Trusting a Warrior

by Melanie Hansen

  “Wow. You’re pretty good at this wardrobe director stuff,” she quavered. “I’ll be the best, uh, undressed woman at the party.”

  “Everyone will want to know what you’re not wearing,” he agreed modestly. “It’s true.”

  Chuckling, he moved around in front of her and tipped her chin up to gaze down into her eyes. “So beautiful,” he whispered before brushing the softest of kisses over her lips. Holding on to her hand, he helped her step out of the dress and bra now pooled around her ankles. Then he knelt in front of her and hooked his fingers in the sides of her delicate lace panties.

  As he eased them down her legs, Lani stroked his hair, her hand shaking with so much tenderness she felt choked with it. Geo glanced up at her, then leaned forward to nuzzle the swell of her belly, his arms wrapping around her hips.

  “Oh, how I wish...” Lani mouthed the words as he drifted his lips slowly, almost worshipfully, up her body until he was standing again, his breathing slightly ragged.

  “Is it time to go to the party?” she croaked. “’Cause I’m ready.”

  “Yeah? Me, too.” Geo yanked his T-shirt over his head and shucked his jeans. Her eyes dropped helplessly to his cock, which bobbed in between them, the swollen tip already slick with excitement.

  “Oh, my.” She gave him a few strokes, which made him hiss. “Lovin’ this party favor.”

  He pulled her close, letting out a sigh as her breasts flattened against his chest. “I’m thinking—” Geo bent to kiss her “—that we skip the party—”

  “What?” Her eyes widened. “No!”

  “—to go to a better one.” Swinging her up in his arms, he carried her to the bed.

  “Ohh.” She cupped his cheek and drifted her thumb over his lips. “I do like the way you think.”

  Bracing one knee on the mattress, he laid her gently in the middle of it, then eased over top of her, his kiss warm and coaxing. He licked, nipped, and tasted, as if savoring her, his hands gently arousing, until Lani arched up against him with a breathless moan. “Please.”

  “Mmm.” He trailed his open mouth between her breasts and nuzzled his nose against the curves. “Please what, darlin’?”

  She writhed when he sucked each nipple in turn, teeth gently scraping the pebbled flesh. As she lifted and spread her knees, he let out a soft hiss. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart.”

  She was already beyond words, so Lani yanked on his hair and showed him. The first touch of his lips on her clit had her crying out, hips moving restlessly. Geo didn’t tease her, didn’t make her wait, just opened her wide, the hot swirls of his tongue driving her out of her mind.

  Yet all too soon it wasn’t enough. “Please,” she gasped. “Need you inside me.”

  He thrust one finger deep, then two. “Fuck, baby, you’re so wet,” he growled, the tip of his tongue rasping across her clit. The hoarse note of satisfaction and possessiveness in his voice sent Lani careening over the edge, her orgasm sweeping through her in a sweet rush.

  He took her through it, easing her back to earth with soft licks and gentle sucks, at last brushing a kiss along the inside of one inner thigh before leaning over to the bedside table for a condom.

  Her blood still surging through her veins, she stopped him with a trembling hand on his shoulder. “I had a full testing panel at my OB’s when I found out I was pregnant. Everything’s negative.”

  Geo froze for the briefest of seconds, then straightened and sat back on his heels. “Negative at my last physical three months ago.”

  Her eyes dropped to his cock. Even as she watched, he wrapped his fingers around it and gave it a few rough strokes. She licked her lips and relaxed fully back into the mattress. “Then no condom.”

  A flush staining his cheekbones, Geo came down over top of her, his palms flat on the bed next to her shoulders. Slowly, deliberately, he circled his hips, dragging himself against her from base to tip. “This what you want?”

  The hard, thick column sliding over her hypersensitive flesh made her gasp. “Geo!”

  “Is it?”

  Reaching up behind herself, Lani grabbed onto her pillow and wound her legs around his waist. “Yes, it’s what I want,” she panted. “Please. I need you inside me.”

  Flush deepening, teeth bared, Geo notched the broad head against her entrance and started a slow, insistent rock. “Oh, God,” he ground out. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

  His head tipped back almost helplessly, eyes sliding closed. Planting his knees wide on the bed, he started to move, his thrusts starting out slow, but getting longer and harder as his need grew.

  Lani wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him with all her strength, reveling in his pleasure, his low moans. She arched up into him, the hair on his chest teasing her swollen nipples, his cock driving deep, stretching her wide.

  As her second orgasm built, she squeezed her own eyes shut, not wanting it to end, but he cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her with such tenderness that she was lost. She spiraled into bliss as he stiffened, his body throbbing inside hers, the words he breathed into her mouth sounding very much like, “I love you.”

  Love won’t be enough, Geo. It’s not going to be enough.

  She clutched onto him and buried her face in his neck.

  But God help me, I love you, too.

  * * *

  “Will you go somewhere with me tomorrow?”

  Anywhere. Lani turned onto her side to face him. “Where?”

  Haltingly, Geo told her about a plan to get together with some team guys and work on Renae’s yard. “I guess that can be part of my—what did Maura call it?—living amends to Cade. Being there for his family.”

  “Yes.” Reaching up, she stroked his cheek. “Of course I’ll come.”

  “I want to surround her with the community, show her that—” he took a deep breath “—that she’s not been completely abandoned.”

  Her heart aching, she thought again about her friend Suzette, and how hard it’d be for her to see Cade’s death in the same light as Harry’s.

  “I’m happy to go.” Pulling his head down, she kissed him softly. “Thank you for asking me.”

  A relieved sigh escaped him, and he pressed their foreheads together. “You are, hands down, the most incredible person I’ve ever met. I wish...”

  When his jaw tightened, she smoothed her thumb along it, tears pricking the backs of her eyes. “I wish, too,” she managed.

  With twin sighs, they settled down, her back to his front, his knees tucked up behind hers. Before long, he was asleep, his soft snores rumbling comfortingly in her ear. Lani lay awake, staring into the darkness, thoughts in a tangle.

  Could they make this work? How could they make this work?

  Geo twitched, his hand splaying low over her belly. As if in response, the baby moved, the sensation sharper than she’d ever felt it. She gasped, on the verge of waking Geo to tell him about it when she caught herself.

  It’s not his child.

  Does it matter? she argued silently. He’s invested, both in me and this pregnancy.

  Sure. It’s easy to be invested when the baby is an abstract, not a living, breathing reminder of another man.

  Geo’s not like that, she scolded her inner voice. He’s not the type of person who’d hold anything against an innocent child.

  But he’d be gone so much. Would they ever get to bond? You don’t want your child to have a part-time father.

  A father whose first priority—first love—would always be his job, his teammates. And besides, when had he said anything about wanting more? Could she really see him as a dad?

  Try as she might, Lani couldn’t picture it. She and Geo would always want different things, and when it was time to move on, they’d both move on.

  Eyes stinging, she stroked the back of his hand, whispering, “But damn,
you do throw one hell of a party.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I wonder if anyone will show.

  Geo gripped the steering wheel, his stomach in knots.

  Next to him, Lani sat quietly, a container of cookies on her lap. In the backseat was a large cooler holding the variety of sandwiches she’d insisted on getting up early to make.

  “They’ll bring the beer, so someone’s gotta bring the food,” she’d said jokingly.

  He was just afraid no one would show up to eat it.

  As he wound his way deeper into the pleasant Chula Vista neighborhood, his anxiety grew. He wanted this for Renae, wanted to show her that there were those in the community still there for her.

  He glanced at Lani, the uncomfortable truth making him squirm. He wouldn’t even be here now if it hadn’t been for her gentle encouragement. If it’d been left up to him, he would’ve kept his head buried in the sand, would’ve kept on running.

  And missed out on so much.

  Reaching over, he took her hand and threaded their fingers together. No matter what happened between them, she’d touched his life in ways he’d never forget.

  One last gradual curve, and Renae’s house came into view. Geo gasped, his hand tightening on Lani’s. Lining the curb on each side of the street were several large pickups and more than a couple of motorcycles.

  Team guys milled on the sidewalk dressed in jeans and T-shirts, some in loud-patterned board shorts and tank tops, all of them boisterous and—he rolled his eyes—holding cases of beer.

  “Told you!” Lani crowed with a triumphant smirk. “I think it’s going to be all right.”

  As soon as they got out of the car, Matt jogged up, and he and Geo bumped knuckles before flowing into a back-slapping hug. “You really came through, man,” Geo said fervently. “Thank you.”

  Matt grinned. “You’re welcome.” He turned to Lani, eyes widening. “Well, hey there, bartender lady. Remember me?”

  “Well, of course I do,” she exclaimed. “And congrats on your engagement! Shane’s a lucky guy.”

  “Nah, I’m the lucky one.”

  Faces animated, hands waving, they were talking about some bar fight Shane had been in when Rhys snuck up behind Lani, finger to his lips. She talked on, oblivious, until Rhys reached out and flicked her on the earlobe.

  “Ouch!” She whirled around. “Rhys, you asshole. You know I hate that!”

  Cackling, Rhys feinted and dodged the playful punches she threw. “Too slow,” he taunted after each one. “Missed me. Weak.”

  It was a game they’d obviously played many times before.

  The warmth in Geo’s chest splintered into painful shards of jealousy. He gritted his teeth, not quite sure what to do with it all, just as a pretty brunette walked up to them.

  “Now, children,” she said drily, and grinning, Rhys wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her close.

  “Well, hello, gorgeous,” he murmured. “Where have you been all my life?”

  Geo immediately tensed, berating himself for putting Lani in the position of having to see Rhys’s new girlfriend. Racking his brain, he was feverishly looking for a way to extricate her from the situation when Lani held her knuckles out to Devon.

  He could only gape in shock as Devon returned the fist bump.

  “Help me with the food?” Lani asked, and before he knew it, the two of them were headed for the car, chattering, laughing.

  His mouth hanging open, he stared in bemusement, dimly aware of a big white dude with a shaved head walking up to elbow Rhys.

  “That’s some next-level shit right there, man,” he rumbled, “your ex and your current squeeze gettin’ all chummy like that. Can’t imagine the stories those two tell each other about you.” He gave a dramatic shudder. “Poor bastard.”

  Rhys laughed. “More like lucky bastard, Grizz.”

  Grizz barked out an incredulous laugh. “If any of my exes dared show their faces around my wife, she’d—” Like the thought was too horrible to contemplate, he shook his head, popped open a beer and gulped down half the can.

  After he’d wandered away, Rhys crossed his arms over his chest and turned to Geo. “I didn’t realize you knew Lani.”

  Fighting the urge to fidget under his steady gaze, Geo grunted, “We’re friends. Have been for a few months now.”

  They both caught sight of Matt struggling to unload a tall ladder from a nearby pickup and jogged over to help him. As they set it up against the side of the house, Geo said quietly, “I’m lucky to have met her when I did. She’s, uh, helped me a lot in dealing with Cade’s death. I don’t know where I’d be without her right now.”

  Rhys’s face softened. “Yeah, she’s a good person.”

  “The best.”

  “She deserves to be happy.” Rhys’s eyes bored into his. “I’d hate to see her hurt.”

  “I’d never hurt her.”

  I love her.

  But Geo didn’t say that, and after a moment, Rhys smiled. “Of course she can take care of herself, but Devon would have my head if I didn’t at least attempt to warn you, so there, consider yourself warned.”

  They both chuckled, and with that, Rhys headed to join the group unloading a small cherry-picker from the back of someone’s trailer. Soon the air was filled with the sound of leaf blowers and the whine of a chainsaw. A few of the guys had brought their older kids and put them to work raking and bagging debris.

  His heart full, Geo was heading for the ladder to climb up to the roof when Renae called his name. They hugged each other tightly. “God, you don’t know how much I’ve missed this.”

  He pulled back to grin down at her. “What, a bunch of assholes invading your home? We used to do that a lot, didn’t we?”

  “And I loved every minute of it.” She blinked a few times, her eyelashes spiky with unshed tears. “So did Cade. This all feels like—well, it feels like old times. In the best possible way.”

  After a kiss to his cheek, she went to greet some new arrivals.

  Gripping the sides of the ladder, Geo was about to continue his climb when some movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye. Over at the far end of the yard, near the fence, Cade’s oldest daughter, Ari, was kicking a faded soccer ball into a small net.

  He hesitated, one foot still on the rung, wanting to approach her but not sure of his welcome. After all, it’d been so long since he’d seen her...

  On the verge of chickening out, he saw Ari glance over her shoulder at him, then quickly look away when she noticed him watching her.

  Okay. He had to go through with it now. His heart pounding, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and started wandering her direction. What the fuck did he say to a ten-year-old who’d just lost her father?

  His “Hey, kiddo” came out as nothing but a hoarse croak, so he cleared it and tried again.

  “Hey.” Ari glanced over at him, her blue eyes—so much like Cade’s—holding a wary bitterness that punched Geo right in the gut. “Haven’t seen you in forever.” She snorted. “Uncle Geo.”

  He was on the verge of playing it off as if he’d just been busy, when a long-forgotten memory popped into his head—his dad’s visitation, and the hushed, pitying voices whispering stupid euphemisms for death.

  He’s dead, okay? He’s not “asleep” or “in a better place.” He’s just fucking dead!

  What his eleven-year-old self wouldn’t have given for some simple goddamn honesty. If nothing else, he could offer that to Ari now.

  Praying for wisdom, he said, “I know. I’ve been really sad because your dad died.”

  Ari froze, then kicked the ball hard into the net.

  “I’m sorry. I still should’ve come to see you.” He waited, agonized, but she didn’t reply, her kicks getting harder and more vicious.

  Once again, Lani’s words popped
into his head. “Asking about him, about the person he was, is always the right thing to say.”

  Geo dropped to sit cross-legged on the ground, well out of her line of fire, and watched her for a minute before saying, “I remember once, when you made this awesome game-winning goal, your mom emailed your dad a video of it.”

  Ari abruptly put her foot on the ball to stop it, her head cocked in his direction, although she didn’t look at him.

  “He showed it to everyone on our base, you know?” he went on. “Whoever walked by got to see it.”

  Silence, and then, “Did you see it?”

  Chuckling, he said, “At least five times, no lie. Maybe more.”

  Ari shrugged, her toe worrying the ball back and forth. “Did he—” She took a deep breath. “What did he say about it?”

  What did he say about me?

  Her unspoken question lodged in Geo’s throat like a shard of glass. “How proud he was of you. That he knew how hard you’d been practicing to get better. That he—” Despite his best efforts, his voice broke. “That he wished he could’ve been there to see it.”

  Ari’s lips tightened, but for the first time, her eyes met his directly. The pain in them almost stopped his heart. “Then why—?”

  “I don’t know,” he said with quiet honesty. “I wish I did.”

  After a moment, she turned away and resumed her kicking. Instinctively, he stayed put, even as his stomach twisted itself into knots of inadequacy. At last she grunted, “No one wants to talk about him with me. Most people just say stupid shit.”

  She flicked another glance at him, as if gauging his reaction to the profanity, but Geo nodded. “I know. I remember getting pissed off about that, too, when my dad died.” He gave her a tentative smile. “Tell you what. Whenever you want to talk about your dad, just call me, okay? Anytime. I’ll make sure your mom has my number.”

  For one heart-stopping moment, Ari started to smile back, but then it faded, her eyes going blank again. “Sure. Except you’ll be on deployment,” she said flatly. “You’ll be gone all the time, too.”