No Surrender

by Sara Arden

  Especially because he knew not for her either.

  She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Jason Carter.”

  “Robbie’s brother?”

  “I was so pissed at him that I went to his house. Jason was home from KU for winter break. He took me out to dinner and we ended up having sex in the back of his Mustang outside Paisano’s.”

  He’d admit, he kind of hated Jason in that moment. He didn’t expect to feel angry. He pushed the thoughts aside.

  “Should I punch him next time I see him?” He tried to retreat, to lighten the mood.

  “No, he punched himself. He married Angie Rhem.”

  She was super high-maintenance, and with a mean streak wider than Stranger Creek.

  They laughed and then fell into that silence that seemed to keep sneaking up on them. At first it had been companionable, comfortable. Maybe even peaceful.

  But now there was something between them. Something heavy and electric. Their gazes met and held, soldered together. Neither of them able or willing to break the moment.

  Her lips parted, pink and soft, as she drew in tiny sharp puffs of air. The firelight cast a warm glow over them and he could see her eyes, wide dark pools he could drown in.

  Sean Dryden had always believed himself to be a good guy and at this moment, if he’d been a “good guy,” he’d have said something.

  We shouldn’t.

  No, we can’t.

  This isn’t right.

  But he didn’t say anything. He waited for the moment to bloom, to become whatever it was meant to be.

  She reached out tentative fingers and cupped his cheek.

  It was the lightest, gentlest caress, and it devastated him. In that single connection, he felt the comfort she offered him. Her grief and her understanding of his.

  And of this moment. What it was. What it could be.

  What it could never be.

  She drew him closer and his emotions choked him. He buried his face against her breast and tightened his embrace around her, holding her so tight that nothing could ever pry her away from him.

  Kentucky stroked his brow, cradled his skull and then slipped down his back only to return again.

  “Share your pain with me. Let it breathe, Sean. You’re not going to smother it. It’ll smother you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. All the people I’ve lost? My parents, my aunt, Lynnie… It’ll drown you. But you’re not dead—they are. So don’t let it.” She continued her soothing caress. “I’ll miss them forever. I’ll love them forever. I’ll even hurt because of those things, but that’s not all there is to feel.”

  He turned his face up into her neck, his lips close to her pulse. “What if I don’t deserve to feel anything else?”

  “Of course you do. Lynnie loved you. She’d want to know you missed her, but she wouldn’t want you to stop living because she’s gone. Let yourself grieve, Sean.”

  “What if I’m not ready to grieve? What if I want to feel something else?” Like the softness of Kentucky’s body under his while he buried himself inside her. The taste of her skin on his tongue. Her nails on his back while she screamed his name.

  God, but he was a bastard.

  The worst part of all this was he knew that if Lynnie could see him, she wouldn’t begrudge either of them whatever solace they could find together. She’d only want them to be good to each other after.

  He wasn’t that noble.

  “Do you want to feel, or do you want to forget?” Her touch was still soothing, but it made him burn hotter, too. “Because after the orgasm is over, you realize those things you were hiding from never left.”

  “Wasn’t this what you wanted when you brought me out here?” He lifted his head and met her eyes. “If it’s not, tell me to stop and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

  Her eyes were luminous and open. He could see all the way to her bones. She wanted him, but she wanted more than what he was offering her.

  “I don’t want to forget it happened, and I especially don’t want you to forget I happened. As good as this feels—” she shook her head “—it’s not worth our friendship. I don’t want to do this and then you can never look at me again because I’ve become a single-use item.”

  “I hope you’d know me better than that, Kentucky.”

  “Sometimes when we’re hurting, we don’t know ourselves.”

  He pushed her down in the sand and pressed her beneath him. Color was high in her cheeks and her eyes glittered in the firelight. Her arms twined around his neck. She obviously didn’t give a damn that they were out in the open, that her hair was fanned out in the sand or that their wet underwear clung to them.

  She was singularly focused on him.

  He gripped her hips and pulled her forward to meet him, grinding his hard cock against her cleft.

  “Live a little.” He threw her words back at her and his mouth descended toward hers oh-so slowly, building the heat and tension between them so they had no choice but to see where the explosion took them.

  3

  THIS WAS HAPPENING, Kentucky thought.

  The fulfillment of a fantasy.

  If she wanted it.

  She could say no, deny him and herself. Or she could take her own advice and “live a little.” Except she was starting to see the fallacy in that being a life philosophy. It wasn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to every problem.

  If she did give in to this and then he left her, it would destroy their friendship.

  But her wild heart answered the question for that part of her that was afraid. If these moments between them could shatter years of friendship, then it wasn’t a friendship worth having. If a simple merging of flesh was enough to lose him, she never had him to begin with.

  That was the root of the problem. She wasn’t ready to face that possibility. Kentucky wanted to keep the illusion a little while longer. It was a fairy tale. A night-light in an unknown darkness.

  Kentucky was too old to be afraid of the dark, and too old to need stories to lull her to sleep. No, she would rather burn in the fire every time.

  Even this one.

  So she met his hard mouth, colliding with him in an explosion of sensation. He tasted like Scotch and mint, and the heat from his body dispelled any other further chill. She could feel nothing but him. She’d always imagined if he kissed her, it would be like this. It wouldn’t be gentle touches. It would be primal, animal. Something he did by instinct, not choice.

  Only he had chosen. He’d chosen to be with her here and now. He’d chosen to kiss her. He’d chosen to move his hand up her torso and beneath the damp cup of her bra.

  Kentucky opened her eyes to watch him as he touched her, memorizing their joined topography, the way his tanned, callused hand looked on her breast, the shape of his thumb while he drew lazy circles around her taut pink nipple.

  “Are you on any birth control? If not, I have a condom in my wallet,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”

  “Me neither. Not since my last deployment and I was tested when I enlisted and tested again when I was brought back Stateside. Clean bill of health. You?”

  “It’s been a year, but I haven’t been with anyone since I was tested either.”

  She liked that he asked. She liked that he was mindful. Safety was incredibly sexy.

  “A year? That’s a long time without touch.”

  “But not long enough if it’s not with the right someone.”

  “And this, right now, is it right enough?” His eyes searched hers. He wasn’t being glib; he was asking her again, giving her the chance to say no. Making sure she was going into this with both eyes open. It was such a far cry from what she’d imagined when she first began to consider that being alone with him now could lead to this.

  Neither of them would be able to say this was some heated descent into madness. That it was some kind of accident where they’d been swept away by a
tide of desire.

  A tide of emotion maybe, but not mindless. They weren’t unthinking animals, but cognizant, aware complex creatures.

  “Yes, Sean.”

  He’d been waiting on tenterhooks, it seemed, when the expression changed on his face. He’d thought she might say no.

  As if that would happen in a million years.

  Still holding her gaze, he hooked his thumbs into the waist of her panties and tugged them down slowly. She bit her lip and lifted her hips to help him. His fingers sparked tiny jolts of electricity where they grazed her skin.

  His lips were so close to her inner thigh, his breath ghosting against her flesh as he continued to divest her of her panties.

  She tried to keep still, keep from shuddering and quaking at every new sensation. Kentucky didn’t want him to know just how bad she wanted this—him.

  “Don’t hide from me now. Let me see it. All of it. Show me what I do to you.”

  He worked his way back up her body, lips branding her as he went. First the inside of her ankle. That had never been something that struck her as particularly sexy, but the heat of his mouth on that neglected and oft-forgotten place sent shivers all through her.

  Then her calf, the back of her knee—she squirmed and squealed, his breath tickling her in the most delightful way. He laughed and did it again, grasping her hips and holding her in place for the blissful torture of his mouth.

  She knew exactly where he was headed with his mouth and if it could make her squeal just behind her knee, Kentucky realized she was in deep trouble.

  Deep and hard trouble.

  She didn’t want to be anywhere else.

  He moved up her thigh, tongue drawing hot little circles in her flesh.

  But instead of her cleft, he continued up the softness of her belly, to the V between her breasts, to her throat—she was sure she was going to have a hickey, but she was too dizzy with lust to care.

  His mouth found hers again, his hands on the back of her bra, freeing her breasts. He pulled back then and stared at her—no, stared was too banal a word for what he was doing. He drank her in, devoured her. She hadn’t known someone’s regard could become a physical thing, not like this.

  She’d felt people try to stare holes in her head when they wanted to shame her into doing something or pressure her to behave differently. It felt nothing like this. The way he looked at her was intense, but it didn’t try to tear her down. It made her feel like a goddess. Like something sacred and beautiful.

  Something perfect.

  And she needed it to stop or she’d crash down the rabbit hole. As it was, this was going to be painful when it was over. She didn’t need to give that future pain any more ammunition. So she reached for his boxer briefs and pushed them down his hips.

  “You’re beautiful,” she murmured. He was. He was perfect, as though someone had designed him for her pleasure.

  “I don’t have the pretty words that you deserve,” he said slowly. “But you can see what you do to me.” Sean drew her hand over his engorged sex.

  She began to stroke him slowly and he didn’t close his eyes or look away; he held her gaze. He did that a lot, looked into her eyes while doing things that would cause others to close theirs. It made it so much more intimate.

  That act itself was better than any pretty words he could summon.

  His flesh beneath her hand was solid, real. There was no mistaking his intent or his desire. There’d be no picking apart his words later, wondering what he really meant. Or if he was just saying flowery things to get into her pants.

  This, right now, it was honest and true.

  When the morning light burned this to dust, these memories would be solid and whole. She’d remember the feel of him in her palm, the way he looked into her eyes. Kentucky knew he was there with her in the moment, not taking refuge in the memory of another woman.

  Even if that woman was someone they both loved.

  He dipped his head and kissed her, his mouth claiming hers with renewed vigor as his hands traveled her body deliberately—bringing her pleasure was a planned military campaign.

  His mouth followed the trail his hands blazed, lips hot and seeking on her heated flesh. She couldn’t get enough of him. Kentucky wanted to touch him, explore him, but he was determined to indulge her first, as evidenced by the way he caught her wrists with one hand and held them over her head.

  “Ladies first. I’m a gentleman.” He bent between her thighs, his mouth on her mound.

  She gasped and hooked her legs around his shoulders, pushing her hand through the short spikes of his hair. The scruff of a day’s growth of his beard scraped against her thighs and the first touch of his tongue laving at her caused her to cry out again.

  Pleasure spiraled through her and her whole body tensed with anticipation as she realized he was in no hurry. He played her body well, as if he knew exactly what she needed and set out to give it to her—as if her bliss was his own.

  Kentucky was strung tight, arching her body to meet his mouth, waiting for that burst of ecstasy and consequent unraveling of self at his hands.

  He groaned as if he were savoring some particularly delicious dish and the very idea that it was her caused her channel to constrict and spasm.

  Culmination struck like lightning, overtaking her when she least expected it. She’d wanted it to last longer, wanted to hold out for more. But he was giving her more, she realized, as he rose above her.

  Her flesh was still quaking with aftershocks when he pushed his rigid length inside her, his face so close to hers, eyes open. They seemed to be joined intrinsically, more than skin, more than heat.

  She reached up and cupped his cheek and that was when he closed his eyes. “I’m drowning in you,” he murmured against her lips.

  Kentucky wanted to give him that, wanted to swallow him whole and hide him from his pain so all he could feel was pleasure.

  “You feel so damn good.” He buried his face in her neck and she clung to him as he thrust into her.

  The friction built the flame in her anew and she rolled her hips to meet his thrusts, countering his force and building their mutual gratification. His effort intensified, a slow and steady increase in his speed and rhythm. Every drive forward hit the core of her, and she trembled as desire warred with fulfillment. It was as if simply by addressing her needs, he built them higher—hotter.

  “Please,” she begged. Kentucky didn’t know what she was begging for—if she wanted to be flung off that precipice into bliss or if she wanted him to keep building their pyre higher.

  His body tensed and she tightened around him, pulling him deeper as if that alone could keep him there. The tenderness was gone now as he drilled into her, and she didn’t want it. She wanted this part of him, this hidden need. She gorged on it, filling herself with his pleasure, which in turn brought her own.

  She shuddered with him and when he eased down next to her, she didn’t let him go. Instead she pulled him closer, his head on her breast, and she stroked his cheek gently.

  The moon shone down, a silent witness to what had transpired between them. Night birds sang their songs and the world around them had come alive with the darkness. This was her favorite time. Some people thought the dark to be a place of fear, but Kentucky loved how the shadows danced and saw it much like everything else—an adventure.

  She wondered how long he’d stay with her like this, how long until the spell was broken. Midnight? Would he flee back to the world with his glass combat boot?

  Not that it mattered so much in the grand scheme of the world. These moments were hers, for better or worse.

  She shivered and it seemed to shatter the moment.

  “Are you cold? We should be getting back,” he said, pulling on his boxer briefs. “Wait here. I’ll get your clothes.”

  And just like that, it was over.

  He walked purposefully to the other side of the pond near Mossy Rock, where they’d disrobed. It didn’t take him very long to bring
her jeans and shirt back to her. There was no way she was putting a wet pair of panties and wet bra back on.

  So when he handed her clothes to her, she squirmed into them commando. She wasn’t sure what to say. “Thanks for the good times”? “Hey, great orgasms—I’ll catch you later”?

  He seemed to be at a loss, as well, looking at her, then looking away.

  “Walk me back to my car?” she asked to fill the silence.

  “Of course. I would never leave you out here by yourself. Remember?”

  She did remember. The one time she really hadn’t wanted to be around him was when she realized she had a thing for him. They’d all been hanging out, eating hot dogs they’d grilled in the fire pit, drinking a few contraband beers, and it had struck her just how perfect she thought Sean Dryden was.

  That it went beyond his golden-boy image.

  For the first time, she’d wished she were someone other than herself. She’d wished she were more like Lynnie so that someone like him…

  She hadn’t wanted to look at either of them. Felt like the biggest ass on the planet for coveting her best friend’s boyfriend. She hadn’t wanted to take anything away from Lynnie, but she couldn’t help but wish Sean loved her instead.

  She’d had trouble living in her own skin for a while after that. Kentucky had pulled away from the group, hadn’t wanted her secret desires to damage their friendships. But he wouldn’t leave her alone. Lynnie seemed to understand that she needed her space, but not Sean.

  “Even when I really wanted you to,” she said with a half smile.

  “We’ll always be friends, Kentucky.” His tone was low and soft, reassuring.

  She didn’t know if he was reassuring her or himself. “Of course we will.” She stuffed her feet into her shoes.

  They headed back to the path through the woods toward the seemingly distant lights of the parking lot.

  With her keys in hand, she didn’t look at him but instead hugged him close. “You’ll be okay, soldier.”

  “We both will.” His arms tightened around her.

  As much as she wanted to linger, she knew it would only make things harder. Best to fall back into old routines so they both remembered they were still the best of friends.