First to Fight Box Set: Books 1-5

by Nicole Blanchard

  Ford is the opposite of Scott. Where Scott is dark, Ford is light. As much in hair color and complexion as in spirit. Scott has demons, you can tell outright because he tends to be somber when he thinks no one is paying attention. Ford, however, I can tell right away hides his pain with humor. Even only having just met him, he has the sort of gravitational pull that draws crowds. I can see why they’re friends.

  “I hope you haven’t been waiting here the whole time. You could have come over to dinner.”

  “That’s all right, sweetheart. I just drove up from Texas and needed to crash.”

  “You two want something to drink?” Scott asks.

  “Sure, I’ll take a beer.”

  “Soda for me,” I say to Scott.

  He kisses me before heading to the kitchen, causing me to blush and Ford to grin at Scott, then wink at me.

  “So how did you meet Scott?” Ford asks.

  My cheeks burn harder as I recall that night a year ago in this very room. “My parents knew his, and my father invited him to our Christmas dinner last year.”

  He sends me a side-glance as he cleans up a paper plate and cup that must have served as his dinner. “Oh, so you’re the girl who planted one on him under the mistletoe.”

  I lift a shoulder and will myself to stop blushing. “Guilty.”

  Ford pauses with his hands full of dishes and seems to consider my response. “I’m going to have to try that one sometime.”

  That startles a laugh out of me. “If you do, I recommend you make sure your whole family isn’t in the room to witness it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says with another grin and then motions with his hands full of dishes. “I’m gonna go check on our boy. It was nice to meet you.”

  I smile. “You, too.”

  On the surface, Scott’s living room has changed little in the last year, but once I take a second look I can detect subtle differences. Before, I almost expected one of his parents to walk in and read a newspaper in the recliner or pick up the knitting by the window seat. It was as though he was afraid to touch any of their things because their memories might have disappeared with their belongings.

  There are touches of Scott around the room now. Their old fat-back television is gone, replaced with a high definition LED flat screen—of course. There are blank spaces on the walls where his mom’s flower paintings used to be. The unmistakable scent of cologne I associate with his memory mixes with linen air freshener and the lingering aroma of last night’s dinner. On the mantle above the fireplace is a bronze cast of combat boots next to a shot of a bunch of Marines that must have been taken when he graduated boot camp.

  I’m trying to pick out which one in the picture is Scott when I hear footsteps coming back down the hallway. Ford peers into the living room as he shoulders on his jacket.

  “I’ll see you around sometime.”

  “I hope so.”

  He offers a parting grin as Scott enters the room with our drinks in hand.

  “You didn’t have to kick him out, you know.”

  He puts the drinks on a side table, takes my hand, and pulls me close to his body. “Yes, I did. Besides, I told him to head to your place and look up your Grandpa. He’ll hook him up with some confiscated hooch and they’ll both have a Merry Christmas.”

  I gasp and slap his shoulder. “No you didn’t.”

  His smug grin melts my insides. “I did. He’ll be fine. He could use a little bit of your family’s brand of craziness. Besides, I couldn’t wait to get you alone again.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Absolutely,” he replies, his voice husky.

  With one hand draped around his neck and the other clutching his shirt, I don’t even realize I’m pulling him closer until he’s completely against me. He urges me back until the backs of my thighs knock into the arm of the couch, and I'm forced to sit because my knees liquefy.

  “I hope I’ve made myself clear,” he says as his lips trace my jawline and dip down to traverse my throat.

  My thoughts cloud with red-hot lust. It grabs all my doubts about him—about us—and puts them in a chokehold. I have all the time in the world now to explore his body, and it makes me want to purr. I suck my bottom lip between my teeth as I consider all my options.

  “Faith,” Scott murmurs as my fingers inch under his shirt. He sucks in a breath as they trace the ridges of muscle and I shiver. “Faith,” he says again.

  “Hmm?”

  He lets out a little laugh. “Are you listening to me?”

  “I don’t think so.” My brain is much too focused on how good his abs feel under my hands. He palms them, forcing me to frown up at him. “What?”

  “You have no idea how much I want to take you to bed right now.” My breath catches at his words. “But I want you to know, I want more than that with you.”

  “You do?”

  “I figure we’ve had two dates, if you count last Christmas and dinner tonight, but I’m hoping there will be many more.”

  “Yes,” I say and am embarrassed by how quick the word tumbles from my lips. “I mean, if you’re asking.”

  He kisses me again. “Consider yourself unavailable for anyone else for the foreseeable future.”

  I nod, unable to form words.

  Scott thumbs my lip and smiles. “That shut you up, huh?”

  I tug him down to me in retaliation. An entire year of pent-up frustration and missed opportunities pours itself out of me through the kiss. I find myself growing frantic at the thought that it will somehow be interrupted—again. My fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt and my breathing grows ragged.

  Noticing my distress, Scott slows until all we’re doing is holding each other, our foreheads pressed together.

  “Come with me,” he says before taking his weight away from me and pulling me to my feet.

  “Where are we going?”

  I’ve never been in any other part of his house and the chance to see more and learn more about him is one I don’t want to miss. The hall is short and ends with multiple doors. One set is a pair of sliders that are half open, exposing his washer and dryer with a laundry basket of clothes still unfolded on top. Two others lead to a bathroom and a guest bedroom—where Ford must be staying.

  I start to ask when he’ll be back, but Scott tugs my hand again and pulls me through the last door and at the sight of the bed, I forget my question.

  He glances at me. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  There’s a vulnerability in his expression that dissolves any of my hesitation. I just smile and shake my head as I draw him down to the bed, urging him above me by twining my legs with his. The dark slashes of his brows draw together.

  “Are you okay?”

  “If I was any better, I’d be dead.”

  Scott

  I should have thought this through.

  The entire year I’ve been imagining seeing Faith beneath me and getting to touch her again, I never considered that she might say yes.

  “I’m sorry about the bed,” I say with a rueful glance at the ancient full-sized frame I’ve had since grade school. The two of us can barely fit and the thought crosses my mind that it will probably squeak like a motherfucker.

  She runs a hand over my hair, and I feel it in my dick. “I don’t mind.”

  My eyes close halfway, and I drop down to my elbows. “Are you sure? We could go . . . somewhere.” I don’t have the faintest idea where, but at this point, I’d do pretty much anything for this girl.

  Faith shakes her head. “I’m fine right here. Really.”

  “Are you sure? We could—”

  “Scott,” she says patiently.

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  Her hands tug me down, and I order myself to get my head in the game. She let me have a second chance, and I can’t screw this one up. Once upon a time, I’d been a smooth little shit, but all my moves disappeared the second she laid her beautiful body down
on my bed and looked up at me with all the trust in the world shining from her eyes.

  I bow my head to place a kiss to the corner of her lips. Her mouth parts, and she lets out a jerky sigh that brushes against my cheek. Needing to touch and taste every part of her within reach, my lips coast down her jaw to her throat and then follow the line of her shirt.

  Beneath my lips, her heart races and I look up as I move my weight to one hand so I can see her eyes when my hand closes over her breast. The bed squeaks as I move, but that doesn’t distract her. I barely even hear it. In fact, my senses are all muffled when it comes to anything that isn’t her or the way she arches against my palm.

  “Stay still.” My voice sounds faint even to my ears.

  “I can’t.” Even as she says it her body squirms underneath mine.

  “Try,” I say with a smile. “Gotta make this last and you look so fuckin’ sweet right now it’s taking everything I’ve got to keep from goin’ crazy.” Her bottom lip plumps up and, helpless against the invitation, I take it between my teeth and lave it with my tongue.

  “I’ll try,” she murmurs against my mouth.

  “Good. Now stop talking.”

  She makes a zipping motion over her lips. “Shutting up now,” she says with a grin.

  With a final warning glance up at her, I focus on drawing the material of her sweater up her waist. Her soft laughter subsides as my fingers skim over the flare of her curves. My own throat goes desert-dry as my hands reach her abdomen. Eyes locked on hers, I push the sweater the rest of the way up and she lifts to help me pull it over her head. Left only in a lacy pale pink bra and miles of bare skin she reclines under me looking almost edible.

  Voice hoarse, I say, “You are incredible.”

  She tugs at the hem of my shirt and gives me a wicked grin. “Your turn.”

  I get to my knees, and for a moment, I hesitate with my fingers on the first button at my neck. My leg wasn’t the only place affected by the explosion that took my leg. Then again, she’s pretty much seen me at my worst, a few scars aren’t going to turn her off.

  As though she can read my mind, Faith scoots up so she’s half sitting, half reclining on the pillows. She brushes my hands away and undoes the first button herself before sitting up and dropping a kiss to the exposed skin. Heat flashes over me at the feather-light touch, and I close my eyes.

  When I don’t stop her, she unbuttons the rest in rapid succession, the unsteady progression of her fingers teasing me until the last one pops free. I let out a breath and then greedily suck in another when her hands move to my shoulders and dip underneath twin edges of my shirt. I open my eyes to find her watching her own hands as she tears the material off, as they ghost over my chest, as they trace a puckered scar across my ribs.

  “What happened?” she asks. Like the conversation with her sister, I know she’s giving me her full attention.

  “You sure you wanna know? I don’t wanna kill the mood.”

  Her fingers map the route the shrapnel took around my ribs, skipping over my chest, and dotting my shoulders. There’s no hesitation in her voice when she says, “Nothing could kill the mood right now. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to hide from me.”

  I take her hand and kiss her palm. “I don’t, I promise.”

  With a gentle push, she urges me to lie down next to her, and I do in what little room there is on the bed.

  “Our unit was assigned to assist a MARSOC Team—Marine Special Operations Command. We were in a convoy that was attacked. I ended up pinned beneath the truck, but everyone else was killed.” Faith’s hands still on my stomach, and I kiss her sweet downturned lips. I had a lot of dark days, but this sure as hell wasn’t one of them. “One of the MARSOC guys, his name was Ben, pulled me out from the truck. He saved my life.”

  “I can’t believe you went through that alone.” She leans down and she begins to trace each scar with her lips, starting with those on my shoulder. Her lips are laced with lightning and send sizzles of feeling over the desensitized skin.

  “I’m not gonna lie, as you’ve already seen, it got pretty bad.” Heat bolts through me when her mouth opens and I feel her tongue lashing at my bare skin. “What are you doing?” I ask, my voice hoarse.

  “Thank you for telling me,” is all she says before the tip of her tongue and her luscious mouth charts a path of electricity down my abdomen. When she reaches the top of my jeans she grins wickedly. “Now I’m gonna help you forget, even if it’s only for a few minutes.”

  I surge up and take her face in my hands. “You don’t have to do that.”

  She kisses me. “I know I don’t, but I want to.”

  I don’t need any more convincing, and I don’t fight as her hand pushes me back against the pillows and she arranges herself next to me. Nimble fingers work the top button of my jeans and zipper. Despite my bravado, ice coats my insides when she works the material down, baring my leg to her gaze. I shouldn’t have worried, because she doesn’t spare it a second glance. Her eyes are locked with mine as her hand dips behind the waistband of my boxers.

  Breathing becomes an impossibility, and my hand goes to her waist for an anchor as hers wraps around my dick. I groan, my first instinct is to close my eyes, but missing out on this heaven on earth would be a travesty.

  “Like that?” she asks.

  I can only nod.

  There has never been a better medicine than her touch, I decide. She strokes slowly from tip to base, her grip a vice I don’t ever want to escape. I steady myself with an arm around her waist and the other fists into the blankets by my side. After a few torturous minutes of delicious agony, she shifts to grip the waistband of my boxers, drawing them down and off me.

  Before she can wrap her lips around me, I tap her hip to get her attention and tug at the belt loop on her own jeans. “Take these off.”

  Her breath hitches and her cheeks darken with a flush as she undoes them and draws them down her hips. I would have thought seeing her naked for the first time would have been enough to stop my heart, but it’s not her bare skin that has me sitting up, hard dick momentarily forgotten.

  I touch her hip where the raised scar begins, not unlike my own. My eyes raise to her in question. “What is . . . what happened?”

  The scar is longer than any of mine. It begins at her hip and threads around her ribs to stop just beneath the rise of her breasts. Around it is an elaborate swirl of color and ink drawn not to cover up the scar, but almost to enhance it.

  “Car accident when I was sixteen. My friends and I were coming home from a football game when the driver took a turn too quickly. I was wearing my seatbelt, but it malfunctioned. We went off the road, and I ended up taking a huge chunk of glass and metal. If it wasn’t for first responders, I wouldn’t have made it.”

  “Jesus, baby,” I choke out as I trace the swirls of her tattoo and scar.

  She lifts a shoulder, but having gone through a traumatic experience of my own, I know a deflection when I see one. “When you talked about your leg, about worrying what people would think of you and I said I understood, I wasn’t just blowing smoke up your ass. I didn’t almost get blown up, but I almost died. I know what it’s like to come back from that. To have a constant reminder.”

  I don’t have words to describe how the sight of her pain tears into me, so I don’t try to fumble my way through a response. I just kiss her. I start at her hip and trace her scars with my lips. The vivid color of the tattoo burns itself into my memory as I nip across her ribs and then between her breasts. She lifts her shoulders and I undo the clasp of her bra, tossing it somewhere behind me as I settle between her legs, where I can do justice to worshiping her.

  Her hands rest on my arms as I stretch up to take her mouth. “Let’s forget together,” I tell her.

  Whatever answer she was going to give is drowned out by a moan as I take one of her dewy pink nipples into my mouth. Nails bite into my biceps, but I don’t relent. I’ve been dreaming of having her beneat
h me for so long, I don’t want to rush any second of it. I nip and suck until she can’t control herself—not the throaty groans or the bucking of her hips. My arms are stinging from the assault from her nails, but it is worth every mark.

  “Please,” she’s saying, repeatedly, her voice hoarse from all the begging. “Please, Scott.”

  “What?” I ask with a playfulness evident in my voice that I haven’t heard since before Afghanistan. “What do you need, baby?”

  My lips trail down her stomach, and I nip at the edge of her panties—the only layer separating us. “This what you want?” She tips her hips up in answer.

  My nose flares at the scent of her arousal. Faith releases her grip on my arm and tries to maneuver her panties down, but I stop her before she can. “No, don’t. I want to.”

  “You’re killing me,” she groans.

  “Good.”

  She fists her hands in the sheets next to her hips, which I take as her submission. The hem of her panties is tangled on her hips and makes for a pretty picture, indeed. If I wasn’t so determined to have her taste on my tongue, I would have leapt for my camera. Something as beautiful as her flushed with sex should be immortalized, but I console myself with the thought that I’ll have plenty of other opportunities to see her like this.

  I trace the edge with my mouth and let my breath do the teasing. When she bucks her hips up again, I pin them down with a forearm and put my mouth directly over the center of her.

  I use my lips and tongue to drench the thin fabric until I can see the outline of her clit, until her moans fill the room and drown out all rational thought. Then I tug her panties aside and drive us both a little crazy.

  But I don’t let her come.

  Her skin is sheened with sweat and her hair is a tangled mess by the time I bring her to the edge several times. The white-knuckled grip she has on the sheets releases and she uses her hands to draw me up her body.

  “I can’t wait anymore,” she says breathlessly. “Scott, please.”

  I don’t need any more encouraging. As she works her panties down her legs, I retrieve a condom from the nightstand. She stops me after I unwrap it and start to put it on. I’ve largely pushed the aching in my cock to the back of my mind, but the second she puts her hands on it to unroll the condom, I groan. She smiles in vindication and then draws me back over her and guides me to her.