“I’ve always loved animals,” she said. “As a teenager, I worked at a vet’s office. He taught me lot, mentored me, helped me get into college, then vet school.”
“Your family?”
“Best forgotten,” she said shortly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Why not? I have.”
He laughed. “The first thing that attracted me to you—other than how pretty you are—is that unwavering honesty.”
Mark had hated it. So she learned to be dishonest with him.
“You’re thinking of him again,” Clint said softly. “Your ex.”
“He creeps into my head. He does it all too often.”
He simply nodded. He understood.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For the meal? It really wasn’t that big a deal.”
“No, for not giving up on me.”
“As if I could,” he replied.
“You play the guitar,” she said, changing the subject.
“A little.”
“Would you play for me?”
“If there’s not great expectations.”
She smiled. “I have none.”
He picked up the guitar and sat on one of the dining chairs. He played a few chords, then a haunting melody she’d never heard before. He was good. More than good. But she should have expected that. He was good at everything, drat it.
But then she was lost in the melody as it went through various moods. Wistful, then lighter, somber and finally a jig. She wouldn’t forget it.
“I’ve never heard that before. What is it?”
He dipped his head. “Just something I’ve been playing with.”
“You wrote it?”
“It kinda wrote itself.”
He put the guitar down and offered her his hand. She stood, looking up at him, the warmth in his hand spreading up her arms and through her body like honey. His eyes were darker now. Intense. The attraction between them, always there but held under control, simmered, boiled over.
He kissed her. Their lips met with a fierceness and need that rocked her to the core. Her mouth opened and her tongue met his naturally, and she knew she was seducing him as much as he was her. His fingers kneaded the back of her neck, and electricity flashed between them, sparking and sizzling.
The kiss deepened. She hadn’t known him long, and yet she knew him well. In the deepest, most important way, she knew him. He had revealed more to her tonight than he knew. Like her, he hurt inside, but he’d become quite good at hiding it just as she had. She leaned against him and his arms tightened around her until she felt as if they were one.
Then he took a step back, his fingers touching her face, exploring the curves, hesitating at her mouth. “Damn, but you’re pretty,” he said.
She didn’t think she was. Her hair was too unruly, her body too lean, her cheekbones too angular. But she knew he believed it, and she felt an unanticipated pleasure in the words.
“And you have a beautiful smile. It’s not there enough,” he added. It wasn’t a critical observation, she knew. There was a regret in his voice that such a thing was true and at the reasons behind it, even if he didn’t know all the reasons.
But at the moment, it didn’t matter because his lips found hers again and touched them with a barely restrained hunger that fueled her own. She opened her mouth to his and their tongues met and teased each other until all her senses were inflamed.
She had never felt so alive, so completely enveloped in waves of sensation as their bodies pressed together with a need as elemental as a sudden and violent summer storm. She hadn’t known she could feel like this, that she could want someone like this. Want with all the fiber in her body.
“Stephanie?”
She knew what he was asking. She was scared. Terrified. But there was a deeper pull, a need that came not only from her body, but from the heart she’d walled up.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Sure?”
She looked up at him. “Are you trying to wriggle out?”
He burst out laughing. “Never.”
He took her by her hand and led her into the bedroom, closing the door before the two dogs could enter. “Some things are meant to be private,” he told them through the door, causing Stephanie to giggle.
He took off his shirt, and she saw scars. She didn’t know whether they were from battle or not, but it didn’t matter. He’d been hurt. She touched them with her fingers then stared up at his face. Handsome but with character. Strong lines. Laugh lines. Lines from pain. “I like your face,” she said. “I really tried to dislike you when I first met you because I liked your face.”
“That’s convoluted,” he said.
“Not if you’re me,” she replied, biting on his lip.
“Well, I liked you because you took such an immediate dislike to me.”
“Now that is convoluted.”
“Not if you’re me,” he retorted and unbuttoned her shirt.
“I think we might be in trouble,” she said. “Two convoluted souls.”
“Exactly what does convoluted mean?” he said between kisses and stepping out of his jeans and helping her out of her slacks.
“Something like twisted,” she said and giggled again. She was appalled. She never giggled. His quirky sense of humor was contagious.
“My doctor at the hospital would have lots of fun with that one,” he replied as he finished undressing her. They fell on the bed and he kissed her again, long and hard while his hands caressed her body, each touch sending waves of sensation cascading through her. He went slow, stopping to kiss her again with so much tenderness it hurt. It was as if he knew it had been a long time for her, and he was taking his time in awakening her body.
His lips found her breasts, first one and then the other, and spasms of pleasure swept through her even as she throbbed with need for more. He stopped as if to ask whether he should go on.
To her surprise, she had no reservations after having had so many. The last forty-eight hours had changed a lot, and both physically and emotionally she wanted him. She looked at him and nodded in answer to his unspoken question. His hands moved down her body leaving trails of fire behind them, leaving her skin alive with feeling, with wanting. Nerve endings erupted. The sheer strength of the need frightened her, but there was no stopping now. The fire was too strong.
Her hands went to the back of his neck and her fingers tangled in his dark hair as he gave her a smile she would always remember. Tender and sweet and sexy. And real. No guile. No holding back.
She knew in that moment that she did trust him. She could always trust him. “Yes,” she said. He turned around for a second and she realized he’d picked up the little foil package on the table next to the bed.
Then he turned back to her, and ran his fingers along her body. The heat grew, a soul-deep heat that melted any lingering resistance.
He kissed her, a kiss so tender her heart melted even as her body reacted with a fierce need. His hands slid down to the triangle of hair, his fingers gently exploring, soothing and inciting all at one time. Her skin burned where he touched.
She wanted him. She wanted the tenderness and the barely contained passion he was trying so hard to control. Tremors ran through her.
Her legs gripped around him, pulling him even closer to her. Waves of sensation rocked her body as he entered her. Slowly. Deliberately. She relished the feel of him as he thrust deeper. She moved with him, the crescendo building, their bodies rocking in tandem until a final explosion sent billows of fulfillment racing through her.
They lay together, Clint still warm within her as aftershocks of pleasure continued. Was he as awed as she? Never, ever had she thought anything could be as grand as this. She hadn’t imagined s
ex—or was it love?—could be anything like this.
Clint enclosed her in his arms. “Wow,” he said.
“Double wow,” she replied and snuggled deeper into their embrace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AFTER SEVERAL MINUTES of silence, a mellow and contented piece of time when words weren’t necessary, a sated Clint lifted his head and studied her. “You are so darn irresistible,” he said.
She started to protest. He could tell. He stopped it by kissing her for a very long moment, long enough to feel his body heat again. “You’re strong and kind and smart and...well, you make splendid love.”
“Splendid?” Stephanie said with a grin.
“No other word came to me because that’s what it was.” He paused touching her hair. “I’ve never felt this way before. From the moment I met you, I’ve wanted to make you smile, make you laugh, be with me. It’s not just sex, although that was, well, terrific. Hell, I don’t know, but it’s so much more than that.”
In her blue eyes was a softness he hadn’t seen before. And then she sighed. “I surrender,” she said with the frankness that always intrigued him. “I feel that way, too. I didn’t want to. I knew you were dangerous to my equilibrium. I’ve made mistakes. Really bad ones, and I don’t want to make another one.”
He took her hand. “I could be one. God knows my future is uncertain. I don’t know if the headaches or blackouts will ever go away, and I have damn little training for anything useful except flying, certainly nothing here in Covenant Falls.”
Her fingers tightened around his. She knew how he felt. Exactly how he felt. She’d been there after the divorce.
“You have a lot more talents than you think you do,” she said. “People like you. Really like you. You have a knack that I don’t have. I tend to be...”
“Cautious,” he said. “You’ve been hurt by people you trusted. So it’s easier not to trust. It’s natural.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I’ve had sex before, I’ve never made love. I never knew it could be like this. Or maybe I did. I watch Eve and Josh together, the way they touch each other. Their connection is so obvious, even when he just puts an arm around her shoulders. It’s like no one else is there. I just didn’t think...”
“What didn’t you think?” he asked softly.
She averted her eyes for a second. “That anyone would feel that way about me. Or I would feel that way about them.”
He grinned. “I’ve had similar thoughts.”
“Mark wasn’t my first marriage,” she said, nestling her head in his arm. “You should know everything before this gets deeper than it already is.”
“Well,” he said, “it’s pretty damn deep now. I would say Challenger Deep.”
“Challenger Deep?” she asked.
“It’s the deepest part of the ocean. The Challenger Deep is in the Mariana Trench. One of those odds and ends a pilot learns. Your eyes make me think about that. They are so damned blue.”
“I like that, the Challenger Deep,” she said. “Where is it?”
“The western Pacific Ocean near the Mariana Islands.”
“I’ll remember that for crossword puzzles. I like crossword puzzles. Do you?”
“You’re changing the subject,” he said.
“Yes,” Stephanie said, frowning. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this. It’s too fast. Too powerful, maybe even world-shattering. My world, anyway.”
He touched her face. “I know. The timing sucks. I’m in limbo now. I don’t know whether I can ever fly again. I don’t know how I’ll earn a living. I don’t know if the blackouts will last another week or for years. I have damn little to offer any woman. But I can’t seem to stay away from you.”
A smile played across her face. “And me, you. I gravitate toward you, no matter how hard I fight it. And God knows, I’ve fought it.”
“I noticed. I’ve never cared for anyone like I care about you. I know it’s fast, probably too fast, but I lost my heart the first time I saw you in that dirt-splotched shirt.” He stroked her cheek. “I never believed in that stuff—the idea of love at first sight, or that lightning strikes. But lightning did strike me.” He paused. “I won’t push. I won’t ever consciously hurt you.”
* * *
SHE LIKED HIM even more for that. He understood her at a gut level. It was scary, but it also warmed her. And she believed him. He had never pushed. He’d just been there when needed. His honesty deserved her own. “That same lightning? Well, I felt it, too.” She bit her lip. “You know about Mark, what a disaster it was for me. You should know all of it.”
His fingers went around hers, reassuring.
“I was married when I turned seventeen,” she said, her voice strained. “My father was physically and verbally abusive. Not sexually, but he liked to bat me around if he disapproved of anything I said and did, and almost everything fit that description.”
“Your mother?”
“He did the same to her. I begged her to leave him, to take me with her, but she didn’t think she could survive without him. How would she take care of me?”
“What did you do?”
“I solved the problem by marrying Rick. He was the high school’s bad boy, and he’d just graduated. He had movie-star looks. I never really understood why he was interested in me. I was a reader, an A student. One of the nerds. I was going to go to college one way or another, even if I had to sell my soul. I was not going to be like my mom and father.
“But Rick persisted in chasing me. I think now it was the challenge. I was the only girl who didn’t jump in bed with him. I was a virgin and intended to stay that way until I was married. My father forbade me from seeing him which, of course, made me do the opposite. After a vicious beating, I left the house and called Rick. He took me to his home.”
“My god,” Clint murmured.
She took a deep breath. “Rick was my knight who saved me from my father’s increasing violence. His family seemed normal. Nice. When he asked me to marry him, I agreed. His father supported our decision and said we could live in the garage apartment behind their home. I was too young, of course, but his father got mine to sign a form giving his approval. To this day, I don’t know how or why he convinced him, but I have my suspicions.
“To make a long story short, I thought Rick worked with his father in a trucking business. He did. In a way. He also shipped illegal drugs. Four months after we married, Rick was killed in a shoot-out with an undercover agent. I was questioned for weeks, but I didn’t know anything and was eventually cleared. Rick’s father was arrested and his mother lost everything.”
Stephanie took a breath before continuing.
“I couldn’t go home. My father had disowned me when I married Rick, and my mother wouldn’t argue with him. I was desperate to finish school. Then I saw a help-wanted sign in a veterinarian practice near the school. I always liked animals, although my father wouldn’t let me have one, and I was the first to apply. For eight months, I washed cages and took care of the animals after school. I slept on buses at night.”
She was aware of his arm tightening around her. His dark eyes were even darker as he listened.
“When the vet—Dr. Colin Drake—found out, he let me sleep in the clinic. We became friends. He was in his sixties and had lost his wife. They didn’t have children and he took me under his wing. He helped me obtain a scholarship for college, then he helped me get into veterinarian school. I continued working for him as a vet tech. After getting my degree, I went to work for him as a partner because he wanted to slow down.
“He died of a heart attack two years later and left the practice to me. I was twenty-eight. Two years later, I met Mark who was attending a conference in Pittsburgh. I’d had a few dates, but not many. Mark seemed to be everything Rick wasn’t. Respected. Honest. Had a lot of
friends and people who admired him. He wined and dined me, sent flowers every few days. When he asked me to marry him, he said he would take care of selling the practice and I would use the proceeds to start one in Boston. He would help.”
“That jerk,” Clint seethed.
“I thought I loved him, but later I realized I wanted to fall in love. It had been twelve years since I had had a serious relationship. I was lonely. I missed my friend, the former vet. The practice was in a poor part of town, and I worked twelve hours a day, six days a week and often on Sunday. I loved it, but I needed something more.” She touched his hair.
“What happened next?”
“You know the rest. It didn’t take me long to learn I’d made another mistake. I have a terrible track record with the opposite sex, which is why I tried to stay away from you.”
He kissed her. “I can tell you I have never sold drugs and I have never harmed a woman, at least knowingly. It sounds like Rick cared about you.”
“I think he did. He wanted us to have a baby. I couldn’t do that...”
“No wonder you ran like hell when that particular streak of lightning struck us.” He kissed her. Slowly, tenderly. “I would have done the same.”
“Do you have any hard feelings about your marriage?”
“Oh, I had some, particularly at first. No guy wants to be known as the butt of jokes. But I learned long ago not to worry about things I can’t change. Just change directions.”
“And that’s what you’re doing now?”
“I’m trying. There’s not much call for a damaged chopper pilot. But I’ll find something else to be passionate about.” He grinned. “In fact I already have.”
She smiled and snuggled against him. “You could build docks,” she said.
“I’ve already dismissed that idea. You should have seen me earlier. I was covered with mud. Head to toe. I looked in a mirror and a creature from a horror movie looked back at me. I have to find a cleaner occupation.”
She grabbed at the lighter subject. “I wish I could have seen that.”
“No, you don’t. I even scared the hell out of Bart.”
Tempted by the Soldier Page 23
