SEALed With a Kiss: Even a Hero Needs Help Sometimes... (35 page)

Pickett groaned her approval and the heat of her hands kneading his back shot straight to his groin. But in a surprise move she pulled away.

"Now, sit down. Here," she bumped the wooden seat of the swing against his shins and pushed the rope into his hand. "Sit in the swing."

The swing seat was a wide plank, clearly planned for the adult derriere or perhaps to allow two children to swing side by side.

"Okay," she approved once he was seated. The moonlight that penetrated the thick foliage stripped her face of all color, but her teeth gleamed in a smile of intelligent mischief. "I'm not really sure how to do this."

God, he hated to interrupt this, but he had to ask. "I don't know what you're doing but aren't you forgetting something?"

"Oh. Right." Her hand dived into the pocket of the skirt and dropped a foil packet into his lap. She placed one bare foot beside his hip, and grabbing the rope, stood up on the seat, legs spread to straddle him.

"This is good," he said as he lifted her skirt to nuzzle the inside of her thigh now tantalizingly close to his mouth. The scent of her arousal mixed with the smell of the humid night. He pressed wet licking kisses along the satin skin.

Her "oh!" was more of an inhalation than a word. "Yes. But this is not why we came out here."

He tipped his head back to look up at her face. "Oh baby, you are wrong!" he chuckled. "It's definitely why I'm out here."

She swung her hips out, bending until her face was level with his. "There is
more,"
she assured him, "and you are going to be grateful to the goddess of love that I practice yoga."

Slowly, hanging onto the ropes, she lowered herself into his lap.

She released her right hand from the rope. "Okay, balance me," she instructed as she gently took his throbbing erection to her entrance.

His strong hands clasped her ribcage, lifting her up slightly so that she could get her feet out from under her and let them dangle behind.

They groaned in unison with pleasure as he lowered her to surround him and to be filled.

"Um," she said, after a lingering kiss, "I have always wanted to try this."

"What gave you the idea?" Could it possibly be that, lodged hot and tight in a woman's body, he was interested in her
mind?
God, this woman was fun.

"I saw a Japanese woodcut once in an art history book. I never forgot it. A man and a woman swinging together, their kimonos flowing around them. It was so very beautiful and lyrical... It took me a minute to understand what they were doing."

The honest consternation in her tone made his belly ripple with amusement. Her gasp told him she felt the movement at the center of her body. He felt her answering chuckle massage him with the same delicious effects. "Gives a whole new dimension to the concept of 'swinging,' doesn't it?"

"So what do we do now?"

"Well, I hold on to you with my legs, and we both hold on to the ropes and you swing us."

Gently he pushed off with his feet, felt her slide away, then as the swing ascended through its forward arc, slide toward him.

"Don't you slip off my lap." He fought the urge to grab her to him, knowing that releasing a hand on one rope would make the swing lurch. "Don't you dare fall!" It took several passes for him to become confident that she was secure. The gentle rocking, the slow stroking, tantalized yet withstood all his efforts to be in charge of it. Gradually though, he gave in to the motion of the swing, allowing the slippery friction where they were joined to just happen, no one in control. By imperceptible degrees there crept over him an awareness, not just of mutual pleasure, but of sharing, of
mingled
pleasure that was unlike anything he had ever known. His heart swelled, even as his cock grew harder.

"More," she demanded in a breathy whisper, "higher!"

"I'm not going to last long," he said with genuine regret. If he could, he would never let go of this sense of being joined in this timeless moment. But even as he said it, he could feel the walls of her slick passage tightening around him. His powerful arms pumped against the ropes to carry them higher and higher, airborne in the soft, dark night. At the instant of freefall he felt the rippling squeeze of her climax, heard her cries of release. He realized he had lost all control and hooked his elbows around the ropes, forming a protective cage around her while his body pumped and shuddered.

Long moments later, once the swing had come to rest, he pressed a kiss to her damp hairline. "Come on, we've got to move."

Limp, she slumped against him. "Unh-unh. Stay like this."

"It's not safe, sweetheart. The condom could slip." He was surprised at how much, right that minute, he wished he didn't care if it did. He wished this moment of joy, this sense of completion shared, could result in a baby. He jiggled her gently. "Lock your legs around me. I'm going to stand up."

Using the old schoolyard trick of walking the swing back until his legs were straight, balancing her weight while getting his feet under him was easy; however, when Pickett's feet touched the ground she lurched and wobbled against him. Jax dealt with the condom with one hand while steadying her with the other.

"Whoa!" she gasped with a shaky laugh. "Knee failure! I'm not sure I can walk."

"Are you all right? Do you want me to carry you?" Not waiting for an answer he swept her up into his arms. Surprised, she clutched at his shoulders.

"Can you? Carry me, I mean? All the way to the house?"

He thought about the thirty yards or so to the door, her one hundred ten pounds. "Yes, ma'am," he said with wry understatement. "I, a Navy SEAL, can do this."

"Merciful heavens!" Jax bit the inside of his cheek at Pickett's idea of a swear word. She dropped her arms and let her head fall back in a mock faint. "This is sooo romantic!"

A laugh rang out in the night. Rich, full-throated, masculine, deep.

He was still chuckling as he carried her, all soft and warm and sleepy, into the bedroom.

A week later, when Jax pulled the Cherokee into the parking spot near the back door, his heart gave a little kick of gladness.
It was good to be home.

Oh man. He almost physically recoiled. He'd better think over what was going down here. This wasn't home, not his home anyway. Getting attached to somebody else's home was the stupidest thing he could do. He knew. He'd done that before and paid the price.

Corey's home, not the house Jax's father owned, was the first home he'd ever known. When Corey was gone, it was too.

And the little house he'd shared with Danielle. Danielle had put so much of herself into it, fixing it up for the baby, it really seemed to be hers.
Her home
that he'd shared.

"Are we going to stay here tonight, Daddy?" Jax had Tyler unbuckled, and now he scooped him up to swing him to the ground. Since it made Tyler squeal with glee, Jax added a much larger swing than strictly necessary, then pulled the giggling child close for a hug. He nuzzled the little boy-scented neck and added a kiss.

Jax smiled to himself. He could hear Pickett saying, "Did you kiss him? You don't want him to grow up thinking men don't kiss men, do you?"
Goodness me, no,
he thought with soft sarcasm. Wouldn't want that. But it turned out kissing Tyler was its own reward.

Pickett was always pointing out what he was teaching Tyler by his actions, but it seemed to him that Tyler was doing most of the teaching. For instance how much he liked hugging and kissing the little kid.

He was going to miss this. His heart contracted at the bleak knowledge that somebody else was going to get Tyler's hugs and kisses. There was no use dwelling on that.

"Huh? Daddy? Are we going to stay here tonight?"

"Yes." Jax would have thought it was obvious, but Tyler seemed to have a lot of questions about what was going to happen. The thought of how much Tyler was at the mercy or the whim or the careful consideration of the adults around him struck Jax with such force that he halted in mid-stride.

Did Tyler want to live with his grandmother? What would Jax
do
if Tyler said he didn't?

"Do we live at Pickett's house now?" Tyler's question was an eerie echo of his own thoughts. "I like living at Pickett's house. Can we stay here forever?"

"Don't you want to live with your grandmother?"

"No." With that single word it was as if a switch had been thrown and the Tyler of two weeks ago appeared. He stiffened, then wiggled to be let down.

Jax set Tyler down, but his arms felt ... bereft. Tyler walked away without a backward glance. In a minute Jax heard him at the screen door calling for Pickett and Lucy.

Hobo Joe came racing around the house as fast as a three-legged dog could, his tongue lolling in a pink doggy-smile. The old reprobate looked glad to see them. Glad to see Tyler anyway. Hobo Joe had accepted Tyler right off, but still kept his distance from Jax.

Jax started for the door himself, but more slowly. Hobo Joe moved to stand in his way. The big old dog must be getting used to him. He never came this close. True, he was still outside arm's reach, but closer than ever before.

"Hello, Hobo Joe. How're you doing, fella?" The absurdity of asking a dog how he felt almost didn't register. Pickett did stuff like that all the time, but he didn't.

Being around Pickett was changing him. Changes he wasn't sure he wanted to make. Like asking a dog a question. Like worrying about what he was teaching Tyler by his actions. Some of what Pickett said seemed pretty silly to him, men kissing men for example, but still he found himself thinking about it.

Hobo Joe took a step closer, yellow eyes fixed on Jax's face. It felt like the dog wanted something. Hobo took another step, almost within arm's reach now.

"What do you want, old boy?" He was doing it again, talking to the dog, but it felt right. "You want to come to me, but you're scared?"

Moving slowly, Jax knelt in front of the dog and stretched out a hand, palm up. The same way Pickett said he should approach Tyler. "You look huge to him. You'll be easier to come to if you make yourself smaller." It worked with Tyler. Maybe it would work with the dog.

Hobo took another hesitant step, backed up, then came forward again.

"You want to, don't you? But it's pretty scary to even let yourself want it, isn't it?" Jax continued to kneel, talking softly to the dog. "Everybody gets hugs and kisses and petting but you. You get plenty of food and a place to sleep. And it's not enough anymore, is it? You let Pickett pet you but you never ask for petting. Is that what you're asking for now? Well, come on. You can trust me."

Jax knelt in the sandy driveway, hand outstretched with the absolute command of stillness. Though he didn't do it consciously he talked in the slow, almost uninflected rumble that gave his men confidence in tight situations. His senses took on the same heightened alertness. He was aware of the coolness of the breeze that barely touched his cheek, the whir of a late cicada, the salty, muddy smell of marsh, and the smell of the dog's rough coat.

And he was aware of an odd resonance to his words, as if he were talking to something more than the dog. As if he were talking about something more than how the dog felt.