“My father’s ex-military,” Davina said, breaking the silence. “Fifth Infantry Brigade. He told me once that soldiers would rather die doing something than die doing nothing.”
Jack nodded. “Best not to die at all, of course.”
That sexy, smart smile lit her face. “Of course.” She flicked a finger toward his leg. “What about the injury?”
“It’s about as good as it’s going to get. I had an operation at Landstuhl, then two plastic surgeries at Walter Reed. Then PT. I’m in a support group with other injured soldiers. Seeing their courage helps a lot.”
“How bad’s the pain?”
He put a hand over the scar. “I don’t know anymore. I mean, it’s bad, I guess. I’ve lost track of what life was like without pain. I hate the meds, so I keep ‘forgetting’ to take them.” He made air quotes as he said forgetting. “Doctors say it’s slowing my recovery, but I’m not sure.”
“You know, there’s a hot tub on the deck,” she said, as if this would be news to him.
“Yeah, so?”
“And it’s stopped raining,” she added.
Holy shit, it had. Jack listened. Nothing.
“Want to get in the hot tub?”
“Why not,” Jack said.
Davina stood and started taking her clothes off again, this time not stopping until she was nude. God, she had a pretty body.
He got up, putting a hand on the back of the chair to steady himself. “I’m a little drunk,” he admitted.
She came around the table to help him with his shirt. “All the better for seducing you again, Colonel.”
Her hands were hot on his skin, sliding up his chest, brushing his nipples before tugging the fabric over his head. Then she pushed the waistband of his shorts down his hips, reaching in with one hand to cradle his cock so it didn’t get caught on the elastic.
“Such service,” he murmured.
“My pleasure,” she said, nearly kneeling at his feet. She crouched alongside his legs, then he saw her kiss the scar tissue. He couldn’t feel it, not really, but the sight of it made his skin prickle with the oddness of the situation.
She shifted slightly and took his cock into her mouth. That he felt. He groped for the chair back again, bracing himself so the torrid sensation of her tongue rubbing on his cock wouldn’t buckle his knees.
“Hot tub?” he asked tentatively.
She settled herself more comfortably on the floor. “Let me just finish this one thing.” She scooped his balls in her hand, then went back to sucking on the head of his cock.
Jack leaned his head back and closed his eyes. She’d snaked an arm around his ass and was fondling the small of his back, his cheeks, the soft skin at the top of his thighs. He broadened his stance to parade rest so she’d have room.
Even as he reveled in the wet heat of her mouth, Jack tensed for her hands—one on his balls and one presenting a rear action, fingertips caressing the delicate skin between his legs—to meet up in some fashion. That thing she was doing with a thumb… He jerked forward with the tiny scrape and huge surge of pleasure.
“Oh, God, yes, like that,” he groaned.
She went crazy then, sucking, licking, fondling, humming. Devouring. He was ready to be eaten up, consumed by this gorgeous woman. He put his left hand on her head, but she didn’t need any instruction or guidance. She had everything well in control.
He yelled as he came, clutching the chair back like a lifeline. “So good. So damned good,” he crooned.
She licked his softening dick with delicate little laps of her tongue, gentle and wildly sexy. Then she stood. “Now the hot tub.”
*
Amazingly, the stars were out when they got to the tub and threw back the padded vinyl cover. The air was chilly, though, so Davina was happy to drop the robe Jack had lent her and climb into the hot water.
“Tom got this started for you as well?” she asked as they settled back on opposite sides of the tub.
“I guess so. Or maybe my father was down here last weekend.”
Davina gathered her hair on top of her head, twisting it into a rough knot. She sank down until only the tops of her shoulders showed above the water, resting her head on the edge of the tub. “Where does your family live?”
“Outside of Baltimore. My mom died ten years ago. Dad dates. I think. He hasn’t remarried.”
“Are you an only child?”
Jack leaned back as well, so he was talking to the moon. “No, I have a sister, Marlena, who’s married and lives up near Philly. Two kids.”
“Why haven’t you married?”
He laughed. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
“Fair enough. I’m not married because I haven’t met anyone who wanted me enough to take me as I am, and I haven’t met anyone I wanted enough to consider changing for.” Until I met you, that is. That wasn’t something she could say out loud.
“I almost married after West Point. College girlfriend. We never quite pulled the trigger. Then I deployed and we lost touch. I saw what other wives—yes, and husbands too—had to go through back home while we were overseas. In a lot of cases, they were the real heroes, raising families, keeping things together. I know they’re proud to serve their country by supporting their spouses. Selfishly, I’m glad I haven’t inflicted that on anyone.”
Davina thought about how hard it would be to have a husband deployed, worrying and waiting. Sounded like torture.
“Hey, you said something about Lady Emily’s dad outranking yours,” Jack said suddenly.
“Lady Emilia Talbott. Yes, so?”
“So who’s her father and who’s your father?” He chuckled. “Okay, that just sounded wrong. You know what I mean.”
“Quite. My father is a baronet, Sir James Craddock-Gunn. Emilia’s father is an earl.”
“Does that make you an Honorable?”
“Why, Colonel, however do you even know to ask that question? And no, I’m not. Just Miss Craddock-Gunn, although I tend to lose the Craddock wherever possible. Too pretentious by half.”
“I met an Honorable once, at an embassy party. She wasn’t nearly as pretty as you,” Jack said. He sounded like he might still be drunk. Davina liked it.
“Thank you.”
“And I’m guessing Lady Edwina isn’t as pretty as you. So what’s that guy’s problem that he had to marry an earl’s daughter?”
“No problem. Sheer ambition. She’ll still be Lady Emilia even after they’re married. So they’ll be Mr. Michael and Lady Emilia Randolph. I think that little bit of nobility appeals to Mike.”
“And you don’t mind?” Jack asked.
“Good God, no. I’m more amused than anything.”
He sighed. “I think any man would be thrilled to get you for himself.”
Oh, dear. Davina could well imagine that this was the wine talking. She needed him to feel this way in full daylight and stone-cold sober, not half-drunk in a hot tub on a starry evening.
“Don’t these things have spurty bits?” she asked, gesturing with her hand in the water.
“You mean the jets? Of course.” He got out of the tub swiftly, turned on the timer and then slipped back into the water. A couple of taps on the control panel and the water erupted.
Davina scooted over to sit next to Jack. “Too loud to make conversation,” she said in his ear.
He grinned at her, his teeth a white gleam in his shadowy face. “What did you say? I can’t hear you over the jets.”
“Very funny,” she shouted in his ear.
He retaliated by leaning over her, his arms on either side of her shoulders. He kissed her slowly. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back. While their tongues tangled, he reached down and nudged her knees apart, then slipped a hand in to open her to the bubbling water. Two fingers went straight for her G-spot and his thumb worked her clit. Davina clung to his shoulders as it all came together. The heated water, the masterful manipulation of her arousal, the force of his kisses. She moaned
deep in her throat.
He pulled his head back an inch. “That’s right, darling, let it all out.”
“Oh, Jack. Keep going, oh yes, please.”
Then he had three fingers inside her and she couldn’t climb any further. She shattered, hard spasms racking her body. She was just coming down from that when the timer clicked off and the water calmed.
The silence felt thick and rich, like Edwardian velvet. Davina stared at Jack, whose lambent gray eyes seemed lit from inside.
“We’re not done,” he said.
They closed up the hot tub and padded back to his bedroom, where the sex was sleepy and deeply satisfying. She fell asleep with his arm around her waist and his cock nudging her leg.
Something woke her. Davina lay there, warm next to Jack, and tried to figure out what it had been. Not sunlight; they’d drawn the curtains just before falling into bed. Not hunger—well, yes, she was hungry but that wasn’t it.
Noise. Specifically, the drone of a chain saw. She wished it would break, the chain snapping in two, or get stuck in the huge old tree. She could tell it was making fast work of the roadblock. They’d be able to drive back to D.C. before lunch.
Then what? Their report was nearly finished. Ten days, maybe a fortnight more before they’d submit it to their respective superiors. Revisions were possible but they’d take no time. Most likely she and Colonel Jack Travis wouldn’t need to see each other again.
That damned chain saw was cutting up the one thing she had keeping Jack by her side.
She didn’t realize she was crying until Jack pushed up on one elbow and brushed his knuckle against her cheek.
“You okay?” he asked.
She shook her head, not sure her voice would work.
“What is it?” he asked. “Tell me.”
“I don’t want to leave here.”
“You mean, the U.S.?”
“I mean here. This bed.”
“Oh.” He flopped back onto the mattress.
Stunned silence, from both of them. Davina was shocked she’d actually said it out loud. Jack was probably fighting the urge to jump screaming from the bed, seeking whatever refuge he could find.
“When do you go back to the U.K.?” he asked without looking at her.
She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. Sometime after the report’s done and accepted, I suppose.”
“Stay.”
“What? Here in bed?”
“No. Stay in the U.S.” He’d gone back onto his elbow, tugging her with his other hand to get her to look at him. “With me. Stay with me.”
Davina looked at him, gauging his sincerity. “Oh my word. You mean it.”
“I know it’s too soon, we don’t know each other that well, that it’s crazy to talk about this now, but I don’t care. I want you, Davina Craddock-Gunn, and I won’t let you go back without a fight. Or, I don’t know, I could quit the army and join you there. There has to be a use for gimpy ex-military guys in England.”
“Or do you suppose the Pentagon needs a well-educated, highly trained military analyst?”
“Is the pope Catholic?”
She laughed. “Last time I checked, he was.” She flung her arms around him. “Oh, Jack, let’s. I don’t care who goes where, let’s make it work.”
“Roger that.”
*
H Is for Hotshot
By Maggie Wells
Tara gritted her teeth and jabbed at the switches on the console. Warning lights lit the cockpit like fireworks on the Fourth of July, but they weren’t nearly as annoying as the high-pitched wailing in her ears. The skids were firmly on the ground, but the control panel of the Firehawk still refused to pipe down. Emergency sirens sounded inside the chopper and out.
A steady stream of expletives flowed through the comm system built into the brain bucket melded to her skull. She tore at the chin strap and yanked the helmet from her head. The last thing she heard before tossing it onto the empty seat beside her was yet another refrain of, “Goddammit, Tara, you land when I tell you to land!”
She swiped her sweat-soaked bangs from her forehead and glared at the lights dancing in front of her eyes as she killed the engine. The whump-whump-whump of slowing rotors calmed her hammering heart. Her ears rang from the screeching of the interior alarms. Safe at the rugged base camp eighty miles south of Missoula, they were a good distance from the hotspot, but the residual heat from the forest fire sizzled along the soles of her feet. The stretch of sun-bleached concrete laid out in front of her was solid but she still felt shaky.
The ground crew hovered at the edge of the scrubby grass, anxious to do their jobs, but wary of the firestorm brewing in front of them. Nodding to the stragglers as they jumped from the back of her chopper, she sighed. She was the liftoff girl, meant to soar, dip, dash and arc. Her daddy was a Top Gun, her mama, an air-ambulance pilot. Her parentage had thrown up a hurdle she hadn’t been able to conquer, no matter how high she flew. Tara could fly before she could walk, but once her boots touched ground she completely lost her bearings.
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam.
An involuntary smile twitched her lips even as a flash of annoyance lit her up inside. Trailing her fingers over the controls, she gave her head a little shake. “Don’t worry, Betsy. I won’t let the crazy Injun hurt you.”
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam.
“Goddammit, Tara! Get down from there!”
His booming voice carried through the chopper’s steel-and-glass exterior and echoed the demands flowing from the speakers in her discarded helmet. Sighing, she popped the latch on her safety harness without sparing him a glance. She didn’t need to look. She’d memorized him long ago. Hunger for the bossy blowhard had consumed her good sense. Too many lonely nights spent thinking about him, dreaming about him and physically aching for him made her crazy. There wasn’t one millimeter of Luke Whitehawk’s gorgeous, disapproving face she couldn’t conjure at will.
Tara chanced a glance and almost wished she hadn’t. The forbidding scowl on his face told her he wasn’t going to give in to her any time soon. If ever. The stubborn old goat.
To be fair, the imposing cowboy currently rattling her chopper’s rivets wasn’t the least bit goatlike. Or too old for her, despite the fifteen-year age difference and his lame protests. But the stubborn bit—that fit Luke Whitehawk to a T.
Like the fire he fought, the man was a force of nature. Attraction had flared the minute she laid eyes on him. At first, she refused to trust her feelings, certain the desire he stirred in her was the by-product of the thrill of flying his band of elite smoke jumpers in and out of flames, tempered with a healthy dose of hero worship. Over time, the adrenaline rush evened out and admiration morphed into respect, but the physical attraction didn’t fade. If anything, it evolved into something more. Something undeniable, though the obstinate man did his best to pretend it didn’t exist.
The fool.
In a way, today’s close call was his fault. His refusal to recognize what was right in front of him made her do foolish things. Like land her chopper in a horseshoe of flame so tight she’d felt the heat of it through glass and steel. When she swooped in, Luke and his crew had been hemmed in but still fighting as they fell back. The tankers were coming, but she couldn’t wait any longer. She had to get them out before it was too late to make him see what they could have.
As they took off, flames had licked the chopper’s tail, setting off the sensors. The cockpit alarms weren’t flukes, but then again, neither was she. Tara knew her bird. She’d known she’d get them back to base safely. She’d also known the warrior waiting outside the chopper’s door would have died fighting, and she just couldn’t allow that to happen.
She had to keep him safe.
Tara smirked and turned her attention to her post-flight checklist, letting the word echo in her mind. There was little safety in the sparks she and Luke struck off one another. He could yell and scream at her all he wanted now that they were on the ground, but it wouldn’t chang
e a damn thing.
Desire wafted from his skin and rippled his muscles if her hand accidentally brushed his. Which it did. As often as possible. He never acknowledged the ravenous need gnawing at his gut, but she knew it did. The same ache ate away at her too. He wanted her. They both knew he wanted her bad, but the man had a will of iron. Lord knows she’d done her best to tempt him in the past two years, but he never surrendered. She didn’t give two damns if he’d known her daddy once upon a time. Whatever ties each of them once had to the man who fathered her were weak and frayed, worn away.
His flimsy excuses were growing thinner by the day. Ready to poke some holes in whatever argument he chose to hide behind, she stole another peek at him as she flipped switches. It took all her strength to resist the pull of the urgency vibrating off him.
Unspoken yearning wasn’t what fired his inky eyes at the moment. Oh, he was hot for her, but he was more likely to wring her neck than press those perfect lips to it. Damn the bad luck. She sighed, resigned to the fact that the tongue-lashing she was about to get was not the variety she wanted. As lead hotshot on a crew who thought nothing about jumping feet-first into danger, Hawk was used to having his orders followed without question. Most everyone hopped to the moment he barked. Everyone except Tara.
That was what the fool got for trying to mollycoddle a woman who didn’t mind earning a few bumps and bruises. The pilot he’d hired sight unseen might have been a shade younger than expected when she’d strolled into the run-down trailer the Montana Sky team called an office, but she was anything but green.
Despite a stellar military record and two years of proving her competency to him, day in and day out, he only grew more overbearing and protective. While she appreciated that he cared, she didn’t want him to worry about her, damn it. She wanted him to trust her enough to acknowledge that she knew what she was doing. Unfortunately, she was all too aware that if she dared to look at him now, she’d see fear, not anger, stretching his sun-kissed skin tight over high cheekbones.
Luke pounded the door once more, but this time he used an icy-hot stare to smoke her out. The drone of dead air made her ache for the bells and sirens. A flash of anger tightened her jaw. If he thought he could break her with his childish silent treatment, the man had another think coming. Luke had started screaming from the rear of the chopper when they caught the first updraft, and had plowed right through until she delivered him safely back to base camp. Again.
Love Letters Volume 2: Duty to Please Page 10
