“I wish he was here with us.” His voice wobbled a little.
“I wish he was here too, but he has to be there because he has to save people.” Pickett rubbed her cheek on Tyler’s salt-matted hair.
“Why?”
Pickett smiled tenderly at the whiny question. “’Cause he’s a hero, darling. He’s just doing what he has to do, ’cause that’s who he is.”
“Is he coming back?”
“Sure he is.”
“My mommy’s dead. She’s not coming back.”
She tightened her arms and rocked Tyler gently.
“I know, baby.” She tucked the towel closer around Tyler’s neck and rocked him some more. “I know.”
Three separate police officers asked her if all her party were accounted for, and someone pushed a cup of hot coffee into her hand.
And Pickett rocked Tyler, and they waited for Jax.
FORTY
Why the hell did you say you could swim?” Jax’s words, no less angry for being soft spoken, jerked Pickett from her near doze.
Jax had been tight-lipped and silent since getting behind the wheel, clearly thinking about the pier fire and their narrow escape. That was okay. Pickett had a lot to think about too. During the eternity spent on the burning pier, waiting for Jax to swim back to her after carrying Tyler to safety, she had not so much watched her life pass before her eyes as seen it totally rearrange itself.
Pickett sat up straighter. She blinked red eyes at his profile, lit by the glow of the dash. He had on his no-expression expression. She half-laughed at the unfairness of the attack. “I can swim.”
“The hell you can. You’re pathetic. You were about to drown yourself in front of my eyes. Shit. I could have been teaching you. I would have been teaching you if I’d had any idea a woman who has lived on the fucking sound for two fucking years could not fucking swim.”
“Language, Jax,” Pickett warned. “There are ears in the back seat.”
Jax flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror. “He’s asleep.”
“He’s worn out. So am I.” Pickett tightened her grip on her patience. “So are you. Can’t this wait?”
“Hell, no. You are going to listen to me, and listen to me good. You go through life like some kind of Mary Poppins, passing out advice and spreading good cheer. Well, when the shit hits the fan, training is what will save your ass.”
Pickett’s patience slipped another notch. “What are you so upset about? I jumped off the pier, just like you told me to. And I didn’t die,” she added flippantly.
“That’s another thing. What the hell did you think you were you doing letting yourself down over the rail? If you’d fallen from that position, you could have broken your back. And then you waited so long to jump, I thought you had frozen and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. You scared the hell out of me.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel, then slowly, consciously ungripped it, one finger at a time. “I don’t ever want to feel that kind of fear again.”
He took one hand off the wheel to tiredly massage his face, stopping to rub the corner of each eye, the way men do when they’re trying to erase tears before they can fall. Compassion melted Pickett’s impatience. He’d been so calm. So matter-of-fact and confident. And now emotional reaction had settled in.
“I’m going to tell you what you did wrong, and you’re going to listen,” Jax continued in the same soft growl.
Pickett turned her face toward the passenger window so Jax wouldn’t see the tender smile she couldn’t quite suppress. She’d tell him later. He was in full testosterone mode, and there wasn’t much for her to do but ride it out.
She inhaled deeply to keep the giggly bubbles tickling her insides from popping to the surface. His lecture freely mixed technical jargon with profanities she’d never heard before. She couldn’t understand most of it; nonetheless, she had to admire a man who could swear so creatively, and in an absolutely level tone.
They were turning onto her short sand and gravel driveway when he finally ran down. Hobo Joe, who was turning into a good watchdog, met them at the road and raced beside the SUV in his rocking, three-legged gait as they circled the house to the back door.
“Are you done with your rant?” Pickett let her dimple peep and added a flutter of eyelashes for good measure.
Jax gave her an acid look. “You’re not scared of me one bit, are you?”
“No, but if you’ve finished dressing me down, I have a question …” Pickett paused for effect. “What does,” she repeated a salty phrase he had used, “mean, exactly?”
“What?” Jax shut off the engine and slumped back in the seat. He scrubbed at his forehead with a fist. “Shit, Pickett. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used language like that. I really went off on you.”
“Hmm.” Pickett noticed he was only apologizing for the language, not the rant. One day soon, they’d need to have a talk about that, but there were other things to be discussed first. “Did you get it out of your system?”
He scrubbed at his forehead again. “Some.”
Jax turned out the lights, opened the car door, and moved to the back door to begin unbuckling Tyler, almost surprised to note how steady his hands were. On the inside he was still shaking.
All three dogs alerted at the smell of smoke and danger. Patterson whined, and Hobo went to the back of the vehicle to stand sentry. Lucy put her forelegs on the running board, straining to press her nose to every inch of Tyler. Tyler whimpered but didn’t waken.
“Get down, Lucy,” Jax scooped up his son’s lax little body, gently settling the heavy head on his shoulder. Precious cargo. “He’s okay, Lucy. Everything is going to be okay.”
But God! His heart started to pound like a pile driver every time he thought of it.
He’d almost lost everything.
Not bothering to turn on a light in the kitchen, Pickett poured a glass of water from the filter pitcher, and drained it in almost one swallow. Immediately, she filled the glass again, but this time savored the coolness washing across her smoke-scorched throat. Her damp clothes, her hair, her skin reeked of wood smoke and burning chemicals.
She ran cool water at the kitchen sink and washed her hands, then splashed some water on her face only to be rewarded by painful stinging when smoke, trapped on her lashes, washed into her eyes. Blindly, she reached for a paper towel to blot her face. Scratchy paper pressed to her eyes, she didn’t turn around when she heard Jax come through the hall door. “Is Tyler okay?”
“Yeah. I just skinned him out of his clothes and put him in bed. I don’t think he even woke up. What are you doing?”
“My eyes are burning.”
“Let me see.” Jax was beside her in one step. He turned on the light over the sink with one hand while pulling the wet paper towel away gently with the other. “Come on. Let me see.”
With exquisite care he peeled back one eyelid and then the other. His breath was warm and moist on her cool, wet face, and smelled of the Mountain Dew he had all but inhaled in the car driving home. “Hum, a little red, but I think you’re okay—wait,” he turned the side of her face to catch the light, “what happened to your cheek? It looks bruised.”
Pickett felt her cheek. “I hit it on something. I don’t remember—oh! It was when the gas tanks exploded and you pushed me down. My face connected with the planks.”
Pain filled his eyes, as he ran a careful finger across the swelling. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t.” Pickett stopped his lips with fingers that trembled slightly. “Glass and burning chunks were flying all around us. You covered my body with your own. You could have been hurt much worse.” Pickett put her arms around Jax’s waist and laid her cheek against his broad chest. She pressed her ear against him to better hear the reassuring thud of his heart, to get closer to his vital heat. “I was so scared.”
His arms tightened around her, crushing her to him. Suddenly he was planting hot, frantic kisses on her hair, her eyes, her neck. One
large hand cupped her bottom to lift her against him. His erection bulged through the damp denim of his jeans.
“Pickett.” His voice was strained, winded. “I’ve got to have you. I’ve got to have you right now.” He pressed wild, rough kisses to the top of her head. “I know I’m doing this all wrong. I should be sensitive, but I can’t. If you don’t go with me to the bedroom, I’m going to have you right here on the table. Say yes.”
With one hand he unsnapped her jeans and plunged his hands inside.
Her body answered before she did. A tightening spiral lunged from her chest to her core, igniting nerve endings all the way. The delicate tissues he stroked swelled and grew moist in his fingers.
Suddenly her need was as imperative as his. This was not seduction or even hot desire, but something far more primal. His need called forth her own desire to comfort, to reassure, and to affirm. A tiny voice warned her that she was getting ready to give away her whole self to this man, but still she didn’t hesitate. She was a woman whose mate called to her and everything within her answered him.
He pushed her jeans and panties down together, at the same time dropping nibbling kisses on her ears, her neck, in the sensitive hollows near her clavicle.
“Tyler.” Pickett squeezed the name out between her own hungry searches of his neck, his night-roughened jaw.
“What about Tyler?”
“He could come in here. We’ve got to go to the bedroom.”
“Is that a yes?” With fluid strength Jax picked her up, swung her through the hall door. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
The sensation of being swept up in his powerful arms, clothed yet bare-bottomed shocked Pickett. It was wild and uncivilized. And she liked it.
She tightened her arms to pull her face level with his and opened her mouth on his, tasting his male urgency, aggressively demanding he come to her as she was coming to him.
Jax’s tongue met hers with his own fierce demands as they engaged in a love duel. At the bedroom door he elbowed the light switch. Never taking his mouth from hers, he stood Pickett next to the bed and pushed her onto its old-fashioned high mattress. Two flicks of those capable hands divested her of her shoes and one efficient tug removed the jeans.
With her bottom just at the edge of the mattress, Pickett scrambled up on her elbows to scoot further back but Jax stopped her by grabbing her knees and pushing them apart, opening her to his gaze.
Jax liked to look. After her first shyness, Pickett had learned to enjoy offering him tantalizing glimpses, extending their love play by getting maximum use of the sexy underwear he’d bought. Waves of excitement would pass between them as they relished turning one another on.
What he wanted now was not play.
She was open, totally ready to receive him, and he was going to make love to her until she knew, now and forever, that she was his. He was going to move within her until she couldn’t hesitate as she had hesitated on the pier. Until that awful moment when he couldn’t reach her, when he could only pray she had the courage to come to him, was dissolved. He opened his jeans and spread her soft folds with one hand, while he positioned himself with the other.
Sliding into her tight fit was better, hotter, wetter than ever before. It was so good. Too good.
He froze.
“What the hell am I doing?” He pulled out, closing his eyes at the exquisite sensation, even as he denied himself. Unwilling to lose contact, body to body, he covered her, elbows locked to spare her his weight, their bellies touching.
“What’s the matter?” Pickett’s eyes were wide, blurred with passion and confusion. Where their bodies pressed together he could feel her heart thump in slow heavy beats.
“The condom. I could get you pregnant.”
“God help me,” she whispered, “I didn’t think of it either.” But still, she lifted her arms to pull him closer.
Jax slowly lowered his torso, allowing her to take his weight. Long shudders ran through him as he waged a war between his need and his self-control. He rubbed his face into the valley between her breasts, then slid both hands underneath the damp sweater that in their haste had never been removed, touching, clinging to the soft mounds.
“I want to have a child with you, Pickett.” His voice was ragged and shaking. “Maybe a bunch a kids. But not until we’ve got things settled between us. Kids need parents who are married and stay together. I mean it. I know being married to a SEAL is not a good deal for a woman. I love being a SEAL but it’s not my whole life anymore. If you can’t hack my staying in the Navy, there are other things I can do.”
Pickett soothed her hands down the dense muscles of his back until she felt his breath—and her own—begin to slow. She smiled a wise, womanly smile. It wasn’t how she’d pictured bringing it up, but with Jax things never turned out the way she thought they would—yet they always turned out okay. Now was the time.
“You know when you asked me to marry you?” She fingered the velvety hair at the base of his skull. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
Jax stilled. Devoid of all expression, he asked, “Are you going to change your mind?”
Pickett wasn’t fooled by the poker face, not anymore. “Maybe…” She was teasing him, a little, but he deserved it. “I need to know something first. Do you love me?”
Jax rose up, stiff-armed, over her. His black brows snapped together. “Good God A’mighty! Of course I love you! I told you I did.”
Pickett blinked at his fierceness. “You did not.”
Jax stood so abruptly Pickett had to scramble not to slide off the bed. As soon as he stood, his unfastened jeans began to slide down his legs.
“What the hell do you think has been going on?” He toed off one running shoe. His foot came free with a wet sucking noise. “I asked you to marry me!” He toed off the other shoe. “I want to live with you for the rest of my life!” He pushed down the jeans and underwear together but the damp denim clung to his legs, hobbling him. “I want you to be the mother of my kids,” he grabbed a bedpost for balance, “Tyler, and all the kids we haven’t had yet.” He managed at last to kick his legs free. Naked from the waist down, he glared at her, then as an afterthought whipped his T-shirt off over his head.
Pickett felt her eyebrows climb toward her hairline. “That was saying ‘I love you’?”
“I don’t know!” Jax grabbed his skull with both hands, then eyed her suspiciously. “Is this one of those talks about love that women relish so much? Because I’m not sure I can do that right now. It’s been a long, hard day. Either you get it that I love you or you don’t.”
He paced—stalked—around the room for a minute, then turned around, gray eyes bright with cunning. “Wait a minute. If I say ‘I love you’ will you marry me?”
Pickett took her time lining up the edge of the duvet she’d pulled across her lap. “Maybe.” She permitted herself a mysterious smile. “Why not try it and find out?”
Jax grabbed her shoulders so swiftly her head snapped back. “I love you, love you, love you, love you. Now will you marry me?”
“Yes. I love you too.”
“Yes to what?”
“I will marry you, SEAL that you are.”
“You will marry me?” Jax gave a shout of laughter then instantly sobered. He sat beside Pickett on the bed, his face so close she could see the crystal flakes in his irises. “What about my being a SEAL? I’ve made up my mind, if I have to leave the Navy for us to be happy together I will, but you understand officers don’t serve hitches. It could take a year or more for my resignation to be accepted. You’ll be married to a military man for a while.”
Pickett lifted her hand to his face, absorbing the soft prickles of beard. “I don’t want you to leave the SEALs. Not for my sake. What makes you a SEAL is something innate in who you are, and I love who you are. I love you the way you are.”
Jax nuzzled her hand, but his eyes remained troubled. “What about Navy life? I can’t deny that there are hardships. I’ll work
to minimize the stress on our marriage as much as I can, but there’ll be some things I can’t change.”
“I know.” Pickett infused her voice with hushed comfort. She took his face in both hands, willing him to read the certainty in her eyes. “Before, when I told you no, you said I was a coward. And I was. I couldn’t give a marriage less than everything I’ve got, so I wanted everything to be ideal before I took a chance. It broke my heart to turn you down, but I doubted I could succeed, and I couldn’t face the possibility of failure.
“I was scared to jump from the pier tonight, too. So scared.” Tears clogged her throat as the memory swamped her. She forced them back. “But as long as I focused on the fact that I was going to you, I could do it. Don’t you see? I didn’t think about jumping into the water. I thought about going to you in the water. It made all the difference.” She took a deep breath and continued. “When I jumped off that pier tonight I suddenly knew I could go through anything, as long as I was going through it to be with you.”
She touched his lips with hers in a kiss of promise that quickly turned to passion.
“Now,” she whispered between nibbles and soft bites, “are you going to get those condoms, or am I?”
Jax liked lying in the dark beside Pickett, arms and legs heavy with satiation, waiting while sweet swells of contentment floated him closer to sleep.
Pickett smacked him across the rib cage.
“Hey! That stung!” He rubbed his ribs. “What was that for?”
“Take back the crack about Mary Poppins.”
Jax opened one eye. Pickett was lying on her back, arms crossed under her breasts, looking at the dark ceiling. It took a moment to remember what she was referring to. “I already apologized.”
“You apologized for the bad language. But I didn’t mind—you were only swearing because you were upset. The Mary Poppins crack was personal.”
“I admire Mary Poppins.”
“Yeah, right. Why, I’ll bet she’s even one of your heroes.”
Jax pretended to think it over. “I wouldn’t say hero. More of a fantasy.” Okay, he was teasing her now. So sue him. Pickett, when she got all righteous, was irresistible.
Mary Margret Daughtridge SEALed Bundle Page 29