Jesus, he had it bad when even the knowledge that their encounter would bring pain didn’t detract from his boner. There was something extremely wrong with him.
“Turn around,” he growled. But when he looked up, she sat on the steamer trunk, arms crossed over her chest, one brow raised in the you have got to be kidding me face.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. Turn around.”
“I can assure you, Jeremy, I’ve seen enough of the male form in my day not to swoon with excitement.” Her voice was dry, sarcastic, and totally typical Madison.
The thought of her watching more than one dude get undressed—even for her job—made his fists clench. But he just lay there, waiting.
And she sat, also waiting.
Showdown. High noon.
“Fuck it,” he mumbled, then turned to face the back of the couch, more to hide his erection than anything, and shimmied out of the shorts as best he could. Thank you, God, for elastic waistbands.
“Don’t do that!” she shrieked. “You’re going to hurt yourself!”
Too late. His eyes stung as the side of his leg against the couch cushion burned like hellfire. But he refused to let her see that, so fast as he could, he flopped back down on his stomach, hiked the leg of his boxer shorts up as far as he could, and did his best to cover his ears with his arms.
Too bad it didn’t drown out Madison’s lecturing.
“…stupid, ignorant, moronic man! You can’t be serious. Why is it always men who make the worst patients?”
“I assume all of this is rhetorical?” he asked, voice muffled against the pillow.
“Bite me.”
More unnecessary, completely unwanted images popped into his head. Madison stretched out below him, whispering “bite me” in his ear while her knees raised up. His teeth grazing the extended tendons in her neck, making her moan with delight. Making her want more. Making him…
“Christ!” A burning pain streaked from his leg out to the tips of his fingers, raising the hair on the back of his neck.
Madison peeled away the pad without an ounce of fanfare and tsked mockingly. “I’d say I’m sorry, but lying to patients is something I try to avoid.”
“How about lying to a friend?”
“That too,” she said cheerfully. “This wouldn’t be so bad if you hadn’t just rubbed your leg into the cushion. Or if you’d changed this when you were supposed to.”
“Thanks for the memo.”
Despite her warning about the pain, despite the fact that he knew he would deserve her harsh treatment, her hands were gentle. Soothing as they rubbed on some cream. As they checked the area. Almost caressing at times, it felt good. Would have felt better without the sting of pain. But her touch soothed out the rough edges of the sting.
“Where’s your bike?”
He dragged his mind from the faraway place he’d let it drift. “Took it to the shop last night. Wanted it checked on after all the skidding it did. Plus the paint’s jacked up, so they’ll fix that for me.”
“I hope it’s okay.” Silence reigned for a minute, then she said, “I’ve never ridden on one. What’s it like?”
“You? Never been on a motorcycle?” He raised his head at that, a little surprised. With the number of military guys who rode, and having been surrounded by Marines since she was born, he was shocked she’d never been taken for a ride.
“Please,” she scoffed. “Like Daddy would have let me go off on some corporal’s bike when I was growing up.”
True enough. Madison and Tim’s father was extremely protective of his little girl. Not that Jeremy could blame him.
“And I’ve just never been on one as an adult.” She tore off a piece of tape to drape over the new pad covering his wound. “Would you take me out sometime? Just for a short ride?”
Rock, meet Hard Place. He grunted, hoping that would suffice as a noncommittal answer.
Of course it didn’t. “Was that a yes?”
He cracked one eye open to see her smiling at him innocently. She must practice that look in the mirror. “Yeah. Sure.” His voice sounded rusty. But just the thought of having Madison behind him on his motorcycle, arms wrapped around his waist, thighs squeezing his hips as he leaned into a turn, breasts pressed against his back…
And hello, Mr. Boner. It’s been about five minutes since you were here last.
Madison sat back and nodded. “You’re all set. Am I going to have to come back tomorrow, or will you be able to do this yourself like a big boy?”
“I’ve got it,” he answered quickly. Making the ritual of taking off his pants in front of Madison a daily thing was his idea of a certain level of hell. He’d pass if at all possible.
Madison blinked a moment, as if surprised—or even disappointed?—in his answer. But she nodded and quirked into a smile. “Well, good. You need to take care of yourself.”
She stood and gathered her things, shoving them into her book bag randomly. He stood as well, yanking his boxer leg down when her gaze was averted for a moment, then grabbing a roll of tape that had fallen to the floor and passing it to her.
“Thanks.” She zipped the bag and hefted it over her shoulder. Then her eyes dropped for a moment and she looked back up. “I’m really glad you’re not worse off, Jeremy.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“I won’t bother you again, coming over.”
“You’re not a bother, Madison.” His own desire for her, that was the bother. The circumstance, that was a bother. Never her.
She gave him a smile. “Good. Then I hope this won’t bother you either.”
***
Madison dropped her book bag down to the coffee table trunk thing. But he didn’t move. When she put her hands on his shoulders, he didn’t budge. And when she raised up on her toes, he didn’t even blink. So she decided to go for the gold and pressed her lips to his.
Nothing. He didn’t step away, didn’t step forward. Didn’t participate, but didn’t pull back.
What the hell? She angled her head a little, pressed her body to his more tightly, but no dice.
Finally, with the feeling of foolishness racing up her spine, she tried one more thing.
Her hands drifted up his shoulders, around his neck, and she let her fingernails scratch lightly at the back of his scalp. Meanwhile, her tongue darted out and licked the seam of his lips.
There. If that didn’t do it, then nothing—
“Dammit.” The growl was the only warning she had before Jeremy’s arms locked around her back and he pulled her so tightly against him, she couldn’t tell where her front ended and his began. His mouth slanted further over hers, giving the perfect angle to open more fully for the kiss. One hand lowered more, cupped under her butt, and lifted so that she was barely standing on her own any longer.
And she felt it. The unmistakable proof that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. His erection straining the front of his boxers—which she would bet dollars to donuts he’d forgotten he was wearing.
That she—Madison O’Shay—had enough feminine power to make a man so confident in his own ways forget his restraint gave her a thrill. But mostly the thrill came from Jeremy. It was him. Always him. Since she was sixteen, it’d been Jeremy Phillips for Madison.
Too bad he still wasn’t in on the long-term program. Yet.
He tasted like butterscotch, she realized belatedly, and chuckled. As if trying to reprimand her for losing track, his teeth nipped her bottom lip and she stopped laughing entirely. He was serious, as usual. Everything was serious for Jeremy, and this was no different.
Woo-hoo!
When his mouth left hers to graze down her cheek, under her jaw, and scrape against her neck, she whispered his name. As if she couldn’t hold it back any longer, and needed to be r
eminded this was what it felt like when dreams came true.
Tactical error.
Hearing her voice flipped some sort of switch in him, and he jerked back, away from her, away from even being close enough to reach out and touch.
His breath came in hard pants, like he’d run a marathon but hadn’t trained for it. And his eyes were glassy, as if seeing something he shouldn’t be.
“Jeremy?” The nurse in her came out, and she wondered for a moment what was wrong. His detached look scared her just a little. “Jeremy?”
“No.” He shook his head once, eyes clearing. “No. Madison, we can’t.”
“Why can’t we?” she insisted. “You haven’t given me one good reason why we can’t. I accepted it, thought it meant you weren’t interested in me, and I left it alone. But now I know. I know you want me too. So why are we fighting something, putting the effort into avoiding it, when we could just have it?”
“I never said I wanted it,” he argued. But when Madison’s eyes trailed down to the clear erection he was sporting, Jeremy grabbed his mesh shorts and stepped into them, a scowl on his face. “Leave it alone. It’s not supposed to happen.”
“Still not a reason,” she pointed out, which only made his scowl darken.
“It’s all the reason we need.” He adjusted the waistband on his shorts and crossed his arms over his chest. The message couldn’t be more clear if he wrote it on a Post-it note and slapped it on her forehead. Discussion closed. “Thanks for stopping by. My leg feels better already.”
She stared, willing him to change his mind, to back down, say he was sorry and beg her to please give him another shot. But she knew he wouldn’t. A man’s pride only stretched so far, and Jeremy’s had been given a workout the last two days.
Tactical retreat time, as her father would say.
“Fine.” Picking up her book bag, as if nothing had happened and she was just paying a friendly call, she waved to him over her shoulder. She couldn’t help but notice the confused look on his face when she sent him a pleasant smile.
Good. Let him guess. Let him try to figure out what the hell was going on. Let him stay on his toes for once.
“See ya around!”
“Probably not,” he finally managed to get out. “I’ve got a lot of work going on right now.”
“Ah.” She stood with the door wide open. “Then I guess I’ll see you Saturday for the get-together at my place.”
Awareness of his previous promise washed over him, and she smiled again. “Bye!” And she shut the door behind her as she left.
Yeah. Tactical retreat was one thing. But as her daddy also said… she wasn’t really retreating. She was just advancing from another direction.
***
“This was fun. Yes, we’ll talk again soon. Bye!”
Veronica waved once more to Skye’s parents and hit end call on the screen. Then she hit the red X and watched as the Skype program minimized down to the dock at the bottom of the screen.
Technology was amazing. She’d missed out on so many unbelievable advances. Just one more reason she’d made the ultimate choice she finally had to make, coming back to America for good.
She missed her aunt and uncle desperately. But thanks to modern technology—which seemed much more amazing to her than anyone else—she could talk to them face to face. At least as much as one video camera was to another. It helped, more than she could say, when she felt the loneliness creeping in. If only she’d had this sort of thing available to her a few years ago.
And wasn’t it a shame that she didn’t miss her parents with the same ferocity as her aunt and uncle? Though her parents had barely even acknowledged her moving back to the United States with anything other than disappointment. And guilt.
But she didn’t share their passion for missionary work, for finding the most destitute, barren places on the globe and making a difference. She wanted a life of her own. At twenty-six, it wasn’t unkind or selfish of her to branch out and start a life of her own—even if her parents tried to make her feel that way. And she was blessed that her cousin had embraced her so willingly.
More than once, she doubted her choice to leave her aunt and uncle’s home in Texas and move in with her cousin, even temporarily. But there were so many more opportunities for her here in California. And she intended to grab at as many of them as she could, while she could. She might be naïve and still working to catch up with other people her age, but she wasn’t stupid. This opportunity wouldn’t last forever.
A little bubble sound came from the speakers, and then a face popped up on the screen.
Her eyes widened and she jerked back in the computer chair, completely taken off guard.
“Hey there. You’re not Tim. Or Skye,” the man on the screen drawled.
She glanced toward the door, listening to see if either one had come home while she was speaking with her aunt and uncle. But no, she was still alone.
“Do you talk? Or are you taking a mime class?”
“What?” Her eyes snapped back to the screen to watch the stranger tilt his head to the side and chuckle in a deep-throated sound that sent chills up her arms. Combined with his easy smile and eyes that held more than a little bit of humor, her gut didn’t clench in the normal way it did when she met new people.
Or maybe that was just the added benefit of being two computer monitors away.
“Just checking. I assume you’re a friend of Skye’s?”
“I’m her cousin.” Before he got any ideas, she added, “I’m staying here. I didn’t break in or anything.”
He laughed now, full-out body spasms included, to the point where she wondered if he would tip back in his chair and fall over. But it gave her the chance to look at him better.
He wore an olive undershirt and camouflage pants, just like Tim did when he worked. But the lighting in the room behind him was somewhat poor. She could barely make out a bunk-style bed and shiny walls, but little else.
“Well, that’s one I haven’t heard before. No, I didn’t think you broke in. If you stopped to Skype on your way out the door, you’d be a poor excuse for a burglar.”
She cracked a smile at that. “Probably.” Then, realizing he called her cousin’s computer, she scrambled for a pad of paper in the desk. “I’m sorry, I should have asked. Do you want me to take a message?”
“Nah, no message. Just thought one of them might be home and I could catch them at the computer. We didn’t have a date or anything.” His voice, which had been so full of laughter before, suddenly sounded tinged with disappointment.
It finally clicked, and she felt awful for not having picked up on it sooner. “Are you deployed?”
He grimaced. “Yes, ma’am. Unfortunately, I am.”
“What’s your name?”
He raised one eyebrow and stared at her long enough that she flushed. “It’s on the screen, darlin’.”
“Oh! Oh, of course.” She glanced at the top and saw Dwayne Robertson. The mysterious, missing Dwayne. Of course. The other best friend who recently deployed. Why hadn’t she put that together sooner? “I apologize; I’m still learning the ropes of this program, it seems.”
Learning the ropes of modern life in general. Skye taught her to Google just two weeks ago. Not much need for computers and search engines in the jungles of South America.
“Not a problem.” He sat back and laced his fingers over his stomach. From the angle, his biceps strained a little at the edge of his T-shirt. Veronica felt a stirring in her belly she hadn’t felt before. Ever. It wasn’t nerves. And it wasn’t excitement. So what was it?
“How long you stayin’ with them?”
“For a while,” she hedged. Truthfully, she had no clue. She didn’t make enough working as a waitress to afford her own apartment. And Skye and Tim never treated her as if she we
re a burden. But she felt it all the same. Just a little more of the guilt she was raised with rearing its ugly head. She could have been Catholic, for all her parents’ love of guilt as discipline.
To change the subject, she asked, “Are you doing well over there?”
He smiled. “Well as can be, I’m sure. Bored is more like it.”
“Bored?” That sounded almost ideal, given where he currently was.
“It’s not exactly a fighting deployment. Our mission here isn’t to run out and catch bad guys. We’re here to build, not tear down.”
“Oh. That sounds… nice, actually.” She’d always thought of militaries in the terms she knew of them. The South American militias she’d witnessed, been warned by, avoided at all costs. They were never ones to rebuild. Destruction was their game.
“It’s never one hundred percent safe. But I’m little more than a desk jockey this time around. No real action for me.”
“Isn’t that what you’d want?” she blurted out. It was war! How could he not want to be safe with a nice, easy job?
He shook his head. “You don’t typically join the military hoping for an easy ride. Not that I’m dying to see a lot of action or anything. No death wishes here. Just a nice scrap now and then to mix it up wouldn’t be out of order.”
“I’m sure,” she murmured. What must his life be like? She could easily imagine less-than-stellar accommodations, as she’d lived in third world countries most of her life. But despite that, her parents and the other missionaries had managed to shelter her from the more unseemly side of life. Sterile. It’s the only way she could explain her first twenty-six years of life.
He leaned forward and gave her a slow smile that started little birds doing gymnastics in her stomach. “So, Ronnie—”
“It’s Veronica,” she said automatically.
He nodded. “What’s your story, Ms. Veronica?”
“My story?” she squeaked out. That was absolutely not something she was willing to share. Not with a stranger. Even Skye only knew the important bits—the CliffsNotes version, her cousin had called it—to her pre-U.S. days. She certainly wasn’t about to spill the entire sob story to someone she’d never met. “I’m as boring as they come.”
Officer Breaks the Rules (Semper Fidelis. Always Faithful.) Page 4