by Tessa Bailey
“Yes,” she breathed. He reclined back onto the mattress, taking her body with him. He swore there was no way in hell he’d fall asleep, but then, he’d never had Kenna curled up underneath his arm. Never had her rub her face on his shoulder. Never felt her tuck her small feet between his legs.
Home. I’m finally home.
That was his last conscious thought before he fell asleep.
CHAPTER THREE
Kenna stared through the lens of her helmet at the two pieces of cut metal she was welding together, but found herself getting lost in the blue sparks. She set her welding gun down and slumped onto the workshop stool. From across the space, she could feel her friend Darla watching in that quiet way that used to unnerve her, but right now only served as an irritant.
Feeling irrationally restless, she pushed her helmet up and studied the half-completed sculpture sitting ten yards away on an elevated pedestal. Yesterday, the idea of finishing the piece of artwork that would be displayed in a local park had imbued her with a sense of accomplishment, but nothing was penetrating her preoccupied state of mind today. Not even Darla, who sat perched on the adjacent workbench tracing the spine of a thick book with a single finger. Probably Tolkien. Or something else that involved a Middle Earth-like setting.
It was Monday afternoon and her friend had just broken free of second-grade hell, hoping to catch Kenna in the workshop. As if she’d be anywhere else. These days she seemed to spend every free second in the dark workshop, working on various orders from around the country. When she wasn’t chauffeuring giant, sweetly complicated men around base and subsequently giving them a sexual education, that is. Or the beginnings of one. Before she’d crept out the apartment door and burned rubber getting out of the parking lot.
Totally healthy.
She wasn’t too proud to admit she’d gone home afterward, rifled through her sock drawer for the perfect vibrator, flipped it to the highest setting and gone to town. Because, holy mother of blow jobs, she hadn’t even been the one receiving pleasure and yet she’d never—never—been hotter in her life. The way Beck had begged, twisted on the bed, yanking on her hair and gasping in such a purely masculine way, she’d shivered the entire time. Not only had lust burned her from head to toe, there had been unmistakable power. Power in being the first for him. However, something beside Beck’s wood had popped up. A…connection. A passing of trust. An idea far too emotional to acknowledge, so she was hell-bent on ignoring it.
But Beck didn’t want to be ignored. A day later and she still felt guilty for leaving. More than guilt, though. She couldn’t shake the intuition she should have stayed.
And done what, Kenna? Found out more about his sweet-potato-eating, aw-shucks-ing life? The last thing she wanted was to get caught up with some peach farmer who missed his dog. They had nothing in common. Except their apparent love of getting him off.
“Oh, um. Hi over there?” Darla hopped off the workbench, clutching Tolkien to her chest. “You can’t think that hard while holding a blow torch. It’s a hazard, and I’m not wearing the appropriate footwear to run from a structural fire.”
Kenna eyed her friend’s plaid clogs, complete with metal spikes on the heel and admitted Darla was right. She’d be doomed. “Where do you even find shoes like that?”
“Don’t make me explain the Internet again.”
Kenna removed her helmet and ran a rag over her sweaty head. “One time. One time I have trouble downloading a file and I’m suddenly classified as a computer-illiterate granny.”
“Nah, they teach grannies the Internet now.”
They traded an exaggerated smirk. “Okay, fine. I’m done for the day. Disaster averted.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Darla propped her slight hip against Kenna’s workstation. “What has you thinking so hard? Saturday night we ate pizza and watched The Hobbit—”
“Against my will.”
“—and today you’ve gone from Sporty Spice to Scary Spice.”
“Jesus. I can’t take the Spice Girls rating system today.” Kenna melted off her stool and clomped toward the mini fridge for a bottle of water. How long had she been working? “I’m just bogged down with work orders. It has me stressed.”
“What did you do yesterday?”
The water bottle paused in its ascent toward her mouth. Ah, the hell with it. She was too tired from her sleepless night to lie convincingly. Not to mention, her astute friend would get it out of her eventually, so this was merely a timesaver. “Hooked up with a virgin who’d just landed back at base. Started to make him a sandwich, but, uh—”
“Yeah, right.”
“What? I make the dopest sandwiches.”
Darla calmly set down her hardcover book on Kenna’s vacated stool. “Kenna, I’ve known you for four years and you’ve never hooked up on base. Not so much as a kiss on the cheek from a soldier.” She let her words hang in the air for a beat. “You are religious about leaving base when you want male company. The whole thing with your mother—”
“Hey.” Kenna laughed a little too loud. “This is getting a little deep for a Monday. Maybe I just decided to switch up the old routine. Nothing to be alarmed about.”
“I’m not alarmed. I’m just surprised.” Darla’s red-painted mouth lifted on one side. “Who was the lucky anomaly, you sly dog?”
“Uh, you sound like a dirty old man.” Kenna attempted to hide her reddening face by pulling the protective leather apron over her head. “Seriously, it doesn’t matter. He’s going back to Georgia and I’ll never see him again. It was just a thing.”
“A thing.”
“Yeah.” Kenna waved her hand. “A thing.”
“A virgin thing is so not your thing.”
Oh, yes it was. It was so her thing; she couldn’t think about it without contemplating another run for her sock drawer. Big muscled thighs, his voice cracking, not an ounce of male bullshit. Just pure awe and gratefulness…his all-out roar when he came. The way he’d cradled her to his chest afterward like a precious artifact. Damn. No thinking about that, remember?
“Speaking of male company, we need another road trip soon.” Kenna skirted past her friend and started to clean off her cluttered workbench. Darla was right. She’d broken her rule. Memories didn’t fade at Black Rock and her mother’s loose reputation continued to linger. Kenna got a kick out of dressing provocatively while never, ever, letting a single soldier lay a hand on her. Maybe it signaled her twisted sense of humor, but it was Kenna’s little way of punishing them for judging her mother for behavior deemed acceptable for men. Yeah, she’d burned her rulebook last night. Killed it dead. Now, even making the suggestion they go to a neighboring town, far from the base gossip mill, felt somehow disloyal. And completely unappealing. Bad. Very bad. “How about tonight?”
Darla’s face adopted its stern teacher countenance. “On a school night?”
“Come on—”
Kenna’s cell phone vibrated in the back pocket of her jeans. She fished it out between her thumb and forefinger, read the display name and smiled. “Father. Hi.”
“Kenna.” His gruff, no-nonsense voice boomed down the line. “Staying out of trouble?”
Her heart sank a little. “Yes, sir.”
That wasn’t a lie, but she’d deserved the question. In the not-so-distant past, the lieutenant general’s phone call would have gone unanswered because she would have been busy getting up to no good. Acting out, her school counselors had said. At the ripe old age of twenty-two, she could look back and agree. Following her parents’ divorce, her mother had moved off base, which had led to Kenna being passed around every three days like a piping hot potato. She’d embraced her new role as a seeming nuisance by burdening her parents at every turn. Running away, getting picked up for public intoxication, shoplifting. It all ended five years ago when her father had a heart attack.
Something miraculous had happened. The invincible lieutenant general had begun to need her. During his recovery, Kenna had moved in
permanently, become his right hand. Cooked for him, cleaned, taken him to physical therapy and administered his medication. The two of them had grown closer in their own subtle way. Although, she now wondered if her imagination had invented that bond. As soon as her father was back on his feet, she’d been sent to live with her mother. Unfortunately, by then, her mother had moved on and married her boyfriend and gotten pregnant.
Kenna had been on her own ever since. That’s how she intended to keep it. Because while she loved her parents unconditionally, she knew what happened when you loved someone too much. They only loved you back until your usefulness ran out. So instead of pretending she wanted that shiny romantic future like everyone else seemed determined to have, she left base every few months, met some drunk ex-frat boy with a chip on his shoulder and engaged in a meaningless one-night stand.
It worked for her and no one got hurt.
“Glad to hear it.” Her father broke back into her confidential thoughts, making Kenna cringe. Think about puppies or unicorns. “I need you here for dinner tonight, please. Nineteen hundred hours, on the nose. We’re having a guest.”
“Yes, sir,” she responded tonelessly, although hearing he wanted her around filled her chest with helium. Her father might have—in essence—kicked her ass out, but that specter of the friendship they’d developed still loomed. “Do you need me to come early? I can throw something together—”
“No, thank you. Tina has it covered.”
Tina. Her father’s new wife. She and Kenna were cordial, but they didn’t exactly exchange chatty text messages or do makeovers on each other. Apart from the day Tina had exchanged vows with the lieutenant general in their landscaped backyard, Kenna hadn’t even been invited over once. Maybe that would change after dinner tonight?
“Should I bring—”
“We have everything. Just don’t be late.”
She nodded even though he couldn’t see her. “I won’t be late. See you later, sir.”
When she hung up, she ignored the sympathetic look from Darla.
CHAPTER FOUR
Beck sipped the whiskey he’d just been handed from Lieutenant General Sutton. Truth be told, he’d never much cared for spirits. The occasional beer or two during a football game seemed to fit the bill fine without hindering his ability to think, but he welcomed the unfamiliar burn of whiskey now because the taste reminded him of Kenna. If that wasn’t a warning shot, he didn’t know what was. The girl made him think of being drunk and out of control. Made him want to get that way. Who needed the ability to think when his brain seemed determined to keep her image dangling in front of his eyes like a carrot? Flashes of her sparked in front of his eyes now. The feel of her mouth, the weight of her in his lap. Pathetically, he even thought of how she’d almost made him a sandwich. He wanted to pin her down and ask her why she’d wanted to make him a sandwich. Wanted to go back in time and let her make the darn thing.
Clearly the whiskey was already taking effect.
And okay, he might have also felt the need to indulge tonight for more than one reason. Chiefly among them, the lieutenant general had invited him for dinner, wanting to congratulate him for his role in the evacuation of five Army POWs. Scouting their location, placing surveillance on the makeshift prison, leading the extraction, despite the mission being compromised by a major explosion. He didn’t want to be honored. Didn’t want to be patted on the back for a job well done when he’d lost a good man on the very same mission. He banished the vision of Xander and locked out the upcoming meeting with Cullen where he would have to relate news details he wanted only to forget.
Beck shifted to ease the pressure on his right side, as if the throbbing had grown worse because of the memories. Like a lifeline, he drew Kenna’s face to the forefront once more. Why? Why would he put himself through the torture when she’d left him? Lord, he’d made a fool of himself in front of her. Begging, pulling on her pretty hair. Having no idea if he should touch her to make her stop writhing around on his thigh. She’d probably laughed her way out the door when he’d fallen asleep. Had she gone back to a boyfriend? Girls who looked and smelled and made sandwiches like her had boyfriends.
When he realized his hand had tightened on the tumbler of whiskey with enough force to shatter it, he took a deep breath and loosened his grip. Lord, this aggression wasn’t like him. His cool head had been a factor in earning him so many promotions. What was it about this girl?
While they waited for the final guest to arrive, Lieutenant General Sutton was relating a story of his time on the ground during the Gulf War, speaking in the hushed tones people reserved for tales of ghosts and battle. Beck’s mind struggled to distance itself, find a quiet place a million miles away from thoughts of where he’d just returned from, but he wanted to be respectful, so he forced himself to pay attention to every word.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but we were the lucky ones.” Sutton slapped him on the back. “Same as you. Lucky enough to be alive with the life education most men aren’t privy to. It’ll serve you well, whether you know it or not.”
Beck nodded once. “Thank you, sir. I—”
“Sorry, I’m late.” A muffled female voice, followed by familiar booted footsteps, came from the front entryway, and Beck’s body went screaming into high alert. All five senses sharpened the way they did before going into battle, his shoulders bracing for impact. He was experiencing déjà vu, not because his subconscious was rerunning this scene. No, because he’d expected it. Maybe not this exact way, but he’d expected to see her again. Would have gone to find her himself, if necessary.
Kenna was the final dinner guest? But they were waiting for Sutton’s daughter. Beck felt sucker-punched as reality dawned. Kenna—the girl who’d gotten on her knees and pleasured him—was Lieutenant General Sutton’s daughter. For the love of God.
He thought he’d readied himself for Kenna to walk into the room, but he’d been ten kinds of wrong. No, she strode into view in combat boots and a miniskirt, long hair—hair he’d pulled—piled on top of her head. And he just managed to catch himself before staggering back. It couldn’t be typical, this impact she had on him. Like ten smooth sets of hands stroking over his body at the same time. He shouldn’t be anxious to get those green eyes on him. Shouldn’t regret he hadn’t thrown her onto that damn bed yesterday, given her the kind of fucking he ached to dole out. The kind he’d watched on his laptop screen, where the female grew sweaty and moaned for the man to thrust harder, her ass shaking with the impact. No, he definitely shouldn’t be thinking about that. If anything, he should be mad as all hell that she’d omitted her identity, but he couldn’t muster it around the relief of seeing her again.
She was busy digging in a grocery bag and hadn’t looked up yet, so he used the time to straighten up, pull himself together. Glue his gaze above her neck where it belonged, especially with her father standing at his shoulder. Jesus.
“I swear, I left right on time, but I—” Kenna looked up and the smile froze on her face. So she hadn’t known either. Well, at least he wasn’t the only one being caught off guard. With an obvious effort, she turned her attention to Sutton. “I, uh…s-stopped to get that beef jerky you’re always going on about. The one—”
“Thank you. Although, Tina picked it up for me this morning.” Sutton patted his daughter on the shoulder, much like he’d done to Beck. “I’d rather you’d been on time.”
“Ah, you know me. Unfashionably late.” She dropped the grocery bag down to her side, throwing a glance at Beck. “Just ask Major Collier. If I’d been any later to pick him up yesterday, he would’ve started walking.” She widened her eyes slightly. “Right, Major?”
Beck hid his surprise that she’d acknowledged their acquaintance in a sip of whiskey. “I was grateful to have a ride at all on short notice. Thanks again, ma’am.”
“That’s right. I forgot you two already know each other,” Sutton said, just as Tina joined them in the living room to take Beck’s now-empty glass an
d sail back toward the kitchen. Beck noticed she’d only offered a passing nod in Kenna’s direction and that Kenna didn’t appear surprised by the less-than-welcoming gesture. “I’ll go make sure Tina has dinner in order,” Sutton continued. “Make yourself comfortable, Major. Kenna.”
The air left the room as soon as they were alone. She was both too far away and too close for his peace of mind. Questions hovered on the tip of his tongue. Questions that she anticipated, based on her expectant—slightly defiant—expression. But the bag of rejected jerky she’d brought looked so sad, dangling against her boot. And he didn’t like the welcome she’d received. Not at all. Knew it had to account for the steel she’d put in her spine, the adorable way she lifted her chin. So he didn’t ask why she’d kept her identity from him. Yes, because he didn’t want to be predictable, but more so because he wanted to distract her from the tense undercurrents he’d felt running through the room. He needed her to feel welcome, even if it wasn’t his place or his home.
“I’m not much of a fan of dinner parties.” He cleared his throat into the silence. “You ever hear of murder mystery dinner theater?” She shook her head slowly, as if trying to discern his angle. “There’s a place down in Atlanta—Agatha’s, I think it’s called. From the time my sister and I entered middle school, my mother used to drag us there for our birthdays. These actors would put on a big whodunit on stage while everyone ate ribs.”
A spark lit her eyes. “So bad it was good?”
“Exactly.” Oh God, she’s so damn pretty and I’m stuck talking about dinner theater. “We started off hating it every time, but then my mother, she’d start laughing. She’d laugh so loud, the actors would forget their lines. Soon none of us could keep a straight face.” He shrugged. “I think that’s why I can’t enjoy dinner parties anymore. They pale in comparison.”