by Meg Tilly
Maggie got up and walked around the table, wrapped her arms around him. Her scent, sweet tea with the tinge of honeysuckle, surrounded and comforted him.
“Ah,” she said. “That explains the bond I felt between you all.”
“Yeah, well, ODA does that. The twelve of us thrown together, working so closely for months on end in isolated circumstances. And when you aren’t on deployment, you’re together in garrison, training and training and training some more. You get close. They become your blood brothers.”
“And that day you lost three-quarters of your family.”
Luke felt an unaccustomed thickness in his throat. “Yeah.” He nodded. “It was . . .” Words failed him.
“Beyond rough,” she said, her hand soothing as her fingers softly caressed his hair.
He nodded.
He had spent so much energy over the last few years trying to suppress, shut out that time. To forget the things he’d had to do and the things he had seen. But tonight the past and present collided. Maggie was here, warm and caring, sexy as hell, and yet with an untouched innocence, too. Outside, Gunner and Colt, who had dropped everything and come, no questions asked. True friends. Loyal.
He was alive. And so fortunate. He had so many blessings. It was his task now to acknowledge and embrace them. Luke turned in his seat and wrapped his arms around Maggie’s waist, breathing her in, her worn flannel nightgown soft against his cheek.
They stayed like that for a long time, just holding each other in the darkened kitchen.
He felt her shift and step away, and instantly missed the warmth of her surrounding him. She stooped down and took his hands. “Come on,” she said softly, tugging him to his feet.
He didn’t know what she had in mind, but it didn’t matter, because he realized in that moment that he would follow her to the ends of the earth and back.
Thirty-three
MAGGIE’S HEART WAS beating triple time as she led Luke out of the kitchen, through the living room, down the hall to her bedroom.
She closed the door behind them and locked it for good measure.
Moonlight was streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the room. The rain that had been coming down while they were eating had abated. Fast-moving clouds traveled across the sky so the moon appeared and disappeared, shimmering its magical light on the wet limbs of the arbutus tree and gleaming off the slick, wet rock formation beyond. There was no need to lower the blinds, as the enormous embedded rock offered the occupants of the room absolute privacy from all directions.
“I want to . . .” She paused. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry. “That is, if you do,” she continued. “No pressure.” She felt a nervous giggle bubbling up. No pressure? I just locked the poor man in my room and I’m not planning on releasing him. She stuffed the giggle down deep and gathered her courage. “I would like to make love with you,” she said. “If you’re willing.”
Luke’s pupils narrowed, and a surge of heat flared in his eyes. “If I want to?” he said, an eyebrow lifting, a slight smile starting to form. “Woman, I have been ravenous for you since the day we met. You still have those condoms you were packing?”
“Mm-hm.” Maggie nodded. “I put them in the bedside table—not that I thought . . .” She trailed off, because the rest of what she was about to say would have been a lie.
“Good thinking,” he said, stepping toward her.
Nothing passive about him. This was a six-foot-three, hot, aroused male. She could practically taste the ramped-up testosterone that was pulsing through the air.
“But,” Maggie said. She was in his arms now, his hard body surrounding her, his warm lips nuzzling her neck, sending shivery tingles dancing over her skin. Maggie moaned, trying to keep her head, her logical mind wrestling with the wave of desire pouring through her.
“Wait.” She managed to get her hand between them to his chest. She was longing to explore the broad expanse of warm muscle and skin, but she pressed her hand firmly against him to create a modicum of space between their hungry bodies.
It was necessary. There was something that needed to be said, and with him so close, his warm lips and the caress of his breath working their way up her throat to the soft hollow right below her ear, it was impossible for her to think, to form words.
“I need to tell you something,” Maggie made herself say.
Luke pulled back, his eyes dark with passion. “Okay,” he said, his hand rising, his work-callused fingers skimming her face, light as a butterfly’s wing, as he traced the slight hollow at her temple, her cheekbone, the curve of her cheek. That this big, strong man could be so tender and gentle filled her heart to overflowing. But she was scared, too—scared to tell him this.
“I . . .” Maggie looked down, unable to hold his gaze. She could feel the thump of his heart, heat radiating outward, warming her hand, which was still spread, palm down, on the worn T-shirt covering his chest. “I want to make love with you.” Bomp . . . bomp . . . bomp . . . went his heart. “But I don’t want to mislead you.” Maggie took a deep breath, gathering her courage, and she exhaled slowly. “I’m not good at it,” she said.
“What are y—” he started to say, but she cut him off.
“I don’t want you to take it personally.” Now that she had started down this road, there was no going back. It was scary, but a relief, too. “There’s something defective with me,” she said, her eyes suddenly hot, making her have to shut them for a moment. “I read the romance novels, the magazines. I know fireworks are supposed to happen, but they just . . . don’t with me.”
She could feel Luke looking at her, but she couldn’t make her gaze rise to meet his. She smoothed out his T-shirt beneath her hand, felt the texture of hair underneath. “For years I thought maybe the magazines were lying—all this talk about ‘the Big O.’ I figured it was written by a few sadists who had nothing better to do with their time than to dream up ways to make the rest of womankind feel defective. But then one night I was out with Eve. She’d stayed up the whole night before, finishing a painting, had a tiny nap during the day but hadn’t eaten much. Basically, she was running on fumes, but you know Eve. She wanted to go celebrate.
“Well, the two Long Island Iced Teas she indulged in hit her like a ton of bricks, and she started talking about things we had never discussed before. Ever. Experiences she had had. How good certain ex-boyfriends were. The things they would do. How wonderful making love was. I was embarrassed, so I pretended I was having those kinds of experiences, too. But I wasn’t.” Maggie let out a shaky breath. “I never have.”
Maggie was glad she had told him. Got it out in the open so he wouldn’t have unrealistic expectations.
“Never?”
Maggie shook her head.
“And your ex?” Luke asked, his hand gently tilting up her chin. Her gaze slid to the side. “Maggie,” he said.
She made herself look at him. “Everything was fine on his side. No problem,” she said. “The problem was me. After that evening out with Eve, I asked Brett if maybe we could try some of the things Eve had mentioned, but Brett explained to me that it would be pointless. That I was frigid, and some people are just born that way.” Maggie shrugged apologetically. “But if you don’t mind going to bed with someone like me, I’d really like to, because I think it would be cozy and nice to be intimate with you.”
A flare of anger flashed across Luke’s face. It was so strong and potent that Maggie backed away from him, even though her body instantly longed to return.
“It is fortunate,” Luke gritted out, his hands clenching, “that your bastard of an ex isn’t nearby. Otherwise he’d be spitting out teeth.” He glared out the window for a moment or two. Then he took a deep breath, and gradually the tension left his body. It seemed to melt away like an ice cube spilled to the pavement on a hot summer day.
He turned toward her, the hardne
ss in his eyes softening. “You are,” he said, “a wonderful, sexy, luscious woman. You are not defective in any way. ‘Frigid’ is a word that was made up by men to justify and excuse the fact that they suck in the sack.”
“You don’t know that,” Maggie said, trying to tamp down the tiny spark of hope that was rising in her chest.
“I know,” he said, an implacable expression on his face. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one, Maggie.”
The spark of hope rose to a flame in her belly.
He took a step toward her. “Will you do that?”
Maggie nodded, energy building, swirling around them like an electrical force field.
“Now, you mentioned something about cozy and nice?” He took another step toward her, all ambling, lazy grace, but she could feel the hungry predator lurking inside, wanting to feast.
On her.
He wanted her. She could see it in his eyes, in the hardened lines of his body. Luke was holding himself in control, but he was primed to pounce. The knowledge of that made her feel tingly and nervous and full of liquid heat.
He took another step toward her. Still not touching, but almost there, mere inches away. The fresh, clean male scent of him surrounded her, making it hard for Maggie to think. A throbbing warmth pooled in her abdomen, and lower.
“But there,” Luke murmured, his baritone rumbling through her, weakening her knees, “I have to draw the line. I have nothing against cozy and nice.” She was in his arms now. His work-roughened hands slid up her back, leaving trails of heat and sensation in their wake. “You’re welcome to classify afternoon tea served on dainty grandma china, complete with miniature sandwiches and an array of desserts, as cozy and nice. No problem there.” His hands were in her hair. He looped the long strands around his knuckles and tipped her head back. “But I’ll be damned if those are the words you’ll use to describe what happens here tonight.”
His mouth descended on hers, passion-filled and demanding a response.
Her arms rose of their own volition and twined around his neck, her fingers buried deep in the silky strands of his dark hair.
A breathy moan escaped her lips, and he took full advantage of the slight opening and dipped his tongue in, to taste her more completely. Maggie’s knees felt weak; a low whimper built in her throat. Take me . . . take me . . . take me . . .
“Good God, Maggie,” he growled, his voice husky. “You are many things, but frigid is not one of them.” He scooped her into his arms, and the next thing Maggie knew, she was lying spread out on her bed with Luke’s hard body kneeling over her. “So beautiful,” he murmured, and then his mouth was back devouring hers, and she thought she would die from the pleasure of it. She felt restless, slippery and wet between her legs.
More. She wanted more.
She could feel his fierce, hot erection, thick and hard, through their clothes. She was undulating against him, wanting, needing to get closer—to him, to life, to being alive; she was filled with a desperate need to replace last night’s images with something better.
Luke lifted his head with a husky groan. “Maggie . . .” he breathed, his eyes dark with passion and something more.
She could feel his heart pounding like a runaway horse. Feminine triumph surged through her like a high-octane cocktail, setting fire to all her senses.
“Off,” she said. “Everything off.” She felt hungry, greedy, the tip of her tongue gathering the taste of his kiss from her lips. “I want to see you naked.”
“Far be it from me to deny you,” he said, a faint smile on his lips. He rolled over, and in one fluid movement, he was standing by the bed. He grasped his T-shirt, pulled it over his head, and tossed it to the side. The sight of the moonlight playing over his sleek, muscled shoulders, his sinewy arms, the washboard abs and narrow waist, his sweats hanging on his slim hips made Maggie’s breath catch in her throat. She knew she was staring, and she didn’t care.
His hands went to his sweats, pushing them down, and he stepped out of them.
Magnificent, she thought, or maybe she said it; nothing mattered but the fact that she was here, with him.
“Your turn,” he murmured. As he approached the bed, she noticed he was favoring his left leg slightly and there was a nickel-sized, star-shaped scar on his inner left thigh. Then the weight of him was on her. His warm mouth kissing her again, tugging her lower lip gently between his teeth, then soothing the slight swelling of her lip with his tongue.
She had never much liked kissing. Found it kind of gross, the way Brett would thrust his whole tongue in her mouth and leave it there, a thick, slimy, fat, wiggling slug. It had always made her feel like gagging.
But this? What Luke was doing was so damned erotic. She found she was craving the fresh taste of him, the possession of his lips, the sensuous dance of his tongue that made it impossible not to join in. I like kissing, she thought, dazed. I really, really like it.
He rose, kneeling above her, the strong muscles of his legs straddling her thighs. She wanted to trace his scar with her fingers, kiss it tenderly, but perhaps he was self-conscious about it, so she didn’t. That can come later, she thought, as his fingers deftly unbuttoned her nightgown and started to peel it back.
“Oh, goodness,” Maggie said in a flash of shyness. Were her breasts too small? She grabbed her nightgown to keep it in place, but his hands captured hers.
“Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head, amusement in his voice. “That wasn’t the deal.” He slid her hands up over her head, his hands securing hers. Holding her there. His mouth returned to hers, driving her wild, but only for a moment. Then he was making his way down the slope of her neck, dropping kisses in his wake.
Maggie, half crazed with desire, wanted to move, touch, taste, but she was pinned in place by his hands and his thighs.
He nuzzled the hollow of her throat, and the slight scrape of roughness from the sandpaper texture of his cheek—another erotic sensation—highlighted the differences between his body and hers. She moaned, her hips undulating of their own volition.
He continued his torturously languorous trek downward. The neckline of her nightgown was now open. A lick on bare skin, then the scrape of his teeth dragging against her downward, grasping her nightgown and yanking first one side, and then the other, open with his teeth.
She was splayed out like a feast, her small breasts jutting upward, her pale pink nipples taut and straining toward his mouth. Too small, she thought. I’m too small. Held in place, unable to move or cover up, she was both embarrassed and turned on as hell. His heated gaze was on her. Is he disappointed? Brett always was.
She was about to squeeze her eyes shut when she heard an approving growl of satisfaction deep in Luke’s throat. “Perfection,” he said, his voice husky with need, and then his hot mouth lowered to her breast. A lick of his tongue, and then she felt him blow gently, the cool air causing her nipple to tighten even more and her back to arch. She was aroused and wanting. All her thoughts and worries of not being enough had vanished into the night.
He repeated the butterfly-light caress. And then, without warning, his mouth latched on. Suction, tongue, the barest tease of teeth. The sensations were overwhelming, not just on her breast, but as if his mouth suckling there was sending a direct channel of pleasure to throb between the crux of her legs: wet, swollen, pulsating heat.
“I need . . . I need . . .” She was whimpering. “Please . . .” Her breath ragged, her heart racing, a caged bird in her chest.
He was lavishing attention on her other breast now. Tremors building, a mini earthquake rising.
“Please . . . please . . .”
Both her hands were now held in one of his as his other hand slid down her body, caressing, stroking, a hard pinch on her nipple that jolted her body upward and then a kiss to soothe. She could feel the hot, hard length of him against her thigh, clear evidence that he was f
iercely aroused. She felt dizzy with need. “Please . . .”
But he didn’t enter her. He pressed her wrists into the bed. “Don’t move,” he whispered, and then released them.
Both his hands were on her now. One lavishing attention on her breasts, the other journeying down, spreading her nightgown on the way. Down, past her abdomen, past the slippery, wet heat between her legs.
“I like you like this,” he murmured, sliding the last bit of her nightgown off her body. He shifted his weight as he nudged her thighs open. “Completely exposed.” He was kneeling now between her legs, spreading her open farther, his hand traveling down to cup her intimately. “You’re killing me.” He groaned, lowering himself, half on her, half on the bed, one leg flung over hers, keeping her open. The weight and warmth of him was a welcome relief.
He slid his hand up from her breast to tangle in her hair. Turning her face toward him, he took possession of her mouth with his while his fingers started a slow, sensuous dance. He dipped one finger, then two inside her most private and intimate place, a long, slow stroke, and then another, before his slickened fingers slid out and circled over her secret, hidden bud. Again and again. Winding her tighter and tighter, making her dizzy with need.
Maggie heard a low, desperate moaning, rising in intensity and volume. Was she making those noises? Wild, unconstrained sounds that he was wrenching from her body, taking from her lips. Sensations kept building, building until, finally, she flew over the edge into the earthquake that roared through her, tremor upon tremor of unimaginable pleasure, as if a rainbow had exploded inside her and was sending shimmering molecules coursing through every cell in her body.
