More Than Friends (The Warriors)

by Laura Taylor

  She would run from him, just as she’d run from him to start a new life in Monterey six years earlier. And she would hate him even more than she had then.

  Brett lost track of the time as he held Leah and stared at the fire. He longed to feel whole again, to be loved, and to experience the emotional satisfaction and fulfillment he’d once known with her. All of his dreams and fantasies during the last six years had hinged on the possibility of a life with Leah and their son at some point in the future, but the future had arrived. Now, he saw it for what it was—a colorless landscape littered with broken dreams and shattered hopes.

  As Leah curled into him and sleepily nuzzled the side of his neck, Brett fought the temptation to abandon his conscience and simply take her into his bed. Starved for one last taste of her passion, he silently cursed the gnawing weakness within himself that prompted such selfish thoughts, and he forced himself to reaffirm his commitment to her protection and to guiding her through her present crisis.

  His thoughts shifted for a moment to the weariness he felt at the prospect of returning to the never–ending battle that he and Micah, and men like them, waged across the globe. In danger of losing his edge and his soul if he remained much longer in the hunt, he realized that his days as a hunter were nearly over. He’d seen too many good men die, and he’d lost everything he valued. For now, though, he couldn’t—and wouldn’t—walk away until the terrorists who’d placed Leah and their child in jeopardy were all imprisoned or dead.

  Brett carried Leah to bed shortly before dawn, removed her slacks and blouse, and tucked her beneath a down comforter. Placing his weapon on the night table that separated their beds, he discarded all of his clothing except his trousers before he stretched out atop his own bed. He wedged a pillow behind his head, staring absently at the tongues of flame that licked at the fireplace logs and listening to the sound of the rain as it pummeled the rooftop above his head.

  Brett didn’t expect to fall asleep, but his fatigue eventually claimed him. He drifted off, still sick at heart as he anticipated Leah’s reaction to him when she recalled their shared past and to the explanation he would need to provide about the threat he’d caused to her and to their son.

  8

  Leah screamed. She fought the hands restraining her until the pain deep in her belly destroyed her dwindling strength and sent her tumbling into the arms of agony. She screamed yet again, a hoarse cry that sounded as though it had been wrenched from the depths of her soul.

  A voice she didn’t recognize yelled, "Quit fighting me, Leah. You’re close. Very close. Give me one more push. Just one more."

  "Can’t," she muttered between sobs. "Can’t push."

  Strong hands seized her, shoved her upright, and held her still. Her head rolled forward, long, sweat–matted strands of golden hair spilling across her tear–stained, perspiration–drenched face. She groaned, protesting as best she could despite the cramp gripping her mid–section.

  "Come on, Leah. One more time for Micah. Just one more for me, baby sister, and then it’ll be all over."

  She flailed against his hold, but he brushed her hands aside. "One more," she whispered to herself, all the while knowing that she had no strength left. "One more."

  "That’s right, baby sister. One more time. You can do it. I know you can."

  She whimpered a feeble protest and then screamed as the pain exploded inside her again. Someone cursed, the sound vicious as it rang in her ears. She pushed, too frightened now not to. Voices all around her kept yelling at her, insisting that she push. Desperate enough to do anything to end the pain, and despite her certainty that she was on the verge of death, she kept trying to do what they wanted.

  "Leah! Wake up!"

  Someone shook her, in the same way that a frustrated child shakes a rag doll when it won’t talk back. She gasped, grabbing her middle as the muscles there rippled in protest.

  "Can’t. Can’t," she wept, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  She felt strong hands jerk her forward. She slammed into a hard wall of muscle. Disoriented, she stiffened, opened her eyes, and looked blankly at the fierce expression on the face of the man holding her. "Is he alive? Tell me," she begged, perspiration dripping into her eyes and making them sting. "Is he alive?"

  "Leah, wake up. You aren’t making any sense."

  She clutched at Brett, her fingers sinking into the dark hair that covered his chest. She didn’t notice that he flinched as her nails scored his skin. "Is he alright?"

  He tugged her close, his confusion evident as he stroked her shaking body and tried to calm her. "Is who all right?"

  "The…" Uncertain and bewildered, she eased back and studied his features. She saw his concern and what she thought might be a hint of fear. What could he be afraid of? she wondered.

  Reaching up, she traced the width of his mouth with her fingertips. He froze, staring at her. She frowned, wondering why he kept looking at her in such an odd way. What was there between them that caused him such anxiety?

  She tilted her head to one side, studying him with the open curiosity usually reserved for small children when they’ve discovered something new and interesting. She slid her fingertips up the side of his face and into the shaggy dark hair that crowned his head and trailed down his neck. After letting the coarse dark silk slide through her fingers, Leah flexed them and then pressed the pads of each finger against the warmth of his scalp.

  Brett shuddered under her touch. His hands tightened, his fingers digging into her waist. She felt pleasure spark to life deep inside her, a ready replacement for the quickly fading memory of pain she’d brought with her from her dream.

  "Where are we?" she absently asked as she scanned his harshly carved features yet again. "You look worried. Why?"

  Brett frowned. "The Oregon coast. We’re in a room at the Seaside Lodge, and I am worried."

  She shook her head. "No. We can’t be. The hospital…" Confused, she let her voice trail off.

  Shoving her tangled hair out of her face, she exhaled and sagged against him. Sanity started to pierce her befuddled mind. The dream receded a little more, the edges growing fuzzy. Leah swallowed against the dry, cottony feeling in her throat and mouth. "Water, please."

  Brett kept one arm around her, pushed his holstered gun out of the way, and reached for the carafe on the bedside table. After half–filling a glass with water, he helped her tilt it to her lips. She drank greedily.

  "I had a dream," she whispered once he set aside the glass and drew her back into his arms.

  "It sounded more like a nightmare."

  "I don’t understand."

  "You were screaming. I couldn’t make out the words, but you sounded terrified and angry."

  She felt engulfed by his embrace. He made her feel safe and protected. Why couldn’t he love her, too? she wondered drowsily.

  "I couldn’t get you to wake up. You scared the living hell out of me."

  She shook her head before she pressed her lips against his shoulder. "Sorry. The dream seemed so real. I think I was having a baby, but no one would tell me if he was alright. Micah was there with me."

  "You had a baby in your nightmare?" he asked grimly.

  "Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?" She hesitated and then admitted, "It hurt. People kept yelling at me to push, but I didn’t have any strength left. No one would listen to me, though."

  "I would have listened." His voice sounded tortured, his eyes filling with anguish as he looked down at her. "I would have been there for you if I’d known you needed me."

  Startled by his reaction, she said, "Don’t be sad, Brett. I’m alright. It was just a dream. I’ve almost forgotten it."

  She snuggled closer, her lips brushing against his bare shoulder yet again, her hands skimming up and down his spine, the muscles rippling beneath her fingertips. She felt him tremble before he tightened his embrace. Leah shifted against him, her insides already throbbing and quaking with need. She sighed.

  The sound of her sigh was
softer than a gentle breeze on a warm spring day, but Brett still heard it. He forced their bodies apart, gripped her upper arms, and peered down at her face. "What’s wrong?"

  "Nothing. I’m just…"

  He slid his hands up to her shoulders, curving his fingers over the slender width. "Your skin’s on fire."

  "All of me is on fire. I get that way whenever you touch me… or talk to me… or look at me."

  "Leah…"

  She heard the start of a warning. "No, don’t say it, and don’t push me away again, please. I want you." She saw disbelief and shock reflected in his dark eyes. She stopped him from speaking by placing her fingertips against his lips. "Please don’t say no to me again."

  He didn’t. He muttered a curse, but she heard no anger in the word. Instead, the hard word seemed to echo with reluctant capitulation.

  "Love me, Brett, if only for tonight. Please love me," she whispered against his mouth before quickly sucking his lower lip between her teeth and bathing it with the tip of her tongue.

  He groaned into her mouth as their lips mated. He traced the seam of her lips until they parted and then the even line of her teeth, his hunger for her revealed even before he thrust his tongue into her mouth. He explored her with deep hard kisses, as if compelled to consume her with an intimate greed that stunned and thrilled her.

  Leah opened to him completely, willing to relinquish control, willing to be anything he desired, willing to completely surrender. Too eager, too starved for the taste of him to care who dominated their intimacy, she savored his possession and delighted in the skillful way in which he ate at her lips and delved into the heat of her mouth.

  Eager to be free of any barriers between them, she released the catch on her bra, shrugged free of it, and tossed it aside. She pressed her breasts against his chest, inhaling the tortured sound Brett made as they shared the purest sensory pleasure, exhaling the answering echo of her utter relief.

  She felt his hands urging her even closer. She became pliant, eagerly accommodating his simplest touch. His tongue ravaged the hills and hollows beyond her teeth. She responded in kind, taking her fill of his unique taste and stabbing teasingly at the interior of his mouth until he captured the tip of her tongue with his teeth. She welcomed her captivity as she absorbed the frantic pace of his heartbeat. And as the heat of his skin burned her breasts, she grasped that she was finally experiencing the truth of his hunger for her.

  Leah twisted in his arms, her nipples tingling and stiffening as she shifted back and forth against the pelt of dark hair that covered his chest and belly. She felt herself melting inside, felt herself turning into a seething mass of need that knew no beginning and desired no ending to the joy—the sense of utter completeness—she found in his arms.

  He whispered her name, worshipping her with his low, rough voice even as he left a trail of incendiary blessings across her body with his tantalizing fingers. Brett filled his hands with her breasts, molding his fingers over her and measuring the fullness and weight of her warm flesh.

  Her breath caught, suspended in her throat until she gasped for air. She felt the tremors that made his fingers tighten over her flesh, and she whimpered her pleasure into his mouth. Relief submerged her at his possessive touch, bringing with it overwhelming emotions and tears that threatened to blind her. A strangled sound escaped her as she choked back her tears. He drank in the salt–tinged sound even as he settled her back against the pillow with gentle hands and a tender look in his troubled eyes.

  She reached for him, frantic at the thought of being deprived of the taste and feel of him. She skimmed her fingertips across his chest, branding him with her touch, lightly scoring the flat nipples hidden in his chest hair. His powerful body shuddered. Leah sensed his struggle for self–control, and she felt compelled to make it snap once and for all. She needed to prove to him that they were right for each other.

  He seized her hands, pressing hot kisses into her palms before pushing them aside. Sprawled on her back, her long hair a cloud of golden silk around her face and across her shoulders, she trembled with need as her legs shifted restlessly and her hips undulated beneath the hand that stroked her abdomen and upper thighs. Her legs separated of their own accord, her desire for him clearly visible in the stark hunger etched into her features, her trembling body, and her uneven breathing.

  Smiling at her, Brett leaned down and wet her lips with the trailing tip of his tongue. She shivered, her love for him a consuming thing. She whispered a silent prayer that he truly understood the powerful feelings he stirred within her.

  Running his fingertips from the delicate pulse in the hollow at her throat, down across her swollen breasts and taut nipples, and then over the soft curve of her belly, he soothed and aroused her until she thought she might go mad from the pleasure.

  "Relax, Leah. Just let me love you."

  She nodded, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her breathing ragged, and her aquamarine eyes glittering with desire. She held her breath, waiting, wondering what he intended. Watching him, she couldn’t imagine sharing this kind of intimacy with any other man. She couldn’t imagine ever even wanting another man.

  Brett was, she realized in a flash of lucidity, the perfect mate for her heart. She despaired that he might never realize it, and she silently vowed that she would find a way to persuade him that they belonged together.

  Bending over her, he cupped her breasts in his hands. He leaned down, took one of her nipples into his mouth, and tenderly nipped at it with his teeth. Air gushed out of her as Leah arched into his mouth, wanting more, wanting anything and everything he felt inclined to give as the tension inside her steadily mounted. She gripped his shoulders, moaning brokenly.

  He moved back and forth between her breasts, feeding on her like a starving man. As he suckled, he sent torrents of desire careening through her body, and she lost track of time. She lost all awareness of anything but Brett as he relentlessly stoked the flames of her desire into an inferno. She felt the threat of incineration. And she even welcomed it.

  As he crouched over her, she groaned her pleasure, her nerve endings glittering. Low in her belly, heat and tension and abject need coiled tighter and tighter. She trembled. Her heart raced. She breathed in quick, shallow pants, his name spilling repeatedly past her lips. She shifted soon after, restless beneath his hands, growing more and more mindless as her body quested for release.

  Brett slid his fingers beneath the lace edge of her bikini panties, delving suddenly, deeply into her wet heat with two fingers. Her hips came up off the bed, her cry of pleasure raw as her body adjusted to his intrusion. Her flesh quivered and wept in response to his touch, drenching him with her essence.

  Quickly stripping the bit of lace from her hips, Brett moved lower, parted her thighs, and covered her with his mouth. He held her still as he explored the soft, damp folds and the taut nub secreted behind the golden silk that shielded her sex.

  Tension vibrated through her entire body. She cried out, certain she’d just been hurled into the center of a sensual storm unlike anything she’d ever before experienced. Her hips moved in counterpoint to his skillful tongue and lips. She died a little—a seemingly endless series of glorious little deaths—each time he dipped his fingers into the hot, wet recesses of her body, and again each time his tongue circled and then stroked her now quaking flesh.

  With the pressure inside of her threatening to reach flashpoint, Leah gasped, "I want you… inside… me."

  Brett paused, drew in enough air to fill his lungs, and then he simply intensified his sensual torment. His tongue swept back and forth across her tender flesh at an increased pace even as he quickened the thrusting of his long, narrow fingers into the depths of her body.

  The impact of his erotic assault sent charged currents into every part of Leah’s trembling body. Feeling electrified by the sensations suffusing her, she gripped the bedding, her back and legs stiffening with tension.

  Her emotions seemed to turn on a dime wh
en she finally sensed his restraint. She fought Brett in earnest then, instinct and need prompting her to try to slow him down and draw him up and into her body. She wanted—needed—him inside of her. She wanted to feel his hard strength as he penetrated her body. She wanted to love him completely, not just be the recipient of his skill as a lover.

  He thrust his fingers even deeper. Leah resisted the tantalizing power of his touch, trying to wrench free of him, her teeth gritted and her head thrown back as wave after wave of splintering ecstasy threatened a total breach of her defenses. His single–minded determination almost seemed to mock her. Her resistance to the inevitable steadily waned. She felt it the instant she began to lose her battle for the climax she wanted to experience with him buried to the hilt inside of her once their bodies were joined.

  "Let go, Leah. Don’t fight me. Don’t fight your feelings," he urged, his voice gritty, intense, challenging. "You need this, so let go. Let me love you."

  "No!" she cried even as his words defeated her and triggered her response. "Not… yet."

  Leah felt her orgasm detonate with violence and without warning, contracting deep inside her body, sweeping her up, tearing her apart, and then catapulting her into world of sensory wonder. She called out his name until she grew hoarse. Tears crept from her closed eyes as a firestorm blazed across her senses and her body imploded in slow motion.

  Burning with need, Brett held Leah throughout her shattering journey. Despite the cost to himself, he denied his emotions and his body the joy he knew he would find in and with her. He snugged his arms around her hips and pressed his cheek to her pelvis, holding on to her with every bit of his strength. He absorbed the stunning burst of her climax and the powerful aftershocks that quivered through her, and he listened to the broken sound of the sobbing breaths she took.