“Erin,” he murmured, and the word was almost desperate in his own ears. Rather than responding, Erin turned more fully to him now, practically climbing into his lap as her knees settled on either side of his body and her legs were spread wide over his groin. He moaned and flattened his hands against her back, pressing her to him as he leaned down to kiss her neck, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts through the thin cotton T-shirt.
Erin, for her part, was fumbling with his shirt, unbuttoning the buttons just enough from the bottom up to free it from his cargo shorts, her fingers sliding up his abdomen as his gut clenched and his cock stiffened beneath her squirming body.
Things moved quickly then—more quickly than he wanted them to, but it was as if they were back in high school, not knowing who would come up over the ridge or start knocking on the door. She pushed up his shirt and dropped her mouth to his chest, scoring his skin with her mouth, sucking and nipping as if she wanted to taste everything, and he slid his hands around her waist, tucking them into her shorts until they grazed the thin strip of cotton that slid down her ass, and his mouth tightened with need as he traced that thin scrap of material down, down, until he could feel the heat and wetness of her against his fingers and her own panting whimpers against his chest.
He stretched her out beneath him, practically ripping her shorts free. “You want me inside you, Erin?” he growled, and she sighed, moaned really, as she tried to shift away from his questing fingers, reaching for him instead. She did that, too, he realized: always tried to shift the focus away from her, back onto him. Only he wasn’t so much in the mood to let her do that right now. “You want me to fill you up?”
To his surprise and pleasure, Erin didn’t even protest. “I want you to fill me up so much I can’t even think anymore,” she said, her voice breaking on the words. “I want it more than anything.”
It took him only a few seconds to pull his own shorts down, the condom sliding over his cock a sudden and welcome constriction, if only to slow him down a few goddamned seconds so that he wouldn’t explode the minute he was inside her. But as he turned back to Erin, his brain seemed to scramble a bit. She was turned over on her stomach now, her ass lifted toward him as she crawled toward the top of the bed to grab the covers or pillows or whatever shit she was going for, but that was just too damn bad. He reached the bed in two strides and grasped her ankles, pulling her back as she squeaked in surprise.
“You still like sex this way, Erin?” her murmured as he pulled her up onto her knees, her ass now positioned against his straining cock. She arched and shuddered against him, and he rubbed his cock along her, her wet heat coating him as she widened her legs.
“Oh my God, yes,” she managed, and the raw need in her voice thrilled him to the core.
“Yeah?” he murmured, sliding his cock into her just a little, feeling the resistance give until she took him inside her, tilting against him to accommodate his size. He plunged fully into her as his hand snaked around. She tried to bat him away—again, she did that even back in the day, so focused on him inside her that she didn’t want to deal with her own pleasure, but that wasn’t how Zander was going to play things with Erin anymore. They both needed to feel it all. They would hit every good moment they could, because the bad moments were going to come back any second, and he wasn’t going to be satisfied with half measures anymore.
But as he slid his fingers against her folds, slick and hot, Erin’s whimper of desire told him she was already way ahead of him. “Zander, I don’t want to come yet,” she managed to say, only to lose her words in a rasping sigh as she pressed her face into the mattress and her breathing became rough. “Dammit, I want it to last, I want it to—” She gasped, and he grinned at that, grinned at the ability he had to still take her so close to orgasm so fast, so fast—
“Too bad, sweetheart.” He fluttered his fingers against her clit and she came apart, the wild cry pressed into the sheets of the bed the only further invitation he needed to let himself plunge into her once more, twice, a half a dozen times and that’s all it took, the propulsion of his own release more than enough to drive the breath from his body and every last thought from his brain.
But as his adrenaline spiked hard and he rolled into the aftermath, another realization struck him, hard and sure. Erin’s mom wasn’t the only hostage situation his gorgeous, damaged, and incredibly exasperating ex-girlfriend was going to be facing this week.
Because now that he had her back again, he wasn’t sure when he’d be ready to let her go.
Chapter 16
Erin settled into their booth, keeping her eyes on the beer in front of her, on the baseball game on the television mounted above the bar, on the wildly colored banners fluttering in the open-air café’s breeze. On anything but Zander, even though he wasn’t focusing on her, but on his own beer and the enormous pile of nachos he and Rey Torres were plowing through like it was their last meal. It was almost seven o’clock in the evening, and she and Zander had finally made it down for dinner. They’d seen Rey in the bar almost immediately upon entering the hotel lobby once again, and the rangy, grinning man had instantly waved them over.
She and Zander had moved from the bed to the impossibly small shower-tub combination without breaking stride, it seemed, her body ready for round two, as if she were seventeen all over again and just learning about sex for the first time. He’d been her first, and so patient, so sweet, she’d just assumed he’d had sex with a hundred girls before her. Not true, he’d insisted, but she hadn’t asked for any more clarification. Now, all she could think about was how many there’d been after her. It’d been four years, after all. Four long and lonely years.
She wondered if he’d ever thought about her that way, while he’d been gone. His intensity and focus since they’d come together again had been gratifying, but did it mean he’d really…missed her? Or was this all just some adrenaline-soaked trip down memory lane?
Rey said her name, and Erin focused on their driver, giving him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, say that again?”
“Just making sure your mother never gave you a name or any information about her captors—anything at all?”
“Nothing.” Erin shook her head. Zander had asked her this, too, of course, but she hadn’t had anything for him, either. “I know it’s a guy, and I think he has at least one other guy in on it. But there may be more. The man I talked to can speak English pretty well, but he definitely has a Mexican accent. I mean, I don’t think they’re Americans.”
“I think you’re right,” Rey agreed. “But these men, they gotta be small-time. Nobody’s talking about this kidnapping—and they would be, if these guys were part of a larger organization. Best I can guess, Erin’s parents were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is pretty much three-fourths of the city these days, sad to say. They said something, did something, disrespected, and pop. They’re lucky they didn’t just get shot for their troubles.” He shook his head, taking a long pull on his beer. “You’re doing the exchange tomorrow, yes?” he asked as he set down his bottle. At Zander’s nod, he grinned. “I will join you, then. Just to watch.”
Erin glanced up. “I don’t want to put you in any danger,” she said, but Rey cut her off.
“You won’t,” he said, flashing a grin. “I like my own skin too much for that. Besides, your gringo boyfriend, he don’t look so tough. I think maybe he needs some backup.”
“You keep thinking that, Reymundo,” Zander said good-naturedly, and Erin relaxed another notch. Having someone else around, even in the shadows, felt smart to her. Safer.
Draining the last of his beer, Rey slid out of the booth and gave them another salute. “See you for breakfast, Mexican style, eh?” He grinned. “A little huevos rancheros, a hostage trade, it’s just another day in the old city.”
Erin couldn’t help herself. She laughed as he walked off, and when she looked at Zander, she felt a surge of emotion she wasn’t fully prepared for. He just looked so confident. So
settled in his own skin. So unlike the way she’d lived her life for too many years. She wanted him to know about those years—wanted to explain why she’d done the things she’d done, felt the things she’d felt, from that first call when she was eighteen, to Zander’s call out of the blue three years ago, that second chance that wasn’t a chance at all, so quickly had it fallen apart.
She opened her mouth to speak, only to realize that his gaze was fixed on her face, far too intently. “What?” she asked, suddenly nervous again.
“Just wanted to give you a heads-up,” Zander said, his voice easy and his manner still loose. “In the straw bag at your feet, there’s a gun. We’ll take it back up to the room with us when we go.”
Erin’s eyes widened. “A gun? But, how?”
“Rey had it waiting for us when we got here,” Zander said. “I’d told him about the meet tomorrow, and we both thought it best I not leave the hotel to get geared up. I don’t think we have eyes on us right now, but we might, so I wanted you to know.”
“I don’t know how to shoot a gun,” Erin said, doing everything she could not to look below the table. She edged her sandaled foot over to the right, and sure enough, her toes brushed across a woven tote bag of some sort. “Should I?”
Zander blew out a long breath. “Well, yeah, sure. You should know the basics, anyway. I don’t have time to teach you now. But…some of it I can, maybe. The stuff everyone should know.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Even if the army isn’t their day job.”
She tilted her head, considering him. “You like it a lot, don’t you?”
“The service?” Zander shrugged. “What’s not to like? You have a clear set of objectives, you’re given the tools and training you need to achieve those objectives, and you have a well-defined path for growth and opportunity.” He grinned. “Besides, you also get to jump out of airplanes and blow up stuff on occasion.”
“That’s what you do, right? Blow up stuff?” Erin tried to remain cautious, but there was so much about Zander’s life in the military that she didn’t know. All of it, really. And if he could just tell her a little about it, then perhaps when he disappeared again down the rabbit hole, she would have something concrete to hold on to. Anything would help. “You’re good at it, I bet.”
—
“Well, yeah. I’ve got to be.” The beer was going down way too easy, but Zander knew that most of his almost extreme level of relaxation was due to Erin sitting across from him, the same Erin who was now sharing his bed. That worked for him. A lot.
He scanned the room. Mostly Mexicans, but a few leather-skinned Texans as well, he suspected. Even a touristy-looking older couple, who looked like nothing much got past them anymore. Just the kind of establishment he liked.
Erin was relaxing, too, which he knew was in part due to him—but also due, oddly enough, to her mother’s complaining outburst on the phone today. If the woman was healthy enough to bitch, apparently, she probably wasn’t in any immediate danger.
And even this line of questioning didn’t bother him. He knew Erin was treading lightly, wanting to draw him out about the army without wading too deeply into the mire of paths not taken. She obviously was nervous that he still pined after those officer ranks he’d never had, still dreamed about the college experience he’d missed out on at West Point.
College. Zander twisted his lips. Another lifetime away now. He thought about Jackson’s not-too-subtle hint that he should consider going back, and wondered where it came from. Certainly not his father. Zander had entered the military, and that was enough education for any man. His mother? Maybe. Or did Jackson have his own motives for dangling the idea in front of Zander, thinking that if he could pull him back with the idea of college, he could secure Zander as some sort of summer hired help, or an employee-in-training? There was more than one way to get the army to pay for your education, Jackson had said.
He tried for a second to imagine what college would be like: walking onto a campus as a freshman at age twenty-two. Hell, even older, since it’d take him months to out-process. Hanging out with people who’d never left the state in some cases, let alone the country. Carrying around a nylon backpack filled with books instead of MREs and gear. Sitting in a classroom learning about physics instead of the enemy’s position.
He’d wanted to study physics and engineering once, back when he’d still been in high school. He’d wanted to learn how to build things that went boom. Now, however, he mostly focused on taking those kind of devices apart—or planting them square in the middle of a target location. So, one could say that he already had the practical application of his onetime dream down pat. What’d he need the rest for?
Erin was still waiting for more of an answer, however, and Zander found he wanted to give her one. “I was interested in explosives pretty much since the moment I hit the service, and they found a way for me to foster my enthusiasm. But the real stuff came with Ranger school. After I went through that, nothing really scared me. Not the bombs, not the enemy. It was sort of like realizing what you could really do when you set your mind to it. After that, the rest was just…logistics.”
“Logistics,” Erin said, as if she was trying the word on for size. “I like that.” She smiled, and the sight of it hit Zander like a punch in the gut. They had been apart more years than they’d been together, and hadn’t so much as exchanged a text message while he’d been in the service. But she was still so goddamned beautiful that it made his teeth hurt.
“And…will you learn more logistics, when you go back?” she asked, her gaze moving to his and then darting off. Her color was high, and her mouth still looked a little bruised from where he’d kissed her last. He couldn’t help that, though. Every time he felt her lips against his he’d reacted like a starving man falling on a home-cooked meal. So much for his brilliant idea of getting her out of his system, he thought derisively. Being near her was making things a million times worse, not better.
“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” he said, leaning forward. She shifted ever so slightly back, and he fought to keep from grinning. The hand she curved around her second beer was trembling, He was making her sexually aware just by breathing in her general direction. That shouldn’t make him feel so good, but it truly did. Still, this conversation just couldn’t happen without some collateral damage, and despite his best intentions, a little shard of leftover pain and hurt was worming its way up through all of those good feelings. His next words carried a definite edge. “Funny, you weren’t this interested in the service when I called you from Kandahar.”
Erin flushed scarlet. “That wasn’t my best moment,” she said, her frank admission taking him off guard, as did her eyes when they flicked back to him. They were almost defiant. Defiant and…hurt. “It wasn’t yours, either.”
“Fair enough.” Zander lifted the beer to his lips, but he didn’t taste the liquid. Because they had talked that one time after the night they’d broken up. Just once, and he remembered the experience vividly. That phone call was seared into his memory, a wound that refused to heal. It’d been about eighteen months after he’d enlisted, they’d just come off a raid, and the beers had been cold. Hell, he doubted he ever would have made the call if he hadn’t tossed back one too many of those beers. “You said—”
“I said I didn’t want to talk to you.” Erin’s words were low and awkward, a confession, though he’d been there to hear it the first time. Funny, he still felt the echoes of the pain he’d endured three years ago, when her cold and emotionless voice had dropped that little bomb on him. He glanced over to see she was holding on to her own glass with both hands now, her eyes fixed on the rim, her mouth quivering. “It’d been well over a year since you’d left, Zander. You hadn’t said good-bye, you hadn’t written. You hadn’t even emailed me. You knew all of my contact information—but I didn’t have any of yours. And you knew that, too.”
He shrugged, but he couldn’t look away from the misery on her face. The intensity of her emotions was palpable betw
een them, filling up the space. “You could have gotten mine.”
“I could have, yeah,” she said, her mouth twisting. “Only at first I was too mortified. My God, what would your family think of me? I’d destroyed you, remember?”
Even as she spoke, Zander frowned at the wrongness of her words. Yeah, he’d thought that, too, at the time. But that wasn’t really the case—hadn’t been the case after he’d gotten through basic training. It’d all still sucked, but he’d adapted. He’d found the army he was meant to find, the way he was meant to find it.
Erin hadn’t gotten that memo though.
“That stupid phone call on that stupid night of that stupid race,” she said, her words tight and bitter, filled with self-disgust. “That phone call that I had no idea would do so much damage…you have to know that, Zander. You have to know…” Her voice trailed off, but she still wasn’t looking at him. It was as if she were locked in a room without any doors, turning and turning and turning, with no way out. She shook her head. “After that, I couldn’t go to your parents and ask what your email address was. I couldn’t even call. I didn’t know if you’d given them back your old cell phone. I thought about calling your number from someone else’s phone, but every time I mustered up the nerve to do that, I chickened out. I just couldn’t—I couldn’t take a no.” Her smile was sad and filled with regret. “And then you called—you called and you were so angry. And all I heard was that no, over and over again.”
“I didn’t start out angry,” Zander said flatly. He hadn’t either. Of course, he’d also been a little drunk and exhausted, and a little lonely, and maybe there had been some anger in there, too, even at the beginning. He didn’t know what he expected Erin to do when he’d called. To burst into tears, maybe, or to wildly declare her love for him, her love and regret and remorse. Something. Hell, even for her to yell and scream at him for not contacting her for so long, when he knew that had to be killing her, knew that she couldn’t stand not being in the loop.
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