Last True Hero

by Diana Gardin

  I place my hand directly over his sternum and squeeze my eyes shut when I feel how his heart is racing beneath my hand.

  My Daredevil isn’t scared of anything.

  But it seems he’s very, very afraid of this memory.

  “You can stop if you want to, Dare.” My whisper is scratchy and urgent. I don’t want him to feel like this. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  He grunts, giving a quick shake of his head.

  “I want you to know,” he whispers raggedly. “I just want to get this out there between us. Because if you don’t know all of me, of what I’ve done to be here with you right now…then you don’t know me at all.”

  I nod, and hot tears spring to my eyes.

  “Okay, Dare. Tell me. I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  He sucks in a shuddering breath before he continues.

  “When I woke up, I was somewhere stifling hot, and dark. I was on the floor, but my hands were chained above my head, cuffed at the wrists. My left side felt like it was on fire, and when I looked down I almost lost it. My side was sliced open, and there was a bandage covering it that was soaked in blood. I was woozy, I was aching. I knew right away that I wasn’t going to make it. Not imprisoned the way I was. I just started praying, and I’d never done that before.”

  The tears spill over, cascading down my cheeks. I love this man. I truly do, and everything he’s telling me is just making my love grow. The fact that he’s been through something like this is breaking me apart. I’ve only ever seen Dare as this strong, confident guy. The guy who makes me laugh. The guy who sweeps me off my feet. The guy who’s made me fall in love with him. The little boy who endured so much heartache and pain is somehow a dark part of who makes him the man he is today. But this? This is something else altogether.

  “I kept phasing in and out of consciousness, and I have no idea how much time passed. But after a while, the rebels came into the room in the hut where they were keeping me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. There were three of them. They were just screaming at me. I couldn’t answer them. Finally, they got so pissed that they knocked me unconscious with the butt of one of their rifles.”

  I jerk involuntarily. He strokes my hair again, trying to calm me. He’s trying to calm me?

  “Eventually, one of their leaders came in to talk to me. He was…a monster. The coldest man I’ve ever been in contact with, ever. He just sat across from me and stared for a long time. And then he would ask me a question in English. He’d ask about our military forces, about strategies that we used, about our plans for their rebel forces.”

  He looks down at me, and his pupils are so wide they’re swallowing his irises. It’s a vast difference from the normally light green they usually are. It’s startling. “And every time I refused to answer, he would hurt me.”

  He must have read the look of horror on my face, because he shook his head. “It was always something minimal. He would break bones in my fingers or cut me somewhere on my body. Once time he broke my jaw. I’ve had so many surgeries to fix everything broken, I’ve lost count.”

  The last remark is wry, and his lips twist in a humorless smile. “I never told him a damn thing.”

  Finally, I can’t contain myself anymore. “Dare…how long did they keep you there?”

  He sits up, agitatedly running his hands through his hair and sighing. It takes him a long moment before he answers me.

  Finally, he replies, “They intended to keep me there until they killed me, Berkeley. But I escaped before they had the chance.”

  My mouth goes slack. I sit up beside him, and he leans back against the ivory upholstered headboard of my queen-size bed. “You escaped?”

  He nods, weary now. “It was an act of God. I can’t call it anything else. I should have died there in that hut. Hell, I should have died at the airfield like the rest of my guys. They uncuffed me when they tortured me. It was after one of our interview sessions that I was lying on the ground, beaten and broken…so they thought. I slipped into an unconscious state, and I guess they just left me that way because they thought that if I wasn’t dead, I was close enough to it that I wouldn’t be able to move, even if I did wake up. I shouldn’t have been able to. But when I woke, I realized that I wasn’t chained. My body was heavy and in really horrible pain, and I was bleeding from a head wound. My ribs were cracked. But somehow, I got to my feet. I could hobble pretty well, and that’s what I did. They were gone. Must have been doing a raid on women and children.”

  He sounds bitter, angry. And rightfully so. I can’t believe what he’s telling me is true. He should be wearing so many medals of valor he can barely stand up from the weight of them all. He should be commanding some humongous unit of men, even helping command a base. What the hell happened when he got back?

  “As soon as I left my prison, I realized I wasn’t alone after all. They’d left a guard just outside the hut. Just one guy.”

  He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and looks me straight in the eye. His gaze is tortured. I gulp, terrified of what he’s about to tell me.

  “It was my only chance to escape, Berkeley, and I wasn’t losing it. He wasn’t expecting to see me there. I caught him by surprise, and…I killed him.” His eyes close briefly, and when he opens them again I see the bleak emotion filling them up. “I killed him with my bare hands.”

  Tears stream silently down my face, and I can feel my body going numb as I listen to the rest of his story.

  “It took me days of just surviving in the jungle to make it to the nearest village. I dragged myself forward, I ate what I could find, I drank rainwater. When I finally crossed into that village, into safety, I fucking cried. And then I passed out.”

  I can’t take my eyes off of him. “What happened? They contacted the army?”

  He nods. “They did, with a short-wave radio. And the PJs were there within hours. I was a mess. I was in the hospital for a month after that. But when I finally got out, I wanted to go back to duty. I had to go through all the standard testing for that. Physical and emotional. I was cleared emotionally, somehow. But physically…I was done. I couldn’t serve anymore, unless I wanted to be behind a desk. I’m not a desk kind of guy. So I took the discharge.”

  My eyes widen in disbelief. I know, I can hear by the way he talks about his time serving, that he loved it. That it is in his blood and he’s made to protect people. My heart cracks for him, right there on my bed.

  “I’m so sorry, Dare. I don’t even know what to say. The fact that you survived something like that…no wonder you still have nightmares. I hate that it even happened to you. I hate you can’t do what you love anymore. I hate—”

  “Berkeley.” He interrupts me, his voice so quiet I have to lean toward his face. “Did you miss the part where I just told you I killed someone with my bare hands?”

  I shake my head quickly. “Do you think I’d judge you for that? My God, Dare. You’re a soldier. It was your life, or his. I would never—”

  He stops me with his lips. They’re upon mine, and it’s…different. It’s tender, more loving than any kiss Dare has ever given me. His lips devour mine, as usual, but in a slow, agonizing way. When he pulls back, his eyes are fierce.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  My head is spinning, and I grip his shoulders to keep myself upright. He pulls me astride him, into his lap. We face each other, staring. “For being Berkeley. The only person on the planet that I could share that with in detail. I’ll never tell you about everything that happened to me in that hut. But the fact that I could share that story at all…it’s everything, Berkeley. It’s everything.”

  I reach up, tangling my fingers in his hair and pulling him toward me. My voice is just as fierce as his expression. “That part of you? The part of you who fought against the odds of being a product of the foster care system? The you who clawed your way back from hell out there in the jungle? The part of you that did whatever you had to do in every dangerous situation you�
��ve ever been in? I love that part of you just as much as all the other softer, sweeter parts, Dare. I love you for every facet you have. To me, you’re everything.”

  He stares at me, eyes wide. I realize belatedly that this is the first time I’ve ever told him I love him. His face changes with a myriad of emotions. Finally, he settles on deep, hungry desire. My body turns liquid, just waiting for him to strike.

  He does. He grabs my face and melds his lips to mine. The gentle caresses of his lips and tongue from a moment ago are gone, and my fierce, ferocious soldier is back. He kisses me like he wants a piece of me.

  And God, I hope that he does.

  33

  Dare

  Thank God the girl’s already naked, because with the way I’m feeling, her clothes would have been ripped to shreds. I need her under me, and I need it now.

  She loves me. I know how I feel about her, and I know how I hoped she felt about me. But now I know.

  She fucking loves me.

  I try, and fail, to remember the last time anyone uttered those words to me. It hasn’t happened since I lost my parents. So many families I belonged to since then. No one ever, ever loved me. I didn’t realize how starved I was for it until that very moment.

  When those words fell out of her mouth, she put a cast on all the pieces of me that were broken. She healed me in ways the doctors never could.

  Now I’m starved in a whole new, dangerous way. I’m starved for her.

  My body is reacting of its own accord. All of her naked, smooth skin slides underneath me as I lean over her. Her soft curves, so sensual and hot, curl around me in exactly the right places. I couldn’t have fantasized this better, and I fantasize about naked Berkeley a whole hell of a lot.

  She whimpers as my hand grips her good wrist and holds it above her head. I don’t want the distraction of her hands right now. I just want to appreciate this goddess-like body that’s been placed in front of me on a platter.

  I trail my lips down her neck, forging a moist trail down until I reach the round curve of her breast. Remembering the feel of it in my mouth a while ago, I reinvest in this activity full-force. Her answering cry of encouragement is like the universal thumbs-up letting me know that what I’m doing is invariably awesome.

  “Baby, if you’re going to stop me…now’s the time to do it,” I growl. Shit, I don’t mean to sound so gruff, but I really don’t want her to ask me to stop. I actually might cease breathing if she does.

  “Don’t stop.” She breathes. “Like, ever.”

  I grin against her sweet skin as my hand strokes her stomach.

  Berkeley’s body is something men like Homer and Virgil wrote about ages ago. It’s not like any other girl’s I’ve dated. She respects it in a way that I’ve never seen. She doesn’t starve it; she doesn’t abuse it. She takes pride in it and refuses to hide it. It’s elegant and erotic at the same time, with all her soft, plump curves and lean, strong limbs. I’ll gladly worship this body, as often as she’ll let me. It’s the kind of body men really want to see in magazines, and yet she’s here lying naked in this bed with me.

  My hand reaches the junction between her thighs, and the skin there is stripped bare. I almost convulse right there, and I’m really regretting the fact that I’m still wearing my jeans.

  Bare.

  My finger easily finds the sweetest spot on her body, and as I draw tiny circles she begins to unravel beneath me.

  Holy fuck, she’s beautiful. She’s writhing and tugging her hand, trying to yank it away from my pinning hold. I lean over and whisper in her ear. “Tell me, Berkeley. Tell me what this does to you.”

  Her eyes slowly open, dark and wanting, sending an intense need straight to my manhood. I fight the urge to reach down and adjust everything that’s going on down there.

  “It’s…it’s driving me insane,” she whispers. “Your touch, Dare…it’s freaking, God, it’s gonna…”

  Ah, there it is. My Berkeley’s nothing if not vocal. I circle my finger a little bit faster, watching her face closely as her lips part and a moan escapes. Fuck, just watching her is going to make me lose it. “It’s gonna what?”

  She squirms as I draw my finger through her wetness and back to stroke her most tender spot once more. Her legs wrap around my waist, clenching in a death grip I think leaves dents in my sides. “Oh, God, Dare…please!”

  I don’t want her to beg. She doesn’t have to. I’m right the fuck here. I move away from her to stand, and she groans softly.

  “Don’t, baby. Look at me.” She responds to my order and looks up, watching me as I unclasp the button on my jeans and pull them down. The wrinkle in her forehead appears as she bites her lip, and I step out of my boxer briefs. Reaching down to my jeans, I grab a square foil packet and tear it open. Holding it up to her, I raise a brow.

  “This?”

  She nods emphatically. “That, and then you.”

  I roll on the hardware and then take my place on top of her once more. Spreading her legs wider with my knee, she gladly opens them for me and we’re closer than we’ve ever been before. Closer than I’ve ever been to anyone, because it’s so much more than just my body that’s involved here.

  She reaches down and grasps the length of me, running her hand down my shaft and back up again. I freeze, closing my eyes and trying desperately to control my urge to slip inside her and just start thrusting wildly.

  I take my hand and run it across her cheek, staring into her eyes with the now-familiar ardor I always feel when I look at Berkeley. “Let’s take this slow, okay? I want this to be perfect for you.”

  “It’s already perfect for me,” she whispers as her fingers take root in my hair. I fucking love it when her hands are in my hair. I close my eyes and she guides me toward her. I can feel her before I get there, she’s hot and ready. “It’s been perfect for me since that first night on the beach, Dare. We don’t have to take it slow, I just want you. I want my no-holds-barred soldier. Nothing less.”

  Growling, I rock my hips into her and she cries out from the force of the impact. It’s…Jesus.

  It’s bliss.

  I can’t take it slow if I tried, now that I’ve started. I pull back out and then thrust back inside of her with abandon. My mind travels to a place where it’s only me and my sexy, evil vixen siren. Acute ripples of pleasure pulsed through my entire body, focusing on the very center of me, at the place where our bodies are joined together. It’s unrivaled; nothing I’ve ever experienced can ever compare to this. Nothing I ever experience from this point forward will ever compare to this. Being inside of Berkeley is the key to what I’ve been searching for since my parents died.

  I’m home.

  She cries out beneath me. “Dare!”

  The way her body is arching beneath mine, the way her muscles are clenching and unclenching around me, I know she’s close and I want more than anything to push her over the edge and watch her break in my hands before I follow her into the abyss. I pull out slowly, agonizingly slowly, and reach a hand down between us.

  “Berkeley.” My voice is rough, strained with all of the heat and passion she’s stirred up inside of me. “Let me see you, baby.”

  She lifts hooded eyes to mine, and I use a finger to circle her once more. God, she’s soaking wet and pulsing gently beneath my finger. Oh, God, I can’t hold out.

  As if in answer to my silent thought, she stiffens, her whole body quivering with impending release.

  I circle my finger faster and keep my gaze focused on her beautiful face. Her lips part as she screams my name. “Let go, Berkeley. I protect what’s mine, remember? Let go for me, honey.”

  “Dare!” she screams, and her body relaxes. Her chest heaves as she stares up at me.

  “I love you,” she whispers.

  I’m not a fucking superhero. With those words, I can’t hold on any longer. I bury my face in her sweet-smelling neck, bathed in the scent of roses, and groan into her skin. My release overcomes me, and I think I actually bl
ack out for a few seconds. When I come to, soft fingers are trailing along my back, my side where my scar usually lies hidden, and my neck.

  Once again, I have the immensely comforting thought that I’ve finally made it home.

  “I love you, too,” I whisper against her skin.

  I wake up to the sunlight streaming in through Berkeley’s window. The gauzy curtains on either side of the opening do little to suppress the light, and I groan before reaching out for her. I instantly remember every single detail about the previous night, and I want her close to my side.

  When I realize she’s already lying on her side, I open my eyes and find her amber ones burning into mine.

  “Hey.” I smile sleepily. “You’re staring at me. Did you write on my face?”

  “No.” She giggles. “Your face first thing in the morning is something I thought I’d never get to see again. So, yeah, I’m staring. Can’t blame a girl.”

  I pull her closer. “I’m not going anywhere, ever again. So you can stare all you want.”

  She nods. I see the hesitation in her eyes, and I reach out to smooth the wrinkle on her forehead.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t have a nightmare?”

  Oh. Huh. “Uh, I guess not. The last thing I thought about before I fell asleep was about how I finally made it home. Meaning, you. You’re my home.”

  Her lips turn up in a smile that brings her dimples front and center. Every soft part I have inside melts at the sight of that smile. She’s reduced me to sappy-ass inner monologues. It gets better and better.

  She snuggles into my side. “I’m glad you’re back. I don’t care what my parents say. I don’t care what anyone says, Dare. I want you, and I’ll fight for us if I have to.”

  “Me, too.” I kiss the top of her wild, curly head. “You just made it to the very tip-top of my list of Top Five mornings ever.”