He watched her, amazed at the sound of her laughter. In that moment, he realized that she hadn’t really laughed in… He couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed like this. Slowly a matching smile spread over his lips, and he stood there and simply savored the moment.
It was something he’d forgotten. Something that had slipped away as the distance between them had grown wider and deeper.
He’d enjoyed making her laugh once upon a time. A thousand memories surfaced and tormented him with the pleasure of her laugh. God but he loved the way she used to smile.
She swiped at her eyes, looking up at him from the changing room floor. “I’m sorry.”
“For laughing at my neutering or my being neutered?” he asked lightly, holding his hand out to help her up.
“Both.” Her palm slid against his.
He gave a gentle tug and she was on her feet, close enough that he could see the moisture sparkling in her eyes. “It’s been so long since I heard you laugh,” he murmured.
Her mouth was a breath from his. Warm air brushed against his skin. He could almost taste the laugh on her lips.
She smiled ruefully. “There hasn’t been a lot to laugh about lately.”
Her hands came up, braced against his skin. Her palms were cool on his bare shoulders, sending a shiver through his veins. It had been so long since he’d touched her. Since she’d touched him. This. This was opportunity.
In a perfect world, he could kiss her then. Rock her world and remind her of all the things that had once been right between them.
But this wasn’t a perfect world. This was a flawed and damaged world.
But it wasn’t hopeless. No, he hadn’t given up hope yet.
He stood there for a moment, his eyes locked with hers. Her lips were parted, the slightest space. He wanted to nibble on her there, to suck gently until she sighed.
Instead he lifted his hand. Ran his thumb gently, so gently over her bottom lip. She was soft and smooth and warm. It was meant to tease them both. It was meant to control the situation, to keep himself from deviating from his game plan of trying to lure her out of the darkness and shadows where she’d been for too long.
Instead, Sam took over.
She’d never been a passive lover. Her tongue slid over the bottom of his thumb. A gentle rasp of heat on heat. It was warm and wet against the roughness of his skin.
So long. So fucking long since he’d touched her. That single gesture drove his resolve away, turning his plan on its head and sending him headlong into the abyss of sensation. She slipped her tongue around the tip, swirling a teasing pattern, her eyes never leaving his. She sucked him further into the warmth of her mouth and he gave himself over to the sensation.
This. This was always good between them. This was always right.
He backed her up against the wall, his thumb slipping out of her mouth with a soft pop. It was just them, alone in the bright lights of the changing room. Their breath mixing as they stood, his bare skin pressing against her clothed form.
He lowered his forehead to hers. Stroked her cheek gently with his thumb.
“I miss you.”
Chapter Eight
Sam waited outside for him to finish checking out. Snow was already falling, big fat flakes that stuck to everything. A gust of wind from Moosehead Lake sent it swirling around her. She huddled deeper in her jacket.
In the end, he’d decided on a couple of pairs of heavy socks, a couple of wool sweaters, and two pairs of jeans, along with, yes, a flannel shirt. And somehow, damn it, Patrick made flannel look sexy.
He wasn’t exactly a flannel kind of guy. He wore expensive button-down shirts and loafers. He drank aged scotch and listened to classical music and pretended to be a cultural omnivore when he was in public. She knew his secrets, though, knew he listened to heavy metal when he was at the gym.
And she remembered how to make him beg when they were alone.
But the flannel shirt he wore now beneath the heavy Patagonia jacket made him look more rugged. Less polished.
Less like Patrick the soldier and more like someone else.
Someone else who had just pinned her to the wall in a changing room and sent her blood spiking.
It was that Patrick that she was drawn to now. That Patrick who instead of kissing her had simply stood for a moment, his heat and warmth surrounding her, urging her closer, urging her to feel for the first time in forever.
She didn’t know what to do with all the feelings he’d aroused in her. There was an ache deep in her belly that made her crave more. An ache she’d once not hesitated to satiate with him.
So why was she hesitating now? Why hadn’t she leaned forward and kissed him when he’d been so close? God, but she’d loved seeing his eyes go dark when she’d run her tongue over his thumb. She’d pushed him closer to the edge. Closer to taking.
But he was too much of a good man to do that.
She knew that.
And yet, standing there in the swirling snow, waiting for him to step outside, she felt the darkness stalking her. The numbing sensation was wrapping around her, chasing away the awareness and arousal he’d sparked in her and leaving her with nothing but the memory.
She was clawing her way toward the surface at the bottom of a long dark well. She could see the light. She wanted to be in the light.
But it was so far away.
The bell on the door behind her jingled as he stepped into the cold.
“Hey.” His voice was thick. His breath froze on the air in front of him. He looked up at the darkening sky. “Looks like we didn’t miss the storm.”
She nodded toward the rental car. “Does that thing have four-wheel drive? It’s about to get nasty.”
He looked at the sedan. “I have no idea. Do cars come with four-wheel drive up here? Are they specially made for living in the great north woods?”
She shook her head. “We should get going before the roads get worse.”
“We’ll be able to get home, right?”
She smiled. “The road crews up here are pretty busy in the winter. The main roads are usually fine.”
“I hear a but in there.”
“But we probably don’t want to tempt fate. We’ll end up sleeping in the parking lot ’til morning if there’s an accident.”
He stepped closer to her, his coat rustling in the falling darkness. “I’d keep you warm.”
She lowered her eyes from the temptation in his. “I have no doubt.”
They walked in silence to the car.
“I cannot get over how cold it is up here. How on earth did you grow up and not freeze to death?”
“Listen, Florida boy, not all of us are used to sunny weather and sandy beaches all the time.”
It felt good, teasing him. To have such a normal conversation that felt like things weren’t so irreparably damaged between them. Like maybe there was a chance she wasn’t completely broken.
Maybe she could hold on to this normalcy. Maybe she could claim this moment and cherish it.
Maybe she could hold on long enough to climb out of the well.
The snow was falling faster now, looking like the streaks of stars when the Millennium Falcon jumped to light speed. Visibility sucked and was likely to get worse. “So, want to tell me about when you got hurt?”
“There’s not much to tell. Shrapnel in a very special place, the docs said things were probably destroyed, and wow, isn’t this a fun and entertaining conversation.”
“Probably destroyed?”
His knuckles whitened where he gripped the steering wheel. “I could have gone back to Germany and had surgery to try and save the boys.” He released a deep breath.
It was not an easy conversation to have.
It was even harder now.
She should have let it go. She should walk away from the edge of the argument teetering just in front of them. But she couldn’t. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because it felt wrong to try and keep my balls in g
ood working order when other guys were losing arms and legs and eyesight.” He ground his teeth. “And I had Natalie,” he whispered. “It sounds fucked up, but I wasn’t overly worried about it. I didn’t die, the important thing still works, and it just seemed more important to stay in the fight.”
She watched him while he spoke. Watched the tension crank higher and higher until his hands looked like they were going to break the steering wheel.
“I thought I was okay when I made it home. But I wasn’t.” He swallowed hard. “Spent some time talking to a counselor off post,” he said cautiously.
She looked down at her hands. “You never mentioned that.”
“It’s a hard thing to admit that you’re not okay. Everyone pretends that everything is fine when it fucking isn’t.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I got my head straight and, well, it never came up. Maybe it should have. Maybe if I’d been honest with you about what I’d gone through…” He stopped suddenly.
“What?” A broken whisper.
“Maybe you wouldn’t have felt so alone. Like you were the only one who’d ever had trouble coming home.” He brought their vehicle to a stop as the taillights of the tanker truck in front of him lit up. Finally, he glanced over at her. “Maybe you wouldn’t have felt like leaving was the only option.”
***
The admission hurt: it was staring at the reality of his own failure. He’d tried to be strong, tried to keep from laying his own burdens on her. In doing so, he’d left her alone when she needed someone, anyone to lean on.
He’d never thought that she’d leave him. Maybe it was his own naiveté that they’d get through the war and figure things out on the other side. He’d always respected what she stood for, what she needed. He’d never pressured her to get married. He knew how important it was to her to keep her name, to feel like she could do things on her own. She was stubborn like that.
She’d been burned badly by Natalie’s biological father. He remembered the first time he met her. He’d been at BookPeople in Austin, one of his favorite haunts when he wasn’t working.
He’d seen her standing in the politics section. She’d looked adorable in a pale blue and white sundress. It had taken him a minute to recognize her from work. A lot of military women looked completely different out of uniform, and Sam was no different. Her hair had been down, spilling down her back and brushing over her shoulders.
Then she’d glanced toward him, and he’d seen the tears streaming down her face.
Before he’d seen those tears, he’d been on the fence about approaching. About saying hi. But those tears had punched him in the gut. She was always so strong at work. So confident.
In that moment, he’d made a decision that had changed the course of both their lives.
He’d approached cautiously. “Whoever it is, I’m sure it’s nothing a good kick in the balls can’t solve.”
She’d been embarrassed. She’d tried to shrug off his concern.
But he’d convinced her to cross the street with him and let him buy her lunch.
She’d confided in him that day. Told him about the boyfriend who hadn’t just run out on her, but had emptied her bank accounts and run up her credit cards first. He’d left her broke and betrayed everything Sam thought that she’d had with him.
They’d been dating for a month when she’d dropped a land mine on both of them.
She was pregnant. And since they hadn’t yet made love, she hadn’t had to tell him that it wasn’t his.
God, he could still see her face when she’d told him the news. She’d braced for him to walk out on her.
But he hadn’t. And over the years, he’d gotten used to the careful balancing of her independence with her relationship with him.
“I never pushed you on the paperwork for Natalie because I never thought I’d have to,” he said now, sitting on a snow-covered road behind a stopped tractor-trailer in the middle of central Maine. “And we managed to make this stuff work without being married.” He looked at her then, and crossed the boundary he’d never broken with them before. “I get that you have your stuff. We all do. But I never thought you’d take her away from me. I never thought through what would happen the day you decided you’d had enough. I loved you—I still love you—and I always thought that was enough.”
“You make it sound so simple.” A ragged whisper. “It’s not.”
“Yes, actually it is.” He forced his voice to remain level. To stay calm and not shout at her that she was destroying everything he loved in this world. “That this isn’t just about Natalie, but about the life we’ve built together. This is about you and it’s about me and about us. And things are a little fucked up right now but you’re doing exactly what you’ve always been afraid I would do to you. You’re running away.”
Her mouth opened, then closed again. He wanted her to fight, to deny what he said. To tell him he was imagining things. But she didn’t. She simply bit her lips together and looked away, avoiding his eyes.
It was an old familiar story in the military. Too many soldiers deployed to return home to find their spouses shacked up with someone else. Too many soldiers strayed while they were deployed, figuring deployment meant they didn’t have to honor their marriage vows.
He’d done neither. He’d always believed she would do the same.
But now the ugly suspicion settled around his heart, and he had to ask. Had to know. “Is there someone else?” he asked flatly.
Better to excise the wound than to let it fester.
“No.” She turned away, looking out into the swirling snow. “There’s no one else.”
He dropped his head back against the headrest, lashing at his temper that was fraying at the edge. “Then explain to me what happened, Sam. Because if you’re going to destroy everything we built together, I deserve to know why.”
She flinched when he spoke. His deceptively calm words hurt. He knew that. Could see the evidence on her face.
She didn’t answer. Not right away. He waited patiently, let the silence stand between them, growing until it was a live thing, crackling with energy that snapped and hissed.
“Because I don’t feel anything anymore.” Words like shattered glass. “Because nothing between us feels alive. It feels like we’re going through the motions, waiting for bedtime when we can both roll over and pretend to be asleep.” She finally dared to look at him. “I can’t pretend to feel something that isn’t there anymore. I can’t do that to Natalie.” She looked away again. “And you deserve someone who can make you laugh. Someone who isn’t broken.” Her voice cracked on the last sentence.
He glanced at the truck in front of them. Let her words sink in. Weighed them against the woman he knew. The woman he loved.
She was lost, utterly and completely lost. He remembered feeling that way, feeling the need to hide it from the world. Being unable to see his way out of the darkness that surrounded him.
And he’d missed the signs in her. For a thousand pointless reasons, he’d missed them. He’d left her alone in the dark.
Because he could do nothing less, he reached for her then. Cradled her cheek until she turned to face him. “You’re not broken, Sam.” He gave up on his plan. Abandoned it in the nearest snow bank, needing only to be there for her. To hold her and let her know he was there. At that moment and forever. He’d never leave her alone again. He brushed his lips against hers. “You went to war. You lost people you care about.” A gentle nudge. “You’re not broken. You’re just different. We’re all different when we come home.”
She closed her eyes, avoiding his.
It was a long moment before she nuzzled his hand with her cheek. “I don’t want to be different.” Tired words filled with sadness. She leaned in, resting her forehead against his. “I want to feel normal again.” She pressed her lips to his. Slid her tongue against his. A hesitant touch. “Make me feel again, Patrick.”
And he was lost.
Chapter Nine
It started as s
omething gentle. Something hesitant.
And then it wasn’t. Not gentle. It was not tame or timid or questioning.
It burned her down to the roots of her soul. It touched something deep and dark and hidden.
Something she’d thought was long since dead and buried and gone.
His tongue slid against hers, stroking to life the very sensations she thought she’d never feel again.
It was electric, the feel of his mouth against hers. The scrape of stubble against her chin, the taste of him. The smell of his skin.
He nipped her. Pinched her bottom lip between his teeth and sucked it. And she sighed at the pleasure, at the raw ache his taste and touch aroused in her, pushing aside the darkness that haunted her.
She felt him. Felt everything. The heat of his skin. The warmth that drew her closer. That made her want to crawl into his lap and unzip his pants and push up that damned flannel shirt until they were skin to skin and there was nothing between them but sweat and heat.
One hand slid down her side. Tugged at her fleece and…
“Dear lord,” he muttered against her lips. “How many layers of clothing do you have on under this thing?”
She smiled. “You weren’t wondering why I wasn’t cold?”
“Well, you’d be a champ at strip poker right about now,” he said dryly.
Then his fingers found her skin, and she was no longer thinking.
He traced the very tips of his fingers over her belly. Light, feathery strokes that made her skin quiver. She gasped when he slipped them higher, finding the swell of her breast. Every cell in her body was alert to his touch, anticipating the next stroke of his fingers.
He lifted his mouth from hers. Pressed his tongue to the corner of her lips before nipping her there.
Then he paused, pressing his cheek to hers. Just for a moment, the world fell away, and he was there, holding her, cradling her, reminding her of everything that was still good between them.
It was a moment before she felt it. His breath teasing the sensitive flesh around her ear. A quiet huff of air against her skin. Her body tensed, waiting for his touch, his tongue.
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