One hand closed over her breast, massaging it, tweaking the nipple until it peaked and crowned against his fingers then he moved his mouth away from hers and pressed a line of kisses down her neck as he shoved her shirt higher, baring her breasts.
Her long fingered, slim palms skimmed up and down his sides, over his hips and pulling him up against her. Heat against heat, he felt the tremor start from deep inside her body. The hell with it, he thought, his hands returning to her waist, her shirt falling back down, boosting her body up so that her hips rested on the small ledge that ran down the length of the railing.
For the first time in weeks, in months, he didn’t think of his injury, didn’t think of the ragged line of twisted scar tissue that prevented him from active duty. He was only thinking of the woman he had pressed up against his body, the woman he had wanted from the first time he had laid eyes on her.
Running his hands up the length of her smooth, silken back, he drew her shirt up until it caught under her arms. Pulling back, he stared down at her, smiling as he took in the hot, dazed look of pleasure in her eyes. Her body shook, quivering all over, as she reached for him the moment he pulled away.
Catching her behind her shoulders, he bent her back, leaning over her and catching the hard, crested tip of one nipple in his mouth as her upper body hung free in the air. The soft sob that fell from her lips echoed in his ears, raced down his spine as he slid one hand down her side. Catching her hip, he dragged her forward and rocked his cock against her cleft, shuddering as the heat there seemed to scorch him.
Scraping his teeth roughly over the nipple, he suckled on her until he had her writhing against him, her hands clutching desperately at his shoulders, her hips undulating against his. Snaking one under the edge of her brief shorts, he found her cleft with his fingers, hot and, wet. She was swollen and creamy, sobbing out his name as he pushed two fingers inside her slowly.
With a growl, he went for the waistband of her shorts, wanting her naked and open.
His blood ran even hotter when she gasped out his name, pressing herself up against him as he withdrew from her. Through slitted eyes, he watched as she lifted her hips to help ease the shorts down her legs. God, her legs. There had been times he had nearly driven himself insane thinking about those legs, the round curved hips.
As her shorts fell to the deck floor, he shifted back reaching for the buttons of his jeans, steadying her body with one hand. One step took him back between her spread legs. Taking her hips in his hands, he drew her closer. Her hands came up to grip his shoulders, those wide green eyes staring up at him with hunger and need. “Dylan,” she murmured, pressing her mouth against his as he pressed his length against her.
Slowly he started to penetrate, never taking his eyes from hers as he slid just the tip inside her, that hot, wet molten silk beckoning to him just drive deep inside and never leave. Slowly, he surged a few inches deeper and Kris clamped around him, her inner muscles twitching and shuddering, her body shaking minutely.
“Please,” she whispered, pulling away from his restraining hands, trying to pull him deeper inside.
One second, his body tensed, ready to take. And then he was gone, his bare back presented to her while his hands dragged his jeans back up, his narrowed eyes on the silent house.
“Dylan?” Kris asked, her voice shaking. As he lifted one hand, a light on the second floor came on, followed by footsteps on the stairs just outside the kitchen. Kris froze, but Dylan turned, scooped up her shorts and tugged her off the edge, guiding her into the shadows, away from the window.
Damn it, he thought viciously, barely able to think he hurt so bad. If whoever in the hell was up had waited another ten minutes...
Aw, hell. Five. Bad as he hurt, bad as he wanted her.
His mind started to clear as a light came on in the kitchen, casting pale squares of light through the window. Arching his head, he saw Wade’s profile as he took a glass from the counter and walked by the window, out of Dylan’s line of sight.
Seconds later, the light went off and he could hear footsteps going back up the stairs. With her body pressed against his, he could feel how much she was shaking. Drawing back, he looked down at her in the pale light cast by the moon, at her wide, almost blind eyes. With one hand, he brushed her cheek, smiling slightly as she arched against his hand like a little cat.
What in the hell was he doing? he wondered, holding her body against his, stroking her back with his hand in long soothing motions. Nikki would kill him. And in the morning, once her mind cleared, Kris likely would want him disemboweled.
He started to ease her away but she only burrowed against him, her hips rolling against his, her breath coming in soft, ragged little pants. He was really going to hate them both in a few minutes, he thought with disgust. But he couldn’t leave her like that. He turned them, so that his back was braced against the wall, her pressed up against his chest. Nudging her backside with his hips, he tortured himself a bit while he stroked her breasts. Easing one hand down the slope of her hip, he parted the curls between her thighs, slid against the hard little knot of nerves, dipping inside. Rotating his thumb against her, working her with his hand, Dylan gritted his teeth when she started to climax around his invading finger, her muscles squeezing around him. Roughly, he moved his hips against her bottom, seeking some relief. Lowering his head, he bit the curve between her neck and shoulder. With a soft scream, she flowed into his hand, her body sagging back against his.
While her breathing started to calm, Dylan, shifted, letting her weight go back against the wall while he knelt down to search for her shorts. His lower back screamed at him, on fire, and it protested twice as loud as he stood back up. “Come on, darling,” he murmured into her ear a moment later, once the tremors had passed from her body. “Let’s go to bed.”
Sleepy, sated, she smiled at him, a soft, “Hmm,” escaping from her swollen mouth. Her arms came up around his neck, and Dylan cursed viciously. God, what he wouldn’t give to be able to pick her up and carry her up those stairs, into her room where he could lay her down and love her all night.
Instead, he eased her back, drawing her twisted shirt back down until it covered her bare hips. And then he led her back inside the darkened house, up to her room where he eased her inside the door, kissed her lightly.
Then he closed the door and walked to his own room, where he planned to pace the floor until his weary body forced him into sleep.
****
Kris awoke with a smile on her face. What a dream. Rolling over, her hand slid down the empty expanse of bed, searching for a warm body. When it encountered nothing but smooth linens, her eyes flew open.
And she remembered the entire night. Her face flushed crimson, and mortified, she sat up, drawing her knees to her chest and pressing her face into them as she wished for a hole to open up and swallow her whole. Hot color stained her cheeks and nausea started to roll in her belly. God, she’d hid it for years, years, and then to go and lose it like that.
All because he kissed her.
Turning into a whimpering, hot molten puddle of flesh from one kiss. Well, Kris thought with a tiny curve of her lips, one kiss didn’t exactly describe the feel of Dylan’s firm, sulky mouth pressed against hers as he ate at her mouth like he simply craved the taste of her.
A knock sounded on the door before Nikki’s voice called out. Before the door could open, Kris flopped onto her belly and drew a pillow over her head, pretending to be oblivious.
The door swung open and Kris could hear Nikki’s laugh through the pillow. “Cut the act,” Nikki said cheerfully. “I know you’re up; I heard you swearing a second ago.” Then in a singsong voice, she said, “I’ve got coffee.”
Not even for coffee was she willing to face reality yet. “Nikki, please leave me alone and let me die in peace,” she pleaded desperately, her voice muffled by the pillows.
“Bad night?”
A pitiful whimper was all that escaped her and she cringed at Nikki’s sympathe
tic chuckle. “What’s up? You hung over?”
No, just not ready to face him yet, she thought. “Nik, I need to sleep,” she mumbled.
“We’re going to the lake for the day. Don’t you want to come?”
“Who is ‘we’?” The thought of getting out of bed and facing everybody was terrifying. But not as bad as thought of being stuck in the house with Dylan.
“Everybody. Shawn’s going to meet us at the marina. Dylan and Wade went into town already to get bait while everybody gets ready. The guys are going to pretend to fish and we can lay out and be lazy.”
“I’ll lay out and be lazy here,” Kris muttered.
“I can’t hear you with this thing over your face,” Nikki said, jerking the pillow out of Kris’s hands. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I just don’t feel like going to the lake,” she said, jerking the sheet up over her eyes with a scowl.
The sheet was summarily jerked down and she was left to glare at Nikki with sleepy eyes and tangled hair, her torso bare to the world. “Do you mind? There are kids in the house.”
“Nope,” she said cheerfully. “Not right now. They are all in the garage looking for rafts, fishing poles, and the blow up thingies to put on Mandy and Mikey’s arms. What’s up with you?”
With narrowed eyes, she wrapped her hands around the sheet, jerked and succeeded in pulling it from Nikki. Once she had it, she tucked it up under her arms and said, “I don’t feel like going out to the lake. Remember what happened last time? I ended up looking like a bloody lobster, and feeling about as well cooked.”
Nikki studied her with thoughtful eyes before lifting her sun-kissed shoulders in a shrug. The straps of her bathing suit peeped out from under her ragged tank top as she pushed off the bed. “Suit yourself, sleeping beauty,” she drawled as she headed for the door.
As she closed the door behind her, Kris heard her say with a laugh, “Coward.”
Absolutely, Kris thought, flopping back onto the bed and pulling the sheet back up over her naked body. Hell, had it really happened?
Pressing her lips together, she could almost taste him. Every part of her body that he had touched seemed to burn still and as she remembered, one long shudder racked her body and she murmured, “Yeah. It happened.”
How in the world was she going to be able to look him in the eye again? She certainly couldn’t stand being trapped on a boat with him for an entire day. Rolling over, she pressed her hot face back into the cool linens and prayed for oblivion. Once the family was out of the house, she’d figure something out.
****
It was still early enough in the year for the water to be cool and as Dylan dove in, it slid over his flesh like cool silk, cooling his overheated body. Why was it you never remembered just how hot and muggy a Kentucky summer could get? His abandoned pole remained on the boat as he swam over through the water of Lake Cumberland, heading for the small island where Nikki and the kids had decided to land.
Shawn, Wade and Jack continued to pretend they were fishing. Shawn’s current babe lay on the boat in a tiny thong and top, pretending she wasn’t aware of the male attention being directed her way. Dylan figured it wasn’t going to be much time before Shawn tired of her, especially when he realized just how many times she was aiming those baby blues at Wade, and every other guy within fifty feet.
Of course, if Nikki noticed...Dylan grinned as he cut through the water. Those pretty baby blues would widen with terror if Nikki decided to get upset about her flirting with her husband.
Reaching the shallows, he planted his feet on the bottom and waded through the water, sliding his hands through his hair. Low riding cut offs molded to his lean hips, and just to the right of his navel, there was small round little scar, red and puckered. The one at his back wasn’t so neat and tidy. Exit wounds rarely were, and he had the added bonus of numerous scars from the repeated surgeries.
As he moved closer, he heard Nikki tell Mikey not to play with the bugs, her mouth curling in disgust, laughter in her eyes. Why hadn’t he realized how much he had missed them? he wondered, absently, lowering his body to the warm sand. The laughing squealing kids, his brother and sister, his father. Hell, even the brother in law he had once wanted to pound into the dirt.
And Kris.
Not that he had ever seen her a hell of a lot, but before he had left, he’d seen her around once or twice a year, talked to her, however briefly, on the phone.
“So are you sleeping all right?” Nikki asked, interrupting his daydreams.
With a shrug of his shoulders, he drew his knees up, hiding his belly from the approaching kids, shifting so that the driftwood close by blocked his back from their eyes. “Yeah. I don’t need much sleep.”
“Of course not,” Nikki replied, rolling her eyes. “Not the big tough Army Ranger. But how about my brother, the man who was shot, paralyzed for a while? Shouldn’t he be taking care of himself?”
“I came home, didn’t I?” he asked shortly.
“Several months after the fact,” Nikki replied, reminding him she still hadn’t let that go.
“I was just asking. I thought I heard somebody up and moving around last night.”
She hadn’t heard him, Dylan thought.
“I figured it was Kris. She has trouble with insomnia, gets worse the more stressed out she is,” Nikki continued, cupping sand in her hand and letting it run through her fingers. “I hope she isn’t waking you up.”
Dylan lifted his shoulders in a shrug, eyeing the cooler sitting a few feet away. “When are we going to eat?” he asked, glancing towards the kids. “That boy of yours eats any more bugs, he’s likely to turn into one.”
Nikki’s lip curled slightly and she shuddered. “I don’t know what it is about him and crawly things. The doctor assures me it won’t hurt him.” Dutifully, she turned her head and caught Mikey’s eyes just as he squatted down and started to reach for another insect.
After the chubby little hand fell away from the bug and his lower lip started to quiver, Nikki sighed. “He looks like he lost his best friend, doesn’t he?” she murmured, shaking her head and pushing up to her feet. Dusting her hands off on her hips, she went over and picked up the little guy, pressing kisses to his neck until he started to giggle.
Moments later, Dylan found his arms full of sleepy baby as Nikki told him, “See if you can enchant him as much as bugs do. I’ll start putting the food together.”
Dylan straightened away from the driftwood, eyeing the little person on his lap warily. He’d gotten so big. Mikey had been six months old the last time he’d been home. Now he was walking, running, talking…eating bugs. Well, Dylan figured. I’ve eaten worse than that. He shifted his legs so that he sat Indian style with Mikey settled in his lap.
Those big sober eyes stared at Dylan curiously before dropping to his shoulder. “Owie,” Mikey said, lifting his dirty hand to a slender three-inch long scar on Dylan’s right shoulder. His eyes started to sting when the boy lowered his mouth and pressed a smacking kiss to the old scar. “All better,” Mikey said solemnly, his voice surprisingly clear.
“Thanks, fella,” Dylan said roughly, stroking a hand down the sun screened back. “I, ah, I think your mom wants me to keep you from eating any more bugs for a while.”
When Mikey scrunched his nose up like that, he looked just like Nikki, Dylan thought. Mikey said, “Ucky bugs.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty gross. But you seem to like it.”
With a decisive nod, he agreed, “Like it.”
Dylan laughed. “I guess they have to watch what they say around you any more, don’t they?”
Approaching from the back, Nikki lowered the small portable grill to the sand, securing its legs as she said, “You have no clue, bub. I dropped something a couple of months ago and said what’s natural when you’re aggravated. Then Wade comes home and I lied, telling him Mikey and I were teaching the dog to sit. ‘He’s saying sit, Wade, that’s what’s he’s saying.’ I think he even bought it
.”
“Good cover up,” Dylan agreed, watching Mikey investigate the chain he still wore around his neck. Mikey glanced up and chirped, “Cover up.” Dylan laughed and shifted the sturdy toddler. “They’re all getting so big, Nik. Can you believe it?”
Glancing over at her youngest, who was turning Dylan’s dog tags back and forth, Nikki shook her head. “No. I can’t. You know, Abby’s thirteen. She’s crazy about boys, wanting to date. It seems like she was just five years old. You never realize how fast time goes by until it’s already gone.”
Mikey tired of the chain at Dylan’s neck and took off after his sisters, squealing and laughing. His face sobered and he turned to Nikki. “What’s going on with Kris?” he asked.
Nikki lifted her shoulders as she tore open a small bag of charcoal. “She’s not talking to me much about anything. Don’t think she slept good last night. She didn’t feel like coming down here all day.”
Behind his sister’s back, Dylan’s eyes rolled. After clearing the wide grin from his face, he said, “That’s not what I mean.” Even the faintest smile faded from his eyes as he added, “She’s not acting like Kris. Damn it, it’s not like I see her a lot, but it seems like something’s bothering her.”
After setting the coals alight, Nikki settled down on the sand within arms length of the grill. “She just quit a very lucrative job to start one that could flop. She could just be worried about that. Could be she’s still upset about what happened a few months ago. She’s not really talking about things much right now.” Nikki blinked innocently and gave him a sweet smile. “I don’t suppose this Army friend of yours…and don’t tell me he isn’t Army…I won’t buy it…I don’t suppose he has told you why in the world Kris needs a bodyguard all the time, has he?”
ALWAYS YOURS Page 7
