“Not to frighten you, but I’ve seen it all over the body. In this heat, any wound is susceptible, which is why we’re going to take care of that wound now. It’s more painful, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“Come on.” Helping her up, he led her into the shelter. Placing his poncho on the palm fronds he’d made into a pallet, he urged her to sit down and handed her his poncho liner. “I’m going to set things up. Meanwhile, I need you to take off your shirt. You can use that to cover yourself, okay?”
She nodded and he left. A pinch of ignited C-4 beneath his mess kit pot boiled the rambutan peelings and water quickly, as well as sterilized his K-bar knife. The firewood was to keep the mosquitoes at bay closer to dark, when the chance of smoke being seen was low. Once he heard her movements inside the shelter still, he called out. “All set for me to come inside?”
“Yes. I’m good.”
Entering, he sat next to her with his supplies and rucksack before him. She’d wrapped the poncho liner around her and tucked it like a sarong. She’d done an excellent job of bandaging her wound in the first place. She winced hard as he undid the dressing to expose the angry gash between her upper breast and collar bone. It hurt him to see her injured. To see the peaches and cream perfection of her skin marred in any way. Gritting his teeth, John set work. He cleaned the wound then cursed. “Damn it, Emma. You’ve got shrapnel embedded in your wound.”
“I know.”
“But you said earlier that you only had a cut.”
“I didn’t want to delay us.”
“Do that again and I’ll—” John bit his tongue, deciding to yell at her later. Her wound was more extensive than he’d thought, and he wanted to finish as quickly as he could. Her rapid breaths, dilated pupils, and pale complexion told him how much pain she was in.
“I’m sorry…this is going to hurt.” She groaned as if stabbed when he wedged the shrapnel from the cut and felt as if he would pass out himself from having to cause her any pain. “I’m sorry, Em.”
She forced a smile even as she gasped for breath. “I’m okay.”
“Good news. It’s not deep and bleeding is minimal.” He liberally cleaned the wound with the boiled rambutan water. Then using a clean cotton sock as a dressing, he used the elastic from her bra to secure it all.
She rolled her shoulder. “Thank you. It feels a lot better without the shrapnel. Can I see it?” The tears in her eyes cut him. He wanted to spare her every painful moment.
John rinsed off the mangled piece of Huey and handed it to her. She fisted it in her hand, tight. “I want to keep this.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes lost in a sea of pain. “It’s my fault that Ginny died. I’m the one who suggested Maggie trade assignments with Ginny yesterday. It should have been me who—”
John pressed a finger to Emma’s soft lips. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. If anyone is to blame it’s the damn pilots who were flying in an area they weren’t supposed to be in.”
Emma sobbed, turning from him. “She didn’t deserve to die, John.”
He lay next to Emma and pulled her into his arms. “Shh. I know. No one deserves to die. God knows none of the young men who’ve lost their lives here deserved it. But death and life aren’t always fair. And you can’t let survivor’s guilt eat you alive. Just like you told me. Don’t let today’s hell steal tomorrow’s heaven.”
“I know.” Still, she cried, and he pulled her tighter. She slid closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. He held her, caressing her back, comforting her until she stopped crying.
“Want to tell me what happened when your uncle told you that bit of wisdom?”
She seemed to hesitate then sighed. “It’s not something I like to talk about. My father abused my mother, but no one would do anything about it. He was in law enforcement and she always made excuses for him. She was beautiful, and he was jealous if she even smiled at the 60-something year old mailman. When I was ten, he saw a boy from school kiss my cheek and he beat me up. When my mother found me, she took me to the hospital and filed charges against my father. He went to jail. He got out when I was fifteen. He came after my mother first thing. This time he’d brought a knife with him. But this time my uncle was there and armed with a shotgun. My father died that night. It wasn’t too long after that, my uncle told me to not let today’s hell steal tomorrow’s heaven.”
The weight of Emma’s pain hit John like a ton of bricks. He wished he could have been the one protecting her from such evil. “I was wrong, Em. Some men do deserve to die. A man who’d beat his wife and kid does. I’m so sorry that happened.”
She lifted her head to gaze into his eyes. The cover she’d wrapped around her had loosened, leaving a little more of her cleavage exposed. His breath caught, and it shamed him to feel his erection swell. From her widening eyes, he knew she felt it too. “Kiss me,” she said softly.
He pulled her tight to him and groaned then shook his head and tried to slide from beneath her. “I can’t. Not right now,” he said harshly. “I wouldn’t be able to stop at just a kiss.”
She let him roll away from her, but then caught his hand and brought it to her lips. “What if I don’t want to you stop.” She kissed his hand.
John shuddered as pleasure rippled through him. “I’m going to kiss you Emma and I’m not going to stop loving you all night long for a long time to come, but it’s not going to happen until I get you back safely and I know shock, fear, gratitude, or some sort of jungle fever aren’t pushing you my way.”
She arched a brow over a deadly glare that had him realizing that despite her softness and vulnerability, Emma Rollins was a woman to be reckoned with and he didn’t want to be on her bad side. “You think I don’t know my own mind, Lieutenant?”
He’d wandered into a minefield. “Now, Em. I didn’t say that at all.”
She stood, and his poncho liner clung to her curves. He sucked in air, feeling as if the tropical heat had reached a record high in a matter of seconds.
“I need to recon the area,” he said and dashed outside. He didn’t wait to hear a response before he moved into the safety of the jungle. It took him thirty minutes and a dip into the creek to get his libido under control. He returned to find her washed shirt hanging on a bamboo limb along with, he gulped, a pair of beige underwear. At least the pants he’d given her weren’t hanging up there, too.
“Em, I’m back.”
She didn’t answer, and he pushed through the palm fronds to find her curled up on the pallet asleep. The pants were folded at the side of the bed. She’d eaten half a Charlie rats and two of the four rambutan’s she’d peeled. He also found evidence that she’d bathed using the water in his helmet. Clean and naked. He almost turned tail and ran.
Hell, he needed food and sleep, too. Too hot for his boots and fatigues, he stripped to his underwear and T-shirt. He ate the remaining food. Then he pulled the empty sandbags from his ruck sack to make a barrier between him and the palm leaves. Lying down next to Emma, he set his M-16 next to him.
Chapter Eight
Present Day.
Emma awakened to John calling her name over and over. His heart monitor beeped at a fast pace, and he was restless again. She’d somehow fallen asleep while holding his hand. “I’m here, John. You found me.” She stroked his cheek and ran her fingers through his hair. His restlessness eased and she smiled.
Vietnam
December 1971
His nightmare in the jungle that first day after the crash had been his undoing. Then again, she’d already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to waste another minute of not loving him if he wanted her. The helicopter crash had proved life was too short. She needed to live every moment to its fullest. John coming after her in the jungle said that he really cared for her, but Emma felt it on a soul-deep level when she’d awakened to find him desperately calling for her while in the grip of a nightmare.
“I’m here, John,” Emma said as she rolled to him. Wincing when she h
it her injured shoulder, she tried to sit up, but the cover she had wrapped around her was caught beneath her hip. It jerked her back down before popping loose and throwing her off balance. She landed on John’s chest with a thump, her breasts exposed.
John grunted. “I can very clearly see that you are here.”
Mortified that he likely thought she was throwing herself at him, Emma glanced at him. His blue gaze was centered on her breasts.
She smacked his shoulder with her good arm and tried to pull her cover back up. “You were having a nightmare, and you were calling for me.” She finally got her breasts covered and he lifted his gaze to hers.
“Huh?”
It was as if he’d lost all brain function. Emma repeated herself.
“A nightmare? Me?” John shook his head as he clamped his hand on each side of her bottom and pulled her completely on top of him. His erection was front and center and pressed hard against her thigh. “You don’t need an excuse to wake me, Em.”
“I didn’t make that up.”
“Sure,” he said softly as he slid his hand up her back.
Emma shivered as hot darts of desire shot from the tips of her toes to her hardening nipples. Her body was going crazy for him even as her mind wanted to bean him. She grunted in frustration. “If you think you can call me a liar and seduce me at the same time, then think again. I wouldn’t just throw myself at you like that.” She rolled off him, but didn’t even get a second’s respite before he rolled on top of her.
“Okay,” he said, laughing. “I had a nightmare, and you were trying to help. But I liked the idea of you throwing yourself at me. I’ve dreamt about you every night since we met.”
Emma’s breath caught. Not because of his confession, but because of just how beautiful he was when humor lit up his eyes and softened his brow. “Me, too,” she whispered.
John’s smile fell away, leaving a naked vulnerable want behind.
“I’ve wanted you since I met you,” she said. “This isn’t jungle fever or gratitude. This is real, even if it’s not rational. Kiss me. Just like you did before.”
“You sure about this, Em? I want you forever. Don’t say yes unless you mean it, too.”
“Yes!” He silenced her cry with a kiss so deep that he reached her soul. His tongue sought hers and demanded an unbridled response. One she, yet still trembled beneath. He kissed her over and over. Then as she gasped for air, he slid his lips down her neck, pushing away the soft cover until he had bared her breasts.
“You are so amazingly beautiful,” he said. Leaning down, he kissed her injured shoulder. “It causes me pain to see you hurt. Please tell me if I hurt you.”
She nodded, too consumed to speak. He kissed lower, then licked her aching nipples as her desire for him burned hotter. She wanted and needed more of the pleasure. She arched to him and he suckled one breast as he slid his hand down to her sex, touching her there until she felt as if she’d explode from her need. The cover fell away, leaving her naked beneath him.
She pulled his shirt, wanting to feel him, wanting to see him. He rose up and jerked his shirt and underwear off. Dark hair spread across his chest and made a thin line down the center of his sculpted abdomen. His erection, thick and flushed red, jutted from a bed of dark hair. Pure elemental male that made her insides flutter with a strange mixture of want and nervousness. She’d kissed a man and had touched a man in a moment of passion, but she’d never made love before.
John’s military ID tags hung around his neck. She hated the name dog tags, felt as if it took away from a soldier’s humanity and reduced his importance. They represented the life of a man and were sometimes the only thing a family was left holding.
Reaching up, she grasped the tags and brought them to her lips. She kissed each one. “Promise me that you’re going to make it back to me, John. That I won’t be left with just these to hold.” Tears blurred her vision and when she blinked, she saw tears in his eyes.
He threaded his fingers with hers and placed his palm tightly to hers as he slid back on top of her, careful to keep his weight from her injured side. “I promise, Em. Nothing is going to keep me from you.”
Leaning down, he kissed her softly, reverently at first, then harder and deeper until he drove her into a frenzy of need. Just when she didn’t think she could stand another minute of his suckling kisses and teasing strokes over her aching body, he focused his caresses on the most sensitive flesh of her sex, and her body and mind rocketed to heaven. Stars burst, her breath caught and her body shuddered.
She cried out, arching to him and he thrust inside of her. His erection slid deep, making her feel as if she was simultaneously being split apart and yet reaching the highest pinnacle of femininity. She felt strange, until he opened his passion-filled eyes and he groaned, connecting with her heart and soul in a moment of unmatched intimacy. He began to thrust in and out, faster and faster. Her body was swept into another rush of pleasure, made more intense and more beautiful because he was with her. Every heartbeat, every breath, every sensation was shared as they climaxed, gazing into each other’s eyes with his hand holding hers palm to palm.
“I love you, Emma,” he gasped as he slid to her side.
“I’m glad,” she whispered. He frowned, clearly expecting she’d say the same thing. She smiled. “Because I’ve loved you since the moment we met, Lieutenant.”
“What about that ‘he has the manners of a bull in a china shop with the ass end of a mule to back him up’ stuff?”
“Well, I didn’t say you were perfect, only that I loved you.”
John looked outraged, but his gorgeous chest shook with laughter.
Emma ran her fingers through his soft hair. “You have to remember, I’d yet to see you with your clothes off. You’ll be happy to know that you’re a lot closer to perfect than I first thought.”
He arched a deadly brow. “Only close?” He leaned down and suckled her sensitive nipple and she bowed from the arrow of desire that went right to her sex. “I hear practice makes perfect.”
“Again?” Emma gasped, but didn’t get another chance to think. He was hard and ready. On his knees between her legs, he pulled her to him, lifting her bottom and sliding his erection into her. Every time he caressed her breast or tugged gently on her nipple, he’d thrust deep then slide halfway out. He kept doing it over and over until her sex burned for more and she rocked her hips trying to get it. He stroked the most sensitive nub of her sex and she shuddered. Almost, but not quite at a climax.
“How I am doing on perfect, Em?” he asked smiling down at her.
She gasped at his game, too desperate to do anything but cave. “Almost there,” she cried.
“Only almost?” He eased almost out of her.
She locked her heels behind his back. “You’re perfect.”
He thrust deep and flicked his thumb over her swollen nub until she came apart with a mind blowing, heart thundering climax. He cried out and his body shuddered until he collapsed at her side breathing heavy. He pulled her into his arms. “You’re the perfect one, Em. So glad you can love me.”
She fell asleep, tangled up with him and didn’t wake until sometime in the dark. John wasn’t beside her.
“John?”
“Here, Em.” He moved, and she could just make out his dark silhouette against the bamboo by the entrance.
“You all right? What’s wrong?”
He laughed. “I haven’t been this ‘all right’ since, well hell, since ever. I’m just keeping watch.”
“Did you hear something?”
“No. Just habit.”
She sat up. “You need more sleep. I’ll watch for a while.”
“I’ve had plenty of sleep. And you’re much too enticing. Had I stayed in bed, I wouldn’t have kept my hands to myself.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“You need to rest and be able to walk comfortably tomorrow.”
“I feel pretty good.”
“We’ll see tomorrow
. Go back to sleep, Em.”
She lay back and fell asleep again with the comfort of John’s presence wrapping her in a warm cocoon. He woke her at dawn and they were already on their way when they heard the airplanes and the bombing to the North, sounding heavier than the day before—as if twice as many attacks were underway.
They traveled in silence as Emma mirrored John’s movements. This time he had her behind him, putting her foot where he’d put his, stopping when he did, and moving to the right or left as he did. He’d been right. She may have felt fine last night, but this morning she ached a little between her legs. Her shoulder hurt, too. Though she thought it better than the day before now that the shrapnel was out. She patted the hard metal in her pocket and thought about Ginny.
She didn’t fully realize the danger of their situation until John froze. He motioned her back a step and pointed to a spot on the trail ahead. Very low to the ground lay a thin rope across the path. Then he showed her a spiked log hanging in the trees, ready to slash down and maim an unsuspecting passerby.
John led her back the way they’d come for about a hundred feet then moved off the trail, using his machete to cut the way. Their progress was slow. It bothered her that he’d left the trap for some other person to be killed by. Finally, she couldn’t keep quiet and asked him why he had.
“I disable them when I can. But a large number of the booby traps are meant to let troops know someone is in the area, and they move in to ambush whoever is there. The bamboo spikes on that trap appear fresh. Someone set that within the past few months, if not sooner. Had I triggered the trap, I could have brought the enemy down on us. Unfortunately, sometimes there isn’t a good choice to be made. Staying undetected and getting you back safe takes priority.”
Emma nodded. It was a difficult truth to swallow, but she realized there wasn’t another choice to be made. By the time they reached the river, she was exhausted. As before, John made quick work of setting up a shelter and a bathroom. They weren’t right next to the river, but she could hear it in the distance and feel a slight breeze streaming into the jungle. The bombing to the north had continued throughout the day. Everything from her toes to her head ached. She plopped down on the bed John made.
A Weldon Family Christmas: A Southern Steam Novella (Weldon Brothers) Page 8