Sacrifices

Chapter 10: Your Love Is My Remedy

"Jackie." The tender utterance of her name brushed across her skin like the soft touches of his fingertips caressing her face.

Solid strength held her in his embrace. Wrapped around her and gently pulled her from the lingering state of breathless euphoria. The scratch of stubble as he rubbed his cheek against hers, made her scrunch up her face with a soft laugh. Her hands fisted tighter in his dark strands and she tugged at his hair.

"Stop it!" a breathy sound that whispered from her throat, "That tickles."

She could feel the throaty chuckle as it rose from deep within his chest. The things she felt for this man... But to put a label on it? She wasn't quite sure she was ready to admit it to herself, let alone him, how much she cared about him.

He rubbed their noses together before whispering her name against her lips again, "Jackie," and she was met with the exceeding warmth of his brown eyes as he slowly drew back.

Like dirt turned to mud after the rain, his brown eyes held her captive before crinkling at the corners with the lopsided grin that pulled across his face.

"I love you."

Those three words hovered on his lips like they belonged there. Like they had been there all along and Jackie found herself staring up into endearing affection. And she almost said it back until she remembered whose mouth those words had come tumbling out of.

"You mean you love fucking me?" Her eyebrows peaked and her lips curved into their own smirk as she teased him. Her hands migrated downwards to scrape her nails through the short hair at the nape of his neck.

He groaned as his body trembled at her touch, "No," he murmured, and scratched his stubble against her cheek again, but before Jackie could pull at his hair, his teeth grazed along her ear, halting all coherent thought, "I mean, I love you."

Jackie sighed at the sound of his deep timbre, soft and low, in her ear. Damn this man if he didn't know how to steal the breath straight from her chest. It took a moment for her senses to right themselves, for the static to fade from her mind, but the smile never left her lips.

"You love me like you love Martinez?" she continued her teasing.

The crooked grin faltered and his forehead began to crease as he shifted to look down at her again, "Martinez is deployed."

There was a tug at her heart at the thought that the only reason he felt the need to tell her he loved her, was because his usual late night hookups were currently stationed on the battlefront.

"What about Major Callahan?" Jackie knew she was effectively killing the mood, but he didn't get to say he loved her and then conveniently not mean it when he found himself deployed with the rest of his team, "Do you love me as much as you love her?"

Heaviness dragged his brows down with his grumbled words, "That was a mistake."

"Mhm, I'm sure," her hands retreated down his neck and across his shoulders before coming to rest just above her head. An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.

She wasn't exactly sure why she felt so defensive. Wasn't she just on the verge of admitting, to herself at least, how much he meant to her? Then he went and said he loved her. Shouldn't she be having a different reaction? Warm fuzzies and blushing smiles, not bristling and prodding the coals with a white-hot poker?

Perhaps it was the current state of affairs the world was in and the resulting war that had even her name slated for deployment orders. Or the fact that his time had run out and within the week he'd be gone. Again.