One-Click Buy: July 2009 Harlequin Blaze

by Julie Kenner

  He’d been vulnerable with her and it was one of the most precious gifts he could have ever given her. He’d allowed himself to be defenseless, because he cared enough about her to want to stay, because he wanted to be with her more than he was afraid not to be.

  Winnie got back into her car and released a shaky breath as she looked at Adam’s sign. Tonight had been a dozen years in the making.

  And she never imagined she’d have so much riding on the outcome.

  13

  AS WINNIE’S FINGERS threaded through his, Adam wheeled her car—she’d insisted that he drive, that it was an important part of her fantasy—onto the little dirt road that officially led to McKinney Point. His eyes widened when the headlights swung onto a familiar piece of scenery.

  “You didn’t,” he said, stunned. “You painted another sign?”

  Winnie grinned. “Not another sign. That’s the sign.”

  He pulled into the space and cut his eyes to her. “The sign? You mean the same one?”

  “One in the same.”

  He gave his head a bewildered shake. “You kept it?”

  Winnie tuned the radio into a soft rock station and turned it down low. “Of course,” she said, as though that were completely reasonable. “I put a lot of work into that sign and a lot of hours wondering who you were parked in front of it with,” she told him. “I couldn’t just throw it away. It had too much history.”

  He grunted. “Another sign is starting to make sense,” he said, still stunned.

  She frowned and popped two buttons on the front of her shirt, momentarily distracting him with her cleavage. “What sign?”

  “The one above your back door.”

  She chuckled and crawled over into his lap, straddling him. “You mean ‘I like my crazy’?” She kissed the corner of his mouth, wiggled sensuously against him. “I do, as it happens.”

  He couldn’t keep up, not when she was on him like this. Kissing him, rubbing against him, making him hot. “What?”

  She smiled against his lips. “Doesn’t matter. I thought we were here to make out. Did you talk with all those other girls?”

  Adam framed her face with his hands, angled her head and deepened the kiss. “I don’t remember any other girls.”

  Winnie smiled against his lips. “Ooo. Right answer.”

  And then she was everywhere. Tugging at his shirt, slipping her small hand into his pants. Her fingers slid around him and tugged expertly bringing him perilously close to ending this make-out session before it ever really began. He slid his hands down her back, then up over her thighs beneath her skirt and gasped when he found nothing but bare flesh beneath.

  “No panties?”

  “I didn’t think I was going to need them,” she said, lifting him out of his shorts. Adam scooted the seat back, lowered it a bit, then managed to get his shorts out of the way enough to accommodate her impatient hands.

  Two seconds later she was sinking onto him and his world narrowed into finer focus, one that only included her.

  Winnie’s mouth opened in a soft sigh of pleasure, as though her very life depended on this connection, as though nothing gave her more happiness than feeling him inside her.

  The caveman urge to beat his chest threatened again and Adam prevented it by loosening the rest of her buttons on the front of her shirt and popping the front clasp on her lacy bra. The fabric sagged, clinging to her pert nipples. The sight of those perfect orbs barely covered with the decadent see-through material made a low hiss of satisfaction rumble from his throat.

  He nudged the bra aside and drew a pouting nipple into his mouth.

  “I love it when you do that,” Winnie confessed, lifting up and sinking onto him once more. “I feel it here,” she said, tightening around him and rocking forward.”

  He thumbed the other nipple, lest it feel neglected and suckled harder, aroused by her candor. She made another little mewl of pleasure, rode him harder, tightened again and again squeezing, tugging, her sweet little body slowly but surely pushing him toward the point of no return.

  Winnie took his head in her hands once more, dragging him away from her breasts and kissed him, leaning him further back against the seat. She tangled her tongue around his, sucked him deep into her mouth, then sampled the smooth flesh of his bottom lip. With every skilled swipe of her tongue, every mimicking movement of sex with their mouths, she rode him harder.

  He shaped his hands around her ass, urging her on. Winnie wrapped her hands around the back of the headrest, holding on but effectively trapping him, and slid up and down his dick until he was certain that his balls were going to burst or he was going to die. Frankly, neither scenario mattered to him so long as she kept doing it.

  Adam bucked wildly beneath her, desperately meeting her thrust for thrust, he shaped his hands over her ass, then wrapped them tightly around her waist and pounded into her, pushed harder and deeper, pistoning in and out of her with every bit of strength he possessed.

  Winnie’s breasts bounced on her chest, absorbing his frenzied thrusts and her sweet nipples raked against his own.

  It was desperate and frantic and sweet and all-consuming and he never wanted it to end, but couldn’t wait to come. He’d surely die if he didn’t.

  Come into me, she’d said, the most erotic invitation he’d ever heard.

  This was the last time he’d ever come into her, Adam thought and the idea made him all the more possessed. He pushed into her again, angling higher and he felt her convulse around him, heralding his own impending release.

  Winnie’s hands were back on his face, her thumbs sliding gently over his cheeks in a gesture that almost made him lose complete control because it was so heartfelt and tender in the midst of the most desperately depraved sex he’d ever had. Tender and frantic, mindless and raw.

  His heart gave a little jolt and with a rush of emotion so sweet and so pure, Adam finally realized why this time with her was so special, so perfect, so beyond the scope of his imagination.

  Because he loved her.

  He’d known it, of course, but he’d never had the courage to admit it to himself. If he didn’t admit it, then he could ignore it.

  But the emotion battering against his heart, being driven home by every undulation of her hips would not be denied.

  He loved her.

  Which was going to make leaving all the more difficult.

  The thought was no sooner recognized than abandoned as Winnie suddenly spasmed around him, her hot little body rhythmically tightening against his own.

  She kissed him again, deeply, and he came.

  Hard.

  The orgasm burst from his loins, bathing the back of her channel and her own release continued to pulse around him, sending little aftershocks of pleasure through him.

  Breathing hard, Winnie drew back and kissed each of his eyelids, the tip of his nose, the soft patch of skin beneath his right eye, and then ultimately his mouth. Every brush her lips rang with the word neither of them wanted to face.

  Goodbye.

  Adam rested his forehead against hers, wishing things could be different, that he could be different. The truth that he’d been avoiding for months, the inescapable certainty of his own reality suddenly bore down on him, blasting through all of his carefully constructed defenses. He’d been tamping down his feelings for months, skirting around them in his own mind, refusing to fully acknowledge what he’d been ultimately afraid of because if he didn’t dwell on it, if he merely knew it but didn’t think about it, then maybe it wouldn’t be true. Maybe it wouldn’t be real.

  He couldn’t have her because he was damaged goods, Adam realized.

  Broken.

  Adam could never remember a time when he doubted himself. He’d always been confident in his abilities, never questioned his limits and never entertained the idea that he couldn’t do something. “Can’t” had never been a part of his vocabulary.

  He never tried—he did.

  Trying was a noble effort, but doi
ng accomplished something.

  He was more of a doer.

  Unfortunately, that inherent unshakable confidence he’d always taken for granted had been blown all to hell and back right along with his leg, he realized now. He’d been trying for months to pull both back together again—pretending, even, that he had—but was finally ready to admit that his life was never going to be the same. It couldn’t be.

  Because he was different.

  And with those differences came limitations. His future, regardless of what he tried to tell himself, was going to be different. But with that admission came a cache of other truths, ones he didn’t want to claim, but had to deal with anyway.

  Unfortunately, damn it all to hell, he had to deal with them now.

  Adam had known from the instant that he’d awoken from surgery that his life was never going to be the same, had even considered the ways that it would be different. But knowing it—even peripherally—and truly grasping the concept were two completely different things.

  He swallowed hard and passed a hand over his face, preparing to face the unhappy truth that had been haunting him from day one, the miserable fact that he’d never feel secure enough in his own body to ever marry or have children. To have any sort of life outside his career. And he’d almost blown that, as well.

  Would he have minded so much if he hadn’t realized that he wanted Winnie? Adam wondered. Would he have mourned the way he was grieving now for that lost future? Would the idea of her continuing her life with someone else—an image of a smirking Mark Holbrook loomed large in his mind and he mentally removed the self-satisfied smile with a strategic right hook—be so unbearable?

  Honestly, who knew?

  He only knew that he’d never inflict his disability on anyone else—it wasn’t fair—and most particularly on someone as vibrant and active as his Winnie.

  His Winnie.

  DID HE BELIEVE THAT he could ultimately have his career back? Yes. He was a damned fine soldier and he knew it. He was absolutely certain that when he walked into Colonel Marks’ office tomorrow he would walk out with orders to return to Iraq.

  But what he couldn’t have—what he suddenly realized he wanted more than his next breath—was a real life with Winnie.

  But if wishes were horses, then beggers would ride. And he didn’t plan to be the begger in this relationship.

  ADAM CAREFULLY STEERED Winnie’s car into his parents’ drive, shifted into park and killed the engine. Though she’d known this moment was coming, Winnie nevertheless wasn’t prepared to face it.

  She hadn’t truly expected Adam to come to his senses tonight, to change his mind, but that didn’t make their parting any less painful. Furthermore, though she didn’t know what had gone on in that brilliant mind of his, Adam had changed tonight. The weariness she’d noted before was more pronounced and there was a shadow of sadness around him that he didn’t seem to be able to shake. She wanted to comfort him, to help him, but she wasn’t exactly sure how. For whatever reason, she got the impression that the demons he’d been running from had finally caught up with him.

  Winnie cleared her throat and tried to find the words she needed to get through his final few minutes. “Thank you,” she said, her voice sounding a bit strangled to her own ears. “I know you probably think it’s silly, but you made more than a decade of dreaming come true tonight.”

  And he had. It had been purely magical, an evening she would never forget. Aside from the wonderful, frantic, poignant sex they’d had, they’d sat on the hood of her car, leaned against the windshield, stared out over the ocean and talked for hours. Books and movies, likes and dislikes, quirks and foibles, they’d shared it all. Done anything they could to prolong the evening, to avoid this very scenario.

  Though Winnie had originally planned to make this very difficult for him, when push came to shove, she simply didn’t have the heart. Adam was about to go back to war—to living hell on earth, by all accounts—and she would not, even though she selfishly wanted him for herself, do anything that was going to make that journey the least bit more difficult for him.

  She couldn’t.

  Yes, she was a fighter, but this was a battle that could wait for another time. She wasn’t giving up—she would never give up. She was merely retreating for his own good.

  He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to thank me, Winnie. It was my pleasure.” The softest smile played over his wickedly sensual mouth. “Quite literally.”

  She chuckled, despite herself. “What time do you leave in the morning?”

  “Six,” he said. “The Colonel likes to beat the traffic.”

  She inclined her head. “Can I ask you something, Adam?”

  He looked away, but not before she glimpsed the self-loathing beginning in his eyes. She ached to comfort him, to say anything that would make him understand. But at this point, she had no idea what combination of words would do just that. This was something Adam was going to have to realize on his own, in his own time, in his own way.

  As for time…she had plenty of it.

  “Are you even the least little bit afraid? Of going back, I mean?”

  He blinked, as though that wasn’t the question he’d been expecting. His expression cleared and he studied her for a moment, his gaze searching hers. “Yes,” he said. “It’s war. I’d be a fool if I wasn’t a little bit afraid.” He leaned closer and the intensity, the passion behind his eyes punched into her. “But it’s what I was born to do, Winnie. I’m a soldier. I’ve always been a soldier.” He looked away. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”

  She swallowed. The desperation in his voice cut her to the quick. Made her ache to soothe him. “So you’ll return to your unit, to your former position?”

  “I think so. I’ll have to take extra precautions, but otherwise I don’t think this—” He smacked his leg. “—is going to make any difference at all, you know?” He shook his head. “I could be fooling myself, but I don’t think so.”

  She smiled and shot him an indulgent look. “Adam McPherson, there has never been a single thing in your life that you have not been able to achieve when you’ve set your mind to it. You’re not fooling yourself.” She nodded at him. “You’re ready.”

  “Thanks to you,” he said. Adam swallowed. “I owe it all to you.”

  “Nah, you just needed a little kick in the ass.” She shrugged. “I’m always good for that.”

  “Seriously, Winnie, thank you.” His fervent gaze bored into hers. “I don’t know what I would have done these past couple of weeks without you. I’d like to think that I’d have crawled out of my room eventually, but… I don’t know.” He shook his head and drummed his thumb absently against the steering wheel. “I got stuck in my head and couldn’t find my way out.”

  She swallowed and her throat tightened. “You’d been through a lot and hadn’t had a moment to yourself to think. You were entitled to a bit of a funk,” she said. “But when you looked like you might not snap out of it, I’ll admit I had to act.” She laughed, remembering. “You sure as hell didn’t make it easy. I don’t know exactly what it is you do in your job, but if it involves evading the enemy, then I’ll bet you’re damned good at it.”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “You’re close. I’m a strategist. I plan our tactics, review exit strategies, and make contingency plans for every scenario.”

  She nodded, impressed. “Then I have every confidence that things will go the way you want them to in the morning.” She looked at the clock on the dashboard. “Or rather this morning.” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t realize it was so late. Sorry.”

  He waved off her concern. “Time doesn’t seem to matter when I’m with you.”

  Her gaze tangled with his at the unexpected compliment. “I, uh… I know that feeling, as well.”

  She was nearing the breaking point, Winnie thought. She couldn’t hold it together much longer. If she wanted to finish this with any mascara left on at all and the slightest bit of her pride
in tact, then she really needed to leave.

  She started to open the passenger-side door. “I should probably—”

  “Wait,” he said, stopping her with a simple touch to her arm. His fingers were warm and calloused and she remembered them sliding over her body, testing every bit of her skin against his own. She closed her eyes and summoned the willpower to face him again.

  “Don’t you think—”

  “I’ve got something for you,” he said. He snagged a small package from beneath her front seat.

  Her eyes widened. “How did that get there?”

  He grinned. “I stashed it when you weren’t looking.”

  Winnie shook her head. “Adam, I—”

  He stayed her lips with another finger. “When a man offers you a gift, the polite thing to do is to accept it and say thank you.”

  Winnie blinked. She took the little present from his hand and dutifully did as he instructed. “Thank you.”

  He tsked and shook his head, as though she was a sad case. “You need to open it before saying thank you. Otherwise you don’t know what you’re thanking me for.”

  She didn’t want to open it. She had a terrible feeling about this, one she couldn’t explain. In any other circumstances she would have been thrilled to get a gift from Adam, but tonight? Tonight it didn’t feel right. It felt too much like an official I’m-not-changing-my-mind goodbye.

  “Go on,” he encouraged. “Open it.”

  Hands trembling, Winnie reluctantly did as he asked. The gold paper came away quickly, revealing a small white box with Natalie’s store logo on the top.

  She looked at him and quirked a brow, intrigued. “You’ve been by the gallery?”

  He rolled his eyes and gave an impatient huff. “Open the bloody box, Winnie. Please.”