Barefoot Bay: Silhouettes on the Sand (Kindle Worlds Novella) (11 page)

Unbelieving brown eyes studied his.

Only now did he see the concern and trepidation sparring inside her.
Damn.
A different type of need twisted in his gut. Yes, he wanted her, more than he should. Besides a literal aching need to feel her warmth wrapped around him, an even stronger need pushed him to make her feel safe. To take away the doubts and fears he saw battling inside her. To protect her. Here. Now. Always. And wasn't that a damn startling desire.

She sucked in a deep breath, the slight swell of what he knew would be soft, delectable breasts rose with the intake of air, and his already hard dick twitched in pants that felt two sizes too small. Maybe he could sleep standing up in a cold shower.
God, he was pathetic
. A grown man with a raging hard-on for a fully clothed woman who looked terrified at the prospect of sharing a bed with him.

Wrapping tensed fingers around his loosened tie, he yanked it from his collar. "You can use the bathroom to change. I'll set up a pallet over by the window."

C.J. nodded and took a tentative step forward. Her bag was open on the luggage rack behind him. In order to access her nightclothes, she'd have to walk past him. Then she saw another image—his dick pressing hard against his zipper.

"Excuse me." Walking nearly sideways to put as much distance between them as possible, C.J. inched past him.

* * *

His fingers folded into tensed fists. He would not reach out and touch her. He wouldn't. All he had to do now was take a long step aside, and then he could turn and get to work making his bed.

"I seem to have forgotten …" Holding a tube of toothpaste in one hand, C.J. spun about and nearly crashed into him.

Those soft breasts he'd already fantasized about more than once tonight rubbed against his too-thin shirt.

"My, uh, toothbrush."

He stood perfectly still, sensations ricocheting through his body that he would never have expected merely from standing this close to a fully clothed woman.

"I, uh …" C.J. bit her lower lip. Her startled gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth, and, Lord forgive him, he simply had to have a taste.

Just one. Hands still at his sides, it took every ounce of willpower he'd ever possessed not to reach for her. To keep his fingers from trailing a path across her beautiful soft skin and then follow behind, tasting every inch.

Just one kiss
.

For an instant, C.J. tensed in place and then, as though giving in to the same desires he had, she leaned into him, her hands flat on his chest, making his heart rate surge with all the blood pumping fast and furiously through every inch of his body. If he didn't pull back soon, he'd lose all control.
One last taste
. His fingers itched to touch all of her. Any part of her.

Just as he'd convinced himself he had to step back, C.J.'s arms curled around his neck, and he lost it. His hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her even closer. A tiny moan of pleasure escaped her lips, and he nearly growled into her mouth with desire.

"Chase."

His name sounded hollow and far away, followed by a light tapping sound. He didn't care. All that mattered was right now and this woman.

"Chase."

This time he recognized the voice as the bedroom door squeaked open.

"Grandpa says we can go … Oops."

Shit.
Siobhan.

C.J. sprang back and snapped almost to attention.

"Sorry. I … I'll talk to you—"

"No." Chase sucked in a breath of reason. "What did the Colonel say?"

"That the
Aristophanes
is being delivered in a few days. Can we take her out?"

Reluctantly he dragged his gaze away from C.J. and turned to face his youngest sister. "I'm sure we can work something out."

Siobhan's face brightened. "Cool! And, um, sorry if I interrupted anything."

C.J. glanced at Chase, and he shook his head at his little sister. "You'd better let Devlin know too."

"On my way!" Siobhan squealed with delight and pulled the door closed behind her.

Like an ice shower, Siobhan’s surprise entry into the room had slapped him back to reality. He and C.J. had a deal. Strictly business. And from the fierce intensity with which C.J. stared back at him, she no doubt had also come to her senses. Too bad. Though every sensible bone in his body understood the original agreement—Simple. Uncomplicated.—the rest of him had really liked where things were going.

"I'm sorry—" Chase started.

"Don't." She raised her hand and, with her back to him, rummaged through her bag and spun around, holding one of the satin nightgowns from the shopping day. "It takes two."

Chase nodded. Though she hadn't modeled the spaghetti-strap sleepwear at the boutique, it didn't take much for his mind to picture it snugly against her curves. And now his imagination had the same satin fabric pushed up over her lush breasts and her long legs wrapped around him. Not good. Not business. Complicated with a capital
C
. He reached for the bedspread.

"I can't let you sleep on the floor." She tossed her change of clothes on a nearby chair. "Your back will complain for a week, and you won't get any sleep."

"It's unlikely I'll get any sleep anyhow."

"Excuse me?" She stood board straight, and all the softness in her eyes had turned cold.

"That didn't come out right. What I meant was, it'll be hard, literally, for me to fall asleep."

"All the more reason I should take the floor and you the bed."

"Not happening." He shook his head with purpose.

"I've had a lot more practice sleeping on the ground than you have."

He let loose a muffled chuckle.

"You don't believe me?" She crossed her arms. "When my unit first arrived in Afghanistan, there'd been a few … complications. I spent the better part of a week on the hard ground in full uniform in an oven disguised as a tent."

"Afghanistan?"

C.J. tapped her foot. "Yes, Afghanistan."

"What were you doing there?"

"I told you. I'm a nurse."

"From the South Bronx?" he mumbled. "Wait. You're in the military."

"Was."

Between jobs, she'd said. The euphemism for a person who had been fired or downsized. Not this time. "We need to talk." He turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To find you something more practical to change into, and then we'll both get on that bed and talk.” C.J.'s brows curled, and he repeated, "Just talk."

Something practical
made no sense, until Chase entered the room carrying clothes. What he should have said was something unappealing. He handed her a pair of sweats. Thick, bulky, and a size too big.

"They belong to my sister. Beth calls them comfort clothes. These and a good book are easier on her diet than Ben and Jerry's.”

Since she knew firsthand that Beth was definitely not a large size, C.J. guessed even the rich and famous occasionally had bad days. "Thank you."

In less time than she'd anticipated, she'd stripped out of the evening gown and slipped on the softest, thickest sweats she'd ever come in contact with. Slowly turning the knob on the bathroom door, she eased it open and was surprised to see Chase lying on the edge of the bed, shoes off, ankles crossed, and still fully dressed.

"I thought this would be safer."

That made her laugh. He did realize that clothes could be easily removed?

"Come sit." Rather than tap the mattress with his hand, he pointed to the other side of the bed with his chin.

All the apprehension she'd felt since discovering the Ivory matriarch had moved her suitcase into Chase's designated room abandoned her. Maybe wearing comfortable—though obviously expensive—sweats, for the first time in days. Or maybe she shared his false sense of security in the protective properties of baggy clothes.

Propping the pillows behind her, she eased onto the opposite edge of the mattress and leaned back. "What did you want to talk about?"

"You."

"Not much to tell."

"Not buying it. I want to know all about you, Cassandra Jane. Why did you tell me you're between jobs?"

She shrugged. She wasn't hiding anything; it was just simpler than explaining. "Because I am."

He didn't speak, just looked at her, waiting.

Grabbing hold of one of the toss pillows piled between them, she fidgeted with the fringe. In the unwritten rules of life, not talking about what happened in country had to be at the top. A good reason why so many of the people she worked with struggled once they came home. And who was she kidding, thinking she wasn't one of
them
? She'd been home long enough to decompress. By now she should have gotten a nice job in a nice hospital and been helping nice patients get better. Instead she'd taken full advantage of a healthy savings account, and, under the guise of looking out for her somewhat ditzy sister, dug in at Beth's tiny apartment and created her own little deluded sanctuary.

Chase hadn't been the first person to ask her about her work or her time overseas, yet, oddly enough, for the first time since she'd come home, something deep inside her actually wanted to talk. And not just to anyone but to Chase. "I joined up straight out of high school. There aren't many great career opportunities for high school graduates without a college degree, and I couldn't afford the time or the tuition to get one."

Chase nodded but said nothing.

How could he do otherwise? He had no idea at all what it felt like to live hand to mouth, to watch his mother work two jobs just to give her children the bare necessities of life—like food and shelter—never mind pay for higher education.

"Growing up I'd always thought it would be nice to be a doctor. Take care of the sick, cure cancer." She chuckled at her own childhood dreams.

"Don't laugh. I can see you as a doctor."

She shrugged. "I signed up for the Marine Corpsman Field Medical School—"

"You're a marine?" His eyes rounded wide enough to see perfect circles of white form around that sea of steel blue.

"Technically I'm US Navy, but, for all intents and purposes, I act like, work with, and am treated like a marine. I had to do seven weeks at Camp Lejeune. Trust me. I know what it's like to be a marine. The marines have a saying—every marine is a rifleman. We had to learn to carry a rifle and how to use it as well. To be an effective medic, I had to earn the right to be regarded as a fellow marine."

A hint of a smile lifted one corner of his mouth. "And you did, didn't you?"

She nodded. All her fellow corpsmen had. The women had to work harder, faster, and prove themselves better, every damn day. That part never stopped.

"Which also explains why you withstood the Colonel in your face so easily."

"I've been dressed down by worse."

The smile slipped from his face. "Tell me more."

"My first tour was one year on a medevac crew in Afghanistan." From the corner of her eye she caught Chase's wince. She tried to stop her mind from going back in time to some of the worst days. Being first responders too often meant dealing with military and civilians alike. Adults and children. "Eventually I became the lead medic for the female engagement team."

"Even without knowing you very long, that doesn't surprise me. And I understand a little better how you just stepped in for your sister. Compared to a war zone, this must be a cake walk.”

There was no understanding a war zone for people who hadn't been there. No words. At least none that anyone wanted to share, which is why so many veterans came home with wounds the average eye couldn't see. "At least interacting with your family doesn't require combat training."

"When dealing with the Colonel, there are people who would disagree with you. But I don't understand how you could be a medic. I thought women weren't allowed in combat situations."

C.J. almost laughed. Even before the SECDEF opened all jobs to women, females often did as much as their male counterparts. While true that forward-operating bases were surrounded by wire fencing, female medics could and did go outside the line. It was just the reality of war. She hadn't been seen as a
female
medic. She was a medic, and lives depended on her and her teammates. "Things aren't always as they seem. Medics, regardless of gender, are required to accompany soldiers on patrol."

A muscle in Chase's chin twitched.

Focusing on the pillow in her hands instead of the darkening expression on Chase's face, C.J. kept talking. "That part of the world is a damn desert. Patrolling in body armor in full kit easily created heat casualties. But 60 percent of all coalition casualties were from IEDs. If we could do anything at all, we'd start fluids, control the bleeding, and stabilize them until the birds got there. After a while it wasn't enough. If I was staying in, I wanted to do more. I wanted to be part of the forward surgical team."