by Tawny Weber
That he was angry was clear.
At her? At himself? At the situation? That part was up for grabs.
It didn’t matter. She was sure she could soothe the anger with a few kisses. That she could reach inside and fix whatever made him so sad.
She shifted closer. Not quite plastering her body against his―she wasn’t sure where his injury was and didn’t want to hurt him. But close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. To brush his chest with the tips of her breasts, sensitive even through the nubby knit of her sweater.
When she moved, his kiss changed. He pulled back, his lips softer now. Distant. Afraid he was going to end their kiss, she called up all of her nerve, wrapped her hands around the back of his neck to hold him in place and plunged her tongue into his mouth.
It was like flipping a switch.
No more anger. No more distance.
Just passion. Pure and sweet.
His tongue slid along hers and his hands wrapped around her waist under her sweater. Flesh against flesh. She shivered at the feel of his fingers, rough and strong against her skin.
His palm closed over her breast, making her whimper. It felt so good. Her nipples ached with a delicious kind of pain, so hard she was surprised they didn’t rip her silk bra.
“More,” she breathed against his mouth.
“Is this what you want?” he asked, his hand pressing between her thighs, the seam of her jeans riding against the swollen flesh and driving her crazy. “Is this how you want it?”
She’d rather have it naked, but she was too far gone to speak. She wasn’t positive she was even breathing. All she could do was feel the amazing sensations rocketing through her body.
His fingers scraped over the seam of her jeans again, making her whimper. The sensations intensified, her entire body feeling like it was electrified. Desire coiled, tighter and tighter between her thighs. His lips closed over hers, tongue plunging before he lured hers into his mouth and sucked.
She exploded with a tiny whimper. Tiny sparks of light blew to pieces behind her closed eyes and the room spun as the orgasm poured through her. He slowed the kiss, then as her pants became shuddering breaths, trailed his lips over her cheek to bury his face in the crook of her neck.
Genna sighed, feeling as though she’d run a marathon.
In her jeans.
Again.
The guy had given her the two best orgasms of her life, and she hadn’t gotten her jeans off for either of them.
Time to change that.
But suddenly, she was nervous.
This wasn’t Brody, her brother’s friend.
He was different now.
He’d seen things, done things that were beyond her comprehension. He was a soldier. A SEAL. The best of the best at doing the impossible.
Since there was nothing impossible about what she wanted him to do to her, this should be a piece of cake.
As if he’d read her thoughts, he slowly pulled back. Genna ran her palm over his cheek, smiling and ready to make a joke.
But the distance on his face was a little off-putting.
She took a shaky breath, trying to calm her racing heart.
She’d never felt this way before. Her body was still humming and she was ready to strip naked and do all the things to his body that she’d dreamed of for years. Things she’d had zero interest in doing to other guys’ bodies. Brody things.
“You need to go,” he growled. “Now. Before this goes too far.”
Go? Was he kidding? The climax was still working its magic on her body in delightful little shudders.
“I think it needs to go just a little bit further,” she corrected softly, nibbling kisses along his jaw and down his throat. He gave a low moan when she got to that spot beneath his ear, emboldening her. One hand still gripping his biceps for balance, she grazed the other down his side and across his rock-hard abs, taking a second to give her own moan of appreciation. Then, still nibbling, she slipped her fingers beneath the elastic waistband of his sweatpants.
Before she could explore, or even touch anything interesting, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
“Further,” she whispered in his ear, dipping her tongue along the rim before adding, “Please.”
“Genna—”
“C’mon,” she cajoled. “Let’s see how good we are together. This is it, finally we get to give us a chance before you have to go back to being a big, bad SEAL heroically saving the world. Let’s do it now.”
It was as though the hard, hot body in her arms had turned to ice. She pulled back to look at him, trying to figure out what was going on.
“I’m not a damned hero,” he ground out.
Genna laughed. “Of course you are. Even the president says so.”
“I’m no hero and there is no we,” he said with a laugh so bitter it made her mouth hurt. When Genna shook her head, he shifted aside. As if moving away from her body would make the differences between them all the more obvious. Since he was hard and she was panting, it was a smart strategy.
Genna wanted to thump her hand against her chest to force some air past the knot in her throat.
He was so big, looming over her. His body was like a solid wall of muscles. Even through his T-shirt, she could see them bunch, hard and firm beneath the fabric.
“Brody—” she said slowly, then went silent. She had no idea what to say. This wasn’t the Brody she’d held in her mind all these years. The one she remembered as her gallant hero, the one who wrote her incendiary letters. The one who made her melt with just a look. Okay, maybe he was that last one, but not the rest. And she wasn’t sure what to think about it.
“Look, we should—”
“No,” he interrupted. “There is no we. There’s you, the pampered princess. And there’s me.”
He paused, giving her a once-over that made her go hot and cold both at the same time. “Not interested.”
Despite her confusion and the sick feeling in her stomach, hot passion was still gripping her limbs and pooling between her thighs. Genna dropped her eyes to the very large, very visible proof pressing against his sweatpants.
“No? You look mighty interested to me,” she taunted without thinking. As soon as the words were out, though, she wished she could pull them back.
“Sweetheart, you want to get naked and do me right? Fine, let’s go. I’m willing to let you. But that’s not interest. That’s over the minute I roll off your body.”
His words hit Genna like a kick in the gut. Swift, well aimed and brutally painful. Emotionally reeling, she tried to take a breath, but it hurt so much.
“But I thought—” She broke off, not about to admit what their letters had meant to her. Or what these kisses were a sign of. And definitely not a peep about the fantasies, the dreams and the hopes she’d built around him over the years.
“You thought what? That because we played the old-school version of sexting that there was something going on? That because I’m willing to do you against the wall, it’s special?”
Ouch. Genna frowned, suddenly feeling very naive. Apparently they taught mind reading in SEAL school.
“I didn’t think the letters were a secret code for let’s run away together. But neither did I think they were your version of a girl in every port.” Wishing she were anywhere but here, Genna tried to ignore the tight knot of misery in her stomach, where only moments ago had been white-hot desire. “Did you write me just to be mean? For some kind of revenge? Is that what this was all about?”
For a second Brody looked as if he was going to protest. Then his expression smoothed again, back to stoic military machine.
“A day where we learn something isn’t a day wasted,” he told her in a sanctimonious tone that made her want to kick him in the shin. And not the good one.
“Well, I guess today is fabulous,” Genna said, tears burning her eyes. She lifted her chin, daring them to fall. “I learned that you weren’t the man I thought you were. I found out that you make
an excellent bully and that you have no problem playing games and deliberately hurting someone.”
She waited for him to protest. To claim she was wrong.
She wanted, desperately, for him to be that guy she’d always thought he was. To be the one who fought the odds, faced down the bullies. The one who protected her. That Brody was her hero.
But this one? His expression didn’t change. She struggled to accept that this was the real him. The boy she’d known was a distant loner with a rough reputation and a questionable attitude. But she’d always been sure that was just a defense mechanism, maybe because his father sucked and he’d had such a bad childhood. On their night together he’d joked, he’d smiled. He’d been so sweet.
“But then, you’ve never known me, have you?”
Again with the mind reading. Genna wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry, or to throw cookies at him. It wasn’t as though she’d spent the last decade waiting around for him. But still, their relationship had been a cherished memory, that one thing that’d always made her feel special. Made her feel as if whatever else was lousy in her life, the hottest guy she’d ever crushed on had cared enough about her, about her reputation, to give up his freedom.
But it looked as though she was the only person who gave a damn about that memory.
Humiliation washed over her, making her blink fast to clear the burning from her eyes.
“I guess I don’t know you. Not any better than anyone else around here. You’re either the badass troublemaker son of the town drunk. Or maybe you’re the abused grandson of a sweet lady who thinks you need saving. Or, wait, I know,” she snapped, “you’re the big bad hero the mayor wants to honor for your incredible service to your country. But whatever you are, it’s not what I thought.”
“Well, then,” he said slowly, his words like gravel. “I guess that says it all. Maybe now you’ll go?”
It wasn’t his words that broke her heart, though. It was the look in his eyes. For one brief second, so much pain and loss flashed in those gold depths that she didn’t know how he could survive it.
Genna didn’t remember leaving the guesthouse. She wasn’t sure if she ran across the alley, went around the house or sprouted wings and flew into her bedroom window.
She’d thought he’d forgiven her.
She’d thought he was interested in her, that those letters had meant something. That maybe he wanted her. The real her, not the perfectly behaved, please-everyone princess he’d so accurately dubbed her.
She’d thought they had something special between them. That those letters, that one night, they were proof of the passion and connection they shared.
Genna pressed her lips together, trying to stop the tears that were trailing, fiery hot, down her cheeks.
Now she was afraid he was a stranger.
One who hated her.
7
THERE WERE TIMES, miserable times, that a girl needed work. When it was good to have a job to focus on, to serve as a distraction from heartbreak.
This was not one of those times.
Real life sucked when she didn’t have her secret fantasy to fall back on. After her mind-blowing climax, a nasty descent into reality and the proceeding all-night crying binge, Genna had tasked herself with getting over Brody. It shouldn’t be that hard to get over a hero who had never existed, should it?
Three days later and she still hadn’t figured out how. But hey, she had the rest of her long, lonely, dull life to work on it. She’d get there eventually.
She arranged coffee cups on a tray, making sure to add sugar in the form of cubes, granulated and raw. Yet another pathetic example of how sad her life was when the highlight of her day was getting the exact same amount of sugar in each bowl. It was enough to make her scream. Or maybe that was because her boss was still talking about his new favorite subject. Hometown Hero, Brody Lane.
“This event will be fabulous. We need to be sure enough press is invited. Not just lifestyle. I want current events, politics. War Hero Welcomed Home by Loving Town With Parade. That’ll make a great headline.”
“It needs work,” Marcus Reilly said from his spot at the opposite end of the table from the mayor. “You’re putting up a lot of fuss over a guy who, what? Did his job?”
Glad her back was to them, Genna freely rolled her eyes. Did his job? Leave it to her father to be a little black rain cloud. The sheriff had never been what anyone could call effusive. But over the last few years, the worse Joe’s behavior was, the more withdrawn their father became. Almost as if he’d been expecting Joe’s death and had figured on getting in some mourning ahead of time.
“Fine. We’ll let the papers come up with the headline. Either way, hometown hero appreciation is good PR. A parade is good commerce and after all, it is election season,” Tucker pointed out, those words saying it all.
The cookies arranged just so and coffee balanced on the tray, Genna turned toward the men gathered around the long teak table. An informal monthly meeting among Bedford’s movers and shakers included the mayor and sheriff, of course. A couple of high-profile businesspeople, the bank owner and, she sighed, one perfect lawyer rounded up this month’s powwow.
Avoiding the lawyer, Perfect Stewart who was still angling for a second date, she moved to the other side of the room with her tray. She wasn’t sure how her job as community liaison had come to include playing hostess. But given that her job was more a backroom agreement between her boss and her father, she figured the mayor was looking for whatever he could to justify her paycheck. She’d protested the job once, wanting to quit and find something that she’d love. But that night Joe had been hauled in by Highway Patrol on drug charges. Her father had left midprotest to deal with the fallout. By the time he’d bailed out her brother, smoothed over the furor and glossed away the damage to his sheriff’s reputation, Genna had given up arguing.
“Coffee?” she asked the room at large as she set the tray in the center of the table. Then she stepped back, returning to the counter to prepare the backup plate of cookies she knew they’d want soon.
It was bad enough she had to hostess these things. She drew the line at being waitress. As appreciative sounds and compliments on the cookies started flowing around the table, she admitted she didn’t mind playing caterer, though.
Besides, she’d been on a baking binge for the last four days, ever since her encounter with Brody. Every counter in her kitchen was covered in some treat or another. And that was after sharing with all of her neighbors, her friends and the senior center.
“Genna?” Mayor Tucker called around a mouthful of cookie. “Have you spoken to Lane again? Has he agreed to meet with me?”
Go back and see Brody? The man who made her insides melt, turned her body into a panting puddle of passion and then summarily rejected her?
No, no and hell, no. Genna tried to think of a polite way to reword that. Before she could, her father gave a garbled protest.
“What? You sent Genna to talk to him?” The sheriff straightened, his cookie crumbs blasting across the table. His face turned a worrying shade of red and his mouth worked as if he was chewing up words to keep from spitting them out.
Looks of shock and worry flew around the room.
“Of course,” the mayor said slowly. “That’s her job.”
Genna’s face heated. Unspoken, but heard loud and clear by everyone in the room, was that it was a job her father had actively solicited, then called on all his parental guilt pressure to get her to take.
“I don’t want her near Lane. The guy is a loser.”
It was too much. He decided her job. He tried to control her dating. And now he was railroading her boss as to what her duties were? Anger bubbled up, slow at first but rapidly heating.
Forgetting her desire to stay as far away from Brody as possible, Genna stepped forward to argue. Both against her father’s high-handed mandate as he continued to try to run her life, and at the idea that Brody was a loser.
Thankfully before she g
ot a word out, and caused a scene that would send her father into yet another meltdown and her mother to the hospital to have her heart checked, someone cleared their throat.
“Brody Lane?” Stewart asked, confusion clear on his face. “The guy we’re planning a parade for? The navy SEAL recently recommended for a Silver Star?” He let the words hang in the room for a few seconds, then gave a baffled shake of his head. “That guy is a loser?”
“No, no,” Tucker broke in, giving the sheriff a quick glare before plastering over it with a cheesy smile. “That’s old history. Sheriff Reilly remembers when Brody Lane was a troubled teen, well before the U.S. Navy turned him around. It’s quite a rags-to-riches story. Something to include in the article, don’t you think?”
“Get him yourself, then. Genna’s not going near the guy.”
Holy crap, she was sick of men. Sick of them deciding what she could or should do. Sick of them treating her as if she couldn’t make her own decisions, or if she did, of them proving to her just how stupid some of those decisions might be.
“I’m standing right here,” she pointed out in her chilliest tone. “If you want me to do something, or would rather I didn’t, why don’t you tell me directly?”
“This doesn’t concern you, Genna,” her father said dismissively.
Genna’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t her reaction that goaded her father into recanting, though. It was the expressions on the rest of the faces in the room.
“What I mean is that protecting the citizens of Bedford is my job, and this is part of that,” he said, giving Genna a paternal look. The kind a proud father gives a little kid, loving and indulgent and just a little patronizing.
It made Genna want to throw a tantrum just to justify it.
But the minute she snapped, the family drama would start. Guilt, games, hospital trips. Every freaking time.
Her throat closed up and black dots danced in front of her vision. Genna felt as if she was choking. It was all she could do to breathe, which was probably just as well given the words that were trying to trip off her tongue.
Finally, she sucked in a deep breath, lifted her chin and gave her father a chilly smile.
