Under Fire: The Admiral (18 page)

The windows to her soul flared in a
full-blown accelerated fire. She palmed his shoulders and shoved,
staggering him, but his grip on the sofa held him in place.

“You. Are. An. Asshole.”

Okay, but she didn’t say leave. They glared
at each other silently and he waited for her next move. If she did
tell him to leave, he would.
But
, he would be back. He meant
what he said. He was not going to let her disappear from his life
without a fight.

The dryer buzzer went off. They both jerked
and looked in the direction of the sound. Gemma uncurled her legs,
planting her feet on the floor between his knees. “Let me up.”

He stood, took a couple of steps back so she
could get up without having to touch him. Which she did, and
stalked to the kitchen without giving him a look. A moment later,
the offending buzzer went silent.

Ben followed her into the kitchen. Her back
was to him, her head lowered, one hand on the dryer door, the other
braced against the wall.

“If my clothes are dry I’ll take them and
change. Then I’ll get out of here.”

She straightened but didn’t turn.

“I’m sorry that you’re upset,” he said. “That
wasn’t my intention. I wanted you to know how I felt. I want a
chance with you. It was selfish. Sam said you run to keep from
getting hurt.” She did a slow turn.
Shit!
Talk about
terminal foot-in-mouth disease. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I’m tired. I haven’t had much sleep the last three days. I’m
making things worse.” He took a step toward her. “My clothes,
please.”

“They aren’t dry,” she said quickly and
reached behind her, slamming the dryer door. “You go out in
this”—she glanced up—“you’ll be soaked in five minutes. It will
take you twice that long to find a cab.”

He said nothing.

She shifted from foot to foot. “You can stay
. . . here.”

His knees actually wobbled
. Thank you,
gawd.

“In the spare bedroom of course.”

“
Of course.
Then tomorrow we can spend
some time together?”

“Don’t push it, Walsh.”

“No, ma’am.” He gave her his best smile, and
son of a bitch if she returned it. She had a smile that would bring
a bull elephant to its knees.

Gemma knew she’d either made the best
decision of her life or the worst. His soft voice with traces of a
Texas accent had captured and held her hostage. Thrilled and
terrified by his words and sincerity she’d been unable to move.
When she blurted out the shitty gratitude fuck remark and he got to
his feet, her heart stopped. She expected him to leave. Wanted him
to leave so she could start getting over him. Instead, he came to
her, his dark sexy eyes putting her under a spell. It had taken
every bit of self-control to keep her hands, and
hell
, her
body, to herself. Yet, she was allowing him to spend the night
here. Granted, it was in another bedroom. In another bed, steps
away from her own. She imagined him naked between the sheets, her
sliding in next to him. She shook her head. Ben took a step
closer.

“I meant what I said about being attracted to
you before I knew you were the woman who . . .”

“I believe you.” He came closer and she felt
a flush travel her neck to her cheeks.

“Another thing. Age is a number.” His hair
was dry and a wavy cluster had fallen to his forehead.

Another step and low in her stomach a warmth
spread.

“It means nothing to me.”

His voice was low and husky. She tried to say
something but no words came out. He was inches away now and all she
could do was think about how his body would feel against hers. She
watched, fascinated, as he moistened his lips with his tongue,
wondered how those lips would feel against hers. The warmth became
a throbbing heat spreading to her breasts. Another step. He grasped
her shoulders and dipped his head. She closed her eyes as his warm
breath misted her face. The full lips she’d been staring at rested
on her cheek, then lifted, and she prepared to receive a full-on
kiss to the lips. She leaned into him but he held her back.

“I’m going to hit the mattress. Thank you for
letting me stay tonight.”

Her lids flew open.

He stroked her cheek. “Not tonight, Gemma.
I’m going to give you time to trust me.” He took a step back,
turned and went for the door, then stopped and turned. “What you
said before about a gratitude fuck.” She flinched and the blush on
her face deepened. “When we get to the
fucking
part, I’d
prefer to call it making love. As for the gratitude, there will be
plenty on my part, and I promise I’ll do everything in my power to
make you feel just as good.” With that he disappeared down the hall
and her legs totally went lo mein noodle.
Holy crap
.

She grabbed the counter to steady herself
until her insides quit doing a happy dance. Oh, Lord. She wanted
him. Wanted to do things to him. Wanted him to do things to her.
Her senses were overloaded with him. Her skin burned each place
he’d touched. Her nostrils were filled with his scent. His voice
vibrated in her memory, tightening her nipples. Her temperature hit
the danger zone. She opened the freezer and palmed a couple of ice
cubes, putting them at her neck. She was more than attracted to Ben
Walsh. She was in full-blown lust with him. But there was something
else. This was more than attraction and lust. Lust was about sex
and companionship. Uncomplicated. Whatever
this
was, it was
complicated and felt very different. She circled the cubes on her
neck as she worked out what was different about
this. Easy to
figure.
He was fourteen years younger and she was afraid of
being hurt. That sobering thought chilled her through and through.
The half-melted cubes hit the sink.

Ben closed the bedroom door with some force
to let her know he was in for the night. Even so she popped her
head into the hallway to make sure he wasn’t there before going to
the living room to collect the plates and food. Well, plates
anyway. Ben had scooped up what was left of the food. She carried
the plates to the kitchen and removed his dry clothes from the
machine, wondering if he’d caught her in the little lie about them
still being wet. She left his folded clothes on a kitchen chair,
then made the rounds in the living room turning lights off and the
thermostat down. She preferred to sleep in the cool. She snagged
her jacket and phone and headed down the hall. As she passed the
guest room door she considered knocking and telling Ben where he
could find an extra blanket. She thought better of it and hustled
to her own room, closing the door very gently.

Gemma normally slept in the raw, but with
company in the apartment—more to the point, with him in the
apartment—it didn’t seem like a good idea. She retrieved a pair of
silk pajamas, went into her tiny bathroom and stripped, examining
her face and body in the full-length mirror attached to the door.
She was fit thanks to exercise and the physical work she’d done
over the years. Her upper arms were firm and the lighthouse tattoo
on her shoulder was in good condition. She turned sideways and ran
a hand over a relatively flat belly. Still, the thought of Ben
seeing her naked was a bit unsettling. Had he ever been with a
woman her age? Doubtful. She leaned close to the mirror. The tiny
lines around her eyes were barely visible. She ran a finger over
the line rising from the bridge of her nose and the smile lines
around her mouth. Her breasts were on the larger size, 34 double
Ds, all her own, with minimal sagging. Had he ever been with a
woman who wasn’t surgically enhanced? Even more doubtful. The women
he’d
been with
were like the women she’d seen in the bar in
Baltimore. Young, hard bodied, perfect.
Fuck.
She leaned to
the mirror, examining her face again. She liked those lines. They
were a part of the woman she was. A woman who’d done things, seen
things. She straightened and raised her chin. She wouldn’t change
even if she could. Besides, it may never get to the point of being
with
him. Yes, it would. Ben had said
when
not
if
, and had it been left to her they’d be naked in her bed
right now. She shrugged into the silk top and took her frustrations
out on her teeth, giving them a vicious brushing. As she turned out
the bathroom light she heard the incoming text tone on her phone
and scrambled across the bed to get it from the bedside table. The
screen came to life with a message from Walsh,
Good night.
The thought of those two words going skyward for hundreds of miles,
bouncing around inside a satellite and coming back hundreds of
miles to her when they were only a few feet apart plastered a smile
on her face so big he could probably hear it across the hall. She
keyed in
Good night
and hit send. Gemma snuggled under the
comforter, returned the phone to the table and switched off the
lamp. In the soft glow of the phone’s light she tried not to think
of how close Ben was.

Three hours later she still wasn’t asleep.
She’d tossed and turned so much she had to get out of bed twice to
straighten the sheets and comforter. Every time she got close to
sleep some impossibly sexy thought of him would pop into her mind.
She thought of his scar and remembered how she’d pressed the ragged
edges of the wound together beneath the water. She thought of lying
next to him running her fingers along it, kissing it. Kissing her
way lower until she took him into her mouth and heard him moan with
pleasure. Her hand slid down her belly, beneath the edge of her pj
bottoms to the wet slit between her legs. Her legs spread as if
anticipating his body to settle between them. Her hips surged,
matching the tempo of her strokes. She bit her lip to keep her own
moan from escaping. To keep him from hearing as her muscles
conducted the wave of pleasure through her body. The release broke
the tension but her body felt cheated, deprived of his heat, his
touch. His weight.
His release
. In a haze she curled around
a pillow and drifted into sleep.

* * *

Jet lag had Ben in its grip. He was
exhausted, but the thought of Gemma lying naked in her bed a few
feet away across the hall kept him from sleeping. He’d only
glimpsed her bedroom in passing. A big bed that took up most of the
small room covered with a thick comforter and several sleeping
pillows, none of those froufrou decorator things. More than
anything he wanted to walk across the narrow hall, throw the covers
back and slip in next to her.
Fuck!
He rolled on his side
and pounded the pillow into submission trying to get comfortable.
Staying here had not been a good idea. He said what he wanted to
say. He should’ve left. He wasn’t used to restraining himself when
it came to sex. Instinctively he knew one misstep with Gemma would
shut him down and he would have to start at square one again. He
couldn’t risk that. He could handle a few days without sex, even a
few weeks. Gawd, that was an awful thought, but it would be worth
it to have her in his life. To get his mind off sex and his
twitching dick he began to mentally tick off surgical instruments
required for different procedures. In the middle of the fifth
procedure the door opened. A naked Gemma floated into the room to
stand beside the bed. He held up the covers. Without a word, she
lay against him and kissed his chest. Her fingers encircled his
shaft, pumping until he was painfully hard. Soft lips kissed their
way down his belly and closed around his swollen head, sucking. She
released him abruptly. Her thigh brushed his erection as her silky
leg crossed his belly and she straddled him. He gripped himself and
stood up his erection. Gemma lowered her body slowly, taking him
into her heat. He reached out to hold her hips and growled with
pleasure. At the sound Gemma vanished and he woke up alone in the
darkness with his dick in his hand. The dream was so damned real he
sat up and looked around the room to make sure she wasn’t there.
Confucius was right, man who go to sleep with hard-on wake up with
solution in hand.

Fuck!
Jerking off in her guest bed was
not the thing to do. He threw back the covers and swung his feet to
the floor. Huffing like he’d just run a three-minute mile, he
gripped the edge of the mattress to keep his hands off himself.
Rain or no rain he had to get out of here before he went to her bed
and screwed everything up. He considered stripping the bed, washing
the sheets and Sam’s clothes but quickly dismissed that idea, as
the machine sounds would wake her. He didn’t need to see her coming
down the hall warm from sleep and in some skimpy thing he’d want to
take off her. He listened at the door a moment to be sure she
wasn’t wandering the apartment trying to figure out where the groan
came from, then cracked open the door and quickly streaked to the
kitchen. She’d left an under-the-cabinet light on and he found his
clothes folded on the chair where his jacket hung. Hopping on one
foot then the other, he slid into his jeans. As he buttoned his
shirt he backtracked into the living room to retrieve his shoes and
paused at the window to check the weather. Water coating the
streets glistened in the circles of light given off by
streetlights, but the rain had stopped. He forced his feet into
still wet shoes and made for the door, then stopped. He couldn’t
just leave. He considered a text but the sound would wake her, and
the warm and something skimpy image popped up again. Using the
light from his cell he found paper and pen on her desk and returned
to the kitchen table. Careful to use his best handwriting, not his
normal work scrawl, he wrote then arranged the paper on the small
table so she would see it the moment she entered. He shrugged into
his jacket, went to the door, freed the chain and turned. Opening
and closing the door could create a draft, sending the note off the
table, maybe under the fridge. He went back and stood the note
against a glass, securing it with salt and pepper shakers and
checked the angle for optimum viewing from the hall.