To Have and to Hold: A Returning Home Novel

by Serena Bell

  Those eyes. So dark, even in the bright sunshine. So intent, so intense, so full of emotion.

  She wasn’t sure he’d looked at her quite that way before. It felt new.

  “I know that feeling,” he said. “That’s how I feel right now.”

  And she lost her breath suddenly.

  “Trina?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What was it like when we finally had sex?”

  It was killing her. How she was telling him about the past but it was unfolding right this second, too, her breath coming faster, her face hot with it. He was going to be inside her, tonight. And it was going to light her on fire. She was going to burst into flames and burn up, and there would be only a pile of ashes left.

  “We barely made it into the guest room. You pushed me back against the door and kissed me. Then you carried me to the bed. And—it was amazing.”

  He leaned in close.

  Whispered.

  “But not as amazing as it’s going to be tonight.”

  She was panting. Actually panting, her chest heaving, her breath rasping in her throat.

  He brushed his lips across her cheek to her ear and whispered, “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  “Yes.” She had barely enough breath to make the word audible.

  “I will. But not now. When you can’t stand it anymore.”

  Chapter 19

  They ate at Parelli’s Pizza, brought the girls home, and got them tucked in.

  She took a long, hot shower. Her feet ached, but the rest of her body felt strong and limber from the hike. She’d hurt all over tomorrow, but now she luxuriated in the sensation of the steaming water on her bare skin.

  She faced the shower, letting the water tease her nipples to standing, as if the anticipation of what Hunter had taunted her with wasn’t enough. She was at least three-quarters of the way to not being able to stand it anymore—the looks he cast her, dirty and full of intention, the surreptitious, light touches, most often in places—like the inside of her wrist—that shouldn’t have set her blood boiling but did anyway.

  And just—the fun. Life was better with Hunter in it. More alive, more sunlight glancing off water, more whispered secrets, more laughing so hard her stomach ached.

  She’d told herself she’d give it today to let things play out before she made a decision about the future. The decision was made—at least in her own mind. She was incapable of turning away from Hunter.

  She toweled off and got dressed and went downstairs to the living room.

  No Hunter.

  She searched the house but couldn’t find him.

  What if—

  Doubt whispered, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

  What if after all this, after today, what if he still had second thoughts?

  He didn’t remember everything.

  He felt guilty about his marriage.

  Something had happened in Afghanistan he didn’t understand.

  What if she told him she wanted to stay, and he didn’t want her to?

  She heard footsteps on the back deck, then the sound of the door opening and closing.

  “Close your eyes. I have a surprise.”

  Relief, and pleasure, flooded her. He’d come up behind her and whispered it in her ear, his body just shy of touching hers, his presence rustling her clothes and making hairs stand on end and nerves light up. She felt his breath brush her ear and shivered. Her body bloomed.

  She pushed aside her doubts. She pushed aside her fears.

  She did as instructed and closed her eyes.

  “Come with me.”

  She followed him, surprisingly disoriented even in a house she had come to think of as her own, out the back kitchen door, down the deck steps. Her senses, in the absence of sight, attuned. To his warm hand wrapped around hers, the charge it conveyed, the scent of fir, cedar, soap, and his skin.

  “The old tree house?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  He guided her up the steps—a mash-up of true steps and a ladder—his body close behind hers, so close that she found herself swaying toward him as if drawn, trying to feel his hard solidness at her back. He reached around her to open the door for her, and she loved the wrap of that strong arm, the grip and release of muscle against her ribs; she wanted to grab him and turn in his arms and press herself against him to get more of it, full-length.

  “Okay. Open.”

  She opened her eyes. He’d spread a thick quilt on the floor, lit a ring of squat votives in glasses, and set out two slices of cake, an open bottle of red wine, and two glasses.

  “Oh.” She seemed to have been robbed of more sophisticated speech.

  “You like it?”

  “Oh, Hunter. I love it. Where did the chocolate cake come from?”

  The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened. “You know how I ‘accidentally’ left the leftover pizza box on the table and had to go back in?”

  “Oh, clever!”

  “That’s me.”

  She searched his face. There was something sad in his eyes. “Hunter. You don’t—you don’t have to compete with him. With the old you. You know that, right?” She waited for assent, but he was just watching. Listening. “I just want you to know that for me—I’m past that. Past where you need to impress me.”

  “I know,” he said. “But—I don’t want to feel like I missed it. Getting to woo you. You don’t mind?”

  “God, no, I don’t mind at all. I love it. I don’t think any woman ever minds being wooed.”

  She sat on the blanket cross-legged and drew one of the plates of cake into her lap. He sat across from her and took the other.

  “Do the girls know where we are?” she asked.

  “Yup. Told them to text if they need me. But the last time I looked, Clara was mostly asleep and Phoebe’s eyes kept fluttering shut. Wine?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He shot her a sharp look, then poured her a glass, handed it to her, poured his own, and raised it in a toast.

  “To the best day I can remember.”

  Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh.”

  He tilted his head, a question in his eyes.

  “It’s the best day I remember, too.” She lifted her glass again and touched it lightly to his. The chime of glass on glass shimmered up her arm. “To outdoing yourself.” She smiled mischievously at him. “Last time, we ate the chocolate cake at Parelli’s with the girls.”

  “Damn. I thought at least the cake was a new touch.”

  “I’m teasing you,” she admitted. “There was no chocolate cake last time.”

  He laughed. “Guess I’m kind of an easy mark, huh?”

  “Yeah, just think how bad I could mess with your head if I wanted to.”

  She sipped her wine. She didn’t know crap about wine, except that there were some that went down so easy she knew they had to be expensive. This was one of those. It soothed her mouth and throat, slid down and warmed her all over. She didn’t drink often, had drunk almost never when Hunter was deployed and she’d been in charge of Phoebe and Clara, only girls’ nights here and there with good friends. So she was a lightweight. And in a few sips she could feel the slight hum under her lips and in her feet that preceded the loss of inhibition. Not that she needed any less. Seven-eighths, she thought. Seven-eighths of the way to blazing with impatience. Seven-eighths of the way to crawling across the floor and taking his mouth for her own.

  “Oh. Wow. This is good.” She pulled a bite of cake, moist, rich, and flavorful, slowly off her fork, savoring, and caught him watching her mouth.

  Nine-tenths.

  “Do that again,” he said, eyes dark.

  Eleven-twelfths. She did it again, her eyes on his this time. Licked the remaining dark chocolate icing off the fork when she was done, and then, purely for the effect she knew it would have on him, tipped her gaze down to the fly of his khaki shorts, where there was definite action.

  “Trina.”

  She’d turned
his voice rough, into almost a plea. But there was nothing she could do to him that she couldn’t feel, too, no way to give him pleasure without it touching her. Her nipples were tight knots, her skin tuned, receptive. She had turned to something molten, and she wanted to pour her liquid self all over him, into him.

  She set her plate on the floor, her fork beside her mostly uneaten cake. Crawled across the floor to him. He stretched his legs out and leaned on his hands, and she climbed over him and straddled him.

  She settled herself so she could feel his erection pressing up against the seam of her jeans.

  “Hunter.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  He was teasing her, pretending nonchalance, but there was no doubt in her head she was messing with him. Even if she hadn’t been able to feel him shifting restlessly against her through layers of clothing, his eyes wouldn’t leave hers and they were so dark now they were almost black, and there was a flush under his tanned skin.

  “I can’t stand it any—”

  But she didn’t get to finish. His mouth cut off the last word.

  Chapter 20

  He’d never wanted anyone this much.

  He wanted more of what he already had—the softness of her lips, the plumpness of that bottom one and the way she squeaked and whimpered when he licked it, then bit it. More of her taste, familiar and delicious, something elemental and personal under the wine and chocolate. More of the way her skin smelled, this close, nothing he could put words to, but so essentially her that it made him grabby, his fingers rucked into her hair, into her clothes, ready to clutch and tear and take. More of her tongue, the slide of it against his own, the way she challenged him for control of the kiss. He grabbed the back of her head and asserted himself, and he heard her moan, felt her soften. Fuck yes. More.

  But he wanted other things, too. What he didn’t have yet, the soft, hot, slick center of her. Her skin bare and satiny, the yielding curves and the strength underneath.

  He’d never wanted anyone this much, but he was aware that he had, in fact. Before.

  And he was aware that unlike him, she held all of their history in her head and her heart, and this must be fucking weird for her. So he took care with her. Went slow. Tried to think about how this was the same and different for her. To feel around in his own lost memory, groping for purchase, to see if he could follow instinct to make it old and new, familiar and mind-blowing.

  That was what he wanted to do for her. He wanted to give her exactly what she craved in a way she’d never imagined before.

  So he kissed her every way he could think of. Soft and slow and sweet, nibbling and stroking, drawing her out to meet him. And then so hard it was like fucking, his tongue aggressive, almost mean, on the tenderest parts of her mouth.

  She liked it. She liked it all. He could feel her open up and spread out, like something unfurling in sunlight. Her body giving itself up to him.

  He was so hard it hurt, his cock sandwiched between his own body and hers, restricted by too many layers of clothes, straining at its own skin. She was rocking now, her hips tipping and tilting, the pressure increasing as she went after what she needed, and all the while the kisses got hotter and wetter and wilder, her moans longer and less restrained.

  He wanted to know, though. He had to know.

  “Is it like you remember?”

  “Stop. It doesn’t matter.” She was breathless. Her mouth so red it was hard for him not to dive back in, kiss it again.

  “It matters to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t remember. And I wish I did.”

  “I do remember. And I wish I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to be here. Just here. Don’t you? Not before or in the future or anything. In this very moment. Kiss me again.”

  So he did. I want to be here. Kiss me again. He could do that.

  He slid a hand under her shirt, felt the smooth, hot skin of her belly, spread his fingers wide to touch as much of her at once as he could. His thumb brushed the waistband of her jeans, his pinky the lace of her bra, and it suddenly seemed imperative that he be able to see her, touch her, taste more, all, of her.

  He peeled her T-shirt over her head and leaned back to see, which pushed him tighter against the seam of her jeans. He growled at the feel of that and the sight of her, soft and abundant, cupped in lace, her nipples dark points he could see through the weave of the thread.

  He unhooked her bra, and she stretched luxuriously and arched her back to push herself toward his face, and suddenly he found himself with her more-than-a-handful breasts, one in each hand, not sure what the hell to do with so much awesomeness at once other than to bury his face.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” He wasn’t clean shaven, not this late in the day.

  “It feels good.”

  She was red where he’d rubbed and he really fucking liked that—marking her that way. He liked anything and everything she liked.

  And now, suddenly, moved by generosity edged hard with greed, he had to make her squirm, had to make her whimper and moan and flail and rub against him. He wanted desperately to make her feel good because it made him feel so fucking good.

  The instant his lips closed on her nipple, she gave him exactly what he was looking for. A low, dark moan in the back of her throat. The plummet of her hips against his straining cock. And the thrust of her breast, all soft, warm, Trina-scented bare skin, into his mouth—her voice breaking on “More, Hunter, please.”

  He worked that nipple with his lips, his tongue, easing her up from flicks to light suckling to full pulls, feeling how her hips changed to match him, how her moans and words rose and tightened. The motion of her body against his had found a steadier rhythm now, a mounting pressure and tension, as she guided them both toward her goal.

  “Hunter?”

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  He didn’t let her nipple go. He had the other one in his fingers, now, flicking, pinching, twisting, trying to figure out exactly what drove her crazy, lingering whenever she made that tight lost sound in her chest, when her thrusts deepened.

  “I want you—inside me.”

  It was his turn to moan. He freed both her nipples and she made a small sound of protest, but then he yanked his T-shirt over his head and she spread both her hands over his chest and the feeling was so unexpectedly amazing, the warmth of her palms all over his skin, her thumbs teasing his nipples like he’d teased hers a moment earlier, and then her hands were on the button of his jeans, the zipper—

  She hesitated a moment, then said, “Holy fuck, Hunter, you’re so big.”

  He bucked against the shockingly cool touch of the palm of her hand, and a deep moan broke from his lips.

  She surprised him by laughing.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t want to deprive you. Of hearing it again.”

  “Oh, God. Right.” She’d done this all before, and remembered well.

  “Mmm-hmm. So fucking hot. The way you act like I’m the hottest thing ever.”

  “Not acting,” he corrected. “You are the hottest thing ever. You blow my mind.”

  She eased his jeans and briefs down enough that she could grasp him in her fist, then dipped her head to take him in her mouth. Clutched him tight in the heat and wet, her lips rounding him, stretched and red, her shiny blond hair shimmering in the flickering light as she moved up and down in his lap, as if she knew exactly what she was doing, as if—

  As if she’d done it tens of times before.

  Right.

  “You’re—so—good—at—that—”

  She paused, her breath hot and silky against the wetness she’d left on his throbbing cock. “I love giving you head. Always have.”

  She ran her tongue across the super-sensitive base of the head and he couldn’t help himself, he thrust. Instead of drawing back, she moved farther down on him so he was buried almost to the hilt.

  It jacked him up so fast that for a split s
econd he was sure he was going to come in her mouth. Then, with a superhuman effort, he reasserted control over himself and gently drew her up.

  “You said you wanted me inside you. Did you mean it?”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  He loved that word on her lips. “Take your shorts off.”

  He shed his jeans and briefs while she slid out of her shorts. She wore only a black lace thong. She lay back, thighs together, and there was something so hot about that juxtaposition, the plump ivory of thighs and the black vee of lace.

  “Look at you. All demure.”

  “God, no. Just so turned on I can’t help rubbing my thighs together.”

  He saw the subtle press of muscle now as she crossed and squeezed. “Fuck.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  He wanted to tease her open and lick the wet, sloppy center of her. Or pry her open. That would work, too. Whatever it took to get to the black lace truth of her.

  “Should I take them off?”

  “Leave them on. God. I can’t decide. If I want you to spread your legs for me or if I want to make you want to spread them or if I want to make you spread them whether you want to or not.”

  She made an incoherent sound.

  “Sorry? Didn’t understand you. Could you say that again more clearly?”

  “Hunter.”

  He knelt over her and licked the seam of her thighs where they met, from knee to vee. When his tongue touched black lace she cried out and he withdrew his touch. He did it again, her thighs slowly drifting apart so his tongue found the space between them. This time, when he licked her through her panties and she whimpered, he didn’t stop. With one finger he drew them aside. Wet. Ruined. And he ruined them worse with his tongue, with his whole face buried against her. God, she was sweet.

  “Hunter!”

  He lifted his face and smirked at her. “Is that ‘yes, Hunter, please’? Or ‘no, Hunter, please, stop’?”

  “Oh. Ohhhhh—”

  That was the sound of the tip of his tongue finding her clit. Slipping back and forth over it while she arched up to try to get more contact.