by Susan Stoker
Heck, there wasn’t much about him as a person she didn’t like. He was just about perfect—and that scared the shit out of Wendy. Because she wasn’t. Not even close.
He was at her side, sliding under the covers before she had the wherewithal to open her mouth and compliment him on his looks. He slid one arm under her shoulders and tugged her into him. When she rolled to her side next to him, he reached down and grabbed one of her legs, pulling it over his thighs.
“Snuggle in, sweetheart,” he ordered.
Wendy smiled. “I thought men didn’t snuggle.”
“Fuck that. Whoever said that never had a warm, sated woman like you in his bed.” Aspen kissed her forehead. “Take a nap, sweetheart.”
“I’m not all that tired,” she told him.
Before the words were even out of her mouth, she found herself on her back with Aspen looming over her. “I thought all women were exhausted after coming as hard as you did?”
She narrowed her eyes up at him and dug her fingernails into his biceps. “Reaaaaally?”
He had the grace to look a little abashed. “Although my experience isn’t all that vast. You want more?”
Wendy was embarrassed by her desires. She shrugged and looked away from him. “You said you were going to fuck me then make love to me. We don’t have that much time before I have to leave.”
“Look at me,” Aspen ordered.
Wendy brought her eyes back to his.
“Don’t ever be scared or ashamed to tell me what you want or need. You want my cock again, sweetheart?”
Wendy nodded.
“How about my mouth on your pussy?”
She nodded again, shifting under him in anticipation. “I…uh…have a pretty high sex drive.”
Aspen smiled then. A big, wide smile that lit up his face and made him look a little evil at the same time. “We’re a match made in heaven then, because I’m not nearly done with you. If you need a break, just say something. I could fuck you all afternoon and still be ready to go all night. I only have two more condoms though…we’ll have to get inventive today. Tomorrow, I’ll make sure I’m all stocked up.”
He didn’t give her a chance to answer. One hand went between her legs to play in her folds and the other went to one of her nipples as he bent to kiss her stupid.
* * *
Two hours later, Blade lay on the bed with Wendy, feeling like he’d been wrung out to dry…in a good way. He and Wendy were a perfect match, sexually. She was almost insatiable, and he’d had a fuck of a good time getting creative, making sure she was as satisfied as she could be.
He’d been true to his word. He’d made slow, sweet love to her until she was begging him to move faster, harder, anything. The teasing had been fun, bringing her to the brink of orgasm, then backing off, but it had been more fun to turn her over and fuck her hard and fast from behind as she writhed and moaned under him.
Then he’d run a bath for her as promised. Of course, he’d climbed in with her, and they were using the last condom he had within ten minutes of being soapy and slippery together.
She was perfect for him in every way. From her lush tits and her hard, tight nipples, which seemed to beg for his mouth every time he looked at them, to her wide hips and thick thighs he could grab and manhandle into position.
She wasn’t stick thin, but neither was she fat. She was just right. Her brown eyes twinkled with excitement and happiness as they bantered back and forth, and they deepened with lust when he was inside her.
He lightly ran his fingers through her mussed hair as they lay with their limbs intertwined in his bed. He had no idea where the pillows, other than the one under his head, had gone. The comforter had been shoved down to the end of the mattress at some point, and the fitted sheet had long ago been pulled up from the corners and was bunched under them.
The bed looked like a major battle had been fought there, and both Blade and Wendy were the winners.
He smiled, loving the feeling of intimacy that surrounded them. He felt closer to her at this moment than ever. After what they’d just shared, he wanted to open up to her, to share who he was.
He felt certain if he let her in, this time, she’d reciprocate.
“You know I’m in the Army, but what you don’t know is what I do.”
She was using her finger to slowly and sensually circle his nipple, but looked up at him at that. “I figured it was something out of the ordinary. If you don’t have to move every couple years and you get to work with the same group of men all the time. I don’t know a lot about the military, but from living in the area, I’ve learned that much at least.”
He kissed her forehead. “You’re right. My unit is Special Forces. We’re Delta Force.”
“Whoa,” she said in an exhalation of breath.
“I guess you’ve heard of them?”
“Duh,” she whispered. “Who hasn’t?”
“You’d be surprised. Anyway, me and the guys have been together for a few years. The Army sends us in when there’s a need for secrecy. I won’t be able to tell you where I’m going, or even when I’ll be back. But I want you to know that we’re always careful. We have too much to lose to be careless about our safety. But you can’t tell anyone. Who we are and what we do is a need-to-know kind of thing, and no one else needs to know.”
“Why are you telling me this? I mean, if it’s a secret and all, why tell me?”
“Seriously? After the last few hours, you have to ask?”
She blushed, but nodded anyway.
“This was not just sex, sweetheart. It was amazing, life-changing sex, and more. It was the start of us. I’ve never wanted to be with anyone the way I want to be with you. We clicked that night you first called me, and I’ve felt our connection grow every day since then. I want to wake up with you by my side and I want to fall asleep with my dick deep inside your body every night. I want to watch Jackson walk across the stage in a couple years and accept his diploma, and I want to watch him grow into the amazing man I know he’ll be because of the role model his sister was for him. I want to come home from a mission knowing that you’ll be here waiting for me. The thought of someone caring if I live or die while I’m in some shithole of a country makes me want to be all the more careful.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
“Yeah, oh,” he agreed with a small smile. “Am I alone in this?” he ventured to ask.
“No,” she said softly.
Blade relaxed. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d gotten during the conversation. Other than his family, he’d never told anyone what he truly did before. He’d been nervous, but he should’ve known Wendy wouldn’t ask him any questions he couldn’t answer. They were finally on the same page. He relaxed.
After several minutes of dozing, he sleepily murmured, “Happy Birthday, sweetheart.”
It was late afternoon and he knew they needed to get up, shower, and think about getting Wendy back to her apartment, but Blade was so sated and comfortable, he didn’t want to move.
“Thanks.”
“What are you, thirty-one, thirty-two?” Blade asked while tracing circles on her back with his fingers.
It was an innocent question—but she stiffened next to him as if he’d asked her something extremely personal and out of line.
“Something like that.”
Blade went from relaxed and lazy to highly alert and suspicious in an instant.
The harmless question had simply popped out. He hadn’t thought in a million years that she’d refuse to answer. It was such a simple, easy question—at least, it should’ve been if she trusted him.
And the thought that she didn’t killed him. Even after everything they’d just done, she was still holding back.
“Which is it?” he asked tensely.
She propped herself up on an elbow and looked at him. “Does it matter?”
“Why won’t you tell me how old you are, Wendy?” Blade asked point-blank.
She fell back down, resting her
head on his shoulder, but it seemed more like an avoidance technique than a loving one. “Women don’t like to be asked their age, Aspen. Drop it.”
But he couldn’t. Not now. “I’m thirty-one. Does it bother you that you’re older than me? I don’t give a shit, and neither do my friends. Why would you care?”
“I just do.”
Suddenly feeling sick to his stomach, Blade sat up, dislodging Wendy from his chest. “Are you seriously not going to tell me how old you are after what we just shared?”
Eyes wide, she shook her head.
Blade ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He didn’t understand what the big deal was. “I just told you something I’ve never told anyone before. Something that could get me a big fat reprimand by my commander if he knew, and you won’t even tell me your age? You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you older than that? Thirty-five?” He was trying hard to understand what was going on behind her stubborn expression.
Wendy slid out of the bed and grabbed the fitted sheet that was hanging off the side of the mattress, holding it up to cover her body. “There’s a reason I’m being evasive.”
“Evasive, hell—you’re just flat-out refusing to tell me. How about where you grew up? Or where you were before you moved here? Where you graduated from and what your major was? I don’t know anything personal about your life other than the fact your parents died and you took over raising your brother. Talk to me, Wendy. I feel like I don’t even know you.”
“You know me,” she protested.
“Every time I ask you anything, even something inconsequential, you blow me off—and I’m getting really tired of it.”
“Maybe that’s because what you’re asking isn’t inconsequential!” she fired back.
“Knowing how old you are isn’t that big of a deal,” Blade said.
“It is to me.”
“Why?”
She pressed her lips together and stared at him.
“How long have you lived here?”
She stared at him.
“Where were you before you moved to Texas?”
She blinked, but again didn’t give him anything.
“Why don’t you like cops?”
Once more, she refused to answer. Simply stood there, wrapped in his sheet, looking like she wished she was anywhere other than with him. And that hurt. Majorly.
“How many other men have you done this to?”
That got him a flinch. But he pressed on. “How many other men have you been with and refused to tell them anything other than the basics? How many others have you pushed away because you wouldn’t tell them something as simple as your fucking age?”
“Fuck you, Aspen,” she said finally. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know I don’t!” he yelled. “Because you won’t tell me. For all I know, you move from place to place, dragging your brother along, reeling men in with your beauty and vulnerability, then when they get sick of you hiding whatever it is you’re hiding from them, you move on.”
She didn’t make a sound, but the hurt in her eyes was clear to see.
Blade was frustrated and sad. How they’d gone from making love one second, to fighting the next, he had no idea.
Most of all, he hated that he didn’t even know what they were fighting about.
Taking out his frustrations on Wendy, he growled, “Tell me something, anything, that’ll make me feel less like you’re just using me for sex right about now.”
“Just because we fucked doesn’t mean I have to tell you every little thing about my life!” Wendy shouted, trying to sound hard and tough.
But to Blade, she simply sounded desperate.
And her words made him mad. No—furious. He was standing there begging her to let him get closer, and she was absolutely refusing. Not only by evading the stupid fucking question about her age, which wasn’t even the point anymore, but by throwing the amazing sex they’d had in his face as if it meant nothing.
He spoke without thinking.
“Right. And that right there makes you no better than the whore who tried to pick me up in the bar. I might as well’ve gone home with her; at least she was honest about just wanting me for sex. I bet she would’ve told me how old she was without all the fucking games you’ve played.”
He regretted the words as soon as he said them.
Wendy paled and clutched the sheet closer to her body.
Blade needed some air. He’d had the best afternoon of his life and thought he’d been starting something permanent with Wendy. Hell, he’d thought for the last few months that was what they were doing. But she’d apparently just wanted sex.
Disgusted with himself and with her, Blade got off the bed. He stalked over to his dresser and grabbed some clothes. “I’ll get dressed in the guest bathroom. I’ll take you home as soon as you’re ready.”
He didn’t look back as he left his room. If he did, he might change his mind and go to Wendy and take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right, and that he didn’t mean any of the awful words he’d flung at her.
But he didn’t. And therefore, he didn’t see the absolute devastation on her face. The regret and self-recrimination, or the tears that streamed down her cheeks as if a faucet had been turned on full blast.
Chapter Thirteen
The ride back to her apartment was completed in silence. Aspen didn’t say a word, and neither did Wendy. She’d managed to stop crying long enough to find her clothes. They’d been kicked under the bed during their afternoon sex fest.
When she’d gone downstairs, Aspen was waiting by the door. He opened it without a word, gesturing for her to precede him. He didn’t help her into his Jeep and barely waited for her to buckle up before tearing out of the parking lot as if he couldn’t wait to get her home and out of his life.
And she supposed that was exactly how he felt.
Wendy couldn’t tell him how old she was. If she did, it endangered Jackson. In ten months, she could tell whoever she wanted that she was really only twenty-seven, but by then, it would be too late for her and Aspen.
She wanted to tell him. Had almost done so more than once. Had almost broken down and told him everything, but she’d held back…and now it was too late. He’d washed his hands of her.
Feeling more depressed than she had in a long time, Wendy stared down at her fingers as Aspen drove her across town. He stopped in the parking lot of her crappy apartment complex and she found the courage to say, “I’d tell you if I could.”
“Yeah, okay. I gave you plenty of chances to talk to me, Wendy. More than enough. See you around.”
His words were clipped and emotionless.
That was it. She’d found and lost the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She wanted to be pissed at him for not giving her a chance to explain, but she couldn’t. This was on her—because she couldn’t explain. He was reacting exactly how she’d figured he would once he heard her story, which was part of the reason why she hadn’t wanted to tell him.
Without another word, she slipped out of the Jeep and headed for the rickety stairs that led to the second floor and her apartment.
When Aspen left before she was halfway up the stairs, she knew that was it. He never left before making sure she was inside safe and sound. Ever.
Until now.
The decisions she’d made when she was a young, hormonal teenager had never weighed so heavily on her shoulders. Wendy had no idea how she was going to tell Jackson that she’d screwed things up with Aspen. She hoped that he might still agree to teach her brother self-defense. It wasn’t as if Lars and his gang of assholes were going to stop harassing Jackson anytime soon.
Just because Aspen wasn’t in their life anymore, didn’t mean everything else stopped as well.
With her fingers shaking, Wendy unlocked her door and slipped inside. Everything seemed duller now. The bright pillows on the couch seemed to mock her. The dingy gray walls seemed even more pathetic.
> Sinking into a depression she hadn’t felt for years, Wendy dropped her purse on the dining room table and headed for the shower. She could still smell Aspen on her. As much as it hurt, she needed to get his scent off. She didn’t need the reminder of how amazing he was. Of how badly she’d screwed up.
Why hadn’t she just lied and said she was thirty-two? She’d still be in his bed if she had.
But she didn’t want to flat out lie to him. Not even about her age. That’s why she’d simply been avoiding answering his questions.
Yes, some people would claim that not telling him was kind of the same thing as lying, but not to her. Protecting Jackson had become second nature. She’d learned how to evade answers and change the subject like a pro. But of course, Aspen saw right through her. He was probably trained in the art of interrogation.
Not only that, but if the law caught up with her, it could hurt him too. Anything that brought attention to a Special Forces soldier had to be a bad thing. And if she was arrested, that could really be bad for him.
No, she’d done the right thing. Protecting the men in her life was the most important thing…even if doing so made Aspen hate her.
His last words replayed themselves in her head.
I might as well’ve gone home with her; at least she was honest about just wanting to be with me for sex. I bet she would’ve told me how told she was without all the fucking games you’ve played.
She didn’t blame him for being upset with her, but that was beyond upset. He was furious…and hurt.
She wanted to call and tell him it had never been about the sex for her. That she loved spending time with him. Talking to him. But it was too late now. Way too late.
Shedding her clothes, Wendy climbed into the lukewarm shower and lifted her face up to the spray, letting it wash away the tears she continued to shed. She had to get herself under control before Jackson got home. He’d take one look at her and know something was wrong.