“You let me worry about that.” He pressed a kiss to the full swell of one breast, breathing deep to draw in the scent of her. “I’m going to take great care of you.”
Already, he worked the button on her khakis, sliding it free and tugging down the zipper, careful not to catch her skin while she edged closer to him on the counter. Her skin was so warm there, and she rolled her hips to help him free the fabric, her every throaty moan urging him on to get her naked.
She hooked her thumbs in the straps of her bra and tugged them off her shoulders until the white lace of her bra was hard taxed to cup her curves. Slowly, the delicate fabric gave up and rolled down to catch on the dusky tips tightening into delectable peaks.
He growled as he caught one between his teeth, nipping gently while she sighed and scratched her fingernails up his back. His erection throbbed impossibly hard. His pulse pounding with jackhammer speed right
there
.
He wanted her so badly he ached everywhere.
But this wasn’t about him.
“I want to taste more of you.” Straightening, he grabbed the caramel sauce off the counter and jammed it into the microwave. Pressed random buttons.
“I don’t think I can wait,” she warned, her fingers skimming his T-shirt up his back as she undressed him. “You might have to skip dessert.”
“It’s not me I’m thinking about right now.” He slipped a hand beneath the cuff of her khakis and palmed her calf under the fabric. Finding the tender place behind her knee, he circled her skin lightly. “I’m going to make sure you feel very, very indulged.”
The high, sweet moan she made was better music to his ears than anything his guitar had ever managed. Between that and the goose bumps along the back of her leg, he found enough will to break away from her. To slam the stop button on the microwave and ease her pants down her hips and off, taking her shoes with them.
“You need to be more naked,” she warned, wriggling out of her bra and sending her breasts in a tantalizing sway.
“Tough to concentrate when my eyes are popping out of my head.” He cupped the soft weight of her curves in his hands, lifting them to his mouth to kiss one and then the other.
Her fingers dug into his hair, holding him there while he laved and nipped and feasted. Caramel wasn’t going to taste any better than pure, undiluted Sierra, but he had the feeling the warm play of the sauce on her skin was going to drive her wild.
“Put your arms around my neck, okay?” He lifted her thighs and slid his hands down, down, to wrap her calves around his waist. She locked her ankles tight while he levered open the microwave and withdrew the heated container. “Hold on tight.”
Scooping her off the counter, he carried her toward the mattress while she rained kisses down the side of his face in a way that made his chest squeeze tight. He needed her with a fierceness that had his feet moving fast across the open floor space. When he reached the bed, he hit his knees, taking the force of the drop himself and then easing her more gently to her back. She clung to him, though, not letting go. Her thighs tightened around his waist, her arms locking around his neck as she found his mouth with hers and nipped at his lower lip. She drew it between her teeth and nibbled. Sucked. Licked.
He throbbed so hard he’d have the outline of his zipper tattooed on his flesh.
Forcing himself to draw back, he yanked open the fastenings on his jeans and ditched the rest of his clothes while Sierra hooked her thumbs into the waistline of white lace panties and shimmied out of them. While she lifted her hips to get them off, he dove for the caramel sauce and cracked open the lid, lying beside her underneath the slow-turning ceiling fan.
Sierra’s hand drifted up his thigh and along his hip, smoothing over his abs toward trouble. He had all he could do to maintain focus while he tested the temp of the sauce with one finger, stirring gently.
“Want the first taste?” He distracted her by waving a caramel-slick finger beneath her nose.
She didn’t stop touching him, her hand splayed along his stomach as her nails lightly raked along his skin. But she opened her eyes at the sweet scent. She met his gaze while she took his finger in her mouth and swirled her tongue around it with deliberate erotic flair.
“Wicked girl,” he whispered in her ear and slid his finger from her mouth. “I can’t remember my own name when you do that, let alone what I want to do next.”
“You think too much,” she accused, but there was no heat in the words, especially once the trail of caramel hit her hip from where it poured straight from the glass jar. “Oh!”
He set aside the container on the nightstand, watching the slow drizzle along her hip bone, down her belly into a tiny pool at her navel right next to the yellow rhinestone daisy that rested there. Gently, he rolled her to her back, ensuring the sauce remained right where he wanted.
Cupping her hips in both hands, he steadied her. When he traced the sweet path inward from her waist, Sierra’s fingers knotted in the blankets on either side of her. She twisted against him, her thighs shifting restlessly beneath his chest as he pinned her to the bed and licked.
And licked.
He didn’t want this night to end. He returned to the container to scoop out more, drawing a trail of sweetness between her breasts. Dotting each nipple. He savored every inch of her until she was clean again, the faint stickiness sealing their bodies together. Only when she was panting his name and whispering vague threats of sensual torment did he slide one finger inside her. Then two.
She came off the bed in a fast, hard orgasm. Her body spasmed around him, squeezing him. He worked her gently, coaxing every aftershock from her until she lay back on the bed, her whole body practically vibrating from it.
“You’re amazing.” He hadn’t realized he said it aloud until she lifted her head to stare at him in the dim glow from the light over the range in the other room.
“I wanted to save it for when you were inside me.” She swiped a lock of blond hair off her cheek, her face flushed from her release.
His heart fell in on itself, caving to this woman who’d had a hold on him for as long as he’d known her. She deserved so much better than him.
“We’ll get you there,” he said softly, his words warm against her cheek. He let go of her to find the condom box and sheathe himself before he came inside her. She watched him the whole time with glowing eyes full of emotions that slayed him.
For now, he could only offer this. One perfect night that he knew wouldn’t be enough, but—then again . . .
He inched inside her slowly, her whole body shuddering. Sweat popped along his forehead from holding back for so long, but he’d come too far to get careless now. He watched her through half-lowered lids, trying like hell to keep a lock on all he was feeling.
“Mike.” Her fingers cradled his face, forcing his full attention on her. “Kiss me.”
The weight of her beautiful gaze was his breaking point. This amazing woman would do anything for the people in her life. Even if it meant following him, even if it meant following in Lacey’s footsteps. The selfish part of him wanted to just take it. To take everything she had to offer and damn the consequences.
But it wouldn’t be fair.
So his kiss was careful. Thorough. But in control. He cupped her breast while their tongues danced, his thumb circling the taut peak while he thrust deep inside her.
She met him thrust for thrust, her whole body straining closer. When he could feel the tension arch her spine, he reached between them to touch the tight center of nerves between her legs, the play over the slickness there. She stilled for a second before her thighs tightened around him, her release shuddering through her and squeezing him with soft, feminine warmth. This time, he let himself feel it fully, to savor the fact that he brought her there. To revel in the way she came apart for him.
That alone would have had him ready to lose it, but the sight of her head tossing and turning on his bed pushed him the rest of the way. He thrust once. Twice more. And just like that, the surge of all his pent-up hunger roared through him so hard it stole his breath.
Desire coursed through him like pure adrenaline, the primal need to hold and possess as raw as anything he’d ever felt before. Only for that moment did his control slip, and she had to have heard it in the hoarse shout to the heavens when he came.
And came.
The force of it rode him so hard he had to roll off her at the end, his breath gone while he gasped for a hint of air.
In the long, quiet moments afterward where neither of them knew quite what to say, Mike couldn’t escape the truth. It wasn’t just another night to make love and curl up in each other’s arms. The holes inside him had yawned wide open today. Hell, he’d made them even more obvious by making love to her like it was the flipping end of the world.
It felt like it to him. Even as he kissed her shoulder in the moonlight slipping in through the curtains, he knew he was going to lose Sierra again. He tugged up the blanket and tried to fake like everything was normal. But these past weeks at the McDaniel home had shown him all too clearly what kind of future he had to offer a family. Getting out of the military wasn’t even an option for him for two more years. He’d signed a contract. Breaking that was desertion and would land him in jail.
And two years from now?
He would still be a soldier. The truth dropkicked him in the solar plexus while Sierra curled up tight next to him. But no matter how much he wanted her, he simply didn’t know how to be anything else. He wasn’t trained for anything else, and even if he took his G.I. Bill and went back to college, he would still be a soldier.
What a time to realize he’d been fooling himself thinking he’d chosen the military because it was his only path to support himself. He’d joined up for the life, the fellowship, the mission to protect.
He’d crawled under the bed because of the code, no one left behind. It didn’t matter that the General had retired years ago. The muscle memory remembered to the end.
Once a soldier, always a soldier.
Even if he hung up the uniform, he would still be the wrong man for the only woman he’d ever loved.
* * *
SHOWER SPEWING OVER
her, Sierra melted against the tile wall in the afterglow of another orgasm. After Mike had turned her insides as warm and fluid as the caramel they’d tasted on each other, he’d carried her to the shower where she’d taken great pleasure in lathering up every inch of him. They’d made love again, touching and sipping the clean running water off each other.
With her arms looped around his neck, she held on and just let the water sleet over them. The way Mike made love to her in the apartment and now the shower, she could sense an urgency in him. They couldn’t dodge discussing their future forever. But not until she had her thoughts together on
how
to be in love with him. She didn’t even know how to stop loving him, this dear and amazing man who’d been there for her grandfather with a sensitivity she couldn’t have even imagined.
Thinking of her grandfather and how trapped he’d felt in that war moment took her mind to places she’d avoided, but pushed through now. She couldn’t stop the question that had been burning at her since Mike came back.
“Tell me what happened when my father died.” Her question echoed in the small shower stall. Maybe that’s why she’d said it here, so they could walk away from the discussion when it was over. Leave the words and feelings they brought to swirl down the drain with the steaming water.
“Sierra, honey, you know what happened.” He stroked her wet hair back from her face.
“I know what the authorized military spokesman and chaplain told us the night they came to our house.” That horrible night. They’d just finished supper when the official military vehicle pulled up. Their driveway was so long it had given them many endless seconds to dread what was coming as the car approached. “We even knew both of them, but they weren’t there with my father. They were just telling me what they were allowed to say.”
“Do you think they lied to you?”
“No, not really, at least I hope not, but I believe they gave us a scrubbed-clean version.” She let the tears flow because with the shower, it’s not like she had to hide them. “So all we have is that too brief conversation about my father’s last minutes on earth and a folded flag we got at his funeral.”
Mike looked down, and at first she thought he was trying to decide whether to tell her, but then she saw the distant look in his eyes and realized he was reliving that day. And she’d sent him there.
Guilt swept through her. “Never mind. Forget I asked. This isn’t the right time or place—”
He pressed a finger to her mouth. “We’d been sent out to another FOB—forward operating base. I was assigned protective detail for your dad this deployment.”
She moved his hand aside. “How did I not know that?”
“Maybe your father thought it would be awkward for you to realize how often he and I saw each other.” He kissed the inside of her palm and pressed it to his chest. “We were briefing some local military leaders on training plans for their troops. It went smoothly. The sun was bright and it felt like a good day, which was strange because I usually had instincts for that shit.”
She could almost feel the desert sun shining, hear the sand and grit in his words. The bittersweet image of him in his uniform walking with her father was too easy to envision.
“We were headed back to the convoy and . . . your father shouted an order for us all to stop. He just . . . knew. I’m not sure how, if he saw something or heard a click. Things happened so fast, probably in a matter of seconds, and yet I remember a million details that couldn’t have all possibly happened in such a short span of time.”
Horror for him clogged her throat as much as for what happened to her dad. Her hands clenched into tight fists as she absorbed his words like breathing in steam.
“But what stands out most to me is the expression in his eyes, exactly the same color as yours. He looked right at me and he held out a hand. Except it wasn’t the come here sort of hand. It was stand back. I’ve got this. Good-bye. He knew.”