by Tara Janzen
He wanted to love her. He gently gnawed on her mouth, pulled away and ended the kiss, then came back for a deeper taste. Her breath shuddered and sighed against his lips when he finally lifted his head. Her eyes remained closed.
He stroked her soft cheek with his thumb. “Come with me to the Regent.” His voice was rough, with an emotion he recognized only as need.
The Regent? The Regent Motel? Sarah opened her eyes. He knew every secret in her heart, every thrill coursing through her veins. He knew how badly she wanted him.
All she could do was stare and not cry. Then all she could do was stare.
She jerked away and took two steps, stopping when the damn tears spilled onto her cheeks. He was going to leave if she walked away; she knew it beyond doubt. Leave her right there in the church basement, and this time he’d never come back.
Why? she wondered, her hands constricting into tight fists, her tears tracing dampness on her cheeks. Why did she have to be a complete and total fool to even get a chance to talk with him? It wasn’t fair.
She took another step.
“Don’t go, Sarah.”
She stiffened under the touch of his hand on her arm, under the gruff caress of his voice. What was he going to do now? Kiss her again? Ruin her life? What had he been thinking to kiss her in the first place? She’d been giving him her condolences and ten years’ worth of life history. She’d made a point of doing nothing, saying nothing, not even thinking anything that might remind him of what they had once been. She’d tried to play fair, and he’d cheated right down to the core.
What did he want? she thought angrily. Besides the obvious.
She forced herself to move again, but his hand tightened.
“I’m sorry,” he said. A second passed, then another before his hand fell away.
“I have to finish cleaning up.” She didn’t look back at him.
“I’ll wait.”
Fine. He’d wait, and she’d try to figure out what in the world she’d do when the waiting was over.
* * *
Colt sucked a short swallow off his bottle of Scotch and chased it with a longer draw off his beer. He wasn’t drunk, not even close, but the fact that liquor lowered body temperature was becoming a noticeable reality.
He leaned forward and turned on the ignition, running the heat to get the chill out of the jeep. The rain hadn’t let up. The thunder still rolled. Lightning played cat and mouse through the towering banks of clouds filling up the sky. It was a hell of a night to be sitting in a parking lot in a jeep, waiting for salvation and a woman.
The back door of the church opened, and after a quick check to make sure it wasn’t Sarah, he went back to watching the grass get wet on one hundred and eighty degrees of horizon. He’d missed Wyoming more than he’d realized, all the beautiful nothingness.
He stretched back into the seat and wet his tongue with the Scotch, just enough to taste and give an edge to his beer. He was pacing himself. He had the whole night to get through, and he didn’t want to do it in a stupor.
He wanted to do it in Sarah’s arms, in her bed. Wanting her gave him a focus he wasn’t about to forfeit, no matter how long she made him wait in the cold rain.
He didn’t know if it was possible to still love her the way he had. It didn’t seem likely. But he knew he wanted her with the same intensity. The motivating force was more calculated than desperate, but the need was the same. He’d found solace and heaven with her once, and he’d wait all night on even the off chance of finding it again. He wasn’t falling apart any longer. He was solidifying, and it was in a place he didn’t want to be.
He tilted the bottle once again.
He still thought her beautiful, though he knew other men might not. Daniel had always dismissed her as cute in an offbeat way. A couple of the guys on his SEAL team wouldn’t even notice her, but they were the younger ones, the ones who still kept their brains below their belts, which wasn’t all bad. For some of the things he’d asked them to do, not thinking too much was a distinct advantage. The older guys, like Rick and Boomer and Garrett, they’d know right off that she was special without him saying a word.
The church door opened again, drawing his attention, and suddenly Colt was glad none of his friends were around to offer unsolicited opinions or get in the way. He jumped out of the jeep and came around to get her, not wanting her to mistake for a second where she belonged.
He shrugged out of his coat and threw it over her shoulders, tucking her under his arm as he did. She fit there so perfectly. He held her close against the blowing wind and the showering rain.
She balked slightly at the door to the jeep, but he pretended not to notice, instead expending a nominal amount of force to guide her inside, more a tensing of his muscles than a true exertion of strength.
It was enough. She slipped into the seat and he shut the door behind her.
The first thing Sarah noticed was the bottle of Scotch balanced between the driver’s seat and the gearshift; the second was the half-empty six-pack of beer at her feet. Before she could decide how concerned she should be, he got in and pulled his door closed.
Water ran down the side of his face and followed the line of his jaw to the shallow cleft in his chin. He wiped the rain away with a lift of his shoulder, never taking his eyes off her.
Tension rose inside her. He was a stranger. Except for the way he’d kissed her, she didn’t know him.
His white shirt was soaked through, shrink-wrapped to the hard muscles in his arms and the breadth of his shoulders. He’d loosened his tie and unbuttoned both his collar and the next button. Not enough to incite a riot, but enough to affect her. The inside of the jeep was so small, not really big enough for two people and all their memories.
“Can I take you somewhere for dinner?” It was the straightest question Colt could formulate, a standard line designed to keep female quarry from running off before a man had a chance to prove the simple sincerity behind his intentions. Not that women often bought the simple sincerity behind wanting to get lost in the act of making love, in simply coming together physically as intensely as possible.
“We just had supper.”
He was a mess and she wanted to be practical. He took a deep breath, still holding her with his gaze.
“How about a drink?”
She gave the bottle of Scotch a quick glance and flushed slightly.
“A mixed drink.” He’d play the game all night long if he had to. She wasn’t going to shake him.
She turned to look out the window, her lips squeezed together, her eyes wide, and he was shook all right, down to the pit of his stomach and the soles of his shoes.
Anger and frustration shot through him in one searing bolt. “My God, Sarah. Where do you want me? On my knees?”
She didn’t say a word, and the only acknowledgment she gave his plea was the tear that ran down her face.
He swore under his breath and jammed the jeep into gear. “I’ll take you home. Where do you live?”
She gave him directions, and he wheeled the jeep around. This, then, was the best after all, he thought. Cheyenne and escape. There was too much going on in Rock Creek, more confusion than he needed or wanted. She was a dream he couldn’t have, not reality.
He started to shake and swore again, reaching forward to knock the heat up another notch. He was cold, wet, and angry. He was feeling things he didn’t want to feel, and Cheyenne was too damn far away to suit him.
She could have helped, for a while anyway, but she didn’t want to. She was showing more sense than he, he was sure.
He had her home in under five minutes of strained silence, pulling up in front of the white picket fence surrounding her yard. She lived on the northeastern edge of town, on a dirt-and-gravel side street that wound down into muddy ruts across the Great Plains.
He was supposed to say something, but the effort was beyond him. Not even a simple good-bye could get out of him without making him feel worse. She’d have to say it for bo
th of them, then just open the door and leave. He couldn’t say good-bye, not when he wanted her to turn to him and ask him to stay.
“You’re freezing.” The words came to him softly. “Shivering.”
When, he wondered, had she gotten so dumb? She had to know better than to be kind.
He tilted his head to one side and stared right through her, right through to the heart of her. If she wasn’t going to make it easy, he was going to make it damn hard, impossible if he could.
He saw a flicker of panic brighten her eyes. He saw a soft swallow slide down her throat. But she held her ground and managed to speak again.
“Why don’t you come inside. I’ll dry your shirt for you.”
He accepted the invitation with silent actions, turning off the ignition and getting out.
He didn’t know who was the bigger fool, her for asking him to stay, or him for accepting. Somebody was bound to get hurt, probably both of them. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to stay if she had a lot of rules about it, but he did know he wasn’t strong enough to leave.
He was a Navy lieutenant, a SEAL, a team leader, the quintessential definition of toughness and discipline. He knew about going the extra mile, or the extra ten, and his body was trained to give him what he needed without faltering. He made snap decisions, had done it under fire, sending men into places from which they hadn’t come back—and she was laying him low. Even his body was caught up in her, racing to get closer and closer despite all his doubts.
He held the door open as she stepped inside, and she brushed against him, hip to thigh, the most fleeting of connections. His body tensed in instant reaction. If she had a lot of rules, they’d be broken before he left.
Sarah didn’t know who was winning and who was losing. She had no idea what Colt was thinking, but she did know she wasn’t ready to let him go. That seemed to be her bottom line. She wasn’t proud of it.
“I’ll make some coffee.” The simple things were the best, she thought, and nothing was simpler than making a pot of coffee. When she actually got to the kitchen, though, the task took on new proportions of difficulty. She didn’t know how many cups to make, a full pot or just a half. It depended on how long he was staying, and she didn’t know that. Then there was the problem of how strong he liked it.
She stood at the counter with the filter holder in one hand and a spoonful of coffee in the other, stymied by the variables. She knew what was wrong. She was overwhelmed; her pulse was racing. She needed to calm down and sort things out, think and act like a regular person.
The sound of his footsteps instantly dispelled her hopes in that direction.
“I like it pretty strong.” He offered the advice, and she acted on it, dumping several measures of coffee into the filter, enough for a full pot. When he left it wouldn’t be because she’d run out of coffee.
She poured in the water and punched the button, which left her with nothing to do but turn around. She did, carefully, and caught him at a bad time anyway.
His shirt was draped over one of her kitchen chairs, but his T-shirt was in transition up his torso, with his face covered and his arms crossed over his head. He was California tan, his skin a silky, golden brown. The muscles in his chest and abdomen were sculpted with exquisite definition, the only flaw being a white line that ran from his right shoulder, across his chest, and down to the bottom of his rib cage on the left. She reached for him without thinking, a slight, shocked movement, but stopped herself in time to keep from trespassing.
Colt felt the near touch and the quick jerking away, and he knew what had caused both. He’d forgotten about the scars. He pulled his head out of the T-shirt and drew it off his arms. He handed it to her along with his shirt and watched her gather them to her breasts, billowing his clothing between her fingers.
“You’ve been hurt,” she said softly, still staring at his chest.
“A few times.”
“What happened?”
“I miscalculated. An enemy took me by surprise.”
The look she gave him told him how strange she found his answer. Most people didn’t live in a world where enemies committed physical violence on them, and he wouldn’t be the one to tell her this particular act of violence had occurred in her world. His commander knew what had happened to him—there was damn little his commander didn’t know about him—but the origin of the scar wrapping three quarters around his neck and the one cutting diagonally across his chest wasn’t common knowledge, no more so than the parallel marks tracking across his back.
He’d been identified and catalogued in every possible way from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet, and the scars were a part of his official record. But to Sarah they meant only pain. He saw it in her eyes.
“It wasn’t as bad as it looks,” he said in an attempt to reassure her and shift her attention. Bull hadn’t carved his initials into his handiwork, but to Colt it had always been obvious what the scars were: the marks of a whip.
She didn’t look convinced, but she turned away. “I’ll get you something to wear while your clothes dry.” To her credit, her voice didn’t waver. It was terribly quiet, but it didn’t waver.
He followed her into the living room, then waited while she continued on into the hall leading to the bedrooms and a bath. Her home was nice, he decided after looking around. The furniture wasn’t new, but neither was it shabby. Everything was done up in light colors. There was a lot of soft whiteness—at the windows, in the couch pillows, woven through the oriental rug in the living room. It was a woman’s place, Sarah’s place, right where he wanted to be.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. He was freezing. She’d turned on a couple of lamps, but he needed heat. He needed her—and so far, he’d stayed off his knees. He was grateful for the small victory, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Rain streaked the long windows on the south wall of her living room, the ones facing back toward town. He didn’t think the storm was going to let up all night. Prairie storms were always intense, wildly beautiful if a person had the courage to face them. Geography gave them an edge: A man could see one coming from miles off, fill himself up with worry and anticipation, but when he was under it there wasn’t a way out and nothing to stop it, no mountains and damn few trees.
He heard her coming back down the hall and turned to face her. She looked frightened and unsure, his wet shirts clutched to her chest with one hand and a football jersey hanging from the other. He couldn’t help her, not as long as they stayed at a polite impasse, not if all they did was drink her coffee and sit on her couch while his clothes rose and fell in her dryer.
She offered him the jersey. When he took it, he wrapped his hand around both the shirt and her hand and drew her near. Her hesitation was real, and so were the doubts clouding her face, but she came.
Shirts wet and dry were bunched between them, until he took her hand and opened it over his chest. The jersey floated to the floor. The wet shirts followed when he grasped her other hand and slipped it around his waist. Her fingers were coolly damp as they slid across his skin.
Her breasts rose against him on a trembling breath, triggering an inevitable reaction deep inside his body. She probably wanted to talk first, he thought. It would be the sensible thing.
But sensibility wasn’t a place he could reach just then. Passion was. Love and lust, sweet consummation, a driving coalescence of his desire were all effortlessly within his reach when he was within her arms.
They could talk later.
Five
Sarah knew he was going to kiss her, and she knew she was going to be undone. The die had been cast.
A painfully slow breath escaped her. His arm came around her waist, indomitable. His fingers caressed her cheek, feathering across her skin with a gentleness at odds with the strength of his hand.
“Colt . . . no.” The words barely made it out of her mouth; their lack of conviction almost made them silent.
He kissed her any
way. His mouth brushed over hers, his tongue barely tasted her lips, but it was enough to start the heat inside, that quick flicker of wetness.
She didn’t move—she couldn’t—and after only a second’s pause he kissed her again, tightening his arm around her in an act of possession. The descent of his darkly golden head was unerring. His tongue dampened her lips in one long, sure stroke of claiming. The gesture was forcibly male. He’d marked her as his, and she trembled inside.
He wanted her. He was going to take her, all the way, in every way. She remembered how it had been between them, and the memories and the building heat weakened her knees. She clung to him, her small hands pressed to his chest, feeling his muscles bunch and give with every move he made. No one felt like Colton Haines. No one had ever felt as good.
He angled his open mouth over hers, making the kiss deeper, more demanding, and infinitely sweeter and wetter. Breaths mingled. Tongues stroked and slid across each other. Whimpered sounds of distress and desire mixed with short, deep groans. He was seductive and single-minded, and Sarah was stripped of self-defense. He cupped her breast, filling his hand, and she was undone, completely undone.
“No . . .” She tore herself from his arms and turned her back to him, hiding her face in her hands. Her cheeks were hot. She shook her head and tried to control the trembling of her body. “Don’t . . . don’t do this.”
Colt heard the plea in her voice, the edge of panic, but he didn’t stop. She’d have to do better than that to dissuade him, when she was melting against him with every touch. He came up behind her and wrapped his arm around her hips, holding her close, pressing himself into the soft roundness of her bottom, molding himself to her and feeling the pleasure surge through his groin.
Sarah felt it, too, his hardening maleness. She felt his hand gather her hair from her neck and move it aside, and she felt his mouth come down on her nape, hot and wet, his tongue laying a trail of fire across her skin. The impact of his touch, the boldness, rocked her very soul.
