Peeling the cloth off his face, she tossed it into her sink, and lifted the can of shaving cream. If only she could’ve covered those gray ‘portals-to-his-soul’ with the foam. Gallantly she filled her left palm with the pink gel and stepped in close.
“I really do appreciate all you’ve done,” he murmured in that hot sexy baritone that rumbled straight to her groin.
“’S okay,” she said, her fingertips full of gel. With one sweep, she covered those full lips only to discover they were soft. His cheeks and chin went under the foam next. The pink gel turned to white lather when it hit his damp beard, and her knees turned to spaghetti. Leaning backward to the counter, she grasped the handle of her razor and steeled her frazzled nerves. As long as she didn’t look into Jake’s moody eyes, this shouldn’t take long.
God, give me strength. I just need another minute or two.
“Chin up,” she ordered.
His chin lifted, exposing his rugged neck. Carefully, she took long slow strokes up his neck, shorter ones around his lips and under his nose. Between rinsing the blade under the stream of the running hot water in her sink and twisting back to shave another clean path up his face, he’d transformed once more. Inadvertently she’d leaned against his thigh with her elbow at his upper arm to steady her hand to keep from nicking him. Her lower back ached with need.
A puff of heated air hit her arm. “You were right,” he growled as his hands settled to her hips.
That came out of the blue. She paused. Lather streaked his face. She’d missed a few whiskers, but no more freaking foreplay! “I was? Right about what?”
His eyes darkened. With one hand still on her hip, he removed the razor from her fingers and set it on the edge of the counter. He pulled her down to his lap. “I don’t want to live the rest of my life being sorry for what happened yesterday. I can’t change it. I can’t fix it. All I can fix is now and what happened between us today. I’m sorry I made an ass of myself before. I didn’t know what I wanted then, but I know now.”
“Whatever’s haunting you, you can survive it,” she whispered, finger-combing his thick, lush hair. “We can help each other. It’s okay to be two instead of one.”
He groaned, his eyes squeezed tight, against what she didn’t know. Strong emotions radiated off him. “I thought finding Jamaal would make it stop,” he ground out. “I thought saving him would make it go away.”
“Make what go away?”
He took her left hand and placed it over his heart. “This hollow feeling right here,” he said as he moved her palm to his cheek. “And this pain.” He moved her hand to his forehead. “The nightmares.”
She straddled him. Arousal coursed through every inch of her body. Jamaal was just feet away, but she was ready to comply with whatever Jake wanted regardless. Sex in the kitchen? You got it? On the floor? Ready, set, go. But he seemed sad.
She cupped his chin with both hands, her heart opened wide for this tender, battered warrior. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Let me in. Let me help.”
He took her mouth slowly, tasting her lips and tongue carefully. He seemed almost tentative the way he tilted his head for better access. Breathing was over-rated so she inhaled nothing but him and the scent of shaving cream that came with him. This was all about being with him. When he breathed, so would she. Until then...
The warm hand at her hip slipped to the cheek of her ass. With one gentle clench of his fingers, she was on fire. If he hadn’t tasted so good, she’d have pulled him to the floor and had her way with him, but she couldn’t bring herself to break the connection with his mouth. Not yet. Hunger flamed to life, roaring for satisfaction. He deepened the kiss, and her soul responded in kind.
With both hands on her backside, he secured her legs around his hips and stood. He kept kissing. She kept on tasting. With a few long strides, he angled past the couch and through her bedroom door.
Only when he set her carefully on her bed did she open her eyes to drink him in. The light from the other room did him justice. Rakishly handsome, his hair flopped loose over his forehead, the rest of him trimmed and neat. Rubbing the back of her hand over her lips, she wiped his shaving cream off. She hadn’t noticed his well-defined chest before or the smattering of hairs that delineated his pecs, but she noticed now.
His muscles didn’t bulge like the juicers she’d seen at the clinic, though. His were massive squared-off hunks of granite suspended over a trim waistline, and they were as hard as the rest of him. Her tongue took a trip around the inside of her mouth, hungry for more.
But he was unsure. Hesitant. “Are you sure you want a guy like me?” he asked.
“Jake Weylin,” she growled. How could she get through to him? “Look at me. What the hell do you think?”
Bouncing off the bed, she flipped her light switch on so there would be no doubt left in that hard head of his. Standing in front of him, she tilted her chin up so she could see into his eyes. So he’d know once and for all. Wordlessly, she unbuttoned her top and shrugged it off her shoulders.
He bumped the door shut with his butt, and those dark grays didn’t miss a thing. His gaze softened to hazy when it landed on the tops of her breasts. He almost made her feel embarrassed, but the light in his eyes was nothing short of adoration.
When her fingers unsnapped her jeans and pulled the zipper down, the gray turned to black. His breathing shallowed. She shimmied her ass out of her pants and toed them away. There she stood in nothing but matching mint green bra and panties. The only reason she’d bought this set was the dark green satin bow between the cups of the bra, set off by a red glass bead. They looked Christmassy, like holly and a berry. She’d never intended to be doing a strip show, but for this man? Whatever works.
A smile tugged at the right corner of his mouth. He dropped his pants and underwear and....
Now it was her turn to groan. She gulped loudly, an annoying tell she had to get over one of these days. He had to have heard. The man was—blessed, and by the looks of him, damned sure of what would happen next.
He winked, a sexy smile tweaking his lips. “I like holly.”
She offered her hand, inviting him to her bed. Instead, he gathered her up in one armful and tossed her onto her mattress. Placing both palms to the bottom of the bed, he stalked her. The prey instinct within her quivered when his sinuous shoulders moved like a jungle cat’s. She wanted to run from him as much as to him. Wet with desire, she lifted onto her elbows, half afraid to take her eyes off him. The second she bent both knees and dug her heels in to scoot backwards to her pillows, he pounced. She squealed.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he growled playfully, his hand at her ankle. With one smooth jerk, she was beneath his naked body. Out of breath, heart pounding in her ears, and her legs spread. One hot and sexy man hunkered in between them.
Lacy was as wanton and as ready as hell. She wiggled against him until he snagged both her wrists and raised her arms over her head, pinning her beneath him with his hips. And his tongue. She whimpered at the meal he was making of—her. At the power he held over her, and the way it aroused her. If he didn’t hurry, she’d detonate all over him
“Hi,” she said weakly and totally enamored. Wow, he was a big guy.
Weighing her left breast in his right palm, the sexiest growl rumbled up from deep in his throat. “You’re perfect,” he muttered.
The deep baritone rumble shivered over every tightly strung chord in her body and soul. The panties had to go. She was already too close to the edge. Just one wrong word and she’d—
“Come,” he said, his hand extended to pull her to her feet.
And she did, but not how he’d meant. His gentle foreplay was her undoing. Shockwave after shockwave of screaming heat consumed her while Jake knelt over her in awe, the dearest light in his eyes as he watched her unravel. Finally loved, there was nothing she could do but hold onto him and cry as wave after wave of exquisite pleasure tumbled over her.
“I’m sorry,” he crooned, stretching
his rugged body alongside hers. “I didn’t know you were so responsive.”
Yeah, me neither. She swallowed her tears, spent with the quickest climax she’d ever experienced and the rolling aftershocks that came with it. The rollercoaster ride continued with more fireworks at every crest, and barely enough dips on the track to catch her breath. She clung to him. And I intended to seduce him? She’d never gotten out of the gate. If this was what he could do with just his hands and mouth… Penetration would definitely be interesting.
“What you do to me,” she whispered, her cheeks wet with emotion.
The man was pleased with himself. Male pride glittered in those sexy dark eyes. “What you do to me.” Lowering his head, he covered her mouth with his, and the game was on.
Chapter Sixteen
“The light,” Lacy whispered, pointing to the wall switch at the left of her bed, but Jake was past modesty. He wanted to see every last piece of her.
Kneeling over her in one of the Corps’ best push-ups, with one elbow to support his weight, he slipped his fingers beneath the strap of her bra. Exposing one small but plump breast, the dark pink nipple had already peaked and pebbled, waiting for his mouth to work its magic. He used to know to work that kind of magic, but now it felt more like a miracle had unfolded over them both. Something bigger was happening, and with all his heart he wanted it to never stop.
He kept on going, taking her nipple between his lips, afraid he’d hurt her with the intensity of the storm building within him. But a man could only want for so long before nature took control and set loose a million years of animal instincts. When Lacy arched her hips upward into his cock and moaned, forcing more of her breast into his greedy mouth, he succumbed to the powerful magnetism of her body. He tasted, nibbled, sucked, and all out devoured the tender offering. Around and around his tongue went, pulling her nipple into the hot recesses of his mouth only to release the succulent nub so he could torture the other.
Nothing. Not one damned thing in his life had ever tasted sweeter. She growled from deep in her throat, her long bare legs wrapped around his waist, and her fingernails in his back, spurring him on. Like he needed encouragement. His hands seemed to know what they were doing, but he was operating purely on instinct, tasting, kissing, and all but inhaling every tender piece of flesh his lips touched. Her breasts. Her stomach. The twitching, ticklish band of muscle that stretched below her abdomen and between her hipbones.
Moving back up, he sealed her mouth with his unbridled desire for forgiveness and an insatiable need to live again in peace. To not be afraid to live. Into that kiss, he poured the things he never thought he could feel or would want to share again. Or need to give away so desperately that it hurt. The only things he owned. His honor. His heart. His love.
Please don’t let me fail this woman, he begged the universe. Help me love her best. Treasure her most. Never fail her. Never hurt her.
Lacy took all that he gave, her delicate fingers laced through what was left of his untamed hair. She pulled him tighter, not offering any quarter, but forcing her tongue into his mouth and devouring him as much as he was devouring her. Panting for breath, she attacked him with a passion and a need so desperate and feral that only another warrior could understand where it came from.
It was the same for Jake, a hunger to belong to someone who truly cared, to not have to face the torment he’d dragged home with him alone. In filling Lacy’s needs, the strangest sensation happened to the hollow thing barely living inside Jake’s chest for years. It wasn’t’ an empty hole anymore. His heart warmed. It expanded. It throbbed and pulsed with—life.
He swallowed hard. The ugly black shadow that had taken over his soul and his sanity faded, and in its place came something better. Something real and pulsing and alive and… God, he wanted more.
“Love me, Jake. Please, just love me,” she demanded as her fingers moved to his neck, holding him in place as if she needed to trap him. She didn’t. His self-doubt had fled along with the shadow of regret. He was willing to love again. Her pretty panties went next and Lacy became his world. Poor desolate Fantine was forgotten, consigned to tragedy while he chose life and love and Lacy.
Well, yeah… His world had gone erotically tactile. The light in her eyes encouraged him to keep going. Her fingers hadn’t released him. He wanted her to forget the dangers that lay beyond her apartment door. He wanted her to be one hundred percent focused on him. A fire raged between them.
“Jake, please,” she begged. “I can’t take any more.”
Jake smiled. He was a man once more, able to pleasure his lady, to give her something no one else could give her. While he stoked her libido, he watched, his eyes wide open and filled with the sight of her coming undone. The sight of her body flushed with desire and needing his to make her whole, of her clutching the bedspread beneath her, urgently working to get him to enter her. Him. Sergeant Jake Weylin. That guy. To enter someone as sweet and pure as heaven itself.
He kissed and licked his way back to the satiny skin of her highly responsive neck and her kiss-swollen lips. She wanted more, and he had more to give. More than he’d realized. Once again in a push-up over her heaving, breathless body, he paused and let his heart fall into the forest of her sultry green eyes. A man could get lost in there. Somehow that didn’t seem so bad any longer.
She licked her lips, her intentions pretty damned clear. There was no hesitation. For once, there was no mournful dirge in his head to distract him, either. There was only beautiful, pure Lacy. The time to let go was now. With her hand guiding him, he slipped into paradise with a shudder of unspeakable pleasure. Inside her. Inside the man he used to be. The man he still was.
“Oh, Jake,” she purred, the sexy growl in his ear all the enticement he needed to push home. Clutching his back with all ten fingernails, she met him every inch of the way.
He set a rhythm, and by hell, she wasn’t just along for the ride. He slammed into her and her hips lifted, welcoming him every time. It didn’t take long before she stiffened beneath him. One more deep hard thrust sent her into her release and him along with it.
The night exploded around them and she came apart in glory with him. The sweetest muffled squeal announced to the world that she was claimed and claimed well. Together they unraveled, only to come back to earth together in shimmering waves of the damnedest ecstasy. Making love had never been like this before. Their separate worlds disappeared. Their separate futures, too. They were joined, and he had no clue how a simple physical act between two sweaty bodies could mean so much. But it did.
No more would she walk alone. Nor would he. The gift was given. Hope was bestowed and at long last, accepted. He just hadn’t known he had any hope to give. His heart filled with a new truth, one he could live with. Lacy Wright is mine. To serve and protect. To love. Forever.
“I know it’s too soon, but you need to know what’s in my heart, and I’m saying it anyway,” he declared with every intention of making sure she damned well knew who she was getting. “You are mine. All mine. Damn it, I love you, Lacy Wright. I think I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you in the alley behind the clinic.” Brave words for a man with nothing to his name, but his name.
The crazy woman giggled beneath him, her breath moist and warm in the crook of his neck. “Funny guy, I love you, too.”
He sank into her, the last of his strength spent, but the rest of his life beginning. The wonder of what they’d just done together stole his breath. He, a man so lost, so unworthy of anything good in his life, was suddenly as claimed as she.
Lacy lay in peace, hugged tightly against Jake’s chest, his arms wrapped around her and his nose in the crook of her neck. Twice he placed a soft kiss behind her ear and whispered, “I love you, Lacy.” And twice she clutched his arms to her, wanting him to stay in the safety of her bed.
But she couldn’t sleep. The pleasant soreness of her body only reminded her that when the morning came, he’d be gone on a mission of his own choosing. T
he ugly things she’d seen on Marlee’s video were reason enough for him to do what he felt he had to do, but Lacy was selfish. Why not just call the authorities and let them deal with Rafe Poindexter? Why did Jake have to be the one to put his life on the line again? Hadn’t he done that enough already? Didn’t he have enough scars?
The answer rang out loud and clear. More than anything, Jake Weylin was an honorable man. He would do all he could to rescue the girls on Marlee’s thumb drive, and that was why Lacy loved him. Despite his own unresolved memories of the war, he’d come to war torn Anacostia to help his friend and now he wanted to help others. He had to. That was who he was.
Carefully untangling herself from the masculine fingers cupping her breast, she slipped out from under her sleeping man and shrugged into her bathrobe. Lacy went to her closet and pulled out a few art supplies and a clean canvas. This painting had been calling to her since her car exploded, and she’d found herself beneath the body of a man willing to die for her.
She turned a small desk lamp on, situated herself on the bed beside Jake with her easel, and began to paint. The strokes came easy as oil met canvas in sweeping strokes of Chromatic Black mingled with more ornate Titanium Whites of inspiration and the barest hint of Phthalo Turquoise for depth. Within the hour, her work was done. A single kiss of startling Alizarin Crimson completed the piece.
“Hey, Lacy,” Jake murmured from his pillow. “What are you doing?”
She looked at the sexy smile of a man in love. The mussed up dark curls on his head gave him a jaw-dropping, just-had-incredible-sex look. Her heart flipped three backward somersaults before it nailed a perfect landing.
Jake (In the Company of Snipers Book 16) Page 13
