Impossible End (Unchecked Book 3) (7 page)

“Ahhh!” She flew into a sitting position. “I can’t, too much!”

It wasn’t and she could. She was so fucking sensitive, I could make her come in seconds. I thrust my hand harder and her legs started to violently shake. I bit down lightly and she slammed her knees together and tightened around me. A rush of heat soaked my fingers and she threw her head back.

The moan ripping from her chest almost made me come.

Trembling with aftershocks, she fell back on the bed. I slipped my hand out and pulled her into my arms. “That’s it, baby. I knew you could do it.” I stoked her hair, her back.

She curled into me. “Oh my God, you—you’re a monster.” Her breathy laugh was shaky.

My dick throbbing, I slid an arm under her legs and back and stood. “You’re about to find out how much of a monster.” I headed toward the shower.

“Mercy!” she squealed.

I gazed down at my wife in my arms and the side of my mouth tipped up. “Oh, I’ll take mercy on you.”

Her laughter filled the room and sunk into my heart.

T
HE WIND BIT THROUGH MY
jacket then lifted her hair and swirled it around her face. She turned to me and grinned. With a thick knit hat over her head and her nose and cheeks red, she clapped her mitten-covered hands together. “It’s so pretty up here!”

I leaned over and kissed her. “You’re pretty. Winter looks good on you.”

She laughed. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to go home.”

I didn’t give a fuck where I was, as long as I was with her but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to leave here. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in that bikini you promised me.” I winked.

She let go of the railing and put her arms around me. “We have been gone for awhile.”

Two months. The first few weeks we’d laid low in Neil’s place in Odense, Denmark. Then André had called and given the all clear to come back but Layna wanted to stay and see Europe. I took her to London and Paris then she said she wanted to come back to Scandinavia. She said she wasn’t a big city girl. I loved her even more.

I pulled her in close and touched my lips to hers. “You’re cold. Five more minutes then we’re going back down.”

She looked out at the Norwegian mountains sinking into the fjord. “Bergen looks so small from up here. It’s a beautiful city but I miss the sun.”

“You ready to go home?” I kept my voice casual. She’d never been out of Florida. I didn’t want to influence her decision. I wanted her to see whatever she wanted, stay as long as she needed, but I was ready to go back stateside. I’d spent the past five years in foreign countries.

Her face scrunched up. “Are you?”

I glanced over her head. The funicular car was coming back up to the station. “Let’s talk about it as we ride down the mountain.”

“Wait!” She fumbled with her bulky mittens and reached in her pocket for her phone. “Take a picture of us.” She handed me her phone.

I fucking hated it when she did this but I took the phone and held my arm out. Right before I took the shot, I kissed her cheek and she giggled.

“My work here is done.” I handed the phone back and ushered her to the station.

“Oh, my God, this is an awesome picture.” She grinned, holding the phone out.

I made an appropriate noise and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Did you even look?”

“Yes, you look beautiful.” And she did. She always did. But I didn’t give a shit about a picture when I had the real thing in front of me.

The car doors opened and we took a seat in the back. Without the wind, it felt fifty degrees warmer. I loosened her scarf, pulled her mittens off then settled her under my arm before pulling my own gloves off.

Her hand snuck inside my jacket and rubbed across my stomach. “Is it always going to be like this?”

“Like what?” I scanned the other passengers out of habit, looking for anything that was off.

“You, taking care of me.” Her voice was laced with a hint of melancholy.

I glanced down at her. I was still getting used to seeing her in a down jacket, all bundled up. She looked cute as hell but she also looked out of place. She was an island girl, through and through. “You don’t like it?”

“I love it.”

I sensed a
but
. “Then what’s the problem?”

She turned away and tried to act casual as if she were simply looking out at the vista. “I don’t know…I just don’t want to get used to it.”

I grasped her chin and made her look at me. “Why?”

She leaned into my chest so I couldn’t see her eyes. “Never mind, I’m being stupid.”

“No, not
never mind
. Answer the question.”

She sighed and sat up. “Fine. What if we have a baby? Then you’ll—”

I couldn’t help it. The grin spread across my face before she even finished the sentence.

“Blaze,” she snapped. “This isn’t funny!”

It was seriously funny. “You’re jealous.”

“I am not.”

“You’re jealous of your own kid and you haven’t even conceived her yet.” Shit, I loved her.

Her faced melted like I’d given her a puppy.
“Her?”

Christ. I schooled my features. “Or him.”

“But you said
her.
”

I cupped her cheek and leaned so close our lips were almost touching. “Her, him, them, it doesn’t matter because you’re always going to be mine. I will take care of you and any children you give me, always.”

“Promise?”

“You don’t need to ask me that.” I knew what she went through with her father but I wasn’t him. I never would be.

“Just promise me.”

I held her gaze. “I promise you.”

She breathed out. “Okay.”

“I’m not your father,” I reminded her. “I’ll never jeopardize you or our family.”

“I know.” Melancholy tinged her voice.

“Then why were you asking?”

“I don’t know, I just…” She inhaled and I knew I was about to get a dose of my wife’s special kind of reasoning. “These past few weeks have been perfect. Being with you, being together, being
us
. I couldn’t have dreamed a better life.” Her eyebrows drew together. “It’s too perfect. I don’t want to add the wrong ingredient and mess everything up…or lose this.”

I knew she was traumatized from everything she’d been through and I would respect that but I also wasn’t going to let her constantly second-guess everything. “It’s not too perfect. This is us. This is our life. We promised each other we’d always communicate. We love each other, we respect each other, we work shit out. That’s how it works. There are going to be hurdles—life isn’t a smooth ride—but at some point, you’re going to have to let go of your past and live in the present.”

“How?” she asked quietly.

For two months, I’d tracked her periods and carefully avoided coming inside her when I knew the timing was ripe for her to get pregnant. She’d gone off the pill when we’d gotten married but I knew she hadn’t been ready. She’d needed time to heal from the tubular pregnancy that’d almost taken her life. She also needed time to get used to being a wife, to adjust to being around another person. She’d been alone and on her own for years. As much as I wanted her carrying my child, I didn’t want to throw her into motherhood yet. We’d lived through my disastrous mistake of not taking it slow the first time and I wasn’t willing to risk her life or her emotional well-being again. But the woman in front of me now wasn’t the same woman I’d married. She was still my Layna, feisty and a fighter and loving. But she was also content and grounded and I could tell she was ready for something more.

I ran a finger just under the edge of her hat and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “We have a baby.”

“You’re ready?” she asked hesitantly.

I smiled. “Yes.”

A tear fell down her cheek and she brushed it away. “Blaze Johnson,” she accused with a smile. “You are not allowed to make me cry.”

I leaned in and whispered, “I’m the
only one
who’s allowed to make you cry. And beg. And moan. And come so hard you forget your name.”

She laughed and pushed me back. “I thought we were supposed to be talking about going home.”

“We are. There are better medical services stateside for having a baby.”

She shook her head but she was still smiling. She smiled a lot now. “So you
do
want to go home?”

I wanted to spend every waking minute inside of her. I wanted to spend my life making her smile. But I was also antsy. I didn’t miss a fucking thing about active duty or being in a war zone besides the camaraderie. But I did need something that gave me an adrenaline rush besides fucking my wife multiple times every day or I’d break her. Or worse, she’d get sick of me. “I need to work.”

“With André?”

I nodded. When I’d talked to André last week, he hadn’t given me the all details yet on what happened after we’d left. He said he’d fill me in when we got back but he did mention a new assignment he needed help on.

She took a breath and let it out slow. “Technically, you don’t need to work.”

“Not having this conversation,” I warned.

“I know, I know, you’re not a kept man and all that bullshit. But you do realize it’s not my money now—it’s
our
money.”

Yes, I knew. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” She’d put my name on all her accounts the second we’d gotten married and she’d drawn up a will leaving me everything in case something ever happened to her. “Who gives a war-hardened Marine access to millions?”

“His wife.” She snuggled into me again and her hand made slow circles over my stomach. “Besides, maybe I was hoping you’d blow through it all.”

I smirked. She knew I saved almost every cent the U.S. Government had given me. I invested it and I got off on watching it grow. Me blowing through her millions was about as likely as hell freezing over. My mother taught me better than that. “Not happening.”

She sighed like she was put out. “It was worth a try.”

I chuckled. The irony was she probably wasn’t kidding. She hated the idea of all the money she had. To her, it was blood money that her parents had hidden while they were alive. I saw it as an opportunity but it wasn’t mine to fuck with.

We were quiet a few minutes as the funicular car crept down the mountain toward the city of Bergen. It was midweek, cloudy and cold as shit. There were only a few other people in the front of the car.

I stroked her shoulder as her hand rested on my stomach. “Now would be a good time to try,” I said casually.

She tilted her head and her lips curved into a flirty smile. “Right here?”

I spread my arms along the back of the seat in a challenge and grinned. “I’ll be quiet if you can.”

Heat hit her cheeks. She bit her bottom lip and glanced nervously at the people in the front of the car. “Um…”

I burst out laughing.

“Blaze!” she whisper-yelled. “That is
not
being quiet.”

“I know, baby, but it was never gonna happen. You’re not quiet. Ever.” Fuck, I was turned on just thinking about the noises she made.

She sat forward in her seat and turned to glare at me. “First.” She held a finger up. “That is not cool. And I am quiet, when I want to be,” she huffed. “And second.” Another finger popped up. “If you’re trying to get some later, I’d advise you not to make fun of your wife.”

I raised an eyebrow and almost smiled. “You want to know why I don’t have to try?”

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “This is a trick.”

I dragged a finger under her jaw and down her neck then lowered my voice to a quiet command. “Lean forward.”

She licked her lips and complied.

I skimmed under the neckline of her shirt and pushed my finger between the perfect cleavage her crossed arms made. I brought my lips to her ear. “You know what it feels like to have me deep inside you.” I stroked between her lush tits and swirled my tongue just below her ear. “You know what my mouth can do to you.”

She groaned softly.

I reached between her legs and cupped her over her jeans. “You’re wet just thinking about it.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

I moved my lips to hers and spoke against them. “I could take you right now because you want me as much as I want you.
That
”—I leaned back, dropped my hands and smiled—“is why I don’t have to try.”

She looked mad and turned on and like she was fighting a smile, all at once.

And I fucking adored her. “I love you, baby.” I told her now, every day.

Her expression melted and she gave me the smile she reserved just for me. “Sixty-seven,” she counted.

I decided to finally come clean. “Sixty-eight,” I corrected.

“What?” she looked confused.

“You missed one.”

Her hands went to her hips. “No, I didn’t.”

“The very first one.”

Innocent, sweet, she looked at me with surprise.

“The third night we were together,” I explained. I hadn’t even had sex with her yet but I knew she was the one. I reached out and held her face. “You fell asleep in my arms.”

She smiled and wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “I remember that night.”

“Your hair was spread across my chest and your hand was holding onto my arm. You were so damn beautiful and trusting. I waited until your breathing evened and I watched you fall asleep.” I stroked her cheek. “Then I told you I was falling in love with you.”