by Cindy Dees
“TBF?”
“To be, um, bedded.”
She started to shake her head, but he talked over her bubbling objections.
“Honestly, Marley, you’re a bit of a mystery to me,” he admitted. “I’m not exactly sure why I find you so intriguing. But there’s no question that I do. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”
Not a reassuring answer. But at least he’d been straight with her. She finished her rib in silence and reached for an ear of corn. The waitress asked if they’d like refills on their beers and Archer shook his head. When she raised a questioning brow at him, he replied, “I’m driving. And I’m flying tomorrow.”
“So, I’m supposed to drink by myself?”
He grinned. “Next time, I’ll take you somewhere we can both get plastered and dance naked on the tables.”
“Sounds fun,” she replied gamely. No way would she ever get naked in public, and it wasn’t her style to make a spectacle of herself. But that was the whole point of a fling, wasn’t it? To do things you never normally would and then walk away from them.
“Have another beer, Marley. You look like you could use it.”
What? Was he a mind reader, too? She took the proffered beer and downed it in about three gulps. Laughing quietly, he reached for another rib.
They finished the meal with small talk, and he pointed his truck back in the general direction of the movie set. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he announced.
“What kind of surprise?”
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, now would it?”
His smile stole her breath away. She breathed, “Man, you’re beautiful.”
“How ’bout we go with handsome instead? Or hot, or studly. But not beautiful.”
“How about all of the above?”
He smiled. “Right back atchya, baby.”
“Have you ever considered modeling?” she asked as he turned the truck onto a dark dirt road high in the mountains.
“I had a few offers to make porn movies in college.”
She didn’t know if he was teasing and to laugh or if he was being serious and to be appalled. She could totally believe porn producers would recruit him.
He turned off the main highway onto a one-lane road that was more trail than actual road. “Where are we going?” she inquired.
“You’ll see.”
Going secretive on her again, was he?
He stopped the truck in a few minutes and came around to help her out. “The view will be better in the back of my truck.”
Huh?
She let him help her up into the high truck bed, and she was shocked to land on a thick foam pad. He pulled pillows from the hotel from behind his seat and unfolded a blanket over her. Was he...? Did he plan to...?
Holy crap!
He stretched out beside her on the makeshift bed, and the heat of his body reached out to wrap around her seductively. “There’s a big meteor shower tonight. I thought you might enjoy seeing a little of it.”
Okay, she would never have guessed his idea of a fun date was to lie under the stars and watch meteors. Personally, she loved the idea. Was he seriously signaling that he was prepared to take his time wooing her? To let her set the pace and be patient until she was ready for more. The king of the one-night stand? Not in a million years would she have seen that one coming. Indeed, meteors were streaking across the sky at a steady clip. The night was chilly with the promise of coming winter, but Archer and the quilt were toasty warm. Her mind was a whirl, though. If he was waiting for her to set the pace, how was she supposed to show him she wanted more?
“Do you do this sort of thing often with women?” she queried.
“Not many women like this sort of thing.”
“Their loss.”
“Yup.”
Truth be told, she hadn’t done all that much outdoors stuff. She tended to stream shows about it onto her computer. Like most adventurous things she was interested in. She watched. She didn’t do.
They commenced a meteor-counting contest, which remained neck and neck as streaks flashed across the night sky. After a while, the peace and silence of the night emboldened her. “Can you tell me why you reacted so strongly to my question about yesterday’s filming?”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Classified.”
“Can you give me some generalities?”
“Nope.”
Well, shoot. Maybe if she came at it from another angle, he’d talk a little and she could catch an inkling of what nerve she’d touched. “What’s Afghanistan like?”
He answered emotionlessly, “Hot as hell in summer and cold as hell in winter. It has mountains, but not like these. Over there, the mountains are barren. Nothing grows on them. Huge stretches of country are nothing but gray rocks and dirt. Mile after mile of the stuff. It looks like the surface of the moon. The people are hard. Gotta be to live there, I suppose.”
He pointed out a meteor streaking across the sky. “Mine. I’m ahead, twelve to ten.” She groaned, and he continued. “Being in central Asia is like traveling back in time. Natives live like they did a thousand years ago. It’s hard to believe they exist on the same planet we do at the same time.”
“What can you tell me about your military flying?”
“I already told you, I come from the search-and-rescue community. Although it’s more rescue than searching. With today’s technology, the troops we pull out either have GPSs squawking their positions, or they have radios and can tell us where they are. My job is twofold. I have to get to the ground and get them on my bird. And I have to provide air cover to back off whatever hostiles are trying to prevent them from boarding my bird.”
“Wouldn’t hostile forces try to shoot at you, too?”
“Oh, they do more than try. We get shot at all the time.”
She was aghast. “How do you not get hurt?”
His shoulder lifted in a shrug against hers. “Luck. A good door-gunner. And we tend to light up the hostiles pretty hard before we move in for the pickup. They’re not usually feeling much like shooting at us by the time we land.”
She shuddered. “How do you know Steve Prescott?”
“We go way back,” Archer mumbled.
“How far back?” she prodded when he didn’t say more.
“He was a Marine before he got into doing movie stunt work. We crossed paths from time to time in the military. We’ve known each other forever.”
“What’s he like?”
“Good man. Honorable. Takes care of his own. Fair boss. Born-again bastard in a bar fight.”
“You always were on his side in bar fights?”
Archer grunted. “Hell, yeah. I didn’t want to lose. He saved my hide a few times, and I saved his a few. I lifted him and his guys into and out of some hot messes.”
“What kind of hot messes?”
“Classified hot messes.”
“As in combat?”
“As in I can’t talk about it.”
“Was it scary?”
He shrugged.
Scary enough to make him tense up like she had just hit him with a high-powered Taser gun apparently. “Do you look forward to going back overseas and doing more search-and-rescue flying?”
Another totally uncommunicative shrug from him. Not helpful.
“How’d you get from Chicago to California?” he asked in an abrupt and obvious attempt to change the subject.
So. He’d been thinking about her life story, too, had he? Or was he just trying to distract her from poking into his military career? “Greyhound bus,” she replied lightly.
“No ducking the question. I was square with you,” he declared. “Why the cross-country move to the West Coast?�
��
It was her turn to shrug. “Not enough happening in the Midwest. I wanted to be where the action was.”
He frowned. “And yet, you don’t partake of much action as far as I can tell. I don’t get it.”
Drat. He’d pegged her spot-on. She answered cagily, “I wanted the possibility of more.”
“What’s holding you back, then? Why not go for the gusto?”
Were they talking about sex? Or life in general? “I’d call giving up a steady job—in a tough field to get a job in at all—and trying to break into the movie business going for the gusto,” she answered a shade defensively.
“Many men in your life?” he asked lightly.
She snorted with laughter before she could recall the sound back into her throat. He pushed up on one elbow to stare down at her. “You’re an attractive woman. Enjoyable to talk with. Fun to be around. Has something bad happened in your past that’s put you off men?”
She jolted. “Good Lord, no. Nothing like that.” Just the tiny fact that she was a hazard to their health. Mina was the one who got all the boys, while she was the nervous sister. The one who never knew what to say to a boy. The self-conscious Stringer girl.
“Why are you so standoffish with guys?”
She was standoffish? Was that why men didn’t date her? “Explain how I’m standoffish.”
“It’s a vibe you put out. Like you’re not interested.”
God, this was embarrassing. “But I am interested. Thing is, I’ve always been that girl next door who kind of fades into the woodwork or ends up being the friend-zoned, little sister to my male acquaintances. My sister, Mina, was the one all the boys wanted to date.”
Propping himself up on one elbow, he laid a hand on her cheek and prevented her from looking away when she would have. His voice was low and intense. “Stop putting yourself down.”
“But...”
His mouth closed over hers, cutting off any further conversation in no uncertain terms. His kiss was firm at first, firm enough to make it clear he didn’t want to hear any more self-denigration out of her. But then his lips gentled. She registered how warm he was. How he tasted like barbecue. How he intentionally slowed this kiss down for her. His hand crept into her hair and he angled her head slightly to fit better with his.
His tongue licked across her lips and she gasped, surprised. He took advantage of it to taste her more deeply and the stars started to dance and spin overhead. All of a sudden, she was clinging to him as his hands roamed over her back and he kissed his way across her jaw and down her neck. He nibbled at her ear, and a strange sound she identified in shock as a moan escaped her throat. Funny things were happening in her nether regions and she pressed her thighs together, startled.
“Relax, Marley,” he murmured against her earlobe. His hand roamed from the back of her knee up her thigh, and darned if her legs didn’t obey him and fall apart. His hand slid by inches down her belly and cupped her intimately through her jeans. She about came undone right there.
“What are you doing?” she breathed as her fingers plunged of their own volition into his thick, dark hair.
“I’m establishing that all the guys who failed to ask you out in the past are complete idiots. Jinx be damned.”
She smiled reluctantly against his delicious mouth.
“Are you okay with this?” he mumbled against her neck.
“No. I want more,” she panted.
He laughed against her temple. “Ahh, Marley. You are some kind of wonderful.”
The zipper of her jeans gave way slowly to his fingers and his hand dipped inside the back of the warm denim. One of his fingers lightly traced her tush and she gasped at how sexy it felt. Her hips lurched forward into him, and she abruptly became aware of the hard bulge behind his jeans.
“Is this really happening, or is it a dream?” she whispered as much to herself as to him. Her hands roamed through his hair, mussing it all up. She leaned up to kiss his jaw, savoring the rough stubble there. What would that feel like scraping across her naked body? Her hands wandered across his chest and down to his narrow, hard waist. She tugged at his shirt and it slipped free of his jeans. Her palms pressed against skin. Hot, hard, satin skin. Over washboard abs contracted into hard ridges beneath her hands.
“If this is a dream, let’s not wake up,” he murmured back.
Her shirt gave way to his hands, lifting over her head and drifting to the truck bed.
“We’re good?” he checked.
No imminent disasters looming. Check. “Mmm. Better than good.” And then she got to find out exactly what that whisker stubble felt like scraping lightly over her skin. Like sex. And man. And delicious temptation.
Her bra hooks gave way to his nimble fingers and the boring white cotton fell away from her body. Archer paused to stare down at her in the scant starlight. “How in hell didn’t every guy in Chicago try to date you, Marley?”
Mentally, she frowned. Because she was awkward. And a geek. Not to mention jinxed. And...and...still a virgin at twenty-five, her mind whispered painfully. Her hands crept up to cover herself in spite of her resolve to go through with this.
Gently, he twined his fingers in hers and lifted her hands away from her embarrassed body. “You’ve got nothing to hide. I’m not kidding. I could look at you all night long.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said in a small voice. God knew, she’d imagined this moment a thousand times, but the reality was a whole lot more intimidating than her late-night imaginings of her first sexual encounter. And what if...
Lord. A thousand humiliating possibilities scrolled through her mind, totally paralyzing her.
Archer paused long enough to strip off his shirt, which was good, since she was too big a coward to do such a thing herself. His body was as perfect as his face, and in spite of her misgivings, she drank in the sight of him hungrily. His abs rippled with muscle, and a sprinkling of dark hair across his tanned chest was the perfect accompaniment to that six-pack.
She reached out tentatively to trace a scar under his right rib cage. Or maybe she was just delaying because she was scared silly. It was about the length of her index finger. “How’d you get this?”
“Bullet grazed me.” His hands closed on her breasts then, and she totally forgot to ask when and where he got shot. Oh, my. His hands were scorching as they tested the heft and resilience of her flesh. She supposed that, compared to most women, she was pretty well endowed. But it had never been important. Until now. She was glad when his eyes lit up as he gazed at her generous breasts. His thumbs flicked across her nipples lightly and she cried out, equal parts shocked and aroused.
“Like that?” he murmured.
She nodded shyly.
He smiled and asked, “Want me to do it again?”
“Yes, please.”
He laughed lightly. “Promise you’ll tell me anytime you want me to do something specific.”
“Um, okay.”
He flicked her nipples again and her back arched by itself, offering her breasts up to him, begging for more attention. He leaned forward and sucked her left nipple, his tongue rolling around the nub as he tugged at it.
“Oh, my!”
She felt him grin against her skin just before he did it again to the other side. Her jeans peeled down her legs and went away like magic. Her panties followed suit and she did her damnedest to ignore the fact that she was now naked with this man. Thankfully, he didn’t give her any time to think about it as he half covered her with his warm, wonderful body.
She managed to get his zipper undone and to brush her fingertips briefly against the iron hardness of his erection before he kissed his way across her shoulder and his mouth headed south, effectively removing his male parts from her reach. Dammit! She wanted to explore her first in-person erection more thorough
ly.
“Tonight’s all about your pleasure. No sex. Just enjoyment and relaxation.”
No sex? Well, hell. She just wanted to get it over with. At the same time, though, she registered with abject gratitude that he was gentleman enough not to make this all about him getting in her pants and nothing else.
“Tell me if I’m going too fast for you,” he murmured.
If anything, he wasn’t going fast enough. Now that the moment had finally arrived, she was in a hurry to get on with it. She wrapped her legs around his waist to urge him onward and he laughed against her belly.
“If the lady’s so insistent, maybe we’ll have to put sex back on the table as an option. But first, I want you to enjoy yourself.”
“I am enjoying myself,” she groused. She half sat up beneath him and could barely reach around to the back of his jeans. She only managed to skinny them down around the tops of his thighs. But then, frustratingly, he moved away from her again.
His voice drifted up to her from the vicinity of her belly button, where his tongue was swirling around and driving her out of her mind. It was half a tickle and half a turn-on unlike anything she’d ever experienced. “Have you ever had a screaming orgasm?”
“I, uh, well...” she stammered.
“That’s all the answer I need. If you didn’t reply with an immediate and resounding yes, then you haven’t. You’ll know one when you have it. Trust me.”
How did he know she’d never had an orgasm?
“Later,” he continued against the flat plane of her stomach, “I’ll show you how to give them to yourself. Then you can figure out what you like best and show me.”
The idea of doing herself in front of him shocked her speechless and turned her on. Hard. But then his mouth slid lower, leaving a trail of hot destruction in its wake. Gently, he pushed her thighs wider as he shifted his body farther down the foam pad.
Panic and curiosity warred in her gut, effectively freezing her in place. His mouth closed on her...down there...and then she couldn’t think of anything at all. If he weren’t being so matter-of-fact about all of this, she’d be so embarrassed she could curl up in a ball and die. But as it was, it was hard to get too tense with him being so relaxed and casual...and with his tongue stroking...holy crap!
