P.J.'s heart did a flip-flop in her chest. But he was teasing. He was only teasing. He was no more interested in getting married than she was. And she was not interested.
She kept her voice light. "I'm too old for adoption. The way I see it, marrying you is the only way I'm going to get into this family, so watch out," she teased back. "If I could only find the time, I might consider it."
Harvard laughed as he glanced over his shoulder in mock fear. "We better not joke about this too loudly. If my mother overhears, she's liable to take us seriously. And then, by this time tomorrow, our engagement picture will be in the newspaper. She'll be finalizing the guest list with one hand, signing a contract with a caterer with the other and 'helping' you pick out a wedding gown all at the same time—and by helping, I mean she'll really be trying to pick it out for you."
P.J. played along. "As long as it's cut so I can wear my shoulder holster."
"The bride wore Smith and Wesson. The groom preferred an HK MP5 room broom. It was a match made in hardware heaven."
She laughed. "They spent their wedding night at the firing range."
"No, I don't think so." Something in his voice had changed, and as P.J. glanced at Harvard, the mood shifted. Laughter still danced in his eyes, but there was something else there, too. Something hot and dangerous. Something that echoed the kiss they'd shared on jump day. Something that made her want to think, and think long and hard, about her reasons for avoiding intimate relationships.
Wedding night. God, she hadn't been thinking clearly. If she had, she certainly wouldn't have brought that up.
She cleared her throat. "Your mother told me to tell you she and your dad were heading to bed," she said. "She wanted me to ask you to lock up and turn out the lights when you come in."
Harvard glanced at his watch as he turned to face her, one elbow still on the railing. With his other hand he reached out and lightly touched the sleeve of her shirt, then the bare skin of her arm. "It's after twenty three hundred. You want to go to bed?"
It was an innocent enough question, but combined with the warmth in his eyes and the light pressure of his fingers on her arm, it took on an entirely more complicated meaning.
He trailed his hand down to her hand and laced their fingers together. "I know—I promised no pressure," he continued, "and there is no pressure. It just suddenly occurred to me that I'd be a fool not to check and see if somehow between last night and tonight you've maybe changed your mind."
"Nothing's changed," she whispered. But everything had changed. This man had turned her entire world upside down. More than just a tiny part of her wanted to be with him. A great deal more. And if they'd been anywhere in the world besides his mother and father's house, she might well be tempted to give in, and God knows that would be a major mistake.
She couldn't let herself become involved with this man—at least not until the training mission was over. At the very least, she couldn't afford to have anyone believe she'd succeeded in the intensively competitive program because she'd slept with Alpha Squad's Senior Chief.
Including herself.
And after this project was over, she'd have to search long and hard within herself to find out what it was she truly wanted.
Right now, she was almost certain what she wanted was him. Almost certain.
"Nothing's changed," she said again, louder, trying to make herself believe it, too. Almost wasn't going to cut it.
Harvard nodded, and then he leaned toward her.
P.J. knew he was going to kiss her. He took his time. He even stopped halfway to her lips, searched her eyes and smiled before continuing.
And she—she didn't stop him. She didn't back away. She didn't even say anything like, 'Hey, Holmes, you better not be about to kiss me.' She just stood there like an idiot, waiting for him to do it.
His first kiss was one of those sweet ones he seemed to specialize in—the kind that made her heart pound and her knees grow weak. But then he kissed her again, longer, deeper, possessively, sweeping his tongue into her mouth as if it were his mouth, his to do with what he pleased. He pulled her into his arms, holding her close, settling his lips over hers as if he had no intention of leaving any time soon.
P.J. would have been indignant—but the truth was, she didn't want his mouth to be anywhere but where it was right that moment. She wanted him to kiss her. She loved the feel of his arms around her. His arms were so big, so powerful, yet capable of holding her so tenderly.
So she stood there, in the Arizona moonlight, on the back deck of his parents' new house, and she kissed him, too.
Harvard pulled away first, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out fast. "Oh, boy. That wasn't meant to be any kind of pressure," he told her. He sounded as out of breath as she felt. "That was just supposed to be a friendly reminder—like, hey, don't forget how good we could be together."
"I haven't forgotten." P.J.'s mouth went dry as she looked at him, and she nervously wet her lips.
"Oh, damn," he breathed, and kissed her again.
This time she could taste his hunger. This time he inhaled her, and she drank him in just as thirstily.
She pulled him close, her arms around his shoulders, his neck—God, there was so much of him to hold on to. She felt his hands sliding down her back, felt the taut muscles of his powerful thighs against her legs as she tried to get even closer to this man she'd come to care so much about.
"Oh, God," she gasped, pulling his head down for another soul-shattering kiss when he would have stopped. She didn't care anymore. She didn't care about the fact that they were here, at his mother's house. She didn't care about the potential damage to her reputation. She didn't care that she was taking an entire lifetime of caution and restraint and throwing it clear out the window.
She shook as he trailed his mouth down her neck, as his hand cupped her breast, as sensations she'd never dreamed possible made her lose all sense of coherent thought.
"We should stop," Harvard murmured, kissing P.J. again. But she didn't pull away. She opened herself to him, welcoming his kisses with an ardour that took his breath away. She was on fire, and he was the man who'd started the blaze.
But even as he shifted his weight slightly, subtly manoeuvring his thigh between her legs, even as he ran his hands across her perfect body, he knew he shouldn't. He should be backing off, not driving this highly explosive situation dangerously close to the point of no return.
But she tasted like the mocha-flavoured coffee they'd shared with his parents just a short time ago, after his sister and the twins had left. And he could feel her heat through the thin cotton of her chinos as she pressed herself against his thigh.
Harvard swept her into his arms, and he could see a myriad of emotions in her eyes. Fear swirled together with anticipation, both fuelled powerfully by desire.
She wanted him. She might be scared, but she truly wanted him.
He glanced at his watch again. There was time. They still had enough time.
He could carry her into the house, take her into his parents' guest room, and he could become her first lover.
She could have had anyone, but she'd picked him to be her first.
That knowledge was a powerful aphrodisiac, and it made a difficult decision even harder to carry out.
But the truth was, he had no choice.
Yeah, he could have her tonight. He could continue to sweep her off her feet, to seduce her, with her own desire and need working as his ally. She would come willingly to his bed, and he could show her everything she'd been missing all these years.
He kissed her again, then set her gently in one of the deck chairs and walked all the way to the other side of the porch.
Or he could keep the promise that he'd made to her this morning.
"I wasn't playing fair," he said. His voice came out a husky growl-part man, part beast. "I knew if I kissed you long enough and hard enough and deeply enough, you'd go up in flames. I'm sorry."
He heard her draw in a lon
g, deep, shaky breath. She let it out in a burst of air. ''That was..." She stopped, started again. "I was..." Another pause. "I wanted..." A longer pause. "I thought... I'm really confused, Daryl. What just happened here? You don't really want to be with me?"
Harvard turned toward her, shocked she could think that. "No! Damn, woman, look at me. Look at just how much I allegedly don't want to be with you!"
She looked.
He stepped closer, and she looked again, her gaze lingering on the front of his fatigues. His erection made an already snug pair of pants even tighter. And the fact that she was looking with such wide eyes made it even worse.
"I'm trying to be a hero here," Harvard told her, his voice cracking slightly. "I'm trying to do the right thing. I want to make love to you more than you will ever know, but you know what? There's something I want even more than that. I want to be sure that when we do make love, you're gonna wake up in the morning and not have one single, solitary regret."
She looked away from him, guilt in her eyes, and he knew—as hard as this was—that he was doing the right thing.
"I'm not sure I'll ever be able to give you those kind of guarantees," she said quietly.
"I think you will," he countered. "And I've got time. I'm willing to wait." He laughed softly. "Hopefully, it won't take you another twenty-five years."
She glanced at him, then her eyes dropped again to the front of his pants. She laughed nervously. "I've never known a man well enough before to ask him this, but...doesn't that hurt?"
Harvard sat carefully in the other deck chair. "It's uncomfortable, that's for damn sure."
"I'm sorry."
"Like hell you are. I see you over there, laughing at me."
"It just seems so embarrassingly inconvenient. I mean, what happens if you're in a meeting with some admiral and you start thinking about—"
"You don't," Harvard interrupted.
"But what if you forget and just start daydreaming or something and, oops, there you are. Larger than life, so to speak."
Harvard ran his hands down his face. "Then I guess you quickly start doing calculus problems in your head. Or you sit down fast and hope no one noticed your... situation."
Her smoky laughter wrapped around him in the moonlight. He could see her watching him. She'd curled up on her side in the chair, one hand beneath her face, her legs tucked up to her chest.
He could have had her. He could have carried her inside and he would be with her in his bedroom right now. That same moonlight would be streaming in through the window, caressing her naked body as he held her gaze and slowly filled her.
Harvard drew in a deep breath. He couldn't let himself think about that. Not tonight. It wasn't going to happen tonight. But it was going to happen. He was going to make damn sure of that.
"May I ask you something else?" she asked.
"Yeah, as long as you don't ask me to kiss you again. I think I can only be strong like this once a night."
"No, this is another penis question."
Harvard cracked up. "Oh, good, because, you know, penis questions are my specialty."
"Promise you won't laugh at me?"
"I promise."
"You're laughing right now," she accused him.
"I'm stopping. See? I'm serious. I'm ready for this really serious penis question." He snorted with laughter.
"Fine. Laugh at me." She sat up. "It's a stupid question anyway, and if I weren't so damned repressed, I'd have already learned the answer through experience."
"Lady, you're not repressed. Overly cautious, maybe, but definitely not repressed."
"It's about the size thing," she told him, and he realized she wasn't joking. "I mean, I know about sex. I know a lot about sex. I mean, I may be inexperienced, but I'm not exactly innocent. I know the mechanics-I've seen movies, I've read books, I've heard talk, I've certainly thought about it enough. And, you know, everyone always says size doesn't matter, but I think they're talking about when a man is small, and that's definitely not the issue here. Obviously. But I've seen small women and large men together all the time, so I know it must work, but how on earth..." She trailed off.
She was serious. Harvard knew he should say something, but he wasn't sure what.
"I'm only five-one-and-a-half," she continued. "I lied. I round up to make it five-two. I buy my clothes from the petite rack in the store. And petite is not the word I'd use to describe anything about you. You're huge. All of you."
Harvard couldn't keep from chuckling.
She laughed, too, covering her face with her hands. "Oh, God, I knew it. You're laughing at me."
"I'm laughing because I love the fact that you think of me that way. I'm laughing because this conversation is doing nothing to help reduce my, um, current tension. In fact, I think I have to go inside now so I can fill out my official application for sainthood."
"Yeah, go on. Duck out. You just don't want to answer my question."
He met her gaze and held it. "It's one of those things that's easier to show than tell and-You are really pushing me to the wall tonight, lady. I can't even stand next to you without getting turned on, and here we are, talking about making love. If I didn't know better, I would think you were some kind of tease, getting an evil kick out of watching me squirm."
Her tentative smile vanished instantly. "Daryl, I would never do that. I—"
"Whoa," Harvard said, holding up his hands. "Yo, Ms. Much Too Serious, take a deep breath and relax. I was kidding. A joke. Ha, ha. Out of all the two hundred sixty-seven billion women in the world, I'm well aware that you rate two hundred sixty-seven billionth when it comes to being a tease. Which is why I know when you start asking questions about size—" he couldn't hold back his giggle "—it's because you seriously want to know." He giggled again.
She shook her head. "You know, I've seen 'Beavis and Butthead,' and I thought it was just some warped fictional exaggeration of male immaturity, but I can see now that the show is based on you."
"Hey, I can't help it. The P word is a funny word. It's a friendly, happy, just plain silly word. And add on top of that the absurdity of us sitting here and discussing the additional absurdity of whether or not I would fit inside you... Damn!" He had to close his eyes at the sudden vivid visual images his words brought to mind. He had to grit his teeth as he could almost feel himself buried deep inside her satin-smooth heat. Never before had sheer paradise been so close and yet so far away.
"Yes." He opened his eyes and looked straight at her. "I would. Fit. Inside you. Perfectly. You've got to trust me on this one, P.J. As much as I'd love to go into the house and prove it to you, you're just going to have to take my word for it. I've been with women who are small—maybe not as skinny as you, but close enough. It works. Nature in action, you know? When-if-when... When we get to the point where we actually get together, you don't have to worry about me hurting you—not that way."
"I know it's going to hurt the first time," she told him. "At least a little bit."
"Some women don't have a problem with that," he told her. "It's not uncommon for a woman's...maidenhead to be already broken—"
She laughed. "Maidenhead? Have you been reading Jane Austen again?"
"It's better than cherry. Or hymen. Damn, who came up with that name?"
"Dr. Hymen?"
Harvard laughed. "Hell of a way to gain immortality." He felt his smile soften as he gazed at her. She was sexy and bright and funny. He wanted this night to go on forever.
She met his gaze steadily. "Unlike a Jane Austen heroine, I haven't had the opportunity to have many horseback riding accidents. In fact, I've been to the doctor, and at last inventory, everything's still... intact.''
Harvard took a deep breath. "Okay. When you're ready, we'll do it fast. I promise it won't hurt a lot, and I promise that it'll feel a whole lot better real soon after. If you only believe one thing I say, believe that, okay?"
She was silent for a moment, and then she nodded. "Okay."
Harvard
sat back in his chair in relief. "Thank God. Now can we move on to some safer topic like birth control or safe sex."
"Hmm..."
"I was kidding," he said quickly. "No more penis questions of any kind, okay? At least not until tomorrow." He looked at his watch: 2340.
"What I really want to ask you now," P.J. said, her chin in the palm of her hand, elbow on the deck chair armrest as she gazed at him, "is more personal."
"More personal than..."
"You know who I've been with. I'm curious about you. How many of those two hundred sixty-seven billion women in the world have you taken to bed?"
"Too many when I was younger. Not enough over the past few years. When I turned thirty, I started getting really picky." Harvard shifted in his seat. "I haven't been in a relationship since this past winter. I was with a woman—Ellen—for about four months. If you can call what we had a relationship."
"Ellen." P.J. rolled the name off her tongue, as if trying it out. "What was she like?"
"Smart and upwardly mobile. She was a lawyer at some big firm in D.C. She didn't have time for a husband—or even a real boyfriend, for that matter. She was totally in love with her career. But she was pretty, and she was willing—when she found the time. It was fun for a while."
"So you've been with, what? Forty women? Four hundred women? More?"
He laughed. "I haven't kept a count or cut notches into my belt or anything like that. I don't know. There was only one that ever really mattered."
"Not Ellen."
"Nope."
"Someone who tragically broke your heart."
Harvard smiled. "It seemed pretty tragic at the time."
"What was her name? Do you mind talking about her?"
"Rachel, and no, I don't mind. It was years ago. I thought she was The One—you know, capital T, capital O—but her husband didn't agree."
P.J. winced. "Ouch." She narrowed her eyes. "What were you doing, messing with a married woman?"
"I didn't know," Harvard admitted. "I mean, I knew she was separated and filing for a divorce. What I didn't realize was that she was still in love with her ex. He cheated on her, and she left him and there I was, ready to take up the slack. Looking back, it's so clear that she was using me as a kind of revenge relationship. It was ironic, really. First time in my life I actually get involved, and it turned out she's using me to get back at her husband."
Harvard's Education Page 16