“And we’re staying on top of the covers.”
“What if I get cold?”
“You aren’t going to get cold. I’ll be wrapped around you.”
She gave him a shy grin that he didn’t expect, but it lit him up inside in ways he couldn’t quite believe. Yeah, he was attached to her. There was no doubt about it. He’d tried to walk out, but the truth was that he couldn’t do it.
But what kind of attachment was this? And how could it ever go anywhere?
Didn’t take a genius to figure out why they were a doomed pairing. He could crawl for days to get into position, live in conditions that would horrify her. He stayed hidden in mud and rain and filth, waiting for the target to appear in his crosshairs.
Gina owned an airplane. People hung on her every move as if she made the sun come up every morning. She’d left a reporter dazed and confused in Jack’s presence. And then there was the arena full of fans who waited for hours—days—to get two hours of her company.
How would he ever fit into that life? Why would he open himself up to that kind of attachment only to have it crash and burn? He’d been on that emotionally devastating roller coaster before, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go there again.
And then there was the kid. Jesus. He was already a mess where the boy was concerned, and he hadn’t even seen it coming.
Jack had been overcome when Eli climbed onto his lap to watch cartoons. It was the kind of emotion he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He’d felt, for a minute, like the kid was everything in the world to him. He’d heard that having a kid changed you—hell, Hayley used to talk about it all the time—but he’d never really believed it.
Stop thinking.
He kicked off his flip-flops and leaned the cane against the nightstand before crawling on top of the covers. Gina was still standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, watching him. He wondered if she knew she was looking at him like he was an ice cream cone.
Shit. Best not to think about that either.
He patted the bed. “Come over here, babe.”
She shook her head. “You have to let me put on pajamas. These jeans will get uncomfortable.”
“I’m wearing jeans.”
His worn Levi’s were soft and kinda loose though, and her jeans were clearly of the painted-on variety. Not that he minded. Plus it would make it impossible to get his hand inside them during the night. Still, she looked kinda miserable, so he sighed.
“Fine.” He pointed an accusing finger and she smiled. “Neck to ankle, Gina. Flannel. None of that silky bullshit with lace.”
She laughed. “It’s June. I don’t have flannel pajamas in June.”
“No silk.”
Her mouth twisted. “I’ll see what I can do.”
She disappeared into the bathroom. He tried not to think about the last time he’d been in a bathroom with her. All that silky skin and moist heat. He’d lost all his good intentions that time.
She returned faster than he expected, clad in a long shirt that went to her knees. It wasn’t silky. But there were no pants.
“Ankles, babe.”
She looked down. “Can’t you deal with calves and ankles? The rest is covered.”
“Nope. Find some pants or the deal’s off.”
She frowned. And then she went over and pulled a pair of yoga pants from a drawer. She tugged them on, then sighed and pulled out another T-shirt before disappearing into the bathroom again. When she came back, she was wearing a fitted workout shirt rather than the long one she’d worn before.
This one, however, revealed the flaw in his plan.
“Where’s your bra?”
She popped her hands on her hips. “You didn’t say I had to wear a bra. Honestly, Jack, are we sleeping or hibernating here?”
He frowned. “Come on, then. But if you wake up with my hand up your shirt, don’t be shocked.”
She got on top of the covers and came over to curl into his side, facing him. He put an arm around her… and kept his eyes on the far wall instead of looking down into the gaping neck of her shirt.
She put a hand on his abdomen and his muscles tightened. “What?” she said, looking up at him.
“Your hand. I’d really like it a few inches farther south, so that’s just fucking torture.” His eyes narrowed at the innocent way she batted her eyelashes.
Jack hooked his hands beneath her arms and flipped her before she could do anything more than squeal. Then he tucked her firmly against his body, his front to her back, before putting his mouth to her ear.
“Spooning, that’s all you get, babe.”
She turned her head to the side to look up at him. “Thanks for staying.”
He dropped his mouth to her cheek, left a soft kiss there. “I wanted to stay.”
She put her head down again. “I wasn’t sure. When I didn’t hear from you, I thought maybe…” She put her hands over one of his where it wrapped around her stomach. The other one was beneath her head. “I thought you’d changed your mind about Eli and me.”
He could hear the hurt in her voice and it made something throb inside him. It hadn’t been easy staying away, but he’d needed time to think. He was still thinking.
“I haven’t changed my mind.”
Hell, he had to make a decision first. And that wasn’t proving to be simple at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
GINA WOKE UP ALONE. For a moment, she couldn’t remember why that was a bad thing. And then she bolted upright, her heart pounding. It was still dark outside—but there was light coming from the living room of the suite. She climbed from the bed and drifted toward the door.
The television was on, the sound muted, and Jack was sitting there in the pale glow, flipping channels and looking dark and unapproachable. She glanced around, but Eli was nowhere to be seen. He was still sleeping, then.
“Jack?”
He looked up, his gaze flickering over her before going back to the television. “Couldn’t sleep.”
She went over to the couch and stood beside him. Her fingers ached to slide into his hair, but she kept them to herself. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have asked you to sleep with me.”
“I liked lying there with you.” His voice was a low growl that slid into her blood, her bones. He shrugged. “Sometimes I don’t sleep so well. Comes from years of training to be awake at odd hours and take catnaps, probably.”
She sank down on a chair nearby. “How did you end up joining the Army?”
He gave her a wry look. “We talked about this three years ago.”
“But you didn’t tell me everything.”
He tossed the remote down and turned to her, one arm along the back of the couch, the other on the side. “I had to get away from home. I didn’t want to stay in Florida and be like my parents, working long hours at jobs I think made them miserable. Dad was a restaurant-supply salesman and he traveled a lot. Mom was a paralegal in a busy attorney’s office. My entire childhood was a blur of daycare, babysitters, and being alone after school once I was old enough. I wanted adventure, and the Army seemed like the thing.”
She pulled her knees up. “You grew up shooting, though. That was kind of an adventure, right?”
He nodded. “My best friend’s dad was a hunter. He took us with him when we were old enough. Taught me how to shoot. I was good enough that he got excited and started taking me to shooting tournaments. I won a few of them.” He looked wistful for a moment. “My parents never went to a single one.”
“Then they missed out. I’m sure you were amazing.”
He snorted softly. “I was good then. I’m better now.”
“You have to be.” She thought of the men falling down around her three years ago—and the men from just a few days ago. No, he didn’t miss. It was a lethal skill… frightening even.
His eyes flashed. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“You’re remembering that night three yea
rs ago. You had no idea what was happening, but you witnessed terrible things. I’m sorry for that, but you have to know they weren’t nice men.”
Gina closed her eyes. It had been terrible. The snap of the bullets came after the men had fallen to the ground, their heads split open like melons. She hadn’t known, at first, what was happening.
And then she’d feared for her own life when she’d realized they’d all been shot.
“I know they weren’t.” She pulled in a breath. “Does it ever bother you? Killing people?”
“You asked me then and my answer’s still the same. It’s a job. I do what I’m ordered to do. And I trust that the people making those decisions have damn good reasons. We don’t take lives lightly, Gina.”
She knew that, and yet it seemed like the kind of thing that could weigh on a person after a while. “Is it something you want to keep doing for the rest of your life?”
He looked away. “I don’t know. But I take it a day at a time. I learned that four years ago when my life changed in an instant.”
An awkward silence descended between them, and Gina finally got to her feet when he didn’t say anything else. He was looking at the TV again, flipping the channels mindlessly.
“I should go.”
He looked up as she walked by—and then he caught her hand, pulling her up short. Her skin sizzled with heat. Her breath caught painfully. She closed her eyes. Dear God, she was jealous of a dead woman. It was so wrong, but it was the truth. She was jealous of the hold Hayley still had on him. And she couldn’t look at him, couldn’t let him see that emotion in her eyes.
“Don’t go.”
She swallowed. “I think I should.”
He turned her hand over and pressed a kiss into her palm. “I take my life one day at a time because every day could be the last when I’m out in the field. But today I want to be with you.”
Tears pressed against the backs of her eyelids. She wanted to ask him about tomorrow, but she was afraid of the answer.
He stood and cupped her jaw in his broad hands, forcing her to look at him. “I don’t know that I can give you what you need, but I want to try. I want to be there for you and Eli.”
Her stomach fluttered like it was filled with a thousand tiny butterflies. He hadn’t said he forgave her, but maybe he was getting closer. Maybe, one day, he would. “We want that too. Very much.”
“I wish I could have been there when you had him. That was a lot to go through on your own.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t know whose baby he was then.”
“I know… but I still wish I’d been there. You shouldn’t have been alone.”
She searched his gaze. “I wish you had, too.”
He pressed his lips to hers. It was a soft kiss, a sweet kiss—and yet she couldn’t help the little tendril of excitement that unfurled within her. She put her hands on the waistband of his jeans, tugged his shirt out, and let her palms flatten against his hard belly.
“Gina,” he groaned. “Don’t.”
“But I want to be with you. I have to be with you.”
His eyes were hot as he pushed her back. “You sure about that? It’s not what you asked for a few hours ago.”
“I know. But you gave me what I wanted when I asked for it. Now I want something else.”
She pushed his shirt up until she could press her mouth to the corrugated muscles of his abdomen, then ran her tongue over those ridges, loving the way he shuddered beneath her.
He slipped his hands into her hair, his fingers tightening. “Gina. God.”
“I love the way you feel. The way you taste. I want to make you come.” She thought he might insist on being noble, but he grabbed her hand and hauled her toward the bedroom.
“Don’t want our kid walking into the room for that.”
He pushed the door most of the way closed behind them, and her heart squeezed at that little bit of thoughtfulness for their child. Eli usually slept the night away, but if he woke up, he’d come looking for her and she didn’t want him to find a closed door. She wasn’t worried he’d walk in on them in here since he’d call for her the whole way if he woke up.
The room was still dark, but their eyes adjusted until it wasn’t so dark after all. The light from the television flickered into the room. Jack took his gun out and put it on top of the high dresser near the bed. “Guess I’m going to need trigger locks in the future,” he said, and her heart melted that he was thinking of a future with them.
Gina grabbed his shirt again and lifted it over his head. He tried to kiss her, but she ducked out of his grip and went down on her knees, tugging at his belt and zipper until she got his jeans open and pushed them down his hips.
“I want to be inside you,” he growled.
She thrust her hands into his underwear and gripped him. He was hot and hard, and he gasped as she squeezed lightly. “I want this first.”
“I’m not coming that way, Gina.”
She laughed softly. “You’re the strangest man. I thought most men loved blow jobs.”
“It’s not that I don’t love it…”
Whatever else he might have said was cut off when she freed him and ran her tongue along the underside of his cock. He was salty and musky, and she ran her tongue over him again, tasting the bitterness of his pre-cum on her tongue. And then she slipped him into her mouth and listened to him groan.
His hands went to the back of her head, but he didn’t force her to take more of him than she could. She wanted to hear him groan her name and gasp as he lost control. Her body throbbed with need, her pussy tingling as she swirled her tongue around the head of his cock.
She wrapped a hand around the base of him. He was big enough to fill her hand and still leave plenty of room for her to take as much of him as she was able before her gag reflex kicked in. She moaned as she pumped her hand up and down in time with her mouth. She’d never done this to him. They were together once on the island and once on her plane, and this was the first time she’d had the opportunity.
She could feel the pressure gathering inside him, feel the tightening of his balls as she cupped them with her other hand. His hips jerked as he moved with her—and then he stepped away from her, gently removing her hand from his cock as he did so.
“Not this time,” he said, lifting her up and stripping her top over her head. His hands cupped her breasts, his fingers softly pinching her nipples. They were already spiky and so sensitive.
She reached for his cock again, held him in both hands and pumped slowly while he played with her breasts.
“You like that,” he said when she gasped as sensation streaked down into her toes.
“You already know I do.”
He pushed her yoga pants down until she stepped out of them. She thought he would tell her to get on the bed, but instead he turned her and bent her over until her torso lay on the silky sheets. Her ass was in the air, and he bent and pressed a hot kiss into the small of her back. And then he licked a trail to one of her cheeks, nibbling and kissing it before moving on to the other.
The sensation was already exquisite, but then he took it over the edge when his fingers slipped between her legs and found her clit.
“So wet,” he whispered against her back. “So hot.”
He pinched her clit the same way he’d pinched her nipples, and Gina cried out softly. If it felt good on her nipples, the feeling was magnified a thousandfold here.
Jack straightened then and she felt the head of his cock pressing into her, opening her wet folds wider and wider as he invaded her body. But, oh, what a good invasion.
An amazing, wonderful invasion. When he was fully inside her, he bent over her and kissed her shoulder. He didn’t move immediately, and she loved him even more in that moment. He was taking care of her, making sure she could handle him. He didn’t just shove his way in and pump mindlessly until he came. He made sure she was primed, as if she were a virgin instead of a woman who’d been sucking him off only minutes before.
“I love the way you feel wrapped around me,” he said. “It’s good with you, Gina. So fucking good.”
He began to move then. It was slow and intense at first, and then her body relaxed and he took it a little faster, a little harder. His hands gripped her hips, keeping her steady—and then he slipped a finger beneath her, found her clit, and started stroking it in rhythm to his thrusts.
Gina arched her back and held on, gripping fistfuls of the sheets as he pounded into her. The pressure inside her body grew tighter and tighter, like someone had wound a toy almost to the breaking point. When he let her go, she would fly.
But Jack wasn’t ready to let that happen just yet. He changed the tempo, moved his fingers away from her clit and down to where they joined together. Gina cooled, but only marginally. The spiral ride she’d been on had nearly been to the top but suddenly began floating back to the bottom again.
Before she reached it, he pulled out of her and turned her over. They fell to the bed together, face-to-face, and he took her mouth passionately. She ran her hands over the damp skin of his back, his arms. He kissed her hard, stoking her passions higher, making her desperate for him.
And then he hooked both arms behind her knees and spread her wide open. When he plunged into her this time, she was ready. There was no gentle stroking this time, no teasing. They were both fully aroused and in need of hard, good sex.
Their bodies slapped together, their groans twining, their sweat mingling. Jack pushed her legs even wider—and that’s when her body caught fire. His cock found that bundle of nerves deep inside her at the same time the angle worked the nerves in her clit.
Gina came hard, her entire world dissolving into nothing but voices and breaths and sensations. She knew she screamed. She knew she sobbed his name. Her breath shortened until she had to remind herself to breathe.
Jack lifted her a little bit higher—and then he ground his hips into her, his body jerking as he shot deep inside her. His neck was arched, his head thrown back, his eyes tightly closed as he spilled everything he had. When it was over, he let her legs go and braced himself above her, resting on his elbows.
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