by Jami Alden
It was the exact same view he’d seen every day and every night in the four years that he’d lived there. How could the world look the same when everything felt so different? There was a hot, aching sensation in his chest, like he was being stabbed from the inside out.
Everything he’d packed away, pain at his mother’s apparent betrayal, his hurt that Caroline could shove him aside for something as trivial as him going on a bender with his brothers, came shooting to the surface like a geyser. Made all the more painful because he’d been wrong about all of it.
His mother he could almost forgive himself for. Even the police had been convinced she’d left of her own accord. Hell, even his father had accepted that Anne had left them. She’d taken off with a suitcase and a wad of cash, for fuck’s sake.
Cash and clothes that he now realized were meant to help Emily Parrish and her unborn child. Guilt threatened to rip him apart. His mother had died trying to help a young girl in a terrible bind, and Danny had spent the past eighteen years convincing himself and anyone else who would listen that his mother wasn’t worth a second thought.
I’m sorry, Mom, for everything I said, everything I thought. You deserved better than that. Better than me.
As did Caroline.
He replayed that last visit home as the knot in his stomach tightened another notch. He’d just gotten back from a grueling mission in Central America, one where one of his guys had died. By the time he was on his flight to San Francisco, he still hadn’t come down from combat mode, still edgy and alert and ready for a fight. When Caroline had pressed him on when he was coming back, when he was going to pick her up, he’d snapped at her and told her to get off his ass about it.
He’d immediately regretted it, but asshole that he was, of course he couldn’t apologize. He knew he needed to calm down, get hold of himself before he saw her, or who knew what he was liable to say. He didn’t want to explain why he was so messed up after that mission, didn’t want to tell Caroline about how the memory of his buddy lying on the ground with his intestines spilling out kept him from sleeping.
What he saw out there was ugly and evil, and he didn’t want to bring it home to Caroline. So instead he’d gone out with Derek and Ethan who’d managed to coordinate their leaves with his. They were in the military too, they understood the need to go out and get shitfaced and tell gory tales to offset the horror of what he’d seen.
Caroline hadn’t understood. And when she’d lashed out, he’d lashed right back. “I don’t need any of your emotionally needy bullshit.”
A lump swelled in his throat.
“I thought maybe if you realized you were going to lose me forever you’d care enough to come after me.”
Arrogant fuck that he was, he’d expected her to call him within a couple hours of their fight. When he’d boarded a plane back to Fort Bragg four days later, he still couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard from her.
Twelve years later he wished he could go back and kick his own ass for being such a dipshit.
It all could have been so different. It should have been so different.
For once Danny was forced to acknowledge that there was nothing he could do to fix it. He couldn’t change the past and take away Caroline’s hurt and make things turn out the way they should have. So he sat on his deck and stared unseeing into the night as his world imploded around him.
Caroline tossed and turned in the double bed for a few hours before she finally gave up and threw back the covers. She didn’t hear Danny moving around the house. Maybe she could sneak into the kitchen and find a bottle of vodka or scotch—anything to help her shut her mind down and go to sleep.
Goosebumps popped up on her skin as soon as she stepped into the hall. Danny’s house was like a meat locker.
Figured. He was so cold blooded he probably didn’t even feel it. She was still reeling from his response—or non-response—to her revelation. She wanted to kick herself for telling him at all. But she’d needed to strike out, shake him up, let him know that she didn’t deserve all the blame in breaking them up.
Turned out she didn’t shake him up. And she hurt even worse knowing how little he cared about her and the baby she’d lost.
She blinked back tears as she walked into the front room. Her teeth chattered as a cold wind blew through the room. The curtains shading the sliding glass door fluttered. At some point Danny had left the door wide open.
Weird, since he was such a stickler for security, even way out here in the boondocks. She went to the door and looked outside. A large, dark form was seated in a deck chair, and she gave a startled gasp before her brain registered it was Danny. She started to duck back inside, but was halted by his quiet, almost stilted voice.
“Did you know what it was?” He turned to face her, the hard planes of his face illuminated by the silver glow of the moon. “The baby? Did you know if it was a boy or a girl?” His voice sounded tight, like he was being choked.
Or fighting back tears.
But this was Danny Taggart, a man who would sooner pluck his eyes from his head than let a single tear fall.
She took a step onto the deck without thinking. “It was too early, only twelve weeks.”
“Were you uh, okay? I mean, was James’s vasectomy the only reason—”
“I’m perfectly healthy,” she reassured, taking another step closer to his chair. “My eggs might be getting a little stale, but otherwise I should be able to have children if I want.”
“Good.” She could see his dark head nod jerkily. “That’s good.” He was dressed only in a long sleeved T-shirt and jeans, but he didn’t seem to notice the cold as he stared off into the moonlit forest surrounding his house. He turned to face her then, and even in the darkness she could feel the intensity of his stare. “You should be a mom, Caroline. You should have been one already.” His voice caught and he turned away, but she didn’t miss the telltale scrubbing of his fists against his eyes.
Crying? No way. Had she finally gotten to him?
She didn’t feel anything close to triumph at the knowledge. All she felt was a deep, black ache that threatened to consume her. Old pain she’d struggled to keep at bay from the moment she saw him again came bubbling to the surface, washing over her. Worse because she could feel his pain too, rolling off him in dark waves.
He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head to his hands. “I thought I had it all figured out. I knew exactly what was going on. With my mom. With you.” He sat up and shook his head. “I didn’t know a fucking thing. Not a goddamn thing.”
For a man like Danny who thought he knew everything, it must feel like his world was ending. Caroline stepped closer, unable to help herself. She prided herself on being smarter than average, and a smart woman would have left him to his brooding. A smart woman would have known she didn’t owe him a lick of comfort or sympathy, that he’d lost that right when he’d closed himself off and pushed her away. His ignorance was no excuse.
But Caroline had always been monumentally stupid when it came to Danny Taggart. She’d always been drawn to him, especially when he got like this. He was like a big battle scarred jungle cat, tempting her to pull his head into her lap, stroke his hair, do whatever she could to take away his pain. Never mind that he could kill her with one careless swipe of his paw.
So when he reached out one, big, shaking hand like he was reaching for a lifeline, she released a helpless sob and let him pull her over to him. He grabbed her around the waist in a desperate grip and buried his face against her stomach. He burrowed his head like a little kid seeking comfort.
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes as Caroline folded herself over him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and bending until her face was buried against his hair. Huge muscles bunched tight under her fingers, like he was afraid if he relaxed even one sinew he’d fly apart.
She knew the feeling well.
“Caroline,” he said, his voice muffled against her tank top, “I’m so fucking sorry.”
>
Caroline straightened a little, struggling not to burst into sobs. Twelve years. For twelve years she’d waited for that apology. She felt like she was being ripped down the middle.
In a last ditch effort at self-preservation she tried to break free of his hold. She needed to get away from him. Sleeping with him was bad enough. She was afraid if she stayed with him she’d start remembering all the reasons she’d loved Danny Taggart to the point of madness, and all the reasons he still had this crazy pull on her.
But he clutched her closer when she would have pulled away. “Please, Caroline,” he tilted his head up to look at her, his arms like iron bands around her middle. “Don’t go. Please Carrie.” Begging. Danny Taggart was begging her, his voice low, throbbing with pain and something else. Something she couldn’t resist.
Then he dealt the death blow to any resistance she might have been able to muster. “I need you, I need you so much.”
CHAPTER 15
Danny had only said those words to Caroline one other time. The night she’d given him her virginity. When it became clear his mother was gone and not coming back, and he’d fallen into a black hole that threatened to suck him under. Then, as now, he’d reached out to her to help him claw his way back out.
Now, as then, she was helpless to resist the siren’s call of a big, tough, brutal warrior like Danny needing her.
“Need you,” he murmured again as he rained kisses along the neckline of her pajama tank top and slid one hand in the elastic waistband of her knit pants. His big, warm hand sliding over her ass made warmth pool low in her belly. With every stroke of his hand, every press of his lips the warmth grew, until it drowned out everything. The voices in her head telling her to run away were silenced. The ache subsided until all she cared about was Danny.
Touching her, kissing her, needing her.
But she needed him too. Needed him to make her forget the grief she’d been carrying around. Needed him to make her forget that she’d spent ten years married to a man she didn’t really know.
She threaded her fingers in the rough silk of his hair and tipped his head back. She slid one knee on his lap and bent to kiss him. Tongues thrust and lips sucked and desire poured through her veins like thick, hot, honey.
Danny. No one tasted like him, she thought as she cupped his face in her hands and thrust her tongue against his.
No one touched her like him, she thought as he slid his hand up under her tank top to cup and caress her breasts. She’d always marveled at the sheer power and strength of him, and he’d only grown bigger, harder, and tougher over the years. But he touched her with tenderness, sensitivity, seeming to know exactly how to touch her. Like he had a connection with her body that told him to flick his thumb across her nipple and to pinch the tight little bud with a firm pressure that danced on the edge of pain.
She slid her other knee onto his chair and settled into his lap, straddling him so she could feel the thick bulge of his cock between her thighs. She was drenched, the crotch of her pajama pants soaked as she ground herself against him.
“Sweet Carrie,” he muttered as he whipped her tank top up over her head. “So sweet,” he said as he closed his mouth over the tip of one breast and sucked hard. The heat of his touch chased away the chill of the night. His mouth devoured her breasts and he caressed her back and sides with hands that still held a faint tremble.
He shifted under her, grinding his cock against her sex. Moans erupted from her throat, increasing in volume as the knot of arousal between her legs drew tighter with every surge of his hips under her. Caroline’s hands shifted restlessly, touching every part of him she could reach. Broad cotton clad shoulders rippling with muscles; his bare corded arms and their dusting of wiry black hair; the soft, tender skin of his ears and neck.
All hers. At least for tonight.
Danny struggled to get a grip as Caroline circled her hips over him again. He was caught between pleasure and pain as his cock strained at the confines of his pants. He could feel her damp heat even through the layers of clothes, and the friction of her grinding against him had him close to bursting in his pants. That, combined with the sweet taste of her tits on his tongue and the sexy musk of her filling his nostrils, was all so good he was afraid to stop, afraid she would vanish into the moonlight like some elusive dream.
Caroline. The night before he’d tried to pretend it didn’t matter, that she didn’t matter. He buried his head between her breasts, breathing in her scent like oxygen. He didn’t kid himself. She was everything.
He’d hurt her. He shoved the thought away, knowing if he dwelt on that he’d get sucked right back into the hole that had threatened to swallow him before she’d walked out onto the deck.
Caroline. Everything in him called to her, begged for her, even though he didn’t deserve anything from her anymore. He wanted to tell her he was sorry again, to beg her forgiveness, but all he could get out was her name as he kissed every bare patch of skin he could reach.
She was the only one. The only one who could unknot his insides and keep his demons at bay. Even as he knew he should be comforting her, he should be begging her forgiveness, greedy bastard that he was, he couldn’t stop taking from her. Taking everything she had to give in a selfish bid to save his sanity, save his soul. He wanted to lose himself in her and the way she made him feel. He wanted to give her so much pleasure she’d forget he ever caused her pain.
He lifted her from the deck chair and walked her inside, his arm under her ass supporting her weight as she wrapped her arms and legs around him. He tangled his fist in her hair and pulled her head back for his kiss. He swallowed her groan as he devoured her mouth, drinking in her taste, rubbing his tongue against hers as she clutched at his shoulders.
Danny lay her on the bed. The sight of her, with her creamy skin and hard nipples, her dark hair spread across the comforter as she gazed up at him with heavy lidded eyes, hit him with the force of a roundhouse kick to the chest.
Right. Caroline in his house, in his bed, looking up at him with puffy lips parted and eyes dark with arousal. Nothing in his world had been this right since the day she walked out on him.
With that memory, and the knowledge of why she’d really left, came another surge of grief, so bleak and strong it made his knees buckle.
But Caroline chased it away, coming up on her knees to tug his shirt over his head and unbutton his pants with deft strokes of her fingers. He thought he was going to explode when she burrowed her face against his chest with a hungry little moan and started trailing hot, sucking kisses down his abdomen. He helped her shove his pants and boxers off and joined her on the bed. She pushed him onto his back and a groan ripped from his chest as she bent her head. Hot sweeps of her tongue teased the tip of his cock until he felt like he was going to burst out of his skin.
Jesus, she was going to kill him, running that soft pink tongue up and down his shaft, circling around the tip and greedily lapping up the thick pearls of precome that formed. He fisted his hands in the sheets to keep from grabbing the back of her head and shoving himself down her throat. “Please, Carrie, please.” He was begging again, but he didn’t care. Because Caroline sucked him into her mouth, over and over, taking him as far into her throat as she could. Sucking and stroking him until he knew he had to pull away.
He flipped her onto her back, stripped off her pajama pants and pinned her to the mattress with his hips between hers. He braced his hands on either side of her head and came down over her, mouth to mouth, skin to skin, the soft silky feel of her tits against his chest almost as good as the feel of her mouth around his dick.
Almost.
“I want to make you come,” he said, breaking from her mouth so he could kiss the spot on her neck that would make her gasp and sigh and shiver against him. “I want to make you feel so good.” He slid his hand between her thighs and his eyes rolled back in his head at the feel of her. Wet, hot, perfect. The hard bud of her clit pulsed against his circling fingers. He spread her
lips and delved lower so he could sink his fingers into her giving warmth.
His cock jerked against the bedspread, anticipating the grip of her tight, willing heat as he sank into her body.
“Carrie,” he couldn’t stop saying her name as he slid his mouth and hands over her body. Like he had to keep reassuring himself she was real, she was here, giving herself to him. He couldn’t be this lucky.
He didn’t deserve to be this lucky.
“Ah, sweet, you’re so fucking gorgeous,” he said as he hooked her knees over his shoulders and took a long, appreciative look at her pretty pink pussy. He closed his mouth over her like a starving man and her loud, high cry rippled along his nerve endings. God he loved going down on her, the sweet salty taste of her, the feel of her hot and wet against his tongue. The way she pulled at his hair and rocked her hips and dug her heels into his back as he pushed her higher and higher. The firm clench of muscles rippling, her loud siren’s wail echoing through the bedroom as she came.
He licked and stroked her until the last aftershock pulsed through her. He rolled and pulled her on top of him until his cock was slipping and sliding against her slit. She spread her knees and he felt her body stretch as she took the tip of his cock inside.
No condom.
And it felt just as good—no better—as it had the night before. He slid in another inch, gritting his teeth at the silky hot feel of her stretching to take him.
He wanted to thrust home, stroking and pumping until he came.
Inside her.
With nothing between them.
He could get her pregnant. Right now. Tonight. Then no matter what happened later on, after they found out who was really behind James’s death, she would always be tied to him.
She would always be his.
He slid deeper, groaning as her hips rocked back to take him all the way.
“Oh my God, we forgot the condom again,” she gasped and came up on her knees. As his cock slipped from her body it took every shred of restraint to keep from grabbing her hips and thrusting her back down. Gritting his teeth, he rolled off the bed and walked stiffly to his bathroom and retrieved a condom from the box under his sink.