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Contents:
Prologue
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Epilogue
© 1998
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Prologue
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Camp Pendleton, California
In five days Kyle and Maxie were going to be married.
In six days he was leaving for Desert Storm.
The possibility that he could lose her, his life and the only sense of belonging he'd felt since he was twelve hit Sergeant Kyle Hayden like a barrage of artillery. He tightened his arms around the woman he loved, knowing nothing could soften the news he'd always expected.
"This is so unfair," she cried, her tears wetting his olive drab T-shirt.
"I know, baby, I know," he soothed, brushing his mouth over her hair, her temple, inhaling and memorizing her lush scent. "But orders are orders." He peppered kisses over her cheeks, tasting her tears, wishing he could erase them, yet even as she sobbed, something tugged hard inside him. No one had ever cried for him before. No one had ever cared enough.
She tipped her head; tortured green eyes filled with doubt gazed up at him. "Oh, Kyle. This isn't one of your thrill-seeking games. This isn't racing a car or a dirt bike where you can stop if you want." Her nails dug into his bare arms. "War is real. Real bullets, real danger."
He silenced her with a deep kiss. Yes, it was war, but for five years he'd been training to fight. The need to put himself to the test meshed with nightmarish scenes of battle suddenly flashing in his mind, yet he kept tasting her mouth, kept running his hands familiarly over her plush body, pushing aside the images and focusing on the physical, the tangible … the woman in his arms.
"I'll be okay." His breath rushed with hers, his insatiable craving to get closer to her, get naked with her, right now, raged along his blood. "I'll keep my head down. I swear it."
"You better keep all of you down," she said.
He met her gaze, grinning. "Any parts you were particularly worried about?" He wiggled his brows.
Suddenly she shoved out of his arms. "Is everything a joke to you?" she said, swiping at her tears. "My God, Kyle, are you itching to get yourself killed?"
"Come on, baby, don't start this now." He tried to coax her back into his arms, but she wasn't buying it, skating out of his reach.
"Then when, Kyle? When you break your back instead of your leg bungee jumping out of a helicopter?" She flung her hand toward the now forgotten crutches propped against his wall locker. "Or when you take a bullet because you want to experience it ripping through your flesh to see if it compares to one of those ridiculous stunts you've already pulled!" Maxie knew she was nearly yelling, but she was so scared, for him, for their future.
Her temper was amazing, he thought as she paced like an anxious colt, his gaze dropping to her short red shirt and her long muscled legs. He wanted to be between them. "You're overreacting. That stuff never bothered you before. You even came along." He looked her over, long and heavy, his mind on the fringes of the conversation. "And I thought you liked that about me."
Maxie remembered first meeting him when he raced stock cars in Long Beach. And the collision he was lucky to walk away from alive. "In a man I was just getting to know, yeah. It was intriguing." She paused, leveling him a look. "But not in a husband." The shift in his features told her he was at least listening this time, and she took a step closer. "I'd like the future father of my children around long enough—"
"Don't," he cut in. "I can't think that far ahead, Max." He jammed his fingers into his short dark hair. "Babies?" The thought terrified him, and his voice pleaded. "Why are you bringing this up now?"
Because we've pushed the wedding ahead three months because of the war, and I feel rushed. Because you're not acting at all like a man ready for a wife. Instead she told him her most recent reservation. "Because I honestly feel you love cheating death more than you love me."
The fraction of hesitation was far too revealing for Maxie.
"That's not true. I love you, but I have orders."
"I know that," she said impatiently. "But this is affecting us already, Kyle, and I want you to see beyond it." Why did she always have to be the levelheaded one in their relationship?
He straightened, folding his arms over his chest. "It's affecting you, not me."
Hurt sprang in her eyes. "Isn't that enough?"
Kyle knew he was being selfish. But he could be gone for months or a year—or he could get killed and never see her again. He didn't want to talk about kids and a home. He and his older brother, Mitch, had been alone since they were abandoned when he was twelve, and the picture she painted was too foreign to him anyway. He loved her, loved everything about her, yet because he was obligated to the Marine Corps and going into a war, he couldn't give her what she wanted with any kind of certainty. Suddenly Kyle was more afraid of losing her over this than he was of an Iraqi bullet.
He lifted his gaze, hoping she didn't see how scared he was. "I love you, Maxie. This is all we have right now." He held out his hand, waiting.
She hesitated, gazing into his hopeful eyes. Then in a heartbeat, she flew to him, clinging to him.
And he clung back, covering her mouth with his. His kiss was fierce and savage, his lips grinding over hers with his need to draw her into himself, to take part of her with him to Saudi. He needed her, and she gave and gave, and then plowing her fingers through his hair and pressing her hips into his, she gave some more.
And Kyle took, grasping, greedy. He couldn't think that in a few days he was going to leave his new bride alone, that he was trading her smile on their honeymoon for a taste of enemy gunfire. He thought only of Maxie Parrish. Sleek and sexy and here for him. His hunger mounted to unfathomable proportions, his hands driving beneath her blouse, riding roughly up her warm skin. So soft, so Maxie. And when she leaned deeper into him, yanking up his T-shirt, sliding her hands over his flesh, he knew her mind was on the pleasure they would share, knew she ached with the same unrelenting hunger that always raged between them. The anticipation of being inside her nearly undid him as he quickly unfastened her bra, his hands sweeping around to envelop her breasts.
Maxie moaned with dark pleasure, helping him strip off her blouse, her nipples already tight and hard for his questing fingers. He has the most incredible mouth, she thought as he bent her back over his arm and dragged it over her naked flesh, lips tugging, drawing heavier and closer to the center of her breasts. Expectation heightened her nerves.
"Kyle, Kyle," she breathed, hesitating against his kiss, struggling with the swamping sensations to see beyond desire. He was leaving for who knew how long, and apart, they would change. It was inevitable. But how drastically would it affect their new marriage? "Maybe—" She gasped for a breath as his mouth drifted closer to her nipple. "Maybe we should postpone the wedding till you come back."
Suddenly she was upright and he was cupping her jaw in his broad palms, his dark eyes intense with quick fear. "Don't even think it. I need you." He closed his eyes, briefly, tightly. "I love you, Max," he murmured against her mouth, then kissed her again and again. "I need to know you're my wife."
Maxie felt the anxiousness in his kiss, his embrace. "Oh, Kyle. I love you, too, but we have to be realistic," she managed to say, hurriedly peeling his T-shirt over his head.
Abruptly he lifted her against him until her breasts were level with his face. "This is the only reality I want." His lips closed over one nipple, drawing it deeply into the hot suck of his mouth, and Maxie threw her head back, dark auburn hair spilling along her naked spine.
He's putting me off, she thought. He had, every time she'd mentioned waiting. But his touch, his sensual power, overwhelme
d her and she surrendered to it, wrapping her legs around his hips as he back-stepped toward the bed. He brought her down with him as he sat on the mattress, his hand already beneath her skirt, pushing aside her panties.
Breathless, Maxie held his gaze as he carefully patted her, her body on some tenuous edge until his fingers plunged into her. Her eyes closed, and she rocked against his hand.
"You're always so warm and wet," he growled, and smiled at the blush racing up her body. "You pulse for me." His fingers moved inside her with deep, deliberate strokes, and he watched her desire escalate, was sure of it as she tore at the button fly of his camouflage trousers. With a look of retribution on her face, she reached inside, enfolding him.
He thrust against her touch. "Oh, Maxie," he groaned in a way that she loved.
"Is this enough reality?" she whispered against his lips as they stroked each other to frantic pitch. "Enough when you're—"
He covered her mouth with his. He didn't want to hear her uncertainties, didn't want to admit he would be alone in the desert, without connection, without family. He needed her here for him, waiting for him. Wanting him.
Like he wanted her now.
"Get naked for me," he told her, easing her off his lap. He bent to remove his combat boots, his gaze hungering over her body as she stood inches from him, skimming out of the rest of her clothes, torturing him with a heavy, bone-racking caress, a thick kiss, before she crawled onto the bed. He stood, shoved down his trousers, then kicked them aside.
Maxie watched him come to her, naked, ropy muscles and darkness, and her body reacted with a rush of liquid. He exuded power and raw sensuality, in his eyes, his walk, and Maxie knew she would never in her life be able to resist him. He was her greatest weakness. Yet the misgivings she was experiencing right now, about her feelings, their uncertain future, were a world apart from the blistering heat that constantly crackled between them.
That heat leaped beyond her anxiety when he ripped away the sheet she'd shielded herself with, his gaze scorching her body, his expression growing hotter by the moment. Defiantly she let her gaze tear over him, his shoulders carved broader and thicker from his recent training, the deep contours of his stomach, the nested maleness, thick and proud for her. Between her thighs she tightened, throbbed.
He's leaving, she thought again, yet knew he wanted to go fight for his country. Maxie would never dream of trying to stop him. The scars still pink from his last skydiving jump and the past year of knowing him told her it was useless to even consider keeping him from the scent of danger. He lived for it.
Kyle pressed his knee to the mattress. "Come here."
She lifted her chin, giving him that "make me" look that drove him wild.
Kneeling, he arched a brow, his gaze lowering to her breasts, watching her nipples tighten the longer he lingered there, before dropping to the dark curls between her thighs. She made a sound, half curse, half pleading, and he chuckled knowingly.
"It's pathetic, this command you have over me," she said, tingling for the moment when he would touch her again.
"Your body maybe—" Suddenly he snatched her by the ankles, and she let out a tiny shriek as he dragged her across the bed to him. "But you?" Slowly he shook his head. "Never."
They stared and her lips curved in a sexy smile that robbed Kyle of his next breath. She's so beautiful, he thought, pressing his palms to her chest dragging them over her full breasts, shaping their weight manipulating her nipples. She growled lustily, covering his hands and arching into the pressure. Her gaze followed his fingers as they slid over her ribs, her hips, stroking her soft thighs before hooking her knees and pulling her closer and closer to his heat
She lifted her gaze to his. A moment passed, their breathing labored. A dark hunger lingered in the air, bodies and hearts exposed. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.
Then suddenly she was against him, straddling his bare thighs, her arms locked tightly around his neck. Kyle knew without looking that she was crying. He closed his eyes and held her for a long moment his heart clenching over her soft sobs. The unfairness of their situation increased his frustration and he sank his fingers into her hair, tipping her head and forcing her to look at him. He searched her delicate features, a lump thick in his throat. He was going to miss her. And hoped she'd miss him.
"Make love to me, Kyle. Make it last."
"We have all night. And in a few days, we'll have a lifetime."
Her eyes clouded, and she gripped him back. "No. We won't. Don't you see? You'll be gone. We don't know when you're coming back!" A pause, a whimper of despair and then, "Maybe we should not rush and wait."
In a heartbeat he dropped her onto her back, covering her body with his. "I can't," he said, then filled her in one long, hard thrust. "I can't. I need you too much." He withdrew, then surged, again and again, wild and frantic, his mouth crushing hers, each touch, each stroke driving away her misgivings about their future and leaving only the untamed passion they'd shared for over a year.
He was unrelenting, his reality in the here and now and not days away. Not years away. But he felt her slipping from him. He knew he was reckless sometimes, knew he took chances any sane man would shudder at, but even when he felt the hot rush of fear that came with the risk and danger, he always knew Maxie would be here for him. He wanted to make it permanent. He had to. He couldn't lose her, not even a fraction, refusing to believe their lives would change.
He kept making wild love to her, and when she trembled with her explosion, drenching him with her desire, he made love to her again, listening to her cries of passion and ignoring the words he was too terrified to hear.
Maxie sat on the edge of the bed in the cheap hotel room, her hands clenched on her lap. She toyed with her engagement ring until her finger was raw and red, then yanked it off and shoved it into her purse. Tears rained down her cheeks, splashing onto her fists. She didn't bother to wipe them away. She needed them. She deserved them.
She glanced at the clock, the big hand refusing to move past the time of her wedding. Her gaze shifted to her gown, white satin and hand-embroidered lace tossed carelessly in the chair. Once today she'd put it on, if only for a moment to feel like a bride, and she'd almost weakened in her decision. That dress symbolized all she wanted—husband, home, kids. All she wanted. Kyle wanted only her. And danger.
Was marriage, right now—before he had to leave for Desert Storm—the wisest move for them? Or was it just fear pushing them to rush their wedding, their lives? Was she in love with the idea of marriage and family, or with Kyle?
She tore her gaze from the gown. She'd asked herself the same questions over and over for the past hour, the urge to race to the chapel and marry Kyle staggering her.
Turmoil and fear held her back, kept her rooted to a lumpy bed in the darkened room. How could she do this to the man she loved? But she knew. Weeks of chaotic thoughts, of preparations for a wedding and for the groom to go to war, of Kyle refusing to discuss postponing their wedding, had brought her to this moment. This horrible, telling moment when she should be walking down the aisle on her father's arm. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her face with her hands, a deep sorrow tormenting her to the breaking point.
She'd felt it while he was away for desert training six weeks ago. That first-time separation had opened her eyes, scared and confused her. For without the physical passion, she realized they were on the same road, traveling in opposite directions. She loved him deeply, yet they wanted different things, and for a while, she let herself believe she could change him, change his wants to hers. He was thrills and chills, wanting only her and the corps in his life. She wanted a home and fat babies—and stability. The only thing they wanted mutually was each other.
Maxie knew blood-jolting desire wasn't enough.
And it was the sole reason she couldn't face him right now.
One look, one touch and she would never do what she had to do. His stare bore too much power, his kisses too much steam, and he k
new how to make her forget. Their passion was always so strong, she had trouble seeing beyond it. Until now.
They were afraid and seeking some control in a hopeless situation. He was leaving and wouldn't believe it was best to wait until he came back, that if they really loved, time would be on their side. Marriage in a panic was reckless, and getting unmarried would be much harder.
No, she thought nothing could be harder than this. Yet she was willing to risk everything not to make a huge mistake.
Maxie glanced at the clock again and groaned, listlessly crawling onto the bed and curling into a tight ball. She tried not to imagine her groom, what he was thinking, the hurt he was feeling. If only he had listened … if only time wasn't so short … if only there wasn't a war waiting for him…
Clad in his dress blue uniform, Kyle Hayden's spine was straight as a rifle stock, his eyes forward, his gaze on the chapel door. She'll be here, he thought. Any minute. Around him, guests and attendants whispered, the tick of the church clock sounding like a gong in his head. His buddies were lined up alongside him, his older brother, Mitch, offering excuses: traffic, a flat or a woman's incredible need to be late for every major function in her life. Yet the longer Kyle waited, the more he imagined her in an accident, bleeding somewhere where he couldn't get to her. He'd already sent two of his pals off to search for her. If she was okay, she would have let him know, he thought. Maxie wouldn't do this to him. Maxie wouldn't make him wonder.
Maxie loved him.
He believed. And he waited.
Waited past the time of the ceremony.
Waited as their guests left, his humiliation hidden beneath the granite expression he'd perfected over the years. His eyes never leaving the door, Kyle let his hurt and anger escalate and even as his heart leaped when a figure slipped into the chapel, he cursed himself for forgiving her so easily in those few seconds. Until he saw her mother and the look on her face. The sympathy and pity Lacy Parrish sent him was enough to kill Kyle where he stood.
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