Desired by Wolves [Call of the Wolf 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Diane Leyne

up on pop culture, which he was woefully behind on, having spent the better part of a decade in hell holes all around the world. She was amused that he was so shocked by the rise of being “famous for being famous” and all of the “true life” reality shows.
    Since he’d been back in the States for more than a month, she refused to believe that he hadn’t seen any of these shows.
    He finally admitted to having watched some of these shows when he’d been holed up in Luke’s apartment. He liked the travel one, hated all of the housewives, and reluctantly admitted to getting hooked on the dancing one.
    He also admitted to watching Survivor a couple of times since getting home but was disgusted by the whining. According to Alex, those people didn’t know deprivation. No matter how hungry they got, no one was going to let them starve. And the complaining about the food challenge. There were times when he’d have given a prayer of thanks to have those worms and grubs to eat. Ingrates.
    But he laughed as he complained, and Lena started to relax. He’d scared the shit out of her in her office. At first when he’d puked in her waiting room, she thought he was sick or just really nervous, but then came the panic attack, and that was when she realized that he was absolutely terrified. And it wasn’t just because he was afraid to hear the worst. It was more than that. He was absolutely petrified by the thought of going into a medical exam room. The sights, the sounds, the smells, all of these had combined to trigger some sort of post-traumatic-stress response in him. What the hell had happened to him?
    She’d noticed his erection as well. He’d gotten hard back at her place too, and it was nice to know that his equipment was still functional. Not from any personal interest, she told herself. Purely from a medical professional’s viewpoint, the patient would be a lot more stressed if he didn’t have that type of release available to him and had nothing at all to do with the memories she had of long hours making love with him, sometimes with his brothers but other times just the two of them.
    She tried not to look relieved when Penelope finally made her way out to their table bringing their food out herself. The place was busy, or Pen would have been out sooner. Or maybe Pen had just gotten tactful? Nah, that wasn’t blunt, outspoken, outrageous Penelope. Whatever the reason, Lena was grateful to have a little time alone with Alex, a sentiment she hadn’t thought she’d ever express again. She needed to reassure herself that he was back under control. If he seemed to be on the verge of another panic attack, she wanted to get him out of there before anyone they knew showed up, but so far, he seemed okay, except for the slight shakiness when he picked up his coffee cup, but then he started holding it with two hands, which seemed to help.
    Other than that and some residual paleness and the shaky hands, he seemed fine. If she hadn’t seen it for herself, she would never believe that this very confident man had been crying in her arms an hour earlier. Whatever had happened to him overseas, it had left some very deep scars. It was hard to stay mad at him over the pain he caused her when it was evident that he’d paid a very high price for the choices he’d made.
    Not surprisingly, Penelope sat down with them to get the scoop on Alex’s return, but not before giving him a big hug and then a punch in the arm.
    “Ouch.”
    “You deserve a heck of a lot more than that, bub. Besides abandoning my girl here, you’ve spent how long, fourteen years in as a soldier. You could have come back with fewer extremities than you started with or with your good looks blown to bits or not come back at all. Do you know what it was like for everyone? There was no war when you first left, but then one thing after another and there were all of these reports of our boys dying over there, and we didn’t even know where you were to know if you