Sweat pricked his shoulder blades, and finally, Marlena’s face fell. He’d said what he needed to in order to stop the conversation.
“I’m sorry for whatever hurt you.”
“Don’t say that.” His head dropped. Too bad that was all it took. An apology. “My brother.” God, it hurt to say out loud. He tried to swallow and couldn’t. The burn in his eyes was awful. “My twin brother was killed by insurgents. Nothing much left of his body. It burned, but slow. He probably suffered.” Trace choked on the thought, wishing it were him, not Michael. “Afterward, no one found his tags. He wasn’t on mission. They were transporting between—” He sucked a breath and closed his eyes. “I want them back.”
He fell back on the pillow. Feeling better wasn’t the issue. That’d never happen. But saying it out loud… He shook his head. Saying it out loud did nothing. He wouldn’t let it.
“When you find them, what will you do?”
Trace turned his head. “What?”
She shrugged a naked shoulder. “What will you do with them?”
Laughing deeply and sarcastically, he burrowed into a pillow. “Shouldn’t you explain to me that there’s a million miles of desert to sift through, and I’m never going to find those tags?”
Her head tilted. “Is that what people say?”
“More or less.” Because if people didn’t say it out loud, he could tell they were thinking it.
Marlena took his hand in hers and kissed his palm. The same palm that spanked her until she came. Her tongue ran along the lines in his skin and skipped over to his fingers. She rolled his hand into a fist, kissing his knuckles. “You’re a strong man, and I think sharing the hurt will make it less, maybe, one day.”
No, no, no. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.
Pulling away, he didn’t get far. Her lips pressed to his, her bare breasts swaying and teasing across his chest. Her lips were lazy and slow. His mouth opened and let their tongues tangle. Marlena straddled his thighs. She cupped his face in her hands, rocking her hips as she intensified the kiss.
“Mar. No.” This got too real. He needed out.
“Shut up, Trace.” Her hand stole away from his cheek then pushed the condom packet he’d ditched on the mattress into his hold.
He nodded, shutting up, and with a quick tear and roll, he’d sheathed himself. He watched her rise above him and hover on the head of his cock, teasing him. He lay in agony as her sweet pussy took him in.
“Fuck me, Marlena.” Because he couldn’t think.
Laughing, she rocked her hips. “That was the plan.”
Tight and wet. That was all he could focus on. Her eyes sank shut when she swayed. Her full breasts moved with her motion, tight nipples hypnotizing him until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He sucked the cherry tips into his mouth, tasting heaven and sugar.
Her hands snaked into his hair, pulling at the roots, making his scalp sting while she rode him long and deep. It was a contradiction. She was a walking, talking, fucking contradiction. Brassy, ballsy, and ready to submit to him. Pushy and knowing exactly what it took to make him tell his secrets, but sweetly screwing the pain away.
Hell, he could fall for a girl like this. If that was the kind of man he was.
“Trace,” she moaned.
And he loved it, how she said his name. How a fire started at the base of his cock, making his balls tighten, pushing him to come, calling her name, pulling her close to him. His hands found her hips. She rocked harder, faster, deeper. Marlena begged and pleaded for relief, and he thrust hard, making her come on his cock. The woman became fireworks on display—shoulders back, breasts bouncing, mouth open and calling him a god. Trace came with her, groaning his own satisfaction and pulling her tight into his arms.
They stayed interlocked forever. Serenity painted his mind. Her heartbeat thumped against him while the ever-present guilt he tried to live with gave him a breather.
She kissed him chastely then abandoned him without a word. After he heard the bathroom door shut down the hall, he rolled into a pillow, ready to bury his head and find all the angry emotion he had clung to. But the scent of sugar teased him from the pillowcase. He breathed in deeply. Anger stayed at bay.
Marlena was what he needed to survive Delta’s downtime… He shut his eyes and thought about how her touch soothed him.
He opened his eyes when he heard her at the door. What?
She stood there. Dressed. All the way down to her shoes on and purse on her shoulder. “I should get going.”
He was dumbstruck. Then dumbstruck again for the harsh blast of disappointment burning in his chest. She was bailing on him. Again. Granted, this time he knew about it, but it still didn’t sit right. “Alright.”
Turning on her heel, she waved over her shoulder and left him all alone. Trace dropped back to bed, face hitting a sugar-scented pillow. Everything hit him again, but this time, it hurt worse.
Chapter Eleven
‡
The gas pedal was pushed down as far as Marlena could stand it. Flooring it down the interstate didn’t help the knots in her stomach, and staring at the broken white line was going to make her dizzy if she didn’t stop soon. What the hell happened back there? Too many things to count. She’d gone all psychiatrist on the poor guy, practically pushing him into an emotional tailspin. Then she practically made love to him, wanting to pick up all his broken pieces and weld them back together.
But even before that, when he demanded she obey… she did. And she liked it. Loved it. A hot blast of desire flooded her. It’d been incredible to give up control to a man that knew how to take it. And he’d enjoyed it. It’d been all for her benefit, and it was liberating. Confidence had soared in her mind.
Trace had done her a favor. She pulsed between her legs, thinking about how she had come, and what she’d been doing.
But… then she ran. Every thought she had, every minute of enjoyment was paused so she could get home. He’d made her feel wanted, so she ran. Science and engineering she understood, but relationships? Feelings? She sucked at them. How could she trust her feelings when the nice guys never turned out to be the nice guys?
Well, hell. Trace wasn’t nice. He was ruined, in a way. Rough. Tough. A badass tattooed man. He was everything she could ever dream of, a hero who’d saved her. Then there was the insane, mind-melding sex.
Not that he was asking for a relationship. It’d been the exact opposite, actually, but in her heart, she was falling for him, knowing that as lost a cause as he claimed to be, she was the one not good enough for him.
Stop!
Mar took a breath, trying to avoid a downward spiral. Her phone rang, and she dug it out while steering onto the interstate. She gave a quick glance at the caller ID. She should’ve guessed it. There was no way would Trace have let her run out on him.
“What? Do you have a fairy godmother calling the shots, Cinderella? You have to run home at a certain time?”
She cringed. “No.”
“You turn into a pumpkin? Poof into some kind of troll?”
“Does this line of questioning work on most girls, or is this something new you’re trying out on me?”
He growled. “Why do you keep leaving?”
“What’s it matter?”
He remained silent as she passed a mile marker. “I’d guess for the same reason that you wanted to know what haunts me.”
She never should have done that. “I don’t know why I pushed you. I’m sorry.”
“You apologize a lot.”
“I don’t—”
“Ha.”
He was right. “I think I only apologize to you.”
“Tell me why Romatar took you, or tell me why you run from me.” Trace blew into the phone. “Tell me anything.”
Didn’t he know that the more he talked, the more she fell for him? “If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”
Trace’s low rumble of laughter tickled her ear. “Give it a shot. I’d like to see you try.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Tell you anything…” She sighed. “I never had a one-night stand before you.”
“You’ve had some after me?”
“God, no!” She laughed, feeling somewhat better. “You’re awful.”
“So, why did you? And the name thing? I don’t get it. I don’t get anything about you. I’ve never met anyone… so complicated.”
“Complicated?” She groaned into the phone and would’ve hit her head on the steering wheel, if it hadn’t meant she’d run off the road and die in a fiery crash.
“Alright, complicated is wrong. How about… complex?”
“Um—”
“Okay, wrong again. Maybe that doesn’t sound any better. Shit. I want to know about you. You don’t make sense, and I’m dying to find out why.”
“Okay.” She exited the highway. “I’d been told a million times that I’d get myself into trouble. That the security clearances didn’t do crap to protect me, and that they were using me for cheap, smart labor. My job scares me, school’s overwhelming me because I can’t catch up, and my dad makes me… uneasy.”
“Clarify uneasy, Cinderella.” His voice growled low.
She pushed her head back into the headrest as she moved into a turning lane for her neighborhood. “He’s a dick. His name is Brian. He hates that I was smart. My mom died in a car crash, and he blamed me. I don’t know why. But somewhere along the line he started telling me everything I did was wrong, and somewhere along the line, I started believing him.”
“Brian sounds like a fuck.”
She smiled. “He is.”
“You know that whatever he says is bullshit, right? Weak people need others to take down so they don’t feel so low and lonely at the bottom of their shit pile.”
“I’m a broken person to begin with. Not as strong as I want to be.”
“Nothing I’ve seen about you is broken. I promise you, Mar.”
She laughed sadly. “I don’t think you’ve seen the real me.”
“Wrong. I think I’m the only person who has seen the real you.”
God, he was right. It hurt to admit it. And he wasn’t going to be around. He had promised her that. But each passing second, she was more sucked into feelings she couldn’t run from. Marlena pulled into her driveway. “Trace?”
“Yeah, babe?”
Even the casualness in his voice hurt her. “We can’t do this. I can’t show up unannounced, and you can’t drive me to scream your name.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. Fake confidence, self-preservation? Who knew what this was? But it was needed. “I can’t do it, and I’m sorry.”
“What?” Anger poured through the phone.
“I’m falling for you. Like seriously can’t breathe for wanting you to kiss me. Hold me.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that out loud. “And neither of us needs that burden. I’m sorry, Trace.”
She hung up and let the tears pour.
*
What the fuck? Was there anything more irritating than Marlena McCloud? She was falling for him? No way. First, how could anyone fall for a man who refused to live a normal life? Second, what the fuck did she just do? Break off their little… partnership, after running off on him again?
The walls closed in on him just as they did before she arrived. Delta thought he was one round of bad news away from cracking up, and maybe they were right. He’d been booted from his SEAL team. The way his head spun at that moment, Delta would be next, and then he’d have no way or resources to find Michael’s tag.
No. Screw that. Trace wanted blood. He needed it. That was what would get him over Michael, over the ache of losing his SEAL team and over the discomfort that put a pang in his chest, knowing that Marlena wouldn’t be around while he was home.
No, not home. Grounded. Because as soon as he had the green light, he’d be gone, and he wasn’t looking back. No way. Sugar-scented sheets couldn’t pull him back.
Except they could. Damn it. He scrubbed his face. Dog tags. Focus on the tags. His twin was dead, and he was alive. They’d had a funeral. The symbolism and the honor had all been there. But those tags were still overseas, still in the hands of terrorists, and that disrespect made him rage.
Retribution. Retaliation. Those were the only possible courses of action.
But alone, in the claustrophobic confines of his temporary house, he knew the truth. As long as he was stuck in a house, there was no way those tags were ever coming home. And until he got them, he would be in a perpetual state of panic. The tags were symbolic, and if he found them, the deep-rooted guilt would lessen.
Would Michael have joined up if Trace hadn’t? Maybe they shouldn’t have gone after Special Forces. But he’d known his brother would be a great soldier. Probably a better one than Trace.
Now he held his cell phone in his hand, just hung up on by a crazy woman, and he had a gnawing, gut-churning burn that he couldn’t explain. It curled through him as profoundly as the knowledge that Michael should’ve done something else to pay homage to the country they both loved more than their own lives.
But he had no knowledge that would help explain Marlena. The only thing he knew was that the third time wasn’t the charm. She’d ditched him, walked out on him, and then hung up. He was done.
Except his thumb hit redial. It went to voicemail.
Hell no. That wasn’t going to happen. Two more times, she let him go to voicemail again. That was just enough time for him to get the keys to his car and pull out onto the road. If she wanted to say some BS like she was falling for him, she could say it to his face, and he could explain every reason why that was a bad idea. Miles passed as he floored it on the highway. Less than five minutes later, he arrived at her place, and he still hadn’t come up with a reason she should stay away from him. Damn it.
Chapter Twelve
‡
The easiest thing to do was to leave her phone in her car. That way the temptation to answer Trace’s calls would be less. She shed her clothes while walking toward the bathroom and turned the water on as hot as she could stand it. She grabbed her iPod and stuck it in the dock, letting music fill the bathroom.
The protective cocoon of water enveloped her. The shower speakers swirled music in with the steam. Sinking down, she sat on the floor and let it pour overhead. Marlena flipped the knob on the tub and let the water start to fill it.
Trace wasn’t the only reason she was glad her phone was in the car. Since she had a working cell again, friends had been calling, asking her to go out. Without thinking, the automatic answer had been no. Every time. Her abduction had turned her into a homebody. Home was comfortable. Safe. No parking lot for her to be easy pickings for kidnappers. The four walls were almost reassuring.
She turned off the water, content to sit in the bath. Sighing, she opened her eyes.
Trace was there, in her bathroom—she could see him through the semi-sheer shower curtain. He had a T-shirt, jeans, and a body that turned her on in an instant.
“Hey!” She covered her breasts with her hands, which was absurd because he’d seen every inch of her naked body. Hell, he’d kissed it too. “What are you—?”
“No way, Cinderella. No way can you say something like that and hang up.”
She shrugged, watching him take off his shirt. The heat in her body intensified. “Trace—”
“You’re falling for me?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t backtrack now.”
“Then, yes. Which is why you should leave.” Because if he didn’t, she was going to pull him into the bath. Then she’d fall harder.
“That’s not very smart.”
“Tell me about it.” She grabbed a pink loofah puff and threw it at him.
He’d turned her music off and was pulling off his belt. “I have my own issues.”
“This bath isn’t big enough for us both. You should keep your clothes on.”
“You can barely breathe right now.” He dropped the belt on the ground. “And I can’t stay away.”
She shrugged. “So we have good sex.”
“Great sex.”
“Great sex.” Her clit throbbed, knowing how close he was. “Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a small tub.”
He dropped his pants and stood in front of her, fully erect, long solid shaft palmed in his strong hand. His gorgeous physique towered so close she shuddered. His thighs were ripped. How was that even a sexy part of the body? All that muscle made him a powerhouse. He could drive and thrust. Her legs could wrap around his hard body and feel as though they were meant to be there.
Trace grabbed her out of the tub, making her feel light as the towel wrapped around her. His rough hands dried her haphazardly, feeling her up, massaging her body more than they wicked away water.
“Sexiest thing I’ve ever touched,” he growled in her ear as the towel fell to the floor.
He grabbed his wallet, found a condom, and rolled it on. Again, lifting her as if she were air in the steamy bathroom, he had her pinned against the door. Towels hung behind her, Trace stood in front of her, and her arms locked around his neck. His cock pressed at her entrance. Tenderness made her hurt but still crave more than just a tease, reminding her he’d just been in her, making her moan and come.
“Mar, you’re the only thing that clears my head.”
She nodded. “Me too.”
Her lips found his neck, and she rocked her hips. Trace pushed into her, thrusting, and her mind stilled. Every sore muscle remembered how he felt inside her. She hooked her legs behind him and bit his shoulder, meeting each push into her.
“Goddamn, girl.”
“Harder. Please.”
He slammed into her, deep and destructive. Orgasm built while she clung to his body. His name moaned out of her mouth. The sound of flesh slapping flesh in the humid bathroom, mixed with the intensity of his body pushing into hers, pushed her over the edge. She came hard, climaxing and feeling the ripple of her internal muscles coaxing him to come with her.
Hot Alpha SEALs: Military Romance Megaset Page 38