguished, replaced by a chilling, absolute cold. He didn’t step back quickly; the brace made any sudden movement impossible. He simply turned his face a fraction away, denying her the touch with the smallest, sharpest rejection.
He spoke, and his voice was the sound of a tomb door grinding shut…
“Instructor.”
The word, sharp and impersonal, hung in the air between them. But before Jarrod could continue, a sharp rap sounded at the door.