by Jillian Neal
When the commander of the Fourth Infantry tells you come to dinner at his house on the golf course, you fucking show up. I should’ve stayed at my apartment. I should’ve defied orders. Instead, I’d stepped into the bastard’s home, locked eyes with his daughter, the most amazing woman on this planet, and had fallen head over boots. She was only nineteen. Nineteen years old. The worst part was I didn’t care. I was that much of an asshole. I popped her cherry two weeks later. On the douche scale, I’d tipped the canoe somewhere out in the middle of the Pacific without a paddle.
The thing was the first time I set eyes on her I knew she was different. I didn’t think about her age because I was in awe of her. That part hadn’t changed.
All of the reasons I couldn’t have her hadn’t changed either.
Mercifully, the elevator doors parted on the first floor and I hotfooted it to my suite despite the throbbing in my hip. White-glove dude smiled. “Can I get anything for you, Mr. Haywood?”
“Mr. Haywood is my old man. It’s Sergeant Haywood and I’m good. Thanks.” Perfectly capable of opening my own damn door, I stepped inside without any assistance and had my phone to my ear a half-second later. This time the traitor actually answered. “You better fucking start talking and if the words Smith knows about me and Hannah and he’s fucking fine with it aren’t located somewhere in your explanation then you can just take my name off of your precious security firm. Team before individual. You betrayed him. You betrayed me. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You done?”
“Talk. Now.”
“She is worth every bit of chaos she’s gonna bring to our table and you know it. There. I talked.”
“And who the hell are you to decide that on my behalf, T? Who died and made you the head universe shitter?”
“Off the top of my head, Chris did.”
I’d been throat punched twice in my life. A few fuckwits in Saudi got to me before I finished them. Those punches hadn’t tangled my vocal cords the way the words T had just stated did. I swallowed down raw rage. It burned hotter than the fireball whiskey the boys in my old neighborhood used to cook up. “So, what? Chris isn’t here anymore so now you’re in charge of fixing all of us?”
He had the audacity to huff. “You never thought you’d get hurt did you? It never even entered your mind that somebody would have to check the SAPI pouches on your vest. When the medic told me to pull your plates, I prayed there’d be something in there. I knew you didn’t have any family, and I was covered in your blood. I knew you needed something to live for or you weren’t going to make it. And I reached in there and pulled her picture out. Not only her picture but her taped picture. We only tape up the ones we’re terrified to lose. You know that and I sure as hell do.
“So, you go on and hate me, and quit your job, and do all of the shit you just threatened to do, but no one told me you were in love with her. Seems to me one of your favorite phrases, when we were under fire used to be– ‘bullets will always talk and they’ll always get the point across.’ Fitting because they told your story. If you’d never been shot, I wouldn’t know. But I do know and I also know you’ve been nursing a broken heart over her for years. How many assholes get lucky enough to have the woman they want also be the one that wants them? Jesus. If you’d pull your head out of your ass long enough, I bet the two of you could come up with some way to get Smith to see that you’re better together than apart. He loves her. Hell, he loves you. He may not ever want to think about what the two of you do in bed, but I know he wants her to have everything in the world she wants. And man, she wants you.”
My entire being seized. My heart refused another beat. The blood that had previously been pulsing in my head sank slowly downward washing me of a little of my righteous indignation. A dozen questions I wanted to ask staged a revolt on my tongue. I needed to know if he understood that my recklessness and complete disregard for the power her father wielded was why Chris wasn’t at home with his little girl and his wife. I wanted to ask him if he hated me for not telling him. Had he figured out that what happened to us was all my fault? I wanted to know if he really meant that about Smith wanting Hannah to have everything, even if everything included me. I wanted to tell him what the general had done when he’d caught me with her. I wanted him to know why I couldn’t do this to her or to Smith. I dammed back every question and every comment behind my teeth save one. “Why didn’t you just tell me she’s why you signed me up for this?”
“Because she wanted that moment, man. She’s had it all planned out for weeks. She told me you’d been down to see her a few times. I already knew. Whenever you came into work looking like hell but smiling like you’d just won the damned lottery, I knew it was because of her. She wanted to walk into wherever this thing is being held and be all dressed up for you. You know how chicks are about shit like that. She was so excited. I couldn’t mess that up for her. I figured you’d catch her before she got her moment though. Once a Beret and all that.”
My pulse timed the silence. I had no response. I’d robbed her of her moment and that wouldn’t even make the top ten list of shitty things I’d done to her.
T cleared his throat. “Why don’t you just give her what she wants? Would spending a week in Vegas with the love of your life really be so bad? At the end of the week, I’ll talk to Smith with you. I’ll tell him how I found out and that I know once he gets over his rage he’ll see how good the two of you are for each other. If he starts swinging his fists, I’ll even take a pot shot or two for you. I would never betray either of you. I did what I thought was right, and I stand by my decision.”
“I don’t think this is going to be as easy as you seem to think it is,” I choked over the broken shard from the full confession I could never make.
“And I don’t think this is going to be as hard as you seem to think it is.” Of course he didn’t. He didn’t know the story. “Try on my way of thinking for a little while. Make the jump. Let’s see where we land.” Yeah, let’s see where we land. The gamble every HALO jumper takes every single time he leaps out into thin air with faith in a mask and a sheet of nylon.
Half the time you landed in the zone you were supposed to be in, and all was as good as it could be. The other half you landed in enemy territory or in your own territory but the rest of the good ole US of A’s military started shooting at you because they didn’t know you were going to be there. Worst case, you landed alone and had no fucking clue where you were, where the rest of your team was, or how to find your way out. Any way you went down, you were fucked until you figured out what you were doing.
Before I could point that out to T, a soft knock sounded on my door. “Sorry I said all of that shit,” I ground out.
And T laughed because that’s what he did. I’d proudly served with the guy for years, and the truth of it was, sometimes his laughter was the best bandage you could ever ask for. “For what it’s worth,” he added, “I should’ve told you.”
“I think she’s at my suite door.”
“Then let her in, man. All the way in.”
“Yeah. God knows I owe her that much.”
“Yeah, He does know that.”
I made my way to the door and uttered the two words I should’ve said a long, long time ago. “Thanks, T.” Call Ended flashed on my screen as I swung open the door.
And there she was. Glasses gone, face scrubbed clean, damp hair cascading over her shoulders in loose waves, and no longer wearing ice cream stained, ripped jeans. Now, my girl sported a white off-the-shoulder little cotton dress that showed off her ripe, dewy breasts in stunning perfection. My sweet baby was so provocatively innocent my mouth flooded with saliva and my cock took up T’s banner. Just give her what she wants. It worked out to his advantage that what she wanted was precisely the thing he wanted to give her.
She extended her hands which currently contained one of my old Cubs caps. The last time I’d escaped to her apartment in Denver, she’d threaded her ponytail through the back
, ordered me to her truck, and had driven until I wasn’t even sure we were in Colorado anymore, and I didn’t care. We’d gotten busy in the bed of that truck three times and that was all that had mattered.
“Peace offering,” she whispered.
What in God’s name did she mean by that? She didn’t need to offer me anything at all. I sure as hell didn’t deserve it.
It took me a split second to realize that white-glove dude was still ogling her devastatingly spankable ass. An infuriated growl kicked up from low in my gut. Fucker needed to tread very, very lightly, or the last thing he’d see coming would be my fist. I narrowed my eyes and slammed the door in his face.
Her brow furrowed. My blood ran hot and thick with possession. She’d wanted a moment. As she stared up at me with those sky-blue eyes colored with confusion and pain, I knew what my mission would be. I’d give her every possible kind of moment I could think of for the next week. By the end, I’d figure out some way to convince her that I wasn’t worth giving up her family and that’s what it would require. I couldn’t tell her what her father had done. She loved the shit-stain. I wouldn’t rob her of that as well. I’d taken enough from her.
Slipping the hat from her fingers, I tossed it on the couch and then backed her up to the wall. I pinned my hands on either side of her shoulders, caging her all for myself. I was a bastard. Couldn’t change that fact any more than I could change my former army MOS.
Her chest rose and fell in rapid pants, presenting her gorgeous tits as an offering all for me. Her mouth parted, and I swore the zipper on my jeans was going to leave a scar on my cock from its teeth. Poor guy had enough scars from being rebuilt, so I decided to give him a little something.
“Griff?” she breathed my name like a sinner’s prayer because that’s what I turned her into. And just like always, I was determined to do it again. “Don’t you want to talk?”
“Right after I do this.” I leaned in, pausing millimeters from her face, close enough that every breath was shared between us.
“After you do what?”
“What I should’ve done when you stepped out in front of me in the lobby.”
12
Hannah
It was wholly unfair that my entire body always reacted to his touch like it was the connection point when you hot-wired a car. A jolt of electricity shot down my spine. I arched into him. This time his growl wasn’t a warning of incoming danger, like he’d given his attendant, who’d apparently spent a little too long staring at me. No, this one was a warning of incoming force.
I licked my lips expectantly. His hungry gaze locked onto my mouth.
Until he’d gotten out of the hospital, there had been years between our stolen kisses. I knew the bitter taste of his absence and I wanted nothing to do with that anymore. In the relatively short life of my design career, I’d accepted awards and hefty paychecks for my work. I’d been recognized by other artists. It was all great. I loved what I did. I loved turning over the keys after I turned a house into someone’s home, but none of that ever made me feel alive the way he did.
The air stalled in my lungs, so it was convenient that I could steal a little of his in the breath he trapped between us. My eyes fell to half-mast. I always closed them when he kissed me so I could memorize the flavors of his lips, the motion of his tongue, and the grip of his massive hands when he took possession of me. Those memories kept me going when he was away.
Like any good soldier, he stormed me. His lips swept in with unrelenting devastation. Heat he’d detonated rippled outward from my core. I was a goner. There wasn’t even time for an S.O.S. I had no desire to be saved anyway.
His tongue dove past my lips and his left thigh split my legs, forcing the loose skirt portion of my sundress upward.
An embarrassingly loud groan vaulted from my throat. He feasted on it like it was the very thing that would sustain him. I couldn’t seem to make my brain understand that this time it didn’t have to end. I wasn’t taking no for an answer anymore. Every synapse I possessed was currently occupied with what I needed to feel, not what I needed to say.
Desperation urged me onward. “Touch me,” I begged as he allowed me breath and trailed kisses down my neck. He readjusted his good leg to give himself more stability as his hands abandoned the wall and wrapped around my waist. “Yes,” I whimpered. My body began to rock back and forth against his injured thigh.
The sensations he wrought with his lips were too powerful to be contained or immobilized. Raw masculinity rolled off of him in potent waves. The light minty scent of his soap and musk of his cologne teased at my nostrils. I gulped in a deeper breath and there it was. That scent of gun powder that clung to him always. Like a lit firecracker on the Fourth of July just moments before it shattered and spilled its light out in the night sky. Danger and explosive passion were fused in his skin and comprised the sheen of sweat on his brow.
His hands, callused from years of shooting without gloves, slid to my thighs. He pushed until he revealed the white lace panties I’d worn for him. The thundered groan he offered up was worth a hundred times whatever I’d paid for them. If we kept this up, they were going to be ruined.
There was no room for either shame or decorum between us. That wasn’t us anyway. I rocked harder against all of that muscle and sinew constrained by worn denim. His entire body was a sight to behold. All of the scars he’d been forced to wear only enhanced the dangerous beauty of him. It wasn’t fair he had to cover up the might of his thighs or the definition of his chest and abs, and yet I was selfish enough not to want anyone else admiring what was mine.
His left hand latched onto my ass. He pulled me higher, sliding me further up his thigh, closer to his cock. High enough that I was no longer on my feet. I’d been in his room less than three minutes, and I was already flying. Yeah, my brother and my father could take a long walk off a short pier.
Using the wall for leverage, I ground against him now. My nipples strained against the satin of my bra. He brushed his thumb along the lace between my legs, teasing me, coaxing me. I burned for him, a willing sacrifice heaving myself on the pyre.
After another long exploratory session conducted by his greedy tongue into the heat of my mouth, I wrapped my left hand around the back of his neck and my right hand found purchase against his erection, so hot and heavy I knew I wasn’t the only one burning. A low groan tore from his lungs as he lifted his head and stared me down. I continued to stroke until his eyes closed to preserve the ecstasy between us.
When they opened once more, he’d lost the gentlemanliness beaten into him by the army. Need burned in his eyes. “Feel how wet you are for me, baby. So needy for me aren’t you? Tell me.” His demand was a scarred rumble that rippled over my heated flesh.
“Yes,” I choked. “You make me so wet.” My entire body throbbed. Yes, this was what I needed, wanted, refused to live without anymore. A knot of pure desire pulsed behind my mound to the frantic rhythm of my heart. My blood raced through my veins.
I had no use for his polite army breeding. That wasn’t my Griff. That was what he’d been ordered to be. I wanted who he was.
His stubble chafed my chin. The friction was intoxicating. I lost myself in the rough caress. The tension locked in his muscles as he kept me bracketed on his thigh came from the precious little restraint he clung to. And this was precisely why I had to make my full confession to him before we continued. I wanted no restraint from him. I needed him to understand that.
But my body still wasn’t up for talking. Another arch of my spine rolled my clit against the wet lace and ropes of muscle between my legs. I choked back a plea for more. It felt so good. It would be greedy to beg. I wasn’t certain I could even contain more.
And yet, I would always want more of him. There would never be enough time, enough kisses, enough conversations, enough meals together, enough orgasms to ever satisfy me.
“Come on, Hannah, baby.” My name sent one last shockwave through my skin. “Let me have it. Come o
n my leg. Fucking soak me down with your juices. Let me clean you up with my tongue.”
The rough scrape of his words sent a convulsive shiver throughout my body. My lungs forgot how to take in air. My mind centered on him, flat-lining any other information that was absolutely unnecessary. My entire being tensed in preparation. Pleasing him was always the crowning moment of my own satisfaction.
“That’s it. Just let it come for me,” he soothed.
Awash in a sea of his voice and his pure male scent, I threw myself forward, and clung to the only anchor I would ever need.
The quick raps on the door ripped the orgasm from my fingertips. “Sergeant Haywood, I have some paperwork you’ll need for the auction tonight.” The demanding click of Ms. Mallory’s voice rushed the lust from me and replaced it with panic. Another knock, this one faster and more irritated. How many times had she already knocked? Had she heard me moaning or him demanding for me to come?
“Please let me in,” she pressed insistently.
I wiggled until Griff set me on my feet. A tremble I couldn’t halt marked what had been stolen from us. Every curse word I’d ever heard and a few he made up on the fly seared out of his mouth. If someone had actually set him on fire, I don’t think he could possibly have looked any angrier.
“She can’t know I’m in here,” I mouthed silently.
“Too fucking familiar,” he ground out, scooped me up into his arms, and stalked to the bedroom. I was perfectly capable of walking and hiding, but I also wasn’t complaining. My man was nothing if not a rescuer, a savior, and a provider. Three of the items on the lengthy list of things I adored about him. He stalked into the massive en suite bathroom. “Why isn’t there a shower curtain?” His hot breath made me dislike Ms. Mallory even more.
“It’s a steam shower. The entire suite is supposed to be about losing your inhibitions. A shower curtain goes against the whole idea. I’ll get in the closet.”