by Karen Rock
A group of servicemen passed her, their olive green flight suits reminding her of Jeff, making her shoulders hunch. She stopped short outside her door.
She’d thought she wanted to be alone, but now she realized what she really wanted, needed, was answers. Mark knew the truth of what had happened that day, and she deserved to know, damn it.
She stopped one of the men, asked for directions and headed to their dorms. As she climbed the steps to the bungalows’ shared porch, Mark emerged from one of the rooms.
“Mark!” she yelled. In an instant, he reached her side.
“Are you okay?” The timbre of his voice, low and gentle, loosened the hard knot in her chest. How much did she wish he could be a good guy?
“No.” They stared at each other. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. All she could see were his big eyes, darkening to amber, the backs of his strong hands, the way his torso shifted under his flight suit.
“What happened?” Concern turned his question into staccato beats. They nearly undid her.
“A long day. Look. I want to talk to—” Suddenly, she swayed on her feet and he caught her firmly around the waist.
She opened her mouth to protest but was overwhelmed by the prickling awareness of his fingers on the bare skin under the loose hem of her shirt.
“Dylan,” Mark called to an approaching crew member she recognized from their flight. “Inform the guys I’ll be there shortly. Go ahead and start the equipment checks.”
Dylan studied them both before nodding and striding away.
Mark ushered her inside his neat room. She perched on the end of the bed and her body heated at the memory of the time she’d been in his Clearwater hotel room.
He handed her a couple of energy bars and a bottled water. “Eat this. You can rest here as long as you want. I don’t want you wandering around and getting lost again,” he said, a teasing note entering his voice. “If you need anything else just let me know,” he offered, though he was already turning to leave.
She placed the items on the nightstand. “There is. Tell me about the day Jeff disappeared.”
At her quiet words, he froze in the doorway. The muscles in his jaw visibly clenched; pain and guilt blurred his breathtaking profile.
Seconds scraped by in painful silence.
“You’ve read everything,” he said, staring outside. His shoulders rose and he looked like he was braced for a blow. Had no plans of ducking it.
“I want to hear what happened to you.”
“Me? Nothing happened to me,” he exclaimed, yet his tortured expression told another, harsher story. He kicked the door shut with the back of his heel and strode to the bed. “Jeff is the one who matters.”
Not just him came the unbidden thought, catching her off guard. Mark mattered, too, she realized. He mattered to her.
“If you cared about Jeff, then you’ll tell me. Please.” Something she couldn’t quite identify broke over her like a vast wave.
He swallowed hard and then let out a long, slow, shuddering breath. The mattress dipped as he sat beside her and his thumbs gently brushed the dampness from her cheeks. When her lids lifted, she met his large eyes, so close to hers. She wouldn’t cry again, not when Mark deserved her clear-eyed and ready to hear him out.
“It was a routine mission.”
Her stomach lurched. “Not all of it.”
He bowed his rigid face. “Jeff put the last survivor in the basket.”
“He must have been—” She swallowed hard and tried again. “He must have been happy about that.”
Mark shot her a surprised look. “Yeah. He was. He did that lasso thing...”
The image of her exuberant, larger-than-life brother hit like a punch. She waited until the humming in her mind leached away to nothing, and then said, “That was his yippee-ki-yay signal.”
Mark raked a shaking hand through his hair, making the ends stand up at odd angles. “He loved all the Die Hard movies.”
“I think he made me watch them a hundred times. His favorite was Live Free or Die Hard.” She stared at the dark curtains covering Mark’s window, picturing the movie, wishing she could see it with Jeff one more time.
“He always picked one of them when it was his turn for movie night.” One side of Mark’s mouth curved up then fell. “Man, we were sick of them.”
Outside, she could hear the acoustics of early evening in the resort’s staging area, the whine of distant engines, a car door slamming, a dog barking at some unseen outrage. Life in its messy, vital entirety. It matched her own tangled emotions—humor and despair, loss and discovery. “After he made the lasso signal, what happened?”
“We were thirty-five feet over the water. I was sitting right seat, which meant I was at the flight controls. The flight mechanic lowered the rescue hook for Jeff.” Mark rubbed his jaw and the circles beneath his eyes were ash colored. “But the cable got wrapped around the tail wheel. When Larry pulled it back and inspected it, he didn’t find any visible kinks or degradation. Basically, it was fine, but we always check it three times.”
“And did you...?” Her words failed, her breath faltering.
Mark reached out his hands slowly, enfolding hers and holding them until she could speak again.
“Did you make sure?” The warmth of his strong hands made her feel secure. Anchored.
“We had less than five minutes to retrieve him before we hit BINGO.” He swallowed hard. “That’s the critical point on deciding whether to stay or go because of our fuel level. I gave the order to lower it to Jeff without the third check.” His voice was slightly slurred, its edges frayed with pain.
“And it snapped,” she whispered, recalling the notation “hoist cable parted” as the cause of the accident. There was a painful crushing sensation in the center of her chest, as if someone were trying to flatten her.
He didn’t speak, but dipped his head so that it came to rest against hers. They sat there in the dark room, breathing in the balmy air, listening to the muffled sound of service personnel talking as they passed by. “I didn’t get Jeff aboard.” His voice, when it emerged, was gruff...broken.
“The cable didn’t get Jeff aboard,” she corrected. Understanding swelled. Mark wasn’t a monster. He wouldn’t have left Jeff if he’d had another choice. It was easy to see how much this ripped him apart.
His eyes blazed at her suddenly. “I was responsible for the hoist cable’s entire evolution. The crew. Every single thing on that aircraft. Everything that happened on the mission. Don’t you get it?” He yanked his hands away and balled them on jittering knees.
“I don’t blame you, Mark. Not anymore.”
He bolted to his feet, his body tense and movements jerky. “You should blame me,” he ground out and paced to the window. “It’s my fault.”
Cassie clasped her hands in front of her. “I don’t agree.”
“You don’t know.” He stopped at the bed and dropped to his knees. He cupped her face with an aching tenderness and all of her nerves concentrated there, alive to every movement of his skin on hers. “I’m sorry, Cassie. If I could trade places with Jeff, I would.”
“Jeff wouldn’t want that,” she said automatically, then realized, with a start, how true those words were. Jeff always put others first. He wouldn’t have switched places with Mark for anything.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, suddenly looking very tired. “I failed him. You. Your family.”
“You tried to save him. You had no choice but to leave after the cable snapped, especially since you were running low on fuel.”
“I should have checked it a third time. It was still my call. My mission.”
“Would checking it again have kept it from snapping?”
He shook his head but seemed about to argue.
“I’m glad Jeff was with you—” she began, and her voice cracked as she recalled how highly he’d spoken of his crew members, the brotherhood Ian reminded her about. “Though it must have been so hard for you to leave him—”
Mark’s mouth opened and pain made a mask of his face, warping each feature. Then he lowered his head and closed his eyes.
All this time she’d focused solely on how hard it was for her, but hearing Mark, seeing his suffering, confirmed what she’d suspected after talking to Ian. Jeff had been Mark’s brother, too, and losing him had destroyed Mark as much as it had her.
She’d been harboring so much anger at Mark—even before they’d met—never realizing he might be the one person who felt the same kind of grief she did.
Her chest ached for the man before her and what he’d gone through that day. Regret stung. She’d accused him of leaving Jeff, when it must have ripped him up to make that impossible call to fly away.
She pulled him to his feet and fitted her body to his, every nerve ending screaming to life as her curves pressed against his rigid body.
She didn’t want to hurt anymore.
* * *
MARK’S MOUTH WAS the consistency of powder. His heart pounded so hard he could barely suck in air. Paralyzed by his own longing, his gaze dropped to Cassie’s full mouth and his crotch tightened. It was a painful reminder of how much he wanted her—in this moment, and every moment since they’d met. For the past couple of nights, he’d gone to sleep craving her. Woken each morning, rock hard, his body slick and aching with need.
And now here she was in his room, tempting him. He shouldn’t touch her, but being this close, talking to her, had torn away his last damn defense.
Heat sizzled in her blue eyes and the small space between her front teeth appeared in an alluring smile. And then, lust took over, hitting him hot and hard, his fierce attraction needy, edgy and demanding. It was too much to resist kissing her. He dragged her closer still, wrapping her in his arms.
She was sexy. So damn sexy.
Too lost in the moment to speak, he slid his fingers down along her jawline and she shivered against him, leaning her cheek into his touch. When her hands smoothed over the shorn hair at his nape, his ears rang. His heart thrummed. Everything inside him twisted with the urge to touch her. To feel her skin beneath his palms, under his mouth.
Mark slipped his hand from her chin to cradle her head. His fingers tunneled through her silky hair and her head tipped back, a soft cry escaping her. Her breath was warm against his face as he hovered his lips above hers.
“Please,” she whimpered.
Blood pounded wildly in his veins. A magnetic pull seemed to be taking over the small distance between their mouths. An energy he couldn’t resist. Especially when her tongue darted out to lick her lips, an incredibly hot move that could bring a grown man crashing to his knees. As it was, he had to snake an arm around her waist to hold them both up as she melted against him. He inclined his head and she closed her eyes as their mouths crashed together.
He inhaled her breath, its traces of something cinnamon and berry, the warm, wet taste of her. God, he wanted this. Wanted her.
Angling his head, he slid his tongue along the seam of her mouth. His lips moved over hers until she opened her mouth. Their tongues slid over each other, stroking and rubbing, taking. Giving. The sensation was intoxicating. Tiny explosions burst inside him. He couldn’t think, couldn’t focus.
He backed her against the bed and they dropped to its plush comforter, her hands smoothing over his shoulders and stroking his back. When her mouth left his to trail along his jaw, he explored, too, sucking on her earlobe until her breath grew ragged.
Her back arched and her knees rose to grip his hips. His pulse raced as she rubbed against his bulging crotch, only his thin flight suit and her scrubs separating them.
The memory of the night they met returned, making his cock strain and jerk. How wet she’d been. Hot. Soft. He groaned, wanting to bury himself in her again.
“Mark,” she whispered in his ear and her fingers skimmed down his lower back, her hands squeezing his butt before coming around to stroke his rigid length. He shuddered against her, her touch setting him on fire.
“So hot,” he murmured and then his mouth captured hers again as he gripped her waist, grinding against her. He kissed her harder now, his lungs burning as his breath came in fits and starts. He traced the nipples straining beneath her shirt, rolling them between his fingers. Her breath caught against his lips when he cupped her breasts fully and he reveled in her reaction. Power, intense and gratifying, surged through him.
“Yes,” she cried, meeting his gaze head-on. He could see the desire glowing in her eyes as the same response took his body by storm.
His hands trembled as he unsnapped her top and slid the material off her shoulders. His heart thumped erratically at the sight of her straining nipples against the plain white fabric of her bra. Even in the most practical undergarments, she turned him on like no other. He wanted to lose himself in her.
“Beautiful,” he rasped and ran a finger beneath the bottom edge as their mouths met.
Pushing down the fabric, he bared her breasts and pulled back to admire them. Light gold, with a cute tan line across the top, her breasts were full, the tips a deep rose, beaded and begging. A small gold locket nestled between them, and he wanted to take its place.
“Perfection.”
She whimpered as he traced her areolas with his tongue then pulled at each, her body straining beneath him at the shared, decadent pleasure. He lifted each globe, suckling them harder as need burned through his body; he was practically shaking with it.
She gripped his hips, pulling him closer still. When he stroked the creamy flesh of her abdomen, his hands traveling lower, then lower still, her head thrashed on the pillow and a low moan escaped her.
His own breath quickened. He drew down her panties more roughly than he intended but Cassie didn’t seem to mind. Her fingers kneaded into his shoulders. Dug in hard enough to sting. He nudged her legs apart and she watched him, her gaze slightly unfocused, lips parted, hair tangling around her face, looking wanton.
Something softened inside him at the way she gave herself to him, so totally uninhibited and unselfconscious. She was a woman who had lost much, yet she’d opened up to the very man who’d caused her pain. And how the hell had he ended up thinking this now when he lay between her thighs and the blood pounded in his ears louder than the surf hit the shore outside?
But as her silvery eyes looked up at him, so giving and warm, he knew he would do everything in his power to make sure her trust wasn’t misplaced. Nobody hurt Cassie on his watch. Not even Mark.
Then her thighs wrapped around his waist the way they had on the beach the night they’d met, and all else was lost in a tide of pure sensation.
Only the need to imprint himself on her memory remained.
He reached between their bodies to caress the tender damp heat of her. She whimpered. Cried out. Thick lashes fanned atop her flushed cheeks. He circled her swollen clit again and again, teasing her so that she strained against him with arched hips. Bucking against his hand.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered raggedly. Won the attention of her passion-clouded gaze.
He increased the pressure of his finger then slid it inside, adding another. Her silken flesh clamped around him, convulsing. Their eyes locked in a blazing hot instant. Barely keeping himself in check, he plunged deeper, faster. He watched her features sharpen and her mouth fall open as she panted, moving with the rhythm of his hand. Continuing to flick her clit with his slick thumb, he thrust his fingers ever deeper, stroking her inner walls.
A thick throb of desire pulsed in his gut. He wanted to erase her pain, replace it with earth-shattering pleasure. The fierceness of that need gripped him with undeniable for
ce.
Soon her gasps matched his tempo of his thrusts and he intensified his movements, going faster, harder, until at last she cried out, the primal sound shattering the last of his control, making his pulse skyrocket. He had to be inside her. Now. Needed to end this torment with the explosive release only they could give each other.
Then, something metallic caught his eye.
The locket around her neck had opened.
Inside was Jeff’s grinning face, sharp canines appearing in a familiar smile.
Holy shit.
What was he doing here with Jeff’s sister? As if he had any right to be with her, to lose himself completely in Cassie.
He scrambled off the bed and turned away, his chest rising and falling as he grappled with the emotions threatening to drag him under.
“Mark?” A soft hand fell on his shoulder and he stiffened.
“I can’t do this.”
She ducked in front of him and tried catching his eye. “I don’t blame you. I—I forgive you.”
He jerked away and headed to the door. Opening it, he paused in the entrance and turned, the vise around his chest tightening at her anguished expression.
“That makes one of us.”
And with that, he headed outside like he damn well should have thirty minutes earlier.
Crap. What the hell had he done?
A strong island breeze ruffled his hair and swung his flight bag like a limp sail as he trudged on the path to the landing strip’s shuttle. He couldn’t think while kissing Cassie. For a moment, she’d made the familiar hurt he’d carried since Jeff’s death recede and it’d felt too good to stop.
And before that, when she’d asked him about the day Jeff had disappeared, he’d been able to open up, despite the pain, recounting details he’d locked away.
Was it as much his fault as he’d assumed?
Downed branches snapped under his boots as he marched on.
No. He wouldn’t give himself such an easy out. That was weakness and he was man enough to admit his wrongs.
Wouldn’t let go of that hurt.
