Having The Soldier's Baby (Parent Portal 1)

Take off the boxers, or just take her with them? Either way, she planned to get them off him sooner or later. She needed to touch, to see, to taste every part of this man she’d been loving in some fashion since before she was born.

Moaning, she lifted her top thigh, giving him access, and...

A rush of cold air hit her right between the legs. Her breast ached, not in a good way, from the force with which Winston’s hand had moved away.

Away?

Thinking that he was taking off his boxers, she rolled over, eager to see whatever the night’s shadowy darkness would show her.

She saw the wall. Bringing her gaze in closer...an empty bed.

“Winston?”

He was in the rocker, half bent over, his arms resting across his knees.

“Winston!” she cried, instantly out of bed and on the floor at his feet. She reached for him and when he didn’t move, she settled for a hand on his arm.

“What is it, Win? Are you hurt? What’s wrong? Should I call 911?”

Flashes of thought sped back and forth across her mind. Heart attack? Something internal down below? Prostate trouble? Had he come too soon? Had a flashback to his time in captivity?

When he didn’t move, didn’t speak, fear flared so starkly within her, she yelled at him.

“Winston, answer me, dammit.” Getting up as she finished, she added, a bit less fiercely, “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

“No.”

Unlike her, he didn’t raise his voice at all. He raised his head, though, looking her directly in the eye. Glint to glint in the near darkness.

Falling back down in front of him, she put her hands on his knees. “What’s going on?”

He just stared at her, his nostrils moving with the force of his breathing. Or emotion. No other tells at all. Nothing.

“Please talk to me, Win. Let me help.”

“You want to know how you can help?” He sat there in his T-shirt, still hiding his midsection, holding her captive with a look.

“Of course. Anything. I love you so much, Win. I’ll do whatever it takes. Anything.” She just couldn’t stress it enough.

“Let me out of here,” he said.

Of all the things she’d been preparing to hear, that hadn’t even been a blip on a radar. “What?” Then her brain caught up. “You need to go for a walk?” she asked. “Or a drive?”

She scooted back, sitting on the floor, her arms on her own raised knees now. “Of course,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pin you to the chair. I just... Go ahead.” With an arm, she motioned to the door.

At some point he was going to have to t

ell her what was going on. But this moment didn’t have to be it—right now wasn’t about her.

“No, Emily.” He finally sat up, forearms on his knees now, hands clasped. “I need you to let me get the divorce. We’re going nowhere.”

They’d been about to go somewhere pretty damned spectacular.

Frowning, she replayed his words, trying to understand from a perspective outside the panicked one suddenly invading her entire system.

The intensity of their lovemaking had scared him. That had to be it. And just like when he’d first come home...he’d jumped immediately to divorce. Because he felt threatened.

It was all residual from having been held captive in an enemy camp for two years, not knowing, every single day, if he would make it to nightfall. Not knowing if he’d ever get out.