by Julie Miller
“Give me the damn shirt!” He stood inches from her. Much too close for his peace of mind, much too far for his desire. She clutched the shirt behind her, thrusting her breasts upward, teasing him. Not like that first night, not in a calculated seduction. She didn't have to do anything to entice him now.
He was sick with want for her. He craved her eager mouth beneath his. He lusted for her healing touches. He needed her to need him.
“Damn it, BJ. I'll leave half-dressed then.”
But his legs wouldn't move. His harsh words sounded determined, but his body wouldn't respond.
Her shoulders sagged a little. Her gaze riveted on a neutral spot beside his shoulder. She held out the shirt with one hand, dangling it like a peace offering.
“No. Don't leave. Please don't leave me.”
Her voice, hesitant and waifish, nearly convinced him to stay. But he grabbed the shirt anyway.
Then she touched him. A single finger on the horizontal gash above his waist. A simple touch that was no less fearless because it was shy. Brodie knew he was lost.
“What happened here?”
He looked down at the top of her soft, tawny curls. She didn't really want to know, did she? But she waited patiently, expectantly. So he told her.
“Swordfight.” He spared her the gory details. “French Revolution.”
He couldn't see her face, so he couldn't tell how she accepted his answer. He sucked in his breath and kept still when she moved her hand and touched a forked mark on his ribs.
“And this?”
“Hostage in the Middle East.” He heard her gasp. He dropped the shirt and captured her hands when she moved on to the lightning bolt that defiled the skin over his heart. “You don't want to know these things about me.”
She tipped her head back, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I marked you like an enemy in battle. Like a kidnapper torturing you.”
He cupped her jaw in his palm, tracing the velvet arc of her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “No. Like a woman being used. You didn't attack me. Some evil-minded son of a bitch…”
He hoped he felt the beginning of a smile beneath his thumb. He softened his voice, dropping it to a low-pitched rumble. “I don't blame you. I won't let you blame yourself.”
Lowering his head, he dropped a plain, chaste, reassuring kiss on the tip of her upturned nose.
“Hold me, Brodie.” In a move as guileless as it was provocative, BJ slipped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against his stomach. His already aching nerve endings blazed into sheer male awareness at the feel of her curves softening against him. He rested his hands lightly on her back, afraid of crushing her if he gave in to his physical desire.
“I feel safe when you hold me. Sane.” She snuggled nearer. He bit the inside of his mouth, struggling for self-control as she spoke. “I feel right.”
She made him feel totally irrational. She made him feel crazily, stupidly ordinary, and absolutely, incredibly male. With BJ, he wasn't a monster, he was a man. And BJ was a woman.
His woman.
His loving, willing, eyes-wide-open woman.
Desire at its most elemental level erupted in a wave of stark, physical need. Brodie dipped an arm behind her knees and scooped her up into his arms. He sought her mouth with savage intensity, demanding a response. After the initial shock of his swift attack, she opened her mouth beneath his, welcoming, beckoning, giving him what he so desperately needed.
She laced her fingers about his neck, clinging to him with a ferocity matching his own. The side of her breast pushed against him. He heard the telltale moan so like purring in her throat.
Suddenly it became very necessary to feel skin against skin, to know her heat matched his own. He carried her to the bed, sat on the edge, and turned BJ so that she straddled him on his lap. She gasped as he pulled her to him, letting her feel the strength of his need through their clothes. Her heavy-lidded eyes looked boldly into his while she imprinted her womanly core against him.
His own eyes drifted shut as his body savored an adolescent rush of heat.
Her breath caught and panted, her growing urgency spawning a wild need to see and touch. Her fingers fumbled with the top buttons of her shirt, but Brodie saved her the trouble, capturing it by the hem and yanking it over her head. Her bra, cotton and lacy and sensibly pretty, followed the jersey to the floor.
With unerring accuracy, he covered her breasts, filling his hands with the weighted globes. “Beautiful. So beautiful.”
He bent his head, burying his face between them, teasing the curve of one breast with tender reverence. BJ tilted her head and leaned backward, anchoring her fingers to his shoulders. Brodie answered her unknowing invitation by closing his mouth over an extended peak, laving the rose-colored bud into a pebble-hard bead. He repeated his actions on the other side, sucking and nipping until her nails scratched him and her hips twisted against him, seeking release.
His own need had built to such a pitch that he could hardly tell her she would be protected, that she wouldn't get pregnant, she wouldn't get hurt.
He fell back onto the bed, pulling her on top of him, enjoying her like that for a moment before rolling over. It had been some time since he had undressed a woman, and by the time he had her naked and had stripped his jeans and shorts, he was a frustrated, impatient man.
But BJ was a woman to be treasured, not bullied or used. So he pulled her partially beneath him, draping his leg over both of hers, propping himself on his elbows above her, raining kisses along her jaw and neck. He tasted the tang of salt from her pores and the heat of passion burning beneath her skin.
He wanted to bring her to the feverish pitch that consumed him. He stroked her breasts, her belly, her thighs, the sandy thatch of curls in between. She put her hands on him, caressing his shoulders, his chest, his arms. Touching him with her eyes as well, touching him deep in his soul as no woman had for eight centuries. Healing him with her brave, gentle touches and cognizant, caring gaze.
Only when she breathed his name in that honey-husky whisper did her move on top of her, nudging her apart with his knee, settling himself into the cradle of her hips.
He wondered if he was too big for her. If he would crush her with his weight, or harm her with his size. She took his indecision away by grasping him by the buttocks and thrusting her hips upward.
“BJ… sweetheart...” He groaned as he entered her. Slowly, an agonizing bit at a time. She closed around him, hot and tight.
Too tight.
Fierce male exultation and cold, mind-numbing fear mingled with the discovery that he was her first. Brodie froze as waves of age-old warnings shouted in his mind. He raised his head, fighting for the strength to control himself, cursing the urges that made it so difficult to dampen his need.
BJ sensed his hesitation.
“What's wrong?” She clutched at his shoulders, looking as unsteady as he felt. “You said we didn't need protection. You can't carry or contract an illness, you can't father children.”
“You're a virgin.”
BJ paled. Then a rosy flush crept from her chest up her neck and into her cheeks.
She looked so stricken, so hurt, so afraid she had done something wrong. Then she tilted her chin up defiantly, grasping for a confidence he had taken from her with his indecision. “Isn't it a little late to change your mind?”
He strained with the exertion of holding back. He willed his body to do the proper thing, but everywhere her skin touched his, he was betrayed by a base desire to possess her totally. “This isn't right. You're an innocent. I shouldn't be the one.”
She dug her nails into his skin. “I want you to be the one. I never wanted anyone else. I know what I'm doing. I'll remember this. I want you, Brodie. Please say you still want me, too.”
He was humbled in the presence of her generous gift. His body surged with the desire to give her what she wanted, to find his pleasure in hers. Was it really better to shatter the self- confidence she s
o tenuously held on to? He should bear the guilt, not BJ, not his beautiful sweet BJ.
“More than anything. More than my next breath.” He kissed her thoroughly, wiping her mind clean of the self-doubts he had put there. He rocked his hips against hers and heard a sharp gasp.
“Did I hurt you?” Good God, if he had, he'd…
“No.” Her breathless reassurance stopped that train of thought as quickly as the recognition of little fluttering tremors surrounding him deep within her.
She lifted her knees and gathered Brodie fully inside. Her nails bit into his shoulders, and he gladly absorbed her pain until it subsided. Then her bewitching little hands slipped down his back and trickled across his spine.
“BJ…”
Her honey-husky voice hushed him. “You make me feel like a beautiful, desirable woman.”
He framed her head in his hands and felt the power rising within him. “You are a beautiful, desirable woman. No one's ever turned me inside-out as quickly as you can.”
“I know the feeling.”
She rocked beneath him in a rhythm so natural, his body immediately answered the call. Thoughts and praises faded as instinct and need took over.
“Forgive me, sweetheart,” he gasped above her. “Please forgive me.”
Then he could no longer speak. He sank into her embrace. She hugged her arms around him, hugged him with her legs. Even as she arched against him with a wild, keening cry, she held him close.
Brodie tumbled over the precipice right after, knowing a completion with BJ so astonishing it robbed him of reason.
In that instant, he knew he loved her.
When he regained the ability to breathe normally, he rolled his weight off her and tucked her to his side. She snuggled against him, feeling small and warm and infinitely right. He curled his arms around her, holding her close even after the steady rate of her breathing told him she had dozed off.
Brodie looked down in wonder at the brilliant, generous woman who had given herself to him.
He loved her.
He couldn't imagine a more horrible thought.
An innocent. Good God, another innocent dead!
Brodie cradled the scrawny lifeless body in his arms. He used to be just an annoying kid whom Brodie had kind of adopted. The stupid kid had come back to see why his big buddy wasn't at the scheduled rendezvous point. Now he was dead, his heart holding a piece of shrapnel from a shell that should have killed them both.
Another firebomb exploded outside the shelter, showering Brodie with dust and bricks. Somebody yelled outside, the exact words getting lost in the screams and confusion. But he knew the voice. Brodie stooped and slung the young teen across his shoulders, picked up his rifle and went out into the streets to find Colonel Ramsey.
Thousands of strings of light dangled in the night sky, followed by flashing bursts of fire when they hit the ground. Dark-haired civilians in bare feet and tattered veils scurried from building to building, dodging the hail of bombs and bullets.
This escape had been doomed from the start. And Brodie knew it was his fault. Five men in, twenty men out. Only the twenty hadn't been where they were supposed to be. The twenty men were really twelve. The twenty men included the boy and Zora.
Zora with the raven curls to her waist. Zora with the tiny lines of suffering marring her exotic beauty. Zora who came to him in the night with silent passion, stealing away before dawn.
Zora who had saved herself by betraying them all.
“Maxwell! Del Rio's got a truck two blocks south. Get Murphy and anybody else you can round up down there now!”
“Yes, sir!” Brodie took off at a loping run, confident Jonathan Ramsey would keep the enemy busy long enough to give his men time to get out.
Brodie zigzagged down the street, avoiding parked cars whose gas tanks could explode, pushing confused civilians back into the relative safety of their shelters. An old man stopped him, rattling off questions in the native language Brodie couldn't understand.
“C'mon, old man.” Brodie grabbed him by the upper arm and hurried him into a building with thick walls and little glass. “You'll be safer here.”
The man squatted against the wall, wringing Brodie's hand and spouting something that sounded like gratitude.
“Chief!” Brodie whirled around when he heard his rank called. Murphy stumbled through the doorway, his leg shattered and bleeding. “Cloud cover's too heavy to get air support. We have to get out now before they get lucky and shell the airfield.”
“Right.” Brodie dropped his rifle next to the old man and moved the kid's body to one shoulder. He got hold of Murphy under his arms and took the brunt of the weight off his wounded leg. Together, they rounded the corner of a burning building and found Sergeant Del Rio. The sarge helped Murphy up to the front seat while Brodie dumped the kid's body onto the bed of the truck.
He did a quick head count. Three American bodies, one foreign national. Seven surviving hostages. Murphy, Del Rio. Ramsey and Echohawk arrived moments later. Only one missing.
Zora.
“Brodie!” Blessed faith propelled her out of the shadows and into his arms. She was alive! He clutched her tightly, pulling her toward the safety of the truck.
“No!” She struggled out of his grasp. “I only wanted to apologize and wish you luck.”
Flash fire lit the sky. Brodie swore when he saw her face. “This is how they treat their informants?”
Bruised and bloodied, she had paid in full for revealing their plans to the government security force. “Zora. Come with us. I'll keep you safe.”
She shook her head. “I must stay. My work is here. I am so sorry about your comrades.”
She touched her fingers to his face. He heard a muffled thud. She fell against him. Lifeless. Shot in the back.
“No!” He tilted his head and screamed his rage.
“Chief! Get in here now!”
Suddenly the street was alive with gunfire. Holding Zora's body like a shield, he pulled the dagger from his fatigues and gutted the soldier who charged him. The truck growled to life behind him.
“Chief!”
Government soldiers closed in. He took out one more, feeling the sting of a bullet graze his ribcage. He held his ground until he heard the answering report of gunfire behind him. A grenade exploded, scattering the soldiers for a moment.
Brodie dropped Zora's body, tears clouding his vision. He had gotten her killed. He'd listened to her stories in the dark of the night and grown to care about her suffering. He’d wanted to help her. But he'd only gotten her killed.
“Maxwell!”
Brodie obeyed the colonel's command and ran toward the truck. He caught it and hoisted himself onto the bed. There, he took a rifle from Hawk Echohawk and resumed his duty as a United States Marine.
He couldn't see what he fired at. The tears ran too freely. He had killed another innocent. Good God, how many innocent people had to die before his punishment would end?
Never again, he swore. Never again.
Brodie jerked awake instantly. His heart thudded in his chest. Moonlight poured across his naked body through an open window, glistening on the sheen of cold sweat that enveloped him.
His nightmare vision had been real. Hundreds of times in the past he had lived through similar nightmares. Innocent people dying because he cared. He had saved a few lives along the way, too. Jonathan Ramsey had always liked to argue that one with him. But somehow they didn't seem to count for much when faced with the knowledge that one more person, one more innocent, had died because of him.
Slowly, Brodie collected himself. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked down at the woman sleeping beside him. BJ lay curled in a ball, facing him. He had thrashed so during his sleep that he had uncovered himself and pulled the sheet down to her waist.
The moonlight touched her skin, giving her an ethereal glow that disappeared in the shadowy cleft of her breasts. The tempting sight sent heat rushing straight to his groin. But another,
gentler warmth settled in his chest. Her plain face, profiled where she lay on the pillow, was relaxed in calm, serene beauty. She must be both physically and mentally exhausted to have slept through his nightmare. He touched her cheek, brushing back a love-tossed lock of hair.
She had been wild and free, with a touch of ladylike shyness that had been missing from her programmed seduction two nights ago. This real BJ was better. Definitely better.
No wonder he fancied himself in love with her.
Brodie berated himself silently. Honesty ruled him as much as his sense of justice and fair play did. He loved her. Period.
Nothing was fair about that.
He pulled the sheet up and tucked it under her chin. The sweet memory of her soul-healing apology and the humanizing lovemaking that followed was blanked by the memory of a dark set of eyes.
Eyes branded into his heart for all eternity. Evil. Vindictive. Without remorse.
Brodie had done an unforgivable thing. He deserved to be punished. But the innocents he encountered didn't deserve to be a part of his punishment. BJ didn't deserve it.
“I can't do this, sweetheart,” he whispered, brushing her cheek with a kiss. “Forgive me.”
Ignoring the urges of his body and heart, Brodie slipped off the bed, dressed silently, and left the house. He ran deep into the night.
BJ opened her eyes when she heard the outside door click shut. She gently traced the warm spot on her cheek where Brodie had kissed her goodbye.
I can't do this, sweetheart.
Did he know he used the endearment? If he did, did it mean anything?
BJ wished she could reclaim the sweet dreams of a few minutes ago. After loving Brodie, she had drifted into contented sleep, her body feeling sore but deliciously whole. Sheltered by Brodie's big body, warmed by his fiery need for her, she eased into the most restful sleep she had known in weeks.
But Brodie's groans and feverish twisting beside her roused her. She wondered what demons tortured him so.