Gifts of Honor: Starting from Scratch\Hero's Homecoming (9 page)

“A deal?” He had somehow leaned in without her noticing, his mouth hovering over hers. Hovering—not touching. Until that moment, she never knew the anticipation of a kiss could be painful. “You have my attention.”

And boy howdy, did he have hers. “I was thinking...”

“Bad idea.” His lips grazed hers, while his hand slid down to dip under the hem of her sweater. Their sighs mingled when skin sizzled against skin. “Thinking should be outlawed at times like this.”

“You’ll like this deal.”

“Mmm. You have the most beautiful eyes. Sky eyes. Have I ever told you that?”

A shaft of pain zipped through her, and it was enough to clear her fuzzy thoughts. “Yes. And that’s what the deal’s about. We’re not going to bring the past into this. This isn’t Lucy and Sullivan 2.0. This isn’t trying to recapture something that no longer exists. There are no expectations or thoughts of happy endings. This is just sex. A biological urge with no emotion involved. And once we’re done, I want your ass out of here like nothing ever happened and you can once again forget I exist. Agreed?”

“Sex with no strings attached? Sounds like every guy’s fantasy.”

It was probably going to wind up a nightmare, but there was no turning back. “Agreed?”

For a moment irritation surfaced in his eyes. “Ever thought you might not want me to get my ass out of here after this?”

Yes
. “No. Agreed?”

“Dammit...fine.” And with that he covered her mouth with his.

Chapter Eight

Sweet lassitude sank into Lucy like a euphoria-inducing drug, and if she was honest with herself she’d admit it was bolstered by the relief of setting the rules. Not for him, but for herself. More than anything, she needed the ironclad reminder this wasn’t some sappy-sweet love story. It was the sexual equivalent of scratching an itch. Satisfying, but forgotten about by tomorrow.

Because it didn’t mean anything. It was best to hang the heart and all its tender yearnings on the outside of this stolen time together. She was only too happy to do it; after taking countless potshots over the past year, it was past time to take that abused organ out of the emotional shooting gallery.

But oh, his mouth...

Maybe it was because she’d believed she would never be close to Sully again that made his kisses so extraordinary now. His lips were firm, bolder than she remembered, and the thrust of his tongue tempted hers into a blatantly erotic dance of give-and-take. Heat simmered in her veins as he moved to cover her, and the solidity of his body and the unmistakable hardness behind his zipper had her thoughts spinning in a kind of fevered delirium. A thrill flashed through her at the proof of how much he wanted her, and with a hunger that made her breathless she rubbed her hips against his stiffened flesh.

A broken groan rumbled from deep in his chest. The sound kicked her excitement up all the more, and she arched her back to help when he tugged her sweater up and over her head. Seconds later his button-down shirt joined it, with Sully so impatient to be free he only unfastened it halfway before he too pulled it over his head. An appreciative sigh whispered out of her at the glimpse she got of his torso before he greedily returned to her mouth. Even in high school Sully had been the picture of fitness, wiry with defined muscles under golden skin that begged her hands to touch. Then when he’d come out of sixty-one hellish days of Ranger School he’d been a lean, mean fighting machine that sent her straight into overdrive. His was a body that had often made her wish she had the talent to sculpt, and even more often had her jumping his damn bones every chance she got.

The year that separated her from the last time she’s enjoyed the luxury of having him as her lover had hardly changed him in her eyes, though there were changes. But his pure male beauty was as it had always been—raw and unashamed. The sweep of his shoulders was a sturdy expanse, and the ridge of his collarbone, now more prominent, tempted her mouth to nip and suckle. A smattering of brown hair roughened the hollow created by his pectorals, and she couldn’t get enough of that masculine texture. She rubbed a savoring palm over it, purrs of enjoyment murmuring from her before she moved on to drag worshipping hands along the ladder of his rib cage.

The goose bumps that broke out in the wake of her touch pleased her no end, as did the shattered sound he couldn’t seem to stifle. She smiled against his lips, and that seemed to inspire him to fight for an inch of distance between their mating mouths.

“Your turn,” he breathed, and she couldn’t figure out if it was a threat or a promise.

The barriers of clothing were now nothing more than a nuisance and quickly conquered. Wherever flesh was uncovered, Sully’s devouring mouth was eager to explore, from the globes of her rose-tipped breasts to the subtle jut of hipbone he revealed as he removed her panties. When the last of her clothing was removed Sully drank her in as if he were helpless to do anything else, as if somewhere inside him he’d been brought to his knees. As if he’d found the one thing in this world he wanted to worship.

Her skin tingled under that tangible, mesmerized gaze, her nipples tightening almost painfully. No woman in the world had ever felt more wanted than she did in that moment.

“Damn.” The minor profanity that escaped him sounded more like a prayer. “You make me forget I need to breathe, Lucy.”

She didn’t want to think about all the things he’d forgotten. “I guess I shouldn’t feel self-conscious, then?”

The very thought seemed to leave him aghast. “You’re so beautiful I’d be in favor of keeping you this way for all time, if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t want anyone else seeing you.”

“Not to mention it’d be a bit chilly.” She slid a hand over the strong column of his denim-clad thigh, and she wondered if he could feel how her fingers trembled. “Are you going to get naked, or am I the only one who’s going to have any fun around here?”

For an answer he kicked off the remainder of his clothing, only to pause. “I don’t even know if I have protection with me or not.”

“I never stopped taking the Pill, so unless you’ve been leading a wildly promiscuous life during your recovery, we’re good to go.”

“Rehab and promiscuity don’t exactly go together.” The rigidity of his muscles screamed of the tension she sensed in him as he settled over her. He caressed her everywhere—her stomach, her breasts, the outer line of her thighs—as if he was on a mission to learn her through touch alone. He held himself on a wire-taut leash of restraint, and the frenzy she sensed building within him made her shiver in dizzy anticipation. The need to have him inside her spawned an urgent pulse within the cleft between her legs, the intimate flesh growing wet with a desire that made her squirm for more.

He settled in the cradle of her thighs, and the weight of him was delicious, both familiar in the feel and utterly new in the way he touched her. His hands were greedy as they slid up her ribs to her breasts, filling his palms with the sensitized flesh and rubbing the peaks until holding still became an impossibility. She moved under him, caught in that magnificent space between his body and the rug, the urgent hunger intensifying the molten heat of her sex. The demand for him to fill her was fast slipping into the realm of wanton madness. She whispered his name into his mouth as his tongue tormented hers, and without a hint of shyness she guided his hand between them to the juncture of her thighs.

“Now.” It was all she could manage, the excitement was so intense. “Now.”

She released his hand only to close her own around his searing hot, iron-hard flesh. A harsh cry grated out from between his bared teeth even as his fingers slid through the veil of brown curls to explore her most intimate place. She gasped, a ragged sound that tore the near-silence of the loft in two when he slid between the swollen, wet folds of her sex. Urgently she rubbed the supersensitive ridge of his manhood to bring him into the world of sensation in which she was fast losing herself, and thrilled with triumph as he pumped into her hand. Her hips lifted and retreated in the same mating rhythm, both a plea for him to be inside her and a quest to get more delight out of the fleeting caress. Sparks of rapture toyed with her. When he found the blood-engorged center of her desire he stroked her hard, wrenching an agonized moan from her as she writhed with shattered helplessness.

“Too much.” Oh God, she couldn’t be this close to losing it. She’d wanted it to last, this one-shot, never-again miraculous replay of a life she’d once had. She wanted to wallow in this last gift fate had decided to bestow on her. The one thing she didn’t want to do was rush through it, not when every second was so precious...

Her muscles clenched to withhold the inevitable, the ecstasy folding in on itself, deepening, intensifying. Blindly she dug her fingers into the rounded flesh of his ass and pulled him hard against her, the need for him to be inside her reaching the levels of screaming insanity. He gave her what she wanted by urging her legs wider, and without breaking the merciless cadence of his fingers stimulating her most sensitive point, thrust into her slick depths.

Her cry was a sound of sweet devastation, her head flung back on the rug and neck arched with strain.
Sullivan
was all she could think, oblivious that her voice echoed his name as if it was the center of the universe, and for her it was. God help her, no matter how hard she fought it or tried to ignore it, he would always be her center.

The rolling of his hips was an intoxicating symphony of motion. The glide of flesh against flesh, at first almost graceful, grew to a ragged frenzy with each thrust. Exquisitely impaled and accepting now that she couldn’t hold back the rapturous heights that even now encroached on the edges of her consciousness, she locked her legs around his back, tilting her pelvis up to deepen the angle of penetration.

Shivery delirium threatened to snap both her spine and her sanity. Pleasure tightened, spinning ever downward and with such purity it was excruciating. When it shattered at last, her cries were drowned out by Sully’s, his orgasm hitting mere seconds before hers. Even as her depths convulsed on his hardness and milked him into what seemed to be another, wilder release, she knew that as a last hurrah, it couldn’t have been any more perfect.

Lucy probably shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d fallen asleep after what might have been the best sex she’d ever had. But when a faint jostling dragged her eyes open, the loft was completely dark, save for the glow of the festive street decorations below. A heavy arm was draped over her waist and a hair-rough leg had her knee trapped in place. She shivered in the cool air and realized that was what had awakened her. Sully had pulled her closer for warmth, and for a suspended moment she drank in the peace of the moment.

She turned her head and traced Sully’s features in the muted light. How many times had she watched him sleep? In the past she’d often wondered if every spouse with a loved one in the military watched over them while they had the chance—memorizing the curve of cheek, where each and every freckle was, the length of lash. She knew Sully’s face better than she knew her own. That wasn’t surprising. He’d always been her truest treasure.

But she had never been his.

God, she hated facing that. Part of her would never be all right with it. It was like something vital had been crippled inside her. But at least she could now limp forward, making an uneasy peace with the reality that Sully had never loved her in the same way she’d loved him. Of course he had loved her, in his own way. This conclusion she’d been forced to come to wasn’t the result of some pathetically maudlin pity party. It was just a simple fact. If he’d loved her as deeply as she’d adored him, he never would have plunged her back into the unique hell that was the interminable wait for a combat soldier to come home. If their roles had been reversed, and she’d been the one to be so cavalier with her own life, would he have been as devastated? Somehow she didn’t think so.

It was difficult, when she was calm, to fault Sully for his priorities. He’d been compelled by his sense of duty and a passionate love of country to make a stand when so many others didn’t. She couldn’t help but admire that. It took a special strength of will to put devotion to duty over the love of wife, home and family, and to sacrifice his own safety for the sake of others. As angry and dismayed as she’d been that he’d chosen to once again put himself in the line of fire—only to have everything about her erased from his memory—she was still so in awe at his selflessness and the selflessness of those who made the same choice. No matter how it had wound up for their marriage, there was no denying Sullivan Jax was a truly great man.

It took some stealthy maneuvering, but she managed to work her way out from under his weight, fetched her robe from where she’d left it on the bathroom door hook and dragged the brilliant red comforter off her bed. With great care she settled it over him, then turned toward the open kitchen to heat some milk for hot chocolate. Before she could take a step, however, a hand snaked out and grabbed her ankle in an iron grip.

She froze. In a heartbeat she was back to when he was screaming and throwing whatever he could to make her run for cover. There had been such violence in him that the doctors had warned her to never get close enough for him to get his hands on her. His ferocity had abated over time, but she’d been warned to keep her guard up.

Too bad she’d forgotten about that whole guard-up thing until now.

“My name is Lucy Crabtree. Your name is Sullivan Jax, Sully to your friends.” The phrase came automatically while the rest of her remained unmoving, not even daring to look at him. Sudden moves had set him off in the past. “I’m a friend. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you here. I’m going to move away from you now, and you’re going to let me go.”

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a two-year-old.” The fingers that held her suddenly became caressing, his thumb rubbing over the inside of her ankle. “That had a ring of familiarity to it. Did you say something like that when you’d come to visit me?”

“The doctors thought it might help calm your agitation.” It didn’t. Nothing did, except her absence. With her heart climbing down from its frozen perch in her throat, her blood stubbornly remained iced over in a shaky aftershock of adrenaline, and she didn’t know how to thaw herself out. “We fell asleep. It’s a lot later than I thought.”

“It’s not that late,” he mumbled around a jaw-cracking yawn before tickling a playful finger under the sensitive arch of her foot. “Come here and help me keep warm.”

“No, thank you.” She despaired over the brittle ice engulfing not just her insides, but her words. Dammit. She didn’t want to be like this, so guarded against any harm he might fling her way. He wasn’t going to do that now, so why couldn’t she get out from under all this ice? “This was fun, Sullivan. But you need to go now. A deal’s a deal.”

There was a heartbeat of silence before his hand let go of her ankle. In an instant she continued on to the kitchen, her movements robotic as she hit the pendant light over the island and dug out the milk and cocoa. A relieved breath eased out of her when she heard him get to his feet, only to jump like a startled cat when his strong arms, covered in her comforter, wrapped around her from behind, enclosing her in a cocoon of warmth.

“Hey.” His voice against her ear was so tender it almost shattered her. “You know what? You sound cold.”

Funny how he’d picked up on that. “I get that way from time to time.”

“Totally understandable.” His mouth moved in a slow side-to-side caress over her hair next to her ear. Gentle. Undemanding. “Do you want me to warm you up?”