Tears tracked down my face. “And your scars…are they part of you too?”
He inhaled so deeply his nostrils flared and his brown eyes turned a darker shade of espresso. Then he stood tall, lifted the hem of his T-shirt, and pulled it up and over his head. A magnificent torso seared across my vision. Pecs that were squared off, a smattering of light brownish-blond hair that ran along the center in just the right amount that made a girl itch to run her fingers through it. I followed that line of hair as it went down not a four pack, but a solid, defined six-pack. Abdominals like speed bumps I’d love to run my tongue in between playfully. His jeans were fitted but slung low on his hips, giving my eyes a feast of those two indents between a man’s waist and his pelvis that made a girl like me go bonkers with lust. Before I could get enough eye candy he slowly turned around. At first, I thought he was gifting me a better view of his fine ass, until I saw the carnage that was the skin of his back.
White puckered lines ran up and down his muscular form alongside smaller, more rounded and jagged scars, some of them still pink and healing. They must have been deep like mine. I gasped and stood abruptly, hovering my hands over the destroyed flesh.
“Fitz…” I whispered as I touched a single finger to a scar at the top of his shoulder and followed the gnarled, bumpy flesh all the way down to his tailbone. He shivered and clenched his hands into fists. I could visibly see his chest rise and fall with the effort it took to stand there vulnerable to my gaze and touch. Without thinking, I pressed my body to his back, both of my hands curling around two mighty shoulders, and I rested my forehead to the center of his spine between his shoulder blades. “Who did this to you?” I whispered, my voice barely recognizable.
“IED loaded with shrapnel.” His head fell forward, but he didn’t move away so I didn’t either. “I was photographing my old unit when someone behind me stepped on it. The roar of the bomb going off was so loud I couldn’t hear for a full two days after that. I woke as a fire on my back was being put out. There were body parts of men I served with lying all around me. I’ll never forget opening my eyes and seeing a severed hand with the tan line of a wedding ring still visible, only two feet in front of my eyes.”
I let the tears fall as he shared his horrifying experience.
“And that wasn’t all, Addy. There’s more. So much more, but the experience scarred me physically and emotionally for life. I’ll never forget that day. How the sun hit the sky just perfectly. The sounds of people I cared about, loved like brothers, laughing only minutes before their lives were snuffed out. My camera survived. I have pictures of some of my friends only moments before they took their last breaths. That is part of my story. Part of my legacy. Part of who I am.” He spun around and pulled me into his arms. “What happened to you, it’s only part of your story. The rest is still unwritten. You have the power and the ability to move on. To live. That’s what I tell myself every time I feel sorry for myself over what happened. Over what I lost. I get to live when they didn’t. It’s my job now to make sure I don’t waste the life I’ve been given.”
I lifted my hands up and cupped Killian’s cheeks, his beard and mustache combo soft against the palms of my hands. “Thank you. For sharing your story. For showing me this part of you.”
He closed his eyes as though he were letting my touch sink into him. He blinked and put his hands to my wrists where I still cupped his cheeks. “Don’t give up, Addy. Push through. You’ve lived through hell. Now’s the time to live the life you want.”
“What if I don’t know what I want anymore?” I admitted a truth I hadn’t been willing to even entertain myself. Leave it to this man to dig straight into the heart and truth of me.
He smiled softly. “Then allow yourself the ability to find out. But don’t stop living in the process. If you do,