by Nicole Helm
She looked up at him, big, blue eyes swirling with surprise and desire. Much like the other night, he wanted to stretch out the moment where she was something like at his mercy. Looking up and waiting for him to make the move. Where he was in control of every breath she took.
“I-I don’t think anyone should know,” she stammered.
It hurt. No matter that it shouldn’t. “I don’t keep secrets from Alex or Jack.”
That shock and stuttery nervousness faded into something soft. “Oh, Gabe. You keep secrets from everyone.”
Somehow that hurt more—that she could see it. That she didn’t seem angry or put out about it, just sad. He didn’t know what to do with sad. He didn’t know what to do with the truth. So he did what he always did. Went on the offensive.
“Any more silly rules you want to lay down?” he asked with one of his too-sharp smiles that had him coming to the uncomfortable realization that he might use his charm and irritation as his own armor. A barrier between people and his heart and the truth because he didn’t know what to do with either. Even less with the people who might be able to see them.
But it was too uncomfortable a thought when Monica’s hand was in his and her body was so near. This woman wanted to have sex with him. Temporarily.
What did feelings matter? What did truths matter? He wanted her, and he was going to have her.
“Just one. I don’t want you to lie to me. You have your secrets, Gabe, and I won’t press on those. But I won’t have your lies.”
“I’m not a liar,” he returned stiffly.
“Everyone’s a little bit of a liar. Whether we know it or not. We lie to protect ourselves, and we lie to make the world around us makes sense. You can lie to yourself any way you want. You can lie to everyone in the world. But for the next week, I need you to tell me the truth. No matter how uncomfortable the truth is.”
There was a split second where he actually considered walking away. He didn’t want to promise her anything. He didn’t want anyone even mentioning his secrets. Most of all, he didn’t want the earnestness in those pretty blue eyes of hers. The way the vulnerability seemed to leak out of her when she let go.
He’d only ruin that. Hurt it. He always hurt vulnerable things.
But she moved onto her toes and brushed her soft mouth against his, a quick, light touch. Then the moment was gone, and all he could think about was her, naked beneath him. Finally getting her any which way she chose.
“So, are you staying?” she asked, as though there was a question.
“I’m staying.”
* * *
Monica wanted to laugh. Hysterically. Not because it was funny, but because she was giddy at the prospect. His big hand still held hers, and it was scarred and calloused and rough. It would be on her. Naked her. And he would be naked.
Jeez.
“I bought condoms,” she blurted out.
She got another one of those eyebrow-raised looks where he didn’t say anything, just stared at her in surprise. Why she got such a kick out of surprising him was beyond her. Maybe it was because she was so used to not surprising anyone with anything other than her insights into their life, which were never as impressive as the person seemed to think. She wasn’t magic. She just paid attention.
“Planned this, did you?”
“Well, I didn’t plan you coming here. I was just alone in a store. You’ll never understand the sheer joy of a mother being alone in a store. No kid whining or begging or complaining. And suddenly I was in the condom aisle.”
“Suddenly?”
“Well, technically I was buying tampons, if you really want to know.” When he grimaced, she laughed. “Men are so predictable. Anyway, it seemed like a smart thing to have. Along with the ingredients to make ten different kinds of Christmas cookies on the off chance I lost my nerve and didn’t use said condoms.”
“You know, I can’t figure you out. You seem like a reasonable, rational person and then I come to your house that looks like Christmas threw up everywhere and you wax poetic about being alone in a store.”
She would have fisted her hands on her hips, but he was still holding her hand, holding her close. Much like that moment in the barn the other night. The way he’d stretched out those seconds of thrumming attraction until she hadn’t been able to take it anymore.
She liked that—the way the anticipation wound so hard and so tight it felt like she’d explode. But she had to admit she was a little ready to explode.
She stepped even closer, so their knees and chests brushed, so she had to tip her head back a smidge to maintain eye contact. “And how would you decorate for Christmas?”
His eyes were dark and fathomless, and that wide, expressive mouth of his curved. “I wouldn’t.”
“Even if you had a little boy you were in charge of?”
“Okay, throw a Christmas tree in the corner. Voila. Christmas.”
She sighed disapprovingly and shook her head, and still they stood too close and too far apart all at the same time. That dark gaze of his studied her as if looking for some magic key to something, and she had the sad, silly thought she wanted to find it for him.
“You sure about this?”
“Do I strike you as the type of woman who buys condoms and has sex on a whim?” She cocked her head, angling her mouth closer to his jaw. “Are you sure about this?”
For a man who seemed solitary, alone, and maybe even a little sad sometimes, he had a dozen different smiles. That was his own armor, she supposed, but she liked this smile. The one that wasn’t blank underneath, and the only sharpness to it was intent. The rest was enjoyment, and she wanted to be the source of that for reasons she hadn’t worked out yet.
But the want was there, and he was here. His mouth touched hers, and Lord, he was a patient man. All gentle pressure, the slowest releasing of her hand before his found her waist, found her neck, drew her closer and closer a millimeter at a time.
She sighed against his mouth, and he took the opportunity to draw his tongue across her lower lip. It exploded through her, hot and bright and a little scary—but the kind of scary a person could never quite resist.
“Hell,” he muttered. And then it was like the world ignited. Nothing but heat and the soaring notes to “O Holy Night,” which might have been sacrilegious, but she didn’t care. Not when Gabe’s mouth streaked across hers, not when his arms banded around her, holding her so close she could feel every flex of every impressive muscle in his body. Arms, abs, thighs.
Hell was right. Because how could she do anything but give into this and him, and she was not used to giving in. It was like leaping off a cliff and free-falling, having no idea when and if she’d land, and how many broken bones she might suffer if she survived at all.
But underneath all that fear was the steady thrum of a pleasure so big and wide she didn’t care about the landing. She only cared that she got more of it.
She managed to create enough distance between their bodies to slide her palms up his stomach and find all that hard, rangy muscle. He scraped his teeth against her lips, and her legs nearly buckled at how much more she wanted than this.
Then his arms were loosening, and somehow his mouth was off hers. She let out a sound of protest, but she swiftly swallowed it when he reached behind his head and pulled his T-shirt off.
“Oh.”
“Was that another wow?” he asked with that razor-sharp grin that she wanted to taste, then learn how to soften.
“I said ‘oh’ this time,” she replied primly. Or as prim as she could be with her cheeks on fire and a low pulse of oh, please, God thrumming deep inside of her.
“So…” He moved close to her again, his fingers curling under the edge of her flour-dusted T-shirt. “You admit you said wow when we kissed the other night?” he murmured right next to her ear.
She very nearly giggled,
but she covered it up by clearing her throat. “Maybe.”
He pulled her shirt up slowly, that obnoxiously wonderful patience he had where it seemed like minutes before it was over her head and she was standing in front of him in her plain, serviceable bra. She might have wished for lace if not for the way his eyes raked over her like she was some sort of prize. As though when he looked at her it affected him just as much as her looking at him affected her.
He reached out, those big hands enveloping her shoulders, then moving down her arms, trailing goose bumps in their wake. Her breathing was too quick and too shallow, but she couldn’t get her brain to send the chill message to her lungs.
Colin hugged her so rarely these days, and Mom and Dad were so far away and just not super demonstrative, and it was such an aching thing to be reminded how much she missed being touched. A hug. A caress. A kiss. For so incredibly long, she’d just had to do without, and she probably would again after Christmas.
But for here and now, there was a man who wanted to share his body with her, and she wouldn’t cry, she wouldn’t ruin this precious time. She would indulge in every last aspect of it, memorize it maybe, and it would get her through the next.
She launched herself at him. Wrapped her arms around him, kissed him as deep and wild as she could. She arched against him, desperate for more, and he groaned into her mouth, the sound rumbling through her like an earthquake.
“Which way?” he asked breathlessly.
It took her a few moments to figure out what he meant. “Oh, well. I sleep on the couch.”
“You…what?”
“It pulls out.”
He frowned down at her. “You sleep on a pullout couch?”
“It’s a one-bedroom cabin. I figured since I was the one who made him move here, Colin could have his own bedroom.”
“And you sleep on a pullout couch.”
“It’s practical. Who are you to talk? You sleep in bunk beds.”
“I do not sleep in bunk beds. I sleep in a bunkhouse.”
“That is filled with bunk beds.”
“Okay. Fine. We both have ridiculous sleeping situations.” He stalked over to the couch and started tossing the cushions off. “We can discuss it later.”
Monica crossed to the couch, pulling the handle so that the bed unfolded into the space of the living room.
She undid the button of her jeans and started to push them down her legs. “We’ll discuss it much later.”
He grinned, doing the same. “Much.”
Chapter 15
She was too beautiful, Gabe thought. It seemed some great cosmic mix-up he even got to look at her. Acres of pale skin he wanted to bare completely and taste, and he in no way deserved any of that.
But he’d take it.
Then there was this ridiculous bed, with gingerbread-man-printed sheets. A mix of the ridiculous and the practical, which seemed so very her it just about hurt. He didn’t understand her, didn’t want to, but something about her caused this horrible ache inside of him he couldn’t trust.
But he was here. In this pullout couch bed because she slept in the living room, so her kid could have his own room. It was a kind of sacrifice he’d stopped thinking existed. Not outside of war and famine anyway.
It swamped him with such feeling he was almost afraid to touch her, to move forward. She didn’t know what she was doing, dirtying herself with him.
“Oh, let me go get the condoms.” She blushed just saying the word, but she shook her hair back, sailing toward the dark little hallway. “You should be naked when I get back,” she said firmly, an order.
He wasn’t big on taking orders, but he had no problem with naked. No problem ignoring all the shit in his head and focusing on what they were doing. Sex. Naked together. The rest didn’t matter. He could self-flagellate all he wanted tomorrow, but first he was going to get something out of it.
He pushed off his boxers and slid onto her bed. There was a gingerbread man smiling up at him from the sheets, its creepy gumdrop eyes and grotesquely smiling, frosting-painted mouth repeating over and over in pattern.
“You’re going to be scarred for life, buddy,” he muttered, trying to focus on something that wasn’t the sheets. But everywhere he looked, Christmas paraphernalia glowed or smiled or downright creeped him out.
It wasn’t nerves. He had sex. Maybe not, you know, a lot, and maybe not with women who were most decidedly in his life, but this was still temporary. A scratching of itches that would have no bearing on the future.
He wasn’t sure he really believed that, but he wanted Monica enough to pretend for the time being.
She returned to the living room and placed the condom on the end table next to the couch. She still had her underwear on, but she’d pulled her hair out of its band and the flyaway strands of blond somehow made her look younger, more…innocent.
Gabe couldn’t say he cared for that. The reminder she hadn’t been with anyone since her husband, that this might be important even if she didn’t want it to be. That they might be only a few years apart in age, but they were ages apart in experience and cynicism and—
“Do they hurt?” she asked, hovering there, studying his body. Not the kind of excited perusal he would have welcomed, but the careful, concerned study of the web of scars over his body. A few lines on his leg and hip, a web of marks on his shoulder, including the burns he’d sustained from the grenade blast that had exploded behind him.
He tried not to tense, worked on looking almost bored and relaxed lying naked on her gingerbread man sheets. “The scars themselves? Not so much these days.”
“But the injuries do?”
He shrugged, trying not to let irritation simmer through him. “Sometimes they ache a bit. Winter seems to make that more the case, but it’s bearable.”
She nodded, then looked at him solemnly. “I should probably be very, very gentle with you,” she said, and he might have fallen for that serious tone if her mouth hadn’t curved up at the end.
He grinned and crossed his arms behind his head. “Oh, baby, I was a Navy SEAL. We don’t do gentle.”
She laughed as he’d hoped she would. Then she bit her lip and reached behind her. Her bra went slack, then she let it fall to the ground.
She was…perfect somehow. More perfect than he could have imagined in his most detailed fantasies. It was so close to too much, but he was selfish enough not to care what he deserved and what he didn’t.
“It’s amazing how fantasy never quite measures up to real life,” he murmured, content for these few humming seconds to just watch her. To let it ratchet the anticipation higher and higher till it was almost painful.
He didn’t mind pain, not when it came in the most beautiful of packages.
She laughed, just the slightest hint of nerves edging it, so he got to his knees, drawing her closer to the edge of the bed. He ignored the sharp stab of pain in his hip and pressed a kiss to her chest, between her breasts, then her belly, slowly edging her panties down her legs.
She was impossibly soft, impossibly sweet. Every time she sucked in a shallow breath or let it shakily out, that tight edge of desire scraped sharper, and still he was slow, patient, careful. He moved his calloused hands over her hips, her thighs. He soaked up that rough against smooth slide until his body felt as though it was throbbing from the inside out.
Then in a smooth move he’d pat himself on the back for later, he flipped her onto her back on the bed.
She let out a surprised squeak, and then a laugh. “Is that a special Navy SEAL sex move?”
“Of course.” Positioned on his side, he enjoyed a few seconds of just taking her in. Long and lean, and he barely even noticed she was sprawled out on a gingerbread-man-printed nightmare. He leaned down and kissed the tip of her tightened nipple and she squeaked again, so he licked, sucked, lost himself there in the sweet softness
of her breasts until she was panting his name.
Then he moved lower, tasting and nibbling down her torso, carefully maneuvering her until he’d positioned himself between her legs, tasting the sweet velvet of her thighs.
She gave his shoulders a little push. “O-oh, no. No, you-you can’t.”
He glanced up, raised an eyebrow at her. “Why not?”
“B-because. Because. Because.” She gave his shoulders another ineffective shrug. “I cannot speak coherently when you are… You’re…”
“Who asked you to speak coherently?” He kissed higher on her thigh, letting his breath trail over the center of her as he moved to the other leg. “You don’t like it?”
She let out a sound he thought was maybe supposed to be a laugh, and the thing was he wasn’t the one holding her legs open. He certainly wasn’t the one shaking and watching him with intense, wide eyes.
“W-we have to look each other in the eye after this is all over. I can’t… You’ll…”
He grinned up at her over that gorgeous body. “If you think this will make you incapable of looking me in the eye, we probably shouldn’t have sex.”
“Oh God, we have to have sex.”
He laughed at that, then went ahead and tasted her. She nearly jolted off the bed.
“Want me to stop?” he asked, looping his arms around her thighs to keep her on the bed. There was the longest pause, and when she finally answered, it was on a whisper.
“No.”
* * *
She couldn’t quite admit to him that no one had ever…well. She’d been so young and naive when she’d been married, and this had always seemed too…intimate. She hadn’t had years with Dex to get beyond that either.
In retrospect, that was stupid. But that was retrospect, and now she was thirty years old, and this could quite possibly be the last time she had sex ever. She’d experience it. Enjoy it. Savor it.
“Eep.” If she could stop squeaking every time his tongue touched her. But it was like electricity. A shock that jolted, but only pleasure was left after. A pleasure that seemed to wave bigger and bigger as Gabe’s mouth explored her.