A Soldier's Redemption (14 page)

And he did that with simple words. Somehow that
come lie with me
affected her more viscerally than,
let's
make love,
or many of the other affectionate or teasing suggestions she used to hear from Jim.
Come lie with me.

The words made her nerves hum, and she had no desire to analyze any further. She was tired of being under a microscope, his or her own. Wade offered her the freedom to be, just be, in this moment and no other. And she reached out with both hands for the gift.

This time he evidently felt no desire for the rough-and-ready matings they'd had before. This time he stood beside the bed with her, and began to remove her clothing slowly, almost as if he were unwrapping a present and wanted to savor the anticipation a little longer. To draw out each moment of expectation.

He took his time even with things that should have happened quickly, like lifting her tank top over her head. Trailing his fingers up her sides as he did so sent ripples of longing through her for more. Oh, she felt so greedy, and he made her feel that way.

Then he followed the movement all the way up as he lifted the top, tracing the most sensitive parts of her inner arms all the way to her fingertips. When he at last tossed the top aside, she felt almost worshipped.

Nor did he stop there. He cast aside his own shirt, and the darkness in the room added to the mystery of all that was happening inside her. When his hands gently gripped her waist and pulled her close, there was something inexplicably exquisite about the feeling of his skin against her belly, except for her breasts, still shrouded by her bra. Then he bent and took her mouth in a kiss that stole her breath, and seemed to touch her very soul. His tongue mated slowly with hers as his fingertips drew gentle patterns on her back and sides, promising so much,
taking nothing at all. He merely ignited her cells one by one until she felt alive with fire.

Then his mouth left hers, trailing slowly down her neck, causing her to arch and moan softly with delight.

“You are so sexy,” he murmured against her neck, his breath hot and moist. A shiver rippled through her. Had anything ever felt this exquisite?

On a wisp of breath she answered, “You make me feel so sexy.”

“Good. Good.” His mouth trailed lower, lips and tongue outlining the cups of her bra, promising but not giving. Not yet. She shivered again and lifted her arms, looping them loosely around him in offering. When she felt his muscles bunching beneath her palms, she stroked them, following hard curves and hollows down toward the small of his back, where she marveled over a new discovery. In the dip there, she felt a soft, thin tuft of fur, so masculine, so perfect.

He trembled a bit as she stroked him there, then dipped one finger beneath the waistband of his jeans.

He mumbled something against the upper curve of her breast, and then with a quick movement, he released the clasp of her bra, allowing her to tumble free.

The throbbing at her center reached new heights as lightning seemed to zing along her nerves, every new sensation headed toward her core as if it was all that existed.

The air grew thin in the room, and she panted helplessly, her head falling back, her eyes closing, giving herself to the moment and to him as she had seldom given herself before: mindlessly, helplessly. If any part of her didn't ache in that throbbing, primal rhythm, she had long since ceased to be aware of it.

Here and now. Everything else vanished.

 

Wade felt the moment when she left the world behind, her entire consciousness focused on what was happening inside her. He wasn't far behind, but he struggled against his own hardening body, the pounding demands of his own needs.

Because he wanted to be sure to give it all to her, everything. He couldn't explain it, maybe didn't want to look too closely. All he knew was that he wanted to brand himself on this woman, right here and now in a way she would never forget.

So when she reached for the clasp of his jeans, moaning softly, he stopped her. Instead he reached for her shorts and panties, and tugged them down with one hand just as his mouth found her pebbled nipple and drew it deeply inside. He sucked gently at first, but as she pressed herself harder against him, he threw gentleness to the wind and sucked on her as if he could draw her right inside him.

The groan that escaped her fueled his own needs, and he had to push them back. If this woman remembered nothing else about him, she was going to remember this night, these hours.

Something even more primal than need for satisfaction drove him. This was a claiming of some kind, a claim he had never tried to make before. And for some reason, that need to claim added to his passion, making him almost as desperate as he was hungry.

The damn shorts and panties flew away at last, tugged off her ankles as he swept her up in one arm, his mouth still latched to her breast, each movement of his tongue and lips sending a fresh quiver through her.

She was clinging to him now, clinging as tightly as she could manage to his back, and the feel of her arms hanging
on to him was surely the most wonderful thing he had ever felt. More wonderful even than the acts to come.

He'd have gone to the stake before he would ever admit how long it had been since someone's arms had been around him, or how good it felt, or how much he needed it.

He almost didn't want to lower her to the bed.

But his body had already made promises to her, and he was going to keep every one of them.

He laid her down, cast aside the rest of his clothing, pausing only to tug some protection from his pocket. He hadn't anticipated this, hadn't anticipated any sexual relationship at all, but the military had taught him well. He always carried protection, and for the first time he was truly grateful for it because it would ensure no harm came to Cory from him.

He tossed the packets on the bedside table. Then he wrapped his arms around the naked beauty beside him, and felt her arms wrap around him, and had the craziest feeling that he could stay right here, right now forever.

Their bodies met, warm smooth skin against warm smooth skin, their legs tangled, working for even greater closeness.

But he had promises to keep. With mouth and hands he began to explore her, every inch of her, stealing all her secrets even as he lifted her to moaning heights of passion. Then his mouth followed his hands, across her belly, her hips, down the insides of her thighs to the delicate arches of her feet.

He could think of no better way to worship her than by kissing her every inch.

The pounding in his loins now hammered in his brain. Slowly he slipped up over her, smelling her wonderful
musky scent, then dipping his mouth and tongue into her most private places.

Claiming. Branding. Possessing.

Causing her to arch upward with a soft scream as he touched the delicate knot of nerves that gave so much pleasure-pain. She tasted good. So good. This was something he had almost never shared, it seemed so intimate to him, and he knew just the barest moment of fear he might not be doing it right, but her body immediately answered as if it had heard his question.

Oh, it was so right. So good. He licked, nibbled, tasted, even plunged his tongue deep into her, and felt a smile stretch his lips when her hands grabbed his head, pressing him closer still, then clawed at his shoulders as if she could barely stand the pleasure.

He felt the ripping shudder as an orgasm took her, listened to her moan helplessly, then before the riptide had fully passed, he pulled on a condom and moved up over her, staking his claim completely as he slid into her warm, welcoming depths.

“Wade!” Half sigh, half cry, and never had his name sounded so beautiful. Triumph filled him in that moment, because she was his, all his.

Then the throbbing in his body demanded more, her hands tugged at him, trying to move him, and when at last he began to thrust, she sighed his name again, wrapped her arms around his back and her legs around his hips.

Holding him. Hugging him with her entire being. Making him welcome in every way as she carried him with her to the stars.

For that little while, he even allowed himself to believe he could belong.

T
hey lay together for a long time, just cuddling. That was something new to him, too. And he liked it. Finally he decided to tell her so, even though he was aware it could make her dislike him, to know how casually he had treated sex in his past. But for some odd reason, he was telling Cory lots of things he'd never told anyone else. Maybe because she always seemed to understand.

“This is the first time,” he said slowly.

He felt a ripple pass through her and when he peered at her face in the nearly total dark, he thought he saw a smile. “What's so funny?”

“Turn on a light,” she suggested. “I want to see your face, too.”

Exposure. Confidences were easier in the dark, as he'd learned sitting in an awful lot of hides in alien lands. But he obliged her, turning on the small lamp beside the bed. It was dim, just enough light to read by.

She was smiling at him with puffy lips and puffy eyes, and he had to admit she looked happier than he'd yet seen her. “Nothing's funny,” she said in answer to his question. “I just don't think this is the first time you've made love to a woman.”

“Oh. That isn't what I meant.” And now he half wished he hadn't mentioned it at all.

“Then what?” Her smile slipped away, her gaze grew gentle.

He hesitated. “First time I ever cuddled after.”

Her eyes widened, and for an instant she looked as if she didn't understand. But when she did, something happened on her face that seemed to reach out and touch his heart.

“Oh, Wade,” she said softly, and all of a sudden her arms wound around him, hanging on tightly, so tightly, and giving him that feeling again. “Oh, Wade, I think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard.”

“No…no, don't be sad. Be happy. I am.”

She burrowed her face into his shoulder, and he felt her kiss him there. “You,” she whispered, “are more special than you know.”

“So are you.”

She didn't answer, just tightened her hold on him even more.

He would have liked to stay there forever, and maybe if he'd been an ordinary guy, he could have done so. But he was a former SEAL, and coded into him now was a mission clock, one that wouldn't stop ticking. He couldn't forget reality for long, couldn't forget there might be a killer out there circling in even now. Couldn't forget that even alarm systems were little protection against a determined assassin. He ought to know: he'd disabled more than one.

So finally, feeling as if he were ripping off his own skin, he gave in to the demands of reality. “Let's take a shower,”
he said. A gentle way to ease them back. To stay as they were left them with few defenses. He might not be at a total disadvantage naked, but he couldn't say the same for Cory. And if they got distracted again—a very tempting possibility—they could miss something important.

So they showered together, playing games with a bar of soap and a nylon puff that neither had been designed for, but that made them both grin, and elicited some pleasurable sighs.

He helped towel her dry, then slipped from the bathroom while she worked a bit at her hair. His internal clock and other triggers were beginning to drive him nuts. He'd allowed himself to be off duty for too long.

A quick check of the alarm showed him nothing amiss, but he crept through the house anyway, once again putting his knife on his belt, donning boots because protecting the feet was so essential. He skipped the shirt, though, as the house was warm enough. Cory would just have to live with the sight of the knife.

When he was sure the house was still secure, he followed the glow of light to the kitchen and found Cory making coffee. He glanced at the clock. “A little late for coffee. Or maybe awfully early, depending.”

She shook her head, and when she faced him, he could tell that reality had settled in once again for her, too. All the softness was gone, except, perhaps, for her eyes when they brushed over him.

Until they came to rest on the knife.

“I see,” was all she said, and turned her back again, waiting for the coffee. “I didn't think we'd get much sleep. One way or the other.”

“No,” he admitted. “Cory, I'm sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, damn it. It's not your fault all this is happening. It's not your fault I'm such a mess. So we took
a vacation. At least I did. For a little while I felt normal, I'm not going to apologize for it, and okay, now we face the real world again.”

“You
are
normal.”

“Oh, let's not get back on that again. Look at what I did today. I freaked out, basically. I totally shut down. Then I took it out on you.”

Turning, she grabbed two mugs and put them on the table. Then she got out the milk. A burst of steam announced the coffeemaker was pretty much done.

He watched, feeling an unaccustomed pain in his chest. A few minutes later, when they sat at the table, he spoke again. “Quit feeling bad about what you said to me.”

“Why shouldn't I feel bad? I was horrid. I'm surprised you could even want to make love to me after that.”

This was not good. He didn't want her to feel this way about herself. Not at all. Not ever. How could he make it clear to her that he really had forgotten what she had said?

Finally he chose his words with care. “I've had a lot of time to develop confidence in myself and who I am. The names don't stick anymore. I've been called far worse. I'm not saying I'm perfect. God knows, that's the last thing I'd say about myself. But I have had time to build and internalize a lot of confidence over the last twenty years. You haven't. You got stripped of everything, and now you've got a bunch of broken pieces to work with. Of course you're going to strike out sometimes. But you'll do just fine. You'll find a new version of yourself. If anything, I hope you do it better than I did.”

“Meaning?”

“Maybe you can get rid of some of the trip wires.”

At that she laughed unsteadily. “I don't even know where any of mine are.”

“Sure you do. You know what makes you uneasy, you know what scares you. You even told me what made you feel threatened.”

“I did?”

“Hope,” he said simply. “You're terrified to hope.”

 

Long minutes passed in silence as Cory faced what he was saying. It was as if his simple statement had stripped away everything else and forced her to look at what might be the deepest wound of all. And it hurt. She finally covered her lower face with her hand and closed her eyes. “I used to take hope for granted.”

“I know. You will again.”

He sounded so sure, but considering how long she'd been living without it, and how much its reemergence scared her, she wasn't sure about that. What did she have to hope for, after all? That one morning she'd wake up and discover that her life was free of threat, that she could then take up the strands of the woman she had once been?

She'd never be that woman again. Ever. And in the murkiness of now, she couldn't even imagine who she might become if the threat was removed.

“First,” he said, “it's little things. Immediate things. Little hopes. Just seeds.”

“Do you hope?”

“Hell yeah. I hope for lots of things, some big, some small.”

“Such as?”

“I hope I can settle into civilian life at least enough that I'm not a ticking time bomb just waiting to be startled. I hope someday I get past this edginess and stop seeing every shadow as a place of concealment. I hope that I can sleep without waking in a cold sweat from nightmares.”

“You do that, too?”

“All the time. Not as much as even a few months ago, but yeah.”

“Me, too. For a long time I was afraid to sleep.”

“I can imagine.”

“For a long time I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of a knock.”

“But it's better now?”

“Yes. It is.”

“You see?” He spread his hands. “Baby steps, Cory. You've already started to take them. It's been my experience, though, that you'll take a few backward steps along the way.”

“I think I took a big one today.”

“No.”

“No? What do you call what I did? That…that thousand-yard stare you called it. That numbness. That recklessness. Then yelling at you.”

“The yelling was you coming back. I've seen guys go a lot deeper and stay there a lot longer. You actually had a pretty fast turnaround.”

“And that's good?”

“You bet. There's a lot of life left in you, Cory. You're starting to kick the traces of fear and despair. It'll be rough for a while, but I believe you'll do it.”

“I hope so.” Then a little laugh slipped out of her. “I hope so. Listen to me.”

“Sounds good.” He stirred in the chair, and he seemed to lean forward, toward her. “You may have gone through more healing in the last year than you really realize. I don't know. I'm no shrink. I can only tell you what I've seen, and what I've learned from my own experience.”

“I'm tired of being such a mess all the time.”

“Tell me about it. But look at you. You're still here.
You're still trying to deal. You could have quit a long time ago.”

“I don't know.”

“No way I can judge. But ask yourself, have you been living in terror every single minute of the last year you've been here?”

She started to say yes, then realized that wasn't entirely true. Her heart skipped a beat with the understanding, for it surprised her. Maybe what she thought of herself wasn't exactly true. “At first, yes. But then only when something happened to worry me. I can't say I spent the whole year in shaking terror.”

“No, I'd bet most of the time you let it slide to the back of your mind. When nothing threatened you directly, when you were working.”

She nodded slowly. “That's true.”

“So the idea that you spent a year doing nothing but living in terror is your perception. Basically it was the story you told yourself, but maybe not exactly what you were doing.”

“No, it's true,” she said, straightening a little. “I'd forget about it. Maybe not for too long at one time, but I did. I
had
to.”

“Of course you did. So give yourself a little credit here, Cory. In some pretty awful circumstances, having lost everything that meant anything to you, you managed to function. To hold a job, pay the bills, read books, maybe go to a movie. You kept going. You were probably doing a whole lot better than you thought.”

“No. No, I wasn't.” She still remembered all too vividly her many failures. And there were scores of them. Things undone, things unsaid. If she sat down and made a list, she'd hate herself.

“So sure? You didn't quit. A lot of people would have.
Granted, healing probably would have been easier, maybe even happened faster, if you hadn't been cut off from everything. But that only makes what you've achieved all the more admirable.”

“I haven't achieved anything!”

“Getting through the past year on your own is a huge achievement. Why don't you count your strengths instead of your weaknesses for a change?”

That comment drew her up short. Her strengths? She'd been looking at herself for a year as a quivering blob of fear, incapable of answering her own door without peeking out first to see who was there.

“You went to work, didn't you? You went to the bank, and the grocery store. You even made a few friends.”

“Not really. I couldn't let anyone get too close.”

“But was that a failing or a reasonable caution given what you went through?”

She almost wanted to protest that he didn't know her well enough to guess what she had been like for the past year. And yet, she found herself drawn up short by awareness, a shift of perspective on her own actions and behavior. Yes, she had lived with fear, but not enough fear that it had prevented her from functioning. Not enough that it had kept her locked in this house.

Going to work hadn't caused her a nervous breakdown, although she'd never dropped her guard about what she said. Yes, answering her door had been difficult, but considering what had come through her door that night fifteen months ago, maybe it was surprising she could answer a door at all. She'd had dinner a few times with Nate and Marge Tate, with Gage and Emma Dalton. She went to the library regularly, and never considered avoiding it, at least not since the first few weeks.

Maybe she was confusing heightened caution with
terror, at least later. There was no question she had been terrified right after Jim was killed. No question she had been terrified when she had finally been dropped here on her own. But of course she had been. For the first time in months she didn't have a Marshal at her elbow, had to venture out on her own, pick up the threads of the basic necessities of life.

And she had done it. Unhappily, with her heart so broken it sometimes seemed too painful to draw a breath, hating it and fearing the unknown that loomed before her as much as the past that might try to follow her. But she had done it.

“You see?” he said, almost as if he sensed the shift in her. “What happened today has probably happened to you a number of times since your husband was killed. You disconnected because it was too much. The past, the present, all of it converged on you again when you listened to Gage and me talking. So you shut down. That's an important protective thing. Sometimes it's the only way we can deal.”

“You do it, too?”

“I thought I said so. And God knows I've seen enough people do it. You see it in survivors all the time. Survivors of battle, survivors of natural disasters. That's the thing. It's like the brain gets so overloaded it just says
enough.
It can't deal, so it basically removes you as far as it can. It's not a failing. It's not something wrong with a person. It's
survival.
It's only a bad thing when it takes over for too long and too completely.”