by HELEN HARDT
She was a ghost no more.
Shit. Holy, heavenly shit.
He didn’t remember how his legs carried him or how many steps he took. It only mattered that he yanked the knife out of Z’s hand, palming it himself. He had to be the one who set her free. He needed to be the one who saw her face when the last disgusting piece of her captivity got peeled back.
He cut the tie with a savage jerk. She reacted with a little cry, but he knew he hadn’t hurt her. The sound was one of need. Of release. Of love.
When he pulled the rag free from her face, tears ran through the dirt underneath. In wordless wonder, he cupped both sides of her jaw and kissed each tear until he got to her lips. She sighed against his mouth, opening to him, inching her shaking arms around his neck.
“My heart,” he said against her lips.
“My hero,” she whispered back.
Garrett stiffened and swallowed. The words entered his gut and twisted it like scarab beetles. Hero? Right. Some champion he was, buying the story from the CNO hook, line, and fucking sinker. No skeletons in the van merely meant the rebels had moved the bodies as some kind of a sick fuck you to God only knew who. There was no sense in jeopardizing extra American lives to look for two charred corpses. The region was unstable and unsafe now.
Goddamnit, he’d believed every line they’d fed him. He’d settled for saying goodbye to her photo on a tripod as they tossed flower petals off a cutter in the Sound, instead of demanding they all look harder, deeper, further for her.
Never again. He vowed it now with every cell of his being. He’d never again give up on her. The angels had given her back to him, and he sure as fuck wasn’t blowing the chance. He’d never again let her go, and he’d never again rest before knowing she was safe, secure, completely protected.
He began making good on that oath that moment, clutching her close and claiming her mouth with a kiss so deep and consuming, they both dragged air in harsh, heavy breaths afterward.
He kept her pressed against him, still barely comprehending it was her heart beating beneath his, before murmuring, “Welcome back, Sage Weston.”
Sage pulled back a little. She tilted her face up at him, her chapped lips tremulous with the question that tumbled off them. “Welcome back…to what?”
“To life, sugar.” He brushed her lips softly with his own again. “To life.”
* * *
Several hours later, he watched another degree of that life dance across her features as she laughed into his cell phone. She held the phone on the side of her face that hadn’t turned five shades of blue yet, causing Garrett to Zen-breathe his way out of another surge of fury. She’d shrugged off the injuries, unwilling to tell him how they’d gotten there, telling him that she’d shared all during Franzen’s debrief and didn’t want to go through it again with him.
Garrett told himself to be patient. He’d woken up in a grimy hotel room today about to masturbate in his sleep with her wraith. Tonight, ensconced safely in the US Embassy’s guest quarters, he was about to climb into bed with her very warm, very alive self. Be grateful, you nut sack. And patient. Very patient. That includes what’s about to go down here. You have no idea what she’s been through. She may not want your dark-blue balls up in her business yet, got it?
He turned from her, trying to focus on something a little less arousing than the sight of her in his old Pike Place Market T-shirt and a pair of utilitarian white panties. The task was not easy. The combo was sexy as fuck, no matter how basic its inspiration. She’d literally had nothing with her when they’d gotten here and had been too tired and hungry to wait for clothes to be scrounged up, other than the underwear. He’d assured the embassy staff they could wait for a while and had shuttled her up to his room. She’d rushed for the shower, spending the next twenty minutes moaning in ecstasy beneath the hot spray. Garrett had paced the bedroom, fighting an erection that could’ve raised a barn with the nails it could pound.
Concentrate on something else.
He looked out the window at the courtyard that grew brighter with the peachy shades of dawn. A grim smile took over his lips. This morning, King and all his henchmen were behind bars. The Thai police had gladly turned them over, and now they’d face international repercussions for what they’d done to Sage, Rayna, and the five aid workers.
The shitty thing was, men like King were human cockroaches. Kill one and you ended up stirring the whole intrusion. He had no doubt that other Special Operations Forces teams would be called here soon to try to quash more of the monsters.
Sage’s throaty laugh was a welcome step into his thoughts. He turned and visually feasted on her again. She was propped against the wall with his phone against her ear, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. Her calves and thighs were nearly as sinewy as his now, but all the curves that’d invaded his imagination for the last twelve months were still there. Barely. She’d lost a lot of weight. There were old scratches on her ankles, indicative of heavy hiking through thick brush. The muscles in her arms were pronounced, too. Every inch of her body that he could see was clear evidence of what she’d survived in the last year.
What had she survived?
Patience, damn it. This isn’t an op you can control. You can’t kick in the doors of her psyche and just demand answers.
“Okay, Mom. Yes, I’ll call as soon as we get back stateside.” She bit her lip and swiped at the tears that escaped anyway. “Yep, he’s right here. I love you too.”
She clicked the call off and extended the phone to him with a watery smile.
“Is she doing okay?” Garrett asked.
Sage nodded. “Yeah. Just stunned, I guess.” She shook her head, bemusement touching her features. “Suppose I’ll get that reaction from a lot of people.”
He put the phone down on the utilitarian bureau and then scooted around to the foot of the bed. After he sat down, he braced his elbows on his knees. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “You should prepare yourself.”
About a minute passed. It felt like an hour. He tilted his head in order to steal peeks at her, watching her shred her bottom lip as she stared at the far wall. He could practically see the thoughts tumbling through her head, a mental gymnastics team on crack. It was just as hard to follow in terms of what she was thinking.
Patience.
“Did you…have a service?” she finally asked.
During the drive in from the jungle, he’d tried to explain what he’d said about welcoming her back to life. He’d followed it with the flyover version of what had happened after she and Rayna had disappeared. He’d tried to smooth over the rougher parts, as semi-impossible as that was. There was no way of sugarcoating the visit from the CNO, the papers Heidi had been asked to sign, the medals that were promised, the condolences imparted. He’d told her about the army’s certainty they weren’t still alive and the dictate from sources much higher than him that a search wasn’t feasible, hopeful, or possible.
To his perplexity, Sage had merely nodded and said they’d done the right thing. When Garrett questioned that ludicrous shit, she’d turned and gazed into the night, her eyes matching the darkness.
Darkness he’d never seen in her gaze before.
What the hell had happened to her in the last twelve months?
He jammed the thought into a mental side pocket. There was an answer to that and he’d damn well get it, but right now, she needed hers more.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “We had a service. We did it on a Navy cutter, out on the Sound.” He lifted one side of his mouth at her. “You would’ve liked it, sugar—except for the being dead part.” When she returned his smile with a tentative smirk, his ribs turned into mush, baring his heart to the warmth of her regard. It gave him the courage to continue. “We tossed yellow and pink roses onto the water, along with your—well, what I assumed were your ashes. And we served grilled cheddar cheese sandwiches while listening to classic disco.”
She laughed in full. “Okay, you’re right. I really wou
ld have loved it—except for the being dead thing.”
He joined her in a chuckle, but it was all he could manage before his next words came out, shaking as they did. “Damn it, Sage. I’m so glad you’re not.”
The air thickened back into awkwardness again. He kept his stare threaded into the thin bed blanket, suddenly unable to meet her gaze.
“Are you?”
It was only two words, but they asked so much more. He knew it, and he knew she did too. She inched one foot toward him and then nudged him with her big toe. “Then why don’t you show me?”
He curled his hand around her foot. The sensation of touching her, really touching her, and of caressing her warm, soft skin… It turned the crumbles of his ribs into dust and dissolved his senses into a chaos of confusion, need, heat.
“Garrett.” Now she leaned over and grabbed his wrist in one of her tiny but iron-strong hands. “Please. I need this. I need…”
She drew his hand up to her cheek.
“I need you.”
He took a shaking breath as she leaned her face into his palm. Then another as she turned and kissed his wrist. Goddamn, her lips were so warm and soft and succulent. Don’t think about that. Think about the Mariners’ chances for the playoffs this year. Or getting the oil changed in the truck when you get home. Or—
Shit.
She pulled his middle finger down. Wrapped her mouth around it. Her gaze, now green and clear as spring itself again, opened to him in blatant need.
He was done with breathing. With patience. With the goddamn Mariners. With anything else except needing her in return.
“Oh, fuck me, sugar.”
He groaned it as he surged at her. He grinded their bodies together, mashing his mouth onto hers. When he pulled up to give them both a gasp of air, she curled a breathtaking smile up at him.
“Isn’t that my line, soldier?”
He didn’t have the self-control to return her grin. His blood burst into fire, raced through his system, and then gathered force in his balls. He didn’t waste a single moment to let her know it, either. Shoving her thighs wide with his knees, he fit the khaki-clad ridge between his legs against the cotton-covered groove of her own and rocked with slow, teasing thrusts until Sage’s mouth parted on high, breathy cries. He stared in fascination at the locked edges of her teeth beneath. Damn, he’d forgotten how breathtaking her mouth was.
He lifted a finger to her lower lip and pressed down. “Open up,” he said with guttural demand. “I’m going to taste you, Sage.”
With a gorgeous little mewl, she complied. He rose up, bracketing her jaw with one hand, holding her still for his descent. He dove in, ramming his tongue deep, exploring the cavern of her mouth with two overriding intents. The first was to claim her again, filling her with the taste and heat and feel of him alone. And the second? To make damn sure she knew exactly what he was going to do to her body next.
Beneath him, she didn’t just open. She blossomed. Piercing sighs erupted up her throat, soaking him with her essence in return. She wrapped her arms around him, jerked his T-shirt up, and dragged her fingers up his back, making him vibrate with a million electric tremors of arousal.
“Garrett!” Her plea was strident in his ear. “Oh, please!”
He ran a hand downward, tucking it beneath the band of the panties, his lust roaring hotter when her body drenched his fingers in creamy heat. He couldn’t control himself from going farther, inching a finger up her secret channel. They moaned together when her vagina clamped on him like a long-lost lover, sweet and tight in its desperate bliss.
Damn. What was it going to be like when he slid his cock into her?
He couldn’t wait to find out.
His breath came in harsh spurts as he shoved the panties down to her thighs. In seconds, he returned his fingers to the curls a few inches higher, spreading her again, coaxing the ridge of flesh where she was most sensitive, stroking her desire into a blaze to match his.
“My heart,” he murmured against her lips.
“My hero.” She gasped and arched into his fingers, stunning in her hot, panting desire.
He hovered his face an inch above hers, breathing in the sweet natural essence of her, a mix of spring mist, wildflowers, and complete woman. “Now I know why I couldn’t let go. Everyone told me to move on. They said I could make a fresh start with a civvie girl, that life wouldn’t be filled with so much red tape. But I told them all to fuck off. Told them I was in love with your red tape and always would be. I refused to buy their simplicity pie. Part of me knew…knew my brave, proud woman wouldn’t have given up that easily. And now”—he sank his lips deep into hers—“I’m not ever going to let you go again.”
“I love you, Garrett.”
She smiled again at him, her eyes dreamy. Her lips were stung from his kisses, her face aglow in the radiance of expecting him to return the words. His heart rang with them, and his soul clamored with the need to bellow them from the fucking rooftops if he had to…but in the pit of his throat, the consonants were a gob of mud, the vowels were a tangle of nails. Even thinking of dissolving the mess made him shake with pain and loss.
What the hell is wrong with you?
That was the ten-million-dollar question, wasn’t it? His lack of an answer was agony. He’d dreamed of seeing her like this again, open and ready and beautiful for him. He’d clung to this memory for what felt like forever.
This memory.
This memory.
Holy fuck. This was how she’d looked the night before she left for Botswana. The night he’d lost her forever.
“Garrett?”
He dropped his head, breathing hard. He couldn’t take her this way. Not like this.
He craved the Sage who’d shared his dream this morning. The squirming, writhing Sage…in his captivity, under his control. Holy God, he needed her.
“Garrett? Baby?”
He lifted his face again, curling a slow grin at her as he did. “I’m here, sugar.” With slow, gentle circles, he started another kiss. As he skated a hand up beneath her shirt, he tilted his head and trailed tiny bites on her lips. She rolled her mouth against his, trying to give back as good as he gave, but he stopped her, increasing his pressure, always bringing her under his rule again—until, with a frustrated cry, she nipped at him and captured his upper lip with a giggle of triumph.
Garrett growled low, raised his hand to her erect nipple, and tugged it hard.
“Ahhh! Garrett, what the—”
Before she could finish, he’d lifted her shirt all the way off, hurled it to the floor, and returned his mouth to the peak he’d just pinched, licking the irritated skin with the flat of his tongue.
“Oh.” It left her on a startled breath. The sound turned into another tiny keen when he pulled again at that distended nub, using his teeth this time. She tunneled both her hands into his hair, digging at his scalp with her nails. “Ohhh! Shit!”
She began to writhe now. And God help him, his dick throbbed harder.
She gasped as he took both her hands and pinned them over her head. He snarled low, yanking down his fly with his other hand.
She twisted and trembled. He grunted and gritted his jaw. His precome alone was a geyser. Looking at her like this, completely his, tamed for him at last, his cock was screaming to seal his claim on her.
“Kick the underwear free.” He gave her the order on a harsh, hot rush of sound. “Then you’ll spread wide for me, sugar. I’m gonna claim every inch of you, Sage. Every fucking inch.”
He watched her breath hitch once and then speed up into a wild gallop beneath her trembling breasts. “I love you,” she said again. “I need you. Please, Ga—”
“Hush.” It left him on a monotone, which was an odd contrast to his curt, commanding actions. The second she got the panties free, he pushed back one leg and then the other, letting out a hungry rumble at the sight of her spread and glistening pussy. When he reached and plunged two fingers into her quivering entrance, Sa
ge screamed and then, remarkably, laughed.
“Oh, Garrett! God, yes!”
He lunged over her then, drilling a stare of dark intent into her. Laughing wasn’t part of this. She’d laughed the night before she’d left him, even through her orgasm, drowning him in her joy, her beauty…her love. She’d laughed, filling the condo with it so that the memories of it haunted him for that horrid, dismal week before he was able to get back into the mission rotation on the squad. No. Laughing wouldn’t be a part of things tonight.
“I said hush.”
That was when he flipped her over and brought his hand down on her ass in a resounding smack.
Chapter Four
Wow.
Sage blinked, unsure if she’d actually just experienced…well…that. Had he really just spanked her? Had he really just done it to reinforce an order he’d given her?
If she were honest, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Garrett had burst into her life by defending her honor, fists first, at Opal’s Tavern on that unforgettable June night. He’d sealed the deal just three weeks later, making her body feel like the meteor shower overhead, over and over again. Joe and Hannah Hawkins might as well have given their son the middle name of Firestorm instead of Flynn.
So yeah, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to put the man’s intensity together with all the newer things she’d seen in him over the last four hours. Cobalt smoke hovered at the corners of his gaze, which had once been the pure blue of a summer sky. Tense lines now embedded themselves at the corners of his mouth. Nothing casual remained in how he moved. Every action was sharp, full of purpose and battle-honed balance.
Sage had noticed it all and understood. She’d seen it all and accepted it. His grief for her had gouged a chunk of his soul. He hadn’t filled that hole with anything easy or forgiving, especially for himself.