by Janice Lynn
He sounded distant, almost as if he didn’t want her there. Something was definitely wrong. She stepped farther into the room, closed the heavy door behind her and moved into his line of sight so she could see his face.
“You’re sure?” She dropped into a chair near his.
He leaned back in his chair, glanced toward the computer screen. “Nothing’s wrong. Just have a few things on my mind.”
She understood. She had a few things on her mind, too, all of which centered on him and how they were running out of time together. Soon they’d have to give whatever was between them a name, make decisions about whether or not they were going to see each other once their stint on the USS Benjamin Franklin ended.
“You seemed tense when I came in.”
He scowled. “There’s not anything wrong, Amelia. Go back to your room.”
Right. Because he always sounded angry with her, always didn’t look her in the eyes when he talked to her, always told her to go to her room.
Enough was enough. There was definitely something wrong and she had a pretty good idea what it was.
“You’re shutting me out, aren’t you?”
His jaw worked in a slow rotation and he raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m not shutting you out. Let it go. I’m really not up for this tonight.”
She put her hands on her hips, not willing to walk away. “It feels as if you’re shutting me out, and I don’t like it.”
What was wrong with him? She’d never seen him like this. So ragged. So rough. So raw.
“God, you just don’t know what you do to me, do you?”
Her breath catching, she met his gaze, held it. “Tell me.”
He laughed ironically. “You make me not care about anything except you, Amelia, about making love to you and holding you and being able to sleep with you in my arms.”
Okay, not a bad start to their conversation so why did he look so upset? Angry almost?
“I’d say turnabout was fair play, wouldn’t you? I care a lot about you, too, Cole. I want those same things, think about them when I’m lying in my bunk, unable to sleep because I want you there with me.” She met his gaze. “Like tonight when I ached so badly to be near you that I had to escape out of my room.”
His throat worked, his eyes closed and his fingers gripped the chair arm so tightly they blanched white. “I’m hanging by a thread here, Amelia. You should go.”
He was pushing her away. As much as that hurt, she wouldn’t let him push her away without giving her an explanation. “Why would I go?”
The blueness of his eyes threatened to engulf her. She fought to keep from glancing away.
“I want things I shouldn’t want on board this ship.” His words came out as a low growl.
Proverbial lights clicked on above Amelia’s head. “I should stay away from you because of the ship rules? That’s why you’re telling me to go away?”
Looking tired, frustrated, he nodded. “We’ve both worked too hard to risk our careers for a night of passion.”
He was trying to put distance between them to protect their careers. Admirable. Logical. She took a deep breath. “How about six nights of passion? That’s what we have left.”
His brow arched. “You think that would be enough?”
“You tell me. What’s the past six months been about?”
He shrugged. “You. Me. Sex.”
“Sex?” She laughed, hoping she didn’t sound hysterical. No longer able to sit, she paced across the small room. “We’ve not had sex.”
“You think I haven’t noticed that?”
She twisted to glare at him. “It’s our lack of sex that’s the problem?”
He ran his fingers through his hair again. “Our lack of sex is a huge problem.”
“Then why did you get assigned to the USS Benjamin Franklin, Cole? If not to sleep with me? You don’t have to chase a woman halfway around the world to get laid, Cole. We both know that. Explain so I can understand why you came here and turned my world upside down.”
Apparently unable to sit a moment longer either, he stood, his back to the desk. A tic jumped at the corner of his mouth. “You know why.”
“We both know you could have had me months ago if sex was all you wanted.” She hated admitting that, but it was true. Just a few touches and all protests would have gone up in smoke. “Tell me why you’re here, Cole.”
He didn’t say anything, just stood seeming to consider his next words. She couldn’t stand the silence. Not a moment longer.
“What made you pull favors and board my ship, Cole? Why did you pursue me and torture me by being everywhere I was? Was this all some sick joke to you? Mess with Clara’s little sister’s head and heart?”
Red splashed across his cheeks and his fingers clenched at his sides. “Why I’m here has nothing to do with Clara, and you know it.”
“Do I?” But staring straight into those beautiful blue eyes, she did know. Cole cared about her. More than just wanting to get her into bed.
Despite the way her heart hammered in her chest, she pressed forward.
“I think you care more about me than you’re willing to admit, Cole. I think that’s why you’re here, why you got assigned to the USS Benjamin Franklin—to be near me.”
“God, you’re direct.”
He hadn’t denied her claim. Oh, God, he hadn’t denied what she’d said. He did care. She clung to that belief, clung to a lifetime of being taught to go after what she wanted and not let anything stand in her way. “I’m a Stockton.”
“And Stocktons always get what they want?”
Had he read her mind? Laughing wryly, she shook her head. “Apparently not. If we did, I’d have made love to you every day and night since Singapore.”
His gaze shifted from hers, then back. The pulse at his throat jumped wildly. Had her words brought him back to the night at the hotel, before she’d fallen asleep? Back to the following night when they’d been headed to the hotel to consummate the fire burning through them?
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He raked all his fingers through his hair, glanced toward the computer screen as if the monitor would give him the answers he needed. “You’re better off that we haven’t done anything.”
“Do you really believe that? I don’t.” She took a few steps toward him. “What I do believe is that for the rest of my life I’m going to regret not making love to you while we have the chance.” In her heart, she knew it was true. If she didn’t seize the moment, if she was a coward and didn’t embrace her feelings for Cole, she would always have regrets.
“This is crazy.” He laughed, as if by doing so he was giving validation to his claim.
“It is crazy…” insanely, wonderfully crazy “…but it’s true. We have one week left, Cole. Less.”
“And?”
“I want to spend the remaining time with you.”
“We’ve been spending time together.” At her pointed look, he winced. “Amelia—”
“Don’t Amelia me,” she interrupted. “I know what I want.” She leaned forward, cupped his face. “Kiss me, Cole.”
His jaw tightened beneath her fingertips. “I can’t kiss you. Not tonight. Not when we’re both at our wit’s end with need.”
Part of her registered that he spoke sense, that she should heed his warning. But another, bigger part feared never knowing what it felt like to make love to him.
“You kissed me up on the steel beach prior to Singapore,” she reminded him. “And a hundred times since.”
“I shouldn’t have. Anything that happens between us needs to wait until we’re in San Diego. No more kisses until then, Amelia.”
He made sense, yet she wasn’t satisfied with his answer. Wasn’t satisfied period.
“Who knows what’s going to happen once we dock? We’ll be given new assignments and may never see each other again.” She couldn’t imagine her life without seeing him and knew in her heart that she’d find a way to him, would ensure thei
r paths crossed in the future. “Kiss me, Cole.” When he didn’t move, she sighed in frustration. “Fine, you just stand there and I’ll do all the work myself.”
She placed her lips against his. She half expected him to push her away, to tell her she was crazy again.
He didn’t.
“What are you doing to me?” he groaned. He kissed her back, pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her next to him. “Don’t you realize I’ve fought to keep from doing this for fear of what it would lead to? That I won’t risk your career? Won’t risk hurting you in any way? We can’t do this. I can’t do this. I’m not strong enough to kiss you and walk away, Amelia. Not tonight. I want more.”
His anguished words were all it took for love to burst free in her chest, leaving no doubt in her mind exactly how she felt about him, leaving no doubt about exactly what she wanted. God bless him, he thought pulling away from her was the right thing to do.
It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Not for her. Not for him.
“I don’t want you to walk away, Cole. I want you. I feel as if I’ve always wanted you.” She sank against him, opened her heart and soul to his plundering.
With an agonized moan, he did plunder.
With his mouth, his teeth, his hands. Amelia plundered right back. She kissed him with all her heart, all her soul, with all the passion she’d felt for him for years. She touched his face, the strong lines of his neck, his broad shoulders, the sinewy contours of his back.
He touched her, too. With his hands. With his mouth. His lips were everywhere. Her throat, her clavicle, her breasts.
“Cole,” she breathed, pulling him back to her mouth. “Oh, please.”
She didn’t want him to stop, ever.
She ran her hands down the front of his uniform, moved her hips against his hard groin.
She wanted him so much.
She hadn’t planned this. She hadn’t come looking for him, but now that she was kissing Cole, she didn’t want to stop.
Not ever.
She tugged his shirt from his pants and slid her fingers under the material to the sculpted flesh.
At her touch, his stomach sucked in, his breath catching. “Amelia,” he said on a warning note.
A warning she had no intention of heeding.
Her hands caressed his body, moved low, cupping him through his pants as his mouth ravaged hers in a conquering of spirits.
It wasn’t enough, didn’t satisfy the ache within her, and she fumbled for his zipper.
He broke the kiss, his head lifting as he stared down at her, his eyes a hazy, drugged blue. “Amelia?”
Worried that he meant to push her away, she kissed him, pressing as close as she could. She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted him to love her. To really love her.
The way she loved him.
With all her heart and all her soul.
That’s what she wanted from him. Everything.
“You’re sure this is what you want?” he asked, his voice husky and raw.
For answer she parted the fly of his pants, shucking the material down just enough to run her hands greedily over him. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re driving me crazy.”
“Good, then we’ll go together.” She freed him, stroking her fingers along the length of him. “Love me, Cole. Please love me right now.”
Even if just for this moment. Even if just for this short glimpse of time.
They’d both lost their minds, Cole thought. That could be the only explanation for Amelia coming to him.
Yes, he’d known she wanted him, just as he’d always wanted her. But to hear her openly admit how much she wanted him made him feel as if he could propel the USS Benjamin Franklin with the energy bursting free within him.
Her talented fingers closed around him, circling where he throbbed. He bit back a groan of unmitigated pleasure. A groan of sheer torture.
They couldn’t do this.
“I don’t have a condom, Amelia. We have to stop.” While he still had enough wits to stop. He was close, so close to being beyond reason, beyond anything except the scent of her arousal, the feel of her desire enveloping them both in its seductive cocoon.
Looking dazed, she smiled at him, making him want to smash his mouth against hers in a savage kiss that would leave them breathless and clamoring for more.
“I’m on the birth control shot to stop my menstrual cycle.” She named the brand. “I won’t get pregnant, and I’m clean, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Although that was something he should have been worried about with as many diseases as were out there, that hadn’t been what concerned him most. What worried him was his need for a barrier between their bodies, between his heart and hers. He definitely needed that.
And more.
Because she made him lose reason and he needed to stop this while he still could.
She blinked at him, her eyes soft melted-chocolate pools full of desire, her lips swollen from his kisses, her fingers circling him, not too tight, not too loose. Just right. Oh, hell.
“Are you?”
Was he what? He couldn’t think with her hands on him.
“Yes.” He wasn’t sure if his response was in answer to her question or to her hands gliding along him.
“Good,” she breathed against his mouth, kissing him.
Cole hadn’t lost control during sex since…he couldn’t remember ever having lost control. But if someone had forced him to describe what happened next, he’d have to say he’d lost control.
He certainly wasn’t been under control when he jerked her pants down or when he flipped her around and pressed her against the wall. Control was nowhere in the building when, his hands holding hers above her head, he thrust into her wet softness.
There had been nothing controlled about the way he drove into her, letting go of her hands to rest his on either side of her head. Or in the way his mouth lowered to the curve of her neck, kissing, sucking, knowing he was leaving a mark and, despite the fact he’d never been one to leave marks on women, reveling in the fact Amelia would bear a sign of their passion. He wanted her marked as his. Forever.
Idiot.
When she convulsed against him, whimpering in pleasure, he lost it. Lost everything. Vision. Speech. Hearing. His mind.
He definitely lost that.
Black bursts blinded him. The taste of her throat muted him. Her pleasured cries deafened him. The quivers of her orgasm stole all semblance of sanity and he thrust hard, coming deep inside her, dropping his forehead to the top of her head.
Sweat soaked his skin, heat burned his body.
Shame burned his soul.
He’d taken Amelia like an animal in heat.
She turned, faced him, looked up at him with a smile on her contented face. “Wow,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing the corner of his mouth. “Wow. Wow. Wow.”
Wow was right. It had been good. Great. But what he’d just done to her hadn’t been making love. That had been sex.
Good old-fashioned up-against-the-wall sex for the sake of sating physical need. Amelia deserved so much better. He’d wanted to give her better. How could he have treated her this way? She’d never believe she meant more to him than just sex now.
He’d just used her and she was smiling at him as if he’d done her the greatest favor.
What had he done?
Someone knocked on the door. The handle moved. Amelia’s smile disappeared, her eyes widening as she scrambled to restore her clothing. Cole did his pants up in record speed, trying not to look guilty as the door swung open.
Oh, hell. Someone could have walked in on them. To have been caught like teens would have been a horrible humiliation without the added issues of what getting caught on board ship would mean.
How could he have compromised Amelia this way? What was wrong with him?
“Hey,” Peyton said, stepping into the room, then pausing, his astute eyes tak
ing in where Amelia still stood next to the wall, Cole stood a few feet away. The room probably smelled of sex.
The nurse anesthetist paused, clearly deducing what had been going on as his gaze met Cole’s. What the hell? his expression asked. Have you lost your mind? You can be sent packing for this.
Cole kept his expression blank, battling with a flurry of emotions. He couldn’t put Peyton in the position of having to keep secrets. Neither could he put Amelia in the position of being dishonorably discharged. Hell, he’d already put her in that position. Had put his roommate in that position. Idiot.
“I, uh, came to…” Peyton paused, eyed where Cole stepped protectively in front of Amelia. “Actually, I forgot something. I’ll just go take care of that.” He gave Cole a meaningful look. “You coming?”
Cole tried not to wince at the question. “In a minute.”
Peyton frowned. “You sure? Someone might get the wrong impression with you two shut up in here.”
Or get the right impression.
“I need to close my e-mail account,” Cole said, gesturing toward the computer screen. “I was checking my e-mails.”
“Right, checking your e-mails,” Peyton said, his forehead wrinkling. “You want me to wait for you?”
His friend was trying to save his rear end, to say that he’d be right on the other side of the door so nothing else could happen, so they wouldn’t risk their careers for a few moments of pleasure.
Too late.
He glanced toward Amelia, took in her disheveled appearance, her kiss-bruised lips, the contentment yet appeal in her eyes. She didn’t want him to go, not until they’d talked.
Need for reassurance shone in her chocolate depths and stupidly he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and give her that reassurance. To lift her into his arms, carry her to somewhere private and spend the night loving every inch of her body. The right way rather than against a wall.
They had to stay away from each other or a repeat would happen.
He couldn’t allow a repeat.
Not when doing so would lead to Amelia hating him yet again.
If they got caught it would mean her career. In a heated moment, she might be willing to take that risk, but she’d grow to hate him if he dishonored her, destroyed her military career.