All a Man Can Be

by Virginia Kantra

  “Stay or go?” he asked harshly.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Narrowed. “What do you mean? I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Your body is. Your head isn’t.”

  She smiled at him uncertainly. “Well, it’s my body you want.”

  Oh, yeah. He definitely wanted that. He was so hot for her, so ready, he’d probably carry the imprint of his zipper around on his body for days. The problem was, he wanted more.

  “I want all of you,” he said, and took her mouth again to prove it.

  Nicole’s heart pounded because of the things he was doing. Because of the risks she was taking. And mostly because of what he’d said. I want all of you, just like that, his voice rough with frustration, his hands rough as they dug down inside her slacks—her waistband cut briefly into her stomach—and then up the bare skin of her back to her bra.

  She should break their kiss. She should explain, apologetically, that her bra had a front closure, chosen in anticipation of being with him tonight. But before she could get the words out, his lean, long fingers slid along her ribs, grazing the underside of her breast. Obviously, he didn’t need instructions from her. He knew what he was doing. Her nipples tingled. Ached. She gasped, and his tongue filled her mouth, hot, seeking, sleek, as he flicked open her bra, pushed the satiny cups aside and rubbed his whole hand over her breast.

  Boy, did he know what he was doing.

  There was something vaguely disquieting about that fleeting thought, like a shadow under the surface of the water, but before she could dive after it, he swept her up and dragged her under. She felt herself softening, melting, as he squeezed her breast, as he brushed her nipple with his thumb, as he rolled it between his fingers.

  Her thighs loosened. Her head dropped back. And he took exquisite advantage, pressing his hard body between her legs, setting his lips and teeth against her throat.

  Her hands gripped his shoulders. Her mind flailed. She ought to… He would expect… But her half-formed resolves sank under the onslaught of his urgent mouth, under wave after wave of response.

  He yanked her blouse off her shoulders, tangling her arms in the sleeves. With her hands trapped behind her back, he bent her over his arm and trapped her breast in his mouth. The damp heat, the suction, made her quiver. She squirmed. He feasted, releasing her only long enough to pop the button of her slacks and drag down her zipper. She tried to tug her hands free—to help him? To cover herself?—but his hot mouth glided down her torso, nipping, sucking. She trembled as his breath gusted against her lower belly and between her thighs.

  She sucked in her stomach. It was too soft. Too pale, despite her hours in the blue bikini. Zack used to tell her she didn’t do enough crunches. If she’d gone to a tanning parlor—

  But Mark didn’t seem to notice. He grasped her hips. Her heart jerked in her chest. She was wet. In a moment he would see… He would know… She was too open to him. Open and vulnerable.

  She struggled for balance, but he held tight to her buttocks, nuzzling between her legs, his hair brushing the swell of her belly. His breath was hot. A choked cry escaped her throat. Eagerness. Doubt.

  She felt his tongue stroke and plunge, and her blood roared in her ears. Her knees gave way, as if she stood in a sucking tide, but he held her, supported her, as he licked and flicked and swirled his way inside her.

  Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing.

  She was drenched. Drowning. She tried to hold her mind above, separate—this is only sex, you’ve had sex before, what an interesting technique—but she could not resist his pull on her senses and her heart. He lifted her—he was strong, his arms corded with muscle—and laid her on the bed. Stood over her while he ripped his shirt off over his head, while he yanked on his buckle and shoved down his jeans.

  Do something.

  She couldn’t just lie here and let herself be taken. The thought shivered through her. Yes, she could. But she had a responsibility to her partner.

  She wrestled with her blouse to free her hands. By the time she rolled free and sat up, he was already naked, sinewy, lean and naked, lit only by the thin gray light that sparkled through the rain on the glass.

  Her breath abandoned her. Oh.

  “I—” Say something. “I have a condom.”

  And instead of sneering, he smiled. “So do I.”

  He wasn’t objecting. Gratitude made her blink. “It’s in my purse.”

  He raised his hand, revealed the packet in his palm. “Mine’s closer.”

  She opened her arms to him.

  He came down on her, his lovely hard bone and muscle pressing her into the mattress, the silky weight of his arousal thrusting against her hip. His hands went everywhere.

  She was overwhelmed. Overcome. Battered by sensation, swamped by need.

  I want all of you.

  Turning her head, she opened her mouth on his shoulder, tasting salt and skin as his hands, urgent and sure, spread her legs and opened her. She arched against the bed, her hands gripping and slipping on his smooth, damp back. She locked her legs around his hips.

  Any second now. Any second. Now.

  He hesitated.

  “What can I do?” she cried, frantic.

  He raised his head and smiled into her eyes.

  “Enjoy the ride,” he said, the way he had on the boat that afternoon, and plunged into her.

  The shock quivered through them both. And then he began to move, over her and inside her, thick and hot, swelling inside her, thrusting inside her, making her stretch and throb. Making her pulse and surge. Making her gasp. Making her—

  “Come on, baby,” he said hoarsely, working her body, working her, until sensation built, until it flooded and filled her.

  She gave a sharp, surprised cry and let herself be swept away. He shuddered like a swimmer at the limits of his strength and went with the tide.

  Chapter 14

  “You have a tattoo.”

  A finger traced the curve of Mark’s biceps, tickling him from sleep. He was wrecked, sprawled facedown on a bed—not his bed, his few working brain cells noted—with his arm resting heavily on a warm, naked woman.

  Nicole.

  He smiled and turned his head on the pillow.

  God, she was pretty. At some point she must have switched on the bedside lamp, and her blond hair, spilling over her face and his arm, glowed in the yellow light. Her cheeks were pink. Her lips looked thoroughly kissed, licked, sucked.

  Her eyebrows lifted. She was waiting for him to say something. Right. Like she wanted to hear any of the things he had to say.

  I want you. Well, that had worked.

  I need you. Too wussy.

  Let’s do it again. Too soon.

  Although maybe… His mind was struggling, but his body was definitely waking up.

  “What?” he said.

  “A tattoo,” she said patiently. “You’ve got words on your arm.”

  This was a hell of a time to remind him of that.

  “Beats having an anchor on my butt,” he joked.

  But she wasn’t distracted. Her fingers stroked his arm. “What does it say?”

  “Semper fi.” His voice was muffled by the pillow.

  “Semper—”

  “—fi.” Semper fidelis. Always faithful.

  “That’s nice.” Her voice was dreamy. Wistful. Her touch was light and loving on his skin. Her interest jabbed him like an inking needle. “Did you get it to remind you of the U.S. Marine Corps?”

  “No.”

  She frowned, either at his answer or his tone. “But isn’t that their motto?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, why—”

  “Look, could we drop this?”

  Her fingers stilled. Her body stiffened. “Of course,” she said politely.

  Mark said a bunch of bad words all strung together in his head. Now he’d hurt her. Which meant he owed it to her to explain.

  He rolled away from her to sit on the side of the mattress. “I go
t it because of a woman, all right? Like some guys get ‘Suzy’ or ‘Rosie’ on their chests. It was a woman I—” Damn it, he was not going to say the L word “—I thought I was going to be with. Marry, even.”

  He risked a glance over his shoulder.

  Nicole’s eyes were very wide and blue. “Then why not get her name?” she asked quietly.

  “Because she was already married,” Mark said. The memory was bitter in his mouth. “To a superior officer in my platoon. I figured this way I could show her I was serious about us and still, you know, protect her.”

  “That was considerate.”

  “It was stupid. Hayley never had any intention of leaving a captain’s pay grade and the officers’ wives club for me. Which her husband was happy to let me know after she decided a tearful confession could leverage her a move off base and a bigger kitchen.”

  “Bitch,” Nicole said clearly.

  He couldn’t believe he’d heard her correctly. “What?”

  She blushed, sitting up in bed, tugging the sheet to cover her pretty breasts. But her tone was firm and fierce as she repeated, “She was a bitch. I can’t stand people who use other people for money.”

  Well, that kind of figured. She had enough experience being used herself to make her sympathetic to the chump he had been. Only he didn’t want her pity. He wanted… His gaze slipped to the outline of her nipples through the sheet before he looked away.

  “It could have been worse.”

  “Yes. You could have tattooed her name on your arm and need laser surgery.”

  Her unexpected tartness surprised a laugh from him. “Maybe I’d leave it,” he suggested, just to see what she’d say.

  “Why?”

  “As a reminder.”

  “Of what? That women aren’t deserving of faithfulness?”

  Well, yeah.

  “She wasn’t,” he said.

  “Just because your parents didn’t model a good relationship, just because you may have recreated a dynamic of rejection, doesn’t mean you can’t move past it.” Her voice rang with sincerity. “We can learn from our mistakes.”

  A dynamic of rejection? Like hell.

  “That sounds like something out of one of your books,” he said.

  She raised her chin. “What if it is?”

  She was so sweet. So earnest. So damn determined to help.

  “Then I’d say—” Too late he saw the land mines ahead. “I’d say maybe there’s something in them after all.”

  Her lips parted. “Do you mean that?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  “And you reached this startling new conclusion because…?”

  The best thing to do in an interrogation, he’d discovered with his sister and the one or two reasonable COs he’d known in his career, was to go with the truth. Or part of the truth, anyway.

  “You’ve made some mistakes, right?”

  She winced. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Right. So if I want to be the new guy in your life, I’d be stupid to tell you our relationship is just another mistake.”

  She sat there, naked except for the sheet, her brain chugging away like that little laptop computer of hers digesting data. And then—thank you, God!—she smiled.

  “Is that what we have?” she asked softly. “A relationship?”

  Panic time. Let’s keep it simple, he’d told her. Let’s take it one step at a time.

  But now that he’d had her, simple didn’t cut it. Dragging his feet wasn’t what he wanted anymore. And it was way less than she deserved.

  He pretended to consider. “Kind of soon to call this a relationship. We’ve only been to bed one time.”

  She went from bed warm to ice cold in five seconds. “I see.”

  “I don’t think you do.” It was too easy to tease her. He stopped her retreat across the mattress by the simple method of grabbing the sheet. “Now, if we do it again, that’s a relationship.”

  She resisted his pull on the covers. “What makes you assume I would want to do it again?”

  He leaned over her, kind of digging the fact that he was bigger than her and stronger than her. Okay, so it made him a pig, but it turned him on. He trapped her beneath the sheet, beneath his weight, enjoying the way the color surged into her cheeks and her eyes darkened.

  “I don’t assume anything,” he assured her.

  He bent his head to her throat, finding the tiny beat of her pulse with his lips. The light, expensive perfume she wore mixed with the heavy narcotic scent of sex. Her pulse raced under his kiss.

  “I like to work for it,” he said.

  She laughed then, and let him.

  “You’re home late,” Kathy observed, bending to fish a shoe from under the coffee table. “Or do I mean early?”

  Nicole tried hard not to feel like a high school junior sneaking home after curfew. It had been six years since she’d last roomed with Kathy. And while the redhead knew where the bodies—where all the bodies—were buried in Nicole’s romantic past, Nicole didn’t want to conduct a postmortem on her weekend while the memories were still fresh and warm.

  “Oh, I, um—”

  Kathy held on to the arm of the couch while she wriggled her free foot into her shoe. “Got lucky?” she suggested.

  Nicole’s face was hot. But there was a glow in her chest that had nothing to do with embarrassment. Get lucky?

  Maybe she had.

  Maybe her luck had changed at last.

  She set her purse on a chair. “How do you know I wasn’t visiting my parents this weekend?” she countered.

  Kathy straightened, stamping her foot to get it all the way into the heel. “Honey, nobody goes out the door plucked and polished like you were yesterday to spend the night at their parents’ house. And you didn’t get that hickey playing Scrabble with Mommy, either.”

  Nicole’s hand flew to her throat. “I didn’t know it showed.”

  “Girlfriend, you’ve got dinner, drinks and a sex chaser written all over you.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Nicole protested instinctively.

  “It’s always like that.” But instead of sounding jokey and confiding, Kathy’s tone was flat and bitter.

  Was she right? It had been like that before. Nicole couldn’t prove this time was any different.

  If I want to be the new guy in your life, I’d be stupid to tell you our relationship is just another mistake.

  No, she couldn’t prove it. But she felt it.

  She believed it.

  “You look nice,” she said, changing the subject. She was, amazingly, happy. She could afford to be kind. “Anything special?”

  Kathy shrugged. “Monday morning. Back to the real world.” She rummaged on the end table. “Now, where did I put my earrings?”

  Nicole roused herself to be helpful. “When did you have them last?”

  “Saturday night. I wore them when I went out. Gary didn’t spring for dinner, the cheapskate, but he gave me what I wanted afterward.” Kathy slid Nicole a look bright with humor or malice. “Right here on this couch.”

  Nicole had a sudden image of the couch and a man’s bare backside, moving.

  “Oh,” she said faintly.

  “Here they are.” Kathy swooped. The earrings sparkled in her hand. She tilted her head to insert one. “So, how was he?”

  Nicole blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Delicious DeLucca. How was he?”

  Nicole opened her mouth, but no words came out. It was as if she and her college roommate spoke different languages. Kathy was talking about sex. About getting it and taking it from faceless men whose hearts were not involved. There were no words for what Nicole had shared with Mark, for what Nicole had felt with Mark, in Kathy’s vocabulary.

  Maybe, Nicole acknowledged, Mark didn’t feel all the things she felt. Maybe his heart was not involved.

  But hers was. She knew that now.

  “He was, um—”

  She was suddenly impatient with herself, with
Kathy, with her own reluctance to trust her feelings and speak her mind. Language barrier or not, she did not graduate from the University of Chicago so she could go around saying “um” all the time.

  She took a deep breath. “I had a wonderful weekend, thank you.”

  Kathy looked at her cockeyed, but maybe that was simply the effect of inserting the other earring. “That’s it?”

  Nicole considered. Nodded. She was not exposing what ought to remain private and precious to Kathy’s corrosive cynicism. “That’s it.”

  For one second, something lost and ugly peered out of Kathy’s eyes. And then she smiled. “Well, good for you,” she said. “And goodie for him. I can’t guess how he is in the sack, but he certainly knows what he’s doing otherwise.”

  Nicole felt cold. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I guess not.” Kathy swung her purse onto her shoulder and fluffed her hair with her fingers. “Mark DeLucca was the other interested buyer for the bar.”

  “So, it’s definite now, right?” Mark repeated into the phone. Despite the previous test results, and his own gut-level response, he could hardly believe it. “Wainscott can’t contest my paternity in court.”

  “I can’t tell you what Robert Wainscott will decide to do,” Jane Gilbert said in her precise lawyer’s voice. “No test can prove with 100 percent certainty that an individual is the biological parent of a child. However, this second test is court admissible and establishes your paternity with a 99.8 percent certainty, which is in excess of the 99 percent required by the court.”

  Mark released his breath slowly. “You’re joking, right?”

  Jane chuckled. “Not necessarily. Have you hired a lawyer yet?”

  He turned his back on the empty bar room. He wouldn’t open for another hour. “Do I need one?”

  “Well, you’re not fighting for custody because you did anything wrong. You didn’t neglect Daniel or beat him. But if the Wainscotts argue that you are unfit in some other way—if you knew of Daniel’s existence, for example, and chose to abandon him and his mother—then things could get sticky. A lawyer would help.”

  Anger swelled in him like the wind filling a sail. “Hold on. They can’t say he’s not my kid and then turn around and claim I abandoned him.”