Finding Heart (Colorado Veterans Book 2)

by Tiffani Lynn

  “Ow!” I squeak, half irritated and half turned on.

  I can hear his belt buckle jingle as he loosens it and the jeans he’s wearing slide down his thighs. Grabbing my hips, he yanks back so our bare flesh meets and his cock is hard against my ass crack. Less than a second later his hand disappears back behind me, lining us up and he shoves in hard and fast. The unexpected power behind the thrust has me flush against the wall. It’s pleasure and pain all mixed up to create the sexy combination of passion and anger. He bends at the knees and hooks his hand behind my left thigh, lifting my leg. When he has me where he wants me, he begins a hard and fast rhythm and it’s all I can do not to fall over.

  My skin is hypersensitive and it’s possible he’s bruising me with his grip on my thigh as he works that angle, but I can’t seem to care. My orgasm builds, starting at the tip of my toes and roaring through me at the speed of light, practically blowing me apart with the sheer force of it. Nothing I do at this point will stop it. I come, screaming his name at the top of my lungs as the leg holding me up buckles. He grips me tighter and pounds into me at an alarming rate until I feel him thrust hard one last time as he fills me. His body weight traps me against the wall and we stay like this for a couple of minutes, gathering our breath and our sanity.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Marina

  Slowly, all my senses return and the humiliation of being used floods my system. I realize I’ve just allowed myself to be fucked against a wall in the middle of an argument with a man who loves someone else. Not only allowed it, but begged for it, totally participated in it. Enjoyed it even. Shit!

  I push against the wall and work to squirm free but he pushes harder, pinning me in place. His voice is softer now, “Mari.”

  “Please don’t,” I whisper.

  “Mari, listen to me. If you don’t like what I’m saying to you then I’ll let you go, walk out the door and you won’t see me again.”

  I don’t reply because the ache in my chest is so strong after he says he won’t see me again that I’m afraid to speak. No matter how mad or hurt I am I can’t imagine not seeing him again.

  “Leslie and Joe set a date to get married, you heard that part correctly. Yes, I’m upset but not for the reason you think. God, I hate talking about all this shit.”

  “Then don’t. Just let me go and you can keep quiet the way you like it,” I snottily reply.

  He pulls back just enough to smack my bare ass and I yelp. “Quiet and let me finish, woman.” A tingle runs to my sex and I chastise myself for getting turned on again in the middle of a fight.

  He continues, “Leslie is getting married. She’ll no longer be Stuart’s wife. His wife and kids will belong to another man. Stu spent so many hours talking about them I felt like they were my own. No one loves their wife and kids the way he did. I ache for him and all that he lost. He was the best friend I’ve ever had. When I’m in Colorado I can pretend that he’s still alive in Florida with his family, enjoying the life he should’ve had. I don’t have to think about reality unless I talk to them or see them. Now it’s real, every day. Leslie’s no longer going to be Mrs. Stuart Larkin.”

  “You don’t have to face it until you see them again. Why are you freaking out now?” I ask sounding like a total bitch. I wiggle enough to turn around and face him.

  “They’re coming here. The kids are staying with me while they honeymoon. Les thinks it will help if they’re distracted by a vacation. We talked as long as we did so we could set it up. My vacation time renews in a few weeks and I can take off to be with them. She needed to coordinate it with my schedule. I get to spend a week with my best friend’s kids while he spends the week in the ground and his wife takes a new husband. Can you see how that fucks with my head?”

  He leans back and runs his fingers through his inky black hair, giving an exasperated tug. “We were in the same explosion and he died while I walked away. Do you know how shitty that feels? He had so much more to live for than I did, but I’m here. I breathe while he can’t, and the thought of watching his kids so his wife can spend a week with another man is more than I can deal with. My head is a fucking mess, Mari. You have no idea how much he loved them.”

  I step into him in an attempt to comfort him and I’m stunned silent when his first tear hits my shoulder. Jase has never cried in front of me and I doubt many others have seen it either. I hate when anyone cries, I can’t stand for anyone to be sad, much less a man as strong as he is. The pain he must be feeling to allow a breakdown like this makes my heart hurt for him. I squeeze him tight around the middle while he cries quietly.

  “I’m sorry. I was jealous of her. I’ve thought since the first time I saw your reaction to her call, you had a thing for her. When you went from really hot with me to freezer-cold, I thought you were sad you missed your chance. But to be fair, you locked me out and shut down. For a girl like me who has never gotten a single thing she wanted in life, it was easier to believe the worst in the absence of information.”

  He wipes his face with one hand while he’s still wrapped around me, like he doesn’t want me to see the tears I could feel falling. “Grab your stuff. You’re coming back home.”

  “This is my home.”

  He leans back as his brows knit together. Then he makes a big production of looking all around the room and says, “This is no one’s home. Come on. You belong in my bed, at my place.” He tilts my jaw up in his large hand, never breaking eye contact and softly says, “I care about you, Mari, so much. Please, it’s been a really long day and I don’t want to sleep on a mattress on the floor but I won’t leave you here.”

  The weight of all the emotion I’ve been carrying around for two days sits heavy on my shoulders. We’ve been through enough for one day so I quietly gather my stuff again and ride with him to his apartment. This time when we have sex he enters me slowly and takes his sweet time, showing me that I’m the one he wants.

  Later that week we’re lying in bed with me on my belly while he traces my tats again. For someone who doesn’t like them very much, he seems fascinated, but this is the first time he’s explored the few I have on my back. As he works his way up my shoulder, his nail drags slowly across my skin on his way to my neck. Softly his lips follow the trail until he brushes my hair all the way over my shoulder.

  “More ink?” he asks, surprised.

  “What?” I twist my head to find his eyes as he answers my question.

  “I didn’t see the ink on the back of your neck before. I take that back, I did see a little of it sticking out of your collar awhile back, but I haven’t noticed it since then.”

  “How is that possible? You’ve seen me naked a hundred times it seems.”

  “I guess your hair was covering it.”

  As he begins tracing the newly discovered tat, his finger pauses and his voice comes out on a whisper, the accent strong, “Mari.”

  I wait for his reaction. This is the one tattoo that could potentially mean something to him. All mine mean something to me, but this, this is all him. I wasn’t sure if he would recognize it or if it would matter when he did.

  “My grandmother’s locket. I didn’t even think you remembered that old thing.”

  “Are you kidding? You gave me your grandmother’s locket and I was afraid that something would happen to it with the way I live and it would be gone forever. This way at least I always have it with me. Turns out I made a good choice by doing that. I had it until all my stuff was stolen at the apartment. Other than the few pictures I have of my family, it’s the one thing I’ve always protected. I was a little less devastated when I remembered I still had it on me, even if I didn’t have it with me. I’m sure it sounds stupid, but I’ve never had anything that beautiful before and I was desperate to keep it a part of me.”

  He doesn’t say a thing and I wonder if he thinks I’m an idiot for everything I just told him. Before I can open my mouth to ask, his lips find the ink. The heat of his breath on my sensitive skin makes me shiver. �
��Hold still,” he commands so I do my best to follow his instructions. Warm strokes with his tongue test me as he traces the image. Damn, that’s sexy as hell.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see it all this time. I’ll never miss it again,” he murmurs. He spends a long time with the tattoo before sliding his lips down to the base of my spine. His mouth brushes the dimples above my hipbones and I moan softly. He spreads my legs and lifts my hips so he can crawl between them. I do my best to angle so I can see what he’s doing back there, but this isn’t a good position to watch anything. The whole slow, sweet seduction of the last half hour has me dripping for him, so ready I’ll probably come as soon as he touches me. It would be embarrassing if it wasn’t so amazing.

  He holds me captivated as he runs his fingertips from my ankles over my calves, up the backs of my thighs, over the cheeks of my ass, across the plane of my back until both hands meet at the locket tattoo. It’s all I can do not to beg him to make love to me now. But I know he’s taking his time to worship my body and his new discovery is all part of it. He’s been slow and sweet before but this is something very different. As fantastic as it is, it’s something I’ve never had before and I’m a little nervous. One of his hands grabs hold of my hip while the other situates his cock so it slides in smoothly when he presses forward with his hips. I almost can’t breathe, he’s so deep when he’s in this position. The motion of his hips is slow and controlled to start and only pauses when he pulls my torso upright against his. His fingers find my beaded nipples. “Jase,” I hiss, pressing back harder against him.

  Plucking, pinching, tugging, he’s working them hard as I get off on it. When one of his hands stops and slips down between my legs, I grip my breast and work it while he attacks my clit with perfect precision. He’s taken his time to build this orgasm for me and it’s so big by the time it consumes me, I almost pass out from the sheer bliss of it.

  When my muscles relax, he pushes my chest back to the mattress and hammers into me relentlessly. My sensitive pussy clenches tight as he draws out another orgasm until he finally comes and collapses on me. The last thing I feel before I pass out from exhaustion is his lips meeting that tattoo again.

  The next morning we’re comfortable lying in bed, not talking, only holding each other. I realize yesterday may have been more words than he’s used to using in a day so I don’t push for more, but he surprises me by speaking first. “Mari, I think you need to give your landlord notice and get out. Dee is ready to move on and you have nothing there.”

  “She hasn’t come right out and said it but I know it’s time. I have nowhere to go, Jase. I can’t get rid of it even if it’s mostly empty.”

  “You can stay here.”

  I stop breathing. Did he say stay here?

  “That’s not a good choice, Jase. We’re brand new and we’ve done an awful lot of arguing. I don’t even know if you can put up with me past a couple of weeks. That would be another bad decision in a line of bad decisions.”

  “Okay, so you stay here until you can find something else. You’re here every night anyway and I won’t ever be okay with you going back to that place. It’s not secure and you have nothing there anyway. I had someone look into the leasing policy. You can give notice today and stay here for a bit. You’ll be saving money to get something nicer or at least more secure so when you’re there I won’t worry. You’re welcome to stay with me as long as you want, though.”

  “If you want me to live with you I need a better reason than it’s convenient, so I won’t move in, but you’re right that I need somewhere new so I’ll take you up on the offer temporarily. Dee wants to stay with Reggie and I hate being alone, especially there. I’ll do it if you can take me by there today to grab what little I have and give my notice.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  After we execute our plan for the day I call Dee to let her know what I’ve done. Her sigh lets me know she’s relieved without her having to say it. Tomorrow I start looking for somewhere to go in a month or so. I’m back to working at the ranch and I’m making good money so it shouldn’t take me long.

  Three weeks pass and there has been no sign of my stalker, thank goodness, and finding a place to live has been more difficult than I could imagine. To afford living somewhere safer, I’ll need a roommate, which means bringing a stranger into my house. After everything that’s happened, I’m nervous about that idea. Although things with Jase have been great overall, I don’t want to wear out my welcome and I don’t want him to feel obligated to keep me here because I have nowhere else to go. Ray will be out of Reggie’s in a couple of weeks and I can go there if I’m desperate to give Jase a break, but not until then.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Marina

  Tonight Leslie, her new husband, and the kids come to town. We’ll have Rushton and Skylar for five days while she and her new husband go skiing in Vail. They had a courthouse wedding yesterday afternoon in Florida with a few people in attendance and that was it. Jase is excited to have them here, I think. I’m a little nervous they’ll take one look at me and think I’m a freak like he did when he first saw me again. I’ve always liked my particular style and was never self-conscious until Jase said all of those things to me a while ago. With the kids though, I have no idea what they’ve been exposed to over the years so I’m nervous. I could be the strangest person they’ve ever seen. When they arrive in town we’re meeting them for dinner and then bringing the kids back with us while those two drive to Vail.

  As I come out of the bathroom ready to go, Jase’s head tilts as he studies me. He takes two steps toward me and stops while eyeing me from head to toe, followed by four more steps to be right in front of me. He knows how nervous I am so him scrutinizing me is making it worse. I fidget under the weight of his inspection.

  I tried to tone my look down a little by replacing the small hoop that goes through my left nostril with a tiny diamond stud and removing the Monroe piercings above my lip. I’m wearing makeup, but it’s more subtle than usual. I’m in a decent pair of jeans and boots and a top I borrowed from Dee, which means it’s way more conservative than what I’d normally wear.

  “Mari, you don’t have to be someone you’re not. You look beautiful, but you don’t have to change for them. The kids won’t care at all. They may ask a hundred questions about your hair and the piercings though. Skylar will be the worst. She’s curious as hell about everything, but that shouldn’t matter.”

  I worry my lip with my teeth before I answer. “It’s not the kids. I didn’t want to feel out of place with you, Leslie, and Joe. I didn’t want to look like a teenage runaway while the rest of you are dressed like normal adults.”

  His fingers slide up into the hair at the nape of my neck and hold me so I can’t look anywhere but at him. “You’re beautiful. Just relax. I know your sudden insecurity comes from the shit I said. I’m sorry for that. I want you to be happy with who you are. I am. Do you want to change into your clothes?” I shake my head and glance away, but he pulls me closer and kisses me hard. “Trust me, Mari. You can be yourself. They’ll like you just the way you are. I do.”

  He spins me a little, sweeps the hair off my neck and tugs the collar of my shirt down a bit so he can see the locket tattoo. A sweet, tender kiss is placed over it before he moves my hair back into place. If I were chocolate, I’d melt.

  When we walk into the restaurant a half hour later they’re already there, seated and waiting. Leslie is the first to stand and large, jagged stones settle in my gut when I realize how beautiful she is. Short but sexy, with smooth blonde hair and her general appearance is that of a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. The light in her eyes when she recognizes Jase makes me wonder why she married Joe. It’s obvious there’s something there. How am I going to survive this dinner? I can make sure I’m busy when they pick up the kids after the honeymoon, but I have to get through this meal. Doing my best to hide my discomfort, I paste my fake smile on and reach out to shake Joe’s hand first. He greets m
e warmly and I like him right away. Some souls are easy to read and his is one. I’d bet money that he’s gentle and sweet and easy going but fiercely in love with her.

  I shake with Leslie next as the kids jump all over Jase, yelling, “Uncle Dex! Uncle Dex! Uncle Dex!” Before I can say anything, Leslie leans toward them and shushes them. “Kids, settle down. You’ve got all week to get crazy with Uncle Dex. We’re in a restaurant so quiet down.” To their credit, they hush immediately as Dex pulls them both close and ruffles their hair.

  Once we’re seated the little girl is the first of the two kids to speak to me when she says, “You have a diamond in your nose! Are you a princess?” The wonder in her voice makes me smile as she continues to inform me, “Only princesses have diamonds in their noses.” All of us laugh except Leslie, who looks horrified as she tries to stop the words coming out of her daughter’s mouth. “Skylar Larkin, hush. That’s rude!”

  Jase turns wide eyes to Leslie and reaches across the table to place his hand on hers. When they make contact, I swallow hard, fighting the jealousy that’s threatening to overtake me. “Les, it’s okay. Marina knows she has a diamond in her nose.” Then he gives the little girl a wicked smile and says, “She’s definitely a princess, don’t let her tell you any different.” He pulls his hand back as the little girl squeals with delight. I can’t help but laugh. She’s adorable and broke the ice for me without meaning to.

  “Skylar and Rushton, this is Marina.”

  “She’s your princess girlfriend?” Skylar asks her eyes alight with excitement.

  “Yes, she’s my princess girlfriend.” I warm from the inside out as I watch his interaction with Skylar. It’s so rare to get such a wide, relaxed smile from Jase.