Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three by Alexi Lawless

before sitting down beside her, helping her up so she could take a couple deeply satisfying sips, her throat still raw and ravaged from the intubation.
    “Thank you, Wes,” she said in relief as he laid her back down, arranging her pillows. She winced a little, her back throbbing, but Wes was infinitely gentle with her as she waited for the worst of the pain to subside.
    When Wes didn’t say anything, she opened her eyes to look at him. Even after all these years, she could read him. She could see he was freaked out, turned around and at a loss of where to begin. So was she, she supposed, though she had just the right cocktail of painkillers in her system that the enormity of what she’d come out of hadn’t really caught up to her yet. Wes didn’t have that luxury. The days she couldn’t really recall had clearly taken their toll on him. His bloodshot eyes glittered as he gazed at her, his full, normally lush mouth set in a hard line. He reached up to stroke her hair back, spreading a skein of dark waves across the pillow.
    “Apparently, I put you and everyone else through the wringer,” she said softly, gazing up at him. “Sorry about that.”
    Wes looked away, his throat working as he looked for the right words to address a completely overwhelming set of emotions and circumstances.
    Sam ran her fingers along his bristled jaw. She had a brief flash of remembrance—of doing this exact same thing in a different decade, another time, when they were both still so young, without the weight of their experiences, without the sorrow that came with a broken heart.
    “You thought you were going to die, didn’t you?” he asked finally, his voice rough and pained, expression haunted. “You made love to me because you thought it was the end.”
    Samantha closed her eyes, struggling to recall everything that had happened. She remembered kissing him like her life depended on it, just before the mission to kill Nazar. She vividly recalled the hot and urgent press of their bodies, the taste of his need as he moved with her, the visceral, almost desperate mating, the violent relief of it, the momentary shelter she’d felt in his arms.
    “I didn’t like my odds,” she admitted, meeting his gaze.
    “I worry—” Wes took a shaky breath before trying again. “I worry you wanted it, Sammy. I worry that a part of you wanted to die. We almost lost you so many times. You were so ready for it— too ready — God , Sammy—” He swallowed hard. A stark, hurt hesitation stretched across the space between. She saw in his face she’d left Wes littered with doubt.
    That was the thing , she thought. Distance didn’t ruin relationships. Doubts did . They were too pervasive, too insidious—impossible to control or stop once there, in the seams.
    “I suppose I was saying goodbye,” Sam admitted in the sterile cool of her hospital room. “The relationship that you and I shared felt like a gaping wound for so long, it seemed the right time to stitch it up. I’m sorry I scared you.” She cupped his cheek and Wes shut his eyes, pressing a kiss into her hand. “I never expected you to come along for the ride.”
    “I know that,” Wes answered tightly. “But you know what worries me the most, Sammy? After all the days we’ve been together since Rio?”
    She shook her head.
    “It’s the sadness in your eyes, darlin’.” He brushed his thumb over the line of her cheek. “The woman I remember had this undeniable passion for life—this unparalleled verve . Nothing was going to hold you down. No one was going to hold you back. I can’t see that anymore,” he whispered on a pained wince. “Did I do that to you? Did I take it from you? Because it hurts to see you like this— God —it hurts so much—”
    Sam wanted to deny it. She wanted to tell him that everything was fine—that she was okay. That they’d both be okay. But there was an unerring accuracy to his assessment of her, a perspective that only he had because