“This crash,” Leah began quietly, “has really thrown me.”
“In what way?” Kell asked. The expression on her face was one of confusion. Yeah, major shocks sure as hell did that to a person. He’d seen it far too often.
Rubbing her brow, Leah muttered, “It’s forced me to start looking at my whole life, Kell. How I’ve always wanted my father’s approval. How he introduced me to his world of flying and I leaped at the chance to join it.” She looked at her hands for a moment and said, “I do love to fly. I didn’t know it until he took me up that day. I just wonder, Kell, if he hadn’t taken me up, how my life would be different.” She held his gaze, his expression thoughtful.
“You think that if he hadn’t given you that opportunity that your life, your own choices, might have been different?”
Damn, Kell always went straight to the heart of what she was floundering around and trying to discover within herself. Leah guessed it was his sniper mind, recognizing the patterns and seeing the big picture fully. Only, she didn’t feel wounded by his question, his summation of her admission.
“Yes,” she finally said. “Would I have gone to college for a couple of years? Or just gone out in the world and gotten a job at a hospital? I’ve always loved medicine. I’ve always wanted to help people who had less than I did. Help the sick, the injured.”
“If you woke up tomorrow morning and someone told you that you could do or be whoever you really wanted to be, what would you tell them?” Kell felt her searching, felt her taking a good, hard look at the patterns in her life, slowly sorting through them, asking questions, comparing them. He understood their coming together unexpectedly like this, on top of the crash, had created a tear in her world. The crash was bad, but he didn’t consider their relationship as anything but positive for her. Leah was finding out about her body, herself, without Grant still brainwashing her at such a critical stage of her developing maturity.
Kell held on to the anger that always simmered hotly within him. Leah was sensitive and innocent, and Grant had used her, knew exactly what he was doing. Now, maybe the crash was allowing her to see herself differently.
Leah’s mouth twitched. “Honestly? If I could really choose what I wanted to do?”
“Sure,” he drawled, giving her a half smile. Kell saw hope suddenly come to her eyes, as if she’d never thought outside that box she called her life before.
“I’d love to go back to college and get a degree to become a registered nurse. I love working with the elderly. I guess I see myself in them. I know I’ll be old one day, too. And I know I’ll need help.”
If he had anything to do with it, she’d grow old with him, but Kell remained silent. It was too soon for that. Too many other obstacles were present in both their lives right now. Too much danger. Too much uncertainty. “Then why not do it?”
“It’s not that easy,” Leah muttered.
“I’ve found we make things as hard or as easy on ourselves as we decide to,” he told her. “When is your time up in the Army?”
“I’ve got six months more to go before I re-up.”
Shrugging, Kell said, “Maybe you should seriously consider not doing it. Give yourself the freedom to go explore some of what you hold in your heart. I’ve always believed if you live your passion, it’s the right career and job path for a person.”
Leah dragged in a deep breath. “I’ve thought about it,” she admitted hesitantly. “What about you, Kell? Are you living your passion? Being a SEAL?”
He nodded. It was his passion…or had been up until very recently, when he met Leah. “I’ve been doing this since I was eighteen. But I’m twenty-nine now. I’ve been looking at other options, to tell you the truth. My two younger brothers are in the military, both in black ops. Tyler is a SEAL and Cody is in Army Special Forces. I was planning on talking with them when I got home at Thanksgiving.”
“About?”
Kell gave her a gentle look. “I’m just considering some possible alternatives. It hasn’t gelled in me yet.” He wanted to say that meeting her made a hell of a change in his life; like a lightning bolt striking him. Suddenly he was looking at what he wanted in a completely different way. He loved his SEAL family, but he was also falling for Leah. Kell wasn’t sure if it was completely mutual or not. He felt her wanting him. Saw it every time she looked into his eyes. His senses were so finely honed that it almost bordered on mental telepathy between him and those close to him. And Leah was the closest in his heart. “I just need to see where certain things land in the coming months, and then I’ll be more clear about my options, what I want to do.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it hinged on Leah. They were both in a state of transition. The crash had hit both of them in unexpected ways, whether he’d realized it or not the night he’d picked up her unconscious from that burning crash site.
Leah got to her feet. “I’m going to get cleaned up,” she murmured.
“I’ll follow after you’re done.”
Leah felt her body respond to the burning look in his gray eyes. There was this living, vibrating, heated connection between them. It was always palpable; so alive, so incredibly scary for her, but equally attracting.
Leah’s gaze settled on Kell’s mouth and instantly she felt needy. As she moved down the tunnel, collecting the towels, washcloth and lye soap that Kell had laid out for her earlier, Leah felt shaky with need. For Kell. What would happen tonight? She didn’t know, but her body wanted him. So did her heart. But the past stood in front of her like the biggest wall she’d ever come up against.
Did she have the courage to transcend the past? Move into Kell’s arms, trusting him with her broken soul? Feeling shaky inside, Leah walked down the tunnel toward the waterfall, unsure.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LEAH WALKED BACK from the waterfall, her hair wet and needing to be dried. She had wrapped the large bath towel around her body. Her pulse was beginning to beat harder. Her gaze lingered on Kell, who had purposely sat down, his back to the waterfall, to give her privacy while she bathed naked beneath the cold streams.
Heat swept through her as she approached him. Kell heard her approach and twisted a look up in her direction. She halted and watched him unwind to his full height.
Kell smiled and touched her wet, sleek hair. “Now you’re a mermaid,” he teased. She looked so damn hot to him. That white towel hung halfway to her knees. He couldn’t help but notice her cheeks flush as his gaze narrowed upon her. Moving his fingers through her hair, Kell wanted her. But the game had changed. Leah had to want him. Had to speak up. It was the only way any intimacy between them would work. Kell unconsciously held his breath for a moment, searching her wide, trusting green eyes.
Leah inhaled deeply, already shaky with need, his fingers creating pleasant, dancing shocks across her scalp. She could feel her breasts tightening. Her nipples pressing insistently against the terrycloth towel. “I want you, Kell… I want more of what we shared before…” she whispered, holding his gaze. It had taken every scrap of her dissolving courage to ask him. She’d never asked a man something like this in her life. All the tension fled out of her as his mouth curved faintly, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. His fingers caressed her naked, damp shoulder and she quivered, her lashes dropping as she felt heat searing from there directly to her breasts and then downward, stirring up more need below.
“I want you, too, Sugar.” Kell dropped a quick kiss on her lips and said, “Let me get cleaned up first?”
Leah stood there, feeling like she would collapse and melt into a puddle. Kell had barely touched her and yet she felt such inner starvation for him that it tore at her mind, leaving her thoughts scattered while her emotions radiated wildly throughout her.
She walked a bit farther and saw that Kell had spread out the two sleeping bags, one against the other. How had he known? She saw two pillows and several thick wool blankets spread neatly across them. The temperature in the cave was probably a constant seventy-five degrees.
Leah knelt and took the smaller towel and dried her hair. She tamed the damp strands into some semblance of order with a comb. Her pulse was going crazy. She stole a look into the other cave. A lantern sat on the wooden bench and clearly showed Kell’s powerful male body glinting in the yellow light beneath the falling water.
She felt instant heat burn through her. Kell was incredibly beautiful to her. His shoulders were so broad and heavily muscled, and his chest well-sprung. The dark hair across it narrowed into a line down across his rock-hard abs. She gulped, realizing he had an erection. Unable to stop staring at him, Leah didn’t feel fear. Maybe she should have, but she didn’t, and for that, she was grateful. Kell was not Hayden. Her mind knew it. Her body sure as hell did, as well, and she felt her heavily guarded heart opening, feelings of anticipation and eagerness flowing strongly through her. Her mind waffled between the past and the present. Was she making the right decision here or not?
Now, she understood how Kell could have carried her the distance he had over some very rocky, challenging conditions. He was tall, well proportioned, his long, curved thighs thick and hard. Fascinated with how his muscles moved and responded, she saw how tanned his face, neck and hands were. The rest of his body was a pale golden color beneath the lamplight.
Leah couldn’t help but compare Hayden to Kell. Her ex-husband was powerfully built and muscled and reminded her of a bull’s body. Kell was long, lean, his angles sharply defined and with graceful movement. His muscles slid with a smoothness that told her he was in unbelievably good shape, unlike Hayden. Absorbing him as he washed himself, she sensed Kell knew she was watching him. Her thighs tightened.
As Kell stepped out of the pool and walked toward the bench, she turned away. Calling herself a coward, Leah waited. Her body was already attuned to him even though she never heard him approach her. Kell wore a towel tucked around his waist to his knees. He came around and knelt down in front of her.
She saw water dribbling down the sides of his face, the beard making his face more dangerous looking. Without thinking, she gripped the edge of the towel above her covered breasts. Kell was intoxicating, nearly naked before her, his flesh gleaming with water. It was nearly overwhelming to Leah because he allowed her to look at him. Leah felt coiled tension radiating from him even though he appeared relaxed, his hands resting on his thighs, following her gaze as she drank him in.
Her breath was uneven. Kell seemed to enjoy her inspection; a man fully confident in himself. There was no threat between them. He made no move toward her. Leah’s mind was torn between the past and the present. One man had terrorized her. This man, Kell, was waiting, not making a move to touch her, to control or entrap her. He was allowing her the time she needed to feel comfortable with him. With herself, in the tense situation.
Her heart was pounding so loudly she swore he had to hear it. Leah hesitantly reached out, her fingers brushing the beads of water away from his right temple. She saw his pupils grow larger. It was the only reaction she saw or felt around Kell. Her fingers, now wet, followed the curve of his corded neck, feeling the muscles leap as she glided her fingertips across his damp, clean flesh.
Moving her hand, spreading her fingers slightly, Leah traced his broad, thickly muscled shoulder. Again, his muscles contracted swiftly beneath his moist flesh. Leah was mesmerized by how his body responded to the lightest of her touches. Hayden had never wanted her to touch him in this manner.
Lifting her lashes, Leah met Kell’s burning gaze, her breasts growing taut beneath his hungry look. Her fingers traced his collarbone, felt his chest sharply rise once in response. It gave Leah a sense of power. Her power as a woman to affect the man she desired. She could touch Kell, and he responded, and yet there was no threat present. Just…heat…so much heat gathering and pooling in her lower body that she felt an ache building once more. An ache that she wanted eased.
She remembered that very same sensation from when he’d kissed her before, that pressure that had built into an orgasm, her very first. Leah had nearly fainted from the release, it was so violently pleasurable and long lasting.
It felt so right to lean upward, slide her hands against Kell’s hard jawline and tentatively touch his mouth with her lips. Her breath caught as his mouth opened, cajoling her lips to move more surely against him. A soft moan rose in her throat as she trusted herself to languish against his chest, sinking into his welcoming mouth.
His arms lifted, encompassing her. The instant her breasts pressed against his chest, she felt a prickling sensation radiate from them, her nipples so hard that the material rubbing against them caught her off guard. The fire and raw pleasure flowed like a surge of sizzling heat down between her legs, and a whimper caught within her throat. She drowned in Kell’s mouth, feeling his hands settle lightly on her naked shoulders, his fingers gliding across their expanse, eliciting more tingles and triggering more intense arousal.
Kell eased from her delicious, hungry mouth. He smiled down at her, thinking how natural, how guileless, Leah was. She was artless, but she was following her own womanly intuition about him. “Before we start,” he told her, his voice roughened with lust, “I need to know if you’re protected or not.”
Blinking, coming out of that cocoon of scalding heat, she managed to whisper, “I’m on the pill. It’s okay…”
Nodding, Kell saw the bloom of heat in her cheeks, the way her lower lip drew into a natural, sultry pout. “Tell me what you want, Sugar. Tonight is yours…”
His soft Kentucky drawl was like warm honey flowing across her sensitized nerves. “I want…” Leah tried to think, but couldn’t. Out of frustration, she held his dark gaze. She could feel the heat and roughness of his hands upon her skin. “Just…make me feel like you did the other day when you kissed me.”
“I can do that,” Kell promised her, his voice a low growl.
“I don’t know that much,” Leah admitted, feeling shame. At twenty-nine she was probably acting like some gawky, idiot teenage girl. She didn’t want what Hayden had done to her. That much she did know. But what else was there? She didn’t have a clue. Hayden had never kissed her mouth or touched her breasts. Shame plunged through Leah and she struggled to overcome it, to tell herself that Kell was different. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she sat back on her heels, angrily wiping them away.
“I’m sorry,” Leah whispered in a quavering voice. “I feel so stupid here…so ignorant…”
Kell cupped her face between his hands, his thumbs removing her tears. “There’s no sin in being innocent, darlin’. Making love is between two people. What’s making you cry?”
Sniffing, Leah closed her eyes, unable to stand the gentleness she saw in his eyes. “I’m stupid. I don’t know anything, Kell. I can’t even answer your question about what I want.” She opened her eyes, his face blurring for a moment. “Do you know how that makes me feel, Kell? I feel like an alien who suddenly got transplanted down here before you, and I don’t have a damned clue as to how to—to love you, to touch you… I don’t know anything, and it’s painful for me to sit here and admit it to you…”
“Then,” Kell rasped, taking her and guiding her down on the blankets, “let’s just take this time to explore one another. You were touching me earlier. It felt good to me, Leah. I liked your touch. I liked your curiosity because I can see you want to explore my body. I want you to do that all you want.”
She lay on her back gazing up at him. He was massive compared to her size, and yet Leah felt nothing but protection and care radiating off Kell, like sunlight, surrounding her, invisibly embracing her. “Okay,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I’m just so…”
He smiled a little, kissing the tears from her cheeks. “Darlin’, just do what comes naturally, what makes you feel good. And I’ll touch you in return.” His gaze turned serious as he held her moist gaze. “Remember what I said the other day? If I do something that doesn’t make you feel good, or makes you uncomfortable or scared, tell me to stop and I will.”
Lea
h nodded, feeling less tense. “I remember…but you’ve done nothing but make me feel good before this, Kell.” She licked her lower lip, watching the corners of his mouth draw upward. “I want to feel that orgasm again. I loved that feeling. Will it happen again? What do I have to do to make it come back?”
He grinned. “A woman always enjoys that release.” He slid his fingers through her drying hair. “And it made me happy you got to discover your own pleasure as a woman. That’s what a man’s supposed to do, Leah. He’s supposed to pleasure his woman first. Not himself. And yes, it’s always there, ready to come. Even better? You can have more than one. A man can only come once, but you ladies can have as many as you want.”
Her mind wrenched back to Hayden. And then she nodded. “You gave me incredible pleasure.”
“Let me give you some more, then,” Kell urged huskily, taking her mouth, tasting the sweetness that was only her.
Fire exploded down through Leah’s body as Kell moved his tongue slowly, teasingly against hers. She felt his other hand glide from her shoulder, skimming over her back, hip and to her thigh, pulling her slowly against him, giving her time to protest or ask him to stop if the move frightened her. But it didn’t. She could feel his erection pressing against her belly, hard and insistent.
His mouth dissolved her fears as she felt his hand move beneath her towel above her knee. Her breath became uneven as his long fingers moved slowly up the outer curve of her thigh, her skin leaping and tightening beneath his slow exploration. Kell moved his hand upward, to her hip, to her butt, and then slowly down her thigh once more. She felt cherished, as if he were memorizing her inch by inch, sponging her in through his exploring hand. It was the most incredible feeling of being claimed and desired. Every graze was slow, giving her time to acclimate, to decide whether she liked it or not. But there was nothing Kell did that Leah didn’t like.
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