Sea of Dreams (The American Heroes Series Book 2) (12 page)

“I love you, too.”

He froze mid-sentence, his eyes widening with shock. “You do?”

Blakesley nodded and started crying.  Her head fell forward, onto his shoulder.

“Yes,” she sobbed, holding his neck tightly. “I do.  I really do.  But I’m so scared…  Beck, being separated from you was hell. I know that’s why your wife left you and I’m sorry if I don’t like it, either, but I’ll try to get used to it. I promise I’ll try.”

He held her tightly, so tightly that he was squeezing the air out of her lungs. “Baby, it’s all right,” he assured her, absolutely giddy with what she was saying. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll work something out, I promise. I don’t want to be away from you, either.  Please don’t cry about it.”

“I’m not crying about it.”

“You could have fooled me.”  He rubbed her back when she sobbed rather dramatically, kissing the side of her head.  He couldn’t help the smile on his lips. “I love you, too, baby.  I love you so much.”

Blakesley clung to him, all wrapped up around him, as he hugged her and soothed her. It was as sweet a reunion as it could possibly be, something he had hoped for but didn’t really believe would happen. He’s spend seven days wondering if she would have realized, upon reflection and separation, that she really wasn’t as attracted to him as she thought.  He had been terrified about it. Now, he couldn’t believe things were better than when he had left.

Blakesley slowed her tears, pulling her face from the crook of his neck and wiping at her eyes.  She still had one arm firmly around his neck, looking at him with a sad, wet face.  He gazed back at her, thinking he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.  He was a man in total, utter love.

“What happened?” she sniffled, touching the red lump on his cheekbone.

He grunted. “I was fighting three hundred pissed-off Mexicans and one of them clocked me.”

She grinned in spite of herself, knowing was teasing her and suspecting she could ask the question twenty different ways and he would never give her a straight answer.  She was coming to figure that out about him.

“You went to Mexico?” her eyes narrowed. “Did you bring me anything?”

He grinned. “Like what?”

“Tequila,” she said. “Jewelry, perfume or designer handbags.”

He laughed softly. “I wasn’t shopping.”

“You can can’t go to Mexico and not shop.”

He cocked his head at her, studying her sweet face. “I brought you two dozen red roses.”

She gasped softly as if just remembering, releasing her hold on him and gasping again when she saw what happened to her flowers.

“Oh, no,” she knelt down, picking up the smashed flowers. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to take such bad care of them.

He knelt down beside her and helped her collect them.   “All things considered,” he winked at her as they stood up, flowers in her arms. “The flowers were a small sacrifice for such a spectacular hug.”

She smiled and went back into the kitchen with Beck on her heels.  A couple of laborers were stripping  years of soot off the ceiling as she propped the roses up in the old sink, put in the stopper, and began to fill it up with water.  Beck crossed his big arms and leaned back against the counter, watching her try to fix the broken flowers.  He tore his eyes off her long enough to look around the old, torn-up kitchen.

“Please don’t tell me you’re staying here with the girls,” he said quietly.

She looked at him. “No,” she said. “I took your advice and moved to another hotel. We’re at the Extended Stay over in Mission Valley.”

“Good,” he said firmly. “I’m glad you listened to me.”

She shrugged. “It made sense,” she said. “This is no place for three little girls. They’d just be in the way. The contractor tells me that the house won’t be ready for at least six weeks, so I guess we’re going to call the hotel ‘home’ until then. I’m not real thrilled about that because Cadee and Crosby will be starting summer school in a couple of weeks, but I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Have you enrolled them yet?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“How are they doing?”

She smiled. “Fine,” she said. “My nanny from Los Angeles joined us a few days ago, so they’re very happy and taken care of. They’re at the zoo right now.”

“And you’re here overseeing the house.”

“That about sums up my life for the past week.”

She turned off the faucet, finished fussing with the roses, and turned to him.  She reached up and ran a hand over his forehead, his cropped blond hair.  He closed his eyes, savoring her gentle touch.

“What about you?” she asked softly. “You look so tired. What are you going to do now that you’re back?”

He kept his eyes closed as she ran her fingers across his scalp, gently moving down his face to his dimpled chin.  He was enjoying every second of it, having dreamed of moments like this in the days they spent apart.

“I haven’t slept much,” he admitted, his eyes rolling open. “I don’t have to report in until tomorrow.  I was hoping to spend the time with you.”

She smiled faintly and leaned against him, her face upturned to him.  Beck unfolded his arms and wrapped her up in them.

“The girls are going to be at the zoo most of the day,” she said softly. “So I’m thinking that you and I should go some place with a bed so you can rest.”

He lifted his eyebrows at her. “If you and I are someplace with a bed, resting is going to be the last thing I want to do.”

She giggled. “I have something else in mind.”

“What?”

“Please,” she caressed his cheek again. “Just… let me do something for you.”

He couldn’t refuse. He’d been waiting for this moment his entire life and he only just now realized it.

***

Blakesley took Beck back to the hotel where she and the girls had a suite. The first thing she did was have him sit down and take off his shoes, and while he was unlacing his boots, she went into her bathroom with the big deep-soak tub and began running him a bath.   He could hear her moving around in the bathroom as he pulled his shoes off, feeling more exhaustion by the moment. 

He pulled of his tee shirt and wearily rose, heading into the bathroom that now smelled like something flowery and lemony.  There were bubbles in the bathtub and he wasn’t too sure about that until she turned around and demanded he remove his pants.  He did without hesitation.  He was all set to pull her against his naked body when she side-stepped him and made him get into the tub.

Disappointed, he did as he was told. As Beck settled back against the tub, Blakesley busied herself over at the bathroom counter. He sighed with contentment, feeling drowsy with the heat and thinking maybe a bubble bath wasn’t such a bad thing, all the while watching her curiously as she made her way back over to him. She had something on her hands and she sat on the back of the tub and began rubbing his shoulders.

He audible groaned as she began to massage him with some kind of oil that didn’t smell too girly.  In fact, he rather liked it.   The more she rubbed, the more relaxed and content he began to feel, an outcome to eight days of brutal conditions that he could have never imagined.   Blakesley had magic fingers as she rubbed his tense shoulders and neck, moving down his arms and then back to his neck again.  He soaked it up, savored it,  falling half-asleep as she rubbed until she made him sit forward so she could get to his back.

Blakesley massaged his back, using techniques she had learned from a girlfriend who was a masseuse, rubbing out the knots and taking the time to become acquainted with his body.  Their passionate rendezvous in the kitchen seven days before hadn’t afforded her a real opportunity to study him, but as she rubbed his tense flesh, she studied every inch of tanned skin.

 As she had noticed from the onset, the man was just plain big, with big muscles and big hands.  He had a very broad chest, something she took the time to explore as she had rubbed his shoulders and arms.   But as she ran her hands over him, she could also see that he was scarred and bruised. He had a particularly large bruise on his right kidney, a big greenish blob.   He had another bruise on his right arm, a big one, and both of his hands were scraped up pretty good.  All of his knuckles had scabs and scrapes on them. The more she massaged him, the more injuries she seemed to notice.  The man looked beat to hell.

After taking about ten minutes on his back, she had him sit back in the tub and she brought out the body wash and shampoo. Beck opened his eyes long enough to suspiciously eye the products, hoping nothing was particularly girly-smelling but willing to go along with her anyway, but fortunately, she happened to have a sample of the Hermes unisex-scent body wash.  She let him smell it, and approve it, before lathering up one of her sponges and going to work on him.

As Beck lay back against the tub, he seriously thought he had died and gone to heaven.  Never in his life had he known such attention or pleasure, from anyone, and as Blakesley silently washed his shoulders and back and chest, he just sat there and enjoyed every single minute.   She had him lift one big leg out of the tub, which she washed, and then the other.  She even washed his hair with it.  All soaped up, she put the sponge aside and used the little hand-held shower fixture to rinse him off.  By the time she was finished,  Beck was putty.  He was exhausted, warm, massaged and limp, so she popped the tub drain and had him get out.

He did, staggering because he was so exhausted and relaxed, and she wrapped a towel around him as she pulled him out to the bedroom.  He fell on the bed, still damp, as Blakesley did her best to dry him.  She could only get to the back of him because of the way he had fallen on the bed and before she reached his head, he was snoring heavily on the sheets.  

With a smile, she stopped drying and pulled the covers up over him.  He had said that if they went someplace with a bed, resting would be the last thing on his mind, but that was not the case.  She couldn’t imagine what the man had done over the past seven days but she was pretty sure she really didn’t want to know.  All she knew was that he was here now, he was safe, and she was happy.

She sat down next to him on the bed, hand on his damp head, and watched him while he slept.

***

“Beck?”

He heard his name, whispered in his ear in a deliciously sensual female voice, and he smiled.  It was sweet and heavenly.   In the haze between sleep and consciousness, he heard his name a couple of times, murmured by an angel.

“Beck?” Blakesley rubbed his back gently. “Beck, are you awake?”

Beck became lucid, instantly awake when he realized someone was trying to wake him.  He rolled on to his back to find himself gazing up into Blakesley’s lovely face.  It was the best thing in the world he could wake up to as far as he was concerned and he smiled sleepily at her.

“Hi, baby,” he murmured, putting a big hand up to gently cup her head.  Then he pulled the arm back to look at his watch. “What time is it? I feel like I’ve been asleep for years.”

“It’s around three,” she said even though he was looking at his watch. “I hate to wake you, but I need to go get the girls and I didn’t want you to wake up and find out I was gone.  Do you want to go with me or do you want to stay here and sleep?”

He was already sitting up. “I’ll go with you,” he said, groggy, running his hands over his face as if to rub the sleep from his mind. “I’ll get dressed and we can go.”

She grasped him as he staggered up. “Slow down,” she told him. “We’ve got some time.”

He just winked at her and teetered his way into the bathroom as the towel Blakesley had put around his waist when he first got out of the bath fell off onto the floor. Blakesley watched his naked buttocks as he entered the bathroom and shut the door, disappointed when her peep show was cut short.  The man had an amazing ass.  In fact, she’d spent the past four hours watching him sleep and had come to the conclusion that pretty much everything about him was amazing.  That was becoming increasingly evident.

Beck was dressed and wide awake in little time, taking the time to wash his face and at least make an attempt to clean up. He bought a caffeinated energy drink from the hotel’s vending machine as they left the lobby and passed their way out to the parking lot.  The day was moderately hazy with fairly mild temperatures, not entirely out of character for the bay area of San Diego, with the air smelling heavily of pungent carob trees.

Blakesley drove, letting him relax in the passenger seat and down his drink.  He commented on the traffic, the weather, and mentioned that he felt the need to go to Sea World because he had missed out on the other day. He liked the whales.  Blakesley grinned at him, feeling his big hand affectionately on her shoulder as they made their way from Hotel Circle Drive along the 8 Freeway to the San Diego Zoo,  about four miles away.   By the time they reached the zoo, he was wide awake and making dinner plans.   Blakesley just went along, thrilled to be listening to him, whatever the subject.

They pulled up to the Zoo’s entrance with its big zoo sign and lush landscape where Cadee, Crosby, Charlotte and Nikki were waiting. A sea breeze was bending the eucalyptus trees, scattering leaves. When Blakesley put the car in park to load the girls up, Beck climbed out of the car and the two younger girls went crazy.

Beck found himself surrounded by two very happy little ladies.  Charlotte held one of his hands and Crosby held the other as they told him about the zoo. They liked the monkeys in particular because the monkeys would smell their own butts.  They laughed hysterically about that. Blakesley and Nikki loaded up the car with the stroller and diaper bag as Charlotte showed Beck her scraped knee, which got his immediate sympathy.  Crosby wanted to know if he was sympathetic enough to buy them ice cream but according to Blakesley, he wasn’t. 

Disappointed, Crosby climbed into the car after Cadee as Blakesley secured Charlotte in her car seat.  Homely and overweight Nikki was very quiet and shy when introduced to Beck, and she climbed into the back 3rd row seat with the stroller and diaper bag for company as Blakesley started up the car and off they went.