The Captain's Baby Bargain

by Merline Lovelace

  Without warning, Gabe went tight. And hard. And hungry. Smothering another curse, he shoved the image of his wife’s nipples smeared with whipped cream out of his head. But he had to drag in long, slow breaths before his blood started circulating above his waist again.

  “I can’t tell if Dingo’s serious about Chelsea or not,” Suze was saying. “He hooks up with her whenever he’s in Vegas. And they spent a week together in Cabo a few months back. But neither of them seem to be talking about long term.” She cocked her head. “Gabe?”

  “Sorry. I was thinking of something else.”

  “Right.”

  She fiddled with the tab on the lid of her cup. They’d covered every banal topic they could while dancing away from the only one that mattered. Silence stretched between them. Gabe was reluctant to break it, and even more reluctant to end this strange interlude. Suze finally took the lead.

  “Well, if you’re going to make Albuquerque this evening, you probably should hit the road.”

  “Probably should.”

  “Unless...”

  She flicked the tab. Up. Down. Didn’t quite meet his eyes.

  “Unless?” he prompted.

  “Unless you’d like to swing by my place for breakfast first. It’s out of your way but...” The barest hint of a smile flitted across her face. “I still can’t cook worth a damn but I have learned to concoct a relatively passable Mexican frittata.”

  It was an olive branch. A tentative step toward putting the past behind them and becoming friends again. That’s all it was, Gabe told himself fiercely. All it could be. Yet he snatched it with both hands.

  “You’re on.”

  * * *

  Even before he snapped his seat belt and keyed Ole Blue’s ignition, his thoughts had done a one-eighty. This was a mistake. Possibly one of epic proportions. There was no way in hell either of them could back to being just friends. But as Gabe trailed her maroon sports car through the now-bright Arizona morning, he came up with a dozen different explanations for his temporary insanity.

  Neither of them had tried to deny that their frequent separations while they were both in uniform had created the first cracks in their marriage. The cracks had gotten wider every time Gabe suggested they choose different career paths, ones that wouldn’t put them on opposite sides of the globe so often. The fissures had become a yawning crevasse when he’d issued a flat ultimatum.

  Looking back, he knew he shouldn’t have forced her to choose between him and the Air Force. Or hung up his uniform and headed for Oklahoma while they were still struggling to balance the deep, visceral satisfaction she got from her job with his gnawing need to get back to his roots.

  And he sure as hell shouldn’t have let her admission that she’d turned to someone else for comfort eat like acid on his pride. They’d been separated for six months by then. Already talking around the edges of divorce, when they talked at all.

  That was when he’d heard the rumor. Third hand, passed via a friend of a friend of a friend. It hadn’t meant anything, the well-meaning pal had assured him. Suzanne had already given the guy his marching orders.

  Gabe knew then he should’ve swallowed his rage at the thought of Suzanne, his Suzanne, in another man’s arms, jumped on a plane and tried one last time to heal the breach.

  Which is exactly what he would’ve done if she hadn’t called back while he was in the process of throwing a few things in an overnight bag. Every word icy and clipped, she’d told him she’d applied for two weeks’ leave. She needed to get away. Think things through. And, like a fool, he’d let her go. Didn’t ask where. Didn’t try to track her down. Just stubbornly, stupidly believed deep in his heart they’d find a way back to each other. He’d continued to believe it right up until she FedExed him the divorce papers.

  As the memories flashed by with the same speed as the miles, his mind went to a place he knew it shouldn’t. Maybe Suze had offered more than an olive branch back there at McDonald’s. Maybe these past three years had been as lonely for her as they had for him. Maybe, just maybe, she was giving him the chance to correct the most colossal blunder of his life.

  If she was, and if he did, all ten levels of hell would freeze over before he let her go again.

  * * *

  The fierce vow probably explained why she’d barely closed the door of her condo behind them before he made his move. That, and the fact that a swift glance around her airy living room revealed no reminders of their broken marriage. Even with the wood shutters tilted against the morning sun, enough light slanted in for Gabe to see the furniture was new. So was the triple panel of bold, slashing color mounted above the sofa. Even the oversize area rug that looked like it had been woven from fabric scraps in dozens of different colors and patterns.

  She must have caught his frown as he studied the rug. Tossing her keys and small clutch purse on the tiled counter that separated the living room from the kitchen, she addressed the issue head on. “I’m only renting this place until I decide where to buy.”

  He answered with a shrug that added an edge in her voice.

  “It came furnished, so I put our Turkish...” She stopped, restarted. “So I put the Turkish carpets in storage with the rest of my things.”

  For some reason that deliberate midcourse correction pissed Gabe off. She couldn’t admit they’d ever shared a home? Couldn’t cherish the small treasures they’d collected from all over the world?

  Conveniently forgetting that he’d boxed up pretty much every item he’d carted back to Oklahoma and stashed them in the attic of his home, Gabe forced a grin. “Seems like I remember us rolling around naked on those Turkish carpets a few times.”

  The surprise that flashed across her face gave him a dart of fierce satisfaction. It also provided a chance to dig the spur in a little deeper.

  “More than a few times, now that I think about it. Often enough for one of us to get a little carpet burn on her ass, anyway.”

  When he waggled his brows, she laughed and shook her head.

  “That was you, big guy. After which, you threatened to tell folks you’d been wounded in the line of duty.”

  “At which point you threatened to pin a purple heart on said wound.”

  “Would’ve served you right if I had!”

  They were both grinning now, and Gabe moved in for the kill. Lifting a hand, he brushed his knuckles down her cheek. “We had some good times, didn’t we?”

  Her laughter faded. The twin emerald pools he’d seen himself in so many times stared up at him. Gabe waited, his heart slamming against his ribs, until her breath left on a whisper of a sigh.

  “Yes, we did.”

  He opened his palm and cupped her chin, then feathered his thumb across her lower lip. His pulse was drumming in his ears now. And in that instant, he knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—take Alicia up on her increasingly unsubtle hints that she was ready to move in with him. Permanently.

  This was the only woman he’d ever loved. The one he’d ached for with the fumbling, frantic passion of youth. The one he’d promised to share his life with. There wasn’t room in his heart for anyone but her.

  “I’ve missed you, Suze.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.” Tears dimmed the luminescent green of her eyes. “So much I hurt with it.”

  His palm slid to her nape. His other hand came up to ease off her ball cap. With it out of the way, he tugged at the squishy elastic band that held her hair. The wind-tangled strands came free and framed her face.

  “There,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’ve been aching to do that since the moment we walked into that McDonald’s.”

  “Gabe...”

  It was half sigh, half plea. Heat roiling in his belly, he tightened his hold on her nape.

  “I’ve been aching to do this, too.”

  He fully intended to keep the kiss gentle. To stoke her hunger carefully, slowly, until it matched the fire now smoldering in his blood. But she fitted herself against him with a familiar intimacy
that sparked searing pleasure at every contact point. Her mouth, her breasts, her hips. All straining against him. All filling him with a raging need that made him whip an arm around her waist and haul her even closer.

  * * *

  Swish reacted instinctively. The feel of him against her, of the hard press of his mouth on hers, shattered the dam. Hunger, hot and urgent, poured through her. Panting, gasping, her lungs burning, her lips frantic under his, she hooked her arms around his neck. The last shreds of sanity screamed at her to pull back. Now! While she still could! But the rest of her, every atom of the rest of her, wanted Gabe with a ferocity so intense it seared her soul.

  She wasn’t sure who attacked whose clothing first. She might’ve yanked up his black T-shirt to get at the hard, tanned muscles of his chest. Or maybe he whipped her tank top up and off. She didn’t know. Didn’t care. She was too busy heeling out of her half-boots to think about it.

  She kicked the boots away at the same instant his hands went to the zipper of her jeans. He shoved them down over her hips. She shimmied the rest of the way out. She hadn’t bothered with a bra. She never did when not in uniform. So all she had on when he scooped her up was the thin layer of her black lace hipsters.

  “That way,” she gasped, pointing to the arch that led to the two bedrooms. Unnecessarily, as it turned out, as Gabe was already halfway there.

  The master bedroom suite echoed the same eclectic style and bright colors as the living room. Red, yellow and turquoise pillows in varying shapes accented the sage-colored comforter. The collage of desert sunrises and sunsets arranged above the headboard picked up the same colors.

  Gabe didn’t so much as glance at the gorgeous display. He almost dumped her on the bed and dragged off her panties before stripping off the rest his own clothes. Boots. Jeans. Jockeys.

  Jaw taut, nostrils flaring, he turned back to her. His eyes, those green-brown eyes flecked with bits of gold, raked from her neck to her knees. Suze could see herself reflected in the dark irises. Her arms flung up beside her head in wild abandon. Her breasts bare, the nipples already hard and aching for his touch. Her stomach hollowing as the muscles low in her belly clenched in greedy anticipation.

  Then, just as she opened her legs to welcome him, he turned away. She lay frozen, unable to move or think or understand why he reached for the jeans he’d just discarded. She whipped her arms down and pushed up on one elbow. She was all set to torch him like one of the commercial high-pressure propane flamethrowers her fire protection troops used when he faced her again, a crumpled foil packet in his hand.

  “I have no idea how long I’ve carried this in my wallet,” he said with a wry grimace. “A year maybe.”

  Which implied, she thought on a surge of primal satisfaction, he hadn’t delved into his secret stash for prissy missy Alicia Johnson.

  She dismissed as totally irrelevant the possibility that Alicia might have supplied the necessary protective measures herself. The only thing that mattered to her now was that Gabe, her Gabe, apparently hadn’t initiated a sexual encounter.

  Until now.

  “Let me.”

  Her heart stuck in her throat, she rolled onto her knees and held out her hand. She squeezed every ounce of pleasure she could out of tearing open the packet and sheathing his now rigid erection. The veined shaft rising hard and pulsing from its nest of wiry chestnut hair triggered atavistic instincts as old as time. This was her mate. The man she’d given her heart to years before she gave him her virginity.

  She’d never looked at another man during their years together. Never wanted another man’s hands on her. At least, not until the hurt and the loneliness had got too much to bear. Even then, she’d taken only one other man to her bed.

  The experience had left her so empty, so heartbroken that she’d never repeated it. But word had gotten back to Gabe. How, she never knew, not that it mattered. His raw fury had leaped from the email he’d sent asking if it was true.

  The anger still simmered, she discovered. Not as raw. Not as livid. But she could see it in his eyes when he tunneled his hands through her hair and tipped her head back.

  “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve thought about you doing this with someone else?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

  “I can guess.”

  “That damned near killed me, Suze.”

  “I know,” she said, her throat tight. “I was sorry then. I’m sorry now.”

  The reply did little to take the edge off his hostility. He toppled her back, splaying her on the sage-green spread, then followed her down. His body was rock hard, his muscles taut and his tendons corded as he kneed her legs apart.

  She welcomed him, craving a cleansing as much as he did. Yet for all his seeming anger, he took time to make sure she was primed. His fingers found all the triggers. Started the pinwheels spinning and the juices flowing.

  She didn’t have to tell him that she was wet and ready. He knew her body’s responses as well as she did. Better. She was panting when he positioned himself between her thighs. Groaning when she lifted her hips and rose up to meet his thrusts. She ground her mouth against his, more than matching his savage hunger.

  Her climax slammed into her with almost zero warning. One moment she was straining against his hips. The next, she arched her spine, groaned deep in her throat and exploded.

  She had no idea how long she drifted on those dark, undulating waves of pleasure before she realized he was still rock hard and buried inside her. When she pried her eyes open, the worry in his green-brown eyes melted her heart.

  “You okay?”

  The question was as tight and strained as his body. Swish slicked her palms over his taut shoulders. “More okay than I’ve been in three years.”

  The reply didn’t seem to reassure him. Still frowning, he propped himself up on his elbows and framed her face with his palms. “I didn’t mean to be so rough.”

  “Do you hear me complaining?”

  “No, but...”

  “We need to get that old hurt out of our systems, Gabe. We’re halfway there.”

  “Halfway?”

  “Yep.”

  She gave the muscles low in her belly a tight, hard squeeze. A flush rushed into Gabe’s cheeks, and she squeezed again. Reveling in his response, she rolled onto her hip, then up to her knees.

  “All right, fella. My turn to get rough.”

  * * *

  By the time they finished, Gabe felt drained of all bodily fluids and Suze lay across his chest like a bag of bones. When he eased her to the side to cradle her in the crook of his arm, she nuzzled her nose into his neck.

  “Gimme a few minutes,” she grunted. “Then I’ll get up ‘n’ make you that omelet.”

  “No hurry. I’m good.”

  Christ! As if that bland adjective came anywhere close to describing how he felt at that moment.

  “Okay,” she muttered against his throat. “I was up all night last night. I’ll just snuggle here for a little bit.”

  Snuggle forever.

  Gabe caught the suggestion before it slipped out. But the words hung there in his mind as she dropped into a light doze. Not five minutes later, she was out like a brick.

  That was fine with him. He wasn’t on a tight schedule. School was over for the year, he wouldn’t start coaching summer tennis clinics for another week and his deputy mayor could handle any minor crises that might erupt. He could lie here as long as he wanted, his wife sleeping beside him, her breath warm on his neck and the overhead fan gently stirring the ends of her hair.

  He teased the loose strands with an absent, hazy concentration. They slid through his fingers, still wind-whipped but not dry or dusty. As he twisted a skein around his thumb, his thoughts segued from the familiar feel of her hair to what their unexpected encounter might mean in terms of their future.

  Grimacing, he reinforced his silent decision to end things with Alicia. She’d still been stinging from her own divorce when she’d turned to Gabe for compani
onship. Somehow their casual encounters had morphed into dates, then to an “understanding” that Alicia had begun to take more seriously than Gabe did. She’d been pushing for them to move in together. Her place or his, she didn’t care, and he’d been edging close to saying what the hell.

  Now...

  He scrunched a few inches to the left so he could look down at his wife’s face without going cross-eyed. He always got a kick out of watching her sleep. Those ridiculously thick lashes fanned her cheeks. Her breath soughed in and out through half-open lips. And every once in a while her nose would twitch and she’d make little snuffling noises.

  God, he loved this woman! She’d been in his blood, in his heart, for almost as long as he could remember. Maybe now they could put all the hurt and separation and loneliness behind them. Maybe their chance meeting at that deserted intersection wasn’t chance at all, but a...

  The sudden, shrill notes of a xylophone clanged through the quiet. Gabe jerked and Suze’s head popped up.

  “Wha...?”

  She blinked owlishly, then muttered a curse when the xylophone clanged again. Rolling onto her opposite side, she slapped her palm against the nightstand until she located her iPhone. She flopped onto her back and squinted at the screen. Evidently she recognized the number because she scowled and stabbed the talk button.

  “Captain Hall,” she croaked, her voice still hoarse with sleep. As she listened for a few moments, her scowl slashed into a frown. She jerked upright and gripped the phone with a white-knuckled fist.

  “Casualties?”

  Gabe went taut beside her. The single word brought back stark memories of his own time in the Air Force. He’d begun his career as a weapons director flying aboard the Air Force’s sophisticated E3-A, the Airborne Warning and Control System. AWACS aircraft averaged hundreds of sorties a year. Flying at thirty thousand feet, they provided the “eyes in the sky” for other aircraft operating in a combat environment.

  After four years in AWACS Gabe had volunteered to transition to drone operations in an effort to remain on the same continent as Suze for at least a few months out of the year. He’d been transferred to Creech Air Force Base, just outside Las Vegas, and trained to remotely pilot the MQ-9 Reaper. With its long loiter time, wide-range sensors and precision weapons, the Reaper provided a unique capability to perform conduct strikes against high-value, time-sensitive targets.