Not sure how to answer her, he simply said, “Is what true?”
“What you said about how your parents died. About growing up in an orphanage in Hawaii. Was that a part of your cover story, too?”
Prime example of Jolynn lowering his defenses and leading him into revealing too much.
“Chuck, are you listening?”
“Yeah, I’m just surprised.” Surprised and relieved. “Of all the questions you could ask, why that one? Why now?”
She tipped her face to look at him. “I’m having a hard time separating Charles Tomas from Chuck Tanaka.”
“Every bit I told you about my parents, including the part about growing up in an orphanage in Hawaii, is true.” Chuck worked through a snarl at the base of her skull. “My father did die before I was one and my mother died when I was in the second grade, but she dumped me in an orphanage when I was in kindergarten so she could run off with her blackjack-dealing boyfriend.”
He yanked the comb the rest of the way through.
“Ouch!” Jolynn leaned forward, ducking her head out of his reach. “If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so while I still have hair left.”
“Sorry.” The word grew easier every time he said it. Chuck gripped her shoulders with gentle hands and pulled her back into the embrace of his knees. He didn’t want to think about why touching her made him feel better.
Jolynn smoothed a hand along his leg. “It must have been hard for you, growing up alone.”
Chuck grunted as he brushed her hair. “I told you before. The nuns were good people. No rulers or knuckle rapping. It was a solid, safe place to grow up. And I guess you could say I had a home full of brothers and sisters. Squadron life felt like a natural fit after the way I’d grown up, the people, the uniforms.”
She tilted her head and empathy flickered in her eyes. “Somehow I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”
“I have to admit I didn’t join the military with that intent or insight by any means. I took an ROTC scholarship because it was the only way I could get a degree. Then I realized I’d dumb lucked into the perfect career, the perfect life for myself.”
“What exactly is it you do in the military?”
He settled on the standard answer he’d been allowed to roll out in the past, part truth, the rest hidden. “I’m an aviator, a navigator actually. I worked in the military testing world, like a test pilot, creating and fine-tuning all the latest gadgets. Or rather I used to fly before… Body can’t cooperate with that now because of a busted eardrum. So now I’m just a regular techno computer guy.” His chest went tight. “Moving on to your next question…”
Her head lolled against his knee, and she pressed a soft kiss on it before speaking. “So Chuck Tanaka is the name you were born with then.”
“Uh-huh,” he agreed, thankful as hell she’d let the other subject go. “But the nuns gave us all new middle names to give us a grounding and reminder of our lives with them.”
“And you are?”
“Charles Gabriel Tanaka.” He felt her smile against his skin. “They liked the angels.”
“That was nice for you and whoever got Michael and Raphael.” She wrapped her arm around his leg and rubbed his shin absently. Or on purpose? “But I feel a little sorry for whoever got stuck with the fourth archangel, Uriel.”
Chuck smiled down at her in spite of his crappy mood as she dispersed the ghosts with her laugh. “Pretty impressive. Not many people could come up with all four names.”
“I spent a lot of years in parochial school.” Jolynn traced patterns on his calf with her fingers.
He struggled to control his breathing. Her bare arm hooked around his legs. Caresses turned to a firmer touch, more deliberate, and he realized she had more than talking on her mind. Maybe she’d even used the question about his childhood to show him she wasn’t going to push on the other topic. Maybe she understood his need to leave that part of his past alone. He’d done as much as he could to come to grips with what had happened, with all he’d lost. He just wanted to move on.
And right now, moving on by losing himself in sex with the hottest woman he’d ever met sounded like a damn fine idea.
Except this time, he wanted to take it slow. To see every nuance of her arousal played out on her face, on her bared flesh.
A rush of adrenaline rivaling any burst from the past few days powered through him. He lifted the veil of her hair and exposed the vulnerable patch of skin. Ravenous with a hunger he suspected he could never fill, Chuck pressed a kiss to her scented flesh. Her heartbeat throbbed beneath his lips, and her body stilled. The pulsing against his mouth increased.
He traced the outline of her face with the backs of his fingers, trailing from her forehead, over her delicate ears, along her jaw, and meeting at her chin. Her skin felt so soft against his roughened calluses.
Chuck circled the pad of one finger around her parted lips, before tapping her upturned nose. Her breathy gasps flowed over his palm in waves of heat that permeated his skin and coiled within him. Chuck brushed the fingers of both hands across her eyes, closing her lids with gentle strokes.
Skimming his hands down her arms and back up, he nudged aside the dress, baring her shoulder. Her head fell back and her cheek brushed against his as he feathered kisses against the softest skin ever made, skin that tempted him to explore every inch.
He absorbed the feel of her, like a dried-up river soaking the rain after a drought. He cupped her breasts through the cotton fabric. Memories from the ferry exploded through his senses. As his thumbs stroked, he could feel her cresting, and he yearned to toss away her clothes.
Her gentle moan provided all the encouragement he needed.
His hands met at the tiny buttons along the front. Her lids fluttered open, unveiling mossy green eyes darkening with desire. She shifted in his embrace until she leaned against his leg. Her hair brushed over his knee. Already he could imagine it tangled around him in the big brass bed inside.
She gripped the front of his shirt with a typical bravado he recognized as signature Jolynn, and tugged him to ward her.
THIRTEEN
Jolynn clenched his shirt in her fist and jerked him toward her. She was taking charge this time.
She stopped a hair shy of contact, puffing a breath over his cheek. His pupils dilated in response. He moved closer. She inched back, pressing her fingers to his lips.
“Red?”
“Chuck, I want you.”
“Good, because I want you, too.” He angled his face to kiss her.
She leaned her head back. “I know you do.” She could feel his desire throbbing against her stomach, but she didn’t trust that his logical mind wouldn’t scavenge some last-minute excuse to remain honorable. “Are you done ignoring me today?”
“I just brushed your hair and spilled my guts, for crying out loud, woman.”
Refusing to let him dodge the real question, she held his eyes with hers. “I’m talking about the moody silent treatment you gave me in the car and the way you shrugged me off once we got here.”
“I was securing the perimeter. I was keeping you safe, damn it.” Chuck kissed her hard and fierce, scorching her with a heat that surprised her.
Had he been holding back before, even in his kisses? His hands fisted in her wet hair, his body tense and urgent against her.
He ended the kiss abruptly and pinned her with his eyes. “You have every reason to question me based on how I kept the truth from you in the beginning.” He brushed her hair away from her face with unsteady hands. “But I only did what I had to in order to keep you safe. Is that so hard to understand?”
The sad reality of it all swept over her. “You were just doing your job.”
He muttered a curse. “You’re more than that to me.”
“Am I?” How much did she want to be?
Stubbornly, she pushed aside the thought before it led her to places where she could be hurt.
His hands tightened, almost painfully
. “You can’t begin to imagine the pure evil I’ve seen. The thought that any of it might touch you scares the hell out of me. Since the moment we tangled on the floor of the casino, you’ve tied me into so many knots I can’t think straight. If I can’t think, you die.” His eyes burned like twin molten hot flames. “Can I make it any clearer than that?”
Awed into silence by his heated speech, she merely shook her head. If that’s what happened from his storing words, she could only imagine what a flow of emotions from Chuck would entail. What would it feel like to have such strength, such power wash over her?
The composed man faded, and she saw his very human need, not just a physical need, but a yearning for her.
She pressed a kiss to his lips, his beautiful eyes, over his jaw, and journeyed back to his mouth. Without breaking contact, he backed her up the steps as their kisses grew more frenzied. His tongue delved deeper as they pushed through the front door of the one-room cottage.
The place was small, but quaint and surprisingly well equipped. His legs tangling with hers, he kept dance-walking with her, past the kitchenette, farther by the leather sofa in front of a stone fireplace, an old upright piano against the only full wall, and finally, finally to the wide brass bed. He lowered her onto the gold-and-white woven spread, the mattress giving as he joined her.
Chuck slanted his mouth over hers, stealing her breath as his hands slid between their bodies. His calloused fingers snagged along her skin. He released two more buttons on her dress. The bodice slid free, hooking on her elbows as she struggled with his clothes.
She fumbled with the buttons down his cabana shirt. Whipping the shirt down his arms, she flung it on the floor. His silver chain glinted in the light streaming through the windows. She touched a tentative hand to defined muscles dusted with dark hair.
Chuck unstrapped the holster and set the gun on the back of the piano. The sight of the weapon chilled her, threatening her with thoughts of the outside world.
He pulled her close, melding the heat of their bare skin. Her breasts, already sensitive, tingled meeting his bristly chest. She arched into his touch.
“Your ribs,” Chuck groaned as he moved his mouth to her neck. “Need to be careful,” he said as the protector-warrior peeked through his passion.
“Forget about being careful.”
Chuck dropped to his knees, his hands skimming across her bruised side before his lips followed. His healing touch was so whisper soft she wouldn’t have felt it except for the jolt of electricity shimmering up her spine.
He finished unbuttoning the front of the dress, nudging aside the sleeves and bunching it down and off her body. Kneeling at the foot of the bed, he paused, just staring at her in nothing but her underwear.
The longer he gazed, the more she ached for his touch. Her breasts pebbled inside the satin of her bra, her panties growing damp with her desire.
The intense flame of his eyes devoured her, flickering over her body. Jolynn stretched along the bed, enjoying the way his eyes lingered on her breasts. Growing up, she’d walked past all those busty statues that littered her life, and sometimes standing by those double-D stone goddesses, she’d even felt self-conscious of her barely A cups. But right now, she felt her body was one hundred percent as worshipped as any stone goddess.
She hooked her finger in the waistband of his shorts… and unsnapped. A quick swipe of her hand freed the zipper as well.
Her eyes locked on the thick length of him straining from his boxers, and yeah, she couldn’t help the shiver of appreciation that rippled through her. She knew well what pleasure his body could bring her. She gazed up to find him watching her with a very self-satisfied grin on his face.
“Thanks, Red.”
She rolled her eyes at his audacity. “You’re welcome.”
She slid her hand inside and wrapped her fingers around his heat and stroked the grin right off his face. Chuck closed his eyes, his head falling forward, his breathing ragged.
By the time she’d finished her sentence, he already stood by the bed again. He tossed his gun and a box of condoms on the table before he flung the rest of his clothes away with uncustomary negligence.
Smiling, she noted the strange combination beside the bed. Her Chuck, always protecting her in some form or another.
She stared into the eyes of Chuck, valiant warrior and passionate man. However, Chuck, angel protector and gentle scholar, was every bit as real. Mortality had smacked her in the face more than once over the past days, throughout her life for that matter. She wasn’t going to pass up even a minute’s chance to be with this man she’d already fallen halfway in love with.
Jolynn hooked her thumbs in her panties and slid them free. She linked her fingers with his and tugged him back down to rest over her. She sank into the bed, anchored by his warm weight.
“Jolynn.” Chuck whispered her name on a groan as he rolled to his side without releasing her.
They lay side by side on the mattress, so much wider than the little bunk on the ferry. She traced the outline of each muscle clearly defined across his chest, taking wicked pleasure in the reflexive twitches at her touch. She refused to skirt past the scars. Those were a part of him, too, although she would respect his obvious wish not to talk about them.
The setting sun streaked through the window, casting shadows along the cut of his defined muscles flexing under burnished skin. He kissed, licked, nipped first one breast, then the other, laving equal attention. She threaded her fingers through his coarse dark hair, urging him closer. Wanting more. Wanting everything.
Drawing her into his mouth, he sent sparks of pleasure deep inside her, gathering between her legs. As if following her thought, his hand slid low between them. He massaged the heel of his hand against her. Her fingers tightened against his shoulders in synch with the clenching inside her. She writhed, seeking relief. So close, release tormented, waiting, ready for her to plunge over if only she would let herself.
“Chuck.”
“Hmmm?”
“No more. Hurry.”
He pressed a soft kiss to her lips and turned to the bedside table, tearing open the box. Jolynn stroked her hands over his shoulders until he faced her again.
Shifting her to her back, he molded his full length to hers, the blanket of his body a sensual, welcome weight. He held his full bulk off her. The muscles of his forearms bulged. But she wanted him, all of him.
Jolynn hugged her arms around his waist, nestling against his hips until he began to fill her, the prodding sensation foreign, yet wonderful. Almost painful, yet so right to be with this man. Chuck moaned into her mouth, his tongue dancing a mimic of his body.
She hooked her ankles around his legs and urged him closer. Smiling up at him, she brushed her fingers against the somber furrows in his forehead.
An added edge of tenderness tempered his urgency. Chuck lowered to his elbows, sinking farther within her tight passage, stretching her. He combed his fingers through her still damp hair and tugged her lip between his teeth, her body writhing beneath him. Damn his torturous patience.
She arched her hips against his, encouraging him to move faster, harder, and unwind the coil inside her. Chuck thrust deeply, firmly.
He coupled powerful strokes with gentle touches, and something about this coming together was more intense, more personal with those shared confidences between them that said she was more than a mission to him. The feelings growing between them were special, shared.
The power, the intensity surged through her, and she pushed, rolling him to his back. Straddling his hips, she rode him, milked the angle of his erection pressing all the deeper. Her head flung back, and yeesss, he seemed to hear her unspoken need as his hands took advantage of the freer access to her breasts. The way he cradled, fondled, plucked, doubled the tension inside her as he continued to thrust, fill, rock against her. Flames of blue and red intensity entwined throughout her, singeing every corner of her with showering sparks until her fingers twisted in the bedspread
.
Her head flung back with the power of her release rolling through her, over her until she shouted in pleasure. The force of her voice ripped free without worry of anyone overhearing, doubled the bliss pumping through her. He tensed beneath her, his hoarse shout of fulfillment sending another shimmer shooting through her until she shuddered in the aftermath, collapsing on top of him in a depleted heap.
* * *
Chuck felt her body relax on top of him. Looking at his hands clenched around fistfuls of her hair, he wondered how one man could feel so complete and so damned confused at the same time. He buried his face in her fiery mane and delayed confronting his conscience a moment longer.
She felt so good, so right. Already he dreamed of the next time he would watch her face as he eased inside her.
The breeze from the open window cooled his heated skin, and he pulled away. Chuck stretched the length of the bed and tucked her against his chest. He smoothed her hair away from her face. He wasn’t good with flowery speeches, but women wanted to be held afterward, right? He could offer her that much, found he even wanted to.
Resting her head on his shoulder, she hooked a finger along the links in his silver chain. “Where did you get this?”
He watched her hands move and remembered the feel of them on him. “One of the nuns gave it to me when I left.”
“I should have guessed.” She quirked an auburn eyebrow. “And?”
“Saint Christopher is supposed to protect travelers. Since I’d accepted the ROTC scholarship, Sister Mary Esther told me the medal would protect me in my military journeys.”
“It hasn’t let you down yet.” She dropped the chain.
There’d been moments back in Turkey where he’d thought he’d been forgotten. Forsaken. Left to die. But looking back now, on the other side of hell, he suspected he’d had some help even then.
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