He stopped and checked the rabbit. Satisfied, he set his aside to cool. Rio did the same.
“When it came to the army, I got lots of advice about how to advance. How to be tough at the right times, how to be invaluable. But after being in the thick of things, I didn’t want any of that.”
“You just wanted to get out alive,” Rio said.
“That’s right. Get home. The only goal. I did my job. In fact, I did whatever was asked. Until that night.”
“Then it had to have been something you felt awfully strongly about not doing.”
“To put it mildly. When it came time to find a place to bivouac, the lieutenant ordered us to go west, since the insurgents had been spotted days before to the east. There were caves, as well. Protection, he said. But I’d been studying the Iraqis’ movements over months. I knew in my gut they’d gone for the caves, too. I not only disagreed with the decision, I argued. Vehemently. I’d decided to adopt my father’s take-no-prisoners attitude, and I ended up calling the lieutenant arrogant, shortsighted, and unfit for leadership.”
“
You
did?”
“Oh, I certainly did.” His grimace conveyed the pain of memory. “I went well
beyond
what my father might have done. Even had I capitulated as I ought to have, there still would have been charges of insubordination. But I was so utterly convinced I was right.”
“What happened?”
“Three men followed me.” He paused and rubbed his mouth. “Three went with the CO. That night, all four of them were stabbed in their sleep.”`
The stark words might have been stabbings to her own heart. An intense wash of dizziness threatened to send her head down toward her knees. “Oh God, no,” she whispered.
“We found them the next afternoon.”
“I don’t . . . oh God, you
found
them?”
“I admit, that was hellish.”
“I don’t even know what to say . . . Sorry isn’t nearly a good enough word.”
“It was inadequate then, as well.”
“And now you live with it? You bury it and deal with it when it pops up like this?”
“I’ve dealt with it. It’s in the past.”
“I don’t know. It’s pretty much in the here and now, wouldn’t you say?”
“I made my peace with what the army did. You can’t have soldiers disobeying orders on a hunch every five minutes, can you?”
“But your commanding officer was wrong. The ultimate kind of wrong. He brought you along to do exactly what you did.”
“But the decision was ultimately his.”
“Okay, even if I accept that, why wasn’t your family, Kate especially, weak with relief that you didn’t die? That you were smart enough to stay alive?”
“She and my father thought I came back changed.”
“No. Really?” Rio’s eyes shot angry sapphire sparks. “How unforgiveable.”
He pulled his stick out of the fire and leaned it against a tree root so the meat could cool. “I learned a lesson in Iraq. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t argue. If I’d have kept my cool, I could have talked the CO into coming with me. He dug in because I dug in.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“I know it. I’ve learned it after the fact. I learn it every day. Nod and smile. Works like a charm. As for Kate, she wanted someone with a sterling record and a forceful nature who could become as successful as my father had. My record was no longer sterling. I was all but unemployable in the U.K., what with the dodgy discharge papers. Kate hated that blot on my character.
“After she left me, I tried again with my father. I made one trip following him on a U.S. tour of guest clinics and lessons. When he came to Minnesota I happened to see this place for sale. I made a decision in less than a flash and never looked back.”
“You gave up your citizenship to stay here?”
“My act of anger and defiance against the British military, my father, and no doubt Kate. And I’ve never for a moment regretted it. I love it here.”
“But none of this is wimpy. Why do you let them, us, think of you as mild-mannered and easygoing?”
“Because I am. I’m not my father. Maybe I’m
wimpy
with my family, but I told you, it’s easier to nod and smile and let them go home believing they’re still influencing my life. I don’t care what they
think
. They live a long way away.”
“And you don’t think your father is proud of you.”
“I don’t know what my father is.” For the first time, his voice gained an edge, dull but definite, and Rio heard all the longing of a son looking for his father’s approval. She wasn’t sure David even knew it was there.
“Why did you react so strongly that night in Iraq, do you think?”
“Because I was scared shitless?”
“Yes. So forgive yourself.”
“Done a long time ago.”
“You know what? I don’t think that’s true.”
“Y
OU’RE A LITTLE
heavy into the pop psychology tonight.” David looked more amused than upset, and Rio rubbed his shoulder, kissing his bicep with a smile.
“Because I feel responsible for dredging this up. I’m sorry I made you talk about it the other night.”
“You don’t need to be. I really don’t talk about it. But it wasn’t so hard. With you.”
“What can I do to make it better?”
His eyes shone as if he were preparing to make a joke. Then they softened to a moment of seriousness. “Understand that I need to deal with my parents the way I do. Ignore the blot on my copybook—as my gran used to say.”
“There’s no blot to ignore. This is how I know you haven’t forgiven yourself. And you can’t forgive yourself until you forgive your father. So deal with them however you want. But promise to be nice to yourself, too. You can’t be down on people I like.”
The flash of humor returned. “So you like me again?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I guess. Can we kiss and make up now?”
A grin lifted the corners of his mouth, and a familiar fire lit his eyes for the first time since their awkward night at the little cabin. An unexpected but welcome flash of pure desire blazed through her stomach and landed, pulsing, deep in some untouchable spot. He took her roasting stick from her hands without speaking.
“What do you want?” she teased.
He answered with his lips and tongue. One large, sure hand lifted her hair to cup the back of her head and pull her against him. Hard and delving, his kiss melted her faster than fire could have, tasting wild like the food he’d caught and smelling of pine and smoke and tangy male perspiration. Every desire liquefied within her and rushed like water over a broken dam to the aching point between her legs.
Mewling with impatience, she found her way onto his lap, never breaking the searching kiss while arching her belly into his.
Their kiss, succulent, punctuated with quiet and not-so-quiet groans and escalated breathing, intensified every sensation until she believed the simple friction of their bodies sliding naturally against each other would be enough to send her flying over a cliff of pleasure. Then his free hand slipped under her T-shirt, and his hard, round fingertips slid up her torso, scalding her skin, meeting the bottom of her bra and pushing it out of the way like it was no more barrier than a soap bubble. His thumb found the tip of her breast and she broke their kiss for the first time, gasping in pleasure.
“You like that?” he rasped.
“Duh,” she whispered.
He lay back and expertly switched their positions, cradling her body from the hard ground and hovering above her, his eyes smoky in the evening light now slanting through the trees. She stroked his cheek, roughened with a day’s growth of beard, handsome with its strong cheekbones. He closed his eyes.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What for?”
“For waiting. This is what you deserve—not petulant lovemaking from a man in bloody crisis mode.”
She giggled at the formality. “I love it when you speak Duke to me. So proper.”
He lifted her shirt, exposing the breast he’d been caressing. “Yeah? Well, here’s your proper right here.”
He laid her onto the carpet of pine needles and slid down her body until his mouth found her nipple. She cried out at the array of fireworks shooting through her body as first one breast and then the other received lavish attention. He followed with tickled kisses and nips between her breasts and down her stomach, making her buck as she squirmed to get away. He held her captive and blew raspberries onto her skin. Squealing laughter rang into the trees.
“Ticklish, are we?” He lifted his head, his grin limned with devilish intent.
“Yes, yes. Stop!” He blew another wet kiss next to her belly button. “Stop!”
He shimmied back up her body, cupping her breast and stopping her helpless laughter with a kiss.
“I suppose it’s true, we never finished dinner.”
She wanted nothing more to do with roasted rabbit. In his arms she was full, satisfied, and convinced he could keep them both that way. Insanely she wanted to bind herself to this man who seemed deeper, more pain-filled, and yet more loving and trustworthy than her own family ever had. After just this brief time, after this small dip into the pool of his life, she wanted to jump off into the deepest water and let him be her lifesaver.
“I only want dessert.”
“Hmmm.” He kissed her ear. “Cliché but most agreeable.”
He pushed to his feet, tugged her up after him, and swung her into another deep, thirsty kiss. Kissing her all the way, he pushed her toward the horses’ tack set neatly beneath a tree. Parting from her long enough to grab the two woolen saddle blankets, he locked lips again, walked them back to the fire, unfolded the blankets, and spread them on the ground with the horsehair-covered sides down.
“Bob’s your uncle,” he said. “Fit for a king.”
“I’m not greedy. A duke will do.”
“You really have to stop calling me that. I’m starting to believe I’m actual royalty.”
“Fine by me.”
They sank to their knees on the blankets. Both his hands this time slipped up her sides and in a fluid motion he shucked off her shirt like silk from satin. Equally gracefully he divested her of the lacy bra beneath it.
His gaze caressed her almost physically, and every inch of her skin dimpled into goose bumps and hard peaks. Hot, masculine hands spanned her rib cage, and his thumbs found her nipples again.
“Gorgeous.”
“Let me see you.”
She followed his lead and tugged off his T-shirt. The effort left his thick hair mussed and his eyes luminous. Tipping forward, she pressed her lips to the soft patch of hair on his chest, then kissed her way up to the hollow of his throat. His taste was sweet and salt, rough and manly, different from anyone she’d ever known. Serious, playful, and soul-deep exciting.
He fumbled with her waistband, unsnapping her fly, rasping down the zipper, and sending anticipatory chills dancing down her thighs. When the jeans flapped open, he plunged his fingers past the waistband to her seat, curling them over the curves of her glutes, kneading into the muscles and pulling her closer with each pulse of his hands.
With a final tug he locked her against the long length of his erection, and everything inside her shimmered to a standstill with the exception of a flight of exquisite butterflies that left trails of feathery sparks along her body.
“Nearly perfect,” he whispered.
Everything he touched turned to sensation and every sensation fed the desire that was fast becoming craving. They collapsed together onto the blankets and the wool only added stimulation to her sensitized skin. His tongue circled in her mouth, stroking the tender surfaces. Quivering, she roamed his shoulders, his back, and his muscular arms with desperate fingers. Finally she forced her hand between them and found the snap to his jeans. It took a little perseverance, but once she had his zipper down, she reached past the denim and stroked him through the cotton of his boxers.
He groaned, and she couldn’t rush her boots off or wriggle out of her jeans fast enough. Once naked, she bent tor David’s boots and yanked them off, first the left and then the right, and tossed them unceremoniously into the trees. Seconds after that, he peeled off his jeans and grabbed her to him, his long male body rough and glorious against hers.
There was not enough time and yet all the time in the world to explore the new places, textures, feelings of each other. His body was a magnificent toy, full of hard planes and soft spots, dark hair, and firm skin. Everything she touched made her shiver.
But she didn’t want to be far enough away from him to explore for long. She wanted him around her and in her and with her. She threw one leg over his hip, and his fingers found her softest and most sensitive spot. Lightning struck again and again as he explored the dampness at the juncture of her legs with a long, talented finger. She pushed reluctantly away and grasped his length with confidence, glorying in the power she could wield over him.
They played, they teased. He traced her tattoos and she loved how he touched her. How even in his ardor and foreplay, without words, he promised never to hurt her. She loved that she knew it without question.
Without warning, playing wasn’t enough.
Desire like a tsunami slammed her from head to core, leaving her trembling in his arms.
“Now,” she begged. The first words either had spoken in long minutes.
He rolled to his side, grabbed his jeans and dug in a pocket, then rolled back with a foil square.
“More supplies you sneaked past me.” She kissed him. “My prepared Scout.”
“They did
not
teach us this in Scouting.” His grin only heightened her need. “And just so you know. I didn’t believe we’d get anywhere near this point tonight. But since we’ve been dangerous together from the start, I didn’t dare leave without these.”
She watched with trembling fascination while he rolled on the protection, astounded by her erotic reaction. “Is now still a good time?” he teased into her ear, returning to her and draping himself over her body.
“Five minutes ago would have been better.”
He entered her slowly, and she arched into him, feeling his fullness as if it had been a missing part of her. The rhythm came so easily, so wondrously, at first it was like playing all over again. Their foreheads bumped, he kissed her nose, her eyes. She laughed softly with hitching breath. They made the pleasure last—forced it to last—as they rocked together in a heated dance as old as time. And then, the fire slammed them both without warning.