They hugged with a loud and heavy slap to each other’s backs. Kyle’s voice drew low, but Rebecca could still hear him. “I haven’t forgotten what you said. You know I love you too, don’t you?”
Manny nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“I’ll prove it to you. Just let me.”
Manny’s gaze darted toward Rebecca and then back to Kyle. “If it were that easy, I would. But one of us needs to be responsible about this.” He tapped him again, and they separated.
Rebecca watched him leave, but the knot in her stomach wasn’t going anywhere. She wasn’t blind—stupefied by lust on occasion, yes, but not blind. Manny wanted her out of the apartment as soon as possible; he was just too much of a gentleman to say so. Who could blame him? The place wasn’t big enough for two people who barely knew each other beyond the good banter they gave and a few bouts of oral fixation. Even lovers in the proper sense of the word would have a hard time keeping out of each other’s hair, and they didn’t really qualify as that, did they? They didn’t really qualify as anything, and Manny couldn’t have been clearer last night about what he didn’t want from her.
Not to mention that whatever was going on between him and Kyle needed space to unfold. They didn’t need her in the way, batting her eyelashes and confusing them all. Come Wednesday, she’d have to find a new place, even if it smelled like old cheese and farts.
* * *
By noon, the house was quiet with Olivia sealed up in her office and Kyle out with his father supervising the cleanup from the party. The small, cozy library next to the family room seemed like a great place to work. She folded her legs on the tufted leather couch and placed the box on the coffee table in front of her. Beneath the photos and the clutch of letters was a folder holding a few loose newspaper cuttings. Curious, Rebecca read the first one and found herself touching the headline.
Aviators Receive Valor Awards for Distinguished Service in Afghanistan
She read the next ones.
Son of Senator Volunteers for Third Tour of Duty
Heroes Defend Supply Transport under Fire
She continued to read.
Marine helicopter pilots Capt. Manuel Tescadero and Capt. Kyle Hunter took fire over the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, rendering their AH-1W Super Cobra disabled while defending a supply transport motorcade. Though leaking fuel, Gunner Copilot Capt. Manuel Tescadero maintained his target, concealed within a Madrasa for young boys, eliminating the ground threat. Additional hostile forces took formation on the road with anti-aircraft missiles, ushering a group of school children in front of them as human shields.
“I had to risk flying low enough to be shot down in order to ensure Captain Tescadero had a clean shot at the launcher,” says Capt. Kyle Hunter. Witnesses say he took several passes. Though the AH-1W Super Cobra was riddled with bullets, no US casualties were reported.
The article was dated only seven months ago. Rebecca was staggered by the visuals playing in her head. Of course they’d been in danger; they’d been to war. What did she expect? But this wasn’t a news report of soldiers she’d never meet. She knew these men, and reading the details of their service made her look at them differently.
Kyle might seem all jokes and fun, and even Manny took to teasing her within an inch of her patience, but they were warriors beneath all their boyish antics. They were warriors who found something they needed in each other. The pure beauty of that sunk in.
She tucked the articles back into the folder and picked up the clutch of letters tied together with a faded pink ribbon. They were yellowed and delicate. Rebecca used a tissue to handle them, since she hadn’t brought along a pair of gloves.
“Want some help?”
She looked up to find Kyle standing in the doorway.
“Have you read these letters?”
He shook his head. “No, I was in Afghanistan when they surfaced.”
She smiled and waved him in. “This is your family history. I’d feel weird reading them before you.”
Kyle slid onto the sofa next to her. He really did look different to her now, though there wasn’t a change to his square jaw or the slight upturn of that button nose. No, his face wasn’t any more or less handsome than it had always been. His hair was still blond and just disheveled enough to confirm he didn’t actually try to look so damn perfect. But she saw something deeper in the aqua pools of his eyes. She saw honor and bravery, making him sexier than anything else could have possibly.
He spotted the folder with the tip of an article peeking out. Rebecca opened the folder, full of curiosity and excitement as she started to speak about the stories of heroism she’d read. Kyle put his hand up in front of her lips, not touching, but almost.
“No, don’t.” He smiled, though thinly, kicking back and resting his hands behind his head. “Read me the pretty things my great-great-grandparents wrote to each other. I already know what happened in that folder.”
She registered the subtle pleading in his tone and thought back to the previous day with all the handshakes and photo-ops he and Manny had done as though they were second nature. With Rebecca, he didn’t want to put on that show.
She nodded. With her, he didn’t have to. She leaned back next to him, into the plush cushions, and began with the first correspondence.
* * *
Kyle listened to her read, watched her lips move and her eyes light with the sentiments that had been poured into the words. It wasn’t so much what she was saying that had him enthralled; it was how she said it. Kyle wasn’t used to sitting in one place for very long. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made it through an entire movie or read a book. The ballgame was on, and he’d planned on taking a run listening to it on satellite radio. But Rebecca had him captivated.
My dearest, an hour hasn’t yet passed since I glimpsed you with your mother at the butcher. It took all my will and power not to steal you from her and take you to a place where my love would not be questioned. Should there be a place, we will find it. This I promise you.
“Oh my God, that is so sweet,” Rebecca pressed her hand to her heart.
Kyle shook his head. What a girl! Only he thought it was adorable. Problem was, adorable was only a hop, skip, and a jump away from irresistible, and Kyle wasn’t sure he could behave himself with that kind of temptation. He sighed. “It’s so sweet, I could get a cavity.”
“Kyle, your great-great-grandparents fought to be together. If they had given up, you wouldn’t even be here.” She frowned at him. “Don’t you have a romantic bone somewhere in that body?”
He grinned. “Aw, honey, you aren’t making this easy.”
“Hmm?” Rebecca flushed red. “Oh! You know that wasn’t what I meant.” She picked up her notebook and jotted down the date on the letter. She swept her eyes at him sideways for just a moment. She parted her mouth slightly, but shut it again almost immediately.
Kyle tilted his head. “You were about to say something.”
She took a breath and eased closer, speaking in a hushed tone. “You said that you and Manny have had threesomes before.”
Kyle liked where this conversation was headed. He smiled. “Yes, a few times. At Annapolis, when Manny dated this waitress who was into it.”
“So it was her idea?”
“That’s what Manny said. She had this fantasy…Anyway, Manny broke it off with her not long after that.”
“Oh.”
“Not because of the sex.”
“Hmm,” she said, seeming to come to her own conclusion. She picked up the letter again. Kyle touched her wrist, and she looked back up at him.
“Had you ever thought about it before last night?” he asked.
She paused before answering, her lashes fluttering in front of him, sweet pink tinting her cheeks. “No.”
He curled his lip at the corner. Oh, how he loved a challenge. “How about since last night?”
Rebecca just pursed her lips, as if she held something between them.
“You should answer me. It’s not polite to just ignore the question.” He arched an eyebrow at her, his gaze falling from her soft gray eyes to those pink, petal lips. How could just looking at her make him hard?
“What do you expect? It was the most embarrassing night of my life.”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”
She flashed him a look of real shock. “Excuse me?”
He pressed on. “I think you’re only saying that because in your mind it sounds better than admitting that you wanted it to happen.”
“Well, thank you, Dr. Freud.”
Kyle grinned, holding his hands up. “No problem. We can drop it.” He leaned back. “Is there more to that letter?”
Rebecca huffed and picked up the letter, scanning it several times. Her heel tapped a drumroll against the base of the couch. She huffed again and turned back to Kyle. “You know, I am completely confused by both of you.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
She put the letter down. “First of all, are you gay?”
“So far there’s just been Manny.”
“So how long have you two been…been…”
“Fucking?”
She nodded.
“Six months or so.”
“Weren’t you jealous when I came here with him?”
He shook his head. “You’ve got to understand. I thought that I had pushed Manny out of my life. I fucked up, badly. I was just glad to see him.” He wondered how much Manny had told her. Knowing Manny, probably not much. “What we have runs deeper than sex. If he’s attracted to someone else, it doesn’t bother me.” Kyle paused and decided to put it all out there. “Even when we had those threesomes back in college, I knew I loved him. Just seeing him happy made me happy. Actually, the women he dated were the ones jealous of our friendship.”
“They’d probably gone into it for the whole two-hot-guys-sharing-one-woman fantasy, but really they were sharing Manny with you.”
Kyle shot her a sly look. “Two-hot-guys fantasy…that wouldn’t be something you know about, would it?” He could see the effort she took not to blush.
Her eyes blazed at him. “Not giving you the satisfaction, Kyle. Sorry.”
He nodded. “Fine. But you have no idea how much I like a challenge.” She did blush that time, and he celebrated silently, before continuing. “So, even though Manny and I weren’t actually having sex with each other yet, she didn’t handle the idea of sharing him well at all.”
“Who could?”
“I could.” Kyle fixed his eyes on her, wondering if she understood what he meant. From the moment Manny arrived with Rebecca, he’d seen the way she made him feel, the life she brought to him. War had stained Manny, stolen a chunk of his spirit, and Kyle had watched his friend become more hollow inside month after month. If Rebecca brought a smile to his face, then all Kyle wanted to do was help her keep it there. “No bullshit. I could share.”
Rebecca swallowed hard, and Kyle was reminded of how she’d swallowed Manny’s seed so eagerly the night before. “It’s kind of crazy,” she said finally.
“Why?”
“Seriously?” Rebecca’s eyes grew wide as saucers. She pressed her lips together. Kyle could practically see the wheels turning underneath her mass of wavy curls.
“I’m waiting.”
“You just can’t let the person you love…love someone else.”
“How do you know? Have you tried it?”
“No.”
“You ever tried sucking a cock with another guy before last night?”
Rebecca gasped. “No! Of course not.”
He leaned in close. “So, lesson learned. Don’t knock anything you haven’t tried.”
She let her mouth fall open a little, that pouty bottom lip begging for him to tug on it with his teeth. Curse his lack of discipline; Manny would never approve, but fuck it. He had to taste those lips. A simple kiss wouldn’t hurt anyone. She opened to him slowly, hesitantly, and Kyle didn’t take more than she gave. But the soft warmth of her tongue roused something primal inside him. They had to stop or he really couldn’t be held accountable.
His voice came as a raspy whisper. “Does this mean I get to see you in that hot bra and panty set again?”
She shoved him back with both hands, and he was already laughing.
“Guess that’s a no.”
Chapter Ten
After reading through the collection with Kyle, Rebecca spent the afternoon mostly alone with thirty-two love letters and her thoughts. Overdosing on sweet nothings was absolutely the worst medicine for a confused heart. When she finally put the cover back on the box, she was certain she’d never be able to put away the questions spinning in her head: could she really be OK with a threesome?
But hadn’t she already crossed that line? She and Kyle had brought Manny to orgasm together, taking turns sucking his dick and just as eager to seek each other’s mouths in the process. And it had been beyond sexy. Completely mind-blowing was a better description, and she hadn’t even been the one to come.
Rebecca sighed. It was definitely the most arousing thing she’d ever done. It was so hot the memory haunted her, begging to be repeated. If only she could manage to stop being so puzzled by the whole thing.
Why couldn’t she allow herself to want this? What was stopping her? Rebecca wasn’t a prude. She dabbled in smutty novels, had her secret stash of erotic photos, and wasn’t a stranger to cable TV’s more explicit programming. But all her fantasies were enjoyed from a comfortable distance. That was the way she was most comfortable with everything, including the people in her life. Comfort and safety—wasn’t that what everyone wanted? But lonely wasn’t supposed to be on that same short list.
She could have some fun, couldn’t she? Maybe she’d live out one of the poses in her black-and-white erotic prints. But even though she’d only just met both of these men, it was perfectly clear her desires weren’t just about sex.
Manny already had a piece of her heart, and with the way Kyle had soaked her panties that morning in the library, there was no mistaking the attraction there. Simple kiss or not, being on the receiving end of Kyle Hunter was like a parachute jump—all intense exhilaration in the name of fun, but better watch it or splat. Somehow, Rebecca didn’t think Kyle had a clue of just how dangerous he was.