His Very Own Girl

by Carrie Lofty

  Perhaps she’d expected him to offer some trite greeting. But this was a man only just back from the front. There would be no small talk now. She saw it in the set of his jaw as he approached. It was the jump boots, she thought, that made paratroopers so blasted toplofty—a point of pride shared by no one else in the U.S. Army, a hallmark of their elite training. He didn’t just walk as he closed the ten feet between them.

  He strode.

  Lulu only had time to inhale before she was in his arms—strong, determined arms that pulled her like a magnet. His kiss came as a sweet rush of heat and taste. Mouth to mouth, tongue pressing to find tongue, he blocked out the light of that July afternoon. Fingers splayed, he gripped her at the waist and between her shoulder blades. She crisscrossed her forearms behind his neck, wanting him close, then even closer. Slipping her hands into his hair, she burrowed her fingertips down to his scalp. The garrison cap slid off. Joe moaned into her mouth, firing her blood with the power of being able to arouse him. She was sweetly imprisoned by his strength and emboldened by the fierceness of his need.

  “Not here,” he ground out. “You’re killing me.”

  Lulu smiled against his neck, her lips brushing his skin as she spoke. “I think you have that wrong, love. You’re very much alive.”

  She angled her head to claim another quick taste. Joe responded, briefly taking the kiss to a wilder, more primitive place, before breaking it off with a shudder. She stroked both hands up and down his back, but his tension didn’t ease. Muscles and ligaments still stretched taut, like the cables supporting the bridge.

  When Lulu peeked out from the cave of his body, people were walking past them on the bridge as trains shuttled back and forth over the Thames. It was all too much. She couldn’t be honest about her reaction to him and maintain a semblance of decency—not when she wanted them both stripped bare, mouths everywhere. She settled for his neck, where she licked the salty flesh just above the starched collar of his uniform shirt. Another shudder worked through his big body.

  “You told me you’d find a hotel room,” she said. “Any luck?”

  When he pulled back, his nostrils flared on a strong inhale. The muscles where his jaw met his neck were bunched; he was biting his back molars together, fighting like she was.

  “About three blocks from here,” he said, his words low and hoarse.

  “Too far.”

  He made a tight sound, a truncated laugh. “I’m sorry.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Mauling you. I’d wanted to keep my cool.” He shrugged. That boyish happiness crept back across his face. Lulu’s heart flip-flopped.

  “I don’t want you to keep your cool, Joe.” She brushed the sweat-damp hair off his forehead.

  “No?”

  “No. I want to have my wicked way with you. And I want you to reciprocate. Repeatedly.”

  His nostrils flared again. When he stared at her with such intensity, Lulu could only think of sex. “Then three blocks really is too far.”

  He retrieved his garrison cap from the ground, dusted it off, and tugged it onto his head. The lower edge rested at a regulation two inches above his eyebrows, seemingly without effort or thought. Only long practice. Then he picked up her suitcase and offered his arm.

  “Nice to see you in heels,” he said, “but I almost wish you’d worn flight boots and slacks.”

  Lulu threaded her arm through his. “Oh, really?”

  “Because then we could run.”

  Joe locked them inside the hotel room and leaned against the door. Lulu stood with her back to him. He couldn’t see her face, only the willowy length of her spine, the lean, graceful shape of her calves, and the intricate play of rolls and knots that made up her hairstyle. But at that moment he was glad he couldn’t see her expression. The room wasn’t at all as he’d imagined, what with its plain furnishings and drab walls. Voices and footsteps from above invaded as if the two floors weren’t separated by wood and brick.

  Not only had it been the best he could afford but it was just about the only room available. Every serviceman wanted a room when on leave in London. They all wanted privacy, alone with a wife or sweetheart or relative stranger.

  None of it was what he’d imagined—not the room, not the frantic rush to contact Lulu. He had no special items from the black market, no wine, no food, no presents. It had been all he could do to learn his itinerary and beg the opportunity to make a phone call. His head still spun from the speed of it all. Three days before, he’d been at a reserve camp just north of Utah Beach. Two weeks before that, he’d been at the base of Hill 122.

  He shivered.

  Lulu half-turned. He’d worried about her reaction to the hotel room, but her expression was perfectly placid. Happy, even.

  She was even more breathtaking than he remembered. Three months and he’d forgotten how beautiful she was. Her cheekbones were wide and high, accentuating the narrow point of her chin. Her lips rested in a demure smirk that could transform at any moment into a pout or a full-blown smile. How had he forgotten those details?

  It hurt to look at her, yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away. After what he’d seen, what he’d endured, gazing at Lulu was like staring at the sun. Instead of blinking or flinching, he just leaned against the door and tried to burn her image into his memory.

  He had two days to stockpile as much of her as he could.

  “Sorry about this place,” he said.

  “Don’t be. It’s clean and private—my only two requirements. Although under the right circumstances, I might have done without either.”

  “You don’t mean that, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “I brought wine,” she said, glancing toward her suitcase in his hand. “It cost me a fortune, but what else do I have to spend my money on?”

  “Paying the undertaker?”

  Her soft smile made Joe swallow. “Not so much of late. Let’s just say I’ve had incentive to play it safe.” She nodded to the suitcase. “Are you going to set that down?”

  Joe stared at his hand, but he couldn’t really feel it. His body wasn’t cooperating. He forced himself to move away from the door and set the case beside a battered freestanding wardrobe.

  “I also brought nicer clothes,” Lulu said, petting the back of one hand with the other. “I didn’t know what we would do, if we’d go out. Dinner, dancing.” She laughed like a nervous girl. “Ah, look at me. I hardly know what I’m saying.”

  Joe brushed a hand over his tunic pocket where he kept her letter and the ring he’d bought in Southampton. He walked to her, touched her cheek, smiled. “You sound like your letter.”

  She graced him with her dimple. “So you received that monstrosity, did you?”

  “Yes.”

  He hoped his simple admission would reveal what her words had meant to him. If any poetry lived in his soul, he’d express those feelings aloud. He’d tell her how the fine, looping scroll of her handwriting had been softness to him—softness and beauty. He’d lay his pride aside and tell her how often he’d read and reread her declaration, and how often he’d fallen asleep with her letter in one hand and his other hand resting atop his aid bag. Most of all, he’d tell her what he wanted from their future: hearth and home, love and laughter, promises of forever and fidelity and family. She’d thrown a lifeline to a man in the midst of battle, and he clung to it with a terrifying desperation.

  Maybe that’s why he hadn’t touched her yet. He didn’t trust himself. He was like an animal trapped in a wooden crate left out in the sun, sweltering, frantic for relief.

  For release.

  “Joe?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Can we . . . ?”

  Her voice trailed off, and in what he knew to be an out-of-character gesture, she played with one cuff. A thread had come loose and she wound it around her thumb. A debutante’s blush stole over her cheeks, a sensuous contrast to the womanly desire burning in her eyes. Those eyes, vibrant and dark, flicked toward the bed in t
he center of the room. Then she dragged her gaze from his face down to his toes and back up again. Every spot on his body tingled under her suggestive scrutiny.

  “Yes,” he said, his throat aching. “Yes, we can.”

  Tempting him with the slight curve of her smile, Lulu began to remove the blouse of her uniform. Joe stilled her hands and brought her fingers to his lips. He wanted this. He wanted to be the one to reveal her skin to the light.

  “You have no idea how often I’ve dreamed of this.”

  He unbuttoned one after another after another, slowly, but he’d handled a scalpel and hypodermic needles with more certainty. The little hollow below her earlobe distracted him. He nuzzled there until she laughed and closed her eyes. Like miniature fans, her eyelashes rested along the tops of her cheeks. Above those dusky lashes, her arched eyebrows reminded him again of Rita Hayworth, all sensuality and class. But unlike an untouchable actress from the silver screen, Lulu was right there with him, a Hollywood fantasy made real.

  As much as her looks, he loved her pride. She was stubborn and confident, not at all showy. Dignified. That she stood perfectly still, letting him take the lead, was an act of trust and submission that wasn’t lost on Joe. The scent of warm lavender skin greeted him like a light in a distant window, beckoning him home. He brushed a kiss atop one collarbone. She tasted of spun sugar and strong, black coffee—sweet and bold at once.

  Lulu inhaled deeply, bringing his attention back to her half-unbuttoned blouse. Her pale skin and lacy white brassiere peeked out at him. He’d seen so many male bodies, whole or battered, over the last few years that the curves of a woman’s figure still fascinated him. They probably always would, especially if they were as perfectly formed as Lulu’s.

  She made him forget. This was what he needed, lit up and starving and hard.

  Evening was coming on fast. The overhead lamp cast light down on her like a blessing. Charcoal crescents of shadow angled down over her ribs, outlining the rounded lower curve of her breasts. He outlined each crescent with his thumbs, relishing her long, melting sigh. Then he traced where soft lace dared him to notice even the most subtle texture. For a man who’d kept himself numb, week after week, month after month, he craved nothing but sensation.

  Quick, shallow breaths pushed her ample breasts against the lacy restraint of her bra. The air in their room ignited with a feral spark. He slid both hands inside her unbuttoned blouse, holding her waist. The marvel of touching, skin to skin, pulsed with the force of a live wire. Her husky laughter eased the tension but added a wicked humor.

  Although neither of them moved, a current pulsed between their bodies, glimmering, raising the hairs on the backs of his arms. He stroked his thumbs along her bottom ribs. His tongue felt swathed in cotton. She showed no outward tension, but blood hurried through the blue veins along the side of her neck.

  Blood.

  He was no longer seeing Lulu.

  Horrible visions of blood and death enveloped him like a noxious cloud.

  He yanked his hands back. His head hung forward. The welcome rush of desire drained out of him, a canteen upended until nothing remained. So little remained—of him, of the dream of the man he’d wanted to be.

  Joe staggered to the bed and sat heavily. The mattress creaked and sagged beneath his weight. He hid his face in his hands. Shame made his shoulders shake. He didn’t want Lulu to see him this way, but being with her gave him the permission he denied himself when he was alone or with the other men of Baker. Instinctively, he knew she would do her best to help. And after weeks of consoling other men in their darkest moments of pain and fear and hysteria, he needed that same consolation.

  He lifted his face and showed her his grief. “I can’t make love to you.”

  chapter twenty

  Joe’s eyes had gone to a queer, distant place, his soul spirited away. Whatever had happened in Normandy was holding him captive.

  Lulu knelt before him with the caution of a bomb disposal specialist, watching him intently. His mouth bent around a deep frown, a man ashamed of what he felt or what he’d done. Cupping her hands on his face, she waited until he saw her—really saw her. His green eyes were overly bright, full to bursting with pain.

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Can’t,” he said, spitting the word. He pushed free of her hands and stood. Pacing the room like a tiger in a zoo, he scratched at his cropped hair, rubbing down to the scalp. He radiated anger. “I can’t. Not after . . . what happened to Smitty.”

  Lulu winced. “Oh, God, Joe.”

  No wonder he’d seemed so wild, swinging between hesitation and passion. His customary calmness was nowhere to be seen. Instead his shoulders were tense and his pacing restless, as some deep emotion consumed him.

  But Lulu wasn’t about to let him go. A panicky shiver of fear lent strength to her determination. She’d already lost one man to this war.

  Four years earlier she’d begged Robbie with every ounce of her love. He’d been a boy turned into a man, and a man turned into granite, dying by slow measures. Nothing she’d said had made a difference. No amount of touching or talking had made him whole again.

  Taking a deep breath, she held out her hand. Joe kept pacing until he noticed. She held still, reaching for him, her heart beating a hectic rhythm.

  Would he reject her as Robbie had?

  “Joe, please. Talk to me.”

  She didn’t relish hearing what Joe had to tell her—horrible things about that relentless wolf at the door. But neither could she imagine turning away. Joe needed her. She hadn’t been needed this badly in as long as she could remember. It felt good. Scary, dizzying, but terribly good. And unlike Robbie, who’d only ever shut her out, Joe’s obvious sorrow was practically begging for consolation.

  At last he walked to the bed and collapsed to his knees. He nestled his face against her stomach. She held his head and kissed his silky, spiky hair, kissed him because she didn’t know what else to do.

  “Smitty’s dead,” he said.

  The story spilled out of him then, spoken into the hollow of her abdomen. Halting, slurred, anguished, his words painted a bleak picture of the assault on Hill 122. Smitty hadn’t survived. Joe had. And because of that, he grieved.

  Conscious of tears wetting her cheeks, she kept kissing his hair, stroking his back, listening to each unadorned description. His body shook but Lulu was the one crying, with every third tear one of relief. Robbie had never confided in her. No matter how absolutely Joe’s story broke her heart, this was infinitely better. At least now she had hope.

  But how to help him?

  She could forget about appealing to logic. Joe wouldn’t hear her offers of absolution, nor would he admit the good he’d done on that day and on countless other days. The loss of his friend was the only truth he heeded.

  Her mind flashed back to fair-haired Capt. Morrison and those grieving pilots at Earls Colne. They’d also suffered the loss of their friends, hurting and blaming themselves for men who no longer breathed. Perhaps she could distract Joe by a similar fashion, long enough for him to find his way back to her.

  Lulu slid her hands along his stiff shoulders. He relaxed ever so slightly. And so did she. There was no need to steel herself. After all, this was Joe. She loved him. So she veiled her fears and gave her body permission to do just that. Love him.

  Down the rock-hard muscles of his upper back, Lulu petted and massaged. What might have been a soothing gesture turned sexual when she raked her fingernails upward, from midspine to the nape of his neck.

  “Lulu,” he said, a quiet warning, a heartbreaking plea.

  “Shh.”

  Before Joe could protest, she pushed him back and away. His taut expression told her all she needed to know: please, don’t stop.

  She wanted to reassure him but not with words. Instead she stood and curled her fingers around the lapels of his dress tunic. She switched their positions until he was the one with his back to the bed. How many times had she dreamed
of this, holding him, undressing him? Too many to count. Each dream built and built until the need to claim him again—to be claimed by him—became an all-consuming passion.

  One button. Then another. She mimicked the slow way he’d undone her blouse, which still hung open. She should’ve been self-conscious, standing there so exposed, but that was the glorious mystery of being with Joe. She wanted to be exposed.

  Chancing a glance up, she saw that his attention was completely riveted. His hopeful eyes silently urged her on. The god-awful pain had ebbed, at least momentarily. He seemed curious, waiting to see what she’d do next.

  With the tunic unbuttoned, she eased it slowly down his arms. He hissed when her nipples brushed his chest. The lace of her brassiere created a maddening friction as she did it again, purposefully this time.

  She eased his suspenders down, not stopping until her hands dipped into his trousers. On the way out she grabbed the tails of his shirt and tugged them free. The crisp olive drab wool felt brand-new, giving her the whimsical impression that the army had helped him dress up just for her. Her heart was beating harder now, filling her ears with a strengthening drumbeat. She reveled in the potent sensuality of stripping him.

  What a gift—for such a proud man to give himself over to her keeping.

  Past the last barrier of gold-tone buttons she found his T-shirt, which stretched across his chest and molded to every muscle. She kissed the hollow where his neck met his chest. He smelled of clean, intoxicating man.

  This is what she’d ached for. Possessiveness like she’d never known inspired her. She was loving him to ease his pain, but her body was making demands that were anything but selfless.

  Nuzzling the strong curve of his pectorals, she kissed him through the thin cotton. Then her hands were busy pulling that last layer away from his body, revealing the masculine beauty of his torso: his flat belly, the hollow beneath the regular pattern of his ribs, the tight curls of hair over smooth skin.

  He grabbed the hem of the T-shirt from her and tugged it over his head. Breathing hard now, he stood naked from the chest up. Green eyes had darkened near to black. Slung low on his trim hips, his wool serge trousers outlined the unmistakable ridge of his erection.