Man Beneath the Uniform

by Maureen Child

  He chuckled. "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

  Kim swayed into him, then bent slightly to tug her thigh-high black stockings off. He caught her hands in his and shook his head.

  "The stockings stay."

  A curl of something wicked and delicious unwound in the pit of Kim's stomach. "Yeah?"

  "Oh, yeah," he said, his gaze dropping to sweep over her with a long, approving look. "Babe, you are a fantasy."

  "I'm real enough," she said, lifting her hands to encircle his neck.

  He stared at her and Kim tried to read the emotions dazzling across the surface of his eyes, but they came and went so quickly, she couldn't be sure of any of them. All she knew was that she felt good in his arms. She felt beautiful and sexy and wild and free.

  She'd never been any of those things and knowing that she could be, with Zack, was so liberating, she could hardly catch her breath.

  "Lie down," he said softly, tipping her back onto the mattress. "Now you get your romance."

  "Be inside me, Zack," she said. "I want to feel you deep inside me."

  His jaw clenched and he inhaled sharply. "Me, too, but first I want to kiss every inch of your body."

  She shivered and lost herself in the dark gleam of his eyes. "Zack…"

  "Trust me."

  "I do."

  He smiled and leaned over her. He started at the base of her throat, trailing damp, hot kisses down to her breasts. Then he took her nipples, first one, then the other, into his mouth. He suckled her, drawing and pulling at her sensitive flesh until Kim could hardly be still. She writhed beneath him, twisting with the building fires within. His breath caressed her skin and fanned the flames until she thought she might spontaneously combust. She didn't really care, as long as he kept doing what he was doing.

  He moved, nibbling his way down her stomach, across her abdomen and to the juncture of her thighs. Kim stiffened and inched back instinctively. But Zack's strong hands grabbed her hips and held her in place. She looked down at him as he knelt between her thighs and she managed to say, "Zack, you don't have to—"

  "I said every inch, babe." He smiled, winked and lowered his head to take her in the most intimate kiss she'd ever experienced.

  Kim sighed and she was pretty sure she whined a little, too. It was just so perfect. So wonderful. So wicked. His tongue moved over her most tender flesh and she arched wildly, moving into him as he took her higher than she'd ever been before. His breath puffed against her, his lips and tongue and teeth tortured her with a sweet relentlessness that pushed her ever closer to the edge of madness.

  And when the first tremors shook through her, he tasted her surrender, holding her gently, lovingly, until she drifted back to earth, still in the cradle of his strong hands.

  Head still swimming, Kim looked at him and watched as he sheathed himself before covering her body with his.

  "You make a hell of a picture, darlin'," he said, "wearing nothing but moonlight and those stockings."

  "You make a hell of a picture yourself," Kim said, smiling as her blood sizzled and popped, "wearing nothing at all."

  "All I want to be wearing is you," he murmured, dropping a quick, hard kiss on her mouth.

  "Be in me," she said, cupping his face between her palms. "I want to feel you, Zack. I want to feel you inside."

  "Now," he agreed and pushed his way home.

  Kim gasped and arched into him, lifting her legs to lock around his hips. She pulled him tighter, closer, wanting to feel as much of him as she could. His hips rocked as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. She felt the rhythm quicken, felt her blood do a dance of welcome and her heart sing. He filled her. Completely. Totally. He pushed himself high enough inside her that she thought he actually touched her heart.

  Kim lifted her arms to hold him to her and she relished the pounding of his heart against her chest. He lifted his head to look down at her and as their eyes met, that slow rush to completion flashed between them. Kim felt it first, then saw the same explosive shudders lance across Zack's eyes.

  And this time when she fell, he was right there, taking the fall with her.

  * * *

  Ten

  « ^ »

  Zack knew he should move. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten how.

  Every muscle in his body was lax. Yet at the same time, he felt energized. His blood rushed through his veins, his heart raced in a wild, frantic beat and his mind was busily trying to find a way to explain what had just happened.

  But explanations weren't easy.

  It wasn't just sex.

  What he and Kim had shared went way above and beyond the simple easing of need. If it had been only lust, the urges in him would have been satisfied. He could have gotten out of bed, dressed and walked away—as he had so many times before.

  But now, for the first time, he wanted to stay. That thought alone was usually enough to have him rolling away from her. Putting both emotional and physical distance between them. He stared blankly at the ceiling like a shell-shocked survivor of a fiercely pitched battle.

  Beside him, Kim yawned, stretched languidly and sighed as she slid one foot along his leg. New need zapped him, sizzling along his veins like an out-of-control skyrocket. Then she pushed her hair back from her face and said softly, "That was…"

  "Yeah," he said, congratulating himself on being able to talk. "That about covers it."

  She turned into him, curling her body along his, burrowing her head into the curve of his shoulder. His skin tingled, as if lit from within by thousands of sparklers. The scent of her hair reached him and enveloped him completely. Would he ever again be able to notice the smell of flowers without thinking of her? Of this moment?

  She ran the flat of her hand across his chest and fires quickened inside him. Moments before, he'd been sated, now, new hunger rose inside him again, demanding satisfaction. He'd never felt this before. This all-encompassing need for one particular woman.

  And a part of him pulled back from that acknowledgement.

  Zack closed his eyes and captured her hand in his, holding her still, hoping it would be enough to rein in the desire pumping afresh through his body.

  "I have to say," Kim said softly, her voice a low hush in the moonlit room, "I've never enjoyed the end of a party so much."

  "I aim to please." His voice was light, his words casual, in an attempt to convince them both that what had just happened wasn't as mind-boggling as he seemed to think it was. But whatever he said, it wouldn't be enough to chase away the stray thoughts still bulleting around his brain.

  Several long moments passed in silence and Zack's mind took that quiet and ran with it. Image after image filled his mind and they were all of Kim. Kim laughing, Kim walking along the river, the wind in her hair. Kim tonight, surrounded by her family and the immense wealth she'd grown up with.

  That image stung.

  He couldn't stop the sudden doubt. He'd grown up in a solid, middle-class family, the only child of hardworking people who'd lived the same kind of military life he now led. Their family had been small, but tight. Right now, his parents were off in an RV, discovering the country, and Zack was pretty much on his own. The navy was his family. His team members his brothers. That had been enough for him.

  Until recently, his mind taunted.

  He'd built a life he loved. One that didn't lend itself well to sharing. Zack scowled up at the ceiling. He'd tried once before, hadn't he? But his lack of a fortune—and the fact that he didn't give a good damn about making pots of money—had ended that before it could begin.

  So, he thought now, if he hadn't been enough for her, how could he possibly think that he would be enough for Kim Danforth? She hadn't been born with just a silver spoon in her mouth; it had been the whole silverware set.

  People with that kind of money simply weren't interested in anyone outside their own realm.

  Not that he cared or anything.

  Not that he'd been thinking of doing anything so crazy as proposing.r />
  Not that he was in love.

  Oh, man.

  He scraped one hand across his face, hoping to wipe away the thoughts crowding his mind. But it didn't help. Nothing could.

  He was in deep and he knew it.

  "What're you thinking?"

  "Hmm?" Kim's voice had startled him out of his train wreck of a thought process. For which, he told himself, he was grateful. Quickly, he searched for something to say. "I was uh, remembering that little speech your father gave."

  She laughed a little, her breath dusting across his chest like a whisper. "Which one?"

  "The one about the ghost."

  "Poor Miss Carlisle." She shook her head and her hair shifted like warm silk against his skin. "Imagine arriving for a job as governess, only to be run down on the drive before you could reach the front door."

  Ghosts. A safe topic, he thought.

  "You'd think she'd quit trying to get in," he said. "After a hundred years or so of attempts."

  "She's determined to make it into the house," Kim said softly. "Almost as determined as I was to get out of it."

  She'd made it, he thought. Out of that house and into this bungalow that seemed light years away from the mansion they'd visited hours ago. She'd made her own life, apart from the Danforths. She'd carved out a world of her own. But that didn't mean that she wasn't still a part of that influential family.

  "Some things," he told her, his voice thoughtful, "just aren't meant to be."

  "You believe that?" She tipped her head back to look up at him.

  Zack met her gaze and tried, this time, not to notice just how green her eyes were. Just how hypnotic it was to stare into those depths and feel them draw you deeper, closer. And somehow, he knew that he'd be seeing those eyes of hers in his dreams for the rest of his life. She'd branded him somehow, and even when he left her—as he knew he would—he'd never really be free of her.

  Zack held her closer and with his other hand, smoothed her hair back from her face, letting his fingertips glide along her cheek. The smooth slide of flesh against flesh warmed him, comforted him. "Sometimes," he said, "it's better to walk away."

  "I don't believe that."

  "I never used to," he admitted and wondered if she realized that he was already pulling back. He wouldn't admit to what he was feeling for her because there would be no point. There was no future for them.

  "But now you do?" She went up on one elbow and looked down at him.

  "Now," he said, staring up at her and feeling the raw pulse of need reach up and grab him by the throat. "Now I don't know what I believe."

  "Do you know what you want?"

  His mouth lifted in a brief twist of a smile even as a cold, unseen hand squeezed his heart until his chest ached. "At the moment … you."

  She lowered her head to his, her thick, black hair hanging like a curtain of midnight silk on either side of them. "Then for now, let the wanting be enough."

  "Doc," he said, already reaching for her, "I like the way you think."

  He closed his mind to thoughts of tomorrow. To the warnings his brain tried to send. Because all he cared about right now was Kim's warm flesh pressed to his. The shine in her eyes and the curve of her mouth.

  Zack had seen enough in his life to know that it was important to enjoy what you had while you had it, to appreciate the moment because that moment might not come again.

  He scooped her up, pulled her on top of him, then wrapped his arms around her, pinning her to him. Their bodies brushed together, length to length, hard to soft. His hands skimmed up her spine, defining every line, every curve, his fingers exploring, carving the feel of her into his memory. He wanted Kim so deeply in his heart, his mind, that she was always there, just a thought away. Zack knew that in some distant future, the memories of this night, this moment, might be all he had left to remind him that once he'd held a woman who was everything to him.

  She kissed him, her mouth on his aroused him so fiercely, he devoured her in response. Taking her head in his hands, he held her mouth fused to his, taking, demanding what she offered and giving all that he had to give. She sighed and he felt the ripple of it course down to his soul. Her breath became his. Their hearts beat in tandem. Blood raced and pulses skipped.

  He wanted her as he had no other. But more, he needed her as he'd never expected to need anyone.

  Rolling to one side, he tipped her onto her back and indulged himself by caressing her body in long, slow strokes. She damn near purred as she arched into him, digging her head back into the pillow, fanning that black silk hair beneath her.

  This was good, he thought, dipping his head to taste first one of her breasts and then the next. She groaned and the flames within him licked at the corners of his heart. This was right, he thought, trailing kisses up the column of her throat and across her jaw before reaching her mouth. This was all, he thought, as once again, he tasted her, invading her warmth, letting himself slide into the heat and magic that was Kim.

  "Zack," she whispered, her breath warm on his face. "If we keep this up, we're going to kill ourselves."

  "Hell of a way to go though, peaches," he said, taking another kiss, then one more.

  "Yes," she said on a sigh of wonder, "yes, it is."

  Her hands skimmed up his back and he felt the strength in them. Short, neat nails scraped at his flesh and he felt the stroke of each one as if she were carving her initials into his heart. Marking him as hers.

  That thought drove him, plunging through his mind like a runaway train. Need swept through him like a tidal wave, relentless, unavoidable, devastating.

  Zack rode the crest of that wave and moved over her, sliding up the length of her. He watched the flash of desire snap across the surface of her eyes. Felt her desperation as she grabbed him, held him, lifting her hips in a silent, ancient welcome. And giving himself up to the flames within, he entered her again, claimed her again, and in the act of completion, found more need.

  He linked his fingers with hers, needing that extra connection. He stared down into her eyes, and saw himself mirrored there. He watched her watch him and gazes locked, they reached the shattering end that somehow signaled a beginning.

  * * *

  The days marched past, one after the other, measured in sunrise and sunset. The hours in between were filled with sex and laughter and a freedom that Kim had never known before.

  In Zack, she'd found a man who understood her love of the sea. A man who was more than willing to spend an hour or two scuba diving on the off chance they might see something spectacular. Around Zack, she didn't feel like the nerd she'd always been. She felt … beautiful. And smart. And interesting.

  And most importantly, at least to her, she felt … wanted.

  He touched her and her skin sizzled. He looked at her and her blood raced. He kissed her and she melted. Since the night of the party, they'd been together. Every night, he came to her bed and in the morning, he was still there. Her heart was entwined with his, her life felt fuller and richer with him in it. And she wasn't at all sure what she would do when he left.

  She'd accepted long ago that she wasn't going to find that one man. That she wouldn't have the family, the children, she'd dreamed of having when she was a girl. After that mess with Charles, she'd simply acknowledged to herself that she wasn't the kind of woman men fell in love with. She was, as she'd always been, too smart, too practical, too uninterested in the things other women seemed fascinated by.

  She'd much rather spend the day underwater, charting fish, than spend hours wandering through a crowded mall searching for just the right outfit to wear to a society luncheon. She was happier keeping her long hair in a braid rather than face the nightmare of regular visits to a salon. She didn't enjoy small talk, and she'd rather have her fingernails torn out than be forced to sit through terminally boring board meetings.

  There was a price to be paid for living the kind of life she preferred, and she'd long ago come to grips with the fact that her price would be
solitude.

  And then Zack Sheridan had marched into her nice, neat, solitary world and splintered it.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by her books and the paper she was supposed to be working on, Kim glanced over at the tall crystal vase that held what was left of her first Valentine bouquet. A week ago, Zack had brought her two dozen yellow roses, a box of truffles and, she thought with a smile, a new valve for the oxygen tank she used on her dives.

  What woman wouldn't fall in love with a man like that?

  "Love?" She whispered the word as though afraid that Zack would hear her. But he was outside in the backyard, mowing her tiny patch of grass. Pushing up from the table, she tossed her pen onto an open book and watched as it rolled right off the table. Love?

  Her breath huffed in and out of her lungs. Her head took a wild spin that had the room tilting for one brief, fascinating moment and she was almost positive her heart had lurched to a stop.

  She was in love.

  Really in love, for the first and last time in her life.

  "I should have seen this coming," she said, still half-stunned by her own discovery. "But even if I had," she reasoned, starting to pace now while her thoughts raced to keep up, "how could I have stopped it?" More importantly, "Why would I have?"

  Well, because, you idiot, she told herself silently, life would be a lot less complicated if you hadn't let your heart get involved.

  "But complicated can be good." She stopped pacing. "Can't it?"

  Sunlight poured through the front windows and painted gold slashes across her furniture and the polished wood floor. From outside came the sound of the hand mower in the backyard, Zack's colorful cursing and, just beneath those homey sounds, the quiet music of the wind chimes hanging from the roof of the house. Kids skateboarded along the sidewalk, the wheels on their boards growling like caged beasts let loose for a much needed run.

  The world was just the same as it had been ten minutes ago. And yet, she thought, wandering down the hall to the back door where she could stand and watch Zack, it was all so different.

  He'd taken his shirt off as he worked on the yard and in the direct sunlight, his tanned muscles gleamed with sweat. The scars marking his body stood out a bit paler than the rest of his flesh, but somehow made him look more perfect rather than less so. Sunglasses shielded his eyes and a day's growth of whiskers dotted his face. His large, strong hands gripped the handles of the ancient mower and something inside Kim pinged in appreciation as she watched him tighten that grip.