Sucking air between her teeth, Tara tripped the latch and threw her shoulder into the door. Without looking at him, she dropped a booted foot over the side and jumped from the pilot’s seat. “If you don’t like the way I drive, don’t climb into my bird, Hawk.”
A hard hand wrapped around her elbow. Blunt fingertips bit into her arm as he lifted her off the ground and held her snug against his chest. She slid halfway down his body before opportunity registered and instinct kicked in. Her arms and legs locked at his neck and thighs. She shimmied back up his long, lean body like a lumberjack scaling a tree trunk. She locked her thighs around his hips and dug the worn heels of her battered cowgirl boots into the hard muscle of his ass. Staring up into the jagged planes of his soot-covered face, she match him scowl for scowl.
“You could have killed yourself,” he rasped.
“I would never endanger my crew,” she retorted. “It was an engine alarm. I had her under control.” Luke opened his mouth to speak but the words caught. Startled by his strangled cry of frustration, she stared straight into his ebony eyes, willing him to truly see her for the first time. “Don’t you know me at all by now? I would never risk you. Never.”
His hand slipped into her hair, pressing the damp strands to the back of her neck. “Goddammit, Tara,” he rasped.
She held his gaze and exhaled a tremulous breath. “Goddammit, Hawk.”
A bead of sweat trailed down his temple, cutting a swath through the black soot that seemed embedded in his pores. It trickled into the crevices that fanned from the corners of his eyes, then attempted to scale that high, arcing cheekbone. Favoring him with a shaky smile, she caught the droplet on the pad of her thumb and swirled it into his skin.
Her lips were dry. She ran her tongue over the parched skin and traced the outline left by his safety goggles with her eyes. “You look like a reverse raccoon.” She wiggled, inching a bit higher so the crotch of his personal protective gear slid against the slick fabric of her flight suit.
Shudders rumbled through his body but he cradled her ass in one big hand. “And you look like more trouble than any man my age should go courtin’.”
“I’m not asking you to court me.” Her grip on his nape tightened. She leaned in and caught his earlobe between her teeth, rolling the tender flesh before releasing it with a flick of her tongue. Her breath bounced off his ear, warm and moist with anticipation. “All I’ve ever wanted was you deep inside me.”
His throaty growl was the only signal she needed. Pressing her face to the crook of his neck, she inhaled deeply, relishing the heady scent of fire and sweat and sweet, hot desire rising from his blackened skin. He pried her arms from his neck, released his hold on her bottom and shook from head to toe, shedding her from his body as effortlessly as he tossed off drops of river water after a swim.
Tara dropped like a sack of rocks. Her boots skated on the dusty asphalt, catching traction the second he turned his back and strode away. But this time she wasn’t about to let him go so easily. “Running away again, Hawk?”
“Go home, little girl.”
He set a relentless pace, covering the scrubby lawn that separated the camp from the airstrip in strides that beat hers by a two-to-one ratio. Still, Tara was undeterred. She caught his arm as his boot touched the single step leading to his tiny cabin. He turned to look at her, his face taut and savage with need, his breathing rough and ragged.
“Go home, Tara,” he rasped. “Run. Now.”
Tara knew his distress wasn’t purely exertion. The lock tumbled and he kicked the knotty pine door. It bounced off the wall, catching him in the shoulder before he cleared the entry. She followed him into the cabin.
Her heels hit the plank floor and Luke grasped her elbows, halting her invasion of his personal space. Grim determination etched the lines bracketing his mouth and furrowed his wide brow. They only made her want him more.
“I’m not a little girl.” Her fingertip sketched the granite line of his jaw, and she flashed a sad smile. “I haven’t been for a long time.”
“I’m not the guy for you.” He stared into her eyes, as if he could drive her from his cottage by sheer force of will. “I’m not nearly what you need.”
For one breathless second she thought about running, but like the man standing in front of her, she was no coward. Walking away from him now would be simple and easy. Par for the course. A tip of the hat to the old status quo. But it wouldn’t be painless for either of them, no matter what he wanted to believe. His rigid self-denial hurt them both, whether he realized it or not. And for her part, Tara couldn’t take one more day of the emptiness gnawing away at her insides.
“You’re the one I want.”
He chuckled, the deep rasp of it wrapping around her like smoke and choking the last wisps of common sense from her brain. Flicking the zipper on her flight suit, he twisted his full lips into a wry smile. “You need to learn to set your sights higher.”
She smiled up at him, loving the way even a glimmer of a smile cut those irresistible crevices into his gorgeous face. She’d mapped every one of them eons ago. She dreamed of kissing the thin white scar that trailed down from his neck and ran along his shoulder. It was a souvenir from an Al Hussein missile strike in the first Gulf War—a wound he suffered when she was three. She knew the thick raised scar on his left leg was another trinket from a faraway land, the result of a sniper. The demons he met in the desert had chased him into the mountains of Afghanistan a decade later. He wore more scars than she’d seen yet—inside and out—and she wanted him anyway.
He stared down at her, his dark eyes hooded but liquid with heat.
“I fly high every time you look at me like that,” she whispered.
Tara smiled when he carefully schooled his features. Too late. Again. She saw the inferno that burned inside him, no matter how cool he thought he was.
He quirked one jet-black brow and tipped his head back, staring down his nose at her. “Look at you like what?”
Soaring on a rush of power, she let her fingers bump along the placket of his grime-smeared yellow shirt and used his infamous sweet tooth against him. “Like I’m warm cherry pie smothered in ice cream.”
He caught her hand when she reached the button on his pants. Long, strong fingers manacled her wrist. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled back to reveal muscular forearms. Her attention wandered to the triangle of skin exposed at his throat, and the need to know if he was smooth all over ripped through her like a tidal wave. Her pulse tripped and stumbled.
“Please, Hawk, please,” she whispered. Unquenched ache left her voice cracked and rusty. She stared at his bobbing Adam’s apple, unable to look him in the eye as she threw her pride into the wind. “Please don’t make me wait anymore.” His grip loosened the tiniest bit. Taking his hand with her, she nestled her fist between her breasts. Her heart strummed against her knuckles. “Please.”
“This is dangerous. Haven’t I taught you anything?”
He’d taught her everything a man should be—strong, mindful, honest and upright. Unlike her fly-by-night father. The same man who’d inspired Luke Whitehawk’s unswerving loyalty when they served together decades before had abandoned Tara and her mother without a second thought. But Luke would never forget her. She’d make damn sure of it.
His fingers unfurled and he flattened his palm to the back of her hand. The warmth of his skin melted the last of her reserve. “You taught me everything I know about keeping my feet on the ground. Now let go and let me teach you how to fly.”
“You’re jumping into the fire.”
“You do it every day, and it makes me burn.” He tried to retreat but Tara held her ground. She wouldn’t allow him to run when they were so damn close. She couldn’t. “If you pull back now, I want you to remember this the next time you call me ‘little girl’—I’m not the one running away. You are.”
He recoiled as if she’d slapped him, but she didn’t back down. “I love you and you love me. No amount of time or
distance or common sense is going to make that go away.”
Streaked with ash and soot instead of war paint, he stared at her, silent and unyielding. The hard planes of his Native American features made him appear tough and unforgiving to those who didn’t know him. She saw the battle raging inside him. The tiny muscle ticking in his jaw told her he was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with his conscience.
The heat in his eyes cooled, and panic bubbled in her throat. He might be a master builder when it came to shoring up his formidable control, but she refused to stop chipping away at it. Afraid he would deny her again, she pressed her hand to his cheek. She wouldn’t let him win. Not this time. Not when she was so damn close.
“I’m in your head and in your heart. You’re in mine, Luke.” Caressing his warm, smooth skin, she stilled the tiny twitch in his jaw and forced him to meet her eyes. “Stop fighting this. Stop fighting me.”
*
Stop fighting me. The bald-faced demand elicited a chuckle even as her use of his given name made his knees go weak. Tara was all woman but she was still very much a little girl when it came to getting her way. And damn it, she was going to get her way. He knew it. She knew it. It was only a matter of time. Today, tomorrow or next Thursday, the when was as immaterial as it was inevitable.
Lifting his free hand, he caught a bit of her flame-red hair between his thumb and forefinger. The silken strands rasped against his scarred and calloused fingertips. He sighed with regret and tucked the hair behind her ear. “I can’t stop fighting. It’s what I do when something’s trying to burn me alive.”
She twisted her torso slightly, filling his hand with the sweet curve of her breast. A groan rolled like thunder from the depths of his chest, and pleasure flashed in her eyes. Every man who’d ever faced an untamed fire knew he had to respect its power and feed its hunger before it could be controlled. His fingers closed around the tempting mound, kneading the tender flesh through the layers of fabric that separated the hard bud of her nipple from the itch in his palm.
Her lips grazed the underside of his jaw. She stood on her toes, her questing tongue lapping at his salty, sooty skin as if it were cool, sweet cream. The urge to duck his head and take her mouth licked at the last threads of his self-control. Relief. That was what it would be to sink into her wet heat.
“Luke,” she whispered.
Too many sleepless nights spent thinking of her finally caught up with him. He snapped, fusing his mouth to hers with a reckless abandon he hadn’t unleashed since he was her age. She opened for him like a flower reaching for the rain. His tongue swept into her mouth, taking, taking, taking the succor she offered.
He wrapped around her, binding her to him and lifting her off the floor once more. Tara angled her head, inviting him to take the kiss deeper still, and he jettisoned the guilt that weighed him down. She wanted him and he wanted her. God help him, he was the tinder to her fire, and when she was done consuming him, there’d be nothing left but ash.
She broke away and a beatific smile lit her face. “Jesus, Tara,” he gasped.
One greedy hand claimed his throat, dragging her thumb along his stubbly jaw. “You’re all hot and dirty,” she cooed. A wicked grin sparked golden flames in her summer-sky eyes. “I can’t tell you how many times I imagined stripping you out of these filthy clothes and doing filthier things with you.”
A strangled grunt angled in his chest. He lurched toward the open door of the tiny bathroom, clenching his jaw so hard his molars screamed in protest. Depositing the squirming siren of a girl on the vanity, he attempted his sternest stare. It fell short when he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror mounted above the sink.
She was right. He was caked in dust and soot and ash. Rivulets of sweat settled into the lines fanning from his eyes and the crevices time had carved around his mouth. He was supposed to be old enough to know better by now. At forty-one, he was supposed to have a little more self-control than the headstrong girl perched on the edge of his sink. She blinked but her blue eyes remained calm and steady.
His forehead pressed to hers, he closed his eyes and gave in to the primal call of his desire for her. He moved against her in a slow, dirty dance that allowed him to cling to the illusion of control while savoring the delicious heat seeping through the layers between them. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing with you,” she whispered.
The rasp of a zipper scattered the haze clouding his mind. He jerked back, but not enough to pry himself from the grip of her magnetic heat. She slid the tab down to her waist, revealing the white silk tank she wore beneath. Shrugging her flight suit from her shoulders, she arched her back. The pristine white fabric wicked moisture from her skin and molded to high, firm breasts. The dark shadows of tight nipples made his mouth run dry. Sweat trickled down his spine. Suddenly, he was in Kabul again—scared, dirty and so damn lost.
Tara stared up at him wide-eyed and antsy, writhing with anticipation and completely oblivious to the battle raging inside him. As she should be. That was the way he wanted her to be. She was inherently sweet, unspeakably sexy and, despite the fact that they were both covered in his soot and grime, she was impossibly clean. He’d fought the inferno she lit inside him because he needed her to remain untouched by the blood and ugliness he’d seen in his life. Unsullied by death and war and…him.
Still, he couldn’t help himself.
A low, aching moan bounced off the walls when his fingers closed over her breast. Hers, his, he wasn’t exactly sure where it came from. He couldn’t care less if he tried. All he knew was his big, filthy hand looked perfect on her.
“Christ.” The dull thunk of her head against the mirror scarcely registered as his mouth fastened on her other breast. Her tits were taut and tiny, barely able to fill the curve of his palm, but ample enough to bring him to his knees. The tip of her nipple rasped hard on his tongue. He laved her, using the thin material of her tank to tease her even as she softened and melted.
Her fingers sank into his hair, tugging at the ends, her nails raking his scalp. She rocked into him, the sweet heat of her pussy seeping through the fabric to warm his chest. His dick ached, throbbing with the need she’d unleashed in him the day she showed up in his office with a duffel bag, a smile and a saucy, “Someone call for a chop jockey?”
Mustering the last of his restraint, he rocked back on his heels. When he placed the ad, he’d never expected Tom Stephenson’s little girl on his doorstep. And even if he could set that aside, he’d certainly never anticipated falling in love with a woman almost half his age.
Staring up at her through eyes glazed with lust, he relinquished his hold on her breast. Black streaks of soot marred the snowy fabric of her top. The damp spot left by his mouth turned the material covering her nipple nearly translucent. In and out, he ordered his lungs to continue with business as usual even though his brain was in a flat spin. He fixated on the patch of wet, wondering how his parched mouth could have managed such a miracle.
“Luke.”
She spoke his name in a husky whisper he knew he’d never be able to forget. Licking his lips, he met her expectant gaze head-on. “Last chance,” he rasped.
Her mouth twitched at the corners. Then blossomed into a slow, sultry smile, the likes of which he’d never seen. Sharp shards of silvery blue sparkled in her eyes. A blush so delicious it could rival a ripe peach stained her cheeks. The devil turned her smile into pure temptation as she took hold of her zipper again. Another few inches of tiny metal teeth unmeshed and the loose jumpsuit fell away. Wriggling back on the sink, she planted one low-heeled boot in the center of his chest and arched an eyebrow in silent challenge.
He yanked the boots and socks from her feet, letting them fall to the floor one by one before reaching for the button on her cargo pants. Tara batted his hand away, her bare soles slapping tile as she hopped down from the vanity. “Start the water.”
The order was barely more than a whisp
er but he jumped up to comply. Holding his fingers under the shower spray, he took a moment to gather the frayed threads of his self-control. When he turned to face her, Tara peeled the tank top from her body, shaking her hair loose over porcelain shoulders as it drifted to the floor, and he came undone.
She was unlike any redhead he’d ever known. Born into a generation slathering on SPF ten million from birth, her skin flowed over fine bones and toned muscle like rich cream. The faded freckles dotting her shoulders and the bridge of her nose glowed pale gold. Biting his lip, Luke let his gaze travel over the subtle curves of her breasts and linger on the not-so-subtle jut of her nipples. Berry red and furled tight, they called to him, begging for the attentions of his lips and teeth and tongue. He leaned in to capture one but a sparkle in her navel caught his eye.
A white-hot flash of arousal exploded in his chest only to be consumed by the surge of anger bubbling up from his gut. “You’re pierced?”
Startled, Tara took a quick step back, the open waistband of her pants bunched in her hands. “What?”
“Your belly button,” he said with a terse nod. “Is it pierced?”
Her breathy chuckle did little to relieve the tension humming through his body. “Oh. Yeah. I had that done when I turned eighteen.”
The muscle in his jaw leaped as he reached for her waist. Blunt fingertips bit into soft flesh. He spun her around and, thrown off balance, she stumbled into him.
“Hey!”
Luke ignored her yelp of surprise and yanked her pants to her ankles. “Tattoos?”
“What?”
The thought of Tara marking and marring her pristine canvas made his temples throb. “Tell me you didn’t ink your body.” Using his hands as well as his eyes, he performed a thorough search.
Love Letters Volume 2: Duty to Please Page 11
