Danger Close (Shadow Warriors)

by Lindsay McKenna

  “Is this real?” she asked, her voice husky and unsure.

  “It’s real.” Jim propped himself up on one arm and tucked Cathy beside him, studying her in the muted light that came through the paisley curtains next to the brass bed. He traced the arch of her brow, kissing away the lines of gathering bewilderment.

  Cathy lifted her lashes, meeting and melting beneath his tender dove gray gaze. “What happened, Jim? Why didn’t someone tell me you were alive? What kind of terrible game are they playing on me?”

  He released a ragged sigh, cupping her chin and lightly stroking her flushed cheek. “If it’s a game, babe, it was played on both of us. Listen to me,” he began. “The last thing I remember is trying to get to you and then get that damn belt around your leg before you bled to death.” He reached out, lightly caressing her wounded leg. His mouth compressed and his eyes grew dark. “After that, I remember a doctor shining a light in my eyes at a hospital in Hawaii.”

  She frowned. “But Colonel Mackey said you were dead.” Her voice cracked and she buried her face against his chest. “Gomez and Buck carried me to the Medevac chopper. Gomez was sobbing over and over again that you were dead. I don’t remember much because I kept blacking out from loss of blood. All I know is when I was lying on the floor of that chopper, they said you were dead.” She looked up at him in confusion. “I—I regained consciousness in Bangkok and Mac told me you had died.” Her fingers lay knotted against him and her eyes grew anguished. “Why, Jim? Why did he tell me that?”

  Jim winced as her voice cracked. “Shh, I don’t know, babe.” He combed his fingers slowly through her hair. “When I came out of the coma in Hawaii, Dr. Cornell kept me isolated in ICU for five days. I managed to get through and talk to my parents.” His mouth grew grim and he stroked her cheek. “Every time I tried to call you, the phone lines were screwed up. On the fifth day I sneaked out of ICU to find a pay phone. They said you were in San Diego, and I was going to try anything to reach you.”

  “But—I was in Washington.” She gazed at him hungrily and absorbed his tense, stormy eyes.

  He nodded. “I never got to a phone to find out. I was walking through a lobby and there was a TV. I glanced at it and I couldn’t believe my eyes. You were being questioned by Roman.”

  She grimaced. “That was a horrible day. I’ll never forget it.”

  “Neither of us will, Cathy.”

  Rallying beneath his care, she raised her eyes. “Then what happened?”

  “I knew, at that point, someone was lying to me about a lot of things. I went directly to Dr. Cornell’s office and demanded immediate release and a flight home. To here.” He smiled tenderly. “To you…”

  Cathy managed her first, tentative smile, sliding her hand up his arm. “At least they didn’t make your parents suffer like I did.”

  Jim kissed her brow, nose, eyes and, finally, her awaiting lips. “And you have suffered,” he whispered against her. “But that’s over. I’m here. We’re home. Together, like it should be.” He began a gentle campaign to love her.

  He started to slowly undress her, taking each of the ten pearl buttons and sliding them free. His knuckles brushed her skin from time to time and Cathy felt warm and inviting to him. Just getting to make connection with her was more than he could ever have dreamed of. Watching her thick lashes come to rest, the hint of flush beginning to cover her cheeks, fed his soul and his pounding heart.

  Feeling like a man lost in a desert, his soul starved, Jim slid his mouth with aching tenderness across her tear-bathed lips. Easing his hands beneath the black dress, spreading his fingers across her upper chest to her shoulders, the connection sent surges of love directly into his hungry heart. Her flesh was like velvet, firm, and he could feel her muscles responding beneath his grazing touch.

  She wore a soft white bra made of cotton. He smiled to himself, thinking that although it was plain and utilitarian, it didn’t speak of the elegance or inner polish within Cathy’s heart and her rainbow soul.

  Easing her into a sitting position, his arm behind her, he slid the dress off her shoulders and then eased her arms out of the sleeves. Cathy opened her eyes and he drowned in their moisture, in their luminosity, as he unsnapped her bra and drew it off her shoulders.

  He had so much to tell her, so much he wanted to share and it all jammed up into a huge lump in his throat. Her breasts were small and perfectly rounded, pink nipples that had hardened as the fabric brushed them. Her body was painfully thin and as Jim ran his fingers down across her accentuated ribs, he began to understand how much she’d suffered in his absence. Grief had done this to her. He moved his palms across her torso, hearing her moan softly because he was going to cup her breasts.

  She leaned toward him, filling his palms with her breasts, the trust she had with him shattering his heart. Jim felt the full weight of his guilt for what he’d done to Cathy and, yet, she still trusted him. Tears burned in his eyes and he shut them. Holding her breasts, his brow pressed against hers, his voice thick, he said, “I don’t deserve you, Cathy. God, I don’t. And I’m so damned sorry for what I’ve done to you.”

  “Hush,” she whispered unsteadily, taking her hands and sliding them against his stubbled cheeks, kissing him gently, inhaling his male scent. “It’s in the past. I know why you did it, Jim. And I forgive you….”

  Her soft, halting words destroyed him. Lifting his face to meet her tearful eyes that brimmed with love for him, he rasped, “I’m going to spend every day of my life loving you.” He saw her lips part, that soft lower lip tremble, and he took her as if she were fragile glass that might break. Licking her lower lip, he gently teethed it, feeling her respond, her breasts heavy and warm in his palms. As he released her lower lip, he brushed his thumbs across her nipples and her breath hitched, her eyes closing, her mouth curving warmly, deeply against his. He felt her arms slip around his shoulders and she pressed wantonly against him, asking for more pleasure, more of his touch.

  The ridges of her ribs made him angry and Jim quickly shoved it all down as he reluctantly left her wet mouth. Getting Cathy to lie down, he stood and pulled the dress off her. He removed her shoes and realized she wore no nylons. Moving his callused hand up along her left calf, Jim saw the damage done to her beautiful, curved right thigh. The red scar tissue, the operation, were all there glaring back at him. Wincing internally, he felt himself tremble inwardly.

  He hadn’t been there after Cathy was wounded, unable to support her, hold her hand, sleep in a chair at her bedside waiting for her to become conscious. She’d awakened to no one and it hurt him in ways he couldn’t describe. She’d been abandoned at birth, tossed from one foster family to another, no anchor, no one steady to be there for her. No one to help her up when she fell. No one to offer her a hand when she stumbled. No one to carry her when the loads got too much for her to bear.

  Jesus, he felt soaring anguish and it scored his heart and tore open his soul. As he felt her slender calf, her knee and moved up to her long thigh, Boland felt her tense, felt her wanting him.

  Leaning down, kissing her softly rounded belly above her panties, Jim settled his hands around her hips. Hips that were pitifully lean, that were not rounded because she had nearly starved herself to death, unable to eat. Because she was grieving for the loss of him in her life. A soft cry caught in her throat as he moved his lips across her belly, the flesh so soft, so yielding beneath his mouth. This was the woman he wanted to carry his child.

  Easing away, Jim stood and discarded his clothes, allowing them to drop on the floor. Cathy watched him through drowsy eyes, the look in them making him feel so damn strong and good as a man. Yeah, he wanted her in every possible way, but right now, he was going to give her every bit of tenderness he owned. Nothing rough, just healing.

  Cathy felt her insides quiver with anticipation. She made a soft sound as he stood naked before her. Jim had lost weight because of the coma, but he was powerfully built, his shoulders broad and chest dusted with dark hair. Her
heart ached with relief that he was here, with her. Standing with his shoulders drawn back in natural confidence, his gray eyes holding hers, sweet tension swirling between them.

  As his knee depressed the mattress near her hip, she opened her arms to him. Jim lay at her side, cupping her cheek with his hand. “The greenness in your eyes deepens when I touch you, did you know that?”

  Cathy drank in the burning look in his eyes, felt his love, his voice deep with barely held emotions. “Because I love you.” She allowed her fingers to trail down his arm, feeling his muscles tighten wherever she grazed his flesh. “I need you, Jim. Now…please…?” The war between the anguish and love in his eyes touched her. Cathy could feel Jim, her senses acute, so attuned to him as they had been before. “I know there’s a lot to talk about.”

  “Right now, babe,” Jim said, his voice rough, “we need one another. I need you.”

  She wrapped her fingers around his darkly sunburned arm and he placed it across her, near her waist. The feral look in his eyes, the look of the hunter that he was, sent sheets of curling, languid heat deep into her womb. Jim leaned down, his chest hair rasping against her sensitized nipples. Tiny flames leaped and tightened her breasts and she gasped, the sensation wild. Freeing. Tears beaded on her thick lashes as she clung to him, feeling the sledgehammer beat of his heart against her breast. “Love me…” she murmured brokenly. “I’ve missed you so much. You’re all I’ll ever want….”

  Murmuring her name, Jim eased beside her on the bed. Cathy slid her fingers over his shoulder, feeling his muscles tighten. “You’ve lost a lot of weight,” she whispered, running her hand across his shoulder once more.

  Jim placed a series of kisses along her temple and the delicate line of her jaw. “We’re both scarred, babe. Neither of us is whole right now,” he said huskily. “Together, we’ll heal one another.” Jim moved his hand lightly across her right thigh where the flesh was still angry and puckered from the recent wound. His eyebrows dipped as he gently closed his hand over the wound.

  Cathy’s lips parted and she reached up, caressing his cheek. His hand was warm and tender against the torn-up flesh. She felt as if he were somehow absorbing her pain, taking it away, replacing it with his love for her. Jim molded his mouth against her awaiting lips and he tasted the sweetness that was only Cathy. “All we need is one another,” he told her thickly. “We’re strong together, you and I….” Holding her luminous gaze, he rasped, “And I love you, babe. With every cell of my being, I love you.”

  Cathy pressed herself against him. Time dissolved into an awareness of only one another. It was not the act of making love that was important, but the imprinting of each other’s pulse, breath, heartbeat and fusion of their flesh confirming what they held in their hearts for one another. They drowned themselves in each other. The look of worshipful love in Cathy’s eyes made Jim excruciatingly aware of how much he always wanted that look to be there.

  Words were primitive for what Jim experienced with her. Each touch of her fingers was communication, the highest form of love. As starved as he was for Cathy, he allowed her to set the pace for them. He didn’t know her emotional state yet. She had been pushed until everything had been extruded from her. And even as she ran her hands lightly over his body, Jim could see that she was in shock, as if she really didn’t believe he was here, in the flesh, with her.

  Jim allowed his experience, his own internal senses to guide him with Cathy. He caressed her small breasts, tasting the hardness of her nipples, suckling her and drawing the honey from her body.

  The sweet curve of her flesh against his palm made her moan. Cathy pressed her hips against his, wanting him, feeling his erection against her belly. She felt his roughened fingers move down and ease beneath the elastic of her panties. Breath hitching, she closed her eyes, her skin contracting as his fingers followed the curve of the band.

  A fiery ache blazed within her and she felt damp as his fingers slid the panties away and removed them. Needy, wanting him to touch her, Cathy wasn’t disappointed as he slid his hand up her left thigh, opening her, curving his fingers inward. A low moan caught in her throat as she felt his fingers move slowly, grazing her opening, teasing her.

  Her lips parted and she arched her hips toward his fingers so close to her aching entrance. Gripping his arm, clenching his thick muscles, she felt her breath grow uneven and shallow.

  He found her mouth, taking her as he slid his fingers within her. Instantly, she moaned, arching, desperate as she moved against his hand. A quiver shook her as the pleasure heightened and fire streaked white hot through her clenching womb. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, tearing her mouth from his, sobbing his name.

  The pressure, like a reservoir overfilled, grew like a cauldron of jagged fire throughout her as he moved within her, teasing that knot of nerves near her entrance, beginning to dismantle her until she could no longer think. Her mind dissolved beneath his movements and she keened, face pressed against his chest as her body was triggered by his knowing touch. A violent, intense force ruptured through her lower body and raced like scalding ripples down through her.

  His lips captured one of her nipples, suckling strongly and she felt herself flying apart, the intense sensations meeting, twisting and causing her to mewl. The orgasms rolled through her and all she could do was pant and twist in his arms and against his strong body.

  Weakness flowed through her as her body glowed like a furnace from within. She felt him ease his fingers from her, felt his lips on her damp brow, temple and, finally, worshipping her mouth. Dazed, caught in the webs of fire wreaking through her, she felt him span her waist.

  Jim gently drew her on top of him. There would be no way with her leg in the condition it was, that he could place his weight on her. He held her until she could position her thighs against his hips. Opening her eyes, she could barely think, much less speak. Gradually, he brought her down against his hips and she straddled him.

  “Okay?” he rasped, watching her expression, her eyes trancelike, caught in the pleasure he’d milked from her giving, beautiful body.

  Licking her lips, Cathy managed a nod of her head, her heart pounding, the sensations still intense as she felt her wet core connect and slide against his erection. Lashes dropping against her cheeks, Cathy gripped Jim’s arms as his fingers wrapped around her hips. Fire ignited once more within her and she moaned softly. She felt him tense, heard the harsh breath expended as she slid wetly against him.

  “I want you in me,” she whispered, opening her eyes, holding his dark gaze. “You…” Her voice broke with emotion.

  Jim lifted her hips easily and allowed her to control just how much of him she wanted. The instant she sucked him into her sweet, hot juices, an explosion of fire ripped through him as he barely made contact with her hot, womanly core. He heard soft cries lodge in her throat, sounds of pleasure, and she drew him deep into her, lost in her own ecstasy.

  A guttural sound rolled from deep inside Boland as she welcomed him into her heated, moist confines. He lay there frozen and tense, afraid that he might have hurt her as she had sheathed down upon him. Her fingers loosened against his biceps and relief flooded Jim as he saw a translucence in her softened features. Her passion easily matched his own. Gripping her hips, he thrust slowly into her, and then out, watching her lashes flutter in response, her lips parting, a dulcet sigh escaping. The naturalness of her response, the yielding heat of her core carried them forward, time flowing to a halt. All that mattered to Jim was the look of joy in her slumberous green eyes. Her nostrils were flared, her breathing became a pant, and he thrust quicker and deeper. He took them into that exquisite molding of oneness. An unbreakable bond was forged within the stubborn flames of their love—a love that refused to die.

  Jim felt her so close to orgasm once more. Her fingers dug deep into his chest, her back arching, head thrown back as it occurred. He felt the squeezing, fistlike tightness around him as her heated juices rippled outward and her whimper turned into
a keening cry of exultation and joy. Her body froze in frantic elation as she gifted him with herself. Then, and only then, did Jim allow himself to release. As she fell limply against him, her face pressed against his neck and shoulder, he growled her name, taking her swiftly, thrusting, starving to claim her, make her his. The eruption ripped up and out of him, jerked his body, caused his breath to explode. They were locked in a wild ecstasy that took them into rainbow-shattered joy where it was impossible to do anything other than feel the waves of pleasure and intense sensations undulate through them.

  Cathy whispered Jim’s name, weak beyond words, nuzzling against his jaw as he suddenly relaxed beneath her. She laid her head on his shoulder afterward, her smile tremulous. Satiation thrummed through her, their hearts united and wildly beating in oneness against one another.

  Jim eased her off him once he got his strength back. He tucked her gently up alongside him and pulled a sheet over them.

  Cathy lay quietly in his arms, caressing him with her eyes. Jim’s embrace made her feel secure and content as they lay spent, wrapped in the lingering feeling of intense fulfillment. She pressed a kiss to the damp flesh of his neck, her hand roving across the soft hair on his chest. She closed her eyes and for the first time since they had lain in each other’s arms in Hua Hin, she slept soundly.

  JIM STIRRED almost an hour later. Cathy continued to sleep deeply after he kissed her smooth brow and got up to take a shower. Champ was barking downstairs and Jim pushed the paisley curtains aside after he pulled the black T-shirt over his clean body. He slipped into a pair of jeans. His parents were home. An overpowering sense of peace stole through him. Everything was all right. The woman he loved was safe. Jim turned and absorbed Cathy’s sleeping form. There wasn’t a trace of tension in her face, only a muted radiance that bordered on complete serenity. Home. After walking alone through hell for the past six weeks Cathy was home. With him, as it should be.