by Karen Rock
Her lashes fluttered closed, her breath coming in short gasps each time they crashed together. Their movements turned fierce and urgent as they rocked. Pressure mounted inside him in some exquisite balance between pleasure and pain. Yet he held himself back, wanting her to reach her peak first.
The covers scrunched and whisked beneath them as he bucked within her, filling her completely. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest—or was that his heart? He wasn’t sure anymore if there was a distinction.
“Mark. Yes!” she shrieked suddenly, her primal cry loud in the small room. Her head twisted from side to side and her inner muscles gripped him harder still, rippling around his cock, a tidal wave sweeping over him. He groaned in blissful agony and let go, exploding inside her, his release coming in an endless chain of spasms.
Holy hell.
When his breathing returned to normal, he enclosed her in his arms, pulling her to him so tightly that their bodies felt welded together. As he cradled her, the unmoored sensation that’d gripped him since she’d plunged into the sea faded. She was okay and, therefore, so was he. The thought was unsettling.
He watched her eyes open, her gaze unfocused, mouth curving. “That was incredible. You’re incredible,” she said softly.
“I could say the same.” He kissed the top of her head, let his fingers rest in her tangled hair. A perfect peace had descended on him, spreading to his very bones. “And I have a pretty high score to live up to.”
She shifted in his arms and her eyes settled on his face, considering, a teasing smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I didn’t think you could beat that last one, but you just might have...”
“Might?” He kissed her collarbone, her chin, the space where her jaw met her ear, and he felt himself hardening again. She radiated heat like a warmed-up engine. “We’ll see about that...”
Sometime later, he rested his head in the curve of her neck, listening to the distant rolling timpani beat of the wind and incoming thunder. He wasn’t sure how long they lay there together, as if each wished to absorb the other through their skin, a marrow-deep connection that filled him with both happiness and unease.
Sex with Cassie went beyond physical. Tonight, it’d reached an emotional level that he couldn’t deal with right now, not with his future uncertain, his need to make a decision on grounding himself after today’s mission. He’d taken charge of the flight, had managed to get them all home safe. But as mission commander, he was responsible for overseeing every aspect of the operation and that included mistakes. If he’d been clearheaded, he would have noticed Rob’s struggle to stay calm, would have taken over before his trainee checked out and nearly scuttled them into the sea, potentially losing all lives.
Cassie.
It scared the hell out of him how much Cassie had come to mean to him in such a short amount of time. But in a few days, she’d fly home. What could they figure out, relationshipwise, with so little time? Best to go their separate ways and not entangle her in his mess of a life, no matter how tempting she was. Fate had brought them together for this short time, but that was all it could be. All a man in his position could offer.
He heard the sounds of her even breathing in his ear and felt himself slip, at last, into welcome oblivion.
* * *
RAIN TAPPING AGAINST glass woke Cassie hours later. She opened her eyes wide, briefly uncomprehending in her half slumber how she could have ended up in the same bed as this man. When she remembered, she reached for Mark, linking her arms languorously around his neck, squinting in the gloom.
What time was it? Five in the morning according to her cell phone screen on the bedside table. Since they had the medical aid response in hand now, she’d been ordered to get some much-needed rest and had the day off. No need to get up. Thank. God. Her body ached in a delicious way that reminded her of everything he’d done to make her scream with pleasure last night.
She’d never felt so powerful, so liberated and turned on as she felt with Mark. Their steamy lovemaking unlocked another part of her—the strong, decisive woman she’d glimpsed while flying yesterday’s mission, who could control and lose herself at the same time. Never would she return to being the person who made easy, safe choices or, worse, none at all.
Mark shifted slightly in his sleep, and she tilted her head so she could place a soft kiss on his forehead. He answered with a murmur, and Cassie’s heart clenched with gratitude. Thank you, she told whoever might be listening. Thank you for giving this to me.
Mark stirred and opened his topaz eyes. For a fraction of a second, they were blank, uncomprehending, and then they warmed and he smiled.
“Hello,” she murmured, brushing a finger along the sexy stubble of his jaw.
It rattled her to think how much she’d come to care for this strong, determined pilot with a big heart. A man who’d saved her in more ways than one.
“Come here.” He pulled her to him and lavished her neck with lazy, toe-curling kisses. Surrendering herself to the sensation, she closed her eyes, feeling her heart flicker inside her chest. “Cassie...”
She shushed him with a finger. She didn’t want words just yet; she wanted to soak in the moment, their bodies warm, tangled and sprawled.
His fingers threaded through the strands of her hair, carefully combing them, before fanning them out on the pillow. Then he raised himself up on an elbow and rubbed his eyes. His hair stuck up on one side. Despite his disheveled state, the man was living art. His shoulders were broad and strong, his chest dusted in dark hair. His torso tapered to an impressively ridged six-pack that she would have assumed was airbrushed if she’d seen it in a photo.
He kissed her lightly on the nose. “Are you hungry?” he asked, his low voice vibrating against her cheek.
“A little.”
“On it.”
When he started to slide off the bed, she held tight. She relished the closeness of him, let herself be consumed by the simple pleasure of his skin against hers—strong, sinewy male flesh, its musky scent and smooth, firm textures. She liked the strangeness of him, the strength of their combined bodies, the way his size, while intimidating, didn’t make her feel weak. The way his desire emboldened her.
“I don’t think I have the energy to eat,” she groaned, feeling the languid heaviness in her limbs.
He chuckled, low and sexy. “Having trouble keeping up?” He grazed the soft plane of her belly with his fingertips, making it contract.
His chest hair was soft beneath her fingertips. “On second thought, maybe I do need sustenance.”
He stepped out of bed, and she couldn’t help staring in appreciation at his firm backside as he strode away. A metallic scrape sounded. Then, a moment later, he eased close again, holding, of all things, an open can of peaches.
The sweet smell made her nose tingle. “Where did you...?”
“I have connections.” He shot her a meaningful look and she laughed softly, remembering the night she’d practically begged people to use up her surplus supply...the incredible night on the beach, Mark’s mouth hot and insistent on her.
She shifted, pleasure pulsing in her core. Really? Did he make her this insatiable? Apparently. But she wanted to know more about him than his skills in bed and in the air. She needed to understand if the raw emotions she’d glimpsed in his eyes earlier, the deep connection they’d shared, was more than her imagining.
He glided a peach slice over her lips so that its rich syrup dripped into her mouth.
“Mmm,” she moaned when he slid it into her open mouth and the fruit’s tart, summery taste exploded on her tongue. Her stomach growled. She was ravenous. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Mark’s rippling abdomen and another craving took hold, one she’d postpone, tempting as it’d be to have him moving inside her again right now.
He propped himself up on
one elbow and touched another piece to her mouth. He enticed her with the scent as he skated the peach slice along her lower lip, his gaze riveted there.
A cold drop of juice wove down her chin. Before she could reach to wipe it off, Mark bent over her and licked it away with his tongue. The movement happened so quickly she might’ve thought she’d fantasized it if not for the way her flesh sizzled in that one moist spot.
He held the slice above her mouth, his voice low and inviting in her ear. “What do you think, Cassie? Ready for more?”
The wicked gleam in his eye left little question that he asked about more than just peaches. All her nerve endings leaped to life, as if every last one of them thirsted for his touch.
“I’m ready.” Arching her neck, she lifted her head to the dangling fruit and sucked it from his fingertips, the rich juice sliding down her throat as she chewed.
Mark watched her like a starving man and, unable to help herself, she licked her lips to seek out every last bit of liquid, wanting to taste him, too. She cupped his cheek in her hand, tilting his head so their eyes met.
“Your turn,” she murmured. She got to her knees, and a low moan escaped him as his heated eyes ran over her body.
“No.” He eased her back down to the pillow.
“Why?”
“I want to indulge you.” When she started to protest, he placed a finger to her mouth. “Let me, Cassie.” The hoarse tone of his voice reminded her of the unchained emotion she’d glimpsed in his eyes when he’d found her at the canteen. The desperate fury of his lovemaking.
“Do you know how close I came to losing you?” he demanded. Had her close call yesterday affected him this much? Shaken him? Did that mean he cared for her, too?
Regret twisted in her gut as she sampled the next peach slice he fed her. Had she been wrong to force her presence in his helicopter? To push him? Clearly, he walked a tightrope. She’d only been thinking of herself and her demons and hadn’t listened to Mark.
“Thirsty?”
Before she finished nodding, he’d crossed the room, grabbed a couple of bottled waters and stretched out beside her. He unscrewed the cap and lifted it to her mouth.
“Mark. I can do it,” she protested. He surrendered the plastic container and they eyed each other as they sipped. “Why are you doing this?”
“You look hungry. Thirsty.” He ducked his head.
“I mean this.” She gestured between their bodies.
After an awkward silence, he said, “I wanted to. Want to.”
“Me, too.” Their eyes met for a heart-stopping moment before she said, “And I’m sorry about yesterday.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw and his gaze jerked away from her. “You’re sorry?”
She blinked at him in surprise. “Yes. I insisted on flying with you.”
“And you nearly died on my watch.”
“That was my risk to take.”
“And you did a great job.”
His words were like sparklers that sizzled inside Cassie. “Thank you. I—uh—actually enjoyed it,” she admitted, knowing it sounded crazy to say almost losing your life was fun...but that moment, the rush of saving others, was incredible.
He tossed back a long gulp of water then said, “But you don’t know what SAR is really like on a day-to-day basis.”
“Then tell me.”
He drained his bottle and lobbed it into the trash can. “It’s not just a job. It’s your life. No. It’s thousands of other people’s lives that you’re charged with protecting. Rescuing. Ask me how many saves I’ve made and I couldn’t tell you. But I know exactly how many I haven’t because they’re the ones that keep you up nights.”
She instantly thought of Jeff but pressed the thought back into her mental scrapbook to save for later. Not now. Not with emotions running this high.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he murmured, his voice more in control again. Reaching for another peach, he touched it to the hollow of her throat and slid it down to the top of each breast before circling each nipple with its wetness. Heat flared between her thighs and she could feel herself growing as slick as the peach he teased her with. “Or not talk at all,” he bent over and whispered in her ear.
Her breath hitched and she tried remembering the square root of one hundred and ninety-six. Anything to stop her from giving in to the molten desire Mark ignited.
“Why did you join the service?”
He stopped nibbling her earlobe and his warm breath rushed across her sensitive skin. “You’re not letting up.”
“I want to know you.”
His eyes delved into hers. “I joined because I wanted to be one of the good guys.”
“Weren’t you already a good guy?” His answer caught her off guard. She would have thought he’d joined for adventure. The thrill. Status...
“I wanted to be different than...” His voice dipped and she turned her head so that their noses touched.
“Than...?” she prompted, trying and failing to meet his eye.
“My dad was in jail.” He jerked out of bed and strode to the sink. He turned the knobs then swore softly when no water gushed from the faucet.
She studied the tense curve of his back as he leaned against the counter, wanting to comfort him.
“I’m sorry.”
After a moment, he sat by her side and cradled her hand, turning it over in his palm. “Don’t be. He deserved to be there.” Bitter sediment ran along the bottom of his voice. “Armed robbery.” A laugh that sounded anything but amused escaped him. “I never understood why my mother forgave him. Some things aren’t forgivable.”
She ducked under his arm and crawled onto his lap. He pulled her head to his chest and she felt the steady thud of his heart against her ear.
“You’re one of the good guys, Mark.”
He was silent. She held both sides of his face and gazed up at him. “Don’t you believe that?”
The infinite sadness in his eyes arrowed through her heart. “I believe in this...”
He lowered his lips to her neck while his hands cupped her breasts in a provocative torment that stopped her torrent of questions. He grew harder beneath her ass and she felt an answering rush of wetness deep within.
“I need you,” he rasped against her neck and she seized his shoulders, straddling his legs. He gazed into her eyes, seeing more deeply inside her soul than anyone had ever bothered to look. In that moment, Cassie knew they had gone too far, or she had, her heart leaping down a path she wasn’t sure Mark could follow.
“I need you, too,” she gasped when he scooched her up farther on his lap and her slick core slid against the hard tip of his penis. He hauled her closer still, so that they were pressed together. She swiveled her hips, grinding against him, hearing the way he sucked in his breath, loving that his reaction to her was every bit as strong as hers to him. When his hands traveled over her, the hungry feel of them on her skin ignited her like a match to gunpowder and she couldn’t wait any longer to feel him inside of her.
This time when he made love to her, he did so slowly. He spoke to her body with his own. She felt her inhibitions fall away. The rest of the world slowed and closed in, until it was just the two of them, their breaths coming in short gasps, the air around them a bright light that blotted out everything, dissolving them both.
Afterward, she watched the steady rise and fall of Mark’s chest, her mind in too much tumult to let her rest, too. Mark stirred up powerful feelings she’d never experienced before. His passion set her on fire, but his tenderness melted her completely. He’d said he needed her. Was that in the physical sense only?
There was only so much time left before they parted and she might never see him again.
For her this thing between them felt real.
For Mark...sh
e hadn’t a clue. He could make love to her until she couldn’t see straight, but it was obvious that she reminded him of the painful save he hadn’t made. Would he ever want a future with her when the specter of Jeff still rode in his aircraft?
11
MARK BATTLED TO stay atop the raging ocean. The wind hissed in his ears, sea spray stung his nose and he gagged on briny water. A giant hand seemed to snatch at his thrashing legs, the pulling sensation of another oncoming swell. His pulse hammered and he swiveled in every direction. He squinted through the mist-filled air until he spotted a bright orange suit bobbing in the seething water.
Cassie!
Only forty yards away.
He kicked hard, his arms cleaving the surface. Then a mountainous wave crashed over him and dragged him under, twisting and turning him in somersaults. When it let go, he lost his orientation in a murk of blue. Where was the surface?
His lungs burned and he fought to keep his head. Stay calm. Think. Spot which way the current flows the way your training taught you. Yet the water swirled in too many directions at once. When he spotted floating debris to his left, he twisted in that direction, and shot that way. If he guessed wrong, he’d die. And so would Cassie. He had to get it right for both of them.
A moment later, his head emerged. He spit out a mouthful of salt water before dragging in a long breath. Had he lost her? Eyes stinging, he scanned the churning water until he spied her again even farther away. Adrenaline surged. Yet when her bright head turned, he glimpsed someone else’s face. Jeff! Mark watched in horror as another wave yanked his friend under and he disappeared.
* * *
MARK JERKED UPRIGHT in bed. His chest pounded, his body slick with sweat. There was a faint ringing sound in his ears. He shook his head, trying to get rid of it. After blinking up at the ceiling for a few dazed moments, full consciousness returned.
