The silence between them was deafening. And neither of them spoke for a while.
“Being in the SEALs reinforced something I always inherently knew back then,” Mac said eventually, his voice hoarse. “It sounds easy when you say it, but never speak ill of the dead. I once worked with a guy who was killed on a mission. The military has protocol for that shit. Emergency next of kin and that kind of thing. But this guy had a serious relationship on the side. And she was four months’ pregnant with his kid when we deployed. He was killed two days before the end of the tour. I knew the girlfriend worked at the Marriott by the convention center, so I figured I should go tell her but decided to wait until the funeral was over. Because his wife, his three kids, his mom and dad … they didn’t need a scene. I couldn’t let his infidelity ruin his legacy.”
“I don’t understand what you are trying to say,” Delaney said.
“There was nothing to gain by smearing Brock. Telling the police that he was shit scared and wanted me to force him because he didn’t want your dad to think he was weak or less of a man would have torn your dad apart. And having to explain to you that he thought you didn’t think he was good enough to be a SEAL. And telling you my final taunt was about something so … Shit, it was perfect, Delaney, what we had. What we could have had. It was destroyed, but at least you still had Brock’s memory in one piece.”
She felt like a rough tide. Churned up, with all the dirt being lifted off the bottom of the ocean and thrown about as waves crashed over her.
“When I asked … when you came over and I asked you if you goaded him into jumping…” Tears took over and ran down her face, but she was determined to get the words out. “You said yes. Why didn’t you explain?”
Mac got up from his chair and walked over to the balcony, looking tormented. “Because you’d already decided. Because you needed someone to blame. Because I’d already let Brock down. I’d killed him with my good intentions and I owed it to Brock to keep him whole in your memory. Because it was already destroying your mom. Because your dad was a decent man who just didn’t understand his son. Because I was a shit best friend who should have said no. Because I was young and thought I was being fucking noble. I don’t know. FUCK!” He stepped back and kicked the wall of the apartment hard before placing his two hands flat against it and looking down at the floor. “Making sure the three of you got through it just seemed more important. And I loved you so much, Delaney, that I couldn’t live with the idea of making you hurt more. A few months later, when I thought of coming to you, to explain, your dad died. And mom told me it was from heart complications brought on by stress from Brock’s death. I knew you wouldn’t want me back after that.”
The logic of what’d he’d done made sense. It killed her now to know that Brock had died thinking she somehow doubted him. Maybe she should go to his grave. Tell him how much she loved him, and that her words had been carelessly spoken. It was the unfinished business that would hover between them until she addressed it.
And Mac … all those years, he’d carried this, and the weight of her hatred. He could have saved himself by telling them the truth.
She couldn’t ignore the nobility in that. The sacrifice. Which made her wonder.
“Why did you all become SEALs?”
Mac pushed away from the wall. “I felt like I needed to take his place, and Cabe and Six decided they weren’t going to let me do it alone. They’ve had my back since we were old enough to understand the concept. Plus, sticking it to Osama Bin Laden felt like a good use of time.”
So he’d spent all that time pursuing Brock’s dream instead of his own. “He wouldn’t have expected you to do that for all those years.”
Returning to his chair, he sat down and studied her. “You know the crazy thing, Delaney? Without what happened, I would never have enlisted. It wasn’t my thing. But then for Brock, I felt like enlisting was the right thing to do. I’ve had an incredible career, but any thoughts about my future were impossible, because I couldn’t think of it without you in it.”
“Mac, I’m sorry I—”
“No. Don’t ever apologize. At first, I signed up because I thought it would kill a few years and then I’d rethink what I wanted to do. But I was good, Delaney. I worked so hard on my fitness ahead of my first day that I nailed everything physical they threw at me. Everything I did, I did because my best friend would never get to accomplish it. And so, for him, I was going to be the best SEAL there’d ever been. So, I was good. No, I was great at being a SEAL. Leading came easily, but it was something I always took seriously, even from our days on the swim team. When it came time to decide whether to stay or go, I stayed.”
Delaney took a sip of wine and placed her glass down on the table. “I guess sometimes we end up where we’re meant to.”
Mac reached forward and took her hand, his chilled fingers against hers. “I don’t know about that, Delaney.”
She knew what he meant. The two of them. He didn’t believe their relationship had ended where it was supposed to.
Knowing the next step had to be hers, she placed her other hand on top of his. This good, strong man, who’d given up everything for her family, still wanted her.
“Mac. Do you think Brock will … do you think he knows that I didn’t doubt him? Will he forgive me?”
He fell to the hard concrete on his knees in front of her, pulling her against him in a rib-crushing hug. “Oh, Delaney, don’t think about that. I’m not sure I believe in the whole life-after-death, spirit shit. But I know he loved you more than life itself. He wouldn’t hold this against you.”
She wrapped her arms tightly around him, as much because she needed to hold on to him as she knew he needed to be comforted.
They stayed like that, silent in their thoughts, for several minutes until Mac found his feet, standing with her still wrapped around him. Without saying a word, she crossed her ankles around his back and laid her head on his shoulder. He lowered them to the sofa, he upright and her sitting astraddle.
Lovingly, he cupped her face. “I’m sorry I kept this from you for so long.”
She leaned into his hand. “I wish you’d told me, but I get why you didn’t. I think we should tell Mom. She already thinks she failed as a mother, and this might confirm it in her mind … but she deserves the truth.”
Mac ran his hand along her shoulder, down her arm, taking hold of her hand. “I’ll go with you whenever you want to go. Let me tell her, though. She deserves to hear it from me.”
“I should have known.” Delaney looked down at their joined hands. “I don’t know why in all these years I didn’t push you for the rest of the story.”
Mac pulled her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, then looked at her, his eyes searching hers. “Why would you? I’d never lied to you, Delaney. Outside of this. And everything people were saying was true. There were witnesses. I did goad him into it. He didn’t want to do it. It killed him. I killed him as surely as I pushed him off that bluff.”
Exhausted, she allowed herself to fall forward into his arms, allowed herself to feel and savor every moment of placing her head on strong shoulders that had carried so much to look out for her.
“We all know how persuasive Brock could be. He’d needle you over and over, like a pebble in your shoe, until you gave in.”
Mac ran his hand up and down her back. It was soothing. A peaceful quiet fell between them. Their breaths slowed.
“I’m sorry for hating you all these years, Mac,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry I gave you reason, Delaney. Losing you was harder than losing him. At least with Brock I could rationalize why I’d never see him again. But you. I’ve lived knowing you had this whole other life I wasn’t a part of.”
She brushed her nose against the skin of his neck and buried her head against him. “But you’re back in it now…”
When his arms tightened around her, she settled closer, trying to ignore how aware she’d suddenly become of his body. Of the
planes of his chest, of the firmness of his thighs, of the way her core pressed deliciously up against him.
“Am I?” he asked gruffly.
How could he not be? After everything they’d gone through, were going through? After everything he’d done to protect her? “Yes, Mac.” She pressed her lips to the skin behind his ear, loving the way he shivered as she kissed one of the areas she knew firsthand to be his most sensitive.
“Be clear, Delaney. Because I was expecting you to leave after I told you what I did. How far back into your life am I?”
Was she ready to look him in the eye, admit that this man still moved her more than anyone she’d ever met? Slowly, she sat up, and this time placed her hands on his face.
“Every way that matters.”
Then she did what she should have done a long time ago. She leaned forward and kissed him.
* * *
When Delaney’s lips finally touched his, Mac could barely keep his shit together. There were too many emotions swirling around inside. He’d just confessed his most difficult secret, and she hadn’t left him. Instead, she was pressing those sweet breasts of hers up against him, and kissing him with more … fuck, he didn’t know … everything. And he couldn’t get enough.
Maybe they should stop, go to bed, sleep on it. But the truth was, he was beyond waiting. And he was determined to never give her a reason to regret putting that wonderful mouth of hers on his.
She tasted of Pinot Noir and a shared history that was comfortable, reassuring. And yet it was all new and deliciously hot.
He licked the seam of her lips and she opened to him, and he wondered if she was aware of how she’d begun to gently rock back and forth against him. His hands were everywhere. Running a trail down her spine, holding her hips tightly, gripping her ass and positioning her so she was tucked up close against his cock, which had sprung into action faster than he could load his SIG.
Fucking and loving Delaney were the only things he could think about right now, but he needed to confirm the one thing that would ensure that what they were about to do wasn’t hollow. “Delaney,” he mumbled against her lips.
Her hands were in his hair, pulling her lips to his.
“Delaney.” He gripped her wrists and tugged her away. Those lips of hers were ruby ready, her eyes wide, pupils dilated, and she had the look about her that he used to love. The one that told him she was in the mood for nothing but him when she’d suddenly drop her clothes in his dorm room. But he needed to know. “Are you really still here with me?”
“I’m right where you are,” she said with a shy smile. “It just took me a while to get there.”
“Thank you, Lord, for that.”
It was time to build something new. As they were right in this moment. As the man he’d become. As the woman he’d still give his life for. He reached beneath the hem of her cute sweater and grinned when she lifted her arms into the air so he could remove it.
“Goddamn, woman.” She wasn’t wearing a bra, and those sweet nipples of hers were tight and pointing in his direction. Unable to resist, he leaned forward and sucked gently on one of them, loving the way the action of arching her back just pressed her more firmly up against his cock. Damn, he needed to take his jeans off soon before they cut off his circulation. Delaney tasted sweet, and the moan she gave was even sweeter.
“Oh, yes. Harder,” she cried out, gripping the back of his head pressing him closer.
Giving in to her clear direction, he sucked more firmly, bit a little, immersed in the moment. Fully turned on by the way she clawed against him, he gave in to his more basic urges. Running his hand up her side, he gripped her other breast, alternately sucking and squeezing until she was frantically moving against him.
Slightly lifting her off his lap, he laid her down on the sofa. “I’m going to eat you like a starving man,” he said, as she stared up at him with hooded eyes, her tongue sneaking out to wet her lips.
Delaney grinned. “And I’m going to let you.”
After placing her next to him on the sofa, he tugged his T-shirt over his head and then grabbed the waistbands of her leggings and underwear, removing both in one clean sweep. “You have no idea just how much I have been thinking about your ass this week.”
Without prompting, Delaney rolled onto her stomach, then got onto all fours, her forearms resting on the arm of the sofa, ass round and high in the air. His vision blurred as blood raced from his brain to his cock and back again. “Like this?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder.
“Goddamn, woman. Yeah. Just like that.” He rubbed his hands over her smooth skin, spreading her cheeks so he could get his tongue right where he wanted it. Damn. She was already wet for him. Unable to wait, he buried his face, and licked her firmly, back and forth, until she was wiggling beneath him. How badly she wanted him made him grin, made him feel like a hero.
“Oh, Mac. You’re so good at this,” she said, lowering her forehead to her arms, which only served to open her up to him more.
When he’d finished eating his fill, he was going to take her just where she was.
Until she moved.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “I was a long way from being done.”
Delaney came to her knees and met him in the middle of the sofa. She ran her index finger over her lips. “Perhaps I’m hungry, too.”
He wanted to be a gentleman, wanted to get her off over and over before he took anything from her. But then she gripped him through the denim of his jeans.
“Let me taste you, Mac.”
Quickly, he jumped to his feet, and shucked his jeans and boxer briefs. His cock throbbed with relief at no longer being constrained as he sat back down on the sofa.
Delaney crawled forward, her hair tucked behind her ear. Taking him firmly in her hand, she licked the very tip.
Every part of Mac tightened as she tasted him, and he couldn’t contain the groan that escaped as she opened her mouth into the most perfect O and took him deep into her wet warmth. It wasn’t just the way she gripped him that he loved, or the way she kept her mouth so tight around him that it was a wonder he hadn’t come already, but the way she did both things with those glorious eyes of her pinned to his. Never had he felt so connected.
“Fuck, Delaney. Just like that.”
She let him slip out of her mouth and kissed along his length, her hands slipping lower to take hold of his balls, tugging on them gently as she made her way back to the tip.
No amount of warning prepared him for the way it felt as she covered him with her mouth a second time, teasing him, sucking him. Yeah. Sex with grown-up Delaney was going to be a whole bunch more adventurous. Delaney was on her knees on the couch next to him, that cute ass of hers jiggling as she worked him out, up and down, and he lazily trailed his fingers along her spine and over those sweet curves until he found the growing wetness between her legs.
Her eyes flared wide as he slid first one and then a second finger deep inside her, moving in time to the way she sucked him off so perfectly. When he felt the telltale tightening in his balls, he gently withdrew his fingers and lifted her to his mouth so he could kiss her. “I want to be in you when I come, Buttons,” he mumbled against her lips, using those few moments to talk himself off the edge of coming. “Now get your ass back in the air.”
Delaney grinned. “I never realized you were such an ass man.”
Mac grinned as he walked to the bedroom to get a condom. When he returned, she was exactly where he wanted her. He crouched down, level with her face. “When it comes to you, I’m an everything man.” Gently, he pressed his lips to hers. “Now hold on tight because this could get a little frantic.”
“Do your worst,” she teased.
Climbing back onto the sofa, he settled himself on his knees between her legs. She was wet, and open, and spectacular. Gripping his cock, he guided it to her opening and allowed himself to slide in a little. “You’re perfect, Delaney,” he groaned as she tightened aroun
d him and pushed back against him. He looked down and watched where he slid inside her, watched as his cock glistened with her juices. Unable to resist, he grabbed hold of her ass, squeezing it and kneading it, as Delaney’s eyes fluttered shut on a groan.
“Mac,” she muttered. “Oh, harder, please.”
Never one to refuse a direct order, he did as she requested, pushing in faster, harder, until he was banging up against her ass. The noises their bodies were making as they collided were as much of a turn-on as the sounds she was making.
He leaned over her body, placing his hands on either side of her shoulders as he pressed up inside her, sweat forming on his brow. Delaney opened her eyes, and, head resting on the sofa arm, looked up at him with so much love in her eyes that even though she hadn’t yet said that word, he could tell those old feelings were there. She began to move furiously, pressing back into him, bucking as he changed position, but he held her down because as much as he wanted to feel her steal what she wanted from him, he was close to coming and wanted her to get off first.
“Mac, I’m close,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. Despite the almost animalistic way they were racing each other to the edge, he felt a calm recognition between them. Actions weren’t going to get her there. Words were.
So, in the silence beneath the chaos he said them.
“I love you, Delaney.”
She came before he finished the sentence, and he followed her right over the edge.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I have something for you.”
The words filtered through Delaney’s brain, but it was the smell of coffee that got her attention.
“Hey, Buttons. Wake up sleepyhead.”
Delaney opened one eye and groaned. “What time is it?” she mumbled, moving the hair that was temporarily blocking her vision to one side.
“Doesn’t matter what time it is,” Mac said, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You need to get up, and I brought you coffee.”
She’d barely slept. Mac had been insatiable, and it had all been so incredible. She had been more than happy to go along with his plans to make love over and over until the early hours of the morning. They’d moved from the sofa, to the floor, to the shower, and finally into bed. Each time had been perfect, and a revelation. When they’d finally fallen asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms, she’d never felt more like she was home.
Final Siege Page 21
