The Marine's Family Mission

by Victoria Pade

  “Ten who are around our ages, plus their ten spouses, plus GiGi—the grandmother—and her husband. That adds up to twenty-two,” he said.

  “Good thing they all brought food—that would have been a lot of extra mouths,” Emmy offered, not sure what else to say.

  “Yeah, I was surprised they each brought a dish like everybody else instead of acting like the big shots they are—who I’m sure always get catered to otherwise,” Declan said facetiously.

  “Maybe they just saw on the invitation that it was potluck so they did what everybody else did because they’re more down-to-earth than you thought?” she ventured. That was how they’d seemed to her and she was trying to temper his preconceived notions of them, to maybe open his eyes a little.

  Declan didn’t respond for a moment and she wasn’t sure if saying something positive about the Camdens irked him.

  But then he breathed another of those wry laughs and said, “Yeah, I’ll give them that—or at least that they’re good at making it seem like they’re real people instead of hoity-toity.”

  Emmy couldn’t help smiling at that term because it didn’t seem like one Declan would use. “Hoity-toity?” she repeated to tease him, hoping to lighten the mood.

  It worked because he stood straight and smiled at her. “Do you like high-and-mighty better?”

  “They all just seemed like everyone else...nice...” Emmy said. “I thought they handled themselves and the situation pretty well, actually. They didn’t rush you all at once, they each came over separately to introduce themselves so you had some one-on-one with everyone—and so they had some one-on-one with you. Everybody was friendly but not gushy—I didn’t think you’d like it if somebody tried to hug you or something—”

  “No, I wouldn’t have.”

  “But all the guys offered their hands when you were introduced. There were a lot of get-to-know-you questions and they seemed sincerely interested in the answers. Your grandmother—”

  He made a face. “Don’t call her that.”

  “Okay, the-woman-who-is-technically-your-grandmother,” Emmy rephrased with an exaggerated eye roll to make a joke out of it, “asked you to call her GiGi the way everyone else does, and gave you and Liam that sweet little talk about how sorry she was that she didn’t know you before now, and how she hopes she can make up for lost time...”

  “Uh-huh,” Declan said guardedly.

  “So she didn’t ignore the fact that she is your grandmother but she also didn’t try to force anything with you—like some kind of false familiarity.”

  Declan nodded but didn’t say anything to that.

  “And they were all really warm to Kinsey—and since it was important to her that they recognize her relationship to them I thought that was good. They could have come but still made you feel like family outsiders, and they didn’t do that.”

  “Yeah,” Declan conceded but without any enthusiasm. “I guess for Kinsey’s sake it was good. She definitely looked happy—happier even than she did before they showed up. Just one big happy family...”

  Emmy made a face at his tone. “You don’t think it ever will be just one big happy family?” she asked.

  She expected a resounding no from him.

  But after a moment he relaxed some of his hard shell and shrugged. “I can’t say I feel warm and fuzzy about the idea, but I guess anything is possible. And I suppose they did take one hell of an awkward situation and handle it about as well as it could have been handled.”

  So he was being fair and reasonable despite his own feelings. Emmy liked seeing that. And ran with it. “Maybe it would help if you keep in mind that none of them knew anything about you or Liam or Conor or Kinsey before Kinsey came forward with your mother’s letter. They didn’t have any more responsibility for what happened than you did.”

  Only silence filled the air for a moment but Emmy had the impression that he was letting that sink in. And she thought that was a step forward, too.

  Then, as if he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, he gave her a smile and said, “And were you enjoying playing mama-bear with me tonight?”

  “Mama-bear?” she echoed, asking herself if that was what she’d been doing.

  It sort of was, she admitted when she thought about it. But she wasn’t altogether sure it was a title she wanted any more than when he’d called her tough. Mama-bear sounded so frumpy. Which at that moment especially, standing in front of this hella-handsome man, was about the last thing she wanted to be.

  “You hightailed it over to me the minute they came in the door, squeezed my hand—” he added a sexy innuendo to that part “—and stayed close by the whole rest of the night. I kept thinking that if one of the Camdens stepped out of line you might take them down.”

  “That’s me—I’m known for tackling little old ladies if I don’t think they’re behaving themselves,” she said with some facetiousness of her own.

  Declan’s handsome face erupted into another smile. “I can usually take care of myself—even with little old ladies. But Conor had Maicy, Liam had Dani... It was kind of nice to know you were hanging around in my corner...”

  Emmy could feel the heat of a blush come into her cheeks, embarrassed to have acted so protective of him. Him of all people. As if he needed it. As if he was hers to protect...

  “I was just trying to be supportive,” she said to give it a different connotation.

  “Still kind of nice,” he said quietly, moving from his side of the island to hers, resting one hip against the counter beside her.

  Emmy turned to face him and shrugged, deciding she might as well own it after all. “I don’t know why I did it. I just didn’t like the idea of you being on your own...especially if the Camdens’ arrival meant tongues started wagging like when you were a kid... I guess yes, I was being a frumpy mama-bear.”

  His cobalt blue eyes dropped to give her a bit of an ogle before they rose to her face again. “Who said frumpy?” he asked with more innuendo. And a wicked smile to go with it.

  “It’s right there in the name, isn’t it? Mama-bear? Mama-bears are all big and hairy and hulking.”

  He laughed again. “That’s you all right—all big and hairy and hulking,” he repeated sarcastically, moving a step closer. “And intimidating as hell. Those Camdens had no idea what they might have had to be up against...”

  Emmy couldn’t help but smile at that. “Don’t make fun.”

  “Never,” he vowed. “Especially when it’s me who wants to be up against it...”

  That one was more than innuendo but he was just standing there, studying her with those gorgeous blue eyes, not making any move at all to prove his claim.

  In fact, instead he said, “Maybe you should go up to bed.”

  “You’re sending me to my room?” she half joked.

  “Last night has had a hold on me ever since you stopped it,” he said in a voice suddenly gravelly. “Now here we are again, this day and night behind us, and that hold is getting stronger by the minute. But I don’t want to start something you don’t want...”

  She had been the one to stop things last night. So of course he must have come away thinking that she didn’t want to go any further.

  He couldn’t have been more wrong. It was how much she’d wanted to continue that had scared her off. And worrying that she’d be behaving recklessly if she went through with it.

  Except that there he was—tall and macho and masculine, his dark hair just a hint wavy atop a flawless face and eyes too beautiful to believe. And nothing had ever appealed to her less than playing it safe. Particularly when she’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted him. Last night. Every minute since last night. Right now...

  And yet she couldn’t repeat old patterns, she reminded herself. Those old patterns that turned her into some wide-eyed teenage girl who took a simple hi from a cute boy and made it
the start of writing Mrs. Cute Boy all over her notebook.

  With Declan standing there looking as good as he did, telling her he wanted her, she was afraid of giving in and then getting blindsided again when she was the only one who assumed falling into bed meant they’d already started falling in love.

  But what if she didn’t read more into anything than it was? she asked herself. What if she didn’t expect this to go anywhere except the bedroom? For this one night?

  If that was all she expected this to be, then she couldn’t be blindsided again, could she? Because then she wasn’t letting go of her caution; she was just giving in to the fact that they were two normal, healthy adults finding their way to each other for a night. And as long as she didn’t fall into the trap of making more of it than that, then maybe she could have at least this one night...

  “I never said I didn’t want it,” she heard herself tell him.

  He arched challenging eyebrows at her. “Then I missed something...”

  “Just because I want something doesn’t mean I can let myself have it.”

  He nodded. “Doughnuts, second pieces of pie, three candy bars...” he said as if he understood. “But if I’m the something? Just so you know—you have my permission to have as much as you want.”

  Emmy laughed again. “And nothing changes between us?” she said as if it was a stipulation.

  “You call the shots,” he assured.

  “Ooh, I get to be the boss...” she joked.

  Declan merely grinned another of those ornery grins. “I’m game. I just don’t want something to start that isn’t going to get to end,” he warned as if he didn’t quite trust her.

  “I wasn’t teasing you last night. I just...wasn’t sure,” she said honestly.

  He nodded again. “Fair enough.” He went on looking at her for a moment longer before he repeated, “So maybe you should go up to bed. And we should call it a night.”

  If she was still unsure—that was the unspoken part.

  Again she offered herself the option of playing it safe. But it didn’t have any more appeal now than it had had a few minutes earlier.

  “But I have your permission tonight,” she challenged.

  That hella-handsome face of his erupted into a slow smile. “You do,” he confirmed.

  “So you’re sure.”

  He laughed. “Oh yeah!”

  “Maybe I am, too.”

  “No maybes,” he decreed.

  He was near enough for her to stand on her toes and kiss him—nothing exotic, just a simple kiss before she dropped down to flat feet again.

  “Testing?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Saying yes,” she said softly.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Because you know, I’ve been injured, I’m fragile.”

  That really made her laugh—he was anything but that.

  But she played along anyway. “So you want me to be gentle?”

  He just grinned more.

  “I’ll do what I can to take it easy on you but I can’t make any promises,” she mock warned.

  “So that’s a yes?” he asked quietly.

  She answered that by reaching up and unfastening his top shirt button.

  He didn’t do more than look down to watch her work her way to his waistband. When she got there she tugged his shirttails free and finished the buttons, leaving his shirt open and finally giving her a glimpse of what she’d only been imagining to that point—a naked chest that could have been on the cover of any athletic magazine.

  But he let her have that glimpse for only a moment before he used a crooked index finger under her chin to raise it.

  He leaned in to kiss her then but still didn’t actually do it. Instead he peered into her eyes and studied her face as if to make it all a memory he intended to keep with him. Or maybe just to make sure that she wouldn’t change her mind...

  Then he finally did kiss her. As sweetly and chastely as he had to end the evening before, moving his hand to the side of her face where it stayed in a downy caress.

  But any doubts he still might have had must have dissolved then because the kiss soon gathered steam, his lips parting, beckoning for hers to, as well. And when they did, his tongue began a leisurely and so-sensual entrance that lured hers into play.

  Emmy hadn’t unbuttoned his shirt for no reason—she seized the opportunity to slide her hands inside it to his chest.

  She relished the feel of his skin over those honed pectorals. She let her hands go where they might, up and over robust shoulders to his expansive back, down bulging biceps so that his shirt came free and hung on his wrists until he let it fall to the floor.

  By then the kiss was something more. Mouths were open wide, parting, returning and toying with the other devilishly as tongues grew bolder and more assertive.

  Declan reached around her and unzipped her dress. That sent the spaghetti straps falling and the straight neckline gaping low enough for her to feel cooler air on the upper swells of her breasts above the demi-cup bra. She’d put it on tonight with this in mind—all the while not admitting to herself that this was exactly how she hoped the evening would end.

  His hands went to the sides of her waist then, and as if she weighed nothing he lifted her to sit on the island counter just before his mouth moved to those upper swells and he kissed them instead, causing her nipples to stand at attention inside the lacy bra.

  But they were in the kitchen. And she didn’t want this to happen on the cold slab of the countertop.

  So she took his face in her hands to raise from her breasts and initiated a kiss herself before bending to his ear, teasing it with her tongue and whispering, “Upstairs...”

  “You’re the boss,” he said, lifting her from her perch, taking her hand and leading her to her bedroom.

  His shoes and socks were the first to go when they got into the space bathed in the cozy light of a bedside lamp.

  Then he rediscovered her mouth with his and unhooked her lacy bra, tossing it aside before lowering her dress to her waist and wrapping his arms around her. He held her so that her bare breasts pressed to his bare chest, their bodies so close that the ridge behind his zipper came up against her.

  Her arms went around him to bring them even closer together. She let her hands explore every muscle of his back while they went on making a kind of love with their mouths.

  But only for a while before he eased them both onto the bed and his mouth went to her breasts again, this time taking one fully into that warm, wet cavern, where he sucked and teased and nipped her nipple into willing submission.

  He used one hand to pull her dress off completely, leaving her in only lacy bikinis. Compared to her near-nakedness, his pants seemed like armor. So she unfastened them to let him know they had to go.

  He was apparently more than willing, because he deserted her then, took a condom from his pocket with his index and middle fingers to toss onto the mattress, and dropped his slacks and the boxers underneath them to kick across the floor.

  As much as she wanted him back on the bed with her, she also wanted to look at him.

  Stark naked and definitely something to see, he was stupendous in all his glory, and the proof that he wanted her was awe inspiring.

  Then he did come back to the bed to lie beside her and kiss her again while Emmy sent an eager hand to glide along his side and dip forward, enclosing it around him and showing him that she could drive him a little wild, too.

  Too wild, it seemed, to go on merely kissing her because his mouth abandoned hers to gasp for air even as his hand trailed a path down her stomach and between her legs, where he slipped an expert finger inside her.

  Her grip around him tightened enough to make him moan and then moan again when she did some tantalizing of that steely shaft, until it se
emed he couldn’t take much more and he rolled away from her to make the quickest work of that condom.

  Then he kissed her once again as he came on top of her, slid into her with more than his finger and settled as if he was home and wanted to savor it for a moment.

  The kiss was slow and sexy this time. One hand alternated between her breasts, kneading and squeezing, circling nipples, giving them a gentle tug, a pinch, a palm to nestle into and only making her desire for him surge through her.

  He pulsed inside her, went in deeper, and that was all it took for a climax to take her by surprise.

  But just when it began to pass he went in deeper still then retreated, in and out again. And again. And that peak hung on. Grew.

  Meeting him, hips to hips, withdrawing only to meet him again, she matched the pace even as it sped up, taking him in, releasing him only because she knew he’d be back again as need gathered and drove them both, growing and building. The taste of a second climax finally took a full grip on her and carried her into the brightest, most brilliant explosion of ecstasy.

  It caught her breath and arched her back and had her clinging to him just as he found his own peak. For a moment, they were both suspended in the embrace of pure bliss while waves and waves of it made nothing as important as their bodies melded together and riding it out.

  Until that passion expended itself and receded little by little, leaving Emmy spent in the very best of ways beneath Declan’s weight and the perfect union of his body to and within hers.

  “I don’t think I took it easy on you,” she whispered when her breath returned, when she could find the words, suddenly remembering his injured leg and wondering how it had withstood the workout he’d just given it. “Was that too much for you?”

  He laughed, the sound gravelly and satiated and sexy all at once. “Too much for me?”

  “Your leg...your knee...”

  He pushed himself up onto his forearms and kissed her again, a kiss that echoed with all that had come before it, until he ended it and dropped his forehead to hers.

  “My leg could have broken in two and I wouldn’t have felt it,” he assured with another laugh. “Trust me, my leg was not where things were fired up. How about you?”