“No, you won’t—”
“So here’s my bottom line. I’m not really a treat for any woman right now. Especially a great woman like you—”
“Tony—”
“—and if I were any kind of man, I’d stay away from you because that’s probably best for you, and you deserve nothing but the best.”
Some of the light behind her eyes began to dim. “So. This is you saying goodbye?”
“I didn’t say that.”
A long second passed, during which the air shifted between them and began a slow sizzle that he could almost hear.
She edged closer again, coming within arm’s length, and a corner of that delicious mouth curved in the beginnings of a knowing smile. Did she know, then? Did she understand that, as far as he was concerned, she was the reason he’d come home from the war in one piece?
“Then what are you saying?”
He took a deep breath and leaped with his whole heart. “I’m saying I don’t want to want you this much.”
“But you do.”
“Oh, yeah. So I’m going to go with it. If that’s okay with you.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Oh, yeah.”
Relief swelled inside him, the sweetest feeling he’d ever known. “Good.”
“I have a quote for you. From Rocky. You’ve seen Rocky, right? If you haven’t, we may have to end things right now.”
“I’ve seen Rocky.”
“He’s trying to explain his attraction to Adrian, and he says something like, ‘Gaps. I got gaps, and she’s got gaps, and we fill each other’s gaps.’”
“Gaps, eh?”
“Gaps.”
Was that the moment? The moment when he knew, without a doubt, that he would marry this woman if she was crazy enough to have him? It sure felt like it.
Staring into those bright eyes of hers, it didn’t feel so scary.
“Come here,” he told her, opening his arms. “I think we need to discuss Rocky a little further.”
Chapter 10
Tony’s gentle hands caressed her throat. With a serrated sigh, she let her head fall back and her eyes roll closed, happily surrendering her body and anything else he might think to ask for. He ran his thumbs over her veins, searching out her pulse, which had to be in the thousand-beats-per-minute range. When he found it, a low croon of approval vibrated in his chest, and he pulled her closer, until she was standing between his thighs. Gripping his heavy shoulders and hanging on for dear life, she waited…waited…until he leaned in and tipped his face up, pressing his hot tongue to her sensitive flesh.
Need made her cry out.
Happy to indulge her, he planted his hands on her ass and pressed her up against his rigid arousal, taunting her with what she could have if only he’d hurry up. At the same time, his tongue swirled, teasing her neck with wider and wider circles that made her unravel into more cries…more sensations…more insistent demands.
“Kiss me,” she murmured, lowering her head to catch his lips beneath hers. They watched each other, both heavy-lidded and drowsy-eyed, and she caught the groove of his dimples as he smiled, and the pink of his tongue before it slipped into her opening mouth.
Ah, God.
She thrust her own tongue and sucked him deeper, desperate to get him inside her skin and to be inside his. His mouth was slick and minty, and he used every part of it to drive her wild, nipping with his teeth, rubbing with his tender lips and searching with his tongue.
His hips, meanwhile, surged against hers, unerringly hitting that delicious spot between her thighs. His hands held her locked in place, giving her no way to hide from the rising pleasure. She writhed, needing to spread her legs and take all of him inside her, and needing it now.
If he knew it, he didn’t care.
“Tony, please,” she murmured, digging her nails into his nape.
“Please what?”
“Please don’t stop.”
“What else?”
“Please touch me.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
Those eyes gleamed up at her again, laughing now. “Can you be more specific?”
Damn him for making her say it. Why did she have to expose every single part of herself? “Do you want me to draw you a map?”
“I have a pen.”
Frustration made her smack him hard on the sculpted slabs of his chest, and he laughed and kissed her again, holding her as she tried to alternately beat him to death and squirm free.
Naturally, he didn’t let her go.
Still holding her around the waist, he stood and pressed her back onto the sofa, toppling over on top of her until they were pressed together from head to foot and nothing was funny anymore.
They stared at each other, both panting and startled by the sudden intimacy of the contact. He nipped at her mouth again, but his gaze went to the top of her head. His hands followed.
Oh, God. She knew what was coming.
“Do we need this?” he wondered, tugging at the wig.
Yes, she wanted to say. That wig was a defense that protected her. When she wore it, she didn’t have to see a cancer victim in the mirror, nor did she have to endure the pitying stares of strangers when she walked down the street.
Without it, she was… What was she?
Naked? Vulnerable? Mortal?
“You’re beautiful,” he told her, gently tugging the wig and dropping it to the floor as though it was a meaningless collection of fibers, rather than one of the things that kept her sane and normal. “I don’t want hair. I just want you.”
To her pained embarrassment, she felt her face crumple, and there she went with the tears during sex. Again. But Tony didn’t seem to mind short, curly hair only a quarter inch longer than a buzz cut, and he didn’t mind the waterworks, either.
He stared down at her, his face dark and unreadable, and kissed both eyes and both temples. The bridge of her nose. Her forehead. The tip of her chin, and then finally—sweetly—her mouth.
She arched her back, relaxing and melting into the sofa.
Into him.
Into herself.
When he raised his head again, his lips were slick and swollen, and his eyes were also wet. “Where should I touch you?”
Oh, thank God. The rising need had taken her far beyond hesitation or shyness, and she couldn’t show him fast enough.
Taking the hand that was still cupping her face, she kissed his fingertips and then lowered it down between them. He shifted a little to one side, and she bent one knee so that the bottom of her skirt rose up to her bare thighs. Moving together, they reached for the waistband of her silky panties, and she lifted her butt so that he could slide them off her legs.
When he’d tossed the panties onto the floor, he skimmed his hands up under her skirt again, brushing his knuckles over the sensitized flesh between her legs until her hips arched. He answered this unspoken invitation by stroking his fingers in her creamy cleft, sending delicious spirals of pleasure to her belly and engorged nipples.
“Tony.”
He rubbed her again and again, his touch rhythmic and unerringly running over her aching sex, and she rose and fell against him, involuntarily reaching for her pleasure—
“You know,” he said, withdrawing his hand just when one more stroke would have sent her jackknifing into ecstasy, “I think I’ll start…here.”
Wait, what?
Working on her dress from the top down now, he unbuttoned the collar—it was a mandarin style with piping and swirling dragons—and the bodice, slowly exposing her breasts in the sheer black silk of her bra.
And her scar.
Her hands came up automatically, wanting to cover the thick and puckered line where her skin had once been smooth and unmarked, but he caught her hands and lowered them out of his way. That gleaming gaze of his flickered up to her face, flashing a warning.
“Don’t.”
“But—”
With a smile that was gentle and encouragin
g, he threw her words right back in her face.
“Gaps, Talia. Remember? I have nightmares. You have scars. We both have gaps. Why can’t we help each other?”
Her chin tried to quiver, but she was finished with the tears.
He was right, wasn’t he? She’d faced down cancer. She wasn’t about to let some freaking little scar prevent her from enjoying the most beautiful experience of her life.
“Oh, you were listening, eh?”
He didn’t smile. “I always listen to you. I thought you knew that.”
She nodded, not trusting her voice any longer.
“So…is this okay?”
“Anything.”
That was all the encouragement he needed. With a low growl of masculine appreciation, he dove in, nuzzling his lips against her scar and loving every inch of it. The intimacy stunned her, trapping the breath in her throat, and there was no chance to recover. A flick of his fingers undid the bra’s front clasp, and then he brushed the cups aside, dipped his head and latched on, sucking one aching nipple into the hot center of his mouth.
A shocked, high note shot out of her before she could stifle it, and that drove him on. His mouth on one breast, he massaged the other, squeezing the nipple and then, when she thought she’d pass out if he didn’t give her a break, he switched.
Nonsense came out of her in an unstoppable stream.
“Ah, God.”
“Tony, you have to—”
“Please. Please. I’m begging you. Don’t make me—”
“I can’t take it. I can’t—”
Finally, he took pity on her. Reaching down between them again, he pressed his fingers to her sex, and she came, going off like a firework with spasming arms, writhing hips and curling toes. Muscles all up and down her body went rigid, arching her backward into the sofa’s armrest until it seemed like a possibility that her spine would snap.
Over her subsiding cries and whimpers, she heard Tony’s muttered curse and the sound of him fumbling around for something. Spent but determined not to miss anything, she cracked her lids open to see him unzip his pants and sheath his straining erection.
She’d been having trouble catching her breath. Now it got worse in the best possible way. “Tony.”
Without answering, he gave her a long glance with those gleaming eyes of his. Then he was easing her legs apart and thrusting inside her body, starting the delicious torture all over again.
The only thing she could do was dig her nails into the flexing muscles of his ass and hang on for the relentless ride. He was wild and unabashed, almost frantic with his movements.
Braced on his forearms, he drove harder…deeper…his entire body straining and releasing with each pump of his hips. Tendons pulsed in his neck, and the muscles in his shoulders and chest stood out in stark relief beneath his sweat-slicked skin. Her name poured out of his mouth, hoarse and guttural. And he unerringly hit her swollen and sensitized sweet spot, winding her tighter and sending her higher than she’d ever been before.
Panting and mindless, she glanced down along the length of their moving bodies and saw the contrast between their skin, his dark to her lighter, and the way her legs encased him, holding him inside her body in a death grip, and the way the hard slabs of his chest flattened her breasts.
The intimacy and sensuality of it was overwhelming, and she watched, mesmerized, until—
“Tony.”
The pleasure, bright and piercing, shot through her, catching in her throat and lingering there, preventing her from making a sound.
But he knew.
He’d been watching her, and the last thing she saw before he leaned his head back and came with a raw shout, was the hint of smiling satisfaction in his expression.
And then he was rigid in her arms, gasping for air as he murmured her name one last time.
He went still, crushing her into the sofa with his dead weight.
She reveled in it. In him. In the earthiness of this moment, with the sweat and the musk and the pleasure between them.
Now, she decided, was the time.
So she kissed the side of his neck and caressed his nape, easing him back to life.
“Tony?”
“Mmm.”
“I went to the doctor today.”
His head shot up. He stared at her, the question in his dark eyes, but couldn’t seem to speak.
“The scans were all clear.”
He swallowed, nostrils flaring, and pressed his lips together.
She smiled, letting the joy fully come for the first time since she’d had her appointment earlier. “The cancer’s gone.”
“It’s…gone?” he echoed, voice cracking.
“Gone.”
He blinked.
She waited.
His expression slowly brightened, and a corner of his mouth edged up in a smile in the second before his face crumpled.
And then Tony, her fierce warrior, buried his head in the curve between her neck and shoulder, gathered her closer and sobbed with relief.
What—?
Talia snapped awake and blinked into her bedroom’s darkness, not certain what had woken her. The room was quiet and the clock’s digital display indicated dead of night. She rubbed her eyes, wondering if she’d had one of those falling dreams again, and—
Beside her, Tony moaned.
Wait, Tony? Here in her apartment?
She checked the other side of the bed.
Yeah. Tony.
It all came back to her in a rush, and instinct made her spring into action. He’d kicked off the linens and lay on his belly on the farthest edge of the king-size bed, perched at an angle that made her wonder why he wasn’t crashing to the floor. His arms and legs twitched. His face twisted. He moaned again, but this time the sound was more urgent, heading into wail territory.
She slid closer to him, flipping the covers back over him as she went. Crooning, she caressed his temple and kissed his cheek and neck, soothing him. His skin was icy, and there was only one solution for that. She stretched out alongside him, protecting him with her arms and legs and keeping him close.
He stilled, his forehead smoothing until he looked so boyish, innocent and vulnerable that it made her heart contract with emotions too overwhelming and frightening to identify.
And then, without warning, his lids flicked open.
He stared at her.
She waited, anxious to see which way this would go.
He smiled.
She gasped out a relieved breath. “You okay?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“We’re going to work on those nightmares.”
A shadow crossed his eyes, but he nodded. Recaptured his smile.
“How does it feel to be back in a bed?” she wondered.
“Your bed? Pretty damn good.”
There was a jingle of tags near his side of the bed, and they glanced around to see Chesley. Apparently she’d been sitting patiently, but now, realizing that she had their attention, she whined, asking for permission.
Talia looked to Tony.
“Why not?” he said, scooting over to make room for the dog.
Talia patted the bed and Chesley leaped up, happy to be included. They rearranged themselves, with Tony in the middle, Talia in his arms and Chesley pressed against his back, so that he would be well protected from his demons in the night.
“Here you are,” Tony said, late one afternoon three weeks later, tugging his tie a little looser and rolling up the cuffs on his starched dress shirt. It was hotter than a campfire in the Sahara at the pool behind his house in the Hamptons, but well worth it for this particular view of Talia.
Her lips curled into the slow smile that always threatened to drop him to his knees, but she didn’t open her eyes. “Was I missing?” she murmured.
“Yeah. I’ve been in the city for two days. I expected you to be at the front door waiting for me. I’m starting to think you didn’t miss me.”
Her eyes flicked open, hitting him wit
h the sparkling gray gaze that was so much more fascinating than the waves on the other side of the dunes. “Oh, I missed you.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“No?”
“No.”
Mesmerized by the sight of all that sun-kissed skin, bare except for the black triangle of the string-bikini bottoms that didn’t quite manage to cover her perfectly round ass, he sat on the edge of her chaise.
This was, he decided, the perfect ending to his long day full of meetings.
The air was clear and humidity free, the sky the bright blue of aquamarines. A light breeze blew, ruffling the clumps of yellow black-eyed Susans and potted sea grasses that framed the pool area, and a stainless-steel bucket of Corona beers with limes chilled on a side table.
Best of all, his woman was nearly naked and within arm’s reach.
Life was, in short, pretty damn good.
Talia, who’d been sunbathing on her belly, levered up on her elbows, causing the untied strings of her bikini top to fall away from the toned curve of her back. She had a beautiful back. He skimmed his fingers down her spine, enjoying the way her skin shivered and her breath caught.
Even better than her back were her breasts, not that they were in sight at the moment. Alas. He had a tantalizing glimpse of them, though, and he stared at where that deep cleavage disappeared against the cushions.
He couldn’t see the dark nipples he loved so much.
If only she’d raise herself up a little bit higher—
“How was your support group?” she asked.
As usual, he had mixed feelings about discussing his vets’ group with her. The war seemed so far away from what they were building together, and he wanted to keep it that way.
“It was good.”
“Yeah?” she said encouragingly.
“But I don’t want to talk about it with you.”
“Oh.”
“Ever.”
“Oh.”
“Is that okay?”
She gave that some consideration. “As long as I know you’re getting the support you need from them.”
Yeah, he thought. This one was a keeper.
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