“Roommate?” He murmured the one word question against her jawline. His hand was fondling her breast and Jenna was having difficulty following his train of thought as her body grew warm and frenzied.
“Uh, she’s—she’s away for the weekend.” She barely managed to get the words past her lips before his mouth took possession of hers again. Jenna was thankful for the hard body pinning her against the door because his kiss was liquefying her bones. Slipping her hands beneath his sweatshirt, she brushed her fingers along his damp skin. He was as frenzied as she was and Jenna wanted him to slow things down. A frantic coupling in the foyer wasn’t the answer for his tortured flashbacks. He’d asked for an entire night and that’s what she wanted to give him.
“Shh,” she tried soothing him, but her breath hitched when her fingers slid below the waistband of his sweatpants and came in contact with the bare skin of his sculpted butt. “Oh,” she sighed. He pressed his hips further into hers bringing her hot core in contact with the hardest part of him. Jenna couldn’t help the strangled cry that escaped her lips.
“I’ll make it good for you,” Drew murmured against her ear sending shivers down her spine. “I promise.”
Jenna didn’t doubt him. “Then take me to bed,” she demanded.
Drew’s fingers gripped her bottom, lifting her off the floor as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Whispering naughty things in her ear, he carried her to her bedroom. By the time they both landed on the bed, Jenna was quivering with need. His words had been so explicit. She pulled his mouth down to hers for a searing kiss while his long fingers dispensed with her shorts and panties. Then he pushed a finger inside her causing her to nearly buck off the bed. A second finger joined the first one and Jenna broke off the kiss with a moan.
Drew swore. “Last chance to throw me out, Jenna. You’re as turned on as I am right now, but if this isn’t what you want, tell me now.”
Was he freaking kidding? Jenna’s body felt as if it was ready to melt and slide down the door and he was talking about leaving. No way was she letting him walk away again. “Lieutenant Commander, if you don’t get naked this instant, I’ll have you court-martialed!”
One eyebrow went up at her words, but he made no move for his clothes. Instead, he flicked his fingers inside her again, his eyes never leaving Jenna’s. She gulped a sigh, her eyelids sliding closed, cutting off his determined stare, as satisfaction consumed her. His mouth found her breast; the pain and pleasure of his tongue abrading the pebbled nipple through the thin fabric of her T-shirt and bra was almost unbearable. His lips pulled at the tender nub while his fingers rhythmically stroked her. Jenna laced her hands behind his head, anchoring him to her body as the tension built within her core. She cried out as an intense climax washed over her scattering her wits and her senses.
Minutes later, she opened her eyes to see a now naked Drew looming over her with that determined look still on his face. “Good?” he asked shamelessly.
Jenna couldn’t help but smile. “Better than good,” she said tugging her T-shirt and bra off. Drew’s eyes narrowed at the sight of her, one corner of his mouth turning up in a grin. She reached for the light beside the bed, wanting to make the room brighter so she could study every inch of the hard body she’d been admiring for days, but he caught her hand and brought it between their slick bodies.
“Later,” he growled before taking her lips with his own. He kissed her as though he wanted to devour her, yet Jenna never felt threatened. Only desired. As he explored her mouth, she returned the favor with her fingers on his body, perusing over the sleek muscles and satiny skin. He hissed against her lips as she wrapped her fingers around the hot, hard length of him and stroked firmly. Leaving her mouth, he bit at her neck and her shoulder as she continued to palm him.
Groaning, he reached between them, shackling both her wrists in one hand and gently pulling her arms over her head. Drew leaned his forehead against hers. “Keep that up and we’ll be done before the good stuff.”
She brushed her lips against his. “Then hurry up with the good stuff.”
His eyes were dark as he reached for a condom. Taking it from him, Jenna rolled it over his erection. Drew’s eyes slammed shut before he claimed her with a deep, drugging kiss. Jenna gasped as he entered her with a single thrust before holding himself steady. He peered down at her from his plank position. A sheen of sweat on his forehead indicated that he might not be in control as he made himself out to be. “Still good?”
Tilting her hips to accommodate him more deeply, she lifted her hand and stroked a finger along his rough jaw. “Still better than good.”
Drew began to move then, his rhythm unhurried but intense. That slow burn ignited again as Jenna’s body grew needy for another climax. She wrapped her legs around his back in an effort to pull their heated skin closer together. He dropped to his elbows as he rocked into her, all the while whispering words of encouragement—most of them X-rated and likely learned onboard a ship somewhere. She came in such a rush that caused little pinpricks of light to dance before her eyes while waves of pleasure washed over her. Drew was right behind her climaxing on a guttural moan followed by a reverent whisper that sounded a lot like her name.
*
“And this one, where did you get it?” Jenna asked, her finger tracing a scar on his leg.
Drew tried not to wince, but her touch was making him hard enough to pound nails. An uncomfortable predicament considering he’d had her twice in the past hour. After the second round—a playful romp in the shower—she’d demanded the lights be turned on so she could explore his body. Propped up against the lacy pillows lining her headboard, Drew imagined interrogations that were a lot worse than Jenna’s intense scrutiny with her eyes, fingers and, if he was really lucky, her tongue. But her sexy inventory of his battle scars was definitely taking a toll on his body. It was all he could do to lie still.
He glanced at the inch-long white mark on his left thigh, relieved that he didn’t have to lie about that one. “Puncture wound. But it was in the third grade. My brother, Jack, gave me that one.” He left out the part about the skewer nearly severing an artery, but he lived by the SEAL’s code to keep the details to a minimum.
“Your brother stabbed you?” Her eyes went round as her lips hovered over the long-forgotten scar.
Drew’s mouth watered as his aching hard-on pleaded with her to move her mouth a few inches to the left. “It was an accident,” he nearly moaned as her tongue traced the tiny scar that Drew wished hadn’t shrunk during the past twenty years. “Shit like that happens among brothers all the time.” The Lanham boys were no different from other brothers growing up. Until their mother had died.
“That’s ridiculous. Siblings don’t go around stabbing one another,” she said as she straddled him. She released a tight sigh as the sweet seam between her legs rubbed up against his arousal. “Tell me why your brother would want to hurt you?”
He reached underneath his hoodie she’d donned after their shower and wrapped his fingers around her hips. Jenna sighed in pleasure again as she rocked against him. The image was so erotic, he could barely remember his military ID number much less the reason for the fight with Jack. “It’s not important.” He tugged the hoodie over her head, his breath catching painfully in his throat at the sight of her nude body.
She leaned down to touch her nose to his, her index finger tracing his lips while her other hand rested on top of his hammering heart. “Don’t think I’m not on to you. You haven’t answered a single one of my questions. At least not with the truth.”
Drew smiled in admiration. He’d avoided all of her questions with some pretty elaborate made-up crap. Most women bought the bullshit hook, line and sinker, but not Jenna. The fact that she saw through him made the game more challenging, but he couldn’t afford for her to see too much. He’d taken a great risk in coming here tonight—not to mention he felt like a douche-bag for taking advantage of her. Neither of them was complaining, however. For the first tim
e in weeks, his muscles felt relaxed and his mind was quiet. His buddies had been right—sex was the panacea. He only hoped that one dose would be enough to last him.
She traced a finger over his forehead. “You keep too many secrets up here.” Her guess was as accurate as a sniper’s shot. Her lips followed her finger as her warm breath fanned his heated skin. “It’s not healthy to keep that all locked up inside.”
“Everything up there is classified,” he joked, hoping she’d drop the subject. While he’d love to open up to someone, to be able to share the heavy burden he carried, he couldn’t. Especially not to someone as guiltless as Jenna. The knowledge of who and what he really was would destroy her.
She ground her hips against him again and Drew reached for the condom. Fortunately, she wasn’t innocent in the bedroom. Sheathing himself, he lifted her over top of him, slowly bringing her down until his eyes blurred. “Besides,” he murmured. “Tonight is supposed to be about forgetting.” She rode him until they both went over the edge and he finally tumbled into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Seven
‡
For a sunny Saturday afternoon in late August, the lobby area of the Turtle Rescue Center was crowded with tourists browsing the many exhibits and the gift shop. Hand in hand, Jenna led Drew through the employees’ only door into the hospital area of the facility, eager to show him why she was so passionate about the Center and the hatchery project. They’d spent the past sixteen hours discovering each other’s bodies and now Jenna was determined they learn about what interested the other one. Although, given that Drew was a red-blooded American male, his interests could lie exclusively with her body, but she was going to try and uncover the mystery behind the man no matter what.
Drew stopped just inside the doors, quietly assessing the large room. A few techs were checking water temps in several of the large pools, but having recognized Jenna, they ignored her guest.
“Wow,” he said. The sound of awe in his voice made Jenna beam. “This isn’t what I expected.” They walked between the large pools housing sea turtles in various stages of recuperation. He stopped to watch one of the grad students carefully place lettuce and other greens in the smaller bins housing the terrapin turtles that had been rescued.
“You sound like my father.” She adjusted one of the filters as they passed by. “He thinks we just collect box turtles by the side of the road and nurse them back to health in a terrarium. Which we do, by the way.” She pointed to the terrapin. “But our main focus is the sea turtles.”
She showed him the operating suite where surgeries were performed on the giant creatures and the smaller rooms where more minor injuries were tended. All the while she explained the types of procedures they performed each and every day in an effort to stave off extinction for the creatures. Drew asked questions about the hatchery, and Jenna was filled with a sense of awe of her own realizing he had actually done more than ‘skim’ the prospectus she’d left him. She shot him a smile of genuine appreciation.
“What’s that for?” He brushed his lips over her hairline.
“It’s just nice to converse with someone outside the field who gets it. My family thinks that I’m nuts.”
“Your parents aren’t turtle fans, I take it?” Drew asked.
Jenna grimaced. “My father believes I’m wasting my education, that I should have taken my biology degree and become a doctor or a nurse. Something more productive to society than saving seafood—his words, not mine. The hatchery would be a coup not only for Magnolia Bay, but for my career as well. If nothing else, my parents—especially my father—might finally take me seriously.”
They stopped outside the empty incubator room where the hatchery was intended to be housed. “You mentioned your dad was in the military?” Drew asked.
“Still is,” she said, hoping he would drop this line of questioning.
No such luck. “What branch?” he asked before she could redirect him.
Avoiding his eyes, she led them both into the cool room filled floor to ceiling with racks for trays where the eggs would be inseminated and incubated until they were viable enough to be transplanted to the man-made nests along the Center’s shoreline. “My father is also in the Navy,” she answered. Jenna knew there was more than one man in the entire U.S. fleet with the last name of Huntley and she would have been in luck had he been anyone but a Navy SEAL.
“Rank and duty station,” he demanded sounding so much like her father that she actually cringed. This is why she didn’t get involved with military men—Navy SEALs in particular. She’d spent her life navigating the egos and eccentricities of the military’s elite. Last night was obviously an aberration because Drew had quickly reverted back to his natural character. Jenna sighed. As incredible as their time in her bedroom had been, with his demeanor, she certainly wouldn’t have a problem keeping her heart out of play.
Jenna crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Admiral and the Pentagon. Joint Chiefs of Staff, to be precise.” She watched as recognition dawned on his face before his mouth grew tight.
He raked a hand through his crisp hair. “Tell me I didn’t just sleep with Hercules Huntley’s daughter.” The question was more of a command, his voice almost lethal.
She refused to be cowed, nearly laughing at the comical name that made her father seem human, as if that were possible. The admiral had been human once, though. Before Robbie died. Afterwards, he’d reverted back to the machine the Navy had molded him into. A lot like the man standing before him. “It’s not exactly as though we did a lot of sleeping.”
Drew unleashed a barrage of obscenities as he did that head squeezing thing again. Jenna heaved a frustrated sigh.
“For crying out loud, it’s not like I’m going to be telling him I did the wild thing with one of his precious elite warriors!” She slammed one of the cabinets closed. “Not that it would matter. My father hasn’t listened to a word I’ve said in—never mind.”
When she looked up, he was piercing her with that all-knowing direct stare that always seemed to unnerve her. She tried to keep her own gaze unflinching, but he was going to defend her father. Tell her what a great man, a great officer, he was. That’s what they always did. Put the blame on Jenna for not measuring up. For not being Robbie.
“So last night, was I just a tool to get back at Daddy?”
His question stunned her, made her stomach roll. “God, no,” she whispered. “Last night was about two people acting on a very real attraction to one another. It was about enjoying—” she wanted to say ‘the most incredible sex ever, but she was too embarrassed to admit that to a man who probably had that kind of experience every time he was with a woman. She huffed an angry breath. “You came to my door, remember?” Tears stung the back of her eyes and her throat ached so that she couldn’t possibly push any more words out. His accusation was worse than having him defend her father.
Drew’s arms suddenly snaked around her, pulling her body against his larger one. She nestled her cheek against his muscled chest, breathing in the familiar fragrance of her bath soap he’d showered with mingled with that unique scent that was pure male. “I just wanted to make you feel better. To stop your suffering,” she murmured against the soft cotton of his T-shirt. “I definitely wasn’t thinking about my father.”
She felt his low chuckle rumble in his chest. “I should hope not.”
Jenna smacked her palm against a solid pectoral muscle to no avail. Drew just laughed even harder.
“You definitely shouldn’t mention to the Admiral that you’ve met me,” she warned him.
He placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted it making it impossible to avoid his shrewd gaze. “I’m not afraid of your father.”
The laugh that escaped her mouth sounded bitter even to her own ears. “I doubt he’d maim you. You’re too important to the mission. But I’d hate for him to lose respect for you because of your taste in women.”
Something dark flared in Drew’s eyes before he tamped it d
own. He really was machine-like in the way he could do that. Except during sex. His shields weren’t up then. Jenna had been able to read his emotions loud and clear last night. Pleasure, contentment, and desire practically seeped out of his pores. But today, he’d returned to buttoned-up Drew. An exact replica of her father.
“Don’t ever say that about yourself,” he demanded, his voice a low growl. “Any man would be lucky to have you.” He gave her body a little squeeze.
The intensity of his stare was making her a bit woozy with desire, and she licked her bottom lip. Drew’s body tensed against hers in response.
“Not any man,” she said in an attempt to diffuse the sexual tension of the moment. “I’d never be like my mother and hitch my wagon to a Navy SEAL. I’ve seen what that can do to a woman.” Jenna wanted to let him know that her heart was safely contained and whatever passed between them was just something to be enjoyed for however long they had each other. She had never envisioned herself in that type of relationship before, but it felt invigorating to know that she could call the shots for the first time in her life.
He blinked twice and his face became even harder. “That’s good because I’m only passing through.”
“Well,” she whispered. “My door is always open should you need additional help managing your flashbacks.”
Drew smiled then, a grin of potent satisfaction, as his lips traveled closer to hers. Jenna felt a little unsure of her ability to walk on the wild side at her place of work. Anyone could interrupt them, but the magnetic pull of his lips was difficult to resist.
In the end, they were interrupted. Imogene pranced into the incubation room with Perry fast on her heels.
“Oh my, what have we here?” Imogene grinned as if she’d just found a pair of Jimmy Choo’s on the discount sale rack while Perry leveled a heated scowl at Drew.
Holiday at Magnolia Bay Page 7