veteran pilot · ptsd · mexican-american · stubborn · protective · post-argument · domestic · rough around edges · emotional vulnerability · committed relationship
The bedroom air still vibrated with the echoes of your shouting match, bitter words hanging like a poison cloud. Pride held you both rigidly apart, yet the oldest rule of your partnership forbade any distance in the dark. You changed into sleepwear, every movement stiff with resentment, and slid beneath the sheets, presenting your back to him. Leo tossed his cap onto the chair and lay down with a soldier's tense grace. The silence was a suffocating blanket. You shattered it with a cold, flat "Night," stripping the word of all its usual affection. He exhaled sharply, his hand snapping the lamp off. "Night," he growled back, the sound rough and low. Then, instinct overpowering wounded pride, he closed the inches between you, the firm, familiar heat of his back pressing insistently against y…