“So you are here to psychoanalyze. Do me a favor and keep it to yourself.”
He couldn’t see her eyes, but he could tell from the silhouette of her profile that she was not unaffected by the harshness of his words.
“Actually,” she started. Her voice wobbled and she stopped and cleared her throat. When she spoke again, her voice was very, very small. “Actually, I’m here because I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
Something clenched in Crash’s chest. It was the same something that tightened his throat and made tears heat his eyes. It made his bitter anger start to fade, leaving behind a hurt and anguish that was too powerful to keep inside. There was no way he could detach and move far enough away from the pain he was feeling. It was too strong.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “What I said was rude and uncalled-for.”
Crash tried to get mad at himself. He’d been a son of a bitch from the moment she walked in, a jerk, a complete ass, a total bastard. He tried to get good and angry—because that anger was the only thing that was going to keep him from breaking down and crying like a baby.
Nell moved in the darkness beside him, and he knew she was wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her shirt. “That’s okay,” she said. “I’d rather have you mad at me than have to watch you do your zombie impression.”
“Maybe you should go,” Crash said desperately. “Because I’m not feeling very steady here, and—”
She interrupted, turning in the darkness to face him. “I came to your room because I wanted to tell you something before I left.” She reached out, touching him on the arm. “I wanted to—”
“Nell, I’m not sure I can—”
“Make sure that you knew that—”
“—handle sitting here like this with you.” He’d meant to shake her hand off, but somehow he’d reached for her instead, gripping her tightly by the elbow.
“I’ve wanted to be your lover since the first time we met,” she whispered.
Oh, Lord.
All of the intense feelings—the wanting, the guilt, the desire, the relentless pain—of the past few days, the past few weeks, spun together inside of him, in a great, huge tornado of emotion.
“I just wanted you to know that before I left,” she said again, “in case you maybe felt something similar and, even though we’ve only got one night—”
Crash kissed her. He had to kiss her, or everything inside of him, this churning maelstrom of despair and heartache and guilt and grief would erupt from him, tearing him apart, leaving him open and exposed.
He kissed her—and he didn’t have to cry. He pulled her close—and he didn’t need to break things, he didn’t lash out in anger, he didn’t fall apart with grief.
She nearly exploded in his arms, clinging to him as desperately as he clung to her, matching the fury of his kisses, the ferociousness of his embrace.
He pulled her onto his lap so that her legs straddled him, her heat pressed tightly against him.
Sweet God, he’d wanted her for so long.
This was wrong. He knew it was wrong, but he no longer cared. He needed this. He needed her—just as she needed him tonight.
And Lord, how she needed him.
Her fingers were running through his hair, her hands skimming down his back as if she couldn’t get enough of touching him. She kissed him as if she wanted to inhale him. She pressed herself against him as if she would die if he didn’t fill her.
Nothing else existed. For right now, for this time, there was no past, no future—only this moment. Only the two of them.
As they still kissed, he touched her just as greedily, slipping one hand between them to cup the sweet fullness of her breast. She made a low, unbearably sexy noise deep in the back of her throat, then pulled her lips away from his, just long enough to grab the hem of her shirt and pull it quickly over her head.
And then she kissed him again, as if the few seconds they’d been apart had been an eternity.
Her skin was so smooth, so perfect beneath his hands. She reached between to unfasten the front clasp of her bra. The sensation was nearly unbearable then and, as she tugged at his own shirt, he knew that feeling her naked against him would drive him mindlessly past the point of no return.
“Is this really what you want?” he breathed, pushing her hair back from her face, trying to see her eyes in the dimness.
“Oh, yes.” She kissed the palm of his hand, catching his thumb between her teeth, touching him with her tongue, damn near sending him through the roof.
When she pulled at his shirt again, this time he helped her, yanking it off.
And then she was touching him, her hands skimming his shoulders as she kissed his throat, his neck, her delicate lips driving him mad.
He pulled her close, crushing his mouth to hers, crushing the softness of her breasts to the hard muscles of his chest.
Skin against skin.
Crash wanted to take his time. He wanted to pull back and look at her, to taste her, to fill his hands with her, but he couldn’t slow down without that emotional tornado inside of him breaking free and wreaking havoc.
But there was no way in hell he was going to take her here on the floor.
He swept his hands to the soft curve of her rear end and stood, pulling himself to his feet with Nell still in his arms.
Two long strides brought him close enough to kick the door closed. Two more took them both to his bed.
He put her down and pulled away to rid himself of his boots, and when he turned back, he found she’d opened the curtains on the window over the bed.
Pale winter moonlight filtered in, giving Nell’s beautiful skin a silvery glow.
Crash reached for her, and she met him halfway, kissing him and pulling him back with her onto the bed. He felt her hands at the waistband of his pants even as he unfastened the top button of her jeans.
“Please tell me you’ve got a condom,” she breathed as she helped him pull her jeans down the long, smooth length of her legs.
“I’ve got a condom.”
“Where?”
“Bathroom.”
She slid off the bed as he wrestled with his own pants, but even so, he still managed to beat her into the attached bath. He always kept protection in his toilet kit on the counter next to the sink, and he searched for a foil-wrapped square without even turning on the light.
She pressed herself against him, her breasts soft against his back, reaching around him to slide both hands down past the waistband of his shorts. As he found what he was looking for, she did, too. Her fingers closed around him and it was all he could do to keep from groaning aloud.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined sweet Nell Burns would be so bold.
He could have had this for an entire month. He could have…
She took the foil packet from his hands, tore it open, and began to guide the condom onto him.
But she took too long, touched him too lightly, and he pulled away, breathing hard, quickly finishing the task himself as she dragged his shorts down his legs. When he turned to face her, he saw that she’d taken off her own panties as well.
She was beautiful, standing there naked in the moonlight, all silvery-smooth skin and shining hair, like some kind of goddess, some kind of faerie queen.
Crash reached for her, and she was there, filling his arms, kissing him hungrily. He reached between them, touching her intimately, finding her more than ready for him.
She turned them around, backing herself up against the sink counter. He knew by now that she was far from shy when it came to sex, but when she lifted herself up onto the counter, opening herself to his exploring fingers, pressing him more deeply inside of her, he thought his heart would stop.
But then he stopped thinking as she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him toward her. She kissed him hard, and with one explosive thrust, he was inside her.
Crash heard himself cry out, his voice mixing with hers.
It was too good, too i
ncredible. He could feel her fingernails sharply against his back as she gripped him, as her legs tightened around him. She wanted him hard and fast and he wasn’t about to deny her anything.
She moved beneath him, meeting each of his thrusts with a wild abandon, a savage passion that left him breathless. And he knew that this was more than mere sex for her, too. This was a way for them both to take comfort. This was a way to reaffirm that they were both still very much alive. It wasn’t so much about pleasure as it was about trying to drive away the pain.
He’d always been a considerate lover, always taking his time, giving slow, leisurely pleasure to the woman he was with, making certain that she was satisfied several times over before he allowed himself his own release. He’d always been in careful control.
But tonight, his control had gone out the window with his good judgment. Tonight, he was on fire.
He lifted her off the counter, still kissing her, still moving inside her. He carried her toward the bed, stopping to press her back against the bathroom wall, the closet door, the bedroom wall, stopping to drive himself inside her as deeply as he possibly could.
She strained against him, her head thrown back and her breath catching in her throat as he roughly took first one, then the other of her breasts into his mouth, drawing hard on her deliciously taut nipples.
It was there, against the wall that separated his room from hers, that he felt her climax. It was there, as she cried out, as she shook and shattered around him, that he lost all that remained of his shredded control. He exploded, his release like a fiery rocket scorching his very soul.
And then it was over, but yet it wasn’t. Nell still gripped him, still clung to him as if he were her only salvation. And he was still buried deeply inside of her.
Crash stood, his forehead resting on the wall above her shoulder, more than just physically spent. He was emotionally exhausted.
One minute slid into two, two into three and Nell didn’t move either, didn’t shift, didn’t stir, didn’t do more than hold him and breathe.
He kept his eyes closed, afraid to open them, afraid to think.
Dear God, what had he done?
He’d used her. She’d come to him for comfort, offering her own sweet comfort in return, and he’d done little more than use her to vent his anger and frustration and grief.
He lifted his head and somehow the Jell-O that had once been his legs made it over to the bed. He sank down, pulling himself free from Nell. He immediately missed the intimacy of that connection, but who was he kidding? They couldn’t stay joined that way for the rest of their lives. He leaned back on the mattress, pulling her down with him, so that her back nestled against his chest, so that he wouldn’t have to meet her gaze.
She lifted her head only slightly—not far enough to look into his eyes. “May I sleep in here with you tonight?”
She sounded so uncertain, so afraid of what he might say. Something in his chest tightened. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, shivering slightly.
He shifted them both so he could cover them with the sheet and blanket. He pulled her closer, wrapping her tightly in his arms, wishing he could make her instantly warm, wishing for a lot of things that he knew he couldn’t have.
He wished that he could keep her safe from the rest of the world. But how could he? He hadn’t even been able to keep her safe from himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CRASH SAT UP IN BED. “What time is it?”
One second, he’d been sound asleep, and the next his eyes were wide open, as if he’d been awake and alert for hours.
“It’s nearly six.” Nell resisted the urge to dive back under the sheet and blanket and cover herself. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed with her back toward him, briefly closing her eyes, feeling her face heat with a blush.
Her jeans were here on the floor. Her shirt and bra were across the room. Her underpants…in the bathroom, she remembered suddenly, with a dizzying surge of extremely vivid memory.
She slipped into her jeans, forsaking her underpants. There was no way she was going to walk naked all the way across this room with Crash watching. Yes, he’d seen her naked last night, but that had been last night. This was the morning. This was very different. She was leaving for Ohio today, and if he shed any tears at her departure, they were surely only going to be tears of relief.
Nell knew with a certainty that could have gotten her hired by one of those psychic hotlines, that what had happened between herself and William Hawken last night had been a fluke. It had been a result of the high emotions of the past few days, of Daisy’s death and the wake and funeral that had quickly followed.
It had been an incredible sexual experience, but Nell knew that a single episode of great sex didn’t equal a romantic relationship. When it came down to it, nothing had changed between them. They were still only friends—except now they were friends who had shared incredibly great sex.
She stood up, fastening the button on her jeans, knowing that she couldn’t keep her back to him as she went across the room in search of her shirt and bra. She was just going to have to be matter-of-fact about it. That’s all. She had breasts, he didn’t—big deal.
But Crash caught her arm before she could take a step, his fingers warm against her bare skin. “Nell, are you all right?”
She didn’t turn to face him, wishing that he would prove her wrong. Right now, he could do it—he could prove her entirely, absolutely wrong. He could slide his hand down her arm in a caress. He could pull her gently to him, move aside her hair and kiss her neck. He could run those incredible hands across her breasts, down her stomach, and unfasten the waistband of her pants. He could pull her back into the warmth of his bed and make love to her slowly in the gray morning light.
But he didn’t.
“I’m…” Nell hesitated. If she said fine, she would sound tense and tight, as if she weren’t fine. His hand dropped from her arm, and her last foolish hopes died. She crossed the room and picked up her shirt.
It was inside out, of course, and she turned away from him as she adjusted it. She slipped it over her head and only then could she turn and look at him.
Bed head. He had bed head, his dark hair charmingly rumpled, sticking out in all different directions. He looked about twelve years old—except for the fact that even the simple act of sitting up in bed had made many of his powerful-looking muscles flex. God, he was sexy, even with bed head.
Nell used all her limited acting skills to sound normal. “I’m…still pretty amazed by what happened here last night.”
“Yeah,” he said. His pale blue eyes were unreadable. “I am, too. I feel as if I owe you an apology—”
“Don’t,” she said, moving quickly toward him. “Don’t you dare apologize for what happened last night. It was something we both needed. It was really right—don’t turn it into something wrong.”
Crash nodded. “All right. I just…” He glanced away, closing his eyes briefly before he looked back at her. “I’ve been so careful to stay away from you all this time,” he said, “because I didn’t want to hurt you this way.”
Nell slowly sat down at the foot of the bed. “Believe me, last night didn’t hurt at all.”
He didn’t smile at her poor attempt at a joke. “You know as well as I do,” he said quietly, “that it wouldn’t work, right? A relationship between us…” He shook his head. “You don’t really know me. You know this…kind of PG-rated, goody-two-shoes, Disney cartoon version of me.”
Nell wanted to protest, but he wasn’t done talking and she held her tongue, afraid if she interrupted, he would stop.
“But if you really knew me, if you knew who I really am, what I do…you wouldn’t like me very much.”
She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “How can you just make that kind of decision for me?”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you have some kind of sick thing for cold-blooded killers—”
“You are n
ot cold-blooded!”
“But I am a killer.”
“You’re a soldier,” she argued. “There’s a difference.”
“Okay,” he said levelly. “Maybe you could get past that. But being involved with a SEAL who specializes in black ops is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy.” His usually quiet voice rang with conviction. “I certainly wouldn’t wish it on you.”
“Again, you’re just going to decide that for me?”
He threw off the covers, totally unembarrassed by his nakedness. He found his pants, but they were the ones he’d worn to the funeral. Dress pants. He tossed them over a chair and pulled a pair of army fatigues from the closet.
Nell closed her eyes at a sudden vivid image from last night. His hands around her waist, his mouth locked on hers, his body…
“Here’s the deal with black ops,” he said, zipping his fly and fastening the button at his waist. “I disappear—literally—sometimes for months at a time. You would never know where I was, or for how long I’d be gone.”
He ran his fingers back through his hair in a failed attempt to tame it, the muscles in his chest and arms standing out in sharp relief. “If I were KIA—killed in action—you might never be told,” he continued. “I just wouldn’t come back. Ever. You’d never find out about the mission I was on. There’d be no paper trail, no way to know how or why I’d died. It would be as if I’d never existed.” He shook his head. “You don’t need that kind of garbage in your life.”
“But—”
“It wouldn’t work.” He gazed at her steadily. “Last night was…nice, but you’ve got to believe me, Nell. It just wouldn’t work.”
Nice.
Nell turned away. Nice? Last night had been wonderful, amazing, fantastic. It hadn’t been nice.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
She looked out the window. She looked at the rug. She looked at a painting that hung on the wall. It was one of Daisy’s—a beach scene from her watercolor phase.
Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating Page 135