One Day in Apple Grove

by C. H. Admirand

  Jack tried not to let his disappointment show, but it was work.

  “Tell you what,” her dad said, looking from Cait to Jack and back again. “Why don’t you stay here since you two obviously want to spend more time…with the puppy.”

  Jack gave the man extra points for saying that with a straight face. “Thanks.”

  “Are you sure?” Cait asked.

  “See you later.” He opened the back door. “I’m sure Jack won’t mind giving you a ride home. Will you, Jack?”

  Jack caught the look that seemed to be both a warning and a blessing. “Not at all.”

  Her dad pet Jamie and was gone.

  Once they heard the truck start up, he told her, “Your dad’s a great guy.”

  “He really likes you, Jack.”

  “Good,” he said. “I like him too.”

  “About the other night,” Jack said, watching Cait’s face so he could gauge what she was thinking. “Waiting to kiss you again has been hell on Earth. Waiting to take the next step…making love to you has been keeping me up nights…and taking a lot of cold showers.”

  His lips hovered a breath above hers while he waited for her to make the next move. His ploy worked when she huffed out a breath, slid her hands around his neck, and pulled him in for a kiss that was just short of carnal.

  Lips, teeth, and tongue tangled as the flames of desire burned inside of him, making him desperate to taste the skin at the base of her throat. He thought they were on the same page, but before he let his imagination run away with him, he needed to know that they both wanted the same thing—to spend the next few hours sharing what was inside their hearts without need for words…a press of lips here and slide of skin there. He was breathing hard when he pulled away and held her at arm’s length.

  “Was that your answer?”

  She smiled and tilted her head to one side. “Do you need me to tell you again?” she asked as she leaned toward him.

  He shook his head. “You pack a punch, Mulcahy.” Taking hold of her hand, he said, “Let’s continue our conversation on the couch.”

  Her eyes slid from where they stood just inside the kitchen doorway to the low-backed sofa that stretched out along one wall in the living room. “OK.”

  This time, she was the one doing the tugging. Pulling him so he fell with her to the cushions. Jamie jumped on top of Jack’s back and began to tug on his jeans. “Down, boy,” he said, gently pushing the dog off the couch.

  Jamie hung his head, but Jack’s attention was snagged elsewhere when Caitlin sat up and tugged her T-shirt up and over her head. “God, you’re beautiful.” He reached for her. Pulling her close, he let his mouth feast on her sumptuous skin. “You taste like heaven.”

  “Your turn,” she said, tugging on the hem of his shirt. He didn’t hesitate; he let her help him pull it off. “Why are you hiding the fact that you’re totally ripped from the ladies in town?”

  He laughed until he felt her hands gliding up his pecs and over his shoulders, strong but tender, in a fluid movement over and over that hypnotized him. “I love the way your hands feel on me.”

  Knowing he needed more time to show Cait how he felt about her, he put his hand over hers. “My turn.”

  Her eyes widened, but she didn’t speak, choosing to communicate with a nod, moan, and the undulation of her body.

  Hands splayed at the small of her back, he pulled her toward him. She gripped the back of his shoulders for balance.

  “I love the way your eyes go cloudy right before I kiss you.” He bent his head and brushed his mouth across hers. “You skin is so soft, except for the hands you use to work hard for a living.” When she would have jerked them off of him, he covered her hands with his and shook his head. “The strength in them turns me on.” Her gaze met his and from the softening in hers, he could tell she understood. “I’m going to touch you, Cait. Will you let me?”

  Her sigh of contentment echoed through the living room. Jamie started to whine, but Jack didn’t pay any attention; his every thought, every movement, was concentrated on the woman vibrating beneath his touch.

  His fingertips brushed along the length of her shoulders, taking the straps of her bra with them as he swept his hands down to her wrists and then back. When she moaned, he swept them from her hips to beneath her ribs and then back again, before unhooking her bra and letting it fall to the floor.

  He repeated the movement again, touching her shoulders, sweeping them down to her wrists, up from her hips to her ribs…and each time he brushed closer to his goal, her delicate breasts. He wanted to feel their weight in his hands as he teased them into readiness for his lips and tongue.

  She moaned out his name. “Don’t make me beg—touch me!”

  He filled his hands with her soft flesh, caressing and molding her breasts until her breathing became ragged, her eyes closed, and she tilted her head back. Awed by her trust, desperate not to scare her off with the need clawing inside him, he pulled her close and held her to his heart. When her breathing quieted and he was in control once again, he pressed his lips beneath her ear and then followed an invisible line along her collar-bone; when he reached the hollow of her throat, he let his tongue linger.

  Her soft moan of pleasure was music to his ears as she leaned back, offering herself to him.

  Humbled, Jack vowed to take no more than she gave and to give all he could.

  His pulse pounded as he flicked his tongue against the skin at the base of her throat and tasted her salty-sweet essence. His hands skimmed over her neck to waist, breast to belly, again and again until she began to writhe.

  “Let me touch you,” she whispered against his neck.

  “Not yet.” He stroked the underside of her left breast with his tongue.

  Garbled words made a nonsensical sound as he continued his assault on her senses and she gasped for air. Finally, she uttered the word he’d been waiting to hear: “Now!”

  Desperate to take, he yanked back on need a second time and took one breast and then the other into his mouth. Suckling her, he feasted, flicking, swirling, licking, and suckling again until she screamed out his name and went limp in his arms.

  ***

  Caitlin couldn’t move. Her heart threatened to pound out of her chest and her arms and legs felt like water. Oh my God. No one had ever made her spontaneously combust like that before with just his mouth on her neck and breasts.

  “Jack,” she rasped. When he didn’t answer her, she cleared her throat and tried again to be heard. “Jack?”

  “Caitlin,” he whispered, letting his forehead rest against hers. “You destroy me.”

  Laughter caught her by surprise. Feeling loose, she gave in to it, chuckling softly. “Last time I checked, you weren’t the one screaming my name while you came apart in my arms.”

  He raised his head and stared down at her. “True enough. Want to do something about that?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said as the strength surged back into her arms and legs. She pushed him until he fell onto his back on the couch and straddled his hips. “My turn.” Taking her time, she trailed the tip of her tongue along the clean, strong line of his jaw, teasing the underside of it as she settled herself firmly against his growing erection. “Someone’s already warmed up.”

  The dark and desperate desire in his eyes had her squirming, wishing she’d thought to step out of her jeans before her assault. “I think we’re overdressed.”

  “Wait,” he said, stilling her movement with a hand to her thigh, before closing his eyes.

  She stared down at him as he opened his eyes and an emotion she wasn’t used to filled her, threatening to drag her under.

  “Don’t stop touching me, Cait.”

  The tender way he said her name had need coursing through her again. She began to explore his torso with her lips, teeth, and tongue. Tiny flicks of her tongue wer
e followed up by nips of her teeth, testing the strength of his pecs and the firmness of his abs. She wiggled lower, so she could twist and flick her tongue beneath the waistband of his jeans. She felt the heat of him and remembered that the dog had shredded his boxers…was he commando beneath his jeans?

  She hadn’t realized she asked the question out loud until she heard his raspy chuckle. “Only you would ask me that now.” He pulled her back up his body and cupped her face in his hands, wordlessly urging her to stop as he lifted her away from temptation.

  “I didn’t get to go beneath the equator—you can’t either,” he told her. “Unless you don’t intend to play fair.”

  Instead of answering him, she slid off the couch so she had a better angle to tease him from. “You’re delicious,” she said, blowing softly across the taut skin of his abdomen before teasing it again with the tip of her tongue.

  “God, Cait…I can’t wait.”

  She sat back on her heels and met his gaze. “Then don’t.”

  “Are you sure?” He sat up and pushed off the couch, so he could pull her to her feet.

  When she was in his arms, she shivered at the feel of his hot skin pressed against her breasts. “Thinking about what it would be like to make love with you has been making me crazy too” she confessed. “Besides, now that I’ve tasted you, there’s no going back. You’re addictive.”

  “You go to my head like a shot of whiskey.” Easing back from her, he unsnapped his jeans and hesitated. “Cait, there’s something I forgot to tell you.”

  “Is it important?”

  “To me.”

  “OK,” she said. “Tell me.”

  He drew in a breath before beginning, “I was injured over in Iraq.”

  “I know,” Cait said. “We were so worried when we found out you’d been hurt and broken your leg. That’s why you were limping the day you chased Jamie into my arms, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the extent of what happened,” he rasped. Their eyes met and held. “An IED exploded, broke my leg, and filled it with shrapnel.”

  Tears filled her eyes as the thought of him being in so much pain speared through her. “You must have been in agony.”

  He brushed at the first tear that fell. “I was…it still bothers me.”

  “All the time, or when the weather changes?”

  Before he could answer her, she added, “Mr. Weatherbee’s always complaining that he can tell when a storm’s coming because the wrist he broke as a kid starts to hurt.”

  He brushed his thumb along the curve of her cheek and then the fullness of her bottom lip. “There’s something you need to know.”

  “Oh Lord, is there still shrapnel in your leg?”

  “Legs,” he corrected. “Some, not as much as there used to be. It took a couple of operations to remove the worst of it.”

  “But didn’t I hear you and my brother-in-law talking about running together?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How can you run if it still hurts?”

  “I run early in the day when my leg is strong. After standing most of the day, it bothers me.”

  Looking at the way he frowned, she urged him to sit. “You should rest.” Worry for him was eating her alive. “Do you need an aspirin? Glass of water?”

  “Cait, please!” he said, tugging until she stopped trying to force him to sit on the couch. “I wanted to tell you about the scars before you saw them.”

  “Oh, OK.”

  He paused and then whispered, “They’re hideous.”

  She wanted to throw her hands up in the air but knew that was too dramatic, and she didn’t want him to think she was flippant when he was baring his soul to her. Finally, she shrugged, and said, “They’re scars. They’re not supposed to be pretty.”

  He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again and shook his head.

  “What?” she demanded, starting to get ticked. Was he was worried she’d bail if she saw his scars? “Did you really think I’d change my mind about making love with you once I saw your scars?”

  “Others have.”

  “Well, I have news for you, Jackie boy,” she bit out. “I’m not like anyone else.”

  “Amen to that,” he said.

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Not on your life, babe,” he said, kissing her until her toes curled and her head felt light. “I just wanted to prepare you before you saw them, but you got to my head so fast, I forgot until it was almost too late.”

  Taking back control, she needed to show him, without words, how she felt. She pushed out of his arms, flipped open the snap of her jeans, and shimmied them over her hips and let them fall to the floor. “I’ve got scars on both knees from falling on them so often as a kid. It’s why I don’t wear skirts too often unless they come below the knee.”

  He started to speak, but she held up her hand. “And here,” she said, pointing to her right side, “is the scar I have from when they took out my appendix.” Before he could respond, she lifted the braid off the back of her neck and turned so he could see. “And here is where I fell on a rock when I was a kid. Knocked me out cold and bled like crazy…don’t remember how many stitches that took to close it up. But my dad turns green if I try to ask him, so I just let it go.”

  “Cait,” he said quietly—twice before she answered him.

  “What?”

  “Shut up and kiss me.”

  She threw her arms around him and nearly died with pleasure feeling the brush of his crisp chest hair against her breasts, and the bulge behind his zipper, but it was the wild beat of his heart that had her asking, “So will you trust me with your scars, since I showed you mine?”

  He leaned his forehead against hers, drew in a breath, eased back, and unzipped his jeans. Pausing with his hands hooked in the waistband, he was undone by the tender look on Cait’s face…it encouraged him. He shoved his pants down his legs and kicked them aside.

  Cait held her hand out to him, beckoning him.

  Could she see the mass of scars, riddling his leg, pinching the skin where it should be smooth? He held his breath.

  She stepped closer and locked gazes with him as she trailed the tips of her fingers along his shoulders, then down his torso, stopping at his hips.

  Before he could guess her intention, she knelt and pressed her mouth to the middle of his thigh and the tangled web of scar tissue.

  His breath whooshed out and his head felt light as her tongue traced the meandering path, the sunburst pattern—the reminder of the agonizing day he tried to put behind him.

  He thought she’d stop there and wasn’t prepared when her tongue detoured to his hipbone across to his navel, where she dipped her tongue in before retreating back to his scarred leg.

  “Cait.” Her name was a prayer, a benediction. The tender way she included his scars in their lovemaking made him feel almost normal—almost.

  He bent down and urged her to stand. Heart to heart, he nestled between her legs and let her feel what her mouth did to him. Tipping her head back, she lifted her lips and was rewarded by a toe-tingling, mind-bending, air-stealing kiss that rocked her world.

  When he shifted his handhold to beneath her backside, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist. “Am I too heavy?”

  “No. Kiss me, Cait.”

  She tangled her tongue with his before remembering her earlier worry. “Do you have any condoms?”

  “I’m a doctor, Cait. I have everything we need.” He slid his hand between them and brought her to peak with his clever fingers.

  Her head dropped back and he kissed her before easing her onto the sofa. “Don’t move,” he told her.

  She was about to argue with him, when he pointed a finger at her until she agreed. While she watched, he bent down and pulled a foil packet out of the back pocket
of his jeans, stood, and covered himself. When he was fully sheathed, he knelt above her on the sofa and slowly lowered himself, teasing her with the tip of his erection.

  “Jack,” she moaned. “Please, don’t tease me.”

  He took her at her word and slowly slid into her. When they were joined, heart pressed to heart, he closed his eyes and let his body take over. She met him thrust for thrust, marveling at his stamina.

  “Jack, I can’t—”

  “I think you can,” he ground out.

  She closed her eyes as the orgasm stole her breath. When she had gathered her strength, she lifted her hips and pistoned them against him, lifting up off the couch, hanging on to his taut backside with both hands. “Your turn, Jack.”

  When he slowed his movements, she pressed her lips to the side of his neck and kissed him before biting the tender skin there. Her love bite had him moaning in pleasure, so she moved to another spot and kissed, then nipped twice more. She could feel the change coming over him as he stiffened and moaned out her name.

  But instead of going with the moment as she’d thought he would, he bent to take her breast in his mouth, whipping her to peak so they rode the crest together, crashing on the other side.

  Chapter 9

  “I can’t feel my legs,” Caitlin whispered, but she wasn’t worried. “But you’re a doctor, so you can probably fix me, right?”

  His laughter caught her by surprise. “What’s so funny?” She trailed the tips of her fingers along the firm muscles of his back. It was hard to work up any temper when she felt so loose, so limber, so happy being in love. Meg was right—she loved Jack.

  When he kept laughing and didn’t answer her, she nipped his shoulder to get his attention.

  He braced his hands on the couch and pushed back, his biceps taut from holding his weight off of her. The strength in his upper body reminded her of the way he’d held back so she’d find fulfillment first. A generous lover.

  When he smiled down at her, she felt all warm and gooey inside. “You’re so beautiful.”

  His smile turned to one that reeked of satisfied male. “Not even half as beautiful as you,” he rasped, bracing his weight on one arm to smooth a strand of hair out of her eyes.