She gazed up at him, her heart thudding in her chest. “I haven’t, either. Been with anyone else. It never even occurred to me.”
Without another word he dropped to his knees. He slid his arms between her legs so his triceps pushed them apart, clamped his hands on her ass and brought his mouth to her core.
She nearly staggered at the sudden, molten pleasure that ripped through her. There was no buildup, no tender caress, no romantic foreplay—that wasn’t his style. Chance was a straight-to-dessert kind of guy, and she loved that about him, loved that she didn’t have to apologize for her insistent lust, that they could dispense with the niceties and allow the instant, blazing flame of their desire to burn wild and hot.
He lapped at her clit with the flat of his tongue, dragging it around and around in unrelenting circles. The sounds escaping her mouth were barely human, and as her knees began to tremble she leaned forward, supporting herself with one hand on his shoulder and the other clenched tightly in what little hair his crew cut permitted.
She sank her teeth into her lower lip, torn between the accelerating chase toward conclusion and the nagging awareness that it could be even better. “Stop,” she gasped finally, pushing him away and finding the strength to stand up straight. His eyes twinkled with mischief when she managed to focus on them, and she decided it was her turn to call the shots.
“On your back, Sergeant. Now.”
He arched a brow but did as he was told. She knelt to straddle his thighs, yanking down his trousers and the boxers he wore underneath.
“My boots—do you want me to—”
“Leave them,” she ordered breathlessly, unable to look away from the flushed, swollen length of him. She patted the floor beside her for the condom, found it and tossed it on his chest. “Put that on.”
He propped himself up on one elbow, his eyes finding hers and holding them as he closed his teeth on the wrapper and ripped it open. He pushed himself up a bit more, but she barely had a chance to appreciate the defining effect of that half sit-up on his abs before she was distracted by the lazy, indulgent way he stroked himself before rolling down the condom.
He flopped back down wearing a teasing smile. “All yours.”
His trousers were bunched up around his calves, his cocky grin was nowhere near tamed, and there were still so many places on his body she wanted to touch, taste, lick until he squirmed. But the throbbing between her legs was reaching a fever pitch and she didn’t want to wait another second. There’d be plenty of time for long, lingering sex later.
Well, for the next week and a half before he left, anyway.
Shoving that horrible thought firmly to the side, Tara positioned herself above Chance’s jutting erection, then lowered her pelvis so slowly her quads ached. That first brush of his tip was ecstasy, that initial stretch of entry almost maddening. Strain replaced the mirth in his face as he watched her, clearly tormented by her unhurried descent but enjoying it all the same.
She was halfway down when she stopped, closing her eyes against her burning leg muscles to focus entirely on the agonizingly sweet fullness at the apex of her thighs. How many nights in the last ten months had she fantasized about this moment? How many times had she brought herself to completion, her fingers and memories poor substitutes for this man’s body? How many tears had she shed in the secretive darkness of her bedroom, convinced her one shot at happiness was already over?
When she opened her eyes Chance was staring at her, his expression a mix of incredulity and apology and promised devotion that softened her heart until she worried it might dissolve altogether. She smiled at him, braced her hands on his thighs and slid home.
Given his natural impatience with drawn-out foreplay and post-coital pillow talk, Chance had never considered himself a particularly selfless lover. But as he watched Tara move above him, rocking her pelvis and digging her fingers into his hips, he couldn’t have cared less how good it felt or whether he came at all. She was so powerfully, ethereally beautiful that he would’ve done anything in the world to keep her so happy.
He touched her reverently, tracing the curve of her abdomen, cupping her breasts. He brought his thumb to her mouth and she sucked it hard, then he planted it between her legs. The faintest pressure transformed her rhythm and soon she bucked above him, moaning, her head thrown back in such delirious ecstasy that the sight nearly ended him.
By the time her internal muscles ceased their clamping spasm and she rolled her head back to look at him with a drowsy smile, he was so close he thought he might go insane. He wrapped his arm around her waist and flopped her onto her back, gritting his teeth as she stretched her arms over her head languorously, thrusting her taut nipples into his chest.
The pressure was building within him now. His thrusts were frenzied, sloppy, desperate. This was adolescent backseat fucking, but Tara’s grin only encouraged him, the fingertips digging into his back urging him to go harder and faster. It had never been like this before—an acquiescence instead of a conquest, a subjugation of reason to need, a wholeness so complete he wasn’t sure he’d survive the withdrawal from her body.
Wait—yes it had. In Kansas City, in December. It had been exactly like this.
As he neared the edge something in her expression changed. Her eyes softened, her lips parted. She trailed her finger over his cheek, and he knew exactly what she meant.
“Say it,” he gasped, lowering his face to hers.
Fear flashed in her eyes. She shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“Don’t be scared,” he ground out through a clenched jaw. “Say it. I want to hear it.”
“I can’t.” There were tears in her voice.
“Please, Tara.”
“Chance…”
He came with a bone-clattering shudder and an almighty groan, his heart pounding and his vision blurring. His whole body sagged from the force of release, his energy completely spent, the muscles in his arms trembling as he heaved himself off her and onto his side.
When the silence stretched so long it was clear she wasn’t going to speak, he pulled her stiff form into his chest. She pressed her face into the base of his throat and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. She nodded against his skin.
But it wasn’t okay, not really. It was a nagging hole in his contentment that grew larger with every minute, as he realized more and more how badly he wanted to hear those three words.
The hole widened while they sat at the table eating a thrown-together pasta dinner. She was dressed only in his ACU jacket and although just the thought of her bare breasts filling the front of it was enough to harden him, it couldn’t banish his burgeoning uneasiness.
After they ate he carried the rest of the boxes out to her car while she stood on the doorstep, arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the cold autumn air. When he was done he pushed her against the wall of the house, reached under the jacket to caress the exposed place between her legs, knelt and finished her off with his tongue right there on the porch. As she limped back inside she commented that it was a good thing the nearest neighbors were so far away, but the smile he offered in answer was hollow. The hole was getting bigger.
When they finally made it to bed she drew him toward her, kissed him deeply and lingeringly, guided him into her body with a tenderness that made his heart ache. He stroked slowly, studied every minute change in her expression, watched her face crumple and tighten as she cried out, arching beneath him and squeezing his shoulders. As the tide of his own climax swept over him he worried it might wash out his whole being, his thoughts, his breath, that there may be nothing left when this passion receded.
The hole was bigger than ever when his vision came back into focus, but he realized that it was up to him to start pulling it closed. Tara was nestled in his embrace, her cheek on his shoulder, and he brought his lips to her f
orehead.
“I’m falling in love with you,” he whispered.
She shifted in his grip. He felt her draw breath to speak, then stop, then exhale in indecision.
“You know what? Forget what I just said. I love you, Tara. I’m there. It’s done. And the weird thing is, I think I’ve loved you since I met you. Right from that moment you smiled at me in the bar. I knew even then, I’m gonna love this girl.”
“So why did you leave me?”
Her voice was choked with emotion, and he squeezed his eyes shut, overwhelmed by regret. He clutched her more tightly, pinning her against his side.
“Because I’m an idiot, okay? You were sleeping, looking so peaceful and pretty, and I panicked. You barely knew me, you couldn’t know what army life was like, and I’d gone and tied you to it. I thought you deserved better than an unstable grunt like me and I took off. It was cowardly, and it was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
She propped herself up on his chest, big eyes boring into him. “You were wrong, you know. If one of us has lucked out in all this, it’s me.”
“I don’t know about that. But for some reason you seem intent on sticking with my crazy ass.”
She grinned, lifting a shoulder. “I like crazy.”
“And I love you.”
Her face darkened, and he put a finger on her lips. “I know it’s hard. Say it when you’re ready. I’ll wait.”
Her smile was relieved. She dropped back into his arms, folding her hands under her cheek. “Thanks, Chance.”
“No problem, sugar.” He closed his eyes and settled back on the pillows, trying to still his whirring thoughts and enjoy the warm pressure of her body on his.
Instead his brain kept repeating, Please say it before I leave. Don’t let me go off to war without knowing you love me. Don’t let me die without hearing it.
Chapter Eight
Tara’s mouth dropped open as four Civil War re-enactors rode past on big, black horses.
“Those animals are huge! How do they control ’em? What if they decide to run off?”
Grady squinted at her over the blond head of his girlfriend, Laurel Hayes, whose back was pressed against his chest in an effort to mitigate the biting November chill. “Ain’t you ever seen a horse before? I thought you were from the country.”
“I’m from a trailer park in the country,” she corrected. “Big difference.”
“Those are the draught horses Woody Matthews breeds out on his farm. They are bigger than most,” Laurel clarified, making Tara doubly glad Chance had organized for her to meet up with them to watch the Veterans’ Day Parade along Meridian’s Main Street. At first she was so intimidated by Laurel’s fancy, rich-person way of speaking that she could barely get a word out, but it didn’t take long for her to realize that this upper-class doctor was as kind and gracious as anyone she’d met.
“When’s your husband making his big appearance?” Grady asked.
Tara shrugged. “They asked a handful of troops to march with the elementary schools. I don’t know why they picked him. He insists it’s because he’s so good-looking, but I told ’em they probably want a medic on hand in case one of the kids falls and splits their chin open.”
“Maybe they’re hoping his outstanding navigational skills will come in handy if they lose the route,” Laurel speculated playfully.
Grady shook his head. “Shouldn’t let that man near children. Bad influence.”
“Don’t worry, I took his flask off him before he left the house.” A ragtag group of schoolchildren appeared at the end of the street and Tara’s heart leapt at the familiar figure towering over them. “There he is!”
She started waving long before he could possibly see her, the mere sight of him flooding her with brimming affection. These last ten days with him had been the happiest of her life. They laughed together, ate together, made love until they were exhausted every night. She’d never felt so cherished and accepted, and now that she’d traded her harebrained attempts to be some outdated version of a cookie-cutter army wife for lunchtime bartending shifts at a popular high-end restaurant, she finally felt like she was living her own new life instead of just hanging onto his. She loved seeing him off in the morning, loved spending the afternoons serving vodka martinis to Meridian’s business elite, loved meeting him back at the house for a kiss on the doorstep.
She loved him.
She just couldn’t seem to tell him.
She tried. She tried almost every day, in fact. She beamed at him over breakfast, the words swelling through her chest, into her throat and materializing on her tongue, but as soon as he raised a brow and asked what she wanted to say they were gone, retreating back down her gullet, burying themselves deep in her heart.
She tried to toss them out casually, in the middle of two other sentences about the odd noise the refrigerator was making, hoping but failing to catch herself by surprise. She tried to say them so quietly her fearful mouth wouldn’t notice, then so loudly it couldn’t stop them, but it didn’t work.
She tried hardest to say them at night, when Chance was buried deep inside her, their passion stripping away everything that lay between them. Those were the times he looked at her with such trembling vulnerability, such earnest hopefulness that she knew he wanted nothing more than to hear her say she loved him.
She couldn’t do it.
But I will, she resolved, waving harder as Chance approached. I’ll tell him tonight. I have to—it’s my last chance.
Flanked by children holding either end of a banner announcing that Oliver Brown Elementary School thanked veterans for their service, Chance looked like a wholesome, all-American hero in his ACUs and beret. The soldiers marching with the other two elementary schools were black and female, respectively, and she understood why they’d asked Chance to join the parade. With that big smile and those perfect features, he was every publicist’s dream.
Her smile broadened as she thought about the hot, nasty things he whispered in her ear when they made love. If they only knew.
“Change step, march, McKinley!” Grady hollered, drawing Chance’s attention. He glanced their way with a grin and a wave, and winked at Tara as he filed past with thirty-odd schoolchildren trailing behind him.
Grady turned to her once he was out of earshot. “When does he leave?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
The convivial atmosphere popped like a balloon. All three of them stood in silence for several minutes, watching the parade but not seeing it.
“Laurel’s heading off on a medical aid mission to Sierra Leone for six weeks after Christmas,” Grady said finally. “We can have ourselves a little lonely hearts’ club, you and I. Sit on the tailgate, drink beer and miss our other halves.”
“I might just take you up on that.” Representatives from Meridian’s VFW marched past them wearing an array of medals earned over seventy years of American war. The oldest veteran was pushed in a wheelchair. The youngest wasn’t quite her age.
“Do you miss it?” she asked Grady.
“I don’t know. I never heard the call of duty quite as loudly as McKinley does.” His eyes were glassy and distant, and she wondered what he was reliving. “Yeah, I do miss it sometimes. I miss the energy, the excitement. Mostly I miss my friends. Our brotherhood, born in battle. Anyway.” He smiled bashfully, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “That story’s ended for me. Time to write a new one.”
“Trey tuned up the Challenger so you shouldn’t have any trouble with it. The battery’s relatively new, there’s plenty of tread on the tires, and I’ve got an automatic payment schedule set up for the insurance. If anything goes wrong, call Trey. He knows that car almost as well as I do.”
Chance paused in his pacing across the living room floor to consult his handwritten checklist. “Next, documents. Everything’s in the big red binder on the shelf. Lease for the house, ban
k accounts, car title, marriage license, and I wrote my social security number on a Post-it in the inside cover in case you need it at a moment’s notice.”
He drew a line through that item on the paper, then hesitated before moving. Tara drew her knees up to her chest on the couch, dread filling her chest. She couldn’t imagine what else was coming.
“There’s something else in the binder that I haven’t shown you yet. It’s a power of attorney form, naming you as my agent. I got it notarized yesterday, so it’s all official.”
“What does being your agent mean?”
“You can access my bank accounts, write checks with my name, do pretty much anything on my behalf.” He shifted his weight. “And if anything happens to me, it gives you the power to make decisions about my care. So if I were to—”
“Stop. I get it.” She waved him on, reeling from words so powerful they didn’t need to be said. Like traumatic brain injury. Or coma. Or do-not-resuscitate.
For a second he looked stung, but he continued so quickly she didn’t have a chance to analyze why. “We’ve been over all the household stuff. We changed a fuse, we talked about the septic tank, we replaced that light bulb in the bathroom. I know Fort Preston has some kind of handyman service for deployed soldiers’ spouses, I think it’s three free hours, so you can save up the tasks you need doing—gutters, painting, whatever—and get them to come around and do it. And if anything goes seriously wrong, call Grady. He’s the most useful son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
He crossed off two more lines on the paper and looked up. “That’s the end of my list. Did I forget anything?”
“I have no idea,” she replied honestly. “But if you’re done being serious, I did get you a little something.”
“This is serious, Tara. Especially the financial stuff. All it takes is one missed payment and—”
“I know. And I’ve been taking it seriously for two hours now. I need a break.” She leapt up from the couch and moved to where he stood, running her hands over his shoulders, digging into the tense muscles with her thumbs just the way he liked. He closed his eyes as he leaned into her touch, letting the list drop to the floor.
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