“I might make it,” he said as his gaze strayed to where her silk robe parted to give him a lovely view of one of her breasts pushing against the fragile material of her nightgown. His body stirred and his palms itched, but though the spirit was willing, he had a feeling that he was just too tired to get the job done. Even if she’d go for it. Which he doubted.
Shame, really, he told himself tiredly. He had a feeling he and Kathy together would make the fireworks display on the Fourth of July look like a stink bomb. His eyes drifted closed on the thought, and though he fought to hold them open, this was one battle he couldn’t win.
Kathy smiled softly as she watched him. It was so hard to define her feelings about this man. Only a month ago she’d been avoiding him like the plague. Now here they were, alone together in the middle of the night, and she was watching him sleep with a fondness she wouldn’t have expected.
But it was more than that, she knew. She’d enjoyed waiting up for him. She’d enjoyed making him a meal and watching him devour it in grateful gulps. She’d liked listening to the sound of his voice in the stillness of her apartment.
Brian Haley was turning out to be so much more than she’d thought at first meeting. He wasn’t just a smooth-talking marine with a practiced flirting mechanism. He was also kind, thoughtful, gentle and patient with the baby who’d moved into his life and heart. And to top it all off, he was so damned sexy he’d become the starring attraction in her nightly dreams.
It was a mistake to care for him. She knew that. And yet, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. His smile, his voice, his touch had already wormed their way into her heart, and she didn’t know how to get them out again.
Sighing, she stood up and moved over to the couch. Lifting his legs onto the couch, she put a pillow behind his head and let her fingers smooth back his hair. He slept soundly, probably too exhausted to realize where he was. Picking up the afghan she’d crocheted herself, she flipped it open, then let it fall down atop him, covering him from chin to boots. As she stood there, wondering if she should try to pry those boots off his feet, she felt him take her hand.
Instantly that wild flash of heat jolted her system. Her breath caught, and she wondered if she would ever become used to the effect he had on her.
Kathy looked down at him, but his eyes were still closed. He tugged at her hand, pulling her down beside him. Leave now, she told herself sternly. Go to your room and close the door. But she did neither. Kathy sat uneasily on the edge of the couch, looking at their joined hands. His fingers, his palms were so big, so strong, and yet she’d seen the gentleness in his touch. Warmth from his body seeped into hers, and when his thumb scraped along the back of her hand her heart fluttered uneasily.
Still more asleep than awake, Brian tugged at her again, moving back against the cushions to make room for her.
Danger, her mind warned.
But her heart overruled her head for once, and Kathy stretched out alongside him. He murmured something in his sleep that she didn’t quite catch, then pulled her closer, into the circle of his arms.
Holding her breath, Kathy half expected him to make another move. To stroke her, to try to seduce her into the lovemaking they’d both wanted for so long. And a part of her acknowledged that if he did, she probably wouldn’t resist this time. But that expected move didn’t come, and in another moment or two Kathy accepted what he offered and relaxed against him.
Using his broad chest as a pillow, she listened to the steady sound of his heartbeat beneath her ear. His arms closed around her, and she felt his breath brush against the top of her head. It felt right, somehow, to be with him like this. A baby sleeping in the next room, a soft light shining from the corner and a world of stars just beyond the windowpane.
Somehow this sweet closeness was even more intimate than lovemaking, she thought. Lying there with him, she let go of her worries, her fears and, just this once, let herself be held.
Eight
Soft, pearly light filtered through the lacy curtains at the windows as dawn crept closer. Kathy shifted on the couch, closing her eyes tighter against the growing light. She didn’t seem to have much room, and in her half-awake condition, she tried to stretch out.
Her hand smacked Brian’s chin, and when he grunted, she rolled backward in surprise. Eyes wide open now, she stared at him as his strong arms came around her in time to keep her on the narrow couch cushions. How could she have forgotten where she’d fallen asleep the night before?
He looked just as surprised to see her, but then his eyes warmed up, and a slow, seductive smile curved his mouth. Sergeant Smile, indeed.
“’Morning,” he whispered while his hands stroked smoothly up and down her back.
She knew darn well she should put some distance between them, but at the same time, another voice deep inside her whispered, Too late now, Kath. You made your bed last night, now you have to lie in it. And all in all, she didn’t mind a bit. At least not now, when his hands seemed to be jump-starting her body into more life than she’d ever had, before that first glorious cup of coffee.
“’Morning,” she answered, moving into his caress like a cat trying to direct the strokes of the person petting it.
His right leg rested between her thighs, her breasts pressed against his chest, and she felt a decided tingling sensation in her nipples as he shifted slightly to allow himself a better hold on her.
Good. It felt too good, she told herself as she sighed when one of his hands slipped beneath her pale blue nightgown to caress her bare back. His fingers dusted across her flesh with the lightest of touches, sending small, firefly-size sparks shooting through her bloodstream.
“I’ve wanted to wake up like this for a long time now,” he said, and she heard the raw huskiness in his voice, appreciated it as it slid over her like a warm blanket.
“Brian…” she said, and was never sure later if she had been about to say “Don’t” or “Please do.” But it didn’t matter, because a moment later he pressed his mouth to hers and any chance of turning him away dissolved in the heat.
There was nothing gentle in his kiss. It was pure, unadulterated hunger. As if he’d been starved for weeks, he took her mouth as a hungry man might when offered a banquet. His tongue slid in and out of her warmth with a steady regularity that pulsed within her. She turned her head, slanting her mouth to meet his eagerness with her own.
One hand slid up her back to cup her head and she felt safe, secure in his strong grasp. Kathy clutched at his shoulders and matched his tongue’s movements, giving as well as taking, conquering as well as being invaded. He groaned, and she smiled inwardly at the flash of pure, female power that swept through her.
She let her hands slide down from his shoulders to his chest, and even through the fabric of his white T-shirt, she felt the sharply defined muscles she’d so admired in the past. But it wasn’t enough. She needed to feel his skin, scrape her short, straight nails along his flesh. She needed to explore every inch of him by touch as much as by sight.
While his mouth tormented her, she slipped her hands beneath his T-shirt, and at the first contact with his bare skin, she felt him shudder against her.
“Baby,” he muttered as he pulled his head back to look at her, “you do things to me with a simple touch that I would never have believed were possible.”
She inhaled sharply and let her fingers glide up, up his body until they found his flat nipples. Then she stroked them gently with the pads of her fingers, and his arms tightened around her until she thought her ribs might snap.
“That’s it,” he murmured and flipped them over, lying atop her on the too-narrow couch. He looked down at her and his gaze moved over her so slowly her body warmed in response. Then he lifted the hem of her nightgown and slowly, leisurely, drew it up, exposing her skin to his sight by inches.
Kathy squirmed beneath him, loving the hard, solid feel of his body pressed along hers. But when she reached up for him to pull his head down for another kiss, he whispered
, “Not yet.”
And as she watched, he lowered his head to her breasts. His tongue drew lazy circles around the rigid tips of her nipples. One at a time, he lavished attention on the dark rosy buds. She shivered at the sensation and bit her lip to keep from moaning aloud.
But when he took first one nipple, then the other into his mouth, she lost that battle and whimpered helplessly. Again and again, he nibbled at her flesh with tender, gentle strokes of his teeth and tongue. Kathy arched high off the couch and made a grab for his shoulders, hoping to find something stable in her suddenly whirling universe.
He suckled her then, and Kathy felt his attentions right down to her toes. Over and over again, his lips and tongue tugged at her flesh, warming her and heating her blood beyond the boiling point. Deep within her, a pulsing ache began to build and she rocked her hips in time with it.
He seemed to sense what she needed because as his mouth blissfully tortured her, he moved his right hand down, along her rib cage, across her abdomen to the fragile strip of elastic at the top of her panties. She ached, needing him to touch her, to ease the throbbing that had settled so firmly at her center.
As if knowing her every thought, he let his hand drop to cup her warmth. She groaned and tried to push her body into his touch. It was so much…and yet not nearly enough. She wanted him to touch her intimately. She wanted his fingers to slide over her damp heat and then dip within her. She wanted to feel him inside her body. And she wanted it now.
“Brian,” she whispered, lifting her hips helplessly as his thumb scraped across the silky fabric of her panties to tease an especially sensitive spot of skin, “I need…”
He gave one of her nipples one last, sweeping kiss and swirl of his tongue before lifting his head to meet her gaze. “I know just what you need, Kath. I need it, too.”
“Oh, thank heaven,” she said on a choked off laugh. “I thought I might be alone in this.”
“Not a chance, baby,” he said with that crooked smile that had first caught her attention more than six weeks ago. “We’re in this together. And we’re about to be much more together than we are right now.”
She stared into his eyes as he deftly smoothed her panties down and off. Kathy licked suddenly dry lips and waited, almost trembling, for what would come next.
She didn’t have long to wait.
Brian stood up, stripped off his clothes and in what seemed like seconds, was back with her again. Warm, she thought as he covered her with his muscled body. So warm, so strong. She felt every lovely inch of him, his work-toughened body pressed to her own much-softer one. She looked up into his eyes as he moved to kneel between her legs.
Suddenly he stilled, a tight, hard expression on his face.
“What is it?” she asked, hoping to high heaven he wasn’t having second thoughts. If he left her in this agitated state, she would have to kill him.
He stroked her updrawn legs, smoothing his palms against her skin, and she felt every callus, every work-worn scar, and shivered at the sensation.
“We can’t.”
It took a minute for his words to sink in, and when they did she swallowed hard and demanded. “Why not?”
That crooked smile of his appeared again as he said, “Because believe it or not, honey, I don’t walk around every day carrying condoms on the off chance I might get lucky.”
Condoms.
Stupid, that’s what she was. She hadn’t even considered protection.
“Don’t suppose you have any?” he asked hopefully.
She shook her head. “Hasn’t been a whole lot of call for them.”
Brian nodded abruptly. “Though a part of me is real glad to hear that, another part is what you might call…disappointed.”
Kathy’s whole body felt as taut as a bow string, and yet she had the desperate urge to giggle. Who else would this happen to, if not her? Then she thought of something. “If you’re only worried about pregnancy…”
“Only?” he echoed sardonically. “I’d like to remind you here that in the next room there’s a living reminder of what can happen when you don’t worry about pregnancy.”
“I’m on the pill,” she offered, and scooted closer to him. His hands continued to move on her legs, keeping that fire within blazing nicely. “To regulate my periods,” she added, as if that was any of his business.
“Hmm…” He was thinking, and she could see the same spark of hope she felt, mirrored on his features. “Are you willing to take my word for it that I’m healthy?”
Right now she was willing to take his word for it that night was day. But she asked, “You said you never break your word, right?”
“Right.”
“You give me your word everything’s okay?”
“I do,” he said solemnly, meeting her gaze with an intensity that torched her soul.
“Then I believe you, and for the record,” she added, “I’m healthy, too.”
“Thank heaven for the honor system,” he said with feeling.
“Amen,” she whispered.
Then, picking up where they had left off, he lowered one hand to her center and stroked the tender sensitive flesh between her thighs until Kathy thought she would lose what was left of her mind. She swiveled her hips against his hand and bumped into the back of the couch.
He chuckled hoarsely. “Wish we had more room,” he said with a shake of his head.
“We could move to the floor,” she offered, and hardly recognized her own voice.
“Next time,” he promised. “Right now, all I can think about is being inside you. Feeling you surround me. I’ve wanted you from the moment we met, Kathy.”
She knew that. Had known it all along. And now she could admit to something she wouldn’t have owned up to six weeks ago.
“I wanted you, too,” she said, staring up into those crystal-clear blue eyes. “From the minute you smiled at me the first time. I wanted this to happen.”
A muscle in his jaw shook as he gritted his teeth hard. “Wish you’d have said something sooner, baby.”
He dipped one finger into her depths.
“Oh, me, too,” she said, and opened herself to him.
Over and over again, his fingers manipulated her, pushing her higher and higher until the air was so thin, she couldn’t draw an easy breath. She knew he was watching her expressions as he tantalized her, and she didn’t care. Kathy wanted him to know what he was doing to her. She wanted him to feel what she felt, to need what she needed.
And when she thought she couldn’t get any higher, any closer to the edge that lay just beyond her reach, he withdrew his hand and joined his body to hers.
Brian entered her slowly, despite the rushing and roaring of his blood. Hunger fanned the flames of desire, and he was all but trembling with his need for her. And yet, he didn’t want to miss a moment of this joining. He wanted to savor it, relish it for the gift it was.
Parting her thighs farther, he inched his way into her warmth. His head fell back on his neck and he let himself enjoy the slow, soft heat of her welcoming him. She lifted her hips and moaned. He knew what she was feeling. He felt it, too. And it was a first for him.
Never before had sex been like this. She touched him in places he hadn’t known existed. Opening his eyes, he watched her liquid-chocolate eyes darken as he claimed her in the most elemental way. So tight, he thought. Tight and warm and so good. It felt as though he’d finally come home. And his home was within this one woman.
She winced as he joined their bodies fully, and though it cost him dearly, he paused long enough to ask, “Are you all right?”
Kathy nodded frantically, and cautiously rocked her hips against him. “Fine. Just…don’t…stop…”
“Not for anything, baby,” he said, and lowered himself over her, supporting his weight with one hand firmly set on the arm of the couch above her head.
Then the magic took him and he gave himself up to it. Her breath dusted his cheek. Her nails scraped along his back. Her heels dug into
the backs of his thighs as she arched into him over and over again. And he gave her all she wanted, needed, and then gave her more.
Again and again he retreated and advanced. His body moving to a new rhythm, he felt the familiar climb of anticipation. But this time there was more to it than simple release. This time he wanted her to know joy and wanted to see it register on her face. This time he wanted to give more than he took.
And when her first climax hit her, he felt the shuddering impact rock her body. He gritted his teeth against the wave of completion rising in him and held on to what was left of his control. He wanted to make this last, to draw out the magic, to take her to heights no man had ever taken her before.
When she sagged against the couch, depleted, a soft smile on her face, he leaned back, and she opened her eyes to look up at him.
“That was—” she paused for breath “—amazing.”
“There’s more,” he promised.
“There couldn’t be.”
Then he touched her already-sensitized flesh and won a shiver from her that started at the top of her head and ended at her toes.
“Brian…”
“More,” he said, calling up every ounce of self-control he’d ever possessed. His body ached, throbbed to join her in satisfaction, but he wouldn’t allow it yet.
His thumb stroked the small nub of flesh at her center, and he smiled inwardly when she jolted in his arms and half came up off the couch to grab for him.
“Oh, my…oh, my…”
“Take it, Kathy,” he whispered as he rubbed and stroked and caressed her into a fever pitch. Her hips rocked, her head twisted from side to side, and tremors snaked through her one after the other. “One more time, baby,” he urged quietly. “Ride the wave one more time.”
“It’s too much,” she managed to gasp as her eyes slid closed.
“It’s never too much,” he assured her. Her already-ravaged body was still poised near the brink. It didn’t take long before pleasure claimed her for the second time.
The Daddy Salute Page 8