“And am I someone who counts?”
He brushed back the hair that was falling to her eyes before he could stop himself. His fingertips lightly grazed her skin. “You know you are.”
The breath she’d taken felt as if it had jagged edges that were rubbing against her throat, leaving wounds. “Right now I know very little. And the little I know seems to have gotten shaken up.”
He felt the desire to comfort her, to erase the vulnerable look he saw in her eyes. He knew he should suppress it, but somehow, he didn’t get around to it.
Collin lifted her chin, guilt at being the source of her pain filleting him. “Then I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, you should have.” Even as a child, she hated not knowing things. The mystery that always seemed to surround her mother drove her crazy. Every time she asked where her mother was off to, there’d be just the slightest bit of hesitation before Margaret Gatling would answer. Now she knew why. Because her mother was lying. And didn’t want to. Not to her. But there’d been no choice. “It’s better if I know.”
Not from where he was standing, Collin thought. She looked like a woman whose soul had been stolen. “Better how?”
There was no way she could explain. She tried to smile. “Just better.”
He wasn’t sure if he believed her, but there was no point in debating it. It was best to let this die. “Then I’m glad I told you.”
She knew how difficult it must have been to get the information. She only hoped he hadn’t accidentally raised any red flags with his inquiry. She didn’t want to be the reason for anything bad happening to him. “And risked court-martial?”
His mouth curved. “Only if you turn me in. And you wouldn’t do that.”
Not even if she was tortured. But he didn’t know that about her, about how steadfast she was, how loyal she could be, Lucy thought.
She hadn’t thought about that in a long time, her loyalty. The last person she’d offered it to, albeit silently, had rejected it and married someone else.
“How do you know?” she pressed, wanting to know if he was just talking, or if there was something within her that spoke to him.
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes saying things to her his mouth couldn’t. Her breath caught in her throat.
“I just know,” he told her softly.
The pull between them grew stronger, more demanding. “Instincts?” Lucy asked, the word shimmering between them as she rose up on her toes, winding her arms around his neck.
“Something like that,” Collin allowed, hardly aware that he was speaking at all. He was aware only of the warm body that was against his.
He closed his arms around her and pulled Lucy to him as he brought his mouth down on hers. He kissed her the way he’d been longing to ever since the last time. Ever since he’d met her.
Maybe even ever since the beginning of time.
He likened the sensation to the first thing that came to mind. For him, it was like being in the center of a mine field, with every single mine going off at the same time. It was terrifying and yet somehow almost exhilarating at the same time. Because he was still alive to bear witness to what was happening.
It was the way he’d lived a good deal of his life away from the States.
But this time the exhilaration, the rush, had a sweetness to it, an intoxicating aura that had him embracing everything that he knew, in his heart, was dangerous to his peace of mind.
To his very state of being.
What he was feeling now, what he was doing now, with someone like her, had no place in the life he led. Oh, the physical part could. He’d had his encounters with the opposite sex, although not with nearly the frequency of some of the other men he knew. He had no driving need to vent his manhood, to celebrate a win, a night, a beer, by finding a willing woman and mixing body fluids only to wake up the next morning and not remember anything, least of all a face. Things usually needed to have more meaning for him than that. The times he had had sex with a woman, it was because a chemistry had drawn him to it.
But even those encounters never lasted more than the night.
He’d resisted taking this woman in his arms because he’d sensed that there was more than just chemistry at work. More than just her reminding him, physically, of Paula. Lucy Gatling appealed to his mind, to his senses. And that was very dangerous. Because he didn’t want her to. Didn’t want to find himself needing her at some future date. If you needed, you were vulnerable. And that was the first step to destruction in his line of work.
He needed to operate on a level as close to a machine as possible.
But all that was logic and he wasn’t feeling very logical tonight. There’d been something in her eyes, as he’d told her about her mother, that had somehow burrowed through all the barriers he’d erected, all the logic, all the locks that were in place. Burrowed through them with a diamond-tipped drill and left him at the center, naked and wanting.
Wanting her.
Framing her face in his hands, he tilted her head up toward him. His mouth slanted over hers again and again, as his body heated to a temperature hot enough to melt iron.
But he’d been a soldier for too long, instilled with discipline too long, to merely take what he felt—no, what he knew—was being offered to him. Even with this phase, he proceeded with the caution that had governed most of his adult life. Testing waters before diving straight into the swirling currents.
Collin dragged the palms of his hands up along her sides, grazing her breasts like the spring breeze along rose petals. Her moan echoed against his lips. Inflamed, he moved his hands in closer, cupping her breasts. He couldn’t recall ever feeling anything so soft, even through the fabric barriers.
He could feel the heat charging from Lucy’s body into his own. Could feel her twist against him with an urgency that was unexpected and that generated the same urgency within him.
His answers were given.
With steady hands that belied the degree of turmoil within him, he undid the buttons on her blouse, parting the material. His probing fingers felt her skin. The wired, push-up bra she wore presented her breasts to him like a silken offering.
Excitement roared through him at the speed of sound.
When he moved his palms over her flesh, her moan almost undid him, the soft sound hitting him in the center of his very core.
It unsettled him, the degree with which he wanted her. He wasn’t familiar with it, with this need that sent flame throwers through him.
He tasted her desire. Tasted her surrender. And his mind spun around madly, not from the power, but from the sheer excitement he felt.
Lucy had always thought, given her strength of character, given the independence she’d carved out for herself early on and the principles she’d held so dear, that she would be able to resist anything. Especially this. That she’d be able to walk away from sex with no more than a backward glance. Damn, but she had no idea she could be so very wrong about herself.
After all, sex had been Jeff’s undoing and it had ended her own dreams of being with him. There were consequences for coming this far, for allowing things to happen. But try as she might, as her mind swirled like a wild kaleidoscope, shooting out beams of color everywhere, she couldn’t think of a one of them.
All she knew at this very moment in time was that this sensation was something she’d only imagined before. Imagined and done a poor job of it at that. Because the reality of it was so much more.
Every part of her was vibrating wildly. Wanting more. Wanting him. It was as if suddenly, after twenty-six years, her body had declared its own independence, unshackled itself from the principles she’d held dear. Announcing, by the very act, that it had wants and needs and was going to find a way to satisfy them.
It was as if all of her had gone on automatic pilot, proceeding into uncharted waters by instincts she never knew she possessed.
She shivered, not with cold but with anticipation, as each article of clothing left her body. And as
Collin undressed her, she did the same to him. Except that her hands, damn them, were far less steady than his. He was the professional and she was the vestal virgin.
It was such an accurate description, it almost made her laugh out loud.
She tried to absorb everything, every nuance, every movement, and press it between the pages of her mind. Collin was proceeding as if this was all commonplace to him—and why shouldn’t it be? He was a worldly soldier and she, no matter what she told herself, was still the sheltered virgin.
Virginity had been her badge of courage, her shield. She didn’t want it anymore. She didn’t want to be a virgin if it meant not being with him tonight. Consciously or unconsciously, Lt. Collin Jamison was the one to whom she’d chosen to give her virginity.
The magnitude of the offering intruded into her thoughts even as her body temperature continued to rise. She couldn’t wait to give him her gift. And she only prayed that he would accept it in the spirit it was given and not be disappointed because she was so woefully inexperienced. What she lacked in knowledge she hoped she made up for with spirit.
Collin was determined to give her pleasure. Everything he did, he received back tenfold. With each sigh, each moan, every twist of her body against his, his own excitement rose, increasing to almost unbearable heights. In one swift movement he picked her up and carried her to her bed, where he lay her against the silky comforter. He quickly joined her there. He had no idea how he continued to hold himself in check when he wanted only to bury himself within her.
With restraint that had been drummed into him, Collin explored her body with his fingers, with his mouth, memorizing and being mesmerized at the very same time. He savored the slightly different taste of her as his tongue made her belly quiver, the sensitive area at the inside of her elbow dance, and her breath grow increasingly shorter when he kissed the hollow of her throat.
Each moment made the anticipation grow. And when he couldn’t hold back any longer, when he felt it wasn’t humanly possible to wait another second to have her, Collin pulled himself up over her. Watching her eyes, he parted her legs with his knee and drove himself into her with a force that was beyond his power to temper.
The cry against his mouth was not just one filled with pleasure. There was a whimper of pain woven into it. The latter registered at the very same moment that he realized he’d encountered resistance at the most basic level. Not because she was small, or because of any last-minute hesitation on her part, but because he’d come across a physical barrier and had gone through it before he was fully aware that it was there.
He would have pulled back to look at her quizzically, to ask what was hovering on his mind, but even now the whimper had faded and a rhythm had been struck. A rhythm that came from her as her hips began to move. It overtook him until it became all one and the same. They were joined, one, and no matter what had come before, it was too late to stop, to pull away. Collin could only tangle his fate with hers and race for the summit where the climax came, rocking him, cleaving him to her, shuddering its way through his body and holding it tightly in its grasp.
Collin held her in his arms the way he’d never held anyone before. As if letting go would send them both falling over the side of an abyss, never to surface.
But eventually the euphoria lifted, the excitement receded into the shadows, and he was left with nothing but reality.
It was so stark, it jarred his teeth. He turned his head to look at her as she lay nestled against him. He felt like an invader, a thief, taking what had never belonged to him.
“You’re a virgin.”
Here it came, she thought. It wasn’t as if she’d hoped to fool him. Nor was it something she was ashamed of. It was a state she’d elected to remain in. Until now.
“Yes,” she said quietly, hugging her bravado to her, “I know.”
Anger for not somehow knowing, for not somehow divining that fact, smoldered within his breast. “But— Damn it, you’re a virgin.”
He was up, on his elbow, looming over her. She felt at a disadvantage. All she had was her sheer nerve.
“We’ve already established that,” she reminded him with a blasé attitude she could only summon from memory. “You say it as if it’s a sin.”
She watched as his expression hardened. Was he angry at her for not telling him ahead of time? As if she could have done that. “No, but it’s a sin to take that from you.”
She knew all the arguments to back up his words, had given the arguments to herself with ease whenever she’d been remotely tempted. And it had always been enough for her. Not this time. Because this time she’d wanted him with an unnerving fierceness.
“Why?” she asked.
He blew out a breath, feeling cornered, feeling as if he’d done something wrong. “Because a woman’s first time is supposed to be with someone who matters.”
“It was,” she told him quietly. “You do.”
Damn it, he didn’t want her thinking those kinds of things about him. Despite their backgrounds, they came from two different worlds.
“Lucy—”
It wasn’t panic she saw in his eyes; she was sure he had spent years training not to give that emotion away. But she thought she knew the male mind, knew the way it thought. And he probably thought that she was thinking hearts and flowers and wedding dates.
“Don’t worry about it, Military Man,” she told him tersely. “I’m a product of two pragmatic people, one of whom turned out to be Mata Hari.” That was going to take a lot of getting used to. “I’m not about to go running to my father and beg for a shotgun wedding just because we made love.”
Love, she thought, not sex. Love. It helped, somehow, to call it that even though she knew he didn’t think of it in those terms.
He studied her face, trying his best to disentangle himself from the guilt that ensnared him. “You should have told me.”
And just how was she supposed to have worked that into the conversation? “I didn’t think of putting it into my letterhead. Sorry.”
Collin caressed her cheek. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Something tightened within her, braced for a verbal blow to her pride. “Why, because it wasn’t exciting enough for you?”
He could only stare at her, dumfounded. “Where the hell did you get that idea?”
Because it was only logical. But she made no more guesses. “Then why are you sorry?”
“Because, if I’d known, I would have gone slower.” There was no point in saying that he wouldn’t have touched her. That would have meant he was a saint, of the plaster variety, and they both knew that wasn’t true. “I would’ve made it better for you.”
She couldn’t see how. Her world was still spinning minutes after the act. “Now, granted, I have no experience in this area to fall back on, but I don’t really think that’s possible.”
He smiled at her. She was so naive, so sweet in her innocence. He felt a tugging on the heart he could have sworn he’d left in his other suit of clothes. “It’s possible.”
Slowly the smile budded on her lips, infiltrating her eyes. She nestled in against him. “All right, then, show me.”
Warmth had already begun to spread from the point of contact, emanating out to his extremities. Heating up everything in between with antsy anticipation.
“Lucy—”
“See?” she announced with a hint of triumph, “I knew it wasn’t possible.”
He laughed, gathering her back into his arms, pulling her against him like a tight package. He was wanting her all over again.
That, he realized, had never happened before. When he’d made love, it was once and done, the chemistry was gone, like elements drained out of a test tube. But now someone was mysteriously, magically, refilling the test tube and all systems were go again.
“Oh,” Collin assured her, “it’s possible, all right.”
Lucy wiggled against him provocatively, trying out feminine wiles she had never tested before. It was a heady experie
nce.
“Put your money where your mouth is, Military Man.”
Collin turned toward the living room where his pants had been tossed, and with them, his wallet, and asked in a deadpan voice, “You want money?”
She framed his face with her hands, bringing it back so that she could look up at him. “You know, for a quiet man, you talk an awful lot.”
The next moment she was bringing his mouth down on hers.
And all conversation stopped.
Thirteen
Lucy knew that she’d never felt like this before. As if she jumped up, she could just about graze the sky with her outstretched fingertips. She felt as if there were no limitations and everything, everything, was a possibility.
And it was all because of Collin.
The next time she’d faced him, after their initial night of lovemaking, she’d been nervous. Afraid that Collin would act indifferent toward her, as if all that passion, that wondrous lovemaking she’d experienced for the very first time, had never happened. Afraid that it meant nothing to him.
But there was a warmth to Collin that there hadn’t been before. And when he looked at her, when their hands accidentally touched in passing as they both reached for the papers she’d dropped, there was an intimacy there.
They made love again the next day.
And the day after that and the day after that.
Though she still worked hard at the medical examiner’s office, Lucy found herself counting the hours, the minutes, the seconds until she could see him again. She was still trying to help him, still trying to put all the pieces together so that he could locate Jason. But that wasn’t her main focus.
Heaven help her, her attention was largely on making love with him. The when and the how.
It made her feel as if she had a precious secret that only she and he were privy to. Making love with him made her feel as if she were glowing inside. So much so that she’d even checked herself over in a mirror once or twice, to see if there was some kind of aura shining around her to give her secret away. Each time she looked and saw nothing but her beaming smile, she wondered how that much radiance could be locked away inside.
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