by Julie Miller
His arms shook, the whole chair vibrating with the tension and doubt working through him. “You’ve never been afraid of me, have you? Even beat up and scarred like I am, you hug like it’s going out of style. You kiss, you grab, you talk—”
“Sounds a little annoying when you put it that way.”
He shook his head, still wrapping his mind around the idea that Daisy wanted to be with him. “I’m taking advantage of your kindness.”
“You’re giving me value by trusting me with your fears, by sharing your darkest feelings, by helping me understand you.” She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and Harry’s fingers were there to capture the silky wave and tuck it behind her ear. “I was with Brock for a year and a half. Believe me, I’ll take trust and honesty with a fractured brain and sexy masculinity over control and isolation any day.”
His fingers feathered into her hair. “Sexy?”
“Beautiful eyes, muscles for days.” He held himself still as she crawled up his body. She gently kissed the lid above each eye, then kissed his cheek, the point of his chin, the hollow of his neck, gently, seductively working her way down to his chest where she kissed both the scarred surface and the healthy skin that leaped with eagerness at her touch. “Interesting that sexy is the word you keyed in on.”
“After everything I’ve told you, you still want this—us—to happen?”
She harrumphed a dramatic sigh, folded her arms over his chest and rested her chin there. “I’m lying on top of you, I can feel your arousal pressing against my hip, which is really good for my ego because it means I’m halfway irresistible, and if you don’t kiss me—I mean, really kiss me like I think you want to—soon, then I’m just going to keep right on talking. And you will never be able to shut me up.”
“You aren’t halfway anything.” Harry didn’t need much encouragement to give in to what his body had been craving.
He righted the chair, spilling Daisy into his lap. His hands were there to catch her bottom and pull her back against his chest. She slipped her arms around his neck, welcoming his kiss as he laid claim to her beautiful mouth. He wasn’t smooth, but he was hungry for her. Her fingers teased the nape of his neck again, skidded over his prickly hair, then boldly framed his face to keep their lips aligned as her knees parted and dropped to either side of his thighs. Her warm soft heat cupped the aching desire growing stiff inside his jeans and he moaned. He needed more. He needed everything.
Harry moved his hands to the front of her robe to free the knot, knocking into her hands as they worked the top button of his jeans. She laughed and he pressed his lips to the sound in her throat. The angle was wrong, and he was a little too ready for her to work his zipper down, so he caught her wrists and moved her hands to his chest where they happily explored each spasm of muscle that yearned for her touch.
Harry pushed her robe open and tugged at the buttons of her pajama top. Flowered flannel shouldn’t be so damn sexy, but it was as he dragged the soft cotton over her shoulders and down her arms, revealing her heavy breasts to his appreciative gaze. The tips were a pretty pink, and straining to attention in the chilly air.
Her arms were trapped in the ends of the sleeves, but he let her wiggle herself free. He was too busy sliding his hands around to the soft skin of her back while he dropped his lips to the generous swell of one breast, and then the other, catching a nipple in his mouth when it bounced too close. Harry closed his lips around the tip, laving the sweet bud with his tongue until he heard a whimper against his ear.
“I’m sorry.” Harry withdrew immediately, drawing in deep breaths to reclaim his equilibrium. He clasped her face between his hands and sought out any sign of pain he might have caused in her darkened blue eyes. “I can’t feel everything I do to you. There’s nerve damage. If I’m doing something you don’t like—”
“That, sir, was the brink of ecstasy. I’ll let you know when I’m not enjoying myself.” Daisy freed her arms from the sleeves that bound her, cupped either side of his jaw and guided his mouth to the other breast.
She didn’t say another word.
Harry scooped Daisy up in his arms and carried her to her bedroom. After scooting the dogs out and closing the door, he pulled out his wallet and tossed it onto the bedside table before shucking his jeans and shorts and climbing onto the bed beside her.
Daisy had stripped off her pajama bottoms and was reaching for him. But he pushed her back into the pillows, wanting to feast his eyes first. In the soft glow of the bedside lamp, he took in every inch of her. She was too much, too beautiful...too vulnerable. His gaze stopped on the small pucker of scar tissue on the underside of her breast. He gently touched the tip of his finger to it. He wasn’t the only wounded warrior here.
Harry leaned over to kiss the permanent evidence of the brutal attack she’d survived. She flinched and tried to roll away, but he wouldn’t let her. “You’ve seen me.”
After she lay back against the pillows, baring herself completely to him, he reverently touched each scar, first with his hand and then with his lips. He kissed her chest, her belly, her breasts, until her hands were on his hair again, holding his mouth to each mark as if his touch healed her the way she was healing him.
He lingered over one mark just below her belly button, his heated breath raising goose bumps over her quivering flesh. “Are you...okay...inside? Did he...?”
“The surgeon removed my spleen and one ovary and the Fallopian tube, and he sewed up a nick in one of my lungs and my stomach. Theoretically, I can still make babies, so we need to use protection.” He lifted his head to meet her squinting gaze. “Otherwise, what you see is what you get.”
“I want it.” Harry climbed over her the way she had climbed up his body in the chair, and claimed her mouth for a deep, drugging kiss. “I want you.”
“Please tell me you have something in that wallet.”
Harry rolled off her to retrieve the foil packet from the bedside table. “It’s dusty, but it should be reliable.”
He felt a kiss between his shoulder blades as he sat on the edge of the bed and sheathed himself. “Dust it off, Marine. You have a job to do.”
Do this.
It was the most glorious order he’d ever obeyed.
Daisy climbed onto his lap before he’d even considered a position. But he was just fine with this one. Stars exploded behind his eyes as she sank, wet and hot and ready, over his shaft. Oh, yeah, he was more than fine with this position. Already matching her rhythm and rocking inside her, he kissed her breasts, nibbled her neck, claimed her lips until the need became too great. Harry squeezed her in a tight hug, clamping every curve of her body against his as he detonated inside her.
Daisy cried out with her release and Harry held her to him until the waves of her climax faded away and her head collapsed against his neck. They fell back onto the bed together, with Daisy resting on top of him for several long minutes until their breathing returned to normal and the perspiration on their bodies began to cool.
Then Harry tucked her under the covers and made a quick trip to the bathroom to dispose of the condom. Daisy was half asleep when he returned, but she was smiling as he crawled under the quilts with her and gathered her into his arms.
She wedged one soft thigh between his and wrapped her arm around his waist, clinging to him in a very sexy version of a hug. Harry stroked his fingers up and down her back, feeling a rare, satisfied fatigue creeping into his muscles. He couldn’t believe that any man would try to control this woman’s brave spirit and generous heart. She was such a gift.
Such a completely unexpected gift. This Daisy wasn’t anything like the woman in his letters.
Harry’s fingers came to rest beneath her soft, damp hair. “For some reason, from your letters, I pictured you as a blonde.”
“I was once.” That made him laugh and he felt her smile against his skin
. “You have a wonderful laugh. You should practice it more often.”
He’d never had much reason to. “I will if you don’t change your shampoo.”
Don’t change anything about you.
“Strange request.” She yawned and burrowed in beside him.
Harry drifted off to sleep along with her, his nose buried in the sweet scent of her hair. No stranger than Harry Lockhart falling in love with her all over again.
This time, with the real Daisy Gunderson.
* * *
DAISY WAS IN a deep, blank sleep when she startled awake to a man’s hand clamped over her mouth.
Her muffled scream quickly fell silent when Harry’s face hovered into focus above hers. He pressed a finger to his lips and didn’t remove his hand until she nodded her understanding to remain quiet. Her clock was a blur of red light from this distance, leaving her adrift with no idea of the time or situation. The sun wasn’t even up yet. But sometime in the hours since that cathartic conversation and making love, while she was replete with satisfaction and feeling more cherished than she had with any man in her life, Harry had been getting dressed and sneaking around the house.
Well, half-dressed. As far as she was concerned, the man never needed to put on a shirt again. Not that that was terribly practical, but Harry’s fit, supple body moving over to the window and back to the edge of her bed certainly improved the scenery.
“Dais?” he whispered. “Honey, are you awake?”
Honey? Focus!
Something was wrong. Even in her nearsighted haze, she could see Harry was strapping on his gun again. She pulled the sheet around her and sat up as he handed her the brown glasses they’d left in the living room.
She slipped them on, hoping that bringing clarity to his grim expression would give her understanding. “What is it?” She heard one of the dogs growling from the foot of the bed, and all the beautiful aftermath of making love vanished in a clutch of fear. “Harry?
He pushed her phone into her hands. “Call 9-1-1. There’s someone outside.”
That’s when Daisy jumped at the pop, pop, pop of tiny explosions and shattering glass out on the back deck. Muffy leaped onto the corner of the bed and barked an alarm. Patch jumped up beside him, yapping with equal fury. Harry swore at the noisy outburst.
Those pops hadn’t been gunshots. But they definitely weren’t anything natural. Neither was the distinct sound of running footsteps.
Harry was already moving to her bedroom door, drawing his gun. The man wasn’t prepped for battle. He didn’t even have shoes on. “You can’t—”
There was no pretense of hushed and discreet now.
“Get dressed. Stay in this room. I’m leaving the dogs in here with you. Caliban, Pas Auf.” Apparently, that meant he should guard the place because the Belgian Malinois never moved from his post, even after Harry pulled the door shut.
Daisy slipped out of bed, pulled on her jeans and the first top she could find and placed the call.
Chapter Nine
At the swirl of red and white lights pulling up in front of the house, Daisy zipped up Harry’s coat and ran to the mudroom door, eager to see where Harry had gone when he’d run out the back. Had he found the man who’d been terrorizing her? Or—the frightening possibility entered her head before she could stop it—had the man found Harry?
She unlocked the door and dashed onto the deck. “Harry?”
Her boot crunched with the first step, then the second, and she stopped. She was walking on glass. The security light had been shattered and she was walking across dozens of broken Christmas light bulbs. The path of so much destruction littering her deck and the sidewalk down to the gate was disturbing enough.
The little dots of blood that grew into half a bloody footprint triggered a different kind of fear. “Harry!”
Without the lights, the air was dim, but with the sun cresting the horizon in the east, the trail of bloody prints through the snow was easy to follow. There were two sets of footprints now, far apart, left by one man running after the other. “Harry?”
Daisy broke into a run. Harry was hurt. Protecting her, he’d gotten hurt.
“Harr—” She spotted his back and the legs of his quarry when she reached the front of the house...the same time she saw the two uniformed officers duck behind the open doors of their cruiser and pull their guns, ordering Harry to stand down. Daisy ran toward the cops, her hands raised in a plea. “Officers, wait! Don’t shoot!”
“Damn it, Daisy, I told you to stay inside,” Harry warned. He was facing the house, his broad body blocking the man he had pinned to the siding. The tension radiating off his body was thicker than the wintry dampness hanging in the air. Tiny shards of colored glass littered the snow out here, too, and she looked up to see dangling wires and empty sockets where her Christmas decorations used to hang. There were indentations in the snow beside the porch where a scuffle must have occurred, but apparently, Harry had put an end to it. Although she couldn’t see the man, she could hear him panting, almost blubbering with fear after losing a fight to Harry. “This guy busted up every one of your decorations. He’s angry with you.”
“I know. I saw it. One of you is bleeding,” she added, hoping he might reassure her that he was in one piece and the other guy wasn’t mortally wounded.
“I’m not letting him go. If he’d done that to you instead of a bunch of—”
“Gun!” one of the officers shouted.
Daisy moved closer to the police car, placing herself in the potential line of fire. The two men immediately lowered their weapons if not their guard. “I’m Daisy Gunderson. I called this in. This man is with me. There haven’t been any gunshots. He caught the intruder I reported. My house has been vandalized, and he caught this guy running away. Don’t hurt him.”
The shorter of the two officers holstered his weapon while the other came around the hood of the cruiser to back him up. “I’m Officer Cho, KCPD. I’d feel a lot better if that weapon he’s wearing was secured.”
“What if I hand it over to you?” Daisy suggested.
Cho nodded. “Slow and easy.”
“Harry?” Daisy announced herself before creeping up behind him. His skin was wet and ice-cold as she touched his back. “I’m going to hand your gun over to the officer so they can put their weapons away. I don’t want anyone here to get hurt.”
The ramrod tension she felt beneath her hand didn’t waver. “Do it.”
She unhooked the snap on his holster and moved in beside him to pull out the gun. Once she had the weapon safely in hand she looked up and gasped in surprise.
“Angelo?”
Harry had her prize student flattened against the house. Stunned was an understatement for the shock chilling her from the inside out. The teenager was crying, but his eyes were clear as his gaze darted to hers.
“Ms. G.,” he gasped. He pawed at Harry’s forearm. Although his gold Central Prep ball cap had been knocked off his head and was crushed under his feet, he didn’t appear to be harmed. Frightened, yes, but not hurt. “I wasn’t thinking. Tell your boyfriend how sorry I am. I didn’t mean it.”
There was that boyfriend word again.
“Harry. Let him go. He’s half your age. He doesn’t know how to fight like you do.” She handed the gun off to Officer Cho and came back to gently lay her hands on Harry’s arm and shoulder. “He’s just a kid.”
“I’ve seen kids do worse. Decoys, suicide bombers.”
“You’re not in a war zone. You’re in Kansas City. With me. And I’m safe. Look at me. I’m fine. KCPD is here now. Let them handle it. Angelo won’t hurt me. Please let him go.”
Harry shifted his gaze to hers. His eyes were shadowed, and that taut muscle ticked beneath his right eye. Then he nodded, stepped back and Angelo was free. “Sorry, kid.”
“I did it,” Angelo confessed, scurrying around Harry. The young man looked relieved to be dealing with the officer asking him about weapons, feeling his pockets and handcuffing him, rather than facing Harry Lockhart. “I broke all the lights. It was me.”
Daisy’s heart was crushed. She needed answers for any of this to make sense. Why would Angelo want to do this to her? Why hadn’t she known he was sending her those gifts? Why? There were other questions that needed answers, too. She pointed to the trail of blood in the snow. “Whose blood is that?”
“Not his.” Harry lifted each foot from the snow. Her heart stuttered again when she saw several small cuts oozing blood on the pale skin of his feet.
“Why don’t you go inside and finish getting dressed. There’s a first-aid kit in the downstairs bathroom. Unless you need my help?”
“I don’t need anybody’s help.” He looked down at her concerned expression and relented the argument. He scooped up Angelo’s cap and placed it back on the young man’s head before the officer walked him to the cruiser. “Did I hurt you, kid?”
Angelo’s head shook with a jerk. “No, sir.”
“You scared of me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Then you know not to do anything that’ll upset Ms. G. again, right?”
Angelo nodded.
Harry shifted his gaze to the two police officers, glancing down at the gun tucked into the shorter man’s belt. “I’m an NCO with the US Marines, home on leave. My ID is inside the house, but I’ve got a permit to carry that thing. It hasn’t been fired. I’ll be back out in ten to give my statement and retrieve it.”
Officer Cho identified himself in a way that Harry seemed to appreciate. “Captain. Missouri Army National Guard.” The shorter man okayed Harry’s departure with one condition. “Officer Bulkey here is going to accompany you.”
“Yes, sir.” Harry gave the officer a curt nod before the two men went inside the house.
Angelo took half a step toward Daisy before Cho tugged on his cuffs and warned him to keep his distance. “Sorry, Ms. G. I was just mad that you... That he...” He looked up at the house where Harry had disappeared before inhaling a deep breath and spewing out his confession. “You haven’t had a boyfriend in all the time I’ve known you. And now GI Joe shows up for Christmas? In a month I’m going to be eighteen. Then those stupid rules at school don’t apply. You and me, we’ve got a thing. I was going to ask you out.”
