Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover. Merline Lovelace
Some inner tension uncoiled just a bit. Change? Why not? After all, she’d allowed herself to be changed by life, had just rolled along like a victim. That did not make her feel proud. “Sometimes,” she said more to herself than him, “you just have to grab the rudder.” She hadn’t done that at all since the shooting. Not at all.
“Grabbing the rudder is easier to do when the seas aren’t stormy.”
She glanced at him again. Oh, there was a story there, and she wished she knew what it was, but she didn’t dare ask. This man could disappear even in plain sight, and she didn’t want him to disappear again. At least not yet.
For some reason the invader had ceased to be an invader. Maybe just his presence had reminded her that she still had a life to live. Maybe his obvious protectiveness had made her feel just a little safer. Or maybe the attraction she felt was overcoming all the walls she’d slammed into place.
Because she had slammed those walls into place. She hadn’t built them brick by brick. No, she’d put up the steel barricades almost instantly in the aftermath. Huge parts of her had simply withdrawn from life, no longer willing to take even small risks, like making a friend.
She stole another glance at Wade and wondered at herself. If ever a guy looked like a bad risk for even something as simple as friendship, he was it. Yet for some reason she was opening up to him. Not much, but enough that she could get herself into trouble if she didn’t watch her step.
She ought to be afraid of him, the way she was afraid of everything else. Instead all she could do was notice how attractive he was. Wonder if that hard line of his mouth would feel as hard if he kissed her. What that hard body would feel like against her soft curves.
Ah, she was losing her mind. For real. It had finally snapped. After a year of inability to feel anything but grief and anguish, she had finally broken. Now she was looking at a virtual stranger as a sex object.
Way to go, Cory. Very sensible. Clearly she couldn’t trust herself at all anymore.
Two cars came down the street toward them as they rounded the corner right before her house. She lifted her hand to wave, deciding it was about time to make a friendly gesture. The woman in the first car smiled and waved back. The man in the second car didn’t even glance at them.
They reached the door and went inside, resetting the alarm. Without a word, he followed her into the kitchen, evidently ready to get his first cooking lesson. She started pulling things out, preparing to make a dish with Italian sausage and pasta and fresh vegetables. The recipe was one that had emerged one day from a scramble through the cupboards and the realization that the only way she could put together dinner was the stone-soup method.
“I can’t trust myself anymore,” she muttered, at first unaware that she was thinking out loud. When you lived alone long enough, having conversations with yourself often moved from the mind to the mouth. “Everything’s been so screwed up for so long. But then how do I know my thinking wasn’t screwed up before? I was living in some kind of enchanted universe before. A place where bad things didn’t happen.”
She turned from pulling a package of frozen Italian sausage from the freezer and saw Wade standing there, arms folded, watching. And that’s when she realized her muttering hadn’t been private. Her cheeks heated a bit. “Sorry, sometimes I talk to myself. Bad habit.”
“Don’t mind me.”
“Well, you don’t want to hear it. And I’m not sure I want anyone else to hear the mess that’s going on inside my head.”
“I can go upstairs if you like.”
She shook her head. “Stay. I promised to teach you some cooking, and this is a great dish to start with.” She passed him the package of frozen sausage. “Microwave, hit the defrost button twice, please.”
He took the sausage and did as she asked. Soon the familiar hum filled the kitchen. Green peppers and tomatoes were next, a true luxury these days, washed in the sink and readied for cubing. “Do you like onions?”
“Very much.”
So she pulled one out of the metal hanging basket and peeled it swiftly before setting it beside the other vegetables. As soon as she reached for the chef’s knife, though, Wade stepped forward. “I can slice and dice. How do you want it?”
“Pieces about one-inch square.” She passed him the knife and as their hands brushed she felt the warmth of his skin. All of a sudden she had to close her eyes, had to batter down the almost forgotten pleasure of skin on skin. Such a simple, innocent touch, and it reminded her of one of the forms of human contact she absolutely missed most: touch. Even simple touches. She almost never let anyone get that close anymore, certainly not a man.
A flood tide of forgotten yearnings pierced her, and she drew a sharp breath.
“What’s wrong?”
He was so near she felt his breath on her cheek. Warm and clean. A shiver rippled through her as she fought the unwanted feelings, and forced her eyes open, ready to deny anything and everything.
But the instant her gaze met his, she knew she could deny nothing. His obsidian eyes darkened even more, and she heard him inhale deeply as he recognized the storm inside her. There was a clatter as the knife fell to the counter, and the next thing she knew she was wrapped in his powerful arms.
He lifted her right off the floor and set her on the counter, moving in between her legs until she could feel his heat in places that had been too cold and too empty for so long. This was not a man who hesitated, nor one who finessed the moment.
He swooped in like a hawk and claimed her mouth as if it were rightfully his. An instant later she learned that thin mouth could be both soft and demanding. That his hard chest felt every bit as hard as it looked, and felt even better as it crushed her breasts. His arms were tight and steely, and she should have been afraid of their power, afraid of what he could do to her whether she wanted it or not.
But all she could feel was the singing in her body as it responded to needs more primal than any she had ever imagined. Somehow the dissenting, cautious voices in her head fell silent. Somehow she lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck, holding on for dear life.
Because this was life. Here and now. Like Sleeping Beauty awakening from a nightmare, she discovered she could want something besides freedom from terror and pain, and that good things were still to be had despite all.
Her body responded to life’s call as her mind no longer seemed able to. His tongue passed the first gate of her teeth, finding hers in a rhythm as strong as her heartbeat, a thrusting that echoed like a shout in a canyon until it reached all the way to her very core and came back to her in a powerful throbbing.
A gasp escaped her between one kiss and the next. Her legs lifted, trying to wrap around his narrow hips, trying to bring her center right up against his hardness, trying to find an answer to the ache that overpowered her. Any brain she had left gave way before the demands of her body for more and deeper touches. Her physical being leaped the barriers that had existed only in her mind.
He moved against her, mimicking the ultimate act, not enough to satisfy, but enough to promise. She wanted every bit of that promise. Every bit.
He drew a ragged breath as he released her mouth, but he didn’t leave her. No, he trailed those lips across her cheek, down the side of her throat, making her shiver with even more longing, causing her to make a small cry and arch against him. One of her hands slipped upward, finding the back of his head, pressing him closer yet. She wanted to take this journey as never before.
Then the microwave dinged.
All of a sudden, reality returned with a crash. He pulled away just a couple of inches and looked at her, his eyes darker than night. She stared back, hardly aware that she was panting, suddenly and acutely aware of how she had exposed herself.
As if he read her awareness on her face, he stepped back a little farther. The absence of pressure between her thighs