Her Temporary Hero (a Once a Marine Series book) (Entangled Indulgence)

by Jennifer Apodaca

  A wave of warmth filled her with a sense of being a part of something important. Logan had listened to her, valued what she had to say. Emotion climbed up her throat, embarrassing her. She took a breath and shifted her focus. “You mentioned fishing, hiking, and horseback riding, too.”

  He settled a hand on her waist. “I’m acquiring the horses now, working with them and hoping I can get Abby to help me.”

  It took her a second to place the name. “She’s your other sister?”

  “Yes.” His jaw bulged for a second. “Abby’s not like Pammy. She’s angry at me.”

  “Why?”

  He looked down at her. The overhead lights bounced off his dark hair, emphasizing his strong bone structure. His sister Pam had a much more delicate build, brown hair, and lighter skin. He must have gotten his darker coloring and unique green eyes from his mother.

  “I’m good with horses, but Abby is amazing. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. She knows horseflesh, and can spot a fast runner, a good cutter, even a horse who will do better with a child. She can get more out of a horse than any other person breathing.”

  “That makes her angry?”

  “No. In Abby’s mind, I’m the interloper that ruined everything in the family, including her chances of getting control of that ranch.”

  She tried to makes sense of it all. “But all you want is this piece of the ranch.”

  He nodded.

  “Why isn’t she mad at your father?”

  “It’s easier to blame me. When I first came to live here, Pricilla hadn’t known about me. My father just showed up and announced that I was his son.”

  That was unbelievable. “He’d never told her?”

  “No. She knew about his brief marriage to my mother, that was common knowledge. But few people knew she was pregnant when she ran off. When I came to live with them, it was an ugly time. Pricilla tried not to hate me, but I’m sure part of her did. And Abby was just old enough to pick up on that.”

  She couldn’t imagine. “That had to be awful for you.”

  “Wasn’t fun for Pricilla either. Believe me, I didn’t make it easy on her. When she tried to be kind, I was a snarly little bastard.”

  “Did it ever get better?”

  He smiled. “I don’t know how Pricilla’s lived with my father so long and not become a raving bitch, but she hasn’t. We thawed over time, probably a lot of that was Pammy. She followed me around and I secretly liked it. Pricilla loves her daughters, and since Pammy loved me, we had to find a way to co-exist. After a year or two, I realized Pricilla wasn’t all that bad and stopped working so hard to make her every waking moment miserable.”

  Becky leaned her head back against his shoulder. “Pricilla wanted to have a big reception.” She told him the whole story.

  “Luce had a point. It’s a good idea for us to be seen as a couple. Not just for me, but for you and Sophie, too.”

  “True.” Logan was keeping his word. Yesterday, once the tow truck had taken her car away, he’d driven them to the lawyer’s office and paid the retainer. And today, her car had been delivered to the ranch with four new tires. “Thank you for the tires on my car.”

  He brushed his hand up her arm. “I want you and Sophie safe.”

  Damn, he was doing it again, creating the illusion that he cared. “No one can see or hear us, you don’t have to say things like that. Or touch me.”

  He turned her in his arms, spreading his hand over her lower back. “Is that what you think?”

  The masculine scent of soap, leather, and hard work clung to him and Becky wanted to inhale it so deep into her lungs she’d keep it forever. Combined with the feel of his hand wide and possessive on her back, she melted more with every passing second. Struggling to regain her bearings, she said, “It’s what you told me. Like when you kissed me today in front of your family. That was for them.” Right?

  His eyes caught the sunlight streaming through a window, turning to green fire. He cupped her nape, sliding his thumb long the side of her throat. “It should have been.”

  Tingles fanned out from his touch. “It wasn’t?”

  “Sugar, you’re doing something to me. When I got back to the house and saw the cars there, the burn of anxiety started in on me.”

  “Why did that bother you?” She wanted to understand Logan better. Most of the time, he seemed so calm and in control. But the night she’d found him sitting in the dark on the porch, the tension coming off him had been sharp and jagged.

  “My house, this land, it’s the place I come to be alone and beat back the PTSD when it rears up. Here I have complete control.”

  He was telling her something important and she wanted to make sure she grasped what it was. “What does that control mean to you?” She didn’t know a great deal about PTSD, but she wanted to. Logan was building a compound here to help vets who were dealing with it and it mattered to her.

  His hand on her back stiffened and his thumb on her jaw froze.

  She gripped his waist, desperate to hold onto him and the moment. “You told me I can talk to you, that no one is judging us when it’s just you and me. You can tell me.”

  He shook his head.

  Before she could think, she blurted out, “I’ll go first then. I’m afraid I’ll never have what my parents had—real love. That no one will ever really want me for just me. They only want me to bang the beauty queen then leave.”

  As soon as the words were out, she regretted it. She’d just bared her soul to him. Aside from losing Sophie, that was the dread that Becky carried each and every day. That she just wasn’t loveable for herself.

  To a strong, powerful man like Logan, that had to sound pathetic. Would he dismiss her like most everyone else?

  Chapter Nine

  A bolder lodged in her chest as she waited to hear what Logan would say. How young and self-absorbed did it make her sound that here she was getting ready for a battle to keep Sophie safe from Dylan, and she told him her deepest fear was not being loved?

  “I should go back and check on Sophie.”

  Logan’s hand firmed on her back. “Pam will call if Sophie needs you.”

  She opened her mouth, desperate for another way to break this awful sick feeling.

  Logan cut her off. “The beauty queen routine you showed me is hot. Sizzling hot.”

  That’s when he’d first kissed her. Of course it was.

  “But the way you are right now as the real Becky? That’s the woman I want to have dinner and hang out with, then take to my bed to figure out all the ways I can make her come. That’s the woman I’d want to wake up with and make love to as the morning light streams in.” His chest expanded beneath his T-shirt, and the muscles beneath her fingers tensed. “You’re the woman I want to try to talk to.”

  She couldn’t move beneath the cascade of his words. He saw her as real and worthy. That held her captive. Becky waited, letting him work out what he could tell her.

  Finally he took a breath. “I get claustrophobia, so bad that sometimes I can’t go through a door into the house. And if there are people in there, it’s worse.”

  The raw, living vulnerability in his eyes shook her right to her bones. Something beyond awful had happened to him. She thought back to the night she found him on the porch and he’d said he couldn’t sleep.

  “That’s why you couldn’t come in that night on the porch.”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you angry at me? Because we’re in your house, causing you to have this reaction?” He’d been hurting and she’d just left him there.

  He shifted his hand, sliding it beneath her tank, his warm skin marking her lower back. It was shockingly intimate and soothing at the same time. “When you touched me, it was all I could do not to pull you into my lap and hold you.” He paused a beat. “But I knew that once I started touching you, I wouldn’t have stopped.”

  “Even if I told you to?” She was getting drawn deeper and deeper into him, and every layer she peeled back fed
her desperation to know, see, and feel more of him.

  “Would you have?”

  With his eyes commanding hers, his hands imprinting his touch on her back and nape, while his thumb stroked her skin, the answer was inevitable. “No.” Just like when he’d kissed her the first time, and she’d wrapped herself around him. Yet her weakness and loss of control didn’t appall him.

  “That’s why I sent you in the house that night. I knew if I started, you’d let me keep going even if you weren’t ready. I’m not going to use you like that, but you came back and gave me that damn blanket.”

  She shivered beneath his gaze, too many thoughts and feelings crowding her mind; desire, heat, lust, and a deep need to keep this connection between them. “It was cold outside.”

  He smiled at her. “That right there? That sweet caring is what’s shredding my control. I damn near begged you to let me hold you then, give you as much pleasure as you could take.” His eyes burned into hers. “You asked why I kissed you today.”

  She hadn’t exactly asked, but it didn’t matter. “Why?”

  “Because when I touch you, it all gets easier. Kissing you today was like that blanket—warm, soft, and giving me a little protection.” He tilted in, his attention 100 percent on her. “I kissed you for me, but I stopped at a quick kiss for you.”

  Her breath caught and she leaned into the slow, easy strokes of his thumb. Craved it.

  “I won’t let our kissing and touching get out of control in front of other people. You can trust me for that.”

  The way he’d heard her and cared for her feelings ripped away her reservations and worries. Logan needed her. She stared at his mouth.

  “But if I kiss you now, I’m not stopping.” He skated his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’ll start here. Then I will strip you naked, lay you on the couch in my office, and kiss my fill of you.”

  His eyes blazed with greedy fire as he drew his thumb down her throat, sliding over her tank to the side swell of her breast. Her nipples tingled.

  “No matter how many times I make you come like that, it won’t be enough, will it?” His cheekbones darkened to a dusky red. “You’ll still ache to be filled.” Logan tugged her hips to his.

  The long thick column of his erection pressed against her belly. A deep emptiness throbbed between her thighs while her panties grew wet, her body too sensitive.

  Logan wrapped his arm around her waist, lifting her eye-to-eye. “You’re my girl who needs to be touched and held, and I’m going to hold you when I thrust into you, filling you as full as you can take, and look into your eyes as we both come undone together.”

  She shivered, nearly dizzy with need as she dug her fingers into the slab of muscle on his sides. “Logan.”

  He wrapped an arm around her back, his other pulling the clip out of her hair and combing his fingers through the tresses. Gentle patience touched his eyes, a brief calming of the flames burning in them. “We have a few months together. Don’t rush this if you’re not ready. If you want to wait, I’ll take you to see the stables and meet my horses.”

  Her throat thickened with sensual trust she didn’t ever recall experiencing before. She went up on her toes. “I don’t want to stop.”

  Then she kissed him.

  …

  Logan shuddered as her words echoed in his brain. Half of him wanted to rip her clothes off and sheath his cock deep inside her, feel that essence that made her alive and vibrant. She had the power to shove back the ugliness inside of him, the memories and failures that shadowed his soul. But the other half of him wanted to savor Becky.

  Don’t rush her. She deserves better.

  He secured his hand in the warm silk of her hair, tilted her head back, and devoured her mouth. She responded, tangling her tongue with his as if she was starved for him. Oh hell yeah, she wanted this as much as he did. Logan swung her up into his arms, carried her to his office, and kicked the door shut, sealing them in his private space. He set her on her feet.

  Becky broke the kiss and stepped back.

  He fought a suffocating wave of disappointment, that crushing sense of aloneness that had been growing in him. “Do you want to slow down? Stop?”

  She shook her head, her honey locks sliding around her bare shoulders as she fished her cell from her pocket and set it on his desk. “I just want to make sure I hear the phone if Pam needs me.” Becky reached behind her back beneath her shirt.

  His heart pounded and anticipation simmered and popped. “What are you doing?”

  She grasped her bra straps beneath the tank and tugged them down her arms. “My bra is functional, but not attractive. I’m getting it out of our way.” She tossed the garment on the end of the couch.

  The small room heated even though he’d flipped on the air conditioner. Beneath the white tank, he could see the outlines of her heavy breasts, the fat dark nipples poking against that white material. “More.” The word came out a thick demand. Looking into her eyes, he swallowed once. “Show me how beautiful you are.”

  Her eyes darkened as she gripped the bottom of her tank and tugged it up slowly, baring the top of her loose jeans, followed by inch after inch of pale skin, and then her rib cage.

  He fisted his hands, struggling to stand down. Not touch her, not yet.

  She yanked off the shirt, her swollen breasts bouncing free. His mouth dried with a desperate need to taste her dark nipples. They stood rigid and begging to be licked and sucked. His resistance broke and he closed the distance, filling his palms with her breasts, gently thumbing those tight peaks.

  Becky shivered.

  Leaning in, he licked her lips, and kissed to her ear. “You want my mouth on your nipples, don’t you?”

  “God yes.”

  Her skin tasted so damn good, but it wasn’t enough. Sucking on her collarbone, he lifted his head to let her pull his shirt off. Unable to wait, he dragged his tongue over her nipple.

  Becky hissed the sweetest sound, telling him all he needed to know. Her fingers dove into his hair, tugging him closer to feel her heart pounding.

  He leaned up to kiss her. “Your mouth tastes good. I want to see all of you. Will you let me?”

  She nodded, her fingers sliding to unbutton her pants for him.

  Her trust flooded him with the drive to make this good for her, to show her that she was special. Catching her hands, he guided her to sit on the couch, pulled off her boots and socks. Brushing her hands away, he dragged her pants off, leaving Becky in a scrap of black panties. Logan sat back on his heels. His cock throbbed and pulsed brutally against his zipper, but the sight of Becky on the black couch was so damned hot, he drank her in.

  He palmed her calves, feeling the muscles there, then eased them apart. The silky material of her panties clung to her center. His heart pounded, his blood pumped. Heat bloomed over his face and chest. “I can see how wet you are.”

  Her hands clenched on the couch at her hips. “I—”

  Slapping his hands down on the couch, he crowded in close to her. “Don’t apologize for that.”

  There in her eyes flashed a flicker of shame that he was going to erase now and forever. Rising, he got rid of his boots, then slipped the button free on his jeans and eased down the zipper. Her gaze traveled down his stomach, the color rising in her face. “Are you watching?”

  She licked her lips. “Yes.”

  He shoved his pants down. His cock sprang out, fully erect. Kicking his pants away, he braced his legs apart. He really had her attention now. Right on his cock, making his dick twitch and jerk. Logan laid his hand on her cheek. With his other hand, his guided her fingers to his throbbing shaft. “See that? Feel it? That’s what you do to me.” He couldn’t stop from thrusting into her soft, warm hand. Shivers raced down his back. But he kept his eyes opened, letting her see how much he wanted her. Tilting her face up, he leaned close and kissed her. “There’s no shame between us, sweetheart. If you want this, then don’t be afraid to let me see, feel, and taste how much you want
me. Just like I’m showing you.”

  She stroked the sensitive underside, nearly driving him to his toes, but he stayed flat footed, letting her explore. “Two things.”

  “Yeah?” He hoped he could hear her over the blood roaring in his ears. The way she was touching him was erotic torture.

  “You’re huge.”

  Okay, that slapped a smug smile on his face and unleashed pride in his chest.

  She released his dick, pressed back into the couch and hooked her fingers in the top of her panties. “And I want you.” Once she dragged that scrap of material off she leaned back.

  “Show me.”

  Becky spread her thighs open. His blood was pounding and need hammered down his spine. He dropped to his knees. “That…Christ. You could kill a man with a mouth-watering surprise like that.” His sweet girl was completely bare, her folds swollen and wet for him.

  “Birthday present.”

  “What?” The words didn’t make sense. Nothing did, except the driving need to taste her, then bury himself into her until they were both exhausted and satisfied.

  “On my birthday, Ava took me for a wax job. Hurt like a bitch. I almost killed her.”

  “Becky?” Logan grabbed a condom from his pocket and rolled it on.

  “Mmm?”

  Her legs trembled as he spread her thighs wider with his shoulders. The scent of her arousal saturated his lungs. He flicked his gaze up. “I’ll make it better, baby. I’ll make it so good, you’ll scream when you come.”

  …

  Logan’s heated gaze between her legs made her feel cherished and sexy in a way nothing else ever had. His warm breath heated her flesh. Shivers danced through her, and her nipples tingled.

  Then he leaned in and licked her, igniting her body on fire. She couldn’t stay still. Every lick inflamed her more.

  Logan clamped a hand on her hip, holding her in place. He rolled his eyes up to watch her as he closed his mouth around her clit.

  Shuddering, she couldn’t look away from the intensity of his gaze. He traced her opening with his finger tip then eased it in. The slide of his knuckles tore a moan from her.