“As many as I want to give him,” he said, foolishly proud of the three baby fur animals he’d purchased at the airport’s kiosk in Atlanta. “He still awake?”
“Watching his favorite cartoon and having a bedtime snack with Lori.”
Hannah walked just ahead of him into the kitchen. Caleb watched the sway of her full hips, wanted to caress her perfect round bottom and drag her all the way to the bedroom where he’d discover all her sexy secrets beneath her dress’s smooth, satin fabric.
But all that would have to wait until after he met with Barney and convinced the man that Gibson Technologies would grow stronger under Caleb’s leadership. After that, he’d take up the matter with his father. Given how adamant Steven had been about returning to the helm in an advisory position, that would take a lot more finagling. But he’d discovered he enjoyed winning in the boardroom. A lot more than he’d expected.
“Caleb’s home, Zoey” she said to a petite dark haired woman in an apron with the Sweetbriar Springs’ logo on it.
Zoey smiled. “Wonderful. We’ll begin our final preparations immediately.” She had a heavy foreign accent, but didn’t miss a beat of skewering beef cubes while she spoke. “Juan, please refill the Nicholson’s margaritas. Talia, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.”
Hannah took the margarita pitcher from Juan. “I’ll take care of the them,” she said, then fixed her gaze on Caleb, assessing him from top to toe. “Take five to change and get that five o’clock shadow off your face. We’ll be fine for a few more minutes.”
“Thanks.” He rubbed his jaw. “I’d like to pop in and say hi to Jason. You think you can keep them entertained for fifteen extra minutes?”
“Not a problem.” She crossed the scant distance between them, then kissed his cheek. “Just don’t get him too riled up, or he’ll never fall asleep for Lori.”
He touched his face where her lips had briefly brushed against his skin. Her kiss, while chaste and without any sexual promise, hinted of something more profound. He knew in that moment that this was what he had wished for more than anything.
The simplicity of her welcome home had been the answer to many of the questions swirling through his brain during the nine days that he had been fighting a never-ending personal battle. A battle that he planned to win on his terms. But would Hannah want to keep the home fires burning for him no matter what he decided?
###
“Salvaged the contract and got Barney Nicholson to commit to two years of funding for the project we’re developing.” Caleb walked into the kitchen, then wrapped his arms around Hannah, lifting her off her feet and twirling her. “Couldn’t have done it without your help.”
Warmth filled her chest and her heart seemed to float inside her. Other than his late arrival, everything she had planned had gone splendidly. “The food was amazing,” she said, loving the passion and pride dancing in his indigo eyes. And loving the exuberance and spontaneity of his embrace. The freedom of his expression, the companionship and shared joy of succeeding together, sent a thrill though her.
Here was the man she could commit her entire life to if he truly wanted her. “Did your successful trip make you reconsider signing up for another tour? I think you like running Gibson Technologies more than you’re willing to admit,” she said, hoping to reach through his thick skull and get him to talk to her about his feelings.
“Sweetbriar Springs will have to double Zoey’s salary if they don’t want to lose her,” he said. “She should open her own restaurant.”
So avoidance of the topic was on the agenda. Hannah stifled the desire to fight it out with Caleb. After all, she’d learned the hard way that pushing too hard for answers could end up in an emotional scarring battle. “She just arrived here a month ago,” she said. “From what I’ve heard she can’t afford to make that kind of financial investment. Plus, she has to have a steady income to support her son.”
“Where’s the dad?”
“Definitely not in the picture.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know about Jason sooner,” he said. “I would have found a way to get home earlier.”
Her heart filled, lifted even higher with hope. While he hadn’t said he’d have come back for her, hearing him call Sweetbriar Springs home touched her soul. “You’re here now,” she said. For how long, she didn’t know. But the effort that Caleb had put into saving his family’s conglomerate of technology companies more than proved that he wouldn’t easily be able to return to the Marines. She’d press him to discuss the matter… later… after tonight.
Caleb lowered her down the length of his body. She felt every sinew and tendon of his muscles against her skin. “But I promise that no matter what happens, you’ll never be in the position Zoey is in.”
In all the years that she had known Caleb, once he dug his heels in for a fight, he stuck it out until he came out the winner. “I believe you,” she said, bending her legs to pull off her mile high shoes and liberate her toes. “Let’s check on him before we call it a night.”
“Sounds good.”
Caleb draped his arm across her shoulders and they walked in silence to Jason’s bedroom.
Peeking in, she said, “He looks so innocent when he’s asleep.”
“Yep.” He moved aside to let her into the room ahead of him. “But he’s no angel.”
She crossed the floor to his toddler bed, heard Caleb’s soft footfalls behind her and felt the heat shimmering between them when they knelt side-by-side next to it.
“He must have had some busy dreams,” she said.
He’d tossed the covers to the floor and had curled into a ball with his favorite stuffed animal tucked into his belly. She moved to pick up his blanket and touched Caleb. A charge tingled and zipped into her skin.
She paused a beat, waiting for Caleb to withdraw, but he only deepened his connection, curling his fingers around hers. Together, they covered him. Then Caleb tucked the edges around their son, his movements tender and loving.
“That should do it,” he whispered, then stood and held out his hand.
Hannah nodded, then placed her palm in his. He pulled her up and they stood side by side in the soft glow of the light filtering in from the hallway. She rested her head against Caleb’s broad shoulder, and he tightened his grip, each of them quietly gazing at their son.
She heard him swallow hard, and slanted her eyes toward his face. A sheen glimmered in his returning gaze. “Sometimes it still floors me that we made this little guy—that he’s ours,” Caleb said, swiping the back of his hand across his face.
Her throat tightened and she blinked back her own tears. “Me, too.”
“But I’m so glad he’s here,” he said. “I want to make him proud. Not because I want him to follow in my footsteps, but because I want to help him find his own path. I can’t do that without your support.”
Right then, in that moment of sharing the simple nighttime ritual of making sure their child would sleep in comfort, surrounded by security and safety of the love his parents had for him, she knew her heart could handle whatever Caleb chose to do in the future.
Because he loved their child. If she read all the signs correctly, he had grown to love her, too. The words hadn’t been spoken yet, but every gesture and promise he had made showed her that his heart belonged to her.
“I’ll always be here for you,” Hannah said.
He caressed her cheek and tunneled his fingers through her hair, loosening the pins that had bound it into the chignon. Slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers and sealed their lips. She parted hers on a soft sigh and welcomed his gentle probing tongue into her mouth.
The sweet taste of him intoxicated her, making her want so much more. Knowing that in the giving and taking of this kiss that she’d be able to wave goodbye to Caleb if he answered another call to duty. She’d let him go though the leaving would cause her great fear. But that fear would never be as great as the power of the love sustaining her while he was gone.
Because
if he wanted to come home to her, to this life they had built together with their son, then she’d survive a thousand goodbyes and a million uncertain tomorrows.
Now, more than ever, she wanted to show Caleb that his heart would always be safe with her if he trusted her completely. And, when he lifted her into his arms, still moving his mouth against hers, Hannah felt as if they had crossed an invisible barrier into a realm where they’d become united by more than duty to child and family.
They could become one in all the ways that mattered between a man and a woman.
Chapter Sixteen
Somehow Caleb managed to carry Hannah to the bedroom, wanting only to show her how much he cared for her, never wanting to let her go. She had become the anchor to his soul. The beacon of light that called him back to the one place he swore he’d never return to again.
She was everything he had wanted and all she had ever asked for was him to commit to her. Not because she was the mother of his child. Not because she couldn’t take care of herself. And not because she was desperate to fill a void.
But because she loved him.
Still kissing her, her lowered her, then tugged down her dress’s zipper. With an urgency he didn’t know he possessed, he removed the red, figure hugging sheath, eager to touch every square inch of her naked skin and rediscover her all over again.
Panting, she jerked his shirt out of his slacks and smoothed her hands along his bare back. Her caress, hot and sensual, charged through him. He moved a thigh between her legs and edged her closer to the bed.
She hooked her hands around his neck and pulled him with her until they tumbled onto the duvet. Somehow he managed to undo her lacy black bra and release her breasts while still kissing her deeply, his tongue tangling with hers intimately, plunging and licking and tasting her with the hunger of a starving man.
Too long. He’d waited too long to lose himself in her again. Now he couldn’t wait, couldn’t stop the blood that rushed through him and made him strain to be inside her.
He cupped her breast, and her nipple pebbled instantly. No other woman had ever driven him this wild, this insane with wanting. Never had he craved a woman like he craved Hannah.
She was the end to his beginning. The missing piece that made him whole. Only with her could he lose himself and yet be found all over again.
Hannah moaned, arching her back to give him greater access to his impatient touch, but he wanted to give her more. More of himself. More of what she deserved. More of what he wanted her to crave from him, too.
He moved his mouth away from her lips, licking and kissing his way down the length of her beautiful, naked body, pausing to trace the faint silvery lines on her belly. She shivered and trembled beneath him, tunneling her fingers through his hair and crying out his name, begging him to take her.
But as much as he wanted to surrender to her demands, he wanted to show her how much he cherished her first. Glancing up at her, he hooked his fingers through her panties and slowly pulled them off her body one excruciating inch at a time.
She writhed and clasped his shoulders. “You can’t.”
Her feminine scent intoxicated him, sultry and earthy and sexy as sin. “Oh, but I will—if you want,” he said.
“I want.”
He melded his mouth onto her sweet sex, and she hitched her hips while he held her steady, licking her slick folds and tasting her honey. Gently, he sucked in her essence, then swept her hot arousal across her clit with his tongue.
She jerked. “Caleb. It’s too much. I can’t...”
He looked at her, pausing his mouth’s exploration long enough to stroke the seam of her sex. “You can do anything with me. Just don’t think. Just let me love you.”
She gasped when he pushed his finger into her, pumping it in and out. “God. Yes...”
He licked her clit simultaneously, her orgasm spasmed through her and came against his mouth. Holding her steady, he increased his pressure with his tongue, sliding around her slick folds and pushing another finger deep into her.
She bucked against him. His cock grew hard as granite, straining for release and the sweet sensation of burying all the way to the hilt when she came.
But all this was for her. For Hannah. For the woman he loved even though he wasn’t sure he’d ever be the man she truly desired.
“Caleb,” she cried. “Oh. My. God.”
She came, her orgasm spasming over and over around his fingers and the waves of her incredible response trembling against his mouth. He drank her in until he felt her body’s orgasm subside to slow waves and her breaths returned to a normal rhythm.
Decisions and choices swirled in his brain and a sharp pain lanced behind his sternum. He didn’t want to think about the uncertain tomorrows that had the power to cast shadows into the corners of his soul. Not now. Not in the afterglow and tenderness of Hannah holding him and trusting him and loving him.
He moved over her, kissing her dew dropped skin and tasting the salt and spice of her delicious, sexy body until he returned to her mouth and captured it all over again. And when she sighed her love against his lips, he knew he had everything he ever wanted, but that he wouldn’t ask her to be with a man who couldn’t guarantee he’d always be part of her future—or that he’d return without the emotional scars that had destroyed her last boyfriend.
Nothing had been decided yet. Everything he had done while he had been troubleshooting and solving his company’s problems had taught him that with the right people in place, he’d serve his country and protect his family’s company at the same time—not just for his brothers, but for his son, too.
Did he want to go back?
Had he been using his service to his country as a way to prevent himself from becoming like his father while at the same time allowing the Marines to become his mistress?
Confused, he deepened his kiss, desperate to find a way to give Hannah something more tangible than what he’d already set into motion. He wanted to prove that he would always come home to her. But would she still be waiting for him if he chose to answer his commander’s call to duty?
###
Hannah held onto Caleb, drawing him into her mouth and tasting herself. Small aftershocks still rippled through her body. The intensity of his ability to make her feel adored and cherished while denying his own satisfaction completely melted her heart.
When he had first kissed her, he had stolen her breath. Undressing her and loving her in the most intimate way possible had broken through her every defense. He hadn’t demanded or expected anything in return. Oh, how she could get used to thousands of nights like this one.
With Caleb.
Only him.
With him what had happened was pure love, primal, visceral, and generously given.
She felt the tension in his back, the bundling of his shoulder muscles as he restrained himself. She wanted to return that love. That generosity. That gift of trust and passion intertwined between a man and a woman who belonged together for now and eternity.
His shirt rubbed against her bare breasts, the light fabric abrading her sensitized nipples. “No fair,” she said, breaking their kiss. “One of us is at a serious disadvantage.”
He grinned. “How so?”
“I’m naked.” She feathered her fingers down his cheek and flirted them across his gorgeous lips. “You’re not.”
“Easy enough to fix,” he said, then rolled over taking her with him.
She lay on top of him and his broad hands caressed her bottom. Delicious tingles shot through her body. “Wait a minute. How is this a fix?” she asked. “I’m still naked and you’re in a pin-striped shirt and slacks.” Though the expensive designer pants rubbed against her sex in the most delectable way. More tingles zipped along her nerves, and charged into her core.
“You’re a capable woman.” He shifted his weight and she felt the full length of his arousal between her thighs. “Do what you want with me to even the playing field.”
Her breasts gre
w heavy and heat pooled low. The idea of being in charge of this man sexually excited her in ways she had never imagined. “With pleasure.” Hannah unbuttoned his shirt very slowly and pushed it off his shoulders to expose his broad chest. “Nice pecs.” She lowered her head and licked first one nipple, then the other, loving the way his cock jumped against her sex in response to her sexy exploration.
He coiled his fingers in her hair, holding her to him. But she maneuvered her way down his torso, spending extra time kissing and nibbling the ridges of his perfect ten pack abdominal muscles. He tasted like man and musk and she sensed her essence lingering on his skin.
She followed the v line of downy light hair that disappeared into his pants, stopped long enough to unbuckle his belt and pop open the button just above the zipper.
His grip tightened. “For the love of Pete, woman. You’re driving me insane.”
“You said I could even the playing field.”
“I didn’t mean for you to take all day,” he groaned.
“I’m in charge,” she said while she unzipped his pants. “You just lay there and let me do my thing.”
She heard his shoes land on the carpet in a soft thud as he lifted his hips. “Your wish is my command.”
“Excellent,” she said, then pulled his pants and briefs off, dragging them down his powerful legs and tossing them on the floor next to his shoes along with the rest of his footwear. “Much, much better.”
She knelt beside his body, naked and glorious and all hers for the taking. His shaft jutted straight into the air, large and spectacular. Oh, the things she wanted to do to him before she took him deep inside her.
Hannah traced small circles along Caleb’s inner thighs until she reached the base of his cock. Gently, she clasped the length and stroked him to the tip. A small bead of moisture tantalized her, and she lowered her mouth to lick the head.
He twined his fingers in her hair, muttered her name in a rough groan. She smiled inwardly. A secret thrill pulsed in her veins, empowering her and filling her with a rush of desire. She drew him into her mouth, gliding her tongue along the underside of his shaft while moving her hand up and down.
The Marine's Red Hot Homecoming Page 14