Even outside he couldn’t escape. There were people everywhere.
Head down, he walked as fast as his damaged leg could carry him, the intense pain a mere tickle compared to the burning in his heart and the heaviness in his gut at the thought of never seeing Tommy again, never hearing his stupid snort when he laughed like a crazy person or being on the receiving end of one of his great big hugs when their schedules aligned and they both wound up in the same place at the same time.
A man yelled, “Hey, soldier, thank you for your service.”
Shane acknowledged him with a quick nod, thankful to spot his Jeep. But with each step he took, a deep, wearying sense of loss churned and intensified. He tried to get the formal portrait of Tommy in his uniform out of his head and realized the image of a smiling, laughing, always-having-fun Tommy had already started to fade in his memory. It’d been over a year since they’d last seen each other. Why hadn’t he made more of an effort to coordinate their leaves so they could hang out in person? Why hadn’t he taken more pictures or videos? Now it was too late.
“Shane,” Brooke called from behind him. “Wait.”
He cringed at the sound of her voice, not wanting her to see him like this, so raw and bordering on unhinged. He glanced over his shoulder and yelled, “Go back inside,” knowing he couldn’t make it to his Jeep before she caught up.
The rapid click of her heels on the blacktop warned of her continued approach.
Ten feet to the Jeep.
“I need some space,” he tried.
Seven feet to the Jeep.
Click-click-click-click-click.
Five feet to the Jeep.
He felt her hand on his arm. “Please don’t run off. Take me with you.”
“I can’t do this right now,” he told her, opening his door.
“You can’t do what?”
And he snapped. “I can’t be nice. I can’t watch my cursing because I’m fucking angry.” That’s the word the psych doc had wanted him to use to describe his emotions. “Angry.” The term didn’t come close to summing them up back then, and was far from adequate now. So he laid it out for her. “My best friend in the world is dead. Not just dead, in pieces.” Unrecognizable, charred pieces, an image Shane had to work hard to push from his mind every time he thought of Tommy now.
“And I want to fly to Afghanistan, find the sons-of-bitches responsible, and make them pay so bad I can almost feel their bones cracking against my knuckles.” His hand drew into a tight fist. “I can almost smell the metallic scent of their blood and hear their heavily accented voices begging for mercy, which I would not show them, not one bit.” No, he’d go lunatic avenger, punching, kicking, choking, and stabbing, whatever he could think of to transfer the intense pain of Tommy’s loss into physical pain for them, until they lay there dead, like Tommy, an eye for an eye. “But I think we can agree that’s probably not the best course of action since I’m not in primo fighting shape anymore, am I?” He lifted his cane and pointed to his eye patch, exhibits A and B.
And the military would no doubt take issue with him going rogue in retaliation.
“So how else can I vent my ‘anger’? In the good old days I’d run for miles, until my feet burned and my muscles cramped, until I collapsed, too exhausted to move or think.” Or hurt.
“Oh, well, what do you know? Can’t do that anymore, either. Now I’m down to option C of anger management. Sex.” He glared at her, expecting her to flinch. She didn’t. So he kept going. “That’s right, another reason I can’t do this right now. The reason you should turn the hell around and run back to the safety of the church.” He pointed in that direction.
But she didn’t run.
So he lowered his voice and told her the truth. “I want to bury myself inside of you over and over and over until you’re all I can think about, all I can feel. And I won’t be gentle. I’ll take you hard and fast, I’ll pound myself into your body until I’m too spent to continue, until I crash into a deep, sated sleep that will finish off this shitty day.”
He met her gaze, expecting to see fear or disgust. She surprised him again. So he challenged her, “There, now you know. Why so quiet? Nothing to say? I’ve finally rendered you speechless?”
“I know you’re hurting,” she said calmly, diplomatically. “Let me help you. I’m not easily breakable. You don’t have to be gentle with me.”
Was she saying…? No. She had no idea what he wanted from her. What he craved with an intensity that threatened to smother him if he didn’t get the hell away from her. “Go back inside,” he tried again, quietly this time.
“Take me with you,” she countered.
“No.”
“I have my red negligee back at the house.”
The shock of her words robbed him of breath and sent a rush of blood between his legs. The red negligee. The one she’d posed in for her sexy pictures. The one he’d dreamed of slowly peeling from her body to reveal the delectable treats hidden beneath. God help him. “Get in the damn Jeep.”
Click-click-click-click-click-click.
Except for the heart-pounding experience of nearly hitting a pedestrian who’d approached from his blind side, Shane didn’t remember the drive home, didn’t remember dragging Brooke into the house or pushing her against the coat-closet door, but that’s where they wound up. He pressed in closer and kissed her…hard, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and his dick along the V of her thighs, hard, trying to scare her? Maybe. Having her run off now would be better than taking this any further and having her run off later.
Once again, Brooke proved to be tougher than she looked. Her tongue tangled with his. Her hands gripped his ass, demanding he move. She tore her mouth away, panting. “We can’t…do…this here.”
“I know.” He forced himself to release her. “You need to go get changed first.” Into her red negligee. His mouth watered. His dick twitched. His hands could almost feel the silkiness.
She avoided his gaze.
Shit!
“I…uh…”
No. No. No. He waited, his body rigid, anticipating what she planned to say. “I…uh…can’t do this. I thought I could but I can’t.” Disappointment clogged his lungs, making it difficult to breathe.
“I’m…uh…not on birth control,” she said instead.
Thank God that’s all it was. He grabbed her and hugged her. Could not stop himself. “I’ve got that covered. I ran out yesterday.”
She looked up at him. “Because you expected—?”
He shook his head. “I hoped.” And prayed and even went so far as offering a deal to the devil—who, lucky for him, did not respond.
“May I be honest?” she asked, looking uncertain but meeting his gaze.
He nodded, still cupping her cheek, needing to touch her.
“I’m a little nervous.”
Shane’s next words were among the hardest he’d ever had to speak. “It’s okay if you don’t want to.” He swallowed down the urge to drop to his knees and beg.
“I do,” she said firmly.
Thank. You. God.
“But, while I’m not easily breakable, maybe you could…start off slow and ease into the hard and fast pounding?”
Shane set his lips to hers, pouring every ounce of his affection for her into that kiss. He kept it gentle and loving and thought about how perfect life would be if he could kiss her like this every day for as long as they both shall live. But they didn’t have that long. Knowing this made Shane want to take it slow, to savor every single inch of her body and every single second they had together.
When he ended the kiss he told her, “I was being an ass when I said that.” He stared into her eyes and opened his soul so she’d see the honesty of what came next. “You can trust me to treat you with care, always. I’d never take you in anger or set out to intentionally hurt you. Making you feel good makes me feel good.”
She gifted him with a shy “Thank you.”
On that note, Shane released her, turned
her toward the stairs, and gave her shoulders a gentle push. “You go on ahead.” He didn’t want to slow her down. “Come to my room when you’re ready.” Please don’t let her take too long. Please don’t let her change her mind.
Feeling lighter on his feet than he had in months, Shane climbed the stairs at a record post-injury pace. He took his time removing his shoes, socks, and uniform, did not want to wind up looking like an idiot sitting on his bed in his boxer briefs waiting for her. A little worried his torso might repulse her, he opted to keep on his T-shirt to hide some of his ink. As he moved his hands down to his pants he started to think about the scars on his leg, and suddenly he got a little nervous.
She was so beautiful, so perfect. He looked at the windows and considered closing the blinds, but that would mess with his ability to see her. And damn it, he wanted to see every inch.
Something in the room changed. Shane felt Brooke’s presence behind him and turned to face her. His body ceased to function. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think of anything but how absolutely stunning she looked.
Tiny red silky straps rested on the flawless, tanned skin of her shoulders. Expensive-looking, deep-red, shimmery material fell to a figure-flattering end just below her butt. The negligee completely covered her breasts, yet was so thin it made her erect nipples the stars of the show. Classy and simple, it revealed nothing, yet on Brooke, it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his life.
He let his eye roam the length of her long, smooth legs down to the silver stilettoes, to her small, delicate feet capped with perfectly pedicured bright pink toenails. She was an absolute dream come to life.
She looked him over as well. “I’m feeling a little underdressed for this party.” She crossed her arms over her midsection.
That’s when he saw it: a huge dark bruise on her right upper arm—a femininely muscular upper arm, he noted. Walking toward her, he pointed. “Is that from when you fell into the desk?” After Charlotte had flung her across the room.
Brooke nodded and tried to cover the area with her hand. “It looks worse than it is.”
It looked painful. When he reached her he lifted her arm, moved her hand, and kissed the discolored flesh gently. “I’m sorry that happened.”
“It’s over.” She waved him off. “In the past.” She set her hands on his T-shirt. “Take this off.”
“I thought you might prefer I keep it on. So you don’t have to see…”
Without saying a word she dropped her hands to his waist, bunched the white cotton fabric in her fists and tugged the hem from his slacks.
The air in the room heated, but still he stopped her. “I think—”
“I want to see.” She pushed the shirt up his belly and chest. Before he bent to allow her to pull it over his head and off, he closed and locked the door to his room. Then, his upper body on full display, he clasped his hands behind his back and stood there, at parade rest, awaiting her inspection, watching for her reaction, praying she liked what she saw.
—
Brooke studied Shane’s muscular upper body, liking the tattoos much more than she’d thought she would. She reached out and ran the tip of her index finger over the large black letters that spelled out FREEDOM running in an arc over his belly button, from one side of his abdomen to the other. His skin warm, his soft hair tickled her finger. He showed no reaction to her touch.
She noticed a healed scar on the left upper part of his chest near his armpit and reached up to smooth a finger along the raised line.
“From when I got shot.”
She leaned in and kissed it. Her move brought an odd tattoo that covered a good portion of his left shoulder and upper arm into closer view. She’d seen part of it sticking out from below his T-shirt sleeve when they’d first met.
“It’s a tribal tattoo,” he explained.
“Does it have special meaning?”
“Probably, but I have no idea what it is.” He shared a small smile. “I got it because I thought it looked cool.”
It most certainly did. He flexed his right biceps muscle most impressively, turning as he pointed to a black Superman logo with what looked like shadowy flames shooting out from behind a shield. “Lucy made me get this one before I left on my first deployment, because Superman’s invincible.”
His position exposed cursive writing on the side of his chest. Brooke moved to see it better. He tried to cover it by lowering his arm, but she stopped him. Luckily, he let her.
“For those I love I will sacrifice,” she read the words out loud. They touched her heart. “That’s beautiful.”
He shrugged and shifted his stance, looking uncomfortable, both emotionally and physically. Probably because he was standing there, balancing without his cane, while she took her sweet time exploring his body.
How inconsiderate of her. She ran a hand over the full-color American flag with a bald eagle on his muscled right forearm then pointed to his pants. “I’ll admit I’m not all that experienced, but won’t you need to take those off?” A bit of worry flared inside her. He was so big and she wasn’t so big, and now felt like a good time to see exactly what she’d be dealing with.
Shane cleared his throat, drawing her attention up. He swallowed. “My leg. I thought I should warn you. It’s…not pretty.”
Worry for herself faded, replaced by compassion for Shane, who stood there so handsome and strong, yet unsure of how she’d react to seeing his body, an endearing vulnerability she hadn’t expected. She needed to hug him and reassure him, so she did just that, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his naked chest, and squeezing him tightly. “Would you rather I not look?”
He wrapped his arms around her loosely and bent to nuzzle close to her ear. “I would rather we stop standing here and move to my bed. I would rather undress you and look at you and touch you.”
What if he didn’t like what he saw? What if he found her lacking? What if—
The feel of Shane’s touch proved a pleasant interruption to her spiraling thoughts as he slowly caressed along the curve of her waist, over the flare of her hips, to cup her butt cheeks firmly before following the same path back, continuing up along the sides of each breast, his thumbs grazing over her nipples. Her body reacted with a tremble she had no control over. “That’s my girl,” he said quietly. My girl. “Don’t tense up on me. This is going to be good.”
Please let it be good. Brooke wanted so much for it to be good, especially for him.
His lips settled on the side of her neck, spreading tiny kisses in a southerly direction. Unable to contain the delicious sensations swirling inside of her, she let some escape on a long, moaning breath. So amazingly good. The next thing she knew he’d reached her left nipple, teasing it with a tongue lashing through the silk, before sucking it into his hot, wet mouth. A bolt of arousal shot to her core. Her knees went weak from the pleasure, but strong arms held her upright.
“Bed,” he said as he moved to lavish some wonderful attention on her other breast.
Simply standing had become a challenge. Walking seemed beyond her physical capability at the moment.
As if he’d read her mind, he stood, lifted her, and carried her the few steps to the bed. He must have pulled back the comforter at some point because her back met cool sheets while her front met hot, hard male. Brooke loved his weight on top of her, between her legs, and would have been content to hold him close for hours.
Except she felt his body tense up. “Are you okay?”
He let out a breath. “That hurt.”
Of course it had. His leg! He never should have lifted her. “What can I do?”
“Give me a minute.” He shifted slightly, removing some of his weight, inhaling deeply before slowly exhaling, over and over. After a short time he seemed to relax. “Well, that didn’t turn out like I’d envisioned it.”
She smiled, continuing the lazy drift of her fingers up and down his broad back.
He rolled onto his side and stared
down at her. “Looks like I’ll have to add ‘carrying a beautiful woman to bed’ to the list of things I can’t do anymore.”
“You’re a resourceful guy,” Brooke said. “I’m sure you can figure out a way to get them there without having to carry them.”
He smiled.
But Brooke hated the thought of Shane in bed with another woman.
“You’re the only beautiful woman I want to think about and be with.”
Good man.
He leaned in and kissed her. Brooke decided kissing was much better than talking, so she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.
“I want to see you,” he said against her lips. “All of you.” Without giving her time to think he rolled off the bed and turned her so she lay perpendicular with the lower portion of her legs dangling over the side. He stood over her, so intense, with such a powerful yearning in his eye that when he said “Sit up,” she did so without argument or hesitation.
He lifted the top portion of her negligee, slowly, surveying her skin as he uncovered it. “You have an innie.” He circled her belly button with his finger. He exposed her breasts.
They were small, nothing special. But he stared at them with such appreciation, his gaze warmed her. He licked his lips as if he wanted to taste them, and Brook’s nipples hardened.
He gave her a deep, sensual smile as he lifted the negligee up and off, leaving her completely bare from her panties up. She waited for nerves and insecurities to take over, but they didn’t. The look on Shane’s face made her feel like the rarest of treasures, made her feel desired.
Brooke would remember this moment for the rest of her life.
He slid his fingers into the elastic of her panties, easing them down over her butt first. “Lift your legs.” She did. He inched them down, slowly, too slowly, caressing her skin, studying her as if looking for something. He lowered her legs. “You are exquisite.”
Not a word she’d expected from her big, tough soldier, but it made her insides turn all mushy.
His eyes zoomed in on the small, neatly cropped triangle of dark hair on her mons. He slid his hands between her thighs and gently eased them apart to get a better view. The heat and hunger in his gaze made her want to show him, made her want to see his reaction, how the sight of her affected him.
Loving You Is Easy Page 21
