Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  He carefully parted a biscuit, like it was a delicacy. A small pocket of steam puffed up from the two halves. “The knife fight was harder on me physically, but both times I was worried about letting people down. In Colombia, my friend, Eric, was depending on me. Yesterday, you were.” He buttered both halves of the biscuit.

  His words made her stumble mentally, and she took a startled step back. Had she been depending on him? She searched her memory, but could only remember feeling upset that Kyle was being attacked, but not… Weird. Any sane person would’ve been glad not to be facing down such trauma alone. But she hadn’t allowed herself any other option but to deal with it herself, push aside her feelings as best she could and focus on getting out of the mess.

  You’re so fucking removed from it all.

  She fingered her denuded drumstick bone. Maybe she was worse in that area than she’d realized. “I can only remember being really focused,” she admitted. “I guess I kept myself on the outside looking in again.” She smiled thinly.

  He grimaced. “Ah, hell, don’t remind me about saying all of that to you. I felt like shit afterward.”

  “Well, don’t.” She hitched a shoulder. “It was stuff I needed to hear. I wear blinders about certain aspects of myself too much of the time.”

  Kyle popped half the biscuit in his mouth and chewed. “If thinking about it upsets you, what’s the big deal if you don’t?”

  She picked up a biscuit and ran her fingers along the middle crease. “If we ignore the less attractive parts of ourselves, we’ll never change.”

  His eyebrows bunched together. “How is being cool as a cucumber an unattractive quality?”

  “Because it’s like you said, I act the way I do to keep myself out of life’s grit. So much of the time I just let things roll off me like water off a duck’s back, but that’s not really dealing with those things, is it?” Better to ignore than to feel. Because only pain waited in that direction. Ignore, ignore, ignore. “How did you figure out all that stuff about me, anyway?”

  Kyle gestured to himself. “You see before you another product of shitty parenting.”

  Max pushed her thumbs into the biscuit crease and opened it. “I don’t think my mom and dad were shitty, per se. They were good at the job of parenting when they did it. They just…rarely did.” She set her open biscuit on her plate. “They were two very independent people, and I guess they figured they were creating another independent human being by letting me make all of my own decisions, when, in fact…” She didn’t finish.

  “You just felt unnoticed,” he filled in for her. “Unsupported.”

  She expelled a long breath. “That’s it.”

  “Well, at least your parents’ hearts were in the right place. My dad was a deadbeat, waste of skin.” Kyle brushed crumbs off his thighs with a couple of hard swipes of his hands. “Any little trouble sent him running for the hills, often for months at a time.”

  Her throat wrenched. How awful. “I’m sorry, Kyle,” she said. “A boy needs his father.”

  “Would’ve been nice,” he retorted. “Mom wasn’t around much either, working two full-time jobs to make ends meet.” He wiped his napkin across his mouth, seeming to want to push aside the topic.

  She let him. “My, whatever did you did with all that time alone, Kyle?”

  His eyes glinted at her in answer.

  “Uh-oh. Did you avoid jail?”

  He chuckled darkly. “Hey, there’s still time yet.” He tossed his napkin on the table next to his plate. “Actually, I ended up in juvie once for shooting out the windows in my junior high school one night with my BB gun.”

  She arched her brows. “A great shot even then, were you?”

  “How nice of you to put a positive spin on it,” he said, giving her a wicked look. “But, nah, I wasn’t especially good back then, but all the time I spent with my BB gun did eventually help get me into a sniper training program with the Marines.”

  She blinked. “You were a sniper in the Marines?”

  “Before I went Navy, yeah.”

  “Wow.”

  “And see?” He pointed at her face. “This is what I mean by being positive. My ex-girlfriend thought I was lower than swine piss for going into the Marines.”

  Max paused, then tread carefully with, “That’s not very supportive.”

  Kyle snorted. “Under unsupportive in Webster’s, Sienna takes up an entire page.”

  Sienna…as in, Sienna Kelleman? “The woman from the text message on your phone?”

  “That’s the little schnoodle-bun.”

  “How long have you two been over?”

  “I don’t know…about six years.”

  Max’s mouth dropped opened. She’d expected to hear a couple of months.

  “What?”

  “You’re not very good at breaking up, are you?” Max buttered her biscuit, even though she wasn’t hungry anymore. “Are you still in love with her?”

  “Who says I ever was?”

  More butter. Lots and lots of butter to coat this here biscuit. “Were you?”

  “I guess…I used to think so. But now…” His voice quieted. “I’m not so sure.”

  She stopped buttering and slowly—very slowly—lifted her eyes. Her breath caught, and she could feel herself blush clear to the roots of her hair over the intense way Kyle was looking at her right now. The world disappeared—this tent, the aid station beyond, all of Pakistan and its terrorists—and only they existed for a few precious, stolen moments.

  Her skin tingled as the world reappeared piecemeal—the scatter of mostly-eaten food in front of her, the orange pekoe scent of the lit votive, the burble of leftover rainwater along the gutter outside—then everything snapped into full clarity.

  She and Kyle jumped to their feet at the same moment, surged around the table, and threw their arms around each other. They kissed hard, their mouths opening at once, but tongues unengaged, both of them first just fusing together in shared exploration and hunger. She inhaled rapidly through her nose as a fistful of sunshine locked around her heart. It was the most magnificent feeling she’d ever—

  Kyle stumbled back from her and stared, round-eyed. He briefly touched the back of his fist to his lips. “Jesus Christ,” he said hoarsely. “Have you ever felt anything like this before?”

  “No,” she gulped out. She clasped a hand to her breast over her warmed heart.

  “Not even with that Brian Mulligan dildo?”

  She choked out a laugh. “No. How about you?”

  “Never.”

  Her soul sang out. Never.

  He swallowed. “Uh…what does it mean?”

  She drew an uneven breath. “I think it means we’ve fallen in love with each other.”

  He blinked several times.

  “Okay, I’ll speak for myself.” She gazed deep into the silver-blue eyes that turned her inside out every time they crinkled at the edges. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Kyle Hammond.”

  He inhaled audibly, then moved forward a step and put two strong hands on her waist. His thumbs brushed the sides of her ribcage, sending a kindling of tingles along her flesh. “Well, hell, stick a fork in me, looks like I’m done, too…” His arms slid the rest of the way around her waist and he pulled her against his chest, his head ducking down so that his lips could find her ear.

  She didn’t think her heart could swell with any more sunniness, but it filled to bursting when he added whisper-soft against her ear, “…Samantha.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A tremor shot through Kyle, and his eyelids fell shut. Pulling Max into his arms was like flying out of a storm, the air suddenly smoothing out, mist still in the air but creating rainbows, and beams of light piercing through the dark clouds…everything sublime and peaceful and perfect.

  The seamless way she fit against his body made her feel like she’d been built to exact military specs, just for him—something he never would’ve guessed, her being so small. But here she was, an armful of
heaven. With a low groan, he planted his mouth on hers again, lips open, tongue reaching. The feminine softness of her tongue rocked him, her taste shooting straight to his groin, and… Jesus, after all the connection they’d achieved, his damned cock was still an instinct-driven machine, rising up with nothing but the endgame on its mind.

  Or…

  Maybe this hard-on was different.

  Paying closer attention—wasn’t this a proud moment for the U?—Kyle felt an added warmth throughout his body, a heart-expansion that had everything to do with wanting to use sex to bond with this woman. Not just forget everything else in his life. It was…fucking insane. The sensations he was experiencing ran so deep, they went too far outside of his wheelhouse to understand or explain. All he could say was that love stories got it right; kissing a woman you were crazy about—who was, at the soul of her, a true friend—set off all kinds of fireworks in a guy’s chest.

  Breathlessly, he backed off a bit and just gazed down at her.

  Her eyes were a lazy shade of blue on blue. A guy could fall in love with Max Dougin based on those eyes alone. Well, damn…who would’ve thought he would turn out to be that guy?

  He pushed a hand through her long bangs, the springy strands threading between his fingers, all different shades of blonde catching the light in her tent. Her hair was stunning. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how beautiful you are.”

  She grinned up at him, her bright, white teeth a happy display of so-glad-you’re-my-guy.

  A weird pleasure-pain wrenched his belly. How had he ever let himself live without looks like this for so long? Probably because he’d never known how incredible it was to be loved for himself, imperfections, mistakes, bad hair days, armpit smell, and all…although apparently he didn’t have to worry about subjecting her to morning breath. Ha! “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked her. I can just hold you again…

  She took one step back, putting enough space between them to yank his shirt off. “God, yes.”

  That answered that.

  They were back against each other, bodies melded, lips slanted against lips, ravenously devouring. The blood racing hotly through his veins throbbed incessantly in his cock, a core-deep urge to make this woman his, to somehow brand her, if he could, down to her muscle and bone, so she’d never go away.

  He pushed his hands under her T-shirt and slid his palms all over the smooth planes of her back while she pushed her fingers into his hair and captured his tongue again and again. Damn, she felt so good. He thought he knew women, how soft they were, how amazing they smelled, but it was as if he was a young man all over again, discovering for the first time the marvels of the female body. Or maybe it was because this was Max, like being in love with her had already padlocked him onto her pheromones, heightening everything about her to extremes, adding a newness to her that…shouldn’t have been.

  His kiss hitched out of rhythm on a prickle of conscience. He’d never felt guilty over a one-night stand in the past, but, truth was, he didn’t remember much of anything about Max from his time with her behind the Jebel Ali Club, which was pretty crappy. It was also a cold-water-in-the-face reminder of how empty his life had always been…and of how much he needed her to fill it.

  Somehow between kisses he managed to strip her of her T-shirt. Her bra went away, and then there they were: her cream puff breasts. Pale, flawless, rounded flesh topped with incredible nipples. Her aureoles were larger than he would’ve expected for a small-breasted woman, and as a blond, she should’ve had pinkish-colored nipples. But they were a deep magenta, and he literally salivated just admiring them.

  Wrapping an arm around the small of Max’s back, Kyle dragged her off her feet, bringing her breast up to his mouth. He closed his lips around one of those ripe buds and suckled her with a whole lot of delicious going on in his brain. She was better than all his favorite foods combined, and he relentlessly tugged on her with his lips, adding tongue-action here and there, lapping or flicking at her erect nipple. With his free hand, he got a good grip on her other breast, squeezing and molding it, feeling her flesh plump up into his palm. She was more lush and full than she looked, a wonderment of fine textures and freshness. Atom-level awareness of her swept through him like a slow fire.

  She squirmed against him, feet dangling, spine arching to thrust her breast harder against him. He went crazy over her eagerness, nearly sucking her entire breast into his mouth as he lowered his other hand to knead her butt. She moaned, and he released her nipple to glance up. Her head had fallen back, the sleek lines of her neck and shoulders stretching out to him in a display of unrestrained passion. Something about it—like she was abandoning herself completely to him—brought such a surge of blood into his engorged shaft, he clamped his teeth in pain. He dropped her lightly to her feet, undid the button and zipper at her waistband, and jammed his hands down the back of her shorts. Clasping her naked butt, he squeezed and pulled her hard against his erect length, hissing air as he backed her toward her cot. “If this is at all uncomfortable,” he said in a guttural tone, “tell me.”

  “It won’t be.” She nibbled at his throat. “I’m already drenched.”

  He froze. The combo of her admission and the havoc she was wreaking on his neck with her little teeth was off this planet. “Not sure I believe you. Need to investigate.” He shoved her shorts down and—froze again. She didn’t have a pubic hair in sight.

  Today’s woman seemed to have embraced a denuding fad he wasn’t sure what to make of. He generally liked his women to look like women. But as he stared openly at Max’s sweet-as-could-be private area, being provided an unencumbered view of the graceful folds of her sex and her little clitoris got her a yes vote from him for being pube-free.

  He kicked off his boots. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the porn star type,” he teased, anyway.

  She slanted a look at him. “It’s because I’m a swimmer.” She crawled onto her cot and lay down on her back, knees bent.

  He tore himself out of his pants and skivvies, then climbed onto her cot, too, but low down, with his shoulders near her knees. He took another peek at her crotch and—his cock bucked so violently, he quickly grasped the head of it and squeezed hard to keep from coming. Fuck. The sight of her was…fuck! She was so wet, moisture was glistening on both sides of her outer lips, and if that wasn’t the hottest thing he’d ever seen, he’d take on the nickname Bunny. Primal hunger drove him forward. His shoulders bonked her shins. He growled.

  “What are you doing down there?” she murmured.

  “You’re about to find out. Open,” he ordered.

  A breathy laugh came out of her. “There’s no room on this bed.” But she placed the arch of each foot on the parallel wood slats making up the frame of her cot, and let her thighs fall open.

  Oh, yeah. He moved in, took hold of her hips, and tended to a little housekeeping first, licking up the moisture from the smooth side of one lip, then the other. Max huffed something unintelligible, and he heard wood creak as her toes clenched. He dipped down to her opening, coating his tongue with more of her lubrication to get himself extra-soft, then dragged upward to her clit and went on the attack.

  A, B, C, D… It might sound cliché, but a sure-fire way to make a woman climax was to lick out the alphabet on her. It’d always been an interesting diversion to see how far he could get before the Big O dominated—furthest he’d ever reached was Q. But this time the alphabet song never got going in his head. Technique went out the window. It was just him, here, now, in the moment with Max, enjoying the simple, unthinking act of exploring every inch of her sex, unhurriedly tonguing her clit and lapping at her wet folds, occasionally opening her to him with his fingers to get a better—

  She came in his face, sudden, hard, squeezing clenches against his chin, her gasping moans so full of real ecstasy he couldn’t believe he’d let the noises she’d made behind the Jebel Ali Club when she’d faked sucker him. She writhed in the throes of her orgasm, the silky flesh
of her hips gliding back and forth in his hands, her hipbones gently nudging his palms on each twist of her body.

  In a flash, he was fisting up his cock against another dangerous orgasm threat. Jesus, he hardly recognized himself with this woman. He reared above her, and as he did and saw how her climax had flushed the skin on her chest an enchanting rose, her ribs moving beneath the hard pump of her lungs, he knew with a kind of unreal stupefaction he could never get enough of her. Knew what a pure, gemlike gift her love was.

  Finding his way between her legs, he settled gently on top of her, almost with reverence, and groaned from the deepest part of himself as his root pressed against her core. It was the oddest hiccup in his life when he found that, for a moment, he didn’t know how to proceed.

  Max’s small hands clasped his buttocks, her fingers tickling him a bit where the tips touched near the center. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you and want you, Kyle.”

  He squeezed his eyelids together. All rational thought left him as he pushed inside her sleek, tight haven and put his whole heart into thrusting inside her.

  * * *

  Breathing heavily, Max hugged Kyle to her as hard as she could.

  He likewise was clasping her up her back, his large hands gripping her shoulders, holding her so close and tight there wasn’t a nerve left untouched by their union. “Christ,” he rasped, rocking his pelvis harder against her, sending the hinges on her cot into a high-pitched eee-aaah, eee-aaah scream.

  Her nipples peaked firmer with each of his thrusts, rubbing against the soft whorls of his chest hair, her sex was practically vibrating, and her heart was off to the races. She slipped one hand into the hair at the back of his head, keeping him anchored close. Kyle’s face was pressed to her neck, the gentle chafing of his soft beard keeping the memory alive of other areas where his whiskers had worked their tender lightning: her breasts and inner thighs. Her jaw slackened around heavier pants. She was dizzy with exhilaration; this was such a bevy of firsts for her.