He was already crossing the floor before he realized he’d moved, but she held out her palm and shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
His bare foot squeaked against the hardwood floor as he froze. Sorry? Sorry for what? For trusting him with something she’d been guarding her entire life? For sharing her amazing body with him and giving him the most mind-bending twenty-four hours he could remember?
He edged closer but she stiffened. “Don’t, please.”
He could cover the distance separating them and have her in his arms before she blinked those wide, glistening eyes, but he was terrified of scaring her even more. “Did I do something wrong?”
She dropped her gaze to the floor and shook her head. “You were perfect.”
Her words should’ve calmed him, but the life that had been radiating from her yesterday seemed to be bleeding out of her. He swallowed the lump in his throat and forced a smile. “Thank God I wasn’t terrible.”
When she finally lifted her face, a heartbreaking smile curved the edges of her lips. “You’re too perfect. That’s why…that’s why I have to go.”
She bent to retrieve her bags. He lunged forward only to pull up just short of her with his eyes darting between the door and her and his chest heaving. “Wait, please.” He fought the urge to tackle her and gently cupped her shoulders instead. “At least give me a chance to stuff things up before you go.”
Her whispered chuckle was as tragic as the anxiety dragging on her features. She dropped her forehead onto his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. His arms automatically encircled her and pulled her close. She melted into him like they were designed to fit together. All too quickly she dragged him down into a kiss that was as intense as it was final.
She tore her mouth from his and gazed up at him. “You’re an incredible man, Sergeant Harper. I hope you find someone perfect to grow old with.”
Christ, for more than a decade he hadn’t thought beyond the next mission. It had only been during the last few days he’d allowed himself to wonder just what the hell he’d do with the rest of his life. Up until he’d boarded the plane his plans had focused on a stinking hot patch of dust in the middle of nowhere and the family he missed way too damned much. But after losing himself inside her and surrendering to her spirit, all he could think about was sharing more time with her.
The tears that had been welling in her eyes spilled free and trickled down her cheeks as she pushed free and turned for the door. The fear surging through him turned to panic as she bent to pick up her luggage. He jerked forward again only to freeze with his outstretched hands trembling a few inches away from her. “You can tell me. I’m a lot tougher than I look.”
Her torso sagged as she slowly straightened and allowed the straps of her luggage to slip free of her limp hands but didn’t turn to face him. Seconds groaned by as she stared into the corridor with her fingers clenching and unclenching with every ragged rise and fall of her shoulders. She slowly turned, and the edges of her mouth curved ever so slightly into a snarky smile that had the dying embers of his hope erupting into flame. But as soon as that tiny spark of life appeared it was extinguished by a shadow that consumed her features. “You’ve given me more than I can ever repay.” He shook his head and opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “If I tell you, will you promise to do one last thing for me before I leave?”
He was nodding before she’d even finished. The reality of what he’d do to keep her in his life scared him almost as much as losing her.
She studied him for a long moment before wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Will you make love to me one last time like I was just another woman?”
He’d make love to her any way she wanted, but he wouldn’t lie to her. “You’ll never be just another woman to me.”
Tears tumbled down her cheeks and soaked into her T-shirt as she clutched her mouth and gazed up at him through drowning eyes. With trembling hands, she reached for the knot securing her scarf and pulled the ends free before peeling the shimmering silk from her head.
He’d prepared for what lay hidden beneath the shocking pink silk, but the reality tore into his chest and ripped out his heart. It wasn’t the neat rows of scars crisscrossing her barren scalp—hell, he’d seen so many scars he barely noticed them anymore—it was what the puckered suture marks confirmed. Memories of the day his mother broke the news about her breast cancer bombarded him. The gut-wrenching panic of potentially losing the center of his universe, the endless night spent searching the internet for hope, and the words he’d whispered as the sun rose the following day. Thank God it’s breast cancer, and not a brain tumor.
...
Morning sunlight fell across Ryder and illuminated a body that appeared more stone than flesh. She’d traced the scars and caressed the evidence of his service throughout the night, but only now did she comprehend the full extent of his sacrifice.
Like cracks in an ancient marble statue, the long-healed wounds cut through his muscles, but it was the two puncture wounds marring the planes of his chest and the one in his abdomen that sickened her. With the two she’d felt in his back and the one that destroyed his leg, it totaled six. Six pieces of burning shrapnel that had torn through him and come so close to ending his life. She knew all too well what that felt like, only her shrapnel grew inside her and relished torturing her before silencing her heart.
The guilt and fear that caused her hands to tremble consumed her until remaining upright became a battle of will. But the pain and confusion dragging on his features overwhelmed her. He deserved to know why she couldn’t stay, he needed to understand why prolonging this insanity would only cause more pain. With every heartbeat, her tumor grew stronger, and with every breath, she slid closer to death. She couldn’t give him time, but if he could somehow look past her grotesque secret, maybe he’d allow her to repay his kindness with the only thing she had left to give—her body.
Shock consumed the emotions carved into his face before a terrifying darkness flooded his eyes. Shame joined her panic as she scrambled to conceal her scalp. She had no right to do this to him, to drag a man she’d planned to use and walk away from into her nightmare. He’d shown her respect and tenderness, treated her like a fragile masterpiece, and shown her a world she’d never dreamed existed, and all she’d done in return was take. Why hadn’t she escaped when she’d had the chance? Why the hell had she spent the night with him in the first place? Because she was an evil, insecure child who’d ignored the truth about her feelings for him to satisfy her own selfish greed.
Standing before her like a huge gladiator, he looked indestructible and unstoppable, but she’d hurt him, hurt him in ways that had her disgust festering until she could no longer meet his cold, dead eyes as she reared away from him.
Bands of steel encircled her waist and encased her inside a wall of muscle. His lips crushed against hers and his tongue drove into her mouth. She was vaguely aware of the door slamming shut as he spun and carried her through the apartment. She locked her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all her remaining strength as her desperation for him overwhelmed her guilt and self-loathing.
His cock pressed against the crotch of her jeans. Clamping her legs over his hips, she ignored the aches and pains from her ravaged body and drove down on him. He clenched around her like a fist as he groaned into her mouth and tumbled onto the bed she’d tried so hard to escape just an hour earlier.
Even with her clambering all over him he’d somehow protected her from his weight during the fall. She cursed into his mouth and dragged him on top of her. She needed his bulk, needed him crushing her, claiming her, taking from her. He tore off her shoes before tugging at her jeans as she yanked his briefs down. He pulled away just long enough to slide a condom on before squeezing between her parted legs and driving her into the mattress. With a whispered curse, she wrenched off her glasses and flung them over her head. She’d use her goddamned mouth and hands to see him.
She arched her back and groan
ed while he guided the tip of his cock between the folds of her sex. He froze and stared down at her. She trailed her hands over the slabs of muscle flanking his spine and grabbed his butt before thrusting up her hips and enveloping the head. A moan oozed between her parted lips as her exhausted muscles strained and stretched to draw him in. She stared into his eyes and gritted her teeth while pulling him down harder and driving higher.
The tension rippling through him ebbed. He sank his forearms into the mattress and cupped her face. He eased inside and shot bolts of exquisite agony through her with every inch. He brushed the moisture from her swollen cheeks with his thumbs and rained kisses over her face before claiming her. She met each thrust with her own as she ran her fingers up the ridges and valleys of his torso and captured his jaw while their rhythm intensified. The pain of his invasion gave way to an addiction she feared could never be exorcised. With every thrust, she plunged deeper into his eyes, eyes that didn’t look down on her with pity or anger but with a need that mirrored her own.
His body reacted to hers, molded to hers, filled hers as the delicious heat boiling between her thighs erupted into flame and consumed her. All too quickly she arched against him and surrendered to her release. She gouged her fingers into his back and rode out each wave of her orgasm as it shuddered through her.
She opened her eyes to find him gazing down at her with a grin curving his lips as he slowly slid in and out of her. She captured his face and pulled him down. She wanted to watch him come inside her, wanted him to understand just how much he meant to her.
His jaw clenched and his eyes fluttered closed before he groaned and pumped into her. His body stiffened and his cock pulsed while his release joined the aftershocks of the orgasm rippling through her. She locked her legs around his waist and trapped him deep within her. His chest heaved and his heart hammered against hers as she clung to him and floated in the blissful peace he’d brought her.
His racing heart slowed until it thudded against her like the timer on a bomb. Each beat counting down the seconds before she told him the truth and walked out of his life forever.
...
Abi’s essence enveloped Ryder as he blanketed her body. Life, joy, and sunshine combined with the intoxicating aroma of her sex. He drew her into his lungs and savored each note. If this was all she’d allow him to have, he’d take everything she gave. The wet silk sheathing his cock, her legs clamped around his waist, her fingers clawing into his back, he’d never get enough. He nuzzled her neck before tracing the curve of her jaw with his mouth. She flinched as he brushed his lips over the short stubble covering her scalp, but he didn’t pull away or stop his exploration. He needed her to understand, needed her to know what she meant to him before he let her go.
He kissed his way along the scar arching over her ear and followed the puckered flesh as it encircled the left half of her head before trailing his lips over the scars marring the right side. With each kiss, the tension constricting her muscles eased until she sighed and pushed against his mouth. He brushed his lips over the top of her scalp, down her forehead, and over her nose until he reached her mouth where he waited for her to open her eyes. He counted time with each sweet breath caressing his face and every thud of her heart. As he softened inside her she constricted around him, trapping him in a world he never wanted to leave.
With a ragged sigh she slowly opened her eyes as her fingers followed the line of his jaw to caress his lips.
He kissed her fingertips before gently cupping her head in his palms. “The medics who came with the evac team said I died three times.”
She pressed her fingers to his lips and shook her head.
He kissed them away. “I should have died a dozen more times. Somehow I made it through.” He shrugged and grinned. “Most of me at least.”
He kissed her chin, her lips, her nose. “When things got bad out there in the desert, when artillery shook the ground and all I could hear were bullets thudding around me like hail and my teammates’ screams, I measured my life in seconds. The most important things I learned out there with blood congealing in my gloves and darkness trying to steal my consciousness was how precious life and time are.” He lowered his head until his nose touched hers, and he was staring straight into her eyes. “I’ll give anything for more seconds with you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Abi sat on the polished hardwood floor and gazed out the apartment’s movie-screen windows overlooking Brisbane. The early-morning sun had burned away the dawn and drenched the river and city in the promise of another perfect Aussie fall day. She let her gaze drift over the pleasure craft idling along the waterfront and the ducks and swans squabbling over offerings from the people strolling along the boardwalk.
I’d give anything for more seconds with you.
Time, a precious gift almost everyone took for granted, everyone except those who’d faced death. A shiver shot up her spine. What horrors had those ancient gray eyes of his witnessed? She shook the visions away and brushed her fingertips over her most recent scars.
Her head throbbed in rhythm with Doris’s grumbles and snarls. Abi chuckled and patted her scalp. “Nice try, sweetheart, but you’re not taking him away from me just yet.”
She could still feel his lips caressing her scars. Those kisses had been even more intimate than the ones he’d lavished between her thighs. She grinned and turned back to the postcard view dominating his brother’s apartment.
Her smile widened as she recalled the discovery she’d made only a few minutes ago. He may have known his way around a machine gun and the female body, but he knew nothing about technology or coffee machines. After cursing his brother’s space-age stainless-steel shrine to arabica and robusta, he’d shoved it back into the corner of the Michelin-star-worthy kitchen and gone out for coffee.
If she hadn’t been craving some alone time, she’d have shown him how to work the machine, but she needed to phone home before Olivia had an aneurysm. So after allowing him to kiss her until she’d almost forgotten about coffee, contacting her sister, and breathing, she’d patted his butt and shoved him out the door. If she hadn’t been admiring the way he prowled across the floor, she might have missed the nervous glance he’d thrown her luggage still waiting patiently by the door as he’d left.
Her smile dimmed as she glanced down at the bejeweled notebook lying in her lap and the smartphone clutched in her hand with a screen’s worth of missed calls and angry messages. She’d been fiddling with her cell for the last five minutes, but still hadn’t worked up the nerve to hit speed-dial one. How the hell could she help her sister comprehend something she didn’t understand herself? It must have been the tsunami of lust that had laid waste to her brain because Olivia wasn’t the only one she’d put off confessing to.
She’d tried introducing him to Doris while lying in bed and enjoying her first official spooning session, but the feel of him pressed against her back with one arm possessively wrapped around her waist and the other acting as a rock-hard pillow beneath her cheek was almost as good as him sliding inside her. Almost.
She’d tried telling him in the main suite’s huge walk-in shower, but after she’d gotten over her amazement at how easily he’d moved on one leg, the pure uncensored erotic joy of watching water rippling over his naked body had completely diverted her mental assets. She’d opened her mouth all right, but in a whole different way.
He’d tasted as good as he’d smelled, and the feel of his stiff cock pulsing against her stomach had her willing to sacrifice her aching body for another ride on the merry-go-round, but he’d fought off every one of her advances. Instead of hoisting her into the air and impaling her on his magnificent manly bit, he’d dropped to the tiled floor and tenderly tortured her swollen and ravaged pussy while she stood above him. The sight of him smiling up at her from between her thighs while the same water that flowed down her body trickled over his face was almost as erotic as him sucking, licking, and entering her with his tongue. All too soon, she’d clawed
her fingers into his soaked hair and driven down on his mouth as yet another orgasm tore through her. Her exhausted legs had crumpled mid-climax, but he’d caught her and locked his mouth on hers as she shuddered through the ebbing waves of her release.
Her revenge had been even sweeter. Kneeling before him had been empowering rather than submissive. With just a flick of her tongue or pull of her lips, she’d had him groaning and bucking above her as if his incredible body was completely at her mercy. She’d run her hands over every square inch of muscle as she feasted on his erection. He’d stilled when she’d caressed his stump but seemed to overcome his apprehension when she’d smiled up at him and circled the tip of his cock with her tongue. She had no idea what the hell she’d been doing, but he hadn’t seemed to mind. Way before she’d even come close to satisfying her curiosity, he’d wrenched his cock out of her mouth and erupted against the marble lining the shower with a guttural groan that shook the walls of their glass fortress. His cock convulsed and bucked with each blast, and the sight had been so erotic she’d savored the last remnants of his release dripping from the swollen head. Salty, musky, sticky and nowhere near as hideous as she’d imagined, or that could’ve just been him.
She shook the X-rated images from her mind and leaned onto one butt cheek to relieve the pressure on her throbbing undercarriage as she groaned and stared at Mr. Hemsworth smiling back from the binding of her notebook.
She’d tried telling him when they’d finally gotten dressed, but the closeness of sitting beside him on the bed while he carefully prepared his stump and fitted his prosthesis had been even more intense than sharing their bodies. Instead of hiding, he’d explained every step of the process. The lubricant he’d made a performance of rubbing onto his thigh while seductively leering at her, the sock to absorb sweat and protect his skin, and the sleeve that’d help form the vacuum seal that merged his prosthesis to his body. She was pretty sure it was the intimacy of the moment and not some weird stump fetish, but she’d wanted him all over again.
Against All Odds (Outback Hearts) Page 13
