Page 82 of Jonas

With all of that, I didn’t stand a chance.

On top of all of that, she was gorgeous, a great kisser, and a fantastic lay.

“Jonas.”

“When I first moved to Annapolis after being gone for ten years, I bought a townhouse,” I told her.

“I have an apartment in Norfolk. I haven’t seen the inside of it in six months,” she returned. “My truck is in storage at a mechanic’s garage. He starts her up once a week and drives her around the block but I haven’t driven my truck in half a year.”

Good to know she actually lived close to me. But apartment living must be torture.

It had been for me.

“I bought the townhouse to live in while I built my house. I bought five acres from a farmer on Kent Island. The drive sucks ass, bridge traffic is a nightmare, but I make that drive into work every day because I need those five acres. I’m allergic to people. They make my skin itch. More times than I care to admit, I’ve had to sit my ass on the bathroom floor with the door shut to drown out my neighbors. Not just the arguments I could hear through the walls, which set me on edge, but the kids playing outside.”

“Kids playing?”

I sucked in a breath and did what I always did—shoved the visual memories back into the box.

“Derrika, I spent ten years rogue. I was sent into the worst places imaginable. I saw and did things no human should have to see or do.”

I saw the flash of understanding in her eyes. So her next prompt was a gentle mumble. “Kids?”

“I saw kids yanked off the streets and shoved into vehicles. Saw them being sold. Saw them innocently playing in the street and mowed down by gunfire. Saw them used as shields, as diversions, as decoys, as martyrs. It’s the kids that haunt me. No person should ever have to see a child blown to pieces.”

The horror that suffused her face felt like a kick to the balls, but if we were starting something with the intention of seeing where it would go, and that turned out to be a forever kind of together, she needed to know who I was and what she was dealing with. “I’m still adjusting to being stateside. I can handle people and crowds, but only so much. I do the work I do because it feeds a need in me, but also because I no longer fit into regular society. I find people bitching in line at Starbucks exhausting. I despise the media in all its iterations, including socials. I do not like politicians, or brass, or any man or woman who sits behind a desk under the umbrella of protection me and my brothers and sisters in uniform provide, and look down their noses and condemn the decisions that need to be made in real time on the battlefield. I retreat to my land. Retreat, Derrika. It’s the only place I feel comfortable. And I want kids, but I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to be a father because all I know is yelling, fists, and harm. I’m afraid with everything I saw I’ll be overprotective and overbearing and I’ll smother my children out of fear something will happen to them.”

“Jonas.”

I ignored her tortured whisper and gave her the rest.

“I know myself. I know my trauma. I know my damage. I got a lock on all three, but that doesn’t mean when shit overwhelms me I’m not a dick. I also know how to apologize. Which is something you need to get if we’re gonna ride this out. I’ve never been in a real relationship and certainly not since I’ve been home. I’m gonna fuck up, I’m gonna stumble, I’m gonna be a dick. I told you I won’t ever lie to you. You can add to that, I’ll never, not ever, raise my hand to you or my voice. And the last thing you need to get is, I am who I am. You won’t ever change the man I am. In that same vein, you are who you are. I won’t ever pressure you to change. But I also know if this gets serious⁠—”

“This isn’t already serious for you?” Derrika interrupted me.

Fuck.

Not even ten hours in and I was already putting my foot in it.

“Right, let me rephrase. When the serious this already is turns into something permanent, I cannot live in an apartment in the city. And permanent to me means permanent, as in I’m not down living in Maryland while my woman lives in Virginia, and on top of that taking jobs that take her away from home for six months at a time. I lived that life—not with a woman at home, but with men and women who had partners waiting on them. I saw the stress that causes, but I also saw and heard about the strain it put on the relationship and the unhappiness it causes. I get sacrifice—again, I lived it—and now I’m at a place where I’m done sacrificing. My team doesn’t deploy, none of the teams do. That’s not to say an assignment won’t come up that takes me out of the country for a few weeks, but it won’t be months.”

I braced for the backlash, but instead, she shrugged.

“I take that to mean if this turns permanent it’ll be me moving to Maryland.”

Among other things, but I didn’t point that out.

“You can take that to mean, when this is done I want some time alone with you at my house. You can also take that to mean that I know you’re not built for apartment living and if you need a place to retreat before the serious we are in now turns permanent, my house and my land are available to you. I know five acres isn’t a lot but it’s better than neighbors.”

“I want that,” she immediately told me.

“You heard the part about me fucking this up, right?”

This time she hesitated. Old insecurities and coping methods started to creep up. My first instinct to shield myself against rejection was to emotionally shut down and shut out the person who meant to do me harm. That instinct was so ingrained, so woven into the fabric that made me who I was, I couldn’t stop the chain reaction.

Most people have a solid fight-or-flight embedded in them. Mine was kill-or-escape. I didn’t argue or yell—I attacked and didn’t stop until my opponent was dead. The only other option available to me was to leave.

I stepped back, putting more space between us. My gaze went around the room planning my exfil when Derrika’s voice lashed through the room.