Risk Taker

by Lindsay McKenna

  Ethan’s mouth possessed hers; his hands trailed splintering paths of fire around the curves of her aching breasts. Then Sarah felt him anchor her, his arm supporting her lower back, positioning her so that she could use the wall to lean against, as well as his body. His fingers followed the glistening curve of her thigh, and she shuddered in anticipation. A hungry gnawing began in her lower body. His fingers slid inside her thigh and she automatically opened to him, wanting him, wanting his incredible touch. Already she was trembling, barely able to stand.

  Sarah’s entire body melted around him as he teased her. He felt the wetness surrounding his fingers. She nearly collapsed against him as he explored her a little more deeply, barely inside her. A whimper tore from her lips as he pressed his fingers slowly within her. Her sweetness sent a shaft of rocketing need firing through him. The instant he slid more deeply into her depths, she cried out, her entire body convulsing with the orgasm. Her knees nearly gave way, and he anchored her with his arm. Humbled by her trust of him, Ethan silently promised Sarah he would always consider her sacred to him, to never give her pain, only pleasure.

  Sarah’s world flew apart; her knees were so damned weak. Ethan’s strong, stabilizing arm stayed around her waist. And then he slowly eased out of her wetness. She gave him a desperate look, her breathing uneven.

  He held her aroused look, her lips parted. “Trust me,” he whispered against her lips. “It’s only going to get better.”

  Ethan hooked his arm beneath her left knee, lifting her up, using the wall as support for her back. “Bring your legs around my waist,” he told her. Moving his hands beneath her as her long legs slid around his hips, he smiled. “Now, relax against the wall. Put your hands around my shoulders, angel. I’ve got you.”

  Trusting him completely, Sarah wrapped her arms around his shoulders, trembling violently. She felt his erection barely graze her ravenous body. He teased her aching entrance. Her breath exploded in shallow gasps as she tipped her head against the wet tiles and Ethan pressed more firmly against her entrance.

  The soft raindrops fell around them. As his lips captured one of her hardened nipples, Sarah arched, her fingers digging deeply into his shoulders, her hips thrusting against him. The electric bolts coursed wildly between her nipple and womb, making her sob out his name. She writhed against Ethan, wanting him inside her.

  When he slid into her yielding body, Sarah’s spine arched outward off the wall, head thrown back, a hoarse cry ripping out of her. She felt the hard muscling of his taut shoulders beneath her restless hands; her nipples were crazed with delicious, ongoing shocks. He held her easily, moving her hips slowly, allowing her time to accommodate him. He teased her nipples unmercifully, building her toward another wave of pleasure.

  Ethan took her mouth, drawing Sarah deeper into the vortex of his body, his hands and lips. She quivered violently as he began to thrust rhythmically, more deeply into her with each stroke. The sensations made her mewl; the sound was absorbed by his mouth over hers. He deepened his kiss, sliding his tongue into her mouth, feeling her fiery reaction, wanting her in every possible way.

  Their breaths unraveled and Sarah began to feel her flesh dissolve into his.

  The warmth of the trickling water against her sensitized skin, his mouth suckling her hard nipple, moving her into a mounting rhythm, took her even deeper into the consuming fire racing through her. Sarah felt boneless in Ethan’s arms, held captive between his hard, demanding body and the slick wall. The screaming pressure of an orgasm rose like a tsunami, and her entire lower body seized up. She jerked in a breath. As Ethan thrust hard and deep, she was consumed by the rippling implosion of an almost painful release competing alongside the most intense pleasure she had ever experienced.

  The wild undulations of her body tightened repeatedly around him, and all Sarah could do was arch against him, hoarsely crying out Ethan’s name. The intense fever pulsated through her mind, erasing it, connecting her only with the spasms of pleasure in their joined bodies.

  And just when Sarah thought she could take no more pleasure, she heard Ethan’s animal-like growl as he pulled her savagely against him, his face pressed between her glistening, wet breasts. A deep shudder worked its way through him. He rasped her name, clenched his teeth, eyes tightly shut as he rocked powerfully into her, taking her with him. Awed by her own body’s response to his climax, Sarah felt fused into Ethan’s flesh, into his soul as he held her tightly afterward, breathing in harsh gasps, his entire body quivering powerfully with release.

  Barely opening her eyes, Sarah weakly leaned forward, kissing his wet hair, his temple, jaw and neck. She felt absolutely ravished in the best of ways. She rested her brow against his; the water like warm fingers soothed their trembling bodies. It was a delicious experience.

  Sarah slid her hands up across his bearded jaw, drowning in his dark gray eyes. “I love you, Ethan.” Sarah saw his face crumple with joy, saw a sudden glimmer in his eyes that could only be tears. And then Ethan gave her a smile that infused her heart with such happiness that she thought for a moment she would die from this heaven.

  Ethan slowly lifted her off him and allowed her feet to gently touch the tiled floor. He held on to Sarah as her knees nearly buckled. Her blue eyes were lustrous, fulfilled. She stared up at him in wonder. Her mouth was soft, pouty and well kissed by him. Ethan leaned against her, aware of his weight pinning her gently against the drenched wall.

  “Sarah, you are beautiful,” he told her. His whole body was hotly collapsing in on itself. Glowing coals of desire burned his lower body with satisfaction. He eased wet strands of her hair away from her flushed cheeks and smiled into her eyes. “I love you, Sarah Benson. I see you, angel. And you are perfect and beautiful inside and out to me.”

  *

  Sarah awoke slowly. She didn’t know what had awakened her. Content and wrapped within Ethan’s arms, their bodies pressed warmly against one another in the bed, Sarah sighed softly. Her head was nestled beneath Ethan’s jaw, her cheek against the soft hair of his chest. Feeling the slow pound of his heart beneath her palm, she felt a wave of such intense love for this man. It literally made her want to weep for joy. How long had she waited for someone like Ethan? She never thought a man like him existed at all. And then she’d pushed him away because she felt so ugly inside.

  Sarah blinked back tears, realizing how rare Ethan was. He’d forgiven her. How lucky she’d been, thinking that her life was doomed to men who were selfish and self-serving. Even now, her body glowed; Ethan was drawing out the fractured feminine part of her that had remained hidden until now. Sarah felt him stir. It was that SEAL alertness. She lifted her head, looking into his half-opened eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered, reaching up and kissing his mouth. What a mouth Ethan had. It was so sensual, strong and cherishing all at the same time. Sarah felt like she was a goddess being worshipped by him as he groaned, rolled onto his side and took her mouth more deeply. She could feel him growing hard against her belly, and heat skittered through her core, wanting him all over again.

  Easing from her mouth, Ethan rasped, “Waking up anytime with you, angel, is a miracle to me.” He kissed the tip of her nose. Ethan settled back, gathering her into his arms, drawing her one leg over his, holding her close.

  Sarah slid her hand against his jaw. “I just woke up,” she whispered. “And I was thinking, how did I ever manage to meet you? I’ve never met a man like you, Ethan. I’d always dreamed of someone like you existing, but after a while, after several forgettable relationships, I gave up.” Sarah pressed a kiss to his chest, feeling his muscles flex beneath her lips. She trailed her fingers languidly through the soft strands of hair across his powerful chest. She felt Ethan’s calloused hand move in a caressing gesture across her shoulder and down her good arm.

  “And here I was thinking the same thing.”

  She laughed softly, hearing the thickness in his voice. “You can’t tell me women don’t fall all over you.�
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  Ethan stirred, sifting strands of her dry, silky hair through his fingers. Her hair glinted like black diamonds in the soft moonlight peeking around the floor-to-ceiling drapes. “I never found the woman I was looking for,” he admitted huskily, “until I met you. And I knew you were the one.” One corner of his mouth pulled up in a wry smile. “And with your reputation as a man killer, I was trying to find some way to meet you without you nailing me with one of your karate black belt moves.”

  “Man killer. Really, Ethan, that’s over the top.” Sarah sniffed, her feelings hurt.

  He heard her protest and lost his smile. Easing her head onto the pillow so he could look deeply into her slumberous eyes, he said, “I understand now why you closed up when you were around men at the canteen and at the chow hall.” Seeing the pain he’d caused by his words, Ethan gently pressed his lips to her hair, inhaling her sweet, womanly scent. “You were protecting yourself, Sarah. And I can’t blame you.”

  “I wish,” she said, her throat tightening as she became lost in the tender look in his gray eyes, “that I could just forget those first twelve years of my life.”

  The anguished admittance caused his heart to contract with pain for her. “I wish I’d known you then. I’d have realized something was wrong. I might have been able to protect you.” Ethan wondered how many times Sarah, as a young, scared little girl, had fallen through the cracks of the state child protection system. Hadn’t the social worker seen a change in her behavior? Seen the frightened look he now saw deep in the recesses of her shadowed blue eyes? Why the hell hadn’t some adult cared enough to see Sarah was being sexually abused by her foster father for all those years? He felt rage, and he wanted desperately to erase the painful beginning to her life, but he couldn’t.

  Sarah fought back the tears. Ethan’s face was open and vulnerable, his words a balm for her wounded psyche, her fractured soul. Just the look burning in his eyes, the care he bestowed on her, the love he shared, had a healing effect on her whether he knew it or not.

  “I tried running away so many times, Ethan. I was so scared. I tried to be a shadow, tried not to get Bill’s attention. There were three of us girls there and…” She shut her eyes, her voice broken. “And he took turns with us. I knew when it was my turn. I could feel him hunting me. I ran. I always ran.”

  A sob caught in her throat. “Every time, he found me. Every time, he picked me up in his arms, say hello to the neighbors, as if out for an evening walk as he took me back into the house. After a while, I couldn’t even cry. I just…left my body. I wanted to die.” Sarah covered her face with her hand, feeling a huge upwell of grief surging through her.

  Ethan cursed softly, pulling Sarah into his arms, rocking her, holding her. “That sick sonofabitch,” he snarled. “I’m so sorry, Sarah…God…” His voice trembled with emotion. “It won’t ever happen again, Sarah. Not ever.”

  The perfect evening with Ethan was once more spoiled by her past, Sarah thought, as she cried unwillingly in his arms. For over a decade, she had sworn not to cry, not to give voice to her shadowed past, and she had not. There was just something about Ethan that dissolved her shields. Sarah was vulnerable once more. Ethan rocked her slowly in his arms, as if she were that hurt child, trying to soothe and calm her. There was such savage pain ripping through her heart. She sobbed, and her tears flowed across his chest and were absorbed in his dark hair. Sarah couldn’t stop the convulsive sobs that tore out of her. She’d never cried like this in her life, never released the terror and hurt that still resided deep within her soul.

  Ethan felt helpless rage. As a SEAL, he hadn’t often felt that because there were always steps to be taken, actions to be initiated. How could he affect Sarah’s haunting past, which even now threw a shadow over her life?

  Ethan closed his eyes, pressing small kisses against her tangled hair, feeling anger he couldn’t act on.

  And what amazed him the most was Sarah’s warrior side, which was solid, brazen and gutsy. But the woman side of her, the wounded, abandoned child living within her—there was a war going on for control of her soul.

  Slowly, Ethan was beginning to grasp that he had forged more of Sarah’s trust between them tonight. And it was probably the first time she’d ever given so much to a man. After all, a man had killed a part of her soul, taken something from her so precious and beautiful, without asking. God, he wanted to kill that bastard with his own two hands. Was that the ugliness she felt inside herself?

  Ethan buried his feelings deep. “You know what?” he rasped softly against her temple, strands of her hair tickling his nose and mouth. “You are a treasure to me, Sarah. You are giving me your trust, your heart and your incredibly sensitive, beautiful body. You are an extraordinary being, angel. And if you don’t know that, then I intend to show you over time just how beautiful a woman you are.”

  Ethan gave Sarah a long embrace, as if to imprint his emotional words on her heart. In the deepest recesses of himself, he wanted to help Sarah heal from what she had endured as a child. He was stunned to realize that he’d somehow slipped past those walls, her defensiveness, her distrust. Now he understood even more deeply his responsibility toward her, to treat Sarah as the woman he saw in her, not as how she felt inwardly about herself. Ethan could show her the way through his caresses, his loving her, his treating her as an equal so that she was allowed to discover herself.

  It scared the hell out of Ethan when he looked at the larger picture, comprehending the depth of wounding Sarah had endured. Only love, his mother had told him over and over again, could ever heal a broken heart. And in Sarah’s case, a broken soul. But even a broken soul could be put back together with love. And he had more than enough love in his heart to share it with her.

  Sniffing, Sarah murmured apologetically, “I’m sorry, Ethan. I didn’t mean to bawl like a baby.”

  “You never have to apologize to me, Sarah. You needed a good cry,” Ethan assured her, reaching over to the nightstand to find her a tissue. “I’m glad I was the one you trusted enough to cry with.”

  Sarah sniffed, blotted her eyes and blew her nose. Ethan ached for her, seeing the terror deep in her grief-stricken blue eyes. No wonder she had appeared so sad when he’d first met her. His intuition had been right about how truly disconsolate she was. He held her tightly in his arms.

  “I learned early on crying didn’t help anything. It just got me into more trouble, not less.” Sarah dabbed her eyes, content to be curled up and surrounded by Ethan’s body. She felt safe in her always unsafe world. Sarah looked up into his shadowed, serious face. “I guess it’s you,” she said. “There’s just something about you that if I fly apart and I know you’ll catch all the ugly pieces of me.”

  “That’s what a good relationship should be, don’t you think? Taking care of one another?” Ethan took his thumb and brushed away the tear clinging to her cheek. He knew the brave woman medevac pilot. Hell, he’d seen her in action twice. And yet, when it came to personal relationships, she was a cowering child, so unsure of herself. He wanted to kill Caldwell. The force was so powerful within him that Ethan had to compress his lips and not say it out loud. It wouldn’t help Sarah.

  “You’re different,” Sarah finally said, her voice a little stronger. “I was watching you this morning coming up the sidewalk toward me. I saw other men around, but none of them walked like you did. There’s such a rock-solid confidence in you, Ethan. The way you look at me makes me want to melt, not cringe. And when you smile at me, I swear I feel sunlight flooding my soul.”

  “Now who’s the poet?” Ethan teased, kissing her cheek, her brow, inhaling her scent. Just breathing in Sarah’s sweet, fragrant skin was an aphrodisiac to him in every way. Her lips curved into a partial smile.

  “No, you’re the poet.” Sarah looked up at him. “How did you get the way you are? The way you see the world? How do you see through people so easily? Your words are incredible. You paint such beauty with them.”

  Ethan closed his eyes and
laid his head back on the pillow, contentment flowing through him. “Blame my mom. She’s written and published many books of poetry. She schooled all of us kids in words and their meanings. I remember she began teaching us Latin, as a root language, when I was nine years old. She was a teacher in school and a teacher to us in all kinds of good ways.”

  “Do you all write poetry?”

  “No. It just rubbed off on me, I guess.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re different,” Sarah murmured, trying to find out what made him unique and, therefore, trustworthy with her heart.

  Ethan laughed a little. “Well, don’t tell my SEAL brothers I write poetry or I’d never live it down. They’d razz the hell out of me. I keep a journal with me and when I get time, I write in it about my feelings, what I saw, what touched me, what made me cry or laugh. Sometimes, when I’m inspired by something amazingly out of this world, I write poetry.” Ethan opened his eyes and shared a tender smile with Sarah. “You caught my attention and inspired me the first time I saw you. I went back to my tent, and I couldn’t write fast enough to put all the beautiful things about you down in words that I saw and wanted to capture.”

  Sarah absorbed his whispered words, feeling his emotions very close to the surface. This was Ethan’s vulnerable side he was sharing with her. The one he never showed his fellow SEALs, but it was equally a part of him. “How do you reconcile these two very different sides of yourself?”

  Ethan shrugged. “My journal. The guys just think I’m keeping a daily journal that I’ll someday give to my kids, when I have them. And that’s not a lie—that’s what I let them think. Sometimes—” he rested his arm across his eyes “—the stuff I see, I can’t wrap my mind, morals, values or beliefs around. The children starving, going barefoot, so thin and hungry. I use the journal more for a personal way to dump my feelings, good and bad, on white paper. It’s better than turning into an alcoholic or trying to run away from the monsters I’ve seen up front and close. And it’s better than pretending I’m tough and nothing can bother me. Because it does.”