“No,” she whispered as she raised her hands and brought his mouth down to her. “Later.”
She gave him a long, wet kiss that let him know how much she wanted him. Let him know that she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. And he wanted her. In every barbaric beat of his heart. In the darkest place in his soul that demanded he take her now. At certain times in his life, he’d been as barbaric as the enemy he faced. Times when he’d gone to that dark savage place, but he was not a barbarian. He could take his time and draw out the pleasure. Make it better for her, and that was exactly what he meant to do until she shoved her behind into his crotch, and he lost control. He raised his head and gasped for air.
“Blue,” he managed. “Grab the rail.”
She pushed her panties down and kicked them aside. Then she looked back at him as she bent forward and grabbed the rail. He palmed her smooth behind as his pants and underwear hit the floor. The head of his penis touched the crack of her butt, and he slid his hand between her legs to cup her crotch. “Spread your feet a little bit for me.” She was wet and ready and moaned deep in her throat as he parted her and teased her slick flesh. Within the moonlight and the shadows of the house, he positioned himself and slowly slid into the hot pleasure of her body. She was as incredibly tight as he remembered. He sucked in a breath and buried himself, so deep, his thighs slapped her behind. He leaned over her and pushed her curls to one side. He kissed the side of her throat. “You feel good, Blue. As good as I remember.” His body covered hers, and she arched her back, pushing her bottom into him, telling him without words that she wanted more. He gave it to her in slow, smooth thrusts. He pulled out and drove inside again. Then again, and his heart beat in his chest and pounded in his head. Hard, like he wanted to pound into her, but he didn’t.
“I’m not eighteen, Kasper. I know how I like it now.”
“How do you like it?”
“Faster.” She spread her feet a little more and hung her head between her shoulders. “Faster makes it hotter. Like a fire inside me that rushes across my skin and ends in an explosion.”
Jesus. He straightened, and the moonlight shone on her bottom like a peach, and he slammed into her. “Mmmm,” she moaned, and he plunged into her again and again, faster, hotter, like fire.
A deep groan tore from his throat as he felt the first tightening of her body. Her orgasm pulsed around him, squeezing his erection and pulling a release from deep in his belly. He thrust into her over and over as the most intense pleasure he’d ever felt in his life rippled through his body and spread that fire she’d talked about across his skin. Mine, his inner barbarian shouted in his head. He leaned forward and buried his face in her damp neck and dark curls.
All mine.
“Just the parterre garden,” Blue said into the telephone. “We never rent the big house for parties.” She’d learned that lesson the hard way, when members of Ports of Hope had entered the roped-off areas and one had ended up passed out in great-great-great-great-grandmother’s full tester bed! “Yes. We can provide the catering,” she continued. “You provide the liquor.”
Carolee poked her head into Blue’s office. “There’s someone here for you.”
Blue looked up and covered the receiver. “Who?”
“Me.” Kasper spoke from behind Carolee. His gaze met Blue’s, and she felt it everywhere all at once. Her heart pinched just a little, and she worried about what that might mean.
Carolee waved her fingers and backed away from the door, leaving Blue alone with the man she’d meant to keep a secret. For the past five nights, they’d met at her cottage or his house. She’d told no one, and no one had seen them together.
Until now.
Blue picked up a pen to keep her hands busy and wrote unnecessary information. What was he doing here? They weren’t supposed to meet until tonight. “Thank you for calling.” She hung up the phone and looked up at the man who’d been giving her incredible pleasure for almost a week now. And afterward, they talked about his work and hers. Her son and growing up on River Road. They talked about a lot of things, easy, relaxed conversations, but the one thing they never talked about, not directly was that day twenty-two years ago. Perhaps by tacit agreement, they avoided the subject. “This is a surprise.”
He shut the door behind him. He wore khaki pants and one of his Pennington Construction polos. “I have something for you.”
He handed her a little porcelain box that fit in her palm. A tiny image of a woman with dark curls and wearing a pink hoop skirt had been hand-painted on the top, with Esterbrook clearly behind her.
“I found that today as we went through some of the old furniture in the attic. I thought she looked like you.”
Carefully, Blue opened the box. On the underside of the lid, in tiny script, was written, 1840 Miss Louisa Pennington.
“I want you to have it.”
“Seriously? This is a family heirloom.”
“I don’t have a lot of family left these days.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into his chest.
“I don’t know if I can take it. It’s worth too much.”
He lowered his face to hers, and said against her lips, “I have an ulterior motive.” He kissed her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, the little Limoges box tight in her grasp. She loved the way he kissed her. Long and slow, as if he had all day. Against the front of her dress, she felt his ulterior motive.
She pulled back and smiled. “You missed me.”
“Always.” He buried his nose in her hair. “I miss you when you’re not with me.”
She squeezed the box until it cut into her hand. She didn’t want him to say things like that. Things that made her stomach go all squishy and her heart ache in her chest. “I know what you miss.” She rubbed against him to make light of the chaotic emotions turning her all hot and liquid inside. Things that were in danger of melting her aching heart.
“Not just that,” he said against the side of her head. “But that’s part of it. You make sex feel better than anyone has in a long time.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-two years.” She pulled back and looked up in his dark eyes. “Twenty-two years ago,” he continued, “when I met a girl with soft curly hair and blue eyes. A girl who gave me her virginity, and I’ve never forgotten it.”
That might have been a romantic speech if not for the elephant in the room they’d been avoiding.
She stepped back, and his hands fell to his sides. “I waited for you.”
“When?”
She put the porcelain box on her desk. “That next day in the oak tree.” She studied the tiny hand painting and waited. Waited for him to say he’d been in the hospital with something life-threatening that day, or that he’d fallen in a well and couldn’t get out. Something.
He was silent, and she looked up. “I know,” he said, just above a whisper. “I saw you that day. You wore jeans shorts and brought a yellow blanket.”
“You saw me?” A scowl wrinkled her forehead. “With the blanket. When?”
“When you got there.”
“What?” She didn’t understand. “You saw me, but you didn’t meet me?”
“No. I left for Camp Lejeune a day early.”
The anger she hadn’t felt at seeing him again after all this time hit her smack in the face. “You had to leave early and couldn’t spare ten minutes to let me know? So I didn’t wait for you?”
“I didn’t have to leave early. I chose to leave a day early.”
She didn’t understand. Maybe didn’t want to understand. “You just left? You left me sitting in that tree for hours? You knew I was there, and you just left?”
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“For whom?” She pointed at herself. “Not me. The right thing would have been to meet me, and say, ‘Hey Blue, I’m leaving for Jacksonville early and can’t meet with you. Bye. Have a nice life.’ The right thing was not leaving me there, sweating to de
ath in that tree. Waiting for you while you were on your way to North Carolina!”
“You’re angry. I don’t blame you.”
“Thanks for not blaming me.” He reached for her, but she pulled away. “I think you need to go.”
“Blue.” His hand fell to his side. “Cher, I’m sorry.”
She folded her arms across her breasts. To keep from giving him the throat punch he deserved or to protect herself from the punch in her heart, she wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.
Blue made herself a Purple Jesus. It wasn’t Sunday, but she needed it. She called Billy, who usually cheered her up with his antics, but even her son couldn’t lift her mood. Kasper Pennington had somehow managed to make her fall in love with him.
She took a drink and set it on the bedside table as she pulled a short white nightgown over her head. She’d been in love before. With Billy’s daddy. She’d loved him madly, but never like this. She picked up the jar and headed into the parlor. Love with her former husband had not happened this fast. Or hard.
She raised the jar to her mouth as someone pounded on her door. There was only one person who had the passcode to get onto the estate.
“Open up, Blue. I’m not leaving.”
She believed him and opened the front door. Her stupid heart swelled in her chest. “What do you want Kasper?” She expected him to try and sweet-talk her into letting him inside.
“Let’s go.”
“What? I’m not going anywhere.”
“Get your shoes.”
She looked closely into the eyes of the man she knew and noticed a hard glint she’d never noticed there before. She got the impression she was looking at Gunnery Sergeant Pennington, and he did not tolerate disregard of a direct order.
“I’ll get them for you.” He moved past her and grabbed a pair of rubber boots she wore when she gardened.
“Not those,” she protested, as he ushered her out the door. Headlights blinded her as he put his hand in the small of her back and pushed her along to the passenger side of his truck. She balked at climbing inside, and he sighed.
“Please, Blue. I’m tired, but I will hog-tie you.”
“Fine.” Which, of course, wasn’t fine. With her drink in her hand, she climbed inside. He tossed her boots at her feet and shut the door.
Neither spoke as he drove out of Dahlia Hall’s gate or as the truck tore up the River Road. He turned off the highway about a mile from Esterbrook and finally piqued Blue’s curiosity enough to ask, “Where are we going?”
“Scared?”
Not at all. “Should I be?”
“Maybe.”
She drained her Purple Jesus and shoved her feet into her boots. The truck bumped along in the darkness, and the headlights shone on a dirt road, overgrown weeds, and trees. Cypress and live oak. When he finally pulled the truck to a stop, she was feeling kind of buzzed from downing her drink so fast.
She got out and looked around. She knew they were on a strip of property between Dahlia Hall and Esterbrook, but she wasn’t exactly sure where. She glanced around to get her sense of direction, but the darkness and vodka conspired against her.
“Here.” Kasper shoved a small but powerful flashlight at her.
She took it and followed after him because what else was she going to do. He was acting like he had a right to be angry. “If I lag behind, are you going to hog-tie me?”
“It’s a possibility. Hog-tying is just part of my skill set when it comes to suppressing rebellion.”
She glanced about the terrain and the lightning bugs. She smiled at the flits of light that had virtually disappeared after Katrina. But they were back now. Like a lot of New Orleans. Her smile fell when her gaze landed on the outline of the big man in front of her. “Where are we going?”
“Right here.” He shined his flashlight on a tree. A live oak tree. “You first.”
Apprehension tightened her chest. “You want me to climb this tree? In the dark?” She hadn’t been at this spot in twenty-two years, but she knew this tree.
“I’ll catch you if you fall.”
“Kasper.”
“I spent all day putting new steps on the tree,” he said, sounding more tired than before. “Now get your ass up there.”
She had a feeling that if she didn’t climb, he’d throw her over his shoulder and go all Tarzan on her. With her rubber boots on her feet and the flashlight between her teeth, she climbed. Up she went, until she came to the platform that had once been Kasper’s childhood fort. In the middle of the floor sat a battery-powered lantern. Like twenty-two years before, she felt a big hand on her butt, pushing her up. Kasper followed and stood in front of her, staring down into her face. By the light of the lantern, she could see he was frowning. His brows pulled together in one dark line. “Are you drunk?”
“No.” She was buzzed.
He stared at her for several long moments, then said, “You didn’t ask why?”
“What?”
“Today, in your office, you didn’t ask me why I left early all those years ago.”
She thought the answer was obvious, but since it seemed important to him, she asked, “Why? Why did you leave Kasper?”
“Because I wanted to stay,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “And that scared the hell out of me. For most of my life, I’d wanted to be a scout sniper. I’d dreamed of it as I’d picked off squirrels as a kid. I worked hard to get into sniper school, and I worked hard to earn my Hog’s Tooth. The future I wanted for myself was set. I was on my way up; and then I met you.” He folded his arms across a clean white T-shirt and looked off into the darkness. “I’d just moved up in rank and was part of the elite forces that I’d always dreamed about. I joined when I was eighteen and planned to serve my whole twenty. Then I met you, and for the first time, I thought about getting out in four years. I was standing at the door of my future, and that scared the shit out of me.” He laughed without humor. “I mean, who finds the love of their life at a crawdad feed at the age of twenty-one? That’s just ridiculous.”
“Kasper.” She dropped her flashlight to the floor. It bounced and fell to the ground.
“Who looks through a bunch of steam boiling out of a pot and falls in love with a girl he’s never met?”
Tears stung the backs of her eyes as her heart totally melted. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. “Kasper.”
“I love you, Blue.” He buried his face in the top of her hair. “I’m sorry I was a coward all those years ago. If you give me the chance, I’ll show you that I’m not the man at forty- three that I was at twenty-one. Hell, I am not even the man I was a week ago.” He pulled back and cupped her face. “I look at you, and I see something I haven’t seen in a very long time. I see a woman I love. I look at you, and I see a future. When I look at you, I see something I’ve never seen before. I see forever.”
“With a Toussaint?”
“With you.”
She smiled. “I love you, Kasper.”
“Are you sure that’s not your Purple Jesus talking?”
She shook her head and laughed. “No. I love you, and I’m sure generations of Penningtons and Toussaints are rolling in their graves.”
He pointed his flashlight at a limb in the tree. “Not Abigail and Thomas.”
Beneath the old initials, someone had carved a new set. A set much lighter than the first. K. H. P loves B. D. L. B.
“Twenty-two years too late,” he said.
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s perfect.” Except he’d transposed two of her initials. But after twenty-two years, the fact that he’d recalled all her names, no matter what order, was impressive.
“When you see our future, what does it look like?” What was she going to tell Billy? Would he be okay? Maybe they should all go to Hawaii. She’d always wanted to go to Hawaii.
“Kids.”
“What?” Kids? She’d been thinking of vacation destinations. She looked down, and her hands covered her stomach over he
r white nightgown. “I’m forty.”
“Young enough to have a passel of kids.” He laughed at her shock.
“A passel? I already have a teenager!”
“Well, we’ll have to talk to him about that. But I think we need some Toussaint-Pennington babies running around.”
She was forty. “What if it isn’t possible?”
He pushed her hair from her face and looked at her for several heartbeats. “You love me. I didn’t think that was possible. Now, anything is possible. I want to spend my life loving you and you loving me. You’re it for me, Blue. You’re all I need. Anything else is lagniappe.”
A nice surprise, like finding love again after twenty-two years. A gift, like finding love with a man who loved like Kasper Pennington.
New York Times bestselling author
RACHEL GIBSON
returns with another deliciously sexy Marine in her latest novel
RUN TO YOU
Available September 24 from Avon Books!
Read on for an excerpt …
Prologue
“Her name is Estella Immaculata Leon-Hollowell and she lives in Miami.”
Vince Haven handed his good buddy, Blake Junger, a cold Lone Star, then took a seat behind his battered desk at the Gas and Go. “That’s some name.”
Blake took a drink and sat across from Vince. “According to Beau, she goes by Stella Leon.”
Vince and Blake went back a long way. Blake had graduated BUD/S a year before Vince and they’d been deployed at the same time in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Vince had been forced to retire for medical reasons, Blake had served his full twenty.
Blue By You Page 6
