“It’s just that . . . I’ve never had anyone in here before.”
Wow, just wow, she thought. To ease them past the awkward and all too revealing moment, she said, “Thanks for letting me into your Fortress of Solitude.”
He chuckled as she’d intended and with a soft jerk of her hand, drew her to face him. He cradled her face in his hands. Stroked his thumbs across her cheeks in a tender caress. “You are amazing, Maggie Sullivan. Do you know that?”
Warmth flooded through her at his words and that simple touch, filled with so much emotion and caring. Things that she suspected he’d been missing in his life for some time.
“I know, but you’re pretty special yourself, Trevor.” She splayed her hands across his chest and then bent and dropped a kiss directly over his heart.
He slid his arms around her and wrapped her in a tight hug, every inch of their bodies pressed together.
It was impossible to miss the hard length of his erection trapped between their bodies and yet the embrace was about more than passion. There was a sense of peace and belonging in his arms she’d never felt before and judging from the relaxed feel of his body, he was feeling it as well.
Long moments passed in that affectionate embrace before he reluctantly released her and turned back the covers on the bed.
She climbed onto that massive bed and settled herself on her side in the center, waiting for him to join her.
He hesitated for a moment, his gaze sliding all across her body and then he eased in beside her.
“You are so very beautiful,” he said and slowly trailed his fingers down her body from shoulder to hip and then around to spread his big hand across the small of her back. He snuck his other arm beneath her head so she could rest it there and be face-to-face with him.
She skimmed her hand across the straight line of his collarbone and to the upper swell of his arm. So much power there in his strong muscles, and yet he was so gentle with her. So caring and it made her afraid for him. Afraid that the world he’d chosen for himself would steal away all that caring inside of him, until it occurred to her that compassion and strength was what made him not only a good man, but a good soldier. One who wouldn’t risk his men needlessly or take a life without a care.
She inched up until they were nose-to-nose and his breath warmed her lips. She knew what she wanted to say. That she might be falling in love with him. That she wanted this to be about more than fucking and more than one night together. But she knew all of those things would chase him away. That any words might shatter this peaceful moment.
Delicately she fluttered kisses along his cheek and up to his brow, drawing a contented sigh from him. She smiled and moved to the center of his forehead, plopping a kiss there before raining them down the straight line of his nose and back to his mouth.
He was waiting for her, expectant. She opened her mouth against his and they kissed and kissed and kissed, tasting and savoring each other. Deepening the kiss as she met his tongue with hers and she pressed her body tight to his, embracing every part of him until just having him beside her wasn’t enough.
She needed to be joined with him. Connected.
She wanted him to experience what she was feeling in the only way she could show him right now. With her hands and lips and body.
Reaching between them, she stroked her hand along his erection and he grunted with satisfaction.
“I love when you touch me,” Trevor said and broke away from her kiss to glance down to where she was running her elegant hand up and down the length of him.
“I love touching you,” she said and with the gentle press of her hand against his shoulder, she urged him down to the bed and straddled his thighs so she could have an all access pass to his erection.
With that sexy smile on her face, she encircled his cock and stroked him. His balls tightened with need and he shifted his hips up into her hands, urging her on.
She stroked him again and bent, licked all around the head of him and then down his shaft, her mouth warm and moist with the intimate kiss.
But then she sat up again, her features a little more serious as she shifted one hand up to his chest and laid it over his heart.
“You’re a beautiful man,” she said and he knew at that instant that this time it was going to be about more.
He shuddered with the realization, almost undone by the love plainly visible in her eyes and the cherishing touch of her hands as she explored his body. She shifted her hand to cup his pec and caress the hard nub of his nipple. Moved it down along his side until she reached the scars where he had been wounded.
She paused and her hand was shaky against the damaged flesh. Almost reverent as she lightly traced the edges of the scars. “Does it still hurt?”
He could’ve lied and been the big brave man, but they’d blasted past that role already even though they’d only been together for a few short hours.
“Every now and then,” he admitted.
“I wish I could make the pain go away,” she said and moved that hand back to his cock, where she had been lazily caressing him with her other hand.
“You have,” he said and not just because the press and pull of her hands on him was amazing and quickly working him toward a release. She was amazing and he didn’t know how he could tell her or show her. Or how he would survive the long months until they might be together again.
“I want to be inside you, Maggie. I want us to be one.”
She stilled the motion of her hands, but he couldn’t fail to miss the slight tremor in them that snaked across her body.
“I want that, too.” She eased off his thighs and moved her hands onto his shoulders to urge him over her as she lay back down on the bed.
Chapter 9
He settled his body between her thighs as she spread them, the tip of his cock poised at the entrance to her vagina. She was wet and ready for him, but he hesitated for a second, afraid of getting it all wrong just when he wanted it to be more right than it had ever been with anyone.
She eased him past his hesitation by raising her knees and cradling his hips with the soft flesh of her thighs, inviting him to join with her.
Slowly he entered, sliding every inch of him deep until he was pressed tight to her clit and she wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him in even more closely.
She circled the back of his neck with one hand and laid the other against his chest. Her gaze was locked with his and in her eyes he saw his own needs and emotions reflected back.
He waited, wanting to prolong the sense of welcome for as long as he could, but then he had to have more. Wanted her to have more.
“Touch yourself, Maggie. Touch your tits. Your clit,” he said and her body trembled beneath his and he realized his Maggie was suddenly shy.
He took hold of her hand on his chest and brought it down to her breast. Urged her to tweak the sensitive nub and as she did so, he bent his head and licked her other breast, tugging at it with his teeth. Feeling how each little tweak brought a powerful vibration around his cock.
“That’s it, babe. Don’t be shy. This is a beautiful thing we’re doing,” he murmured and gently tugged her hand down to her core.
“Trevor,” she protested and as he gazed at her, noticed the bright pink flush across her creamy skin and breasts.
“Don’t hold back, Maggie. Touch yourself,” he said in soft tones, wanting her to feel free to pleasure herself in front of him.
Come on, Maggie, you can do this for him. Shit, you’ve done it enough on your own, the little voice in her head screamed even while the Catholic school girl reared her prudish little head.
Maggie beat her down, wanting to give him this desire. Trusting him with every fiber of her being.
She parted herself and found the swollen nub. Caressed it with the tips of her fingers as he watched and drove her on. “That’s it, babe. It feels so good.”
She felt it, too. With every stroke of her clit, she contracted around him, massaging his cock. Brin
ging a sense of fullness inside of her, but also the need to move against him.
“Go ahead, babe. I’ll go with you,” he said and as one, they shifted against one another, the friction and pleasure building with every sure movement of their bodies and every caress of her fingers against her clit.
She arched her back, deepening his every thrust. Held him tight as he bent and tongued and sucked on her breasts. Her climax built until with one rough thrust of his hips, she came, calling out his name and digging her fingers into his shoulders.
Trevor felt the bite of her nails into his skin and relished the pain so different from that he’d had buried in his heart for so long. Cherished the sound of his name on her lips and the way her body accepted him. Received his every stroke until his own release slammed into him and he lost it, spilling himself deep. Grinding into her to savor the last fleeting tremors of her climax and the ebb of his pleasure.
He dropped down onto her and she wrapped her arms around him and kissed his face, the action filled with tenderness. Filled with emotion so deep, it nearly choked him and tears came to his eyes. He tucked his head alongside hers and just held her, lost in both the aftermath of the pleasure they could bring each other and the sense of rightness, of homecoming, that he had never expected.
Long moments passed wrapped up in each other, his arms tight around her and her soft elegant hands soothing up and down his back.
Finally, regretfully, he rolled to lay back down, but took her with him, tucking her against his side.
Maggie pillowed her head on his chest and tossed her thigh over his as she snuggled against him, loath to be away from him for even a second.
She had it bad and it was a very bad thing. Already she could feel loss creeping into her soul at the thought that he’d be leaving tomorrow. That he would be gone for months. Months during which he’d be in danger just like her big sister Bridget.
It had taken her a long time to accept that about her sister. Accept that being a soldier was what made her happy.
She wasn’t sure if that’s why Trevor did it. If being in the military was truly his calling.
He murmured something softly, almost unintelligibly.
She raised her head and shot him a puzzled look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what – ”
“My mom was killed on 9-11,” he blurted and sucked in a rough breath before more words spilled out in a rush. “She wasn’t supposed to be in the Towers, but my dad had gotten called out of town by another client. The client in the Trade Center was important for the company and she was the next best person to go and visit with them.”
She smoothed her hand across his chest and his muscles trembled beneath her palm as he battled back emotion. He was staring straight up at the ceiling, as if looking at her would be too much more to bear.
“Your dad was out of town so you were alone that day?”
He shook his head. “When I got home from school, my Aunt Teresa was there with her kids.”
“Your Garibaldi cousins?” she asked and he nodded and continued. “We went inside to wait to hear from mom. My dad called a bunch of times, frantic because he couldn’t reach her either.”
“I’m so sorry, Trevor. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for all of you.” She’d had other friends whose lives had been touched on that fateful day and as it was for so many, it was still difficult to remember all that had happened and how it had changed so many things in their lives.
“It’s why I decided to serve, even if only for a single tour. I wanted to help make a difference. I wanted to keep someone else from feeling the pain that we all felt that day.”
“But your dad didn’t want you to join. He didn’t want to possibly lose you, too.”
He finally turned his head to face her and his gaze was haunted. Filled with the ghosts of the past. “Mason men have served before, so it seemed right. I told my dad I’d come work for him after, but he didn’t want to hear it. He felt guilty for sending my mom to the Towers that day and I think he feels as if my enlisting was his fault, too.”
As much as she tried to logic why that guilt would make Samuel Mason ignore his one and only son, she couldn’t quite understand it. “It doesn’t make any sense, Trevor.”
He cradled her jaw and stroked his thumb across his cheek. “No one ever said life made sense. Like what we’re doing right now, Maggie. Why are we doing this? It can only bring both of us a world of hurt.”
She shook her head and laid her hand over his heart. “I don’t know why, all I know is that it feels . . . right. That you and me together,” she said and motioned between them, “makes me feel . . . complete. It doesn’t make sense and I can’t explain it – ”
“But it just does,” he finished for her and a slow sexy grin spread across his lips and crept up into his eyes to drive away the ghosts.
“Yeah, it does,” she said and brushed a kiss across his lips.
He returned the kiss, but then laid his forehead against hers and did a little shake of his head. “Fuck, Maggie, I wish I could again, but – ”
She laid her index finger across his lips. “Sssh. Just hold me, Trevor. That’s all I want, is for you to hold me.”
He shifted to lie on his side and hauled her close, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and waist. His thigh resting between hers while the rest of their bodies were pressed together from chest down to their toes.
She tucked her head beneath his chin and against the hard muscles of his chest. The beat of his heart kept time against her ear as second after second fled from them and the morning grew ever closer. As the time for him to leave rushed at her.
She forced away those thoughts and just let herself relish the comfort of his arms as sleep finally claimed her.
Trevor was awake long after Maggie finally fell asleep.
He didn’t want to waste a single moment of being with her. Of experiencing the wonder of being with her and feeling the rightness of it. It made him wonder if this was what love felt like not that he could say that word yet.
What he was feeling was too new and uncertain. Too fragile.
He didn’t dare hope that it was love and that it could last past the morning. Past the months they’d be apart.
He didn’t dare hope because he’d been disappointed too many times in the past.
He’d hoped his mother was alive.
He’d hoped his father would come around so they could end the rift between them.
He should just be thankful for this one last night and not dare to dream.
He didn’t have the courage to dream that this might be the real thing.
It was far better to just let this one last night become a memory he could hold onto for all those future lonely nights.
Chapter 10
He woke with a start, an unexpected noise from the kitchen dragging him away from blissful dreams of Maggie and him together. Dragging him to face the harsh reality of an empty bed and Maggie’s absence.
But she wasn’t far, he thought as he eased from the bed and padded down the hall to the kitchen.
She was wearing his robe and standing at the sink, washing the dessert dishes from last night. She placed one into the dish drainer as he leaned a hand against the jamb of the kitchen door. He shot a quick look at the clock just to confirm it was barely eight o’clock before he said, “It’s early. What are you doing up?”
She shrugged, but didn’t look at him and picked up another dish to wash. “I couldn’t sleep and I figured I might as well do something useful.”
He walked over, stood behind her, and laid his hands on her waist. “I could have done these later, Maggie. Come back to bed with me.”
She shook her head and continued washing. “I just have a few more,” she said, but her tone was strained and he had come to know her well enough to understand.
He bent his head and dropped a kiss against the sensitive spot right behind her ear. Wrapped his arms around her waist and just held her as she finished washing, her m
ovements punctuated by an occasional sniffle as she battled back tears.
“Don’t cry for me, Maggie. I don’t want to remember this last time with you as being sad.”
She laid the last dish in the drainer and then gripped the edge of the sink. “Is that what this is? Our last time together, Trevor. One final fuck before you go off to war?”
Her body vibrated with tension beside him and her voice had held a quaver that said she was barely controlling her emotions.
With gentle pressure, he turned her to face him.
She was so lovely, he thought. The steam from the hot water she’d used to clean had roused curly wisps of hair all around her face and he passed a hand across them. “I remember you with curly hair,” he said and a small hint of a smile turned up one corner of her mouth.
“I straighten it. The curls are too wild and make me look too young.”
“I like them,” he said and dropped his hand to encircle the side of her neck. “I like you, Maggie. A lot. I want to explore if this could be more, only . . . I have to leave today.”
She nodded and looked away as a single tear escaped from the corner of her eye and trailed down her cheek. He reached up and brushed it away as she said, “I know. When are you going? How are you getting to the airport?”
“I have a car service coming at two so we have still have some time to spend together. Let’s go back to bed,” he said, but as he went to move away, she grabbed hold of his arm to keep him near.
“I have to go soon. I’m supposed to go to work today,” she said, sorrow evident in the emerald depths of her gaze.
“I guess that means you need to shower?” he asked, but with a light hearted tone to try to drive away the sadness that had filled the morning so far.
Maggie had planned on going home to shower and change before heading to work. Especially since it would probably be the last day she went to work, but the thought of a nice long hot shower with Trevor was worth doing the walk of shame into Samuel Mason’s office.
“I’d like that,” she said.
He slipped his hand into hers and teasingly tugged on it, not that he had to battle too hard to get her to follow him down the hall, back through his bedroom and into the master bath. But as he entered, the large spa tub caught his eye and he pulled her toward that.
Take a Chance Erotic Romance Box Set Page 19