Soldier's Women

by Megan Ziese

  Nigel picked up the crib and walked it into her room.

  Sera followed right behind him.

  “Right over here by the wall by the bed. This way I won’t have to go very far to get them. Irene tells me I won’t get much sleep if they’re not close by.”

  Nigel put the crib right where she’d indicated.

  “Well, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” Before she could object, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her swiftly on the mouth.

  It warmed Sera all over, making her cheeks burn with the excited blush that crept into them.

  Nigel released her and headed for the door and left.

  She was a little a little disappointed that he left so suddenly. And he hadn’t even eaten his eggs. Poor thing, he was probably starving. He’d been so busy he’d forgotten to eat.

  She got to working, trying not to think about him instead of work, which was hard because he was constantly on her mind now, but finally she put him out of her mind.

  He didn’t come over that night.

  Sera couldn’t help but feel abandoned. She had known where his priorities lay. He wanted his children, and her, he just wanted to fuck her. It was hard, but she tried again to convince herself she should be happy. This was what she had wanted all of the time. It wasn’t really a good idea to get involved with him anyway. He was likely to re-enlist for the military and stay gone on tours or lose his life in battle. She’d already lost so much in life, she didn’t think her heart could take anymore. She didn’t think she could handle pining over him, hoping against hope that he didn’t get himself killed in some foreign country, surrounded by the enemy, when he should have been home with a family that loved him.

  Love. Yes, love. She loved him. She couldn’t believe she’d been stupid enough to do it, to allow herself to be vulnerable to his charm, but she had. She’d gone and made the biggest mistake, she’d fallen head over heels for him, and there was nothing she could do to change that now.

  * * * *

  Nigel drove to the place he’d been renting since he’d gotten back in town. Even though he finally realized that more than anything he wanted to be with Sera and be a proper father to their children, he realized that he’d been too pushy from the beginning with her. She was an independent woman, and she didn’t want to be pressured into anything, and she didn’t appreciate over possessiveness.

  He decided to lay low for a few days. That wouldn’t be hard since he had to find a job now that he wasn’t in the service anymore. He’d already begun applying for jobs in the security field. He had several interviews throughout the day. He hoped it wouldn’t take long to land a good job. He didn’t want to spend too much time away from Sera and give her the wrong idea.

  * * * *

  Nigel was on cloud nine when he learned he’d landed a job as head of security at a huge corporation, well, at least for a minute he was. He got tied up with his new job immediately. He had to learn the ropes and he had to thoroughly check out their security measures and systems for weaknesses.

  Realizing he couldn’t make it to Sera’s next doctor’s appointment, he called his mother.

  “Mom.”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “I’m sorry to call you like this out of the blue, but do you think you can take Sera to her next doctor’s appointment?”

  Irene’s face scrunched up with worry. “You can’t make it?”

  “No, I have some things I have to do. Can you make my apologies to Sera? Tell her that I really want to be there and that I’ll see her soon. I don’t want her to think that I’ve suddenly abandoned her, but I can’t explain anything right now. I will soon though.”

  After he got off the phone with his mother, he called a nursery and arranged to have flowers sent to Sera with a note attached.

  * * * *

  Sera heard a knock on her door. Sure it was Nigel, she got up from her computer desk and raced over to the door.

  “Who is it?” she said, unable to contain the excitement in her voice.

  “Delivery ma’am.”

  Sera checked out her window to be sure the man outside had a delivery. She was he had a vase of roses. She quickly opened the door.

  “Are you Sera Anderson?”

  “Yes.”

  “These are for you.”

  Sera was disappointed that it wasn’t Nigel. She hadn’t seen him for days and she was going through withdrawal symptoms. But the roses were a nice surprise.

  “Thank you,” she said to the flower delivery man and took the vase he offered.

  She inhaled deeply of their fresh scent. She loved red roses. She noticed a card attached. Curious, she went back in the house to set them down on the counter to see what it said.

  She opened the card and was surprised at what she read.

  You are the most beautiful pregnant woman ever. I hope that our children have half as much beauty and talent as their mother. I miss you.

  Tears came to Sera’s eyes. No one had ever bought her roses before. And the note was so sweet. She’d been trying so hard for so long to resist Nigel. She was a fool for putting up such a fight. He was a wonderful man.

  While she was getting more water for the roses, the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Sera, it’s Nigel. Did you get the roses I sent you?”

  Sera blushed, they were so beautiful, such a thoughtful gift. “Yes. I did.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t take you to your appointment earlier today. I’d like to make it up to you. Can I take you out to supper?”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  “I’ll pick you up at 7:00.”

  * * * *

  Nigel arrived at 7:00 on the dot. But, Sera found that instead of taking her out to a restaurant, as she’d thought he would, he took her a house she’d never seen before.

  He got out as he always did and opened the door for her and escorted her up to the house.

  “Nigel, what’s going on? I thought we . . . .”

  “Hold on just a minute. It’s a surprise.”

  She didn’t say anything else as he unlocked the front door.

  “Close your eyes.”

  She did as she was told.

  He took her hand and helped her through the doorway of the house and shut the door behind them.

  “Okay, now open them.”

  She opened her eyes and gasped. There was a small dining table with one candle and two plates with food on them. The rest of the house was completely barren.

  “What’s going on, Nigel?”

  “Sit down and I’ll explain.”

  She sat down. The food looked and smelled delicious.

  “Did you order takeout?”

  “No, I cooked it myself in my kitchen.”

  “Your kitchen? This is the rental house you’ve been staying at?”

  “No, actually, this is the house I just bought.” He paused and pulled out a little black velvet box from his pocket. He got out of his chair and knelt down on the floor in front of her.

  “Sera, I bought this house with all of the money I put away throughout my years in the military. I know you have a house, but it only has two bedrooms and it’s small. It’s not big enough for our family.”

  “Our family?”

  “Yes, and I’d like to make that official. I don’t want to marry you just because you’re having my children. I know we never met before, but I’m sure if we had I would feel the same as I do now. I love you, and I couldn’t imagine my life without you. Will you marry me?”

  Sera started crying, “Yes. Yes, I will. I love you, too.”

  Talking wasn’t all he had on his mind, he realized abruptly as it settled solidly in his mind what it was that felt ‘unfinished’.

  Reaching up to grasp her upper arms, he hauled her halfway across his lap.

  She sucked in a sharp breath of surprise, tipping her head back to meet his gaze.

  “Now let me get some of the baby making practice I should have gotten months a
go?” he murmured as he dipped his head closer to hers, pausing when his mouth hovered just above her lips, waiting to see if she would meet him or retreat.

  She hesitated for several heartbeats and then lifted her lips until they brushed his.

  His heart fisted painfully in his chest, punching the air from his lungs in a rush as he felt her soft lips meld with his own.

  Covering her lips with his mouth and sucking lightly to seal the two of them together mouth to mouth even as he traced the soft contours of her lips and thrust his tongue between them to invade the moist heat of her mouth. The rush that went through him then was intoxicating. It demolished any possibility of rational thought. Releasing his grip on her arms, he shifted one hand to press it between her shoulder blades and the other to cup the back of her head and hold her to him for his exploration.

  The painful fisting of his heart eased and then it commenced to slamming nearly as painfully against his chest wall as she flooded his senses, as he explored the texture of her tongue and tested the limits of the small cavern of her mouth, stroked the silky inner walls, tasted her, breathed her. The tentative touch of her hands as they settled along the sides of his chest sent another, headier rush of pleasure through him. He drew her closer, held her more tightly. Blood flushed his skin, heated it until he felt fevered. Blood pulsed against his ear drums deafeningly, pounded in his skull, filled his cock until it felt as if it would explode.

  A deep, unquenchable hunger welled inside him. The more he tasted and touched, the more he wanted. He slipped his arms around her, molding her more tightly against his body from chest to waist. His skin burned where her soft breasts flattened against his chest.

  He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. Intent on absorbing the taste and feel of her mouth, he fought the burning need to fill them as long as he could before he broke away, gasping hoarsely to replenish the deficit of air in his lungs, to oxygenate his blood before he passed out.

  He stared down at her face as he sucked in gasps of air. Slowly, her eyelids lifted and she stared back at him, and his entire body seemed to tighten at the look in her eyes.

  “But before you said you wanted to talk,” she prompted after a moment.

  He lifted a hand and hooked her jaw in the crook of his thumb and forefinger to keep her from turning her face away as he lowered his head to hers. “We did talk, now we have to make up for lost time,” he murmured a breath away from her lips.

  A jolt went through Sera as she felt the brush of his lips against hers and then heat flooded her as his mouth settled possessively over hers. A vague floating sensation intensified to a swirling darkness as his tongue skated along her lips and delved inside her mouth. For a handful of frantic heartbeats, she was suspended by surprise and confusion, caught by the certain knowledge that she was lost if she allowed him to kiss her as he had before.

  The lure of pleasure was far stronger than her will to resist ever had been, and even as he invaded her senses with his touch and taste, she knew she’d lost the battle long before, curling her fingers into his flesh.

  As if he sensed that silent yielding, he released his grip on her jaw and drew her closer, caging her with his arms.

  She uttered a sound of need, of surrender into his mouth as he kissed her more deeply, with more fervor, sucking lightly on her mouth as he stroked her tongue with his own.

  Weakness flowed through her in the wake of the heat that poured through her veins. She curled her fingers more tightly into the flesh of his arms, clinging to fight the dizziness as well as the heaviness that settled over her, struggling to breathe when there didn’t seem to be enough air in the room to fill her lungs.

  And still regret filled her as he broke the contact, lifting his head to study her face. Panting for breath, she lifted her eyelids with an effort to stare up at his face. A shiver skated through her at the tumultuous fire she saw in his eyes, a quiver of anticipation, hopefulness.

  He slipped his hands to her face, settling his palms along her cheeks. “I love you, Sera,” he murmured huskily. “I can give you the family you’ve always wanted. I’ll never leave your side.”

  Licking her lips, she lifted them in supplication. Delight filled her with a roaring blaze as he seized upon her offering hungrily, greedily taking what she offered up and demanding more. The feel of his mouth on hers, the heat of it, gave rise to a desperate hunger of her own.

  His hands moved her as he explored her mouth with far more possessiveness than before, coaxing her tongue into his mouth to suckle on it and sending jolt after jolt of heady pleasure through her. His hands alternately stroked along her back and pressed her closer as he moved restlessly against her. The chill of the air against her overheated body created an eruption of pebbly skin along her bare body.

  He drew her tightly against him, dispelling the chill with the heat of his body, his hands, his mouth. She slid her hands up his chest to loop her arms around his neck as he drew her close again, threading her fingers through his dark hair, stroking the silky mane with delight at the cool, sleekness of it against her palms and fingers.

  He wove his way downward and covered the tip of one breast with his mouth, surging upward to meet his caress when an electric current of pleasure sizzled along every nerve ending and drew her womb into a hard knot.

  She gasped, shuddering as he teased the turgid tip with his tongue and then sucked on it, clasping his head tightly to her one moment and stroking her hands over his head and along his broad shoulders and back feverishly the next. By the time he’d made his way over to her other breast, she was beyond reason. All she could think about was mounting the engorged flesh surging against her thigh instead of where she needed it. Struggling with his weight until she managed to wrap her thighs around his waist, she groped between them in search of his cock.

  She couldn’t reach it, damn it all!

  “Nigel!” she gasped, planting her palm in the middle of his forehead and shoving him away from her breast.

  He surged upward, gasping, staring at her uncomprehendingly as she undulated against him in an effort to wiggle downward and impale herself on his shaft. He ground his teeth as she caught hold of his cock at last and stroked it and then guided it along her cleft.

  Shifting upward abruptly as he felt the moist heat of her sex close around the head of his cock, he curled his hips to penetrate her. She fell back against the bed, groaning as she felt him surging against her, stretching her—turning her inside out as her flesh refused to yield to him.

  “Nigel!” she gasped, reaching between them to stretch her flesh for him, shuddering as she felt his cock slipping between her fingers as he delved her—too shallowly to give her any relief. They struggled against one another, heaving, pressing until sweat slickened their skin and they were slipping against one another one moment and clinging the next.

  He heaved upward abruptly, disengaging their bodies and shoving himself downward.

  Before she could object, before she’d entirely grasped what he meant to do, he thrust her thighs wide and covered her sex with his mouth. A shockwave of intense sensation rolled over her as she felt the lathe of his tongue along her cleft and then connecting with her clit. She groaned, bucked against him.

  He caught her hips, holding her for his mouth as he lathed and suckled at her burning flesh until she was sobbing for breath and torn between the urge to make him stop and the equal demand of her body to yield to the explosive climax she felt building inside of her.

  She almost wept when he did stop.

  Lifting away from her, he crawled over her body once more, aligned his shaft with her opening and curled his hips to penetrate her, pressing steadily against her until he’d breached the mouth of her sex. When he withdrew slightly and thrust again, she felt him sinking slowly deeper and deeper inside of her, felt the friction of his passage along her channel in waves of intense pleasure.

  “It feels so good,” she moaned, lifting her arms and legs and locking them around him to counter his trusts unt
il he’d filled her to capacity, stretched her almost to the point of pain.

  Dropping her feet to the mattress as he withdrew, she met his next thrust, focused inwardly as she felt her body rising, tightening, preparing to take the leap into ecstasy. She gasped in a harsh breath and held it as she reached the precipice and teetered, struggling to hold it off just a few more moments to enjoy the pleasurable glide of his flesh along her channel. She lost her hold on it as he began to thrust faster, slamming into her in jolts that pushed her control beyond her reach, exploding in glorious waves of rapture as her climax hit her with such force that it dragged keen cries from her.

  He shuddered as her body began to convulse and then surged into her faster until he found his own quaking release.

  Gasping for breath, shuddering at the quakes that continued to rip through him, he leaned heavily against her, struggling to catch his breath and gather enough strength to move off of her. Finally, he heaved himself to one side and tipped onto the bed beside her.

  Nearly comatose in the aftermath, she allowed herself to drift lazily while her heart and breath slowly calmed until she could breathe more easily.

  She groaned as he groped her until his hand settled on her shoulder and he dragged her over to face him. Ignoring her protest, he pulled her against him and sought her mouth, kissing her briefly before he released her.

  Epilogue

  “Nigel, please slow the car down. I’m not going to have the babies in the car.”

  “Don’t try to distract me from the subject at hand.”

  “Well, at least we have Nigel’s name picked out since we named him after you and your father.”

  “Yes, but that’s only half of the problem. We still haven’t agreed on our little girl’s name and now she’s almost here.” He paused. “Hold that thought,” he said as he pulled up and into the driveway in front of the hospital to drop her off. “I’ll be back as soon as I park the car. Okay, honey?”

  “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to rush.”

  She got out and he helped her into a wheelchair. A nurse wheeled her inside.