She lifted one shoulder and nonchalantly said, “Like stuff. Lord knows we have enough of that.”
“You’re not that bad, Nickie.”
“I guess. I just feel …”
“Guilty? Why? Because you have and people like me don’t?” he said and anger welled up within him. He’d never let the differences between them be an issue, but she was making it impossible to ignore those differences now. “I don’t need a pity party, Nickie. If that’s why you’re here with me, just to be a fuck buddy to poor little me – ”
“That’s not why I’m here, damn it. I’m here because I care for you. I just can’t stand the thought that for the next four years you’re going to have to risk your life just because you wanted to get a college degree.” Her voice was tight, her frustration apparent and once again, the hint of unshed tears shimmered in her gaze.
He wrapped his arm around her neck and hauled her tight to his chest. Embracing her, he kissed her forehead and said, “I’m a Marine because I want to be. I could have gotten some other kind of scholarship, but I wanted to do this. I needed to do this. I know that’s hard to understand for some – ”
“No, it isn’t. I guess I get it, but I’m not sure I like it, Jase,” she admitted.
“We’re more alike than you think, Nickie. You wanted to make a difference so you decided to go to medical school. I needed to make a difference also and this is how I can do it.”
She glanced at him, a watery smile on her face. “Yeah, I know you can, Jase. I know you’ll keep your men safe, but I want you to keep yourself safe as well.”
He bent his head and kissed her, his touch tender and full of promise. She tasted of the wine and of Nickie. It was a taste he’d keep with him during all those times they’d be apart.
Slowly the kiss deepened, until they were both straining toward one another, needing to take it to the next level.
Easing her away, he said, “This loveseat really wasn’t made for what I had in mind.”
His roguish words had the desired effect. She grinned and rose. Held out her hand and he laced his fingers with hers and walked back to the bed with her.
Gracefully she eased off her robe and let it drop to the floor, exposing the long elegant line of her back. She climbed into the center of the bed where she waited for him. Her skin was a creamy color against the stark white of the sheets, her hair a dark spill across the disarray of the pillows. The tips of her breasts were tight again and a darker rose color against the delightful flush spreading across her body.
God, but she was so beautiful and for tonight, and hopefully longer, she was his.
He shucked off his jeans, kicked them away, and hurried to her side. In seconds they were a tangle of arms and legs and urgent kisses. It took all of his restraint not to drive himself deep inside her, but he wanted her with him when he came. And he didn’t want to rush since this might possibly be the only night they’d have together for some time.
Urging her onto her side, he spooned against her back while he reached around her body. He played her with his hands, caressing and tweaking her breasts while he fondled her clit. He dragged his fingers back and forth across the dampness and the responsive bud at her core.
She was wet down there, so so wet that he almost came just from the thought of all that warm moist surrounding him. Especially as the rising rush of her release registered against his hand. Her pussy vibrated and clenched around his fingers, slick and inviting.
He groaned and fought back his own desire as his cock jumped and swelled against the small of her back.
“Easy, Nickie, easy, babe,” he said softly and gave one last stroke with his hand along her hot moist center.
She moaned and pushed back against him, inviting him to join with her again. “Please, Jase. I want you inside me.”
Easing one thigh between hers, he guided himself to her pussy and slowly pressed in, gritting his teeth at the sheer pleasure of being joined with her. She was hot. Sleek. Her pussy accepted him as he buried himself to the hilt and held still, enjoying the way she caressed him.
His body was flush against the velvety skin of her back. Their legs tangled together as he ground into her, deepening his possession.
Her urgent cry was hard to resist, as was the way she gripped his thigh, but he held back from pulling out and driving back into her.
Leaning over her, he dropped a kiss against the side of face and whispered, “Tell me what you feel, Nickie.”
*
Words, emotions, and sensations pummeled Nickie’s mind, making speech impossible.
“Tell me, Nickie,” he pressed again, in command again as he had been earlier.
“Full, so full,” she said and tried to move her hips, but he splayed his hand against her belly and stopped her.
“What else, babe?” he said, but as steady as he was trying to be, his body trembled beside hers and inside, his cock jerked and swelled even more, stretching her to the point of pleasure-pain.
“You know what else, Jase,” she said and moaned as he finally moved inside her, shifting out and then back in slowly. The friction of that motion creating heat throughout her pussy, which throbbed and tightened around him.
“Do you want me to tell you what I feel, Nickie? Is that what you want?” he asked and circled his hips, heightening his possession. Drawing a rough shudder from her as her climax threatened to take them both over.
God, yes, she wanted him to tell her because she couldn’t say the words. Couldn’t free herself to be that kind of woman.
“Don’t, Nickie. Don’t pull back,” he urged.
She held onto his words, braved past her fears, and murmured, “Tell me, Jase. Tell me what you feel.”
He sucked in a breath and the words exploded from his mouth. “I love how hot you are. How wet. The way your pussy holds me tight. My balls are hard for you, Nickie. So so hard. Feel them. Touch them.”
She reached down between their bodies and cupped him. His balls were tight and she massaged them, earning a long groan from him.
“That’s it, Nickie. God, that’s it, babe,” he said before he bent and kissed her. Nipped and licked at her lips as he finally moved, driving in and out of her. Repeating the motion at her sharp gasp of pleasure.
“Jase, that feels so good,” she keened and he increased his pace, pistoning his hips as he drove them ever higher until with one deep thrust, they came together, bodies shaking. Sweat bathing them as he wrapped his arms around her and kept her tight to him.
“God, Nickie. Don’t move. I want to be with you forever,” he said and his body shuddered around her.
She laid her arms over his and snuggled back into him, the fullness of him within her satisfying even as the lingering vibrations from her climax faded away. But little by little he softened and finally, regretfully, he left her and she turned and faced him.
He grinned, her beautiful man. She ran her hand across the sandpapery roughness of his cheek and along the short crisp hairs along the sides of his head. “You are so … amazing, Jase. So special …”
And you deserve a woman who can be as amazing and special as you are, she thought and looked down to avoid his perceptive gaze. But he wasn’t going to let her escape that easily.
Jase cradled her jaw and applied gentle pressure to urge her head back up. “What’s wrong, Nickie? Why are you so upset? This was like nothing I’ve ever felt before with anyone.”
“But this isn’t the real me. I can’t be the kind of woman you want. That you need. I’m not brave. I’m not bold. I’m just … me,” she said, tears thick in her voice. Her throat was so tight with emotion, it was almost suffocating her.
The ghost of a smile played about his lips and he tunneled his fingers through her hair. “‘Me’ is all I want, Nickie. You don’t need to be anything but yourself with me.”
“Why do I find that hard to believe, Jase? If this night has been about anything – ”
“It’s been about admitting who you are, nothing m
ore. It’s about not having any regrets, because I know I would have regretted never getting to spend this time with you,” he said, cradled her sides and drew her even closer.
She buried her face against his chest, unable to face him, but more importantly, not sure how to face herself. She didn’t want regrets either, but everything seemed to be moving too quickly. More quickly than she could handle at the moment.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her gently, his touch calming and filled with tenderness. He brushed a kiss across the top of her head and whispered, “I won’t push anymore, Nickie, because I don’t want to push you away with my demands.”
He had been demanding and in command, but only because she had allowed him to take the lead. It brought back a quote she’d once heard about no one being able to make you feel inferior unless you let them. She’d let him be in charge, but at the same time, she’d never felt like less than an equal in everything that had been going on. And she’d known that at any time she could stop and he wouldn’t press.
Much like he wasn’t pressing now, but only offering comfort and support.
He relaxed beside her, the tension exiting his big body and minutes later, a soft snore escaped him. She smiled at that because it somehow humanized him even more, this gorgeous perfect man she had wanted for so long. Who she had loved for way too long.
So what am I going to do about it? About him? she wondered as she lay there, surrounded by the peace of his embrace. Tomorrow he’d be going home with his parents and after, heading to Afghanistan. It would be months before he was home again.
She wouldn’t think about the possibility of his not coming home alive.
Jase wasn’t only a doer, he was a thinker. A leader. He never acted without a plan or took unnecessary risks.
But it occurred to her that he had taken a risk on her tonight. He had put his heart on the line, only she hadn’t been able to reciprocate fully. She hadn’t been able to risk her heart the way he had.
Which left her with the kind of choice she normally avoided: take a chance or walk away filled with doubt and wondering “What if…?”
As she peered toward her nightstand, her alarm clock warned her that she had to make a decision soon. The night was rushing away from them, far faster than she ever could have imagined.
It was time for her to take a chance…
Just One Night: Chapter Six
Something tickled the side of his face and Jase scrunched his neck up to chase it away. Her sexy giggle teased him awake.
“Come on, sleepyhead. We don’t have much time left,” Nickie said with tempting huskiness.
It took him a moment to make sense of where he was and what was happening, beginning with her giggle and sexiness, both distinctively out-of-character.
He barely lifted one lid and risked a glance at the alarm clock. 4 a.m.
Not even the Marines made him get up that early.
“Come on, Jase,” she urged again. Her warm hands palmed his pectorals and she whispered a kiss across his cheek. Nuzzled the side of his face with her nose and giggled again before the mattress shifted with her movement.
He opened his eyes and found her sitting on the edge of the bed. She had on a flowery beach cover-up and her bathing suit, and a large blanket sat in her lap. Even with all the clothes covering her body, lots and lots of skin was visible and with it being morning and all, his body reacted, tenting the sheets covering him. Drawing her gaze to his dick, so he rolled onto his side, knowing from their last lovemaking that she was a little uneasy with all that was happening between them.
“It’s a little early for the beach, isn’t it?” he asked, propped his head on one hand and finger-combed the longer top strands into place with the other.
“It’s not too early for what I had in mind,” she said and stroked a hand across his chest and down, taking the sheet with her as she moved south and wrapped a hand around his cock.
He gently grasped her wrist and stopped her. “What are you doing, Nickie?”
“No regrets, you said. So I’m doing what I’ve wanted to for a very long time.”
He arched a brow and examined her now serious features. “Which is?”
“Seducing you. Well at least that’s what I’d do if you’d get your too cute ass out of bed and come with me,” she said with a roll of her eyes and a sharp, almost annoyed breath.
This was finally his Nickie, the one full of humor and spirit.
“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he said, sat up and ripped away the sheet, exposing his fully alert cock to her attention.
Her gaze drifted downward and she licked her lips, but a second later, she tossed his briefs into his lap. “You’ll have to hide that thing for just a little longer.”
“Whatever you say, Nickie. You’re in command now,” he said, saluted her and a delighted smile erupted across her lips. The gold flecks in her hazel eyes glittered brightly.
“Yes, yes I am, Jase. I’m in control now and I kind of like it.”
He grinned and hauled her close for a brief hard kiss. “I do, too,” he said.
*
With the way he was looking at her and the sight of him aroused, Nickie almost reconsidered acting out her fantasy, but she’d made herself a promise in the dark of night as she lay there beside him.
When morning came, she’d finally take matters, and Jase, into her own hands without any doubt or hesitation keeping her from showing him just how much she wanted him. Just how much she cared for him.
Grabbing hold of his hand, she led him to the door of her room, but he hesitated at the entrance. “What if someone sees us?”
“It’s 4 a.m. and what if they do?” she teased, finally feeling free now that she’d made her decision about him.
“Does your father still have that shotgun?” he kidded even as they snuck down the hall and quietly crept toward the stairs.
“Yes, he does, but I’m still not risking my life on that wisteria trellis,” she tossed back over her shoulder, continuing to drag him along, down the stairs, and through the great room.
They hurried out the back door and past the terrace and lawn. Almost ran the length of the boardwalk and through the dunes until they were on the moonlit beach. A thankfully empty beach at that early hour.
Together they spread out the blanket she had brought by a large marsh grass-covered dune. The dune was high enough to hide their presence from anyone up at the house and possibly even from any people idly walking down the beach since they were tucked behind part of it.
She didn’t waste a moment to pull him near and playfully tug off his briefs, although they snagged on his deliciously erect cock for a moment. Once he was naked, she shrugged off her cover-up, placed her hands on his shoulders, and urged him down to the blanket where she kneeled beside him.
He tucked his hands beneath his head, making his broad chest look even bigger and more powerful. The muscles in his arms were bunched from the action and she tentatively ran her hands across his arms, exploring the hard biceps. Shifting to his shoulders, and then to his sculpted chest muscles.
She cupped him and stroked her thumbs across the tight nub of his masculine nipples, earning a soft sigh from him.
“I like that, Nickie,” he said and his gaze dipped down to watch her.
She licked her lips, knowing what she had fantasized about doing next, but wanting to please him. “What else do you like, Jase?”
He looked up at her and his gaze drifted over her lips, as powerful as one of his kisses. Her stomach did a flip flop and heat flared through her.
“You kissing me. I like that a lot,” he said.
She bent and opened her mouth against his while she continued caressing his nipples. Tweaking and rubbing those hard nubs and loving his masculine grunt of pleasure.
His mouth was mobile beneath hers and she slipped her tongue past the seam of his lips and danced her tongue with his. Eased away and tempted him with a quick nip of his lower lip before accepting the slide
of his tongue into her.
As she imagined him sliding his cock into her, she moaned and broke away for a shaky breath. She leaned over him until the tips of her breasts rubbed across his chest and her nipples tightened beneath the fabric of her bathing suit.
“Put your hands on me, Nickie,” he whispered against her lips and she trailed her hand down his center to encircle his dick. She stroked him, alternately long sweeps up and down his length with a teasing circle around his sensitive head until they were both breathing heavily and his cock was even bigger and harder in her hand.
“What else, Jase? Tell me what else you want,” she said, taking control as he had done earlier.
“You’ve got too many clothes on, babe,” he said and finally moved his hands to behind her neck where with a quick pull, he undid the strings at her neck and back. Her top dropped off and onto his abs, a bright confection of pink, orange, and green against his tanned skin.
He skimmed it off his midsection on the way to her breasts. He cupped them and strummed his fingers against her nipples. Pulled them into hard little points that he tweaked, sending sharp little tugs of need straight to her center. But she wasn’t going to rush this.
She wanted to live her fantasy, if only for this one night. She’d deal with the heartbreak later.
She undid the strings on her bottom and let it slide off as she straddled his thighs and sat up, staring down at him. Her hand on his cock, she stroked him while he caressed her breasts.
“You know what I want, Jase?” she asked and glanced at his erection. He had a beautiful cock, long and smooth. Thick enough to fit perfectly between her hands as she ran them up and down his shaft, giving him pleasure.
“Why don’t you show me what you want,” he said and lifted his hips, pushing against her hands.
She didn’t refuse, bending and shimmying back along his legs so she could lick all around the sensitive head of his cock and to his F spot underneath. He groaned and jerked his hips upward, but she took her time with him, exploring every inch. Licking and sucking at him while she continued to caress his shaft with one hand and dropped the other to his tight perfect balls.
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