by Leanne Banks
“So what are you going to do?”
She met his gaze. “I’m already doing. I’ve allowed myself to get suckered into the Brock Armstrong recovery program, haven’t I?”
“Kicking and screaming every inch of the way.”
She studied him. “I just wish you didn’t feel like you had a penance to pay for surviving when Rob didn’t.”
Her words hit too close and he looked away. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Okay. Whatever it is, thanks.”
“It works both ways. Helping you helps me.”
“Penance,” she said.
He shook his head. “I told you it’s more than that. You’ve probably forgotten this, but being with you can be nice.”
“Oh, yeah, a laugh a minute.”
An urge to touch her rippled through him like the ocean breeze. He wanted to pull her against him. The strength of the instinct irritated him. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
She touched him lightly on his arm. “It means a lot that I can trust you.”
Don’t trust me too much, he thought, craving her. His pulse raced at her nearness and he was careful not to move a millimeter. He didn’t want her to pull away. “It works both ways, Callie,” he said in a low voice.
“You’re so strong that I sometimes forget that you’re recovering, too.” She searched his face then put her arms around him.
He sucked in her closeness like a man who’d been stuck in the desert for days and she was his first drink of water. Her embrace knocked him sideways. She was sober and not crying. This was the first time she’d flat-out hugged him, and his heart and body were overwhelmed. He pulled his hands out of his pockets to put them around her, then thought better of it and returned them. He shouldn’t encourage her. On the other hand, he knew a human touch was part of healing.
Holding his breath, he slowly eased his hands out of his pockets and slid his arms around her.
She made a little sound of satisfaction and squeezed him. “This is embarrassing to admit, but I think I must be starved for hugs.”
“I’m sure you can find lots of volunteers to give you hugs,” he said dryly.
“Yeah, but they’re not—” She broke off and pulled back slightly, looking into his eyes.
“They’re not what?”
She moved her shoulders and confusion shimmered in her eyes. “I guess I don’t want hugs from just anyone.”
“Picky,” he said, trying to lighten the conversation, even though his chest felt strange as the dickens.
She gave a lopsided smile. “Choosy. I’ve always thought it was a good thing to be choosy.”
“Choosy’s just a nice word for picky,” he told her, thinking that if she decided he was going to be her hug supplier, he was in for pure torture. Heaven help him.
She began to spontaneously hug him and touch him. Every once in a while he could see it coming and brace himself for his response to her, but she often ambushed him. She clearly had no idea of her effect on him.
Brock was starting to think that the cure to his survivor guilt just might put him over the edge. She was so soft and feminine in his arms. He inhaled her scent as if it were a drug. After feeling dead for so long, she made his every cell feel alive. He spent an inordinate amount of energy trying to ignore just how alive she made him feel. He had a mission. There were steps to take, goals to be accomplished.
“You need to make some friends,” he said, as they went for their run on the beach one cloudy morning.
“I probably should, but I’m not sure how. It’s not really one of those things you can do through a classified ad.”
“You could volunteer or join a club,” he suggested.
Callie made a face and slowed to a walk. “I already told you I’m not much of a joiner.”
He struggled with a ripple of frustration. “You may need to change that.”
“I don’t know. I don’t fit in with groups real well. I didn’t fit in with the military wives. They thought I was weird.” She shrugged and looked at him. “And I guess I am a little weird, but isn’t everyone?”
“Some are more weird than others,” he said dryly.
“Oh, thanks!” She swatted him playfully. “Just the encouragement I needed to go out among the rest of humanity.”
Brock laughed at her indignation then felt a few drops of rain on his shoulders. He looked up at the sky. “Oops. I think we’re gonna get caught.”
“And I’m not running the rest of the way back to my cottage,” she said.
Glancing around, he spotted a stand of trees. “C’mon, that looks like it will be better than nothing.”
The rain suddenly burst through the clouds and he tugged her toward the trees. Water dampened her hair and face. She pulled at her T-shirt as it clung to her, then glanced at him. “This is your fault. If you hadn’t dragged me out here—”
“You’d be inside moping,” he finished for her.
She opened her mouth then closed it. “Maybe not. Maybe I would be working. I’ve been productive lately.”
“Good for you.”
“Probably thanks to you,” she said reluctantly.
“You’re welcome,” he said with mock sweetness.
She stuck out her tongue at him.
Pleased to see some fire in her exchanges with him, he shook his finger at her playfully. “Don’t stick out your tongue unless you plan to use it.”
“How should I use it?” she asked, with a sensual curiosity in her eyes that made him regret teasing her.
“That’s for you to figure out,” he muttered, irritated at how quickly she made his temperature rise.
He barely saw her coming when she lifted her mouth to his mouth and kissed him quickly. She drew back, looking as surprised at her action as he was.
He stared at her in disbelief. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because you dared me to do it,” she said defensively.
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did,” she argued, her cheeks heating. “You dared me to kiss you when you said something about using my tongue. If you didn’t like it, you’ll just have to get over it because you asked for it.”
The combination of her indignation, embarrassment and impulsive kiss set off a chain reaction inside him of gut-clenching want. The sensations inside him were a mixture of arousal and excruciating tenderness.
Instinctively reaching for her, he pulled her against him. “I didn’t ask for that kind of kiss, Callie,” he told her in a voice that sounded rough to his own ears.
“What kind of kiss did you ask for?”
He lowered his mouth and showed her. He rubbed his lips over hers, relishing the shape and texture of her mouth. Gently squeezing the nape of her neck, he coaxed her lips to a more accessible position.
He had the sensation of danger as he took her mouth. It should have made him more careful, but there was too much that had been pent up inside him for too long. He slid his tongue over her lips, then inside her mouth to taste her. Surprising the hell out of him, she pressed the front of her body flush against him as if she couldn’t get close enough. With each stroke of his tongue, he felt as if he were standing at the edge of a volcano ready to erupt.
She made a sound of need that affected him like an intimate touch, and went wild in his arms. Matching him caress for caress, she drew his tongue deep into her mouth the same way she would draw his hardness into her body. The knowledge made him sweat.
She squeezed his forearms with a sexy kind of desperation, then slipped her hands up under his tank top to touch his chest.
Brock felt his heart hammer in his chest. Swollen with need, he slid one of his hands down to her bottom, guiding her pelvis against the place where he ached. Feeling the tight tips of her breasts against his chest, he was filled with the need to touch her all over at once. He skimmed his hand over the edge of her breast and she turned toward him, clearly begging for more.
On fire, he wanted nothing more tha
n to strip off her clothes and plunge inside her.
After one kiss.
She pulled away to gasp for air. “Oh, wow,” she whispered.
Oh, wow was an understatement. A minuscule amount of oxygen seeped into his brain. He saw the dark arousal in her eyes, her lips were already swollen from their kiss. He could take her now if he wanted, the devil inside him said. He could have Rob’s woman.
Seven
Marine Lingo Translation
Soup Sandwich: A mess. Not squared away.
He needed a beer. He needed to watch a ball game on a giant screen. He needed to get laid. Two out of three wasn’t bad, he thought, as he chugged his second cold one and sat on a stool at Smiley’s Bar. His Braves were having a tough time.
Hearing a chorus of feminine laughter, he glanced over his shoulder and saw the cute brunette giving him the eye again. He glanced away, thinking he could probably get something going with her if he was so inclined. He’d been walking around with a hard-on for the last two weeks. He should be inclined but, for some reason, he didn’t have the stomach for anonymous sex anymore. Brock wondered if his change in attitude was due to the explosion. More than his body had been affected by it.
Sighing, he took another swig and focused on the game.
“The Braves aren’t doing very well tonight, are they?” a feminine voice beside him said.
He glanced up to see the brunette who had been watching him all evening. “Yep. They can’t seem to pull it together tonight. Happens to most everyone once in a while.”
“I’m Candace McDonald,” she said, and extended her hand. “You looked lonely over here, so I thought I would come say hello.”
“Hi. I’m Brock,” he said, and glanced at the screen again.
“Are you new here?” she asked, sitting next to him.
“Kinda. I’m just here for a few weeks. What about you?”
She smiled. “Darn, I should have known. All the good ones are temporary. I live here full-time and trust me, there’s not much going on in the winter.”
He nodded. “I can see how that would happen. It gets cold and all the visitors go away.”
“And there’s my job. I teach kindergarten and most of my colleagues are female. Makes it tough for a girl to meet a guy.”
He looked at her again, this time from a different perspective. Maybe she could become a friend of Callie’s. “You haven’t been here long?”
“This is my first job out of college. I’m working this summer with an enrichment program.”
“Enrichment?” he echoed.
“We do art projects and introduction to foreign languages, elementary science experiments. That sort of thing.”
“Art,” he said, thinking of that old saying, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. “I know a woman, a local woman who draws art for children’s books.”
Her eyes widened with interest. “Really? I bet my kids would love for her to visit. You think she would be interested?”
“I think you should ask her,” he said. “She’s a little shy, but I bet she would say yes.” He thought for a moment. “You know, you might even invite her out to lunch sometime. Here’s her name and phone number,” he said, and wrote down Callie’s information on a paper napkin.
The young woman took the napkin and gave him a considering glance. “I wouldn’t mind having lunch with you, but I get the impression you’re otherwise engaged, or at least otherwise distracted.” She tapped her fingernail against the napkin and lifted her eye brow in a questioning way.
He almost denied it. He definitely wasn’t engaged, however he couldn’t honestly say he wasn’t distracted by Callie. “Give her a call. You’ll be glad you did.”
“Okay,” she said, taking another napkin and writing her name and phone number on it. “You give me a call if you change your mind.”
“Okay,” he said, accepting the napkin. But he knew he wouldn’t call her.
Brock came to the conclusion that the only way he was going to be able to keep his hands off of Callie was by helping her get a life and by helping her get a man. Although part of him vehemently rebelled at the notion of Callie being with another man, he knew that was what she needed. Sure, no man would ever be able to replace Rob, but another man could hold her, kiss her and cherish her. Another man could make love to her. The very thought of it made his blood pressure spike, but he believed it was necessary for her reentry into the land of the living.
Callie was an affectionate woman and she needed someone, besides a cat, on whom to pour all her affection.
After getting a look at her wardrobe of T-shirts, jeans and sweats, he faced another hard truth—Callie needed to go shopping for clothes, and he was going to have to accompany her.
Arming himself with the Atlanta Constitution, he picked her up on Wednesday afternoon and drove to a shopping mall about thirty miles away. He had told her he was taking her for a drive, not out to get a new wardrobe.
When he pulled into a parking space, she looked at him in confusion. “Why are we stopping?”
“We’re going shopping.”
“What do you need?”
His lips twitched. “I don’t need anything. You need some new clothes.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. You’re going to start participating in more activities than walking on the beach, feeding the cat and painting. You need a couple of dresses and some shirts that fit you instead of hanging off you.”
She frowned at him. “Are you criticizing my style?”
“Yes,” he said flatly, and opened the car door and got out.
“I didn’t bring any money,” she protested.
“That’s okay. You can use my credit card. If you dent it too much, then you can pay me back.” He opened her car door. “Your adventure awaits.”
With narrowed eyes, she glanced at the newspaper he’d tucked under his arm. “You think you’re just going to cruise through this with a newspaper while I do all the work?”
“They’ll be your clothes. You should do the work,” he told her.
She stood up and got in his face. “Uh-uh. You, Mr. Smarty-Pants, are going to have to shop, too. Yes, that four-letter word that men hate so much. You’re going to have to make suggestions and offer opinions. If I have to suffer through this, then you do, too.”
Brock quickly realized he’d unleashed a shopping she-devil. She dragged him with her to every women’s clothing store. Not content to let him find a seat in the food court so he could read the sports section, she consulted him on colors and styles, hem length, pants versus dresses.
“You’re an artist. You know a lot more about color and stuff like that than I do.”
“Well, you must have an opinion,” the shopping she-devil said. “Since you’re convinced I need a new wardrobe. Lingerie is next,” she said with an evil smile.
He groaned as he followed her into a shop filled with satin, silk and lace.
“What do you think of this?” she asked him, pointing to a black bra. “It’s supposed to do miraculous things for your breasts without surgery. I’m so small,” she complained.
“Small isn’t all bad,” he murmured, running his fingers over the satin cup, imagining taking the bra off of her and teasing her nipples into tight buds, wrapping his tongue around them and…His internal body temperature shot up several degrees.
“Which color do you like best?” she asked, holding up a black thong in one hand and a red thong in the other.
His throat tightened up when his mind easily produced the image of her tight little bottom in either of those scraps of satin. “Either,” he said hoarsely. “Both.”
“Okay. I’ll go try some of these on. You’re in luck,” she said, scooping up another couple of bras.
“How?” he asked, unable to see any vestige of good luck for him in this situation.
“You can read your newspaper now. I’m way too shy to model this stuff for you.”
; He watched her leave and tried to decide if that meant he was lucky or not. He went outside the store and found a bench. Sitting down, he took out his paper and turned to the sports section. Was he really lucky because he wasn’t actually seeing her in the satin bras and thongs? His mind conjured an image of Callie wearing the black thong and black satin bra, her fiery hair in disarray and her lips painted red, but smudged from his kisses.
He could feel the silk of her skin beneath his fingertips, the taste of her tongue as he took her mouth again. He loved the way her hands felt on his bare skin, the feminine wanting she expressed with every little movement she made. The way she drew his tongue into her mouth made him think about how she would draw him deep into her body.
He wanted more. He wanted to caress her nipples. He wanted to taste them until she was wet and swollen with wanting between her thighs. He wanted to touch her in her secret places and make her bloom with so much need she trembled from it.
In some corner of his perception, Brock noticed the newspaper twitching. He glanced down at his hands clenched around the edges of the paper, crumpling it. He was hard. He was sweating. Swearing under his breath, he shook his head to clear it. He hadn’t even seen her try on that lingerie, but he knew he would be tormented with his own images for a long, long time.
Two days later, he knew he was going to have to be firm with her. He decided to try yet another strategy to get past his strange feelings toward Callie. He’d decided to pretend she was his sister. “It’s Friday night,” Brock told her, expecting protests, excuses and reasons to procrastinate. “We’re going to a bar.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t really feel like going out tonight. Besides, I’m going to have to be social in another way. I got a call from some teacher at a local elementary school today and she asked me to come and help with a special program for her kindergarten class. I can’t figure out how she got my name.”
Good, he thought. The woman he’d met the other night had followed up.
“We started talking and she asked me to meet her for a drink sometime. So, see, it’s not necessary for me to go to a bar tonight.”