Basic Training (22 page)

“I’ve got you, babe. You’re safe now. I’m not going anywhere.” His hold on her shifted. He pried the pipe from her hand and passed it back to someone standing behind him. She turned her nose into the salty damp scent that clung to his clothes and he pulled her more fully into his embrace. She felt his lips in her hair and Tess didn’t know whether to break into tears or let her shaking knees collapse as the last of the adrenaline drained from her system.

Ultimately, she decided to laugh.

“Captain Black?” She knew that voice.

So did Kyle Black. “General Craddock. Sir.”

Major ouch.

“When you’re done with the police, you and I need to sit down and have a talk. Captain McCormick?”

Travis straightened without releasing her. “Sir?”

“I know you want that Special Ops position. Call me. Your dad has the number.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Tess tightened her hold around Travis’s waist. He was getting the job. His dream was coming true.

And in a few short days, her dream would end.

Friday, thirteen hundred hours,
Quantico, Virginia

“I
STILL DON’T SEE WHY
I had to come. I don’t even know these people. They’re all from your S.O. unit, right?” Tess had made a gallant effort to keep the conversation light and impersonal on the drive from Ashton. But now that she was here, on the bustling military base that Travis called home, her emotions threatened to get the best of her.

“Yeah. C’mon. They’re unloading the personnel bus now. Let’s go welcome them home.” Travis reached for his white hat, or cover, as he’d called it, and put it on as soon as he climbed out of his father’s truck.

Of course, the rat had to look particularly handsome today, spiffed up in his summer class-B uniform with his royal slacks, khaki shirt, and enough ribbons on his chest to start his own flag corps. As he circled the truck to open her door, she admired the way his shoulders and chest accommodated the brass buttons and silver captain’s bars. His limp was barely detectable in his proud gait. He was all man. All military. All heartbreaker.

She ought to know.

Tess reluctantly climbed out into his world and smoothed the skirt of her white sundress. When he took her hand to hurry across the parking lot to the bleachers and ceremonial drill field, Tess dug in her heels and held her ground.

“Trav—we’ve already said goodbye, you and me. Last night was beautiful, every moment of it.”

He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Yeah. Who knew how creative we could get with red wine?”

She could think of dozens of ways she wanted to get creative with Travis. Every one of them would be sweet or funny or mind-blowingly hot. But her time with him was over.

“This is your world, you belong here.” She rested her hand against the scar that lined his jaw and gave him such character. “But I need to go back to mine. The summer’s winding down. I need a clean break.” The umpteenth tear of the day pricked the corner of her eye, but she refused to shed it, just as she’d refused to shed all the others. “I’m trying to be sophisticated and mature about this. We agreed to two weeks, no strings attached. I need to be done.”

“Hey.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek. Okay, so maybe one had fallen. “Just trust me for a little while longer, T-bone.”

Her heart was doomed. She wouldn’t have thought a friend could be so cruel.

Travis pulled her into step beside him and they wove their way through the waiting crowd. After a brief ceremony, with music and thank-you’s and very short speeches, the men and women in their desert khaki uniforms were unleashed. Tess found herself openly crying at the reunions of husbands and wives, fathers and children, sisters and brothers, parents and sons and daughters. She laughed at noisy toddler kisses and stole Travis’s handkerchief when she saw a father meeting his newborn daughter for the first time.

And something stirred, low in her belly and deep in her heart, when she saw quite possibly the largest man she’d ever seen in person pick up a rather Rubenesque-looking blonde and spin her around before dropping to one knee and pulling her onto his lap to claim the woman’s mouth in the most passionate of kisses.

“Welcome home, I guess,” Tess murmured in admiration and maybe a touch of jealousy. That man and woman were in love.

“They’re something, huh?” Travis’s arm settled with possessive familiarity around her waist. “Come on. I want you to meet an old friend.”

He took her over to the passionate giant and his beaming wife. “Hey, Clarksie!”

“Action Man!”

“Welcome home, buddy.” The two men traded handshakes and hugs before introductions were made. “Tess, this is Zachariah Clark. He and I were in Special Ops together for a lot of years.”

“This is my wife, Becky.”

There were more handshakes and kisses on cheeks, and Clarksie picked Tess right up off the ground before slapping Travis on the back and commenting on his uniform with a grim expression. “I see you’re not in Charlie uniform. Does that mean the top brass denied your request to return to S.O. 6?”

What? Travis hadn’t said a word. He must be crushed. That explained why he’d wanted the extra company on the trip from Ashton to Quantico.

“Trav, I…” She didn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t give them the chance.” Travis spoke to his big friend, but his blue eyes were glued on Tess. And that grin
didn’t belong to a man who’d been denied everything he’d always wanted. “I asked to be transferred to the training division. General Craddock approved it yesterday.” He glanced at his friend. “I’m going to be teaching the yahoos who are going to take your place one day.”

Clarksie shook his head in disbelief and then smiled. “Congratulations, man. What changed your mind?”

“I realized I couldn’t give the hundred and ten percent S.O. teams need anymore. But I figure I can eke out about a hundred and one percent to whip some of those new boys into shape.” His blue eyes darkened with a double meaning. “I learned I make a pretty good coach.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I get to choose most of my own staff.” Travis jabbed Clarksie in the arm. “I could use a big hard-ass like you on the team.”

“I’ll think about it.” Clarksie’s gaze—and hands—went back to his wife. The idea of taking an assignment closer to home probably sounded pretty appealing right now.

“Well, you’ve got a homecoming I’m not going to keep you from. Take care, buddy.”

“You, too.”

The crowd had pretty much thinned out by the time Tess and Travis got back to his truck. The parking lot was nearly deserted as the returning Marines hurried to get back to their homes and lives for whatever leave they had coming.

When Travis opened the passenger door and lifted her to the seat, Tess held on to his shoulders before he could move away. “Why didn’t you tell me about your new assignment?”

His hands settled atop her thighs. “I think I wanted
you to see me in my element, so you could understand that this is something I really want. That I’m not settling for anything.”

“Are you really happy with a stateside training assignment?” She smoothed her palms across the crisp, pressed cotton that covered his beautiful chest.

He removed his cover and laid it on the dashboard of the truck. Then he nudged her knees apart and moved in between. His blue eyes never left hers. “Do I look happy?”

She traced her thumb across his smile. “Yes. Congratulations. I’m proud of you.”

He slipped his hands beneath her skirt and worked his thumbs along the inside of her thighs. “I’ve seen my father change from a worried old man to a younger man who’s dating again. I saw Morty Camden step it up. And I realized I was trying too hard to keep things from changing, when I really needed to evolve into a better, richer, wiser man.”

She tugged on his collar and pulled him in to give him a kiss. “I love the new you.”

He took her sweet kiss and deepened it into something spicy. “I love you, too.”

For several minutes, they clung to each other, kissing and tonguing and thoroughly exploring each other’s mouths. Tess scooted as close as she could to the edge of the seat without falling. Not that he’d let her. She wound her arms around his shoulders and rubbed her perky breasts against his hard, unforgiving body. His thumbs had slid inside her panties to torment her into a panting, babbling wanton.

“Trav…public…see…?” He slipped his thumb between her slick, swelling folds to rub her throbbing
nub. She gasped at the shimmers of delicious pleasure arcing to that hidden spot. Her thighs convulsed around his hand, aching to relieve the pressure building inside her.

She’d just about given up trying to talk.

Travis knew his power over her, too. He laughed against her mouth. “Kyle Black got one thing right.”

The name nearly broke the spell Travis’s hands were weaving beneath her skirt.

“What’s that?”

“He knew that
you
were the way to get to me. Losing you is what could hurt me the most. More than any damn bomb or gimp leg or stupid desk job. If I don’t have you to make me laugh and make me hot and make me feel like more of a man than I ever hoped to be, then none of it matters.”

“You’re everything to me too, Travis.”

He pulled one hand free to slide the strap of her sundress off her shoulder and then traced the same path with his lips.” I know you’re pretty attached to Ashton, that you want to be close to your mom and you’ve got a good job there—but how would you feel about moving a few hours away, say, outside Quantico, Virginia?”

“Why?” He nipped at her collarbone and pressed his warm, moist lips to the swell of her breast above the dress’s neckline. “Am I…Corps…joining?”

“Probably not. But I’m hoping you’ll give some serious thought to sharing lots of time with one particular Marine.”

“What?” Tess pulled herself from the haze of passion to make sure she’d heard that right. She caught his jaw between her palms and lifted his face to meet her gaze.
“What are you saying? Keep in mind that I’m fairly new to all this and that I don’t want to misunderstand.”

“New? Ha. You’re a ringer, you sex goddess.” That killer McCormick smile made his message very clear. “I think we can be friends
and
lovers. Have the best of both relationships.”

“Don’t they call people like that a couple?”

“Sometimes they call them a married couple.”

“Hmm.” Tess scooted to the middle of the truck’s wide bench seat, giving Travis room enough to climb inside with her. “Now that’s a role I haven’t tried yet.”

He closed the door behind him. “I have a feeling you’ll be very good at it.”

She unhooked his brass buckle and reached for his zipper. “I think
we’ll
be very good at it. Like a few other things we’ve tried. Can your knee handle this position?” she asked before untucking the hem of his shirt.

His knee was much better, thank you.

“I think you’re trying to wrinkle my uniform, T-bone.”

“That’s not all I’m trying to do.” She lay back on the seat behind the steering wheel and lifted her knees. “Travis?”

He was peeling away her panties and looking his fill of her needy, weeping center. “Tess?

He wasn’t getting it. Yet. She started unbuttoning the front of her dress, inviting the shameless hussy inside her to come out. “Travis.”

“Oh.” He kissed her breast before gathering her in his arms and sinking between her legs. “I want you, too, Tess. Forever.”