“Stop, you’re killing me,” I squeaked.
He cupped his palm over my overstimulated clit. “I love it when you tell me to stop.”
“That’s… weird.” I was still gulping for breath.
“It means I took you as far as you’ll go.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
He got his arms under me and stood, carrying me one step to the rose-petal-covered bed.
* * *
I was as sleepy as I’d ever been, trying to make sense while wrapped in his arms.
“We’ll get R&R when we can,” I said. “ABG isn’t far. Not from here.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“For the deployment. After that… you’re resigning your commission, right?”
“Yes.” He peppered my face with gentle kisses. “My obligations are done.”
“I don’t want us to get our hopes up. The odds of us staying together—”
“Hush.”
“They’re not good.”
“You’re being a pessimist.”
“I’m scared,” I said, making fear my final negotiating point.
“Of what?”
“That you won’t be able to stand the long distances or moving around or any of it.” I didn’t mention that I could retire my commission. Of the few commitments I’d ever made, the only one I could see myself sticking with was my commission.
“You don’t think much of me.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“I’m not a child, Major. I’m a grown man who can make his own decisions.”
“And you’re going to decide to have a life because you’re normal.”
“No one’s ever called me that before.”
“It’s a compliment.”
“So, a complimentary thing about me is something you’re going to use to argue that we can’t be together?”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “My brain can’t get around what you just said.”
“What I said was…” He kissed my nose. “Your thinking is incomplete. Your way of seeing me is limited. You need to give me a chance.”
“Why?” I made a mm sound in my throat to stop his reply, waking up a little. “That came out wrong. I’m just… I want to. But outside dual deployment for married people, the army doesn’t care about anyone’s love life. There’s no way we’re going to be together much. Not for a while. I won’t be surprised when you tell me you can’t wait around for me.”
“I’ll be surprised.”
“Okay. You be surprised. But I don’t want to be hurt either. And, to quote a very sexy man, you can hurt me.”
“I won’t.” He unraveled his limbs from mine and stood over me.
“Where are you going?”
“I have a shift.” He got dressed, hiding his beauty from me one piece of clothing at a time. “You should stay here and get some rest. Think about it, then tell me you want me as much as I want you. Tell me you’d feel broken without me.”
Asking that of me said more about how he’d feel than how I’d feel. Lying in his bed, sticky and sore, I was thrown by his need.
“I don’t want to disappoint you,” I said. “This life is hard, Caden. It’s hard on women who grow up knowing what it’s like. I can’t imagine how it will be for you.”
Above me, in the half light, his eyes were dark and unreadable, but his body language—the deep breath, the articulated fingers asking me to hold on, the squared shoulders—spoke of preparation to say something uncomfortable and serious.
“I’m a practical man,” he said. “A surgeon has to be. If you cut somebody open and you’re careless, you’re going to kill them. It’s not bad luck. It’s not bad karma. If you’re casual or cavalier about germs or how you’re holding the knife, you can kill somebody. That’s just the long and the short of it. So, when I met you, I figured… pheromones. Early imprinting. Reproductive instinct. You meet all the standards for beauty and then some. I’m a straight guy. My brain and my spinal cord and my dick are wired to find a female of child-bearing age. My body reacts to you because my brain releases certain hormones at the sound of your voice or the smell of apples on your skin. It’s all science…until it’s not.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and put his shoes on, continuing as if he were describing a surgical procedure. “You know I had you down for a few fucks and a friendly good-bye. Probably about the same as you had me down for. We’re adults. It’s not like either one of us hasn’t ever had a pheromone-induced hormone rush. But it got weird. Somewhere in those eight days when you were checking on me, it became about more than the chemicals in my brain. I panicked. I went outside the wire because I was afraid I’d lose you if I didn’t. And I’m on that fucking Blackhawk, asking myself what the hell I’m doing, because the way I needed you wasn’t normal. Not for a man who knows how the body and the brain affect each other.”
He’d never told me what happened that night, and it looked as if that wouldn’t change. He stomped his foot on the floor when he was done lacing the second boot, then he leaned over me, placing an elbow on the mattress. “I don’t believe in the Universe with a capital U, and I don’t believe in God. I believe in brain signals and blood. But now? I’m willing to think maybe I’m wrong about everything. This is what it comes down to. You expanded my view of the universe. I don’t know what to do with that. I’m not saying I believe in fate or karma or ‘meant to be’ now, but my thinking got bigger because of you. I feel woken up.” As if he was uncomfortable with his own feelings, he got off his elbow and hunched on the edge of the bed, looking at his laced boots. “I feel ignorant and ordinary but awake. If that means we have a long-distance relationship until you retire, then that’s what it’ll be.”
“Okay.” My voice cracked in two syllables.
“Good.” He slapped his knees and stood. “Do you know when you’re heading out?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
If he was shocked by the compression of our time together, he didn’t show it. “Fine. I’m off work in the morning. We’ll eat, then I’ll take you to the air base.”
He kissed me quickly, then opened the door, letting in a blast of cold air, and shut it behind him. I heard him clop down the three wooden steps, heard his boots crunch on the rocky sand and fade into nothing.
Chapter Eight
Lunch wasn’t happening.
Every scrap of paperwork had to be completed before I left, and everything had to be in order for my replacement if they decided they needed another psychiatrist.
Ronin had traveled light, so by noon, he was spending most of his remaining hours in Balad helping me clear out. He had gotten us sandwiches from the chow hall. We had the radio on as we went through the office. The amount of administrative work I’d built up in a short time was staggering.
“What’s this?” Eyes wide with stories untold, he held up Pfc. Sanchez’s sonogram.
I snapped it out of his hand. “Mine, that’s what.”
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Yeah. Mind your business.” I put the photo in my pocket.
He held up his hands as if he wasn’t now, nor had he ever, touched on the subject of the sonogram or anything else. “Should we break down the desk?”
“Someone will use it.” I picked up the sandwich he’d brought. “Like me.” I hoisted myself onto the desk and opened the paper on my lap.
Ronin sat next to me and opened his. “We have a nice office in ABG.”
“We’re sharing an office?”
You don’t get far in the army without sharing, but I was a full major in a different unit, and I might need to see patients. Or not. He hadn’t told me much about what I’d be doing.
“You’re on loan to Army Intelligence. We’re pretty much in each other’s business.”
I bit my sandwich. “We’re clear on the other part of this offer, right?”
“The other part?”
“The you and I fucking part.”
“I figured
you would have mentioned it if it was on. What’s keeping you? My breath? Different cologne?”
“My availability’s compromised.”
“Let me guess. Cap’n Fobbit.”
“He went outside the wires, so you can stop that.”
“He sure did.” Ronin chewed his sandwich pensively.
I wiped my mouth, choosing my words carefully. “Did you hear what happened out there?”
“Yup.”
“What did you hear?”
As soon as he looked at me, I knew he could tell I had no idea. He picked a limp tomato out of his sandwich and answered, “I heard he overstepped for a Haji.”
Haji was a pejorative for Iraqi civilians. Maybe Caden didn’t want to tell me because he thought I’d be upset with him. Maybe the whole thing had been traumatic.
“He didn’t tell you.” Ronin read me like a book.
Caden appeared at the door in his uniform, cap pushed back on his head. He stood there, holding a rolled-up paper plate with two sandwiches in the curl.
“Hey,” I said. “Is one of those for me?”
He stepped in. “Yeah. But you have one.”
“I didn’t know you guys had a date.” Ronin folded the paper over his sandwich and slipped off the desk.
I took one of Caden’s sandwiches. “I’m pretty hungry. Thank you.”
“I’m going to pack up my trailer,” Ronin said. “See you on the airfield.”
“See you there.”
Caden held out his hand, and Ronin shook it. When he was gone, Caden sat next to me and unwrapped his lunch.
“I’m not going to sleep with him,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why do you have that look on your face?”
He shrugged. “I asked to be moved up there and got a no. Flat out. No.”
“You seem absolutely stunned by that.”
“I’ve never wanted to be anywhere but where I was before. So, it’s different. That’s all.”
We ate in silence.
“I feel guilty,” I said.
“You shouldn’t.” He cracked open a bottle of water and set it beside me. “I’m going to figure it out.”
“One man against the US Army and the woman who won’t leave it.”
He opened a second bottle and tipped it toward me. “I’d rather take on the army than you.”
He would. He was reckless and brave, like David running after Goliath with a slingshot.
“When you went outside the wire that time?” I said. “What happened?”
He shrugged and counted on his fingers. “Brogue. A guy from Georgia and an Iraqi lady. All patched up and sent to Baghdad. Done.”
“You came back barely moving.”
“I had a virus that laid me up for a few days while you were in recovery.” He leaned into my cheek. “That was how I got the R&R to come see you.”
A virus. Possible. But the deadness in his limbs had seemed far more serious, and I didn’t remember a fever, though admittedly, I hadn’t checked.
I narrowed my eyes at him as if the smaller aperture would bring the truth into focus.
It did not.
* * *
My stuff fit into three milk-crate-sized containers and a duffel. The bed was stripped to the mattress. I had no attachment to that or any space I’d ever occupied in my adult life.
Caden closed the door behind us. “We have half an hour,” he said, putting his arms around my waist. “It’s seven minutes to the airfield.” He kissed my neck. “Four to board. Five or six for in-between bullshit.” He pressed his pelvis into me so I could feel his erection. “Enough time.”
I let out a compliant sigh. “Barely.”
“I won’t even undress you.” He unbuckled my belt. “I’ll just bend you over the desk and fuck you from behind. I want the taste of your cunt on my fingers when you leave.” Fly open, pants halfway down my ass, I was already wet for him. “I want you to be sore so you’re thinking of me when you land.”
“I’ll be thinking of you. I promise.” I undid his pants, reaching in for his cock.
“Promise.”
I turned away from him and leaned over the desk. He pulled my pants down to mid-thigh and kissed my bottom, leaving a trail of spit where his mouth had been. He bit the flesh. I gasped from the surprise of the lovely, light pain.
He stood behind me and ran the head of his dick along my seam, then he grabbed my hips, keeping me still enough to push inside. He ran his hand up my back and grabbed a handful of hair. “You all right?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
He moved out of me slowly and thrust back in, pushing my body’s limits. “I want you to think of me when you land.” He yanked my hair until my face was far back enough to see him.
“I will.”
“Promise.”
“I promise. When we touch down, I’ll say your name.”
He let my hair go and curved his body along the shape of mine, reaching between my legs. “Every morning, when you wake up. Promise.”
“I’ll think of you first thing. I will.”
He drove into me, rotating his fingers against my clit. “Before you go to sleep.” He pushed so hard it hurt, and I yelped. His next was gentler. “When you’re fucking yourself under the sheets.”
“You,” I gasped.
“You’re going to come.” He sped up.
I was going to come, but I couldn’t get my thoughts together enough to tell him what he already knew.
“Say my name,” he demanded.
“Caden.”
“Every time.”
“Caden.”
“When you think of fucking.”
“Caden, I’m…”
The orgasm ripped through me like a mortar attack, with a whistle in the air before an earth-shaking explosion that knocked me off my feet. He held me up through it, grunting like an animal as he filled me.
“Greyson,” he uttered from deep in his chest. “You…” He thrust twice more before planting his lips on the back of my neck.
I twisted around to look at him. “You too.”
We kissed, and he slipped out, leaving raw soreness and satisfaction behind.
“We have three minutes,” I said.
“Three and a half.” Kissing me quickly on the cheek, he stood straight and slapped my ass with a crack. “Get moving, soldier.”
* * *
Caden carried my duffel to the tarmac even after I insisted I was perfectly capable.
“There’s no chivalry in the army,” I hissed as he took it from me. “That would ruin everything.”
“I’m a civilian in a uniform.” He hitched the duffel strap up. “Deal with it.”
The Chinook’s rotors were getting started.
“God, I hate these things,” I said as we walked toward it.
“Yeah.” He was agreeing, but he was also staring straight at the open door where Ronin waited, which explained the single-word answer.
“I’m sore,” I said as reassurance, but my words were lost in the din of helicopter blades.
Caden stopped short and dropped the duffel. I reached down to pick it up, but he put his hand on my shoulder.
“What?” I shouted. “It’s not too heavy.”
“Marry me.”
“What?” I must have misheard in the thupping noise.
“Marry me, Greyson. Be my wife.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, knowing full well he was dead serious.
“You said it was a unicorn assignment. You said you never heard of any one you could get out of. Well, maybe if that’s the case, there’s a reason for that. Maybe you shouldn’t go.”
I was thrown. We were supposed to kiss before I got on the helicopter and write letters and then break up.
“I can’t marry you to get out of going.”
“Marry me because you want to. I’ll be the best husband you ever heard of. I’ll take care of you. I’ll stay in the army, and we can dual deploy.”
�
�No!”
His face fell. I’d spoken too soon, but it was loud and the Phrog was waiting.
“Maybe!” Trying to make it better was making it worse. I wanted him, but he’d caught me off guard. “But you can’t stay.” My cap almost blew off. I had to hold it on.
“I will.” The clipped demand of his voice cut through the wall of noise. “They’re begging me to stay. If you don’t marry me, I’m redeploying.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“It’s the only way to stay close to you.”
“This is weird, Caden.” I glanced at the helicopter.
It was ready. Ronin was waiting. The pilots were waiting.
“Marry me.”
My life was waiting. But this beautiful man was waiting for me too. He was resilient and fragile, made of rock and flesh, with a strength that lunged forward only to tear him apart.
“You can’t redeploy,” I insisted. “That’s off the table.”
“Marry me, and I’ll do whatever you want.”
Marry him. What would I have to give up? What would I gain?
This man with strands of hair trilling in the wind and his powerful voice demanding more from me than I’d thought to give. He held me there, in his gaze, nailing my feet to the ground until I answered.
I barely knew him except by his loyalty, his passion, his vulnerability, his honesty.
I knew nothing of his life, his habits, his choices.
“Marry me. Don’t go with him.”
“Is this about Ronin?”
“No! I just… I have a feeling. A bad feeling about you going up there.”
“You’re lying.”
My accusation rang more false than his denial. He wasn’t lying. If his demand was about Ronin, he would have said it, and if he didn’t have a feeling, that would be the last thing he’d claim. I hadn’t known him that long, but I knew him that well.
“I love you, Greyson.” He raised his voice as much as he had to and no more. Just enough to sound serious and straightforward. “Stay here with your unit. Marry me. I love you.”
I barely knew myself or what I wanted from a man.
What was I supposed to say?
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 30