“I’m not sure yet, to either question. I do know the only reason Engle hasn’t been fired yet is because she’s in the hospital and the boss isn’t that much of an asshole to fire her while she’s in the emergency room.”
Claire flinched at her friend’s words. “So she is going to get fired?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. He’s pissed right now but when he calms down, he’ll look at all the facts.”
“What are the facts?” Claire asked, afraid of what she suspected. Reza had been nowhere to be seen since Engle was transported to the hospital. She ignored the nagging voice in her head that suggested what she’d rather ignore.
“Engle cooked up a different scenario. She wanted to see how her sergeants did when she was taken out of the fight, so instead of staying in the convoy, she veered off to chase after Reza as if she were chasing down someone they’d caught planting a bomb. Except that when her vehicle rounded the corner, instead of an open road, she found it blocked by burning tires. That’s not why he’s mad. He’s really pissed about the unauthorized pyro. She violated a boatload of policies getting that stuff.” Sarah rubbed her eyes, her skin red and raw from the cold. “He’s pretty pissed at you, too, Claire. Half the time he was grilling me, he wanted to know whether you’d told the LT to deviate from his training guidance or not.”
“Me? What the hell did I do?”
“The other day in the briefing? This is exactly what Engle was talking about doing and Danvers specifically told her not to do. He’s holding you responsible for disobeying his guidance, particularly since you admitted to wanting to change the training plan and add in pyro, too.”
“Just because I wanted to do it doesn’t mean I actually did it,” Claire whispered. Her heart felt like a stone in her chest. Cold slithered up Claire’s spine but she said nothing for the longest time, unable to find any words to shape the chaos inside her.
“What did you tell him?”
Sarah smiled wickedly. “That you were a stellar officer who would always execute the commander’s intent and never willfully disobey a lawful order.”
Claire choked back a horrified laugh. It was either that or cry. “How much of that did you actually get out before he cut you off and called you a liar?”
“About two-thirds of a sentence, which is two-thirds more than I thought I’d get out.” Tight lines appeared on Sarah’s forehead. “He thinks you planted the idea for Engle to violate the training guidelines.”
Claire said nothing, unable to fight back the sinking feeling in her gut.
* * *
Evan and Claire drove back to the lodge together. The ride was quiet, filled with an awkward silence that for once was not the result of an argument between the two of them. It was worry about a friend. A friend whose demons had gotten someone hurt today.
The exercise had been halted for the rest of the afternoon while Colonel Danvers’s staff conducted an inquiry into the accident. They’d been held at the training site for five hours while they were questioned about why Lieutenant Engle had deviated from the training plan. Normally, it would have been a single officer asking questions, but Danvers wanted answers yesterday, so the staff had a sense of urgency.
There would be more questions tomorrow and throughout the rest of the weekend.
Claire said nothing as she drove them back to the lodge. Evan hadn’t seen Iaconelli since Engle’s transport, though not for lack of trying. He deeply suspected that Engle had not cooked up this plan on her own. Claire’s silence was an unbreachable wall, a blockade Evan could not break.
“Did you talk to Iaconelli?” he finally asked, his question grating over the awkward silence.
“I haven’t seen him.” Her voice sounded unused to sound. “I assumed he took one of the other trucks to the hospital to see Engle.” She glanced at him before turning down the long, winding road toward the lodge. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” It was a coward’s answer, but it was the only thing he could think to say at the moment. “How’s Sarah?”
“Worried about Engle. She might be going downrange without a platoon leader because of this stunt.” But there was no recrimination in her voice. No, what he heard there was fatigue. Bone-crushing weariness from too many years at war and not nearly enough time to recharge between deployments.
Evan said nothing.
But that didn’t stop the scene from playing itself out in his head, over and over again, blame and recrimination for the accident pressing in on him until he thought he’d choke on it.
Claire turned the truck down the narrow road leading to the lodge. Trees hung over the road, weighted down with the snow and ice. They could have been driving through a winter wonderland, filled with promise and holiday memories instead of back to the hotel after a bad training exercise.
Instead, Evan felt tired. Drained.
The truck stopped in the parking lot at the lodge. The silence of the cold winter dusk wrapped around them.
“I have to see Colonel Danvers day after tomorrow,” Claire said quietly. “He’s going to question me, personally.”
“I do, too.” He studied her, the way her jaw tensed in the fading daylight. “Why do you have to go?”
“He blames me for this. Engle didn’t stick to the training plan, and he knows I disapproved of his plan, too.”
He shifted so he could see her more easily in the fading light. He wanted to ask her if she thought Reza was involved. If he’d planted the idea to use the pyro in Engle’s head. But he couldn’t find the words, knowing that they would just add another worry to the weight around her shoulders. “What are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.” She looked out beyond the steering wheel and the snow-covered parking lot, as though she were searching the forest at the edge of the property for an answer. “Half of me feels like covering for Engle because she’s been working so hard out here to try and get better. The other half feels like a hypocrite because I would have done exactly what she did. Unauthorized pyro and all.”
He followed her out of the truck, not letting her put space between them, but she was quick and he wasn’t going to make an issue out of running after her. At least not yet.
He finally caught up to her in front of the door to her suite. Or rather, she finally stopped. She stood there, her body tense. He had the distinct impression that she’d suddenly stopped fighting.
She stepped into his space but didn’t touch him. Didn’t cross that last breath of distance to actually contact his skin. She opened the door to her room and stepped back.
When she looked at him, when she lifted her face toward his, what he saw knocked him back, hitting him low and hard.
Invitation.
Chapter Fifteen
Inviting Evan in was stupid, but then again, everything she did with Evan was stupid. If Colonel Danvers had already called Colonel Richter back at Fort Hood, her career was probably down the drain. She might as well soothe the loss of her military career with hot sex and try to forget the wreckage of her life, if only for a little while. And yet his mouth hovered a breath above hers, as though waiting for her to span the distance that separated them.
The few others who had stepped into her territory had always played by her rules. And yet, at this very moment, Evan challenged her. Standing close enough that she could see his nostrils flare slightly, feel the warm kiss of his breath against her skin, he dared her to make a choice.
To let herself feel or to walk away from the one man who inspired a need in her that she’d buried long ago.
She moved. A hesitant, almost-there movement. But that tiny gesture was all it took. He nudged her lips with his, teasing her with the slightest breath of contact. She glanced up to find him studying her, his coffee eyes the color of the desert at midnight. Her fingers curled into his forearms. A soft touch, the only acknowledgment of what this was.
Permission to start fresh, to lance the poison that still stood between them. Or at least set it aside.
Yet it terrified her that he
had come to mean so much to her in such a short period of time. She wanted to pull away from that comfort, afraid to let herself crave it. She wanted violence, an answer to the hungry need that rose inside her. She started to turn away, to walk deeper into her room, unsure if he would release her or simply follow.
He shocked her when he captured her, his arms snaking around her, pulling her flush against him. Her back cradled against his chest, in a haphazard, desperate embrace.
She hated the choices she was being forced to make. And she hated having to weigh desire against self-preservation. But for tonight, desire won. She relaxed against him, her bones sagging in relief.
She surrendered.
To the heat curling down her belly to snake between her thighs. To the strength of this man at her back. And to the riot of emotions thundering inside her, hammering at her veins, demanding release. She shifted and Evan traced the sides of her body with his palms, his chest pressed full against her back.
* * *
“Relax,” he whispered as he peeled open the Velcro of her jacket. Capturing her jaw with one rough palm, he urged her neck back until she rested against his shoulder. With the other thumb, he traced a line from the bottom of her chin down her throat to the collar of her T-shirt. Slowly, so slowly, he dragged the zipper open, scraping his knuckles against the cotton between her breasts. Again, he traced the line of her throat with feather-light strokes, his fingertips teasing her skin, sending shivers of pleasure flowing over her. He pulled her against him, her rear curved against his hips.
Never had a simple caress moved him so deeply. He was so used to Claire being in control that her surrender, when it came, stunned the hell out of him and made him long for more. This woman, this fierce warrior who gave as good as she got, was pliant and soft beneath his hands now.
He wanted nothing more than to take his time and learn more about this fascinating woman who trembled as he peeled open her bra, never once relinquishing contact between their bodies.
He looked up to find her watching him in the hotel mirror. He was surprised by how small she looked in front of him. He slid his hands over her shoulders, down her ribs. He continued to trace his path, watching as her gorgeous nipples pebbled beneath his touch. Felt the imperceptible arch of her back, an offering.
Evan wanted more than this from her but right now, he’d take what she could give. He wrapped his arms around her, one arm snaking around her belly, the lush weight of her breasts heavy against him, the other sliding up over her collarbone to cradle her throat.
She made a small noise of protest. Evan smiled darkly, watching her in the mirror.
And bit down on her shoulder, just above the edge of a scar. Her gasp was the sweetest pleasure, rocketing straight down his groin to throb in his cock. She arched back against him, rubbing against his erection and making him want to beg. He nudged her neck to one side and captured her earlobe between his teeth at the exact moment he pinched one pearled nipple between his fingers. He traced his tongue over the scars on her back.
She trembled and jerked beneath his touch, arching and squirming in a way that had him ready to explode before he really got started.
“Like that?” he murmured. He wanted to run his tongue over every single inch of her back. She was taut, wired tight as a rip cord.
“If you don’t stop screwing around …” She reached behind her, the movement arching her breasts, and found him rock solid and throbbing beneath his uniform. “Poor baby. That feels painful.” But she squeezed him, driving him closer to the edge.
He pulled her hands away, guiding her down onto the bed, encircling her body with his own. She resisted until he pressed flat against her, sweeping her hands over her head, his chest against her back, his hips intimately flush with hers. “Trust me, Claire,” he whispered against her ear.
Her name on his lips sparked something deep and primitive and needy. She didn’t do trust. What he was asking for was more than she was ready or able to give.
He pressed a gentle kiss to the cool skin between her shoulder blades, his hands gently holding hers above her head. One cheek pressed into the cool, crisp sheets, her nipples aching from the cool kiss of cotton. Again, he pressed his lips to the back of her neck, gentle and soft.
“Trust me,” he whispered, sliding his hands down her wrists, over her shoulders and framing her ribs, his touch gentle and slow.
He traced his thumbs down her spine, trailing with his tongue. He licked the edge of her uniform pants, slowly urging them down over her hips, revealing the body he’d admired on one too many late deployment nights. He’d fantasized about having her just like this, open, exposed and completely subject to his desire.
He traced his hands up the back of her thighs, slipping his thumbs into the crease between her cheeks before he placed a soft kiss on the small of her back. She whimpered and squirmed beneath him. He smiled. He wanted her to beg, to hear her whisper his name.
* * *
Claire couldn’t say where time ended and Evan began. The slow, lazy strokes up and down her scarred back, over her buttocks, down her thighs. He drove her wild with his hands. Every so often, his tongue replaced his finger, leaving cool, wet skin in its wake.
She shifted, spreading her thighs a little more, offering him access to her most intimate flesh. A sound of raw male appreciation emboldened her. She arched her back, shifting her thighs wider, looking at him over her shoulder. “Evan …” Her voice was a growl, feral with barely restrained need.
* * *
He laughed low and deep in his chest as he rolled her panties down over her hips, leaving her completely naked, completely gorgeous.
He cupped her cheeks, pressing his open mouth to the sweet flesh right above the dip in her lower back as his fingers finally sought her slick, damp heat.
She jerked, and if he hadn’t had one arm across the small of her back, she might have dislodged him. She tried to rock back against his touch, demanding more. “Evan …”
“Shh.” Slowly, so slowly, he dragged his fingers through her heat, parting her, stroking her. He wanted to taste her, to suckle her where she was hot and swollen and so very wet, but it was too much for him to handle. His cock was steel against the buttons of his uniform. Still, he stroked her, driving her closer to the edge, backing off each time to prevent her climax.
“I swear to God …”
“Say please,” he whispered.
She arched her hips off the bed, damn near throwing him off, but instead, he seated two fingers deep, deep inside her and she came apart so completely he thought he’d die from the sheer beauty of her release.
He stroked her slowly, prolonging her pleasure until she damn near begged him, capturing her gasps in his mouth.
He stripped, rolling the condom on in some kind of land speed record. He kissed her then, urging her onto her back, forgetting for a moment her panic, her fear. He wanted to feel her body beneath his, to kiss her as she wrapped her thighs around his back. But she wiggled and squirmed until he was pressed to her back. He lifted her thigh, draping it over his, and angled his hips until he was there at the opening of her beautiful sex.
And then she arched backwards, and Evan sank home, deep into her lush, wet heat. He reached between her thighs as he drove into her from behind, stroking her pleasure until she shattered and came apart around him.
And when his own pleasure took him over the edge, he was sure he heard his name on her lips, the sweetest cry, as he tumbled into ecstasy.
* * *
Claire was nestled against him, her body soft and relaxed in sleep. He shifted now in the pale morning light and pressed his lips to the scars on her back.
The worst of them were deep and ragged. Others were pale, thin lines on her skin. He was on his side now, his head propped up in his palm, tracing the path of those harsh furrows in her skin. Beside him, she sighed.
He stiffened, braced for her to pull away. She’d pulled away so often and so regularly. But this morning was full of surprises,
and she simply nestled closer.
Maybe she wasn’t fully awake yet.
He hadn’t let himself want this. This simple morning, lying in bed, Claire warm and sleepy next to him. He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to the center of her shoulder blade. He’d denied himself a happily ever after, had never planned on someone touching the frozen core of his soul. A self-imposed penance for the death of his sister.
But maybe he’d been lying to himself all along. Maybe he’d been denying himself this because he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it. This intense wave of emotion. This connection. There was no control here. This was chaos. This was burning, aching desire that could flare out and consume him.
“Hmmmm.”
“Oh good, you’re awake,” he said, smiling against her skin.
“No, I’m not.” She grumbled the words but there was no harshness to them.
Evan skimmed his fingers over her ribs until she shivered beneath his touch. He wanted to challenge her defenses, to tear down her barriers one by one.
One in particular nagged at the edge of his sleep- and sex-filled brain. They still hadn’t slept together face to face. He’d wanted to cradle her face in his palms as he’d slipped inside her last night. He’d wanted to feel her orgasm shatter around them both and capture her sighs in his mouth.
But that simple act had eluded him. She’d pushed away, urging him to take her from behind again. And dear lord, it was the singularly most erotic experience he’d ever had with a woman. She was wild and passionate, and used her pleasure to drive him over the edge. But it still wasn’t enough for him.
He traced his tongue over her back and urged the sheet that was tangled around them down until her back was exposed. She sighed, and he felt her legs relax. He stroked his fingertips down her ribs, lightly. Teasing.
“If waking me up without coffee is your idea of a joke, I’ll warn you, I’ve neutered men for less.” But she shifted, a tiny, subtle movement that gave him access to the warm sweetness between her thighs.
“I can make it worth your while,” he whispered, sliding his fingers over the smooth curve of her ass, skirting closer to her center and flitting away, denying them both.
Until There Was You (Coming Home, #2) Page 16