The Army Doc's Baby Secret

by Charlotte Hawkes

  ‘Is that what the nightmare is?’ she asked quietly. ‘Hearing the screaming?’

  His jaw was locked so tightly she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and cupping her palm against it.

  She wasn’t prepared when he suddenly lifted his arm and covered her hand with his own.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he told her, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Sometimes it’s the silence. And that can be worse.’

  Tia couldn’t speak.

  ‘Sometimes it’s me being blown up. Sometimes I dream that I’m fine, that I was never blown up, but that I’m standing over someone knowing they’re dead. Sometimes it’s Duckie, sometimes it’s Noel...’ He hesitated, but made himself push on. ‘Or, when things get really rough, the nightmare is that it’s you.’

  ‘Me? I wasn’t even there.’

  ‘But I lost you all the same.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered eventually. ‘I should have realised. I should have...stayed away.’

  His hand, still pressed to hers, held her all the tighter.

  ‘The nightmares aren’t worse since you reappeared, Tia,’ he choked out. ‘I hadn’t really considered until now, but they’ve been getting easier over this past month. That one tonight is the first one I’ve had since you’ve been back in my life.’

  She tried to contain the joy that leapt to life in her soul. But it was impossible.

  ‘Surely that’s good?’

  ‘I usually have at least one bad dream every ten days or so.’

  So his nightmares were less since she’d come back into his life.

  Tia found that she couldn’t focus her mind. Her mind might as well have been stuck inside a hurricane and altogether too many questions were screaming around in there.

  The world was shifting around her, shimmering faintly, as though it might be full of possibilities after all. The grip on her hand now tightened, almost painfully. Or perhaps that was the grip on her heart.

  It was time to move them forwards. As a couple.

  Sliding her hand out from between his palm and her jaw, she led him to the small settee in the room and forced herself to smile.

  ‘Show me,’ she murmured, letting her hand sweep over his limb. ‘Teach me how it works.’

  ‘Tia,’ he berated. ‘You know how these things work.’

  ‘Not really.’ She shrugged. ‘I worked at the other end of this process.’

  ‘The cutting end?’ He grinned wryly.

  She pulled a rueful expression.

  ‘Show me, Zeke.’

  ‘No. It’s too jarring,’ he vacillated. ‘Hardly... romantic.’

  She smiled. A soft teasing smile that she could see twisted inside him.

  ‘So now we’re being romantic?’

  ‘Aren’t we?’ he challenged playfully, and the shimmering hope inside her grew incandescent.

  ‘I guess we are.’

  ‘Then how is showing you my prosthetic, or even my stump, romantic?’

  She placed her hand on his thigh where it touched hers, trailing a path down to his knee.

  ‘You still don’t see it, do you, Zeke? It’s romantic to me.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’ He shook his head.

  ‘I know. And that’s what makes you an idiot,’ but there was no rancour in her words. ‘But, for the first time in my life, I would feel like it made you my idiot. That you were finally letting me in. That, at last, there were no barriers built between us.’

  Tia had no idea what it was—whether her words, or her touch, or maybe just the way she was looking at him—but suddenly everything simply...changed. It was as though he had finally decided to try trusting her and all the tension, all the pain of the last few weeks just dropped away.

  It didn’t matter any more.

  There was just her, and Zeke. And she knew he wanted to be with her in the way she’d been dreaming of for years. As long as he knew that she wanted to just accept him for all that he was, in a way that no one else ever had done in the past.

  More importantly, he would need to want her to.

  She waited, her breathing choppy, loaded. For a long time she couldn’t be sure it was even going to happen. And then abruptly he pressed his forehead to hers, deliberately, roughly, as though, if they could merge as one, she could understand for herself all the things he couldn’t easily articulate.

  She didn’t know what had changed, but she rejoiced that it had.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘DO YOU KNOW that these last few weeks have been the first time you’ve ever really begun to talk to me about your mother, Tia?’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true.’ She frowned, knowing that it was.

  ‘It is,’ Zeke confirmed. ‘You have talked about me shutting you out, but it hasn’t just been me. I think that was why we were first drawn to each other all those years ago. We each saw a dark void in the other that we pretended being together could fix. We were both running from our pasts but being together allowed us to act as though we were running towards something.’

  ‘Maybe we were.’

  ‘We weren’t. You would never have married me if you hadn’t been desperate to plug the hole your mother’s death had left. Just as I wouldn’t have talked you into eloping if I hadn’t been trying to prove to myself that someone could want me. Love me.’

  She wanted to deny it, but deep down she knew he was right.

  ‘So we did it for the wrong reasons, and we messed things up in the middle. But it brought us Seth. There can be nothing more perfect than our son, surely.

  ‘Tia, I’m trying to say...’

  But she didn’t want to know what he was trying to say. She couldn’t overcome the unsettling suspicion that it was going to be something she didn’t want to hear. Something that might threaten the possibility of them becoming a family, at last.

  Grasping his waist with her hands, she angled her head until their lips just brushed, praying that he would meet her halfway. If she couldn’t talk him into trusting her, then she was just going to have to show him in the most primal way she could.

  For a long moment, he didn’t respond. She could feel his warm, ragged breath, tickling her lips, but they were both frozen there. Paralysed.

  And then, just as she thought he was going to move away, he kissed her. A kiss to launch a rocket booster into space. And Tia poured everything she was into that kiss. A long, slow burn that unfurled right through her and scorched her from the inside out. Delicious and destructive all at once. She should stop it. But she didn’t want to even try. So, instead, she wound her arms around his neck and pressed her entire body against his. Her breasts splayed against his chest, her thighs nestled between his, and Zeke pushing against her belly, so sinfully hard where she was achingly soft.

  She rocked against him, slowly and deliberately, revelling in the low growl that escaped his throat, recognising the familiar, mad heat that surged though him, making his whole body tauten against hers. And then she tilted her head, angling for a better fit, and repeating the kiss between them.

  Zeke resisted for one moment more, and then...he stopped fighting her. And it was like unleashing a tsunami. His hands cupped her jaw, he deepened the kiss and he merely took. Demanded. Whilst Tia gave herself up to him completely.

  His mouth plundered hers, feasting on her as though he couldn’t get enough, making her dizzy with a feverish longing. She had no idea how long he kept kissing her, his hands cradling her face then tangling into her hair, sweeping down her back, then grazing up her chest until she was arching wantonly into him.

  ‘Lift up,’ he commanded huskily, and when he cradled her backside, instinct made her raise her legs to wind around his hips, shivering as he pulled her so deliciously onto him.

  Velvet against steel.

  He carried her across the room and to the bed, lowering her d
own and covering her body with his own, the molten expression in his eyes scorching her from the inside out. Her body shifted over the bed, and her heart thundered in her ears.

  Zeke wanted her. Every bit as much as she wanted him. And the mere anticipation was enough to make her begin to lose herself. To wonder, somewhere on the edges of her consciousness, if she would make it out alive this time.

  As if he could read her mind, Zeke bent his head and drew one aching nipple into his mouth, like a shot right from her breast and through her body to her very core. He grazed his teeth over the sensitive skin before sucking on it deeply, intense pleasure and exquisite pain all at once.

  Tia lost herself completely.

  There was nothing but her and Zeke. The way it had been a decade earlier, before real life had begun to get in the way and over-complicate things. When they had let their hearts rule their heads, and when they had acted on glorious impulse and eloped.

  When they had simply felt love.

  Still, his mouth, his hands, teased her. Tracing whorls over her bare skin, almost reverently, as though he was taking his time to relearn her. Perfect and intoxicating. And every time he teased her, grazing his teeth over her with just the right balance between gentleness and roughness, a fresh jolt of lust clutched at the apex of her legs.

  ‘It’s been five years,’ she groaned softly. ‘Don’t you think that’s long enough to wait?’

  ‘It’s been over five years,’ he corrected, his hoarseness betraying him. ‘I don’t intend to rush this like I did back at the lifeboat station.’

  Before she could answer, he moved over her again, shedding the last of her clothes and dropping hot, lingering kisses down between her breasts, to her belly button and lower. Much lower.

  The storm that had been building between them ever since that first moment in her new office back in Delburn Bay closed in on her with lightning speed. Only that time, Zeke had been in control. Now she was determined that it would be her.

  Not just because she wanted to. But because she had to. She had to prove to Zeke that she’d meant what she’d said when she’d told him she hadn’t cared about his lost leg. That he wasn’t any less of a man to her. He never had been.

  With a superhuman effort she pressed her hands against his chest.

  ‘My turn,’ she whispered, pushing him away and onto his back. Savouring the fact that he let her.

  And then she was astride him, her hands acquainting themselves with every solid, contoured muscle of his chest and stomach, as impressive as it always had been. Her mouth following suit, she took her time, letting her hair slide over his skin until he was scarcely able to conceal the way even those defined edges quivered slightly for her.

  Carefully, deliberately, Tia worked her way down to his waist, stopping short at the low band where his towel still clung to his hips. He was ready for her, beneath it. Excitement rippled through her. She felt almost wild. But this was about more than just the sex. This was about proving something to him, as well.

  Edging backwards, she moved down his legs until she was at his ankles.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded gruffly.

  ‘Shh, just wait,’ she murmured, meeting his gaze, holding it.

  Without breaking eye contact Tia reached up and curled her fingers around the sleeve art, rolling it down with all the reverence that she might have rolled a condom onto his proud, unabashed sex.

  ‘Tia...’

  ‘Trust me?’ It was meant to be a command, but it came out more as a soft plea.

  Zeke paused, his eyes narrowed a fraction, before offering an almost imperceptible inclination of his head.

  Tacit acquiescence.

  Still staring into those fathomless blue depths, she reached for his ankle piece and disconnected it, lowering it softly to the floor beside the bed.

  ‘Now what?’ he growled, the undercurrent of anger palpable in his tone.

  But she was beginning to recognise Zeke again. Finally. And she knew it was more anger at himself, at the discomfort and uncertainty he was feeling right at this moment, than it was directed at her. So it was her job to eradicate it.

  He had trusted her this far, anyway, and that was all the encouragement she needed.

  ‘Now...’ a seductive smile pulled at the corners of her mouth ‘...we play.’

  Before he could say anything more, Tia moved back up his body, and unhooked the towel, letting it fall either side of his hips, her breath catching in her chest as she finally broke eye contact and let her eyes skim down his incredible body to where he stood, so powerfully male.

  She swallowed once. Twice. He was every bit as magnificent as she remembered.

  Better.

  And he was all hers.

  It was all she could do not to claim him immediately.

  Pressing her lips to his inner thighs, she worked her way, higher and higher, determined not to rush, however much she wanted otherwise. However much she had to taste him, needed to.

  She jolted when he caught her upper arms with his strong hands, stopping her.

  ‘Tia.’ His voice was clipped, raw. ‘You don’t have to do this.’

  ‘This is exactly your problem, Zeke,’ she managed, her husky voice alien even to her. ‘You refuse to believe how much I want to. Even when the evidence to the contrary is right in front of you.’

  And then, before he could object any further, she lowered her head and took him into her mouth.

  * * *

  He was dying.

  There was no other way to describe it. This unparalleled pleasure that crashed over him, and all around him.

  Her mouth even hotter, cleverer, wickeder than he remembered. And even more urgent than it had been in every one of the futile fantasies he’d harboured in the years since they’d been apart, even whilst he’d thought they would never be together again. As if she, too, had been waiting for this moment. As if she couldn’t get enough of him.

  She licked him, tasted him, sucked him. The sweetest torture he had ever known. And he could do nothing but lie back and let her, watching her head move over him, letting his fingers tangle in that glorious mass of silken hair of hers. Letting her have her way. Letting her do what she wanted to him.

  Tia. His Tia.

  Claiming him as though she had every right to do so. Turning him inside out. He was building fast. Maybe too fast. Rolling through him like a tornado, a vortex that he couldn’t hope to control.

  Without warning, she moved her hands to circle his base, her teeth grazing him with the exact amount of pressure before taking him deeper again into her mouth, and Zeke couldn’t curb it any longer.

  It was like being strapped to a slingshot ride that Tia had suddenly released, leaving him catapulting into space. Crying out her name and who knew what else, as he was shot into a million glorious pieces.

  When he came back to himself she was still astride him, watching him. Undisguised victory in those stunning, sparkling eyes. A smirk tugging at one side of her mouth.

  ‘Witch,’ he breathed when he could finally speak.

  ‘Why? Because I’ve just exposed your claims that you have no feelings for the lies they are?’

  He could have hurt her. He could have told her that sex and feelings weren’t the same thing at all. But suddenly, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to dance this power tango any more. He didn’t want to fight. He just wanted her.

  His Tia.

  ‘Because you have me under your spell,’ he muttered, snaking his hands out to hold her as he twisted on the bed so that she was on her back and he was over her. ‘Just like you always did.’

  Her eyes widened, then darkened.

  ‘Prove it,’ she challenged softly, but he didn’t mistake the faint quake in her voice, as though she was half frightened.

  ‘Oh, believe me. I intend to.’

&n
bsp; He nestled himself between her legs, his mouth finding that sensitive hollow at the base of her neck, which had her arching her back and making the kind of sounds that instantly reignited the insane fire inside him. But he forced himself to take his time, his tongue licking at her salty skin, his hands following the luscious, fascinating curves of her body. Even when she wrapped her long legs around his waist so sensuously, so enticingly, he refused to capitulate.

  Carefully he slid his hand down her body, between them, his slightly calloused hand deliberately grazing her soft skin. Tracing patterns and whorls, indulging and teasing.

  Slowly, so slowly, he let his fingers creep down, three finger-walks down, then two back up, heightening Tia’s anticipation, until she was moving impatiently under him, her breath coming in short, sharp, little gasps.

  He moved down over her belly button, the soft swell below, and finally into the neat hair beneath that. All the while, Tia lifted her hips, turned them, in an attempt to get him to touch her where he knew she ached for him most.

  Still Zeke teased her. Toyed with her. And himself. Only when he thought she could take no more did he let his fingers inch lower. Lower. To circle all that slick, inviting heat, around and around. To play with that proud button, with long, slow flicks. To slide inside her where she was hot, and swollen, and waiting for him.

  Driving her closer and closer to the edge.

  He could see the wave reaching its peak inside her. He relished in it.

  ‘Not like this,’ she cried suddenly, trying to twist her hips away from him. ‘Not this time.’

  ‘Relax.’ He lowered his head to her breasts. To the pink, straining buds.

  She cried out, then caught herself again.

  ‘I want more, Zeke,’ she repeated. ‘I want you.’

  ‘I’m here,’ he growled, deliberately misunderstanding her. Sucking on her nipple until she was arching up to him again.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she managed, her voice sounding thick, far away, but succeeded in moving her hands down his back to grasp his backside, to pull him to her until his length was pressed against her.