by S A Monk
Hanna looked back over her shoulder at the clear glass enclosure behind her. “We’ll shower before we leave.” But the image of his big muscular frame half submerged in a tub full of bubbles made her laugh. “I imagine this is your first bubble bath.” With a playful giggle, she scooped up two fingers of bubbles and placed them on the tip of his classically Roman nose.
“Actually, it isn’t.” One hand emerged from the bubbles to trace her lips, leaving them wet and glistening. “I’ve been in a tub of bubbles before.”
Hanna’s giggles disappeared. Thinking of him in a bubble bath with another woman hurt. She knew he’d had other lovers. He’d told he had plenty of experience, being a soldier. He was thirty-eight, after all. But it was an image she didn’t want to acknowledge.
Nick watched her emotions change and cupped the back of her neck to pull her forward for a kiss. “When Lance and I were kids, we got into a bottle of Mom’s bubble bath and had a hell of time in the tub.”
His explanation brought forth a burst of relieved laughter from her as she envisioned the two little boys and their mischief. She leaned forward and kissed him again, looping her forearms around his neck. God help her! She loved this man so much!
She broke the kiss and tipped her head back to search his expression, wondering what he felt for her. He was watching her as closely as she was him. I love you was so much on the tip of her tongue that she had to bite her lower lip to keep from uttering it. Nick was everything she wanted in life! Tears threatened to fill her eyes, her emotions were so close to the surface. She ducked her head to hide the raw emotion she was feeling run riot through her.
With a low throaty growl, he lifted her and set her on his stone hard length. It was a long slow slide down until she was firmly seated on his lap. Heavens, he felt incredible! He was so big, so hard. He filled every inch of her. He fit her perfectly. Or maybe, it was she who fit him so perfectly. She couldn’t decide. Then nothing mattered but the sublime sensation of him, pushing deeper and deeper until there was nowhere left to go inside her.
Flexing his long fingers, he squeezed her buttocks, the blunt tips meeting in the seam between, assisting her to ride him. It was slippery, but they managed. When she rose higher out of the bubbles, Nick moved his hands to her breasts and held her upright. His thumbs rubbed wetly back and forth across her erect nipples. The needy little sounds coming from the back of her throat told him just how turned on she was getting.
Glancing at herself in the mirrored wall on the side of the tub was nearly as erotic as what Nick was doing to her wet, soapy, naked body. She braced her hands on the bunched muscles of his shoulders and arched backwards, seeking maximum sensation for both of them. She had to do all the work because he had little purchase in the slippery tub, but she didn’t mind. Controlling this session of lovemaking was what she’d wanted from the start.
With her knees braced on either side of him, she rose up and down on him, clutching him tight with her inner muscles, deliberately squeezing every long hard inch of him. He fit her snuggly, and the way he thrust as she rode him brought her rushing to the brink.
Teetering on the edge, Hanna threw her head back, giving into the glorious climax that began shivering through her body. The convulsions of her inner muscles drove Nick to his own. Thrusting upwards into her with a deep throaty shout, he joined her in a consummation that was so acute and excruciatingly powerful, it was utterly overwhelming.
Hanna cried out his name and shuddered atop him, closing her eyes and biting her lip. She hadn’t worn her glasses into the bathtub, but she didn’t need to see him. She felt him everywhere— in her, around her, along every sensitized inch of her.
When it was finished, she fell, drained, onto his chest. His arms closed around her to hold her tight. Her head rested on his shoulder, her face turned to his neck. They remained that way until the Jacuzzi jets finally went off and the water cooled, the bubbles long gone. It was this sweet aftermath that Hanna cherished— just holding one another, without speaking, while their hearts settled into a joint rhythm.
When they finally stepped out of the bathtub, Nick took a towel off the heated rack and proceeded to dry Hanna off slowly and carefully. She reached around him, grabbed another towel, and wrapped it around his wide shoulders. She wasn’t sure she got him too dry, though, before he wordlessly scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the big canopied bed, behind the sofa.
The room was warm from the fire, glowing with soft light, like the candlelit bathroom. Setting her on her feet, Nick whisked the quilt and bedcovers aside, then slid into bed and pulled her off her feet towards him.
She landed face down, on her stomach. Her giggles were buried in the thick pillows. She tried to roll over, but Nick had other ideas. He placed a hand on the small of her back and held her in place. Then bending over her, he lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck.
“My turn,” he murmured against her warm, still damp skin.
Hanna relaxed completely, deciding to just let him have his way. She folded her arms under her cheek with a blissful sigh. Sated and sleepy, she was sure Nick could change all that, and she was curious to find out how he would arouse her so soon again.
“Go for it,” she laughed lazily.
“Aw, compliancy! What a wonderful thing from a stubborn woman,” he teased her, his mouth and tongue doing wonderful things to her spine.
“I am not stubborn!” she protested, looking back at him over a bare shoulder.
When she tried to get up and argue further with him, Nick straddled her hips from behind and pushed her back down, laughing. “Okay, you’re not stubborn,” he retracted. “Just sweet and obedient and acquiescent.”
“Oh, geez, that sounds worse!”
He shifted his position slightly. The drag of his long hard shaft along her backside touched intimate places that robbed her of further rebuttal.
His own laughter faded as he shifted again and bent to resume kissing her. From the nape of her neck, his lips moved slowly down her spine until they reached the small of her back where he gave the tiny indentation there long wet licks, like a cat licking cream. While his tongue tasted her, his hands wandered in slow caresses up and down the back of her legs, gliding over her calves, then her thighs, learning the shape of her hips, finally coming to a halt over her buttocks, where they rubbed sensuous slow circles over each cheek.
Hanna groaned. His fondling was so erotically delicious she was floating in euphoric bliss.
“Do you like that, then?” he chuckled as he pressed his erection gently between her buttocks.
“Oh, yes!” she gasped. “It’s heavenly!” Her eyes were closed as she concentrated on each glorious sensation he enticed her with.
“I don’t want to put you to sleep, Doctor.”
“Ummm.... ” What he was doing with his hands, his whole body as he rubbed it along her backside was just too mind-numbing to think of a coherent reply.
To her disappointment, he quit rubbing her bottom and turned her over onto her back.
“Hey, I liked that!” she protested. “I wasn’t going to sleep!”
He chuckled at the pout she gave him. “And I’m not ready to let you get too relaxed.” His long fingers crept up from her waist to cover both her full breasts, which fit perfectly in the cup of his big hands.
She smiled playfully at him as he hovered over her. “Then you’ll just have to get me all excited again, won’t you?”
“I think I can manage that— with pleasure.”
To start with, he lowered his mouth to her breasts. His hands lifted and positioned her peaked nipples. He licked them, looked at her, blew on them ever so lightly, looked at her again, then grinned at her expectant expression and took a gentle nibble of one. Hanna arched beneath him with a drawn-out groan of pure pleasure.
He met her challenge of getting her all excited again superbly. Within moments, he built an insatiable need within her. His teeth tugged with exquisite tenderness. His tongue swirled roughl
y and wetly. His lips caressed, then suckled until she was writhing and twisting beneath his body, grasping at him with clawed fingers, begging him to come inside her with each gasp and moan. Lifting his head every so often, he watched her growing arousal and grinned with pure male satisfaction, taunting her and holding her firmly, yet gently, in place beneath him.
“Have I told you how beautiful your breasts are?” he asked, admiring their flushed, rose pink color. “They’re so incredibly soft. So round and full. So responsive.”
She heard his erotic words of praise, but she was too aroused to respond. One hand slid from her breast to cup the gold hair between her parted legs. She shivered with anticipation. He inserted one long finger, very, very slowly, then his thumb, swiveling it around the little nub at the top, while his middle finger ventured deeper.
“Nick....” She moaned his name and arched her hips. Desire was clawing at her like an insatiable beast.
Oh, good heavens, the things he could do with that big hand! Mercy, he was a skilled lover! At least she assumed he was since she had no one to compare him with. He certainly knew all her hot spots. And he was doing a magnificent job of awakening her all over again.
So magnificent, she was beginning to get desperate. Finally, he slipped both hands under her bottom, settled more snugly between her legs, and lifted her to his piercing entry. By this point she as so sensitive that she cried out with almost desperate pleasure and encircled her long legs around his waist, locking her ankles at the base of his spine. Her arms rose to entwine around his neck, her hands clutching his head. She wasn’t going to let him move away from her this time. She wanted him pressed along every over-sensitized inch of her!
“Hanna! It feels so damn good inside you!” he ground out against her lips, nose to nose with her, his gray eyes locked on her green ones. “I can’t think of a single, damn thing that has ever felt better!”
She managed a luminous smile and a strangled response. “And you feel absolutely perfect... You fit so....”
He was still, but it was costing him, she could tell. His breathing was labored and his forehead was beaded with sweat. “Oh yeah, we fit ... per...fectly,” he breathed in, then out on the last syllables.
Neither of them could say more. Embedded deep inside her, Nick began to move more forcefully, penetrating her over and over with thrusts that pushed her deeper and deeper into the soft mattress.
His arms were now braced on either side of her, his biceps bulging and straining with his powerful strokes. Hanna’s hands had moved to fiercely grip his muscle-hard buttocks. They were tight and firm, nowhere near as soft as hers. Her short, well-trimmed nails dug into his smooth skin, her fingers flexing repeatedly as she came closer and closer to the tumultuous climax Nick had so slowly brought her to.
The desperate, fiercely coiling ache in her lower body radiated outward from the core of her to every nerve ending, torturing her with the incredible climb to the peak. She felt the goose bumps rise on Nick’s bare flesh, signaling his impending ejaculation. His hips rocked against her, while her hips ground against him. The rhythm of his thrusts grew faster. Desire turned to unadulterated lust, pleasure to torment, need to unbearable craving.
“Nick!” She shouted his name. She was so close, she couldn’t stand it.
His mouth slammed down on hers just as his body slammed into hers. He drove into her once, twice, felt her climax starting, and couldn’t delay his a moment longer. Her inner muscles tightened around him like a soft fist. He exploded inside her in long shuddering convulsions.
When it was over and Nick lay holding her in his arms, her perspiration damp body pressed alongside his, he knew with startling clarity that he couldn’t walk away from her one more time. It had cost him dearly three years ago. He couldn’t do that again. Somehow, he was going to have to reorder his life so that she had a place in it.
Then he reminded himself that she still hadn’t told him how she felt about him. Having great sex together didn’t necessarily mean anything would come of it. He might have been her first lover, but he might not be her last, and that thought didn’t sit well with him. He sure as hell didn’t want her doing this with anyone else!
He looked over at her. Her head was lying in the curve of his shoulder and chest. Her face was half covered by her hair, and she was sound asleep. He’d worn her out, he guessed. And while that made him smile, he wished he could ask her what she wanted out of their relationship.
Did they have a future together? Or would it all end the moment they found his brother? Lord, she was so precious to him! How was he going to be able to let her go when he had to return to duty? Could he ask her to follow him from one assignment to the next, from one base to the next? Would it be fair to her to leave her alone for months, maybe even a year at a time in some strange city? She was so close to her family. Colleen probably really needed her now that Dylan was gone. And Hanna had such a great career here. What did he have to offer her? The military was hard on a wife and kids. He knew that from bitter personal experience.
Damn! He didn’t have any answers, and he wasn’t sure he could ask her about all this stuff in the morning. He felt torn between her and the life he had created for himself, a life he wasn’t ready to abandon. But damn, he wasn’t ready to leave her, either. He might be a battle-hardened Marine, but he figured she could easily bring him to his knees.
Taking the easier way out, he decided to wait for time and circumstances to reveal what kind of future he and Hanna had together. They were very close to finding out where Lance was, and that was the task they both needed to focus on for the time being.
CHAPTER 20
BRILLIANT SHAFTS OF SUNLIGHT burst through the double French doors off the balcony, sparkling like prisms through the beveled panes of glass. Conditioned to rising at dawn, although he suspected it was well past that, Nick turned his head to look at the woman lying naked beside him.
Partially covered by the bed sheet, Hanna was still soundly asleep, curled on her side against him, one hand touching his chest, as if to reassure herself he was still next to her. She had a knee thrown over his, and one narrow foot buried between his calves, while he had one arm hooked under her neck, his hand resting on her bare shoulder.
Her face was mostly obscured by her tousled gold hair. Gently, he brushed it back from her eyes and tucked it behind a jade studded ear. She was so incredibly lovely!
It pleased him she wore the earrings and necklace that he’d sent her for her last birthday so often. His gift wasn’t a sailboat, but the set seemed to be her favorite pieces of jewelry. Not for the first time, Nick wondered what that meant. Maybe he’d have to find a ring that matched.
Or maybe he’d have to find her a ring of a different nature— perhaps an engagement ring? He let the notion rattle around in his brain for a few minutes and discovered it definitely bore serious consideration.
Mrs. Nick Kelly. He liked that. Having Hanna in his life permanently, taking her back to San Diego with him still sounded pretty damn good to him. He might not be able to wake up to her sweet warm body every morning if he was overseas or out in the field, but he sure as hell could look forward to having her there when he came home. And, hell, he was more than due for some state side deployment for a change.
Now that he was a colonel, he could expect some less dangerous assignments, couldn’t he? He was in the process of wondering if his commander might agree to some stateside deployment when she opened her gorgeous green eyes and looked up at him with a drowsy smile.
“Good morning, Colonel.”
“Good morning, Doctor.”
His fingertip traced a leisurely path down her nose and around her parted lips. “You look so pretty in the morning.” He had to make a second slow outline of her mouth. It was just too soft and inviting to resist.
Her thick dark lashes swept downward, then lifted to reveal a glittering gaze that scanned his bare torso. “You look pretty good yourself in the morning.”
Nick propped his hea
d on a fisted hand. The added elevation allowed him to see more of her. His assessing gaze swept her thinly veiled nudity. It hit him then that this was the first time they had awakened in each other’s arms.
“I like sleeping with you all night ad waking up beside you,” he informed her huskily. “Having you snuggled up against me, naked, is pretty damned nice.”
She stretched, wanting to purr like a contented cat. “I like sleeping with you, too.” Her fingertip followed the deep muscular indentation in the center of his wide chest that marked the space between his well-cut pectorals. “I wish we could spend all day in bed, like this.”
“Yeah, I do, too.” But at least they weren’t in any big hurry to go somewhere.
As she edged closer to his big body he hooked his arm around her waist, turned to fully face her, and pulled her to him, securing her up against his long muscular limbs. Her breasts got crushed against his hard chest as he kissed her, his mouth slanting over hers, his tongue sliding inside to tangle with hers. When he felt he had given her mouth a thorough treatment, he moved to her cheekbone, then her eyelids, closing them. Hanna sighed in sweet surrender and stroked the whole length of his body with hers, slithering against him.
His lips slid to her temple as he nuzzled into her hair. “God, you feel good!” he groaned, his mouth and breath tickling her. “You smell good, too. Like lilacs— and me.”
Hanna caught her breath, then giggled. “You smell like lilacs, too... and me.”
He groaned in dismay this time. “So, I pretty much smell like a flower pot?”
“Pretty much.”
He ruffled her hair. “Aw, my sweet Hanna, what’s happening between us after all these years?”