by Tawny Weber
And what she wanted right now was breakfast. Who cared if the pickings were slim? She would make something awesome, anyway.
Humming again, she grabbed the eggs and salami before moving to the tiny square that was the only counter space. She started a search through the cabinets. She’d slice the salami thin to fry it up like bacon and scramble the eggs. Along the way, she found a loaf of bread, two apples and a jar of peanut butter.
Slicing the salami, she couldn’t help but smile at the idea of Laramie being a PB&J guy. She’d have pegged him a red-meat-lovin’ chili eater, but discovering all these sweet little details about him was just one reason why she was fascinated.
Sammi jumped when two large hands slipped around her waist, her yelp of shock ricocheting around the room.
How did he move like that? She should have heard him, shouldn’t she? The cabin was silent but for the birds outside and the faint hum of the ancient refrigerator.
“I was just making something for breakfast,” she said, her words breathless. Shouldn’t she feel shy with him? Or at least a smidge uncomfortable?
His hands found bare flesh, leaving trails of heat as they skimmed over her belly. Sammi shot a look out the curtainless window, checking for the deer. When she noted that the brush outside appeared wildlife-free, she relaxed back into Laramie’s chest and sighed her pleasure.
“I’m not hungry for food,” he said, nuzzling her hair aside so he could nibble on her throat. His hands cupped her breasts, squeezing rhythmically while his fingers gently twisted her nipples into fiery need.
“Don’t you need fuel to keep your energy up?” Sammi asked, her words a breathless gasp as she tossed the food aside to grip the countertop so she didn’t fall.
“Sugar, after the last two days, how can you doubt my ability to keep it up?” His laughter was a soft caress over her tingling skin, his body tight against hers.
The feel of his erection pressing against her just below the curve of her spine made her tremble. They’d had each other so many times, in so many ways. Yet just the feel of him had her instantly wet and needy.
She tried to turn. She wanted him now. She needed the long, hard length of him inside her. But instead of letting her, his hands tightened so that his fingers bit into her breasts. Sammi gasped, need coiling tight between her thighs.
“Laramie.”
He shifted his hands, one banding across her body so he still held her trapped while his fingers teased her nipple. The other slid down her torso, through her Brazilian curls and over her hot, wet core. He dipped a testing finger inside, then before she could do more than moan, he grabbed her waist and lifted so her belly was pressed against the narrow counter. Both hands caressed their way up her hips, lifting her shirt high and angling her just so before he slid inside her from behind.
“Oh, God,” she breathed, her body welcoming his, wrapping around him like a tight glove. Even as she reveled in the erotic delight of being taken from behind, of being bent over a countertop, hot flames of desire engulfed her. He was so deep he was a part of her.
His hands cupped her breasts. He thrust again and again until Sammi cried out with the pleasure pouring through her. Her climax came in a flash, light exploding behind her eyes. Before she could catch her breath, she felt his orgasm rock through her body, sending her over again. This time with enough intensity that everything behind her eyes went black. When Sammi came back to awareness, she was still tingling and Laramie’s body was resting against hers.
As she took a shaky breath, he murmured, “Good morning, sugar.”
* * *
HIKING TO THE TOP of his favorite trail, Laramie breathed deep the peace as if he could store it inside and take it with him when he left.
This was why he came back each year, he realized.
“It’s so beautiful here.”
He glanced over at Sammi’s soft murmur, surprised at how perfect she looked sitting in his thinking spot. Her ponytailed hair gilded in the sunset and dark glasses shading her eyes, she’d wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her chin there to look out over the valley below.
She gave him peace, he realized with a frown. Or maybe it was contentment. He’d never experienced it before, so he couldn’t be sure. The past few days had been filled with her. They’d made love and talked. They’d slept and ate and showered and made love some more. And talked. He wasn’t sure what it was about her, or if it was something about them since she seemed surprised at how much she’d confessed, too. Whatever it was, it was rare and it was special.
And he wasn’t sure he wanted to let it go.
“It must make it easier to leave each year knowing that this will be here when you get back.” Sammi gestured to the view, the tans, reds and greens beyond the valley blurring together like a watercolor. “It’s as if it hasn’t changed in hundreds of years.”
“I used to come here a lot when I was a kid,” he confessed, taking her hand in his to rub each finger in turn. “When I was upset or pissed, or just wanted some space from my parents’ fighting. I could think here.”
“Your mom always seemed like a sea of calm to me.” Sammi cringed and pressed her fingers to her lips as if wishing she could shove the words back in. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like to talk about her.”
Nope. He didn’t.
But even as Laramie felt himself closing in, wrapping his heart tightly around the memories, Sammi rose from the log, stepped over and took his hand.
“It’s a great thinking place,” she said with an understanding smile. “The vastness seems as if it’d put problems into perspective, and the quiet offers little in the way of distractions.”
As a change of subject, it was about as obvious as it was sweet. He meshed their fingers together, then led her back to the log where he pulled her onto his lap. With Sammi’s head resting on his shoulder, he stared out at the valley.
“She was calm, most of the time. She liked to sing when she worked and she made friends easy. Wherever we were on the rodeo circuit, she’d gather women around her and make us a home. She never raised her voice to me. She didn’t have to. She’d get this look in her eyes and just shake her head, and I swear, that was as much a punishment as getting my butt walloped by my father. But they fought a lot. When he died, I figured it’d get easier.”
Laramie rested his head on the silky softness of Sammi’s hair, the view blurring at the edges as he remembered.
“I was tired of living at my uncle’s, wanted to get on with our lives, so I bugged her to move home. To me, the cabin was always home.” Memories poured through him, hard, fast and painfully clear. “She was sick. She thought it was just a summer cold, you know how those hang on. Then she got worse. I couldn’t drive. Was always on a horse at that age, so I’d had no interest in learning to operate a vehicle. I wouldn’t have left her, anyway—she was getting so bad. I did what I could, but it didn’t help. Next thing I knew, she was gone.”
Meningitis. It had taken her from him so damned fast.
“She loved you, Christian. That was obvious to anyone who saw the two of you together, or heard her talk about you. She’d be proud of you. Not only for what you’ve become, but for what you’ve overcome.”
Laramie gave a half shrug. He didn’t figure she’d be ashamed.
Sammi shifted so she could see his face. Her eyes serious, she laid her hand on his cheek.
“I didn’t know her well, but I know her through you. And through the things people say.” She paused, as if waiting for him to understand how thorough and well-informed the gossip chain was. “I think it would hurt her to think that you were still blaming yourself for her dying.”
That his choices, his actions had caused her pain was a guilt he would carry his entire life. But for the first time since he’d seen his mother fall to the floor, the heaviness of blame lifted. Not completely. But enough to let in a few other memories. Warm, happy memories.
He sighed and started to thank Sammi Jo. Instead, he found himself l
eaning down to take her mouth with his.
There was no lust in the kiss. The goal wasn’t sex. As their lips slid together, it was joy and friendship that filled his body. It was the simple peace of knowing he was with someone who made him feel like the best person he could be. Someone who filled him with a self-acceptance that he’d never felt before.
“Wow,” Sammi breathed the word again, her eyes huge and, this time, blurry with desire. “Was that a thank-you?”
“That. And it was because I like you,” he said slowly.
It was as simple, and as complicated, as that.
“Have you ever thought about leaving Jerrick?” he heard himself ask. At Sammi’s shocked stare, he shrugged. “If Barclay decides to move or something. Would you leave?”
She bit her lip, then as if talking about her fiancé while sitting on another man’s lap bugged her, she slid down to sit on the log next to him.
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” She shrugged. “Even after you talked me out of running away, I used to dream about leaving. I wanted to see places, explore the world, just get out of Texas. But then things changed.”
“Where did you want to explore?” Anyplace he might be assigned?
“I wanted to swim in every ocean, to visit other countries. I wanted to fly in an airplane and see snow on the mountains.” Her words dreamy, Sammi snuggled closer to rest her head on the crook of his shoulder.
“So why aren’t you?”
“Working at the inn doesn’t offer a lot of opportunity to travel,” she pointed out, her smile fading as fast as it came, leaving a tiny line creasing her brow.
“Is the inn where you want to be working? Is that the career you chose? When we were kids, you used to talk about doing something artistic.”
“I actually made pretty decent money painting cards and stuff when I was in college. I developed this style that went over really well and had so much fun doing it.”
Her face lit up as she described the various techniques she’d used for different messages. He had no idea what bokeh was, and wet-on-wet sounded kinky as hell. He did like the way her face lit up and how animated her gestures were as she described it.
“You’re still making this line of cards and stationary, right?” He’d get some and write to her from wherever he was stationed. She’d probably get a kick out of seeing her own card arrive from Kabul or Germany.
“Not really. I mean, I make a few things here and there as gifts for friends, but I gave up on the idea of art for a living years ago. There’s no way I could actually support myself with my little drawings and paint splatters,” she said, the words so matter-of-factly automatic that Laramie wondered who’d made them her reality.
Whoever it was, he had the urge to punch them. She shouldn’t be giving up her dreams.
“You sound more excited about that than anything I’ve heard you say about running the inn. Sounds to me as if that’s a better direction for you than what you’re doing now.”
Her face lit as if he’d just paid her a huge compliment, then fell just as fast.
“Maybe, but it takes a lot to start a new career. By the time I’d have enough inventory to make it doable, I’d be way too old,” she laughed.
Where the hell was she getting this stuff? Sammi Jo was only twenty-four. He knew guys who went to school, started new careers in their forties. They left the military and started from scratch.
“You know, I have a friend who runs an art gallery. Mostly ceramics and glass, but they have this little gift shop and I think everything there is handmade, too.”
“Mmm, would this be a lady friend?” Sammi asked with an eye roll.
“Sure, but not like that. She’s married to one of my teammates,” he said, thinking of Lark and Shane. “She’s got a lot of contacts in the art world. I’m sure she’d like to take a look at your cards. She can tell you what it’d take to get started.”
“You’d do that? You’d ask your friend’s wife to help me out?”
Laramie frowned, not sure why she sounded so shocked.
“Of course.”
“You are the sweetest man I’ve ever known,” she said, rubbing her lips over his before curling into his arms.
That wasn’t an answer, but Laramie figured that meant a yes was still possible. He’d just have to work up to getting her to agree, that’s all.
And he didn’t know about being the sweetest man. But he felt whole when he was with Sammi. As if the pieces of his world that had been broken for so long had finally mended. For a man whose life was filled with epic choices and life-or-death scenarios, it was a huge thing. What would it be like to have this feeling all the time?
Laramie remembered his first free-fall jump from a helicopter into the storm-raged Pacific. He’d stood on the edge of the bay door of a mechanically sound Chinook, staring into the icy, black walls below. And he’d known that with one step, he could be plummeting to a viciously painful death or he could be proving that he was worthy of the Trident he’d worked so hard to earn. Either way, he’d figured he’d never be the same again.
Staring into Sammi Jo’s pretty face, he felt exactly the same as he had standing on the edge of that bay door. If his emotions shifted another inch closer to that precipice, it would either change his life.
Or break his heart.
11
CELL PHONE TO his ear, Laramie sat on the railing outside the Packing District, rolling his eyes at the bar that proudly advertised its meat-market status on a neon sign flashing from blue to red and back again.
As if anyone could miss it otherwise?
The place was doing big business tonight, and not just because of Sammi Jo’s bachelorette party. The parking lot was jammed tight and sounds rolled out of the building like thunder each time the wide entry door opened.
“Genius said to tell you he’s tapped into the business partner. You were right. There’s something shady going on with that guy,” Taylor was saying in Laramie’s ear. “So what’s going on at your end? Were you able to deploy Operation Rich Boy Rescue without us? You get that dumbass back yet?”
“Once I’d determined that he wasn’t in actual danger, I scaled back my efforts. He and the partner are up to something.” That or Barclay really was a dumbass. Laramie shook his head, figuring nobody could be that stupid. “The dumbass actually called Sammi this morning to remind her to check his PO box for some training program he’d ordered.”
“Dude’s been kidnapped. Maybe that was some sort of code. Maybe coordinates to his location or encrypted details on who the kidnappers are.”
Laramie gave a derisive snort.
“That’d be a no.” Then, because it was Taylor, he admitted, “I checked.”
“Huh. So he really is a dumbass.”
They took a moment to ponder the stupidity of some people before Taylor changed the subject.
“So when are we going to meet the woman who has you all but hog-tied and branded?” On the other end of the line, Taylor deliberately hesitated. “That’s the cowboy way of saying that you’re gaga over your Texas sweetheart, right?”
“I’m not gaga, and I’ll never be hog-tied and branded,” Laramie said dismissively, his shoulders twitching uncomfortably.
“Yeah, fine. Whatever. So when do we get to meet her?” Taylor said with a laugh.
“Probably around three days after never.”
Not because he wanted to keep her secret. Hell, he’d already talked to Lark about her, had sent her a package with the handful of cards and stationary he’d been able to charm away from Sammi. Picturing Sammi Jo in San Diego was pure pleasure. She’d love the beaches and she’d fit right in with the team’s ladies. His friends would welcome her into their circle because she was with him. But as soon as they got to know her, they’d want her there for herself.
The question was, would she go?
And what if she didn’t?
He stared unseeingly at the parking lot, mentally picturing how that’d play
out. Would she visit when he was on leave? Or just a weekend here and there, and he’d spend leave here? Most of the team lived in Southern California. It was just easier that way. But a few had a family that hadn’t moved to California when they transferred. He’d always felt sorry for those guys, spending most of their leave traveling, then mowing lawns or some damned thing. Now he wondered how they pulled it off.
“Yo, Wizard.” Laramie hesitated. Then, needing to know, more than he wanted to pretend he didn’t care, he asked, “How do you do it? How do you make it work?”
In the typical way of the team, Taylor instantly understood the question without Laramie having to elaborate.
“Me and Cat?” The other man was silent for a moment. “We just do. It helps that we were friends before we got together, but I don’t think that’d matter in the grand scheme of things.”
Laramie knew that Taylor and his fiancée had grown up on the same street. Their moms were even best friends. Laramie didn’t figure that would have been a possibility even if his mom had been alive, but he figured having a friendship that went back to grade school days would work well enough.
“What about when you’re deployed? You, Romeo, Scavenger, you all seem to roll with it. I don’t see you getting stressed about being away from your women for weeks, months at a time. But don’t they get pissed?”
“Pissed? Why?” His words genuinely surprised, Taylor dismissed that with an airy pshaw. “Look, dude, we were all on the team when we got together with our women. They knew the score before signing on. And, I don’t know, I guess we’d all served long enough to know how to handle it right.”
Laramie didn’t need his friend to elaborate. They’d both seen plenty of guys who’d joined the SEALs thinking they knew what they were facing, then washing right back out. It took a special kind of strength to actually make it in the SEALs, a strength that didn’t always appear right away. Some guys took years to figure out how to balance the demands of their career, their commitment to the team and actually have a life, too.