“I see how it is,” Rory quipped. “Dump us guys the second a pretty girl shows up.”
Ky winked at him. “Absolutely.”
“Take off,” Mark groused. “Go on, get. See you tomorrow.”
“Later,” Ky said to Mark as he steered her to his rental. The drive from South Boston to his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, flew by, but with every mile, Ky worried. Eden had chosen wisely. He couldn’t trust himself in her apartment or wherever she lived, that was for certain. If by chance he fell asleep, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t wake up in the throes of a nightmare and tear her world apart. Maybe her, too.
But still...
Apprehension gnawed at him. Eden was pure and clean, a child compared to the likes of him. What am I doing?
His home was Ky-proofed. No lamps. No stray electrical cords. No curtains and no blinds. Nothing he could dislodge or throw in the midst of a nightmare or a panic attack. Nothing he could break or hurt himself with, either. He locked his piece up tight in The TEAM’s vault before he left work at night. Never took it home. Couldn’t take the chance. Even today, he’d secured his arsenal in the back of The TEAM’s SUV while he’d waited on Eden to finish up with Director Strong.
Ky had also painted his bedroom window black. It made sense at the time. His job required odd shift-work. He needed to be able to sleep through the day.
His home had no carpeting, just a Turkish rug in the front room and wooden floors throughout. No comfy sofa. No cutesy dinette set. He’d given up on American Contemporary when he’d medically-retired from the Corps. It didn’t agree with his new phobia, and there was no way a guy like him could ever be normal.
But there he was bringing a woman home. Why? How did a guy tell the woman he cared about that he slept on the floor? That he might wake up in the middle of the night and kill her? If he fell asleep...
It had been years since he’d trusted himself with the feminine persuasion, but now? He drummed the steering wheel as he closed in on familiar territory. In less than three blocks, he’d be home. If she thought she knew him, she was in for a shock. Playing around in the middle of the frozen north was one thing, but back home? What the hell have I done?
“You’re quiet,” she commented. Eden hadn’t hugged him much after that initial snuggle, and honest to God, he’d needed one. Once he’d had her in his arms, his anxiety seemed to evaporate. She honestly was oxygen to his messed up mind. She was breath and life and light all rolled into one. But now...
“Yeah, well...” He swallowed hard. “Guess I’m just glad everything worked out as good as it did.”
“As good as it did?” she mimicked. “You showed up in the nick of time, Ky. You saved my life. That makes, umm, how many times?” She held up her fingers, counting. “First, you rescued me at the crash site by taking out Koenig and Shields, then you operated on me three times, and... oh yes, you saved me from that baby-stealing bitch, Mrs. Bick. The nerve of that woman.”
He relaxed enough to chuckle at Eden’s vehemence. Even mad, she had a way about her that soothed his legion of devils down to a manageable crowd. Drawing in a deep breath of her scent, he focused on his calming techniques. He’d need every last one of them.
She released her seat belt and climbed over the middle console to kiss his cheek. Impulsively, he intercepted her lips while he kept his eyes on the road. “And taking Senator Bick down like you did makes six,” she murmured into his mouth. “Don’t forget, you owe me dinner and a dance, too. And coffee.”
Yeah, about that...
“Are you hungry?” he asked, not necessarily stalling, but... stalling. There was no food at his place. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
“Cassandra Bick meant to kill me, Ky,” Eden kept talking. “She wanted my eggs and one of our children and—”
“Wait. What? Our child?”
“No. Mine and Isaiah Zaroyin’s baby.”
Oh no. Not going to happen, as in no-way-in-hell no. Ky shot her a look. “In-vitro fertilization?” It better not be the normal, body-slamming, one-on-one kind of reproduction.
“Yes! Can you believe the nerve of that woman?” Her head bobbed in ignorance of his growing need to kick the shit out of Zaroyin’s kid, and all those lovely blond curls tumbled onto his arm. “She said she wanted one of our daughters and maybe a son and—”
“Not going to happen,” Ky snapped. No way will Isaiah Zaroyin ever touch you. I’ll kill him.
“Well, I know that,” Eden snapped back. “After all, you saved me, remember?”
Ky turned into his driveway, intent on one thing. “We’re home,” he said with a renewed sense of conviction. “It’s not much, but it’s mine and so are you.”
That brought Eden up short. She faced him, those green eyes bright, and as always, seeing right through him. “I am?”
“Damned straight.” He latched onto her wrist and dragged her luscious, giggling body over the console. Slamming his door, he stooped to toss her over his shoulder, one hand on the ass he meant to claim. She might as well understand and understand it fast. Isaiah Zaroyin could get his own. Ky let his fingers tap out that message on her backside. Mine. All mine.
“What are you doing?” she giggle-shrieked from her upside-down position, her hands snug on his waist. “What will your neighbors think?”
“That I’m home,” he groused, itching to smack that sinfully soft backside. His caveman side seemed to have taken the lead, and it was about time. He’d nearly forgotten what it felt like to be a man with a woman in his arms.
Ky paused to unlock his front door, then angled Eden inside his humble home without bumping her head on the doorjamb. Funny. Once he set her on her feet, it didn’t look so humble. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, not with her glowing like she was.
His hesitation backed off, and he meant to show Eden who was boss, but, damn it. She was. She just didn’t know it yet.
“I don’t have much,” he admitted as he locked the door behind him. “I’ve got no frozen pizza in the fridge and no wine coolers or beer, either. Hell, I’ve got no mattress in my bedroom or sheets. I sleep on the floor.” She might as well know how bad it would be. He’d lived the life of a monk the past couple of years.
She seemed not to notice, just stood there, wringing her hands like she wanted to do something with them but didn’t know if she should.
“Damn it, Eden. Say something.”
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Like you did in Canada. Burn me down, Ky. Kiss me like you mean it.”
He shook his head. This was moving fast, and as much as he wanted it, he didn’t. This was that moment, that Christmas morning moment when all those lovely presents under the tree could still be all you’d ever wanted and all you ever dreamed. But the second you unwrapped them, the excitement was over. The dreams and wishes were either fulfilled and you were on cloud nine, or you were left wanting.
My God, until that intimate unwrapping took place, she still thought she loved him. She thought he’d rescued her, that he was some kind of a hero. In truth, he was more the Beast to her Beauty. His body craved hers with the single-mindedness of a heroin addict for crack. By the time this—whatever it was—was over, by the time the meager present he had to give her was unwrapped and revealed, the thrill of her expectations would be demolished. He’d have what he wanted, but she’d hate him forever for it.
The need to slow things down sneaked up on him. “Shower first?”
Some of the stars fell out of her eyes, but she had to understand who he was before they took another step. She had to see him. All of him.
He gave her no time to answer, just tugged her headlong down the hall to his equally sparse bathroom. Ushering her in first, he followed and closed the door behind him. “Strip,” he ordered before he lost his nerve. It was now-or-never, and he needed it done before he had time to think. To renege.
She was a compliant little wench, wiggling out of her clothes in a split second, no questions asked. It surprised him when she
stepped on them like they were rags. Almost defiantly, Eden presented her lovely, lush body with all its plump curves, her chin tilted upward, her green eyes glittering like emeralds. Her tiny waist tucked nicely to her rounded hips, and his fingers ached to latch onto her.
“How’s this?” she murmured breathlessly, her hands at her sides instead of in the demure Venus pose he’d expected. She stood there in the nude, her curves and secret places revealed and offered as if he deserved one scant cell of them. As if he merited one scintillating pheromone emanating from her delicious self, and yet his greedy nostrils flared, wanting every last molecule.
The soft expanse of her blushing skin stopped him cold. The barest hint of shyness smiled on those full-as-wild-strawberries lips. He’d seen parts and pieces of Eden, and he’d loved them all, but to finally have the total picture, to be able to drink in the full hips and the steamy valley between her lush breasts, to know that a better man might deserve her, but that she’d chosen him in all of her unworldly innocence. That he would soon have his dirty, bare hands on her...
Ky nearly faltered. She’d made good on her side of the deal. The rest was up to him. He yearned to wrap her in his arms and kiss the hell out of her, to savor her first. Instead, he curved one arm over his head and jerked his shirt off. He unbuckled and unzipped his pants, kicking them aside.
The light in those timeless emeralds glistened. Her gaze drifted downward. She blinked. She murmured, “Oh, Ky.”
Yeah. Oh, Ky. Now you know. This is the real Ky Winchester. What’s left of him. I’m not the man you thought I was. I’m damaged goods, baby. Take it or leave it.
He swallowed hard, his throat gone dry and his heart thumping. For five long days he’d been carved on and battered by Satan’s best. The divot in his upper left thigh was a solid reminder that even a dull knife could make you bleed. There was a flat and ugly, six-by-six-inch scar on his chest where once the proud USMC anchor and globe tattoo had been laboriously inked and dyed, then sadistically peeled off. He was covered in various other nicks and welts, some committed by bastards, some by doctors trying to correct the damage the bastards had left behind. All ugly. All him. But that wasn’t the worst.
He breathed hard, damned sure meeting this final challenge, this final dare, head-on, Eden might not like what she saw, but she was going to see it. Every last piece of what Hasim Nizari had reduced his body to.
Ky shoved his boxers over his thighs and kicked them aside. Damned if she didn’t know where to look, to that lopsided sack where one testicle had been hacked off that last day. He swallowed hard, filled with shame for being less than the full man she deserved. Angry at the thought she might run. She should. Yeah, it could’ve been worse. She’d said she’d seen what took place those last three days, so why was she still standing there? Why hadn’t she at least taken a step back?
“Is this what you want?” he asked gruffly, pushing her away before she could push him, prepared for the rejection of his life. A guy looked plenty tough when he was camouflaged in tactical gear and toting a sniper rifle, but naked and exposed? Vulnerable. How could she love him now that she’d seen?
The smile was gone, but not the woman. Eden didn’t hesitate, just surprised the hell out of him when she charged up his body like a naked linebacker tackling the quarterback, her hands on his bare shoulders and her legs wrapped around his hips. She didn’t ask, just plastered her lips over his and cried, “Don’t you get it? I love you, Ky. You. All of you.”
He cried along with her, all right. He cried, her tears and her love the final straw. She meant more to him than she could possibly know. Hope. Love. Dreams. A woman’s touch. All those things he thought he’d never have again in his friggin’ desperate, celibate life.
Eden dug her fingers into his scalp, and what could he do? His number-one rule failed miserably. He grabbed onto her sweet ass and held her in place. Tight.
She didn’t kiss him. This was more an assault than a kiss. She grunted and forced her tongue into his mouth like that was difficult. She devoured his lips and tongue, groaning as if she could force herself into him orally. He let her, but for the life of him, he had to ask, “What the hell do you see in me, Eden. Why me?”
“I was there, remember? I was in that dirty cell, too. I lived through the worst they did to you. God, Ky, I screamed right along with you when they cut you. You can’t scare me now because I decided then if I was ever lucky enough to get my hands on you, I’d make you forget everything but me, and darn it, Ky Winchester, I’m not going to ask you again.”
He honestly couldn’t remember her asking a question, but he held on for every last inch of his soul to this fierce woman. His angst was gone and his mission clear. The time had come to nail this woman to his soul. But not in the bathroom. Not this way. She was that odd quirk in the universe. A miracle. A virgin falling in love with a monster. The least he could do was love her with the best he had left to offer.
“Kiss me, Ky,” she ordered.
Oh. That. The shower could wait. Ky fumbled for the door with his woman attached where she wouldn’t stay a virgin much longer. He marched to the only soft place in his home, the sleeping bag and pillow on the floor of what passed for his bedroom. This woman was a luscious handful of curves in all the right places, and he meant to bed her.
Crouching to his knees, he laid her on Cabela’s best green-checkered flannel. She beamed up at him, her eyes gone soft and hazy, a deeper emerald than the flannel, and her arms around his neck. Smoothing her fingertips over his brow, she ended at his jaw. His mind had made a remarkable recovery. It no longer told him this was wrong, or that her sweet touch was in any way similar to the grip of those barbarians a world away.
“God, I’ve loved you,” he whispered fervently, his forehead to hers, “so much, Eden. For years.”
“I’ve loved you more,” she murmured, her nose and tongue roaming over his chin and nose, her fingers in his hair. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this. To kiss you. To smell you skin to skin. To taste you. All of you.”
He buried his nose in the crook of her neck, breathing in that familiar hint of Vicks and not a lick of panic creeping up on him while her nose moved over his chest and along his collarbone. “Are you smelling me?” he asked, secretly delighted.
“I love the smell of you.” Her tongue came next, as she drew a moist line up his jaw and whispered into his ear, “I like the taste of you, too. I declare you healed and ready for me.”
Halle-friggin-lujah!
Her open palm slid between their hot bodies to what was left of his manhood. He winced, somehow expecting pain, but all he got was the soft caress of a woman in love exploring her man. She didn’t hesitate, just took hold of him and breathed hotly in his ear. “I’ve got what I want.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I won’t hurt you,” he said tenderly as his fingers slid up to cup her breast. “I promise. I’ll take it slow and easy.”
Eden had to smile. The only way he could hurt her would be to push her away and leave, and that wasn’t going to happen, not if his heavy breathing meant what she thought it meant. Or the honey-gold light inside the burning amber of his gaze. She drank the sight of him in. The map-work of scars over his chest, some ragged, some smooth. The hand-sized blot where once the proud globe and anchor had rested. She’d watched in horror when those evil Taliban had cut it off. Smoothing her fingertips across the gnarled skin, she ached to overcompensate for what others had done for the rest of her life. Brushing over the dark rough of chest hairs, her nostrils filled with the sweaty, manly scent of her new world.
“You’ve been working out,” she purred, delighted with the coiled musculature beneath her palm. This naked man hovering over her quivering body was only going in deeper if she had her way.
And she intended to. He wanted her, but he’d been so tormented by devils past that he hadn’t known the best way forward. But she did. She might be inexperienced, but she knew biology.
“You’re so beautiful,
” he rumbled, his knees between hers, his body positioned and the tip of his body already tasting hers.
She trapped his hips with her legs, encouraging him with just her fingertips to do it. All of her choices had brought her to this place and this perfect time, and she wanted him. Only him. Her body wept for him, every part of her slick with anticipation. Just. Do. It.
Yet he dallied over her nipples, and honestly, the man knew what he was doing. Pinching. Kissing. Suckling. Tugging her into the warm hollow of his mouth, inciting a clenching ache deep in the pit of her belly. She’d perched on the verge of shattering against him when he stopped playing and took a deep breath. And there he paused, his gaze dripping sizzling sparks.
“Why’d you stop?” she whined breathlessly. “Why now?”
“Because this is a first for you,” he whispered, his breath washing over her lips but his mouth not touching. “This is your first time making love, Eden, and it’s my first time falling in love. I want to watch it unfold. I want to watch you blossom when I give you all of my heart. There will never be another first, and I intend to savor every last second of it. Every tiny sound when I make you come. The sparkle in your eyes. The way you scrunch your nose when you’re scenting me. The way you lick your lips after you’ve tasted me. This perfect now. I’m gathering memories, baby, so I’ll never forget one heartbeat of this once-in-a-lifetime moment with you.”
Aw-w-w. Her heart stuttered even as the fire in her belly clenched with a voracious hunger for this gentle, sweet man. “I can’t give what you won’t take,” she murmured into his mouth. “Take me, Ky. Now. Don’t leave anything behind but yesterday.”
He hovered, a man so strong that he’d brought evil to its knees, now on his knees to her. The quiet moment stretched, fire in the amber dark and filled with promise. Eden held her breath, the silence in his humble room more reverent than she’d ever in her wildest dreams expected.
“I honest to God love you with my whole heart,” he said, the dearest smile on his handsome face.
Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13) Page 31
