Major Attraction (18 page)

Ethan's anger evaporated on one long breath. Not even her sarcasm rang true. She was truly dealing with something here. Something he'd glimpsed before but had paid no mind to because she always seemed so cocky. Confident. Strong. “Where is this coming from?”

Damn. Now he could see her backpedaling, coming up with a lie to stall his compassion and divert suspicion. “I told you I was doing research on military relationships. That's why I was in that bar Thursday night.”

“That's the biggest crock—”

“I can show you my notebook. I have documented evidence about the unreliability of men in uniform.”

My God, she was serious!

“Let me see this evidence.” Reaching down into that big red bag that carried her laptop and what looked to be
enough supplies to sustain a small platoon, she fished out a spiral binder and handed it to him.

Ethan tugged off his gloves and stuffed them into his back pocket, taking his time to thumb through the pages of notes she'd collected. From the corner of his eye he could see J.C. hug her arms across her stomach. She stared at the book, then his face, then the book again, impatiently waiting for him to analyze her proof.

He read some amusing things that didn't speak well to male intelligence when it came to picking up women. He read some truths he could agree with—courtship wasn't necessarily easy for either gender. He read a couple of items that alarmed him to the danger she'd put herself in by conducting this “research.” And he read some of the insulting things that no doubt justified her low opinion on the reliability of fighting men.

“Well?” she prompted, as he turned to a blank page.

“Any man in any bar can be a jerk like some of these guys. I'm sorry that you—that any woman—has to deal with that. But the uniform isn't what makes them behave that way. The uniform doesn't determine whether or not the man has character.” He snapped the book shut and held it out to her. “That comes from something he already has inside—something he's born with, something he's raised with. You're making generalizations here that just aren't fair.”

She snatched the book out of his hand and pointed it at his face. “Do you deny that you'll be leaving me in a few days?”

Ethan hesitated. “That's what we agreed to, yes. But—”

“Then why should I count on you? Why should I count on anything but my own brains and my own two hands? Why should I care about someone who's going to hurt
me? I don't need any more failed promises in my life.” She stuffed the notebook into her bag, then picked up the whole thing and stormed off toward her bedroom.

“J.C.!”

She stopped at his command, but didn't turn around. He was torn with the need to shake some sense into her—to kiss an understanding of who he was and what she meant to him out of her—and to simply let her go and have her space until she could be reasonable again.

He wasn't just defending the Corps.

He was defending his own honor.

He was defending her right to believe in forever.

“Just because you've never had anyone you could count on, doesn't mean you don't need anyone.” He pulled out his gloves and picked up his hammer to finish the job at hand. “And it doesn't mean you can't count on me.”

 

S
EVERAL HOURS LATER
, J.C. kicked off the sheets that had twisted around her bare legs and rolled over to stare at the faded family portrait lying on her bedside table. Her puffy eyes still burned from the good, old-fashioned cry that she'd muffled with her pillow so that Ethan wouldn't hear her from where he slept in the living room.

Despite every argument to the contrary, he'd informed her that she was either a, going home with him or b, he was staying here. Juan Guerro's vengeance was his responsibility, he'd insisted.
She
was his responsibility. Ethan was probably just protecting his investment in her as his ticket to becoming a lieutenant colonel.

So when he plunked himself down on her chaise couch, she'd slammed the bedroom door.

She wished she could shut him out of her thoughts just as easily.

Just because you've never had anyone you could count on, doesn't mean you don't need anyone.

She did need someone. To keep her safe. To make her crazy with desire. To come home to. To care. To take her love and trust and treat it like a prize. Respect it. Protect it.

She just didn't want that someone to be a Corps-to-the-core Marine like Ethan McCormick.

Not even for one night.

But if he wanted to play the noble sentinel, standing guard over a broken window, she'd let him. Let him play his role as doting fiancé to the hilt, even though it meant protecting the neurotic woman who'd turned out to be completely wrong for the part of his would-be wife. Imagine, trying to impress the brass with a woman who had such a built-in prejudice to men in uniform.

It might not take him two weeks to dump her independent, paranoid, antimilitary ass.

That would sure prove her point and win her the fifty-dollar bet.

J.C. sat up against the headboard and hugged a pillow to her chest. It would also leave her desperately alone. Because she knew that every time Ethan talked a little more, every time they made love, every time he held her in his arms, he was digging his way a little farther inside the fortress that guarded her heart.

Oh, this was so gonna hurt when the time came to leave her. When his job took him away to something bigger and more exciting. Or he met another woman—to confound and intrigue, to protect and make crazy love to—to fill in the next time he needed a two-week fiancée to impress a general.

J.C. reached over and picked up the picture again, to
remind herself of all the reasons she shouldn't care about Ethan McCormick.

She'd pulled the photo from an album at the back of her closet. She wanted a clear picture of her father; she needed a stark reminder of all the pain he'd caused. A pain she'd tried desperately to outgrow, but that still clung to her insecurities with the tenacity of a…Marine.

“Oh, damn.” Bad metaphor. She rolled onto her side, wrapping herself around the pillow, wishing it had arms to wrap around her.

This was the last picture she and her parents had taken together. The full moon streamed in through her bedroom window, offering enough illumination to highlight every painful detail. On a casual glance, they looked like any normal family. Earl stood in the back, dressed in his white Navy uniform. He had one hand on his wife Mary Jo's shoulder, one hand on J.C. She'd just turned fourteen and, despite the recent, rock-star haircut she'd been so proud of, she'd fixed her hair in pigtails the way her dad said he liked it. The way she'd worn it back in elementary school! Sure. He'd paid real close attention to her growing up. Not.

Mary Jo Gardner wasn't smiling in the picture, either. J.C. vividly remembered the morning the picture was taken. Because it had signaled the end to any effort at pretending they were a happy, loving family. Mary Jo wore the beautiful silk dress Earl had brought her from the Philippines. In her hand she clutched the gift tag that read, “For my adoring wife—Ling. Love, Earl.”

“Good times,” she whispered sarcastically.

She never wanted another man like her father in her life.

No woman needed that kind of heartbreak and humiliation.

Every woman deserved a man who was honest and reliable, even if he was a little square around the edges. He should be hot for her. Devoted. Trustworthy.

All of which sounded a lot like…Ethan.

“Oh, God.”

A whole new feeling swept through J.C., leaving her edgy and restless and downright ashamed of herself.

She crawled out of bed and pulled the oversize T-shirt she wore down to her thighs. Ethan was out there in her living room, sleeping on a couch that was probably too small for his big body, sticking by her because she'd been scared. Because she'd been in danger.

He might be here out of duty. He might be here out of guilt.

But he was here.

She couldn't say the same for her father.

J.C. pulled the cotton throw from the foot of her bed and tucked it over her arm. She quietly opened her door and peeked into the main room. With the picture window boarded up, she had to wait a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The place was still as a tomb, the air just as cold. Maybe it was her trepidation and imagination that made it seem so chilly.

But she wouldn't let any errant flights of fancy dissuade her from her purpose. With just enough light filtering in through the kitchen window and her familiarity with the room to guide her, J.C. tiptoed across the carpet. She spotted the silhouette of Ethan's head sticking up beyond the back of the chaise. As she noiselessly drew closer, she could distinguish the curve of his bare shoulder from the stack of pillows. She could hear the soft, even whisper of his breath as he dozed.

As she circled around to the side of the chaise lounge, she could make out the length of denim-clad legs with
bare toes sticking beyond the end of the chaise. The moonlight created tiny, curlicue shadows amongst the sprinkling of gold across his chest. The gossamer-like contrasts of light and shadow narrowed across his flat stomach and trailed into a thin line that ran straight to his belly button. Beckoning like an invitation, the line disappeared beneath the open snap of his jeans. Inside those jeans she'd find a pair of trim white jockey shorts, another thatch of golden hair, and the potent evidence of a virile, sexy man. A remembered heat chased away the chill as she stood and admired his big, well-made body.

She jumped at a stray noise from outside, a single smack of metal on metal. Goose bumps prickled across her skin. She caught her breath and tensed, but even her untrained ear could tell the difference between weapon fire and the slam of a car door. She forced herself to breathe evenly, quietly, in and out through her nose. No more rocks were coming through her window tonight.

But the sound was enough of a distraction to remind her that she'd come out here to make amends, not ogle the stuff of her fantasies.

She looked up at Ethan's face, his jaw square as ever, refusing to relax even in sleep. His hair wasn't even long enough to have a lock out of place. Still, she reached out to draw a finger across his brow in a gentle effort to ease some of the guarded tension from his body.

He shivered in his sleep and J.C. snatched her finger back into her fist. With only a couple hours left until sunrise, she needed to complete her mission and then try to get some sleep herself.

J.C. unfolded the cotton throw and draped it over Ethan. She quickly realized she could either cover his toes or his chest. She couldn't help smiling as she shook her head. The big lug. Even in his sleep, he proved a stubborn son
of a gun. Ultimately she opted for maximum coverage and pulled the throw over his chest and tucked it around his shoulders.

“Good night, Major,” she whispered, resisting the urge to bend down and kiss his cheek.

Before she turned away, one sleepy gray eye slit open. “Does this mean we're on speaking terms again?”

J.C. gasped, startled by the succinct, low-pitched voice. She pressed her hand to her chest to soothe the rapid thump of her heart. “Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you.”

The second eye opened. “You didn't. I wasn't sure where the whole hover over me and stare at my body thing was going, but—”

“You were watching me?” Her indignant surprise quickly petered out. Of course. Those eyes noticed everything.

He reached out and brushed his fingers across the back of her hand. “Everything okay?”

“I didn't want you to think I was completely rude.” She pulled her hand away from the comforting touch and hugged her arms around her waist. “I do appreciate you fixing the window and hanging around. I mean, I could have done that.” She thumbed over her shoulder at the plywood. “But I'm glad I didn't have to think about it right then. I was a little…” She tucked a wisp of hair behind each ear, hating how nervous she felt—knowing she wouldn't be nervous if she didn't have feelings for this man.

But nervous just wasn't her way. “Could I sit down? I need to talk.”

“Ah, more talking.” He seemed amused by her direct approach. But he pulled up the cover to invite her in beside him. “It'll be a pretty snug fit.”

“I don't mind if you don't.”

His answer was to turn onto his side and scoot to the far edge of the chaise to make room for her. J.C. sat down with her back to him and leaned into the pillows at the top of the chaise, resting her cheek on his left arm and pulling her legs up to match his position.

But it was pointless to try to hang on to the edge and keep a suggestion of polite distance between them. Ethan looped his arm around her waist and pulled her beneath the cover with him. He cradled her against his chest, her bottom snugging in the cup of his pelvis, their legs entwining. Denim and muscle brushed against soft, bare skin, and his palm rested with confident familiarity beneath the weight of her left breast.

His lips brushed a delicate kiss at her nape and she shivered. “You're cold.”

She wouldn't be for long. Wrapped up in his arms and body, cocooned in the moonlit darkness of her apartment, J.C. released a sigh that mixed contentment with relief, and she settled into Ethan's heat.

Maybe talking wasn't really what she wanted, after all.

“You must think I'm a total flake. To say those things and then to come back and ask you to…”

His hand rubbed soothing circles against her rib cage. His knuckles gently lifted her breast with each caress. His low voice was a whisper against her neck. “I said I'd be there for you. You were scared.”

Ethan's subtle teasing coaxed the beginning of a smile. “Yeah.” She covered his hand with her own and urged it upward to include the full breast in his massage. “I was a little rattled by the whole window exploding, personal message thing.”