“If you want to walk around naked, I wouldn’t mind.”
After last night she could definitely see where he wouldn’t mind. “I’d rather put on clothes.”
“Your choice.”
As he placed their order, she slipped out of bed and looked around for the clothes he’d taken off her last night. But she didn’t see them. When she found his T-shirt under a pillow she slid it over her head.
“Nice fit.”
She looked down at herself. “It will do in a pinch.” She looked back at him. “Any calls this morning?”
“No. I think we got enough excitement yesterday.”
She nodded as she began pulling clean clothes from her luggage. “What are the plans for today?”
“We stay here most of the day and rest up. When it gets dark then we’ll leave.”
“And go where?”
“We’ll meet up with my cousins Quade, Dare, Clint and Cole near the Alabama-Georgia border.”
She nodded, recalling having met those particular cousins at a family get-together around the time that the Denver Westmorelands had discovered they had relatives living in Georgia, Texas and Montana.
Crystal glanced over her shoulder. Bane was back to doing his exercises, and the woman in her couldn’t help but admire the way his muscular hips rocked while he ran in place. Drops of perspiration trickled off his face and rolled down his neck and shoulders toward his bare chest.
She drew in a deep breath as she imagined her tongue licking each drop and the way his skin would taste. But she wouldn’t stop there. She would take her hands and run them all over his body, touching places she might have missed out on last night, although she doubted there were any. She had been pretty thorough.
But still...
What if there were places she had missed and—
“Anything wrong?”
She blinked and realized she’d been standing there staring. Swallowing deeply she said, “No, nothing is wrong.” She wanted to turn and rush off toward the bathroom to take her shower, but for some reason she couldn’t get her feet to move. It was if they were glued to the floor.
Now he was the one staring at her. She could actually feel his gaze on every part of her. Any place it landed made her body sizzle. She closed her eyes to fight off the desire that threatened to overwhelm her but when she saw it was no use, she opened them again and let them roam over every single, solid inch of him. He was so muscular, and so big and hard. She glanced down at his middle. Umm, did she say big and hard?
She drew in a deep breath when she saw him moving slowly toward her. She wanted to back up but again her feet wouldn’t cooperate. All she could do was stand there and watch all six foot three of him gaining ground on her. She felt herself breathing faster with every step he took and her hands actually began shaking. Her fingertips were even tingling, but what she noticed most of all was how the juncture of her thighs seemed to throb like crazy.
When had her desire for him become so potent? Had making love to him all night suddenly turned her into a lustful woman? A woman whose needs dictated how she behaved with him? She could only imagine. But then she thought, no, she really couldn’t. She hadn’t been with a man taking up her space and time for so long, she wasn’t sure how to deal with Bane now.
“Are you sure nothing is wrong, Crystal?” Bane had come to a stop directly in front of her. He was standing so close it wouldn’t take much to reach out and touch him, feel those hard muscles, that solid chest glistening with sweat.
“Nothing’s wrong, Bane. I’m fine.”
He gave her a knowing grin, which put her on notice that he knew she was lying. She wasn’t fine. Thanks to him she had gotten a taste of what she’d been missing for five years, and just how well he could still deliver. But it was more than just sex when it came to him. She’d always known it, ever since they’d held out those two years before even making love.
During that time they had developed a closeness and an understanding she knew very few couples shared. She had thought that maybe it hadn’t survived their separation, but it seemed to have. Of course she knew better than to expect everything to go back to the way it had always been between them. They weren’t the same people. They still needed to work out a few things, make adjustments and get a greater understanding of who they were now. But it could be done.
“May I offer a suggestion?” he asked her.
She licked her lips. It was either doing that or giving in to temptation and leaning over and licking him. “What?”
“Let’s shower together.”
Now, why had he suggested that? All kinds of hot and searing visions begin flooding her brain. “Shower together?”
“Yes. I suggested that same thing the night before last but you sort of turned me down.”
Yes, she had. “I wasn’t ready.”
He took a step closer. “What about now, Crystal? Are you ready now? After last night, are you ready to give your husband some more playtime?”
It wasn’t his request that caused her mind to shatter. It was his reference to himself as her husband. Because at that moment it hit her that he was hers and had been since her eighteenth birthday, probably even before then.
Bane had always told her she was his, regardless of what her parents or his family thought about it. And she had believed him. At no time had she doubted his words. Until that day he’d called to tell her he had decided to go into the navy. But now he was back and was letting her know that although he might have changed in some ways, he was the same in the way that mattered to her. He was still hers.
“That shower isn’t very big,” she decided to say. “And it might get messy with water sloshing all over the place.”
“I’ll clean it up,” he said.
His smile made her weak in the knees, it was so darn sexy. “Well, if you don’t mind doing that, then who am I to argue?” And without saying anything else, she forced her feet to move and walked toward the bathroom. But she didn’t close the door behind her. When she turned toward the vanity to look in the mirror, out of the corner of her eye she saw that he was still standing in the same spot staring at her. So she figured that she might as well give him something to look at.
* * *
“Down boy,” Bane muttered under his breath, trying to get his hard-on under control as he watched Crystal strut off toward the bathroom. As he stood there watching, she proceeded to wash her face and brush her teeth. When had seeing a woman doing basic morning tasks become a turn-on? He could answer that easily. The woman was his wife, and the times he’d seen her do those things had been few and far between.
So he watched her and began getting harder. He couldn’t help noticing how his T-shirt clung to her breasts as she leaned toward the sink to rinse out her mouth, how the hem of the shirt had inched up and barely covered her thighs. The same thighs he’d ridden hard last night.
And back to her breasts... He could clearly see how hard the buds were and how well defined the twin globes looked. They were a nice size and nice shape. And he knew for certain they had one hell of a nice taste. As far as he was concerned everything about Crystal was nice. The word nice wasn’t good enough. He could come up with a number of better ways to describe his wife. Shapely. Sexy. Mesmerizing. Hot. Tasty.
Did he need to go on? He doubted it. Instead, as he stood there and watched her take a washcloth to wet her face, he was suddenly turned on in a way he’d never been turned on before. Hell, it was worse than last night, and he hadn’t believed that could be possible.
Feeling like a man who needed his wife and needed her now, he moved toward the bathroom. She had to know he was coming, but she didn’t turn and look his way. Instead, she began removing his T-shirt and then tossed it aside. By the time he reached her she was naked.
Bane moved behind her and looked into the mirror
, holding her gaze in the reflection. He moved closer and took hold of her backside, settling his groin against it. Perfect fit. And when he began grinding, feeling his engorged erection working against her buttocks, the contact nearly sent him over the edge. He broke eye contact with her in the mirror to lean over to lap her shoulder, licking it from one end to the other, taking a few nibbles of her flesh in between. He liked the way her skin tasted this morning. Salty. Womanly.
“I haven’t taken a shower yet,” she whispered in a voice that let him know the effect his mouth had on her.
“We’ll eventually get around to it. No rush.”
Then he remembered there was a certain spot on her body, right underneath her left ear, that when licked and sucked could make the raw hunger in her come out. So he licked and sucked there and immediately her body began shivering in a way that sent a violent need slamming through him.
“Bane...”
“I know, baby,” he whispered. “Trust me, I know. And I want you just as much. Now. I need to be inside you. Bad. I got five years of want and need stored up just for you.”
“And last night?” she asked in that same sexy whisper.
“Just the beginning. One night can’t alleviate everything. To be honest, I doubt one hundred nights can.”
“Oh, my.”
“Oh, yes.”
And with that said, he turned her around to face him, lifted her off her feet and sat her on the vanity. “Spread your legs for me, Crystal.”
As if they had a will of their own, her thighs parted. He pulled a condom pack out of the side pocket of his sweats and moved back only far enough to ease the sweats down his legs.
“You don’t have to use that unless you want to,” she said softly. “After I lost the baby my aunt suggested I go on the pill. More to help keep me regulated than anything else.”
He nodded. So in other words she was letting him know that this time or any time they felt like it, they could go skin to skin, flesh to flesh. Just the thought made his entire body feel as if it was on fire. “Then, I won’t use one.”
With his pants out of the way, he got back into position between her spread legs. His shaft was ready, eager to mate and greedier than he’d ever felt it to be. He cupped himself to lead it home.
“Let me.”
He looked up and gazed into her eyes. The thought that she’d asked to guide him inside her almost made him weak in the knees. “All right.”
When she reached out and took hold of him, he felt himself harden even more in her hands. And then she led him to her center, and it was as if a thousand watts of electricity jolted through her nerve endings to him. And instinctively he pushed forward, thrusting into her hard and deep, all the way to the hilt. Reaching out, he grabbed hold of her hips, and began moving inside her like crazy.
Needing even more of a connection with her, he leaned forward to capture her lips with his. She had the minty taste of whatever mouthwash she’d used and he intended to lick the taste right from her mouth. She returned the kiss and he deepened it as much as he could while thrusting even more deeply into her body. Setting the same rhythm for both, the same beat. The same drive.
And the beat went on. He could hear her whispering in a choppy breath for him not to stop. So he didn’t. He couldn’t. It seemed that everything was out of his control. He was out of control. His entire body was ablaze for her.
“Bane!”
She screamed his name and tightened her legs around his waist. He thrust harder in response and before he could catch his next breath, his body exploded. But he wasn’t done.
“Hold on, Crystal. I’m coming again.”
“Bane!”
He threw his head back and sucked in a deep gulp of air that included a whiff of her scent. He practically lifted her hips off the vanity as he pushed deeper, and he came again with a primal need that made his entire body tremble. Now he knew that this woman who’d gotten under his skin so many years ago, who’d been his world, still was. And would always be so.
Fifteen
There was a knock on their hotel room door. “That should be dinner.”
Crystal felt an immediate sense of loss when Bane separated his limbs from hers. Had they gone through breakfast and lunch? A part of her knew they had but the only thing she could recall with clarity was their seemingly nonstop lovemaking sessions. They’d only taken time out to grab something to eat and indulge in a couple of power naps in between.
She watched as he quickly slid into his jeans. When he grabbed his gun off the desk and inserted it into his waistband, it was a stark reminder of the situation they were in. There was a group of people out there who wanted her, and Bane was just as determined that they would not get her.
“Yes?” Bane asked as he looked out the door’s peephole.
“Room service.”
“Just a minute.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Decent?”
She was pulling his T-shirt over her head. “Now I am.” But she still slid beneath the covers and pulled the bedsheet practically up to her chin.
He opened the door to a smiling young woman who couldn’t help roaming her gaze all over Bane as she pushed a cart into their hotel room. “Everything you ordered, sir.”
“Thanks.”
Once the woman left, Crystal slid out of bed and glanced at the food. The cart was set like a table for two. Bane was finally getting his steak and potatoes, and as far as she was concerned, he deserved it. She was certain he’d worked up an appetite over the past few hours.
“I need to wash my hands first.”
“So do I.”
“But not together. I’ll go first,” she said, racing off toward the bathroom and closing the door behind her. Every time she and Bane entered the bathroom together they ended up making out all over the place. He had taken her on the vanity and in the shower just before breakfast. And then again in the shower right before lunch.
After washing her hands she quickly dried them off before opening the bathroom door, only to find him standing right there waiting. “My turn now,” he said, grinning. “If you want to keep me company, I won’t mind.”
Yes, she just bet he wouldn’t. “No thanks. I’ll be okay out here waiting for you. I promise not to start without you.”
“I won’t be long because I’m sure you’re hungry, too,” he said with a grin. He went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
Crystal rubbed her hand down her face. Jeez. This new Bane was almost too much for her. He’d always had a pretty hefty sexual appetite, but in the past, due to her lack of experience, he’d always kept that appetite under control. Now it was obvious he wasn’t holding anything back. In a way she couldn’t help but smile about that because now he was treating her as an equal in the bedroom. He’d taken off the kid gloves and wasn’t treating her like a piece of china that could easily break.
“I’m back.”
She glanced up and thought that yes, he was back, looking sexy as ever and easily transforming her into one huge bundle of sexual need. “Umm, maybe I should change clothes. Keeping on your T-shirt might not be a good idea.”
He moved around her toward the cart. “Don’t know why you think so. Besides, we’ll both be changing soon enough since we’ll be moving out in a few hours.”
That was right. He had mentioned that to her. They’d be meeting up with his cousins. When she approached the cart, Bane pulled out a chair for her. She wasn’t surprised. One thing about those Westmoreland men, they might have been hell-raisers a time or two, but they always knew how to act proper and show respect.
“Thanks, Bane,” she said, taking her seat.
“You’re welcome.” He leaned down and placed a kiss on her lips. “Eat up.”
“Do you know what the plan is after we meet with your cousins?”
He took a sip of coffee and shook his head. “Not sure. Quade has connections with the White House. He may have some insight into the mole at Homeland Security.”
Crystal didn’t say anything as she began eating, but she couldn’t help wondering what could be done to keep her safe. She doubted Bane could continue to protect her on the run. What if he had orders for an assignment? Then where would she be?
“You’re frowning. You think the food isn’t good or something?”
She glanced over at him. “The food is good,” she said of the grilled chicken salad she’d ordered. “I was just wondering about something.”
“What?”
“What happens if you get that phone call?”
“What phone call?”
“The one from your commander that you’re needed on one of those covert operations.”
He shrugged. “Like I told you, my team and I are on military leave for a while. However, if something comes up, I’ll let my commander know I can’t go. You’re my wife and I won’t be going anywhere until I know for certain that you’re safe.”
“Because of your sense of duty and obligation?” she asked, needing to know.
He stared at her as a moment of silence settled between them. Then, he spoke. “I’m not sure what it’s going to take for you to realize something, Crystal.”
“What?”
“That you’re more than an obligation to me. I love you. Always have and always will. That’s why I joined the navy five years ago instead of hanging around in Denver and getting into more trouble. In all honesty, I think had I claimed you as my wife back then we might very well be divorced by now.”
His words almost snatched the air from her lungs. “Why do you think that?”
“Because there is more to life than what we had back then.”
“We had love.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “And it was our love that would have held things together for a while. But I could see things eventually falling apart. I had a high school education and barely two years of college, and you were determined not to go back to school to get a diploma. All you wanted was to be my wife and the mother of my kids.”
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