by Rachel Lee
He felt a little embarrassed by the rough, quick way he’d taken her. Hell, he’d come back to himself to discover that he still wore his shirt, and that his jeans were twisted around his ankles, caught on his boots. There was something indecent in that, especially for a man who’d always tried to be a considerate lover. Talk about jumping a woman’s bones!
It was just after four, and beyond the windows, daylight was rapidly fading. Soon the northern night would blanket the world. Outside, the wind was kicking up again, and though the windows were double-paned, he could swear he felt a cold draft. Leaving Andrea, he went to close the insulated curtains in both rooms.
He wanted to lie down beside her, but mindful of the fact that the dining room would close at seven, he couldn’t risk it. If he closed his eyes, he would be apt to sleep for hours. A long week of sleepless nights and this morning’s events virtually guaranteed it. Knowing Andrea’s appetite, he couldn’t imagine her making it until tomorrow morning without a meal, especially not with the activities he had in mind for later.
A frown came to his brow as he thought about what had happened and the suspicions Andrea had shared with him at lunch. He’d managed to put her on hold, but in fact, the more he thought about it, the more he thought she might just be right about what was going on. But why would somebody be out to get him? He was no saint, but he couldn’t remember ever having done anything to make anyone that angry. If somebody really did have that big a grudge against him, they must be a little unhinged.
The thing was, he didn’t want to think that whoever had punctured his hydraulic lines had meant to kill him. Scare the devil out of him, yes, but kill him, no. Killing him would have involved no more effort—less, in fact—than making those small, careful holes. A person with access to plastique didn’t have to make tiny punctures in hydraulic lines.
Or maybe, like most people, he was just unable to believe that someone had genuinely tried to kill him. Because, if he were to be honest with himself, he had survived only by the skin of his teeth. And when he thought about those endless minutes in the dive as he battled to gain control, it was almost possible to believe that someone had meant him to suffer that excruciating awareness of his impending fate. Whoever had made those little holes would probably be disappointed to know that during those interminable minutes, Dare had been too busy and too full of adrenaline to feel any fear.
Rubbing his eyes wearily, he decided he’d better call room service and have them send up something that would keep for a few hours. He had the feeling that he was going to sleep whether he wanted to or not, so he might as well do it comfortably, at Andrea’s side, rather than in uncomfortable snatches sitting up on the couch and fighting it.
Forty minutes later, stripped to the buff, he crawled under the covers beside her. In her sleep she turned into his arms, resting her head on his chest, twining her legs with his. Contented, he let himself sleep at last.
Andrea awoke hours later to a dark room, but she knew instantly where she was. Only once before in her life had she wakened with arms around her, and with Dare’s arms around her it didn’t seem to matter where on the planet she was.
They were tucked together like spoons, one of his arms beneath her head, one resting heavily on her waist. She could hear his deep, steady breathing above her head, and against her back she could feel the springy hair of his chest and groin. It would be nice, she thought dreamily, if they could stay like this forever.
The memory of their earlier lovemaking was vivid in her mind, and she indulged herself in the luxury of a mental replay. She’d never thought herself the kind to inspire passion in any man, but there was little doubt that Dare had been impassioned. The rough and ready way he’d taken her had been testimony to that, and she hadn’t imagined the shudders that had ripped through him. On the other hand, she couldn’t be sure she had inspired that passion. She’d heard that a close brush with death could cause reactions like that. Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference to him who he’d been with.
He’d almost died. The thought slithered into her mind, poisoning her afterglow. At the age of six, out at Edwards Air Force Base, she’d seen a plane auger in, and no one had thought to keep the pilot’s identity from her. Dave Wallace had been a buddy of her father’s, and whenever he happened to come by the Burke home he always had a piece of candy for little Andrea, and a place on his lap. Andrea had been fascinated by his ribbons, and Wallace had made up outrageous stories about how he’d gotten them. “I got this one for punching General LeMay in the nose,” he would tell her. “And that’s for beating Mike Metger at poker. And they gave me this one over here for the time I slammed my finger shut in the canopy.” Even at six she hadn’t believed him and had giggled until her sides ached.
Dave Wallace had augered in at better than Mach 2, riding a shrieking metal demon straight down out of the sky to end his life in an explosion that sent pillars of flame and black smoke nearly to the clouds. “God!” Charlie Burke had said hours later when telling his wife what he and his three children had seen. “Can you imagine it? He must have felt so alive in those last few seconds!” Andrea had had nightmares for months afterward.
She was having a nightmare right now. With the vivid memory of fountaining flames in her head, she squeezed her eyes shut. He hadn’t died. He hadn’t died. He was right here with her. The wind rattled the glass in the windows, a forlorn sound, a cold sound. Unconsciously she wiggled backward a little, trying to get as close to Dare as she could.
“Don’t move, Andrea” said a sleepy, thick voice above her head.
“Dare?”
“Shh,” he whispered soothingly. “Shh. Don’t move. Not a muscle.”
She held perfectly still.
“That’s it,” he whispered. His hand left her waist, sliding slowly, ever so slowly, upward, skimming over the skin of her stomach in feathery circles that left a tingling sensitivity in their wake. Andrea’s breath caught and held as his fingers glided upward some more, reaching the underside of her breast. Helpless to stop herself, she twisted, trying to bring him more fully into contact with her.
“Uh-uh,” Dare said huskily. “Don’t move, darlin’. We’ve got all night, and I want to pleasure you.”
His words, the huskiness of his voice, sent tingles arcing across her nerve endings, and she began to grow heavy.
“That’s it,” he whispered again. “Let me, Andrea. Just let me.”
She might try to hurry him, but not even to save her life could she have stopped him. Her muscles were growing syrupy with the feelings he drizzled over her, and when his fingertip brushed her beaded nipple, she could only gasp. Movement was suddenly beyond her.
Dare cupped the weight of her full breast in his palm and kneaded gently, oh so gently, as he found the nape of her neck with his mouth and began to nibble softly. Shivers raced down Andrea’s spine, adding to the weight growing at her center.
“Dare…” She sighed his name from the depths of her.
That was how he wanted her to say his name. Again and again. Forever.
“So lovely,” he murmured. “So sweet.” His hand slipped to her other breast, testing its heaviness, tormenting softly. “They’re better than standard issue, Andrea.”
A short, breathless laugh escaped her. “You like my breasts?”
It was his turn to laugh hoarsely. “I love your breasts. I especially love to see you in uniform, because nobody but me would ever know how perfect and lovely your body is.”
It was true. It still amazed him that she was so perfect in every way. Full breasts, fuller than he’d ever expected, narrow waist, hips that flared just right and joined to legs that were long and slender. Thinking about those hips joining to those legs caused him to sweep his hand downward to the apex of her thighs. They both groaned as he touched her.
“Don’t move, Andrea,” he said again. “Don’t move.” He was far from finished with her, but his own control was getting more precarious by the second as he felt the heat blooming in
her.
Slipping his hand between her thighs, he lifted her leg and pulled it back over his, leaving her opened to his seeking, stroking fingers.
“So hot,” he murmured, a catch in his voice. “So wild and sweet…”
“Dare…Dare…” She began to chant his name on each quickening breath as he parted her with his fingers and stroked her deeper. Her hips began a gentle, helpless undulation against his hand, and this time he didn’t try to still her. He couldn’t. Each movement pressed that wonderful rump gently against his manhood, and with each touch he became more helpless against his own needs.
“Do you know what it did to me before when you licked me?” he asked her. His voice was rough, hoarse. He heard her catch her breath again at the memory. “I’m going to show you, Andrea.”
Pressing her onto her back, he drew a couple of breaths to steady himself, and then he knelt between her legs, pressing her soft thighs apart. It was dark in the room, and she thought he was going to touch her as he had on Christmas, so it came as an utter shock when she realized that it was his tongue that now followed the path he’d blazed with his fingers.
“Dare?” She sounded almost frightened.
“It’s okay,” he said, raising his head. “It’s okay, Andrea.”
It was more than okay. It was too much. She was riding a shooting star at transluminal speeds, burning in the heat of the sun, melting, melting….
Dare felt the convulsions take her, and he slid swiftly up over her, filling her, giving her the last ounce of pleasure he could wring out of the moment for her. Holding her snugly within his strong arms, he sheltered her vulnerability and brought her safely back.
“And now,” he whispered, when her breathing slowed and her shuddering eased, “now we go together, sweetheart.”
She would have said it was impossible. It wasn’t.
Champagne, club sandwiches and cherry cheesecake made their dinner before the gas fire. Andrea wore her green peignoir; Dare had pulled on his jeans. There was, Andrea thought, something incredibly sexy about a man wearing nothing but jeans, jeans with the snap suggestively undone. It gave her the freedom to drink her fill of his broad, muscular chest, and from time to time she couldn’t resist reaching out to run her fingers through the whorls of dark, springy hair that patterned him. When she did, he invariably sighed and smiled.
Three weeks, Dare thought. In just three short weeks she would walk out of his life. Minot wasn’t that far away, and he hoped to persuade her to see him from time to time. He could always fly out there for a weekend. But now wasn’t the time to discuss it. She still hadn’t really come to terms with their relationship, and he strongly suspected she had come this far only because there was a definite time limit. She felt safe giving in because she knew it would end on January thirtieth.
Charlie Burke had a lot to do with that, he suspected. Old Charlie had been—probably still was—a male chauvinist pig of the first order. While Dare didn’t much care for the indiscriminate way a lot of people flung that term around, he had to admit there were some men who fit the bill perfectly. On the occasions when Dare had met Andrea’s mother, he’d thought he’d never seen a woman so downtrodden. Clara Burke didn’t have a thought or a wish of her own, and whenever Charlie said jump, she jumped. Clara might as well have been a dog and Charlie her master. Hell, Charlie probably would have treated a dog better.
Andrea had grown up seeing that. She’d grown up with her father trying to turn her into another Clara. Small wonder that she probably couldn’t imagine other men not wanting the same. Dare could only hope that eventually Andrea would realize that a man who fell in love with Captain Burke was hardly looking for a Clara Burke clone.
Nor was now the time to tell Andrea just how much he admired the strength of will and determination that had allowed her to rise above that kind of upbringing. Now she was still too defensive, still too sure that she was somehow different, somehow wrong. She would misunderstand what he was trying to say. Later, when she was surer of him and his feelings, surer that he really didn’t want to change a hair on her head, then he would tell her how much he admired her.
If she gave him enough time. Later, he told himself sternly. Think about tomorrow later. No sense coloring this weekend with the shadows of losses that might never happen.
Andrea’s hands dipped into the hair on his chest again, and Dare smiled.
“I like it when you touch me,” he told her, catching her hand and rubbing it over his pectorals. “Are you fascinated by my chest hair?”
Her cheeks colored faintly. “Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have any.”
Dare laughed. “You’ve got something much better.”
“That’s all a matter of perspective, Colonel.”
“I suppose it is.” Seizing her about the waist, he lifted her onto his lap. “There. Now you can comb my hair to your heart’s content, and I can enjoy your soft little tush.” Her blush deepened, and his smile broadened. “Your tush drove me crazy for weeks, you know. If you had any idea how enticing it looks in your uniform slacks, you’d wear skirts forever.”
She slanted a look at him from the corner of her eye. “Your tush drove me crazy, too.”
“Mine?” He looked disbelieving.
“Yes, sir. Hard and flat. Very male. Every time you write on a chalkboard—”
“You little minx! I had no idea you were eyeballing me that way.”
“You weren’t supposed to. And I was trying very hard not to. The truth is—and I probably shouldn’t admit this to my CO—I never heard a word you said when you wrote on the board.”
“I love it. And all the time I thought you were utterly impervious.”
“If I were impervious, I wouldn’t have called you on Christmas Eve.”
“No,” he agreed, “I guess you wouldn’t.”
His blue eyes were smiling and warm, their corners crinkled in the way she loved.
“You’re going to hate me for this, Andrea.”
“For what?”
“I think you look cute in battle dress.”
“Cute? In fatigues? Colonel MacLendon, sir, may I respectfully suggest that you’ve gone crazy? Nobody looks cute in fatigues.”
“You do.” He nuzzled her cheek and blew softly in her ear, enjoying the way she shivered. “And you look adorable in your Academy sweat suit. Promise me one thing, Andrea. Promise me you’ll never stand at attention in that sweat suit again. I could hardly keep my mind on what I was saying because your breasts were—”
She clapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it! I’ll die of embarrassment.”
“It’s humanly impossible to die of embarrassment.”
She ducked her head. “No, it isn’t,” she said in a smothered voice. “God, I’ll never be able to wear my sweats again.”
“You can wear them for me,” he suggested. “And stand at attention—”
“Don’t.” But the eyes she raised to his were laughing despite the painful color in her cheeks. “All the while, I thought that wooden expression on your face was because you were mad at me.”
“Never. I was trying not to pounce on you.”
“I’ll bet. You were probably every bit as embarrassed as I am now.”
“I don’t embarrass. Believe me, embarrassment was the last thing I felt. Actually, I was annoyed with you when I first arrived. Your conduct was unprofessional, you know.”
“I know,” Andrea admitted. “I should never have called you cowboy. I don’t know what possessed me.”
“I do. It’s that little imp that lives inside you. Every so often your imp gets out. Anyhow, I was annoyed, just a little. Nothing serious. And the whole time I was there talking to you, I was coming to like you more and more. By the time I left, I was laughing.”
“You were not!”
“I was. I just didn’t dare let you see it. I like your imp, Andrea.” He ran a gentle fingertip along her hairline to her ear. “I like every d
amn thing about you just fine. I wouldn’t change one hair, one eyelash, one thought in your head.” Which was not strictly true. There was a thought or two he had every intention of changing.
Looking into his eyes, she almost believed him. Those blue eyes were warm, intense, determined. She wished she could believe him, but even so, she didn’t see how their careers would sustain any kind of a relationship, and she wasn’t about to sacrifice her life’s goals for anything. Of course, he knew that. So when he said he wouldn’t change one thought in her head, it could only mean that he was content with the way things were, that he accepted that it would all end when she left.
Well, hey, she told herself bluntly. The man’s past forty, and he must have had numerous opportunities to remarry, if that was what he wanted. And to women whose career wouldn’t be a problem.
Dare saw the sorrow slip across her face. “Did I say something wrong?”
She shook her head. “I was just remembering that tomorrow always comes.”
“Tomorrow we’re going to stay here,” he said firmly. “We’ll go back early on Monday morning.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know. I’m just trying to tell you that you don’t need to think about tomorrow. Don’t waste today thinking about what hasn’t happened yet, Andrea.”
Nodding, she tucked her face into the curve between his neck and shoulder. “I’ll try not to. But it always comes, Colonel. Sooner or later, tomorrow always comes.”
And he couldn’t have made it any plainer that he wanted no more than the moment from her. Well, that was what she wanted, too, she reminded herself. That being the case, why did she feel so sad?
Monday morning came all too quickly, the way dreaded tomorrows always do. Once again Andrea was in uniform, sitting behind the polished expanse of her large desk, sipping coffee and trying to relegate the weekend to memory, where it belonged. Images insisted on flashing before her mind’s eyes, however, images of Dare stepping stark naked out of the shower and grabbing her, tickling her until she begged for mercy. Images of the way he threw back his head and laughed full-throatedly. Images of the way the hair on his chest arrowed down to the perpetually, suggestively, unfastened snap of his jeans.