21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (138 page)

He really had come home.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey.”

“So...I have a confession.” She licked her lips, the shyness a hint in her gleaming, passion-drenched glaze. He’d put that look there.

His heart thudded with pride. “What do you want to confess?”

“I found something I like better than chocolate.”

Laughter rumbled out of him and he buried his face to her neck again, nuzzling her soft skin. “Give me a little while and I’ll get you seconds so you can be sure.”

Her answering groan sent a shiver up his spine, even as her softening muscles tightened around his cock. “Can you die from good sex?”

“I don’t know. But I aim to find out.”

Six months to the day, Rowan sat on the edge of the lake at the house and sighed. Summer Solstice meant rising temperatures, lazy heat, and a restlessness she couldn’t contain. Had it really been six months since she spent Yule with the best man she’d ever met? He’d followed her home from the Lake House, staying with her in her too tiny apartment for the next week. Fortunately, Christmas break meant she only had to work three days before having five days off.

They never did make it to her parents’. Before New Year’s, though, she had to drive him to the airport—kiss him goodbye, and wait. Ten days of bliss and six months of waiting. He’d not waffled once, calling her every chance he had and, three days after he left, she’d received a delivery of three roses, one red, one white, and one yellow along with a spring of mistletoe—and she’d received similar deliveries once per week since. They always said the same thing.

Save me the kiss
….

“How do you feel about North Carolina?” The deep voice was the last thing she’d expected to hear. Whirling around, she saw only Kaiden’s smiling face and let out a whoop. It took her no time at all to leap to her feet and race toward him. He caught her in a tight hug, and then his mouth was on hers and everything else faded away.

When she came up for air, her heart raced and her soul sang. “North Carolina?”

“Camp Lejeune. That’s my assignment. I don’t know for how long, but they’re looking for a few civilian contractors for their IT needs—we’d have to get you clearance, but….”

“Yes.” She didn’t care. Hooking her arms around his neck, she grinned. “If it means I get to be with you, then yes.”

His smile dimmed and his expression sobered. “Rowan, I need you to be sure—you’d be leaving everyone here.”

“What does your gut say?” She teased the short strands of his hair and wondered what it would be like if he were ever able to grow it out. She’d seen the pictures of him in high school; he’d had the most adorable curl that drifted over his forehead then.

“It says you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and if you can get a job there, then this assignment means we can be together.” He’d changed again, but she didn’t see darkness in his eyes—only hope.

“Then I’m certain.” She had a job. She could get another job. Moving away didn’t mean losing her friends, it meant they’d have to come and visit. “I’ve
missed
you.” More than she could express in words.

“Yeah?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Stretching up onto her tiptoes, she began to pepper his face with kisses. “And I believe I owe you about thirty of these.”

His laughter vibrated against her. “Those weren’t what I was counting.”

Heat scorched her and she leaned away. “Really?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He spread his palm over her hip and then stroked over the tattoo hidden by her tank top. “Thirty or more. At least.”

“I love you, Sergeant Grumpy.”

He nuzzled the corner her mouth. “Say it again.”

Feeling freer, fuller than she had in months, she giggled and obeyed. “I love you, Sergeant Grumpy.”

“Enough to be Mrs. Grumpy?”

Tears blanketed her vision and she swallowed. The proposal threatened to undo her. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” He scowled. “I’d have asked you before I left, but you didn’t believe me enough to trust my gut.”

She flushed and glanced down. “You’re right, I didn’t—but you didn’t give up on me.”

“Hell no, so you go ahead and say no. I’ll ask you again tomorrow.” He claimed her for a branding kiss, letting go of her long enough to say, “and then I’ll ask you the day after that.” Another soul-burning kiss. “And the day after that.”

“You don’t give up, do you?” she managed when he let her have some air.

“No, ma’am. I don’t. Not when you’re mine.” The declaration held such sensual promise and determination, she gave up the ghost of resistance. Six lonely months had been enough.

Pressing her hand to his shirt, over the steady beat of his heart, she smiled. “Yours.”

“Be sure,” Kaiden warned her, his grip tightening. “Because I can go to your apartment, pack you up, and rent the U-Haul right now.”

“Or you can take me up to the house and we can make love all afternoon while everyone else plays in the lake?” She didn’t even finish the question before he swept her up and over his shoulder. Laughing, she paddled his back. “Kaiden—everyone can see!”

From the lake, she heard the whoops and the whistles. Busted already.

“Let them watch.” His pace didn’t slow. “I’ve got some kisses to collect.”

Always a Marine Book 20

By

Heather Long

Jingle Bell Rock
blasted through the speakers and more than one voice jammed out to the familiar tune, echoing the song up and down the hall. The music still invaded his room, even after one of the nurses closed the door for him. Rebel thumbed the volume louder on the television, hoping to mute the insidious little ditty before it wormed further into his brain.

A cramp fisted in his thigh and Rebel dropped the remote, digging his fingers into the recalcitrant muscle. He gritted his teeth and a hiss of air escaped—his only concession to the pain radiating up from his calf to pinch his quadriceps.
It’s all in your head, Marine. Suck it up
. He had no calf muscle to cramp.

Because he had no damn calves.

Staring steadily at the news report offered him a grim distraction. Trouble in the Baltics and civil war raging in an African nation earned top news bites. Somewhere, someone always hurt worse than he did. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, he tried to distract himself, but the thunk of the faux foot on wood didn’t have the same effect.

The door opened, adding fresh punch to his misery as Frosty the Snowman followed the luscious, caramel-skinned torturer who looked after Rebel.

“Close the damn door.” He regretted the snarl the moment it passed his lips. The aggravating pain in his quad wouldn’t let go and had begun to radiate up his back. Flattening his prosthetic foot had zero effect and the socket friction on his skin was compounded by the song replicating like a virus across the walls of his mind.

“Good afternoon to you, too.” Noel Torres pushed the door closed with a thump. “Cramps?” She didn’t wait for his answer before crossing the room and adding her nimble fingers to the job. Seizing his thigh in both hands, she dug her thumbs right into the center of the knot, brutalizing him with a fresh wave of agony. “You know the drill, Rebel.” Snappy and crisp, her tone demanded he listen and her gaze clashed with his. “Breathe.”

He could no more ignore the order than he could the heady scent of her perfume—not that he was expert in such matters. Noel’s was an exotic, distinctly feminine scent he associated only with her, and for the last year, it had been his salvation. Deep breaths calmed his racing heart as her thumbs continued to apply pressure to the violent spasm seizing his muscle until bit-by-bit, it eased.

“Breathe,” she ordered him. “In for four. Hold. Out for four.”

Struggling to follow the command, he kept his attention on her. Dressed in a deep-yellow polo shirt that truly brought out her skin tone and her long black hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, she looked all of twelve years old.

Yeah, if twelve looked hot and edible
…. He scowled at the new direction his mind wandered and Noel squeezed his thigh. A burning lance of sensation stabbed him and then the muscle let go entirely and he wanted to weep.

“You’re holding your breath again.” She frowned but shifted her grip on his thigh and begun to massage it.

Reminded, he exhaled a hard sigh. “Hurts like a bitch.”

“Of course it does, you’re tense and getting worked up. You know your mood has as much of an effect on your recovery as your exercise regimen.” Disapproval hung off the last two words and Rebel huffed. “And don’t you take that impatient note with me. Did you really think they wouldn’t tell me you skipped physio three days this week?”

“I was tired.” He tried to look around her, but she only adjusted her firm touch to knead the taut muscles of his other thigh.

“Bullshit. Your physio is not an option. Get a grip on your panties, Marine. You don’t get to play the
I’m-too-tired
card. We put a pin in that one month ago.”

Three months before, he’d been in the midst of a black depression and slept day in and day out. He refused to go to therapy, refused to engage with his psych evaluation, and damn near ended up on forced medication. Noel hadn’t allowed him the luxury of mind-numbing drugs. Instead, she’d all but dragged him out of bed, helped him into a wheelchair, and took him for a walk in the park—pushing him around like a baby in a pram. Humiliating—but effective. He returned to therapy the next day—and she’d smiled at him.

The soothing stroke of her fingers unlocked the tension in his gut. “How was your trip?” he asked. Maybe distraction would work. Noel had gone to her brother’s wedding, and spent a long weekend in Laredo with her sprawling family.

“Nice try, but because I love my brother, I’ll tell you it was a beautiful wedding. But we are not talking about me, Reb.” She pinched him and he grimaced. “Why no physio?”

“Did your parents try to fix you up?” He applauded the levelheadedness of the question. She’d joked that family weddings meant matchmaking to her mother who always paired the singles up in hopes that someone would catch a spark. It irritated him.

Pausing, Noel grabbed a pair of sterile gloves and slid them on. The brush of her fingers on his thigh turned featherlight as she transferred her attention to the socket, and hooked her thumbs into the sleeve to pull it down. “You want to know about the table full of sexy men I had to sit at, tell me why you didn’t go to physio.”

Table full? Irritation soured in his gut. “You’re a bully.”

“And talking to me sweet is just the way to get what you want.” She winked and tugged the sleeve away from his stump. Her humor faded. “Dammit, Rebel. It’s irritated as hell in here. Why didn’t you take these off?”

“Didn’t notice,” he lied, and then had to clamp his teeth as she explored the raw skin with her fingers.

“Bullshit. And that’s two.” Turning away from him, she stripped her gloves, disposed of them, and went to the cabinet and began to pull out supplies. “You know what happens at three.”

“I’d like to see you put me in that damn wheelchair.” His system revved at the idea of grappling with her—not that she wouldn’t win. No way in hell would he hurt her.

“Keep it up and you will.” Returning with a washcloth, water, soap, and salve, she dragged her chair over. Donning a fresh pair of gloves, she nodded to him. “Brace your hands.”

Palms down on the bed, he endured her removing the sockets and prosthetics so she could clean and inspect the raw, torn skin marring the stumps that remained of his legs. He’d lost both knees and everything beneath. Fixing his gaze on the television, he tried to ignore the bleakness sliming across his soul.

“These are a bad fit. I thought we’d gotten it closer, but we’re going to have to do some modifications. I’ll call down as soon as we’re done.” Cool ointment soothed the inflamed skin. Despite her attitude and sass, she touched him with absolute gentleness.

“It doesn’t matter, just bandage them up and put the sockets on.” Grabbing the remote, he changed the station away from the commercials about all the great things Santa could find at the local retail chains. Silence met his request and he sighed. “Yeah, I know. Bullshit number three.”

“Good man. I’ll finish doctoring these and get the wheelchair.” She gave his thigh an affectionate squeeze. Odd how he didn’t mind when she touched him, or treated him, or cleaned up the mess he’d made of his stumps. He hadn’t quite mastered the timing on the new prosthetics and when he’d realized the damage, he hadn’t allowed any of the other nurses to give him a hand.

“So—” He made a face. “Table full of sexy men?”

“You want to hear, you know the price.” She spread more salve over the torn skin. The contact warmed him even as the medication cooled the soreness.

“I don’t want to tell you.” And if that didn’t come out like a whine, nothing would.