Loving the Wounded Warrior

by Adriana Anders

  “You getting bars here?” I asked, more for something to say than because I really cared.

  “One. You need to use it?”

  “Nope. Got my own phone.” Hadn’t charged it in ages, but she didn’t need to know that.

  She glanced at me and then back down, concentration tightening her features. “I’m calling in sick. Or texting in sick, I guess.”

  “That gonna be okay?”

  She twisted up her face. “Whatever. Someone else can do the pancakes this year.”

  “Pancakes?” My taste buds pricked up at the idea.

  “You have any idea how hard it is to find something new and interesting to report on the exact same event every year? The Kiwanis Club holds a pancake breakfast the weekend before Thanksgiving. This would be my third time covering it for the local paper, but they’ve been doing it for twenty-six straight years. God bless ’em.”

  I blinked. Thanksgiving. Shit. I'd had no idea what the date was. I’d have to call home.

  “Someone else can do the pancakes and crappy sausage this year. It’s titillating, as you can imagine.”

  “Sounds it.”

  She tapped furiously at her phone before turning to me. As close as our bodies had been outside, at least we’d each had air. In here, we shared even that.

  “So, thank you.”

  I blinked. “For?”

  “Providing me with an excuse to play hooky.”

  “Right. Sure.”

  The tent smelled different. After less than five minutes, she’d made her feminine presence known. Something flowery—I'd caught the scent of that in her hair when we’d had that…hug. Jesus, I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I thought about how it’d felt to put my arm around her.

  I took off my coat and crawled into my bag.

  As if I’ll be sleeping anyway.

  “A lot has changed since high school.”

  I opened eyes I hadn’t realized I'd shut to watch her, the tent television-blue in the light from her phone.

  “But not everything. You probably don’t remember this about me, since it’s not like we were…friends or anything, but…I’m pretty direct.”

  That made me smile. “Oh, I remember. Like a bulldog.”

  “That’s flattering.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I like a little snark.” She scooted closer and lowered her voice. “What do you want to do here? We’re strangers, basically. But I…I guess I mean that we don’t have to do anything. I mean, I could just keep you company, while you sleep.”

  She was backing off now that she’d gotten me in the tent.

  “I stink?” I put as much humor as I could into my voice. “That it?”

  No way could I hold that direct gaze, even with its opalescent light filter. I rolled onto my back and pressed my fingers to my eyes, pushed my eyeballs harder than I should. Waited for the prick to subside.

  She shifted closer, but still I couldn’t look. It took me a second to realize she’d leaned in to sniff at me.

  “You still smell good.” I instantly hardened at those words and just stopped myself from reaching down to press on my cock.

  “You’re killing me, O’Neal.”

  “We don’t have to do anything, is what I’m trying to tell you. But we can. I’m a direct son of a bitch, I know.”

  That made me laugh; a weird, barked sound that almost hurt on the way out.

  “Or, you know, if you need me to…hold you or something, I could just keep you warm.”

  “Why?”

  “You said you were lonely.”

  My eyes popped open, and I turned to her. “You feel sorry for me?”

  “No, dumbass. I’m into you.”

  “This how you are with guys? Offering hugs and stuff?”

  “I usually demand a quick, hard fuck. But with you I figured I’d take it slow.”

  Everything in my body stood up at those words. Goosebumps in a sleeping bag when it was just barely freezing outside. And my cock, Christ, it was rock solid now. I couldn’t remember the last time I'd had a hard-on like this. And I’d had a lot of offers for fucks over the years.

  “Jesus, lady.” I managed to squeeze the words out through my throat, got my eyes to focus on her instead of the ceiling.

  “What?”

  “We just met!”

  “Kurt Anderson, I’ve known you since third grade.”

  She didn’t look like she was joking. And she didn’t have the vibe of someone negotiating the terms of a pity fuck. But I wasn’t entirely sure what I'd do if we did get naked, much less get busy. It had been so long since I’d gotten close to a woman. And as for fucking… I swallowed hard. What was I doing?

  Her mouth, though. My eyes snagged on that pouty lip—just inches away, right here in my tent. Unless this whole thing was a hallucination. And, Jesus, if it was, let it never, ever end.

  “How about a kiss?” My attention was so focused on her mouth, I forgot to take in her eyes when I let those words slide out. As if I said shit like that every day.

  Her eyes were wide by the time my gaze made its way up there—like she was taking it all in with as much as excitement as I was, and she didn’t want to miss a thing.

  “That’s what you want?” she asked. “A kiss?”

  “Yeah.” I was breathing hard already, like a teenager, which seemed pretty damned suited to the situation.

  “Come here, then, and kiss me.”

  4

  O’Neal

  * * *

  There was no such thing as shame when it came to sex and bodies and anything else animal in my life. It was likely because of the way my ex-hippie parents had walked around unabashedly naked, or told us all about the birds and the bees without once alluding to either birds or bees, focusing instead on the in-and-out of it, along with the potential repercussions.

  Sex was a bodily function. I did it, enjoyed it, and moved on to other things if my partner and I didn’t feel like doing it again.

  Which was why this mystical thing wasn’t comfortable at all. Though mystical wasn’t exactly right. Maybe deep. Emotional, at the very least, and that word usually made me want to scrunch up my face and say, “Ew.”

  However I defined it, when Kurt leaned over and put one exploratory cheek against mine, it touched more than my skin. It hit part of me I wasn’t ready to shed light on, tweaked a funny bone in my soul.

  “Stop,” I gasped out, before our mouths connected. To his credit, the man didn’t hesitate at all. He was out of my space before the letter p quit resonating.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I just…” I grimaced, waiting for the thrumming in my chest to subside.

  “We don’t have to do anything. You know that.” He made as if to slide out of his bag, the words rushed, his voice a little too loud. “You take the tent. I’ll go outside, give you some space.”

  It would have been easy to feed him some BS about a headache, but that wasn’t my way. “Wait.” I set a hand on his arm. “I’m not used to this.”

  “Kissing strangers in tents?” He huffed out an impatient sound. “Or not kissing them, I guess.”

  “No. No, that’s not it.”

  “So, you are used to kissing strangers in tents?” There was a smile in his voice.

  A nervous giggle escaped me and I sat up, my head almost brushing the ceiling of this tiny space. He was so big and this tent was too small, too tight, too…something. The smells, the sounds, so subtle, but more than any half-drunken, fully-clothed door bang. “Maybe it’s cause I knew you as a kid, but I…I don’t think so. I think it’s…” Jesus. I swallowed and worked hard to catch my breath. “I don’t feel sorry for you, okay? Just so that’s clear. But there’s this…sadness to you that’s got its claws in me. I want to fix it. God, I know that sounds fucked up. And it’s not like me at all. But I want to take it, maybe? Make it better. Smooth it out or swallow some of it?”

  He cleared his throat as if he’d say something, but nothing
came out and, since I was afraid to look at him, I plowed right through. “You’re not my type, Kurt. My usual M.O.’s more confident asshole than broken soldier, I guess.”

  “Broken Marine,” he corrected.

  “Marine. Right. I didn’t mean to insinuate that there’s anything wrong with— Oh, fuck it, come here.”

  The thin, slippery fabric of his top slid through my fingers, so I twisted at the base of his neck, and pulled hard, exposing a tuft of dark hair and two sharply angled collarbones. I'd been aiming for his mouth, but that fleeting view of what hid beneath his protective layers sent me further south. I dipped and kissed the coarse stubble over his Adam’s apple, breathing him in before I remembered how excessively personal that would be. Then up, over his rough, squared-off jaw to the mouth I'd tried my hardest to ignore.

  His lips were soft, despite their chapped, sunburnt surface and the cracks that made me want to coddle him—another sensation way too weird to process. For a frantic few seconds, I tried to eat him with my mouth, did my best to make this one of those semi-anonymous, urgent encounters I preferred.

  He wouldn’t let me, of course.

  A man who walked alone for a year wouldn’t rush any exploration. The only thing fast about him was his breathing, flatteringly quick and shaky. The rest though, the touches, the sounds, the way he used his nose and hands to learn me, was excruciating. And perfect.

  “Kiss me back,” I said against his mouth.

  He smiled. “I am.”

  Frustration welled up, although it tasted an awful lot like panic.

  “Do it faster.”

  He shifted. “No,” he whispered into my ear, sending goose bumps racing off in all directions. “I like it like this.”

  I tried to pull him closer, and when that didn’t work, I shimmied out of my bag and onto his lap. But there too, despite his body’s obvious excitement, he took his time. Calm, languorous, and way too sensual.

  “You’re killing me, Kurt.”

  He whispered or whistled something lightly between his teeth, held my arms tightly against my sides, and licked a path from my ear down my jaw to the ticklish spot on my neck, which had me squirming. Held immobile and writhing in the face of such devastating patience, I tried to lift a hand, thought about putting another stop to it, but he wouldn’t let me.

  I'd been with bossy guys before, men who wanted things a certain way or others who worked hard to overpower me. This was something else entirely. This man held me still so he could enjoy me. And goddamn, I felt his easy dominance, hot and heavy and undeniably sexy, right between my legs.

  I only noticed how much of a lead he had when he finally—finally—let his lips graze mine.

  Things sort of fell apart after that. It was all soft, way too soft, and real. Way too human when I was used to pure animal. There was some of that, though, in the way he explored me, the way his tongue took its time learning the curves of my mouth, the way he backed up when I tried to bite, and then gave it a while before giving me a bite of his own.

  His nip set off sparks along my nerves.

  He made a noise deep in his throat and shifted smooth as syrup until he lay over me, kept me still with his manacle arms, and just looked—which shouldn’t have felt like this in the dark. Everything in me thrummed, open and wanting. The sound of my own whimpering intensified when he knocked my leg aside—and God, he did it almost negligently, like an afterthought, or like he had all the time in the world—and ground himself against me.

  Why’d we leave all these layers on? I wanted to strip naked for him and stake myself out in the ground, a sacrifice to his infinite patience.

  “You always squirm like this?” His lips brushed mine with every deep sound, each breath its own caress.

  I shook my head when I found that I couldn’t speak.

  “Hot as hell.”

  I finally managed a couple words, although it wasn’t the You’ve gotta let me move I expected. “Don’t stop,” I said, my own voice unrecognizably breathy.

  If I hadn’t been totally out of my mind, I'd have realized he released me when he leaned his weight on one straight arm and dragged a hand down my side, under the fabric of my long-sleeved T-shirt and up to my bra. It was one of those flimsy bralettes and his fingers slipped right beneath the fabric, up, up and—

  “Fuuuuck.”

  He pinched my nipple. It felt way too hard, but might have just been a tweak, heightened by all this restraint, or whatever the hell it was. I writhed, my whimpers turned to moans, my hands clawed at his lean, wide shoulders, then his neck, finally settling to grip his hair.

  Caught unawares, I figured, he let out a shocked little gasp when I yanked him down, brought his mouth to mine, and kissed him with every ounce of emotion I'd never let anyone see.

  It was a loss of control I'd surely regret. But who could blame me when I wasn’t myself anymore?

  Who could blame me when I'd been opened up, spread out, and owned by Kurt Anderson halfway up Mount St. Jacob, and I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to get myself back?

  * * *

  Kurt

  The wilder O’Neal got, the calmer I felt above her. Calm and—

  Holy shit. I can breathe.

  Such a small thing, usually, that inhale/exhale motion. Except when every second of every single day was a battle for air—and not because I was running, but possibly because I couldn’t walk slow enough. This journey I'd set off on was only meant to last a week, maybe a couple. But a week turned into a month, then two and now, a year later, I’d been turned inside out with the pain of not breathing.

  Except now, with her writhing under me like a live wire, wild and scalding and completely out of control, oxygen flooded me like a drug.

  I kissed her again, just to see if I could prolong the peace, and she shuddered—actually shook. Her response slowed me, made me gather her together again and hold her immobile. She sucked in a harsh breath and stared at me, her eyes glazed and angry.

  Jesus, look at her. Adrenaline seeped through my veins, as viscous as if I had all the time in the world, as if my hot, aching cock could take any amount of this torture without ever blowing. Slowly, I let my gaze scrape over her, one scorching inch at a time, leaving a quivering mess of nerves in its wake.

  Chest clear, brain still, eye itch gone, I sat back between her legs, fascinated by the pebbled points of her breasts. Excruciatingly slowly, I pulled her shirt up to reveal the little lace bra thing she had on and, my heart finally starting to thump, I yanked that up, too. Oh, fuck, I needed to taste her.

  I bent, loving the way her hands grabbed my hair and tugged me closer. She smelled good here. A heady mix of sweat and flowers I devoured with my nose before succumbing to her demands and licking those pert little tips. Licking turned to sucking and, when her twisting body demanded it, I bit her.

  “Do it again,” she begged until the words ran together. “Do it again, doitagaindoitagain.”

  So I didn’t. Course not. How could I when controlling this woman made me whole again?

  I shifted off to kneel beside her, happy to wait, despite the want simmering inside. I was damned good at waiting. “Pull down your pants for me.” It was a demand, but also a question. I needed to know she wanted this.

  Her words changed to a series of Oh Gods as she struggled to open the zipper, fought with the button and wrenched her pants down to her ankles with a loud rustling.

  Finally still, she lay there, a pale ghost in the dim light of the phone. Because I could, I reached over, grasped her wrists and clasped them together at waist level.

  “What…” I paused to flick one of those perfect nipples to standing, loving how her bottom half twitched. “Am I…” My fingers grasped the nipple and twisted. She screamed. “Gonna do…” It took a second to transfer her wrists to my other hand, but I had all the time in the world. “With you, O’Neal?” The calloused skin of my free hand scratched its way down her belly to the patch of hair between her legs, where I paused. I had to swallow back
a wave of excitement. “Need me to stop, you just tell me, okay?”

  When she didn’t respond, I wrenched my gaze from her perfect midsection—not a scar marred it—up to her face. “Got it?”

  Her whispered, “Yeah,” turned me back up to that happy slow boil.

  “All right. I just wanna…” My mouth was dry when I swallowed, the sound loud in this tiny space. “I wanna make you come.” I wanted a whole lot more than that, but this didn’t seem like the place to bring it up.

  She let out a long, low Oooooh and fought to open her legs. I liked the way she looked caught in a net, with her pants around her ankles and my fist around her wrists.

  From where I kneeled at her side, I ran my hand through her pubic hair, then lower to her lips. Goddamn, she was hot and wet and so fucking female. With two fingers, I spread her open, and slid a third inside.

  She’d stopped making noise at some point—probably when my thumb circled her clit. The only clue I had that she liked it were the quick, ragged breaths she fought to take. Christ, it had been so long. Could I come from just touching her? I shifted, my cock constrained by my pants, and went to work on her, filling her with one finger, then two, and all the while circling her, watching her sizzle and burn. Half in love with a woman whose pleasure rode so close to the surface, while mine was buried so deep I'd been sure I'd lost it forever.

  I tried to picture how it would feel to slide into her. Of course, I couldn’t. I had no idea how my cock would feel in that slick, tight place.

  It took no time at all for her to come, and when she did, holy shit, I'd never seen anything like it. I’d made women orgasm before, even if I hadn’t done other things. But I’d never seen anything this intense.

  So much feeling it almost hurt. I thought about moving away, but now that I could breathe, fuck, I didn’t want to. I wanted to soak it up. So, with her back arched almost painfully, her mouth open with a sort of keening, I had to scoot low on her body and put my mouth all over that pleasure.

  While her body convulsed around my two fingers, I covered her clit with my tongue, ate her up, consumed every luxurious drop of her.