Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (35 page)

"I think kissing would be okay." He palmed her hips to rock against his while holding himself still. "As long as we didn't enjoy it too much and start moving around."

Her husky laugh ended short, captured by his mouth. In his mouth. Pent-up adrenaline, edgy battle aftermath channeled itself into drugging desire for the sexy, pliant woman in his arms.

Who the hell ever said they had to get naked to get busy? Or for at least one of them to get seriously busy, anyhow, because his leg did hurt like hell and he couldn't risk putting himself out of commission.

His hand skimmed her hip, forward, between her legs to cup her hot mound in his hand. He rubbed gentle circle massages of his palm against her. Her breathing sped, her reaction to his touch as instan-damn-taneous as always.

Her oh-so-getting-busy fingers skipped between them, onto him. Adrenaline aftermath was working its magic on both of them. His hard-on leaped in response and if he didn't stop her soon, the rest of him would be grinding against the cradle of her hips.

He clamped her wrist. "I meant it when I said I don't think I can right now. If I flex any muscles—" one major muscle in particular "—I'm gonna whimper like a baby for real. But it would bring me immeasurable pleasure to pleasure you. Call it a macho ego kick if you want, but it gives me such a rush hearing you come and knowing I brought you there."

Her panting moan of consent, insistent urging, split his restraint.

By touch in the dark, he located the zipper on her flight suit, traced its path down her belly until he located the tab between her legs. Lucky for them, flight suit zippers opened both ways, up as well as down.

He inched it up, not far, but far enough to slide his fingers inside to cotton bikini-cut panties. Damp cotton.

Thank you, yes. He scooched aside the crotch, tucked in to find...

Immeasurable pleasure.

Her breathing snagged, picked up pace, pressing her generous breasts against him, faster, harder with fuller breaths. With her free arm, her hand fluttered over him in restless patterns that lacked control. Her hands fisting in his hair. Clutching his shoulders. Skimming around to his buttocks before sliding up again to his back.

He parted her, slid two fingers into moist, tight heat. Her hands stopped moving altogether.

Deeper he dipped, crooked his fingers with a beckoning twitch until he found—

"Oh, yes," she whispered. "Right there. Don't stop."

The roaring storm outside echoed the adrenaline storm in his head, rushing with a pounding need to feel this woman come apart in his arms. Elemental forces raged outside and in. Nature at its most basic.

He accepted that his feelings right now weren't pretty or even civilized. Combat did that to him. Her, too, apparently.

Driven, hungry, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, swept, searched, mimicking the motions with his fingers. He needed Monica to unravel for him. Needed to mark her as his, to claim her and to prove that at least on some level they connected.

While he guided her with his fingers inside, his thumb worked gentle torment outside, coaxed until he felt her muscles tighten, pulse around him. So damned responsive, fast and ready. Now. He captured her sighs of completion with another kiss until finally she relaxed against him.

If only things could always be this simple between them. In the past he would have said something funny right about now, make her laugh, his gift to her. She might be sarcastic, but rarely light-hearted.

Great. He gave her knock-knock jokes and orgasms. What piss-poor offerings for this incredible woman.

I-love-you stuck in his throat again.

"Jack?" She snuggled closer now that his hand was no longer between them and nestled her face against his chest with a sated purr of contentment he recognized well.

"Yeah, Mon?"

Her fingers played with the short hair along the nape of his neck. "Why is it you always need to be in control of things, here, like this, between us in bed?"

In control? He would have laughed his ass off if it wouldn't hurt and pitch her onto the floor. He wasn't in control of squat these days. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"You're such an easygoing guy day by day. I've never understood why you're so emphatic about owning the bedroom. Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. You're a generous lover. Actually, I feel a little selfish sometimes. Like what have I given you back?"

If she didn't realize his shortcomings, he sure as hell didn't feel much like cluing her in. "Do you hear me complaining?"

"Well, no. But I don't think you would." Her doctor hands roved his body, his arm, back, soothing him in the only way she could at the moment.

"What do you give me? Christ, Monica, you're smart. You challenge the hell out of me. I could get off watching the way your brain wraps around things. You're loyal to your family, and that means a lot to me because family is important."
Dangerous territory, pal. Kids and family and forever.
"And you drive me crazy in bed. You always have. Does that answer your question?"

"I drive you crazy?" Her soft snort of disbelief gusted through his clothes and to his chest. "So damn crazy you're always in control."

No way could she not know how much he wanted her. No damn way. Or not?
Dig deep for the right
thing to say, Korba.
He was running out of chances to get his head out of his ass when it came to this woman. Monica melted over...the truth.

Guess he'd have to dig with a scalpel to pry that out. "Remember how I said Tina died?"

"In childbirth."

"Right." He bled a little more inside with each word picked free like bits of shrapnel from his leg. "Except she never should have been pregnant. She should have been thinking about choosing her classes for the next semester."

"Did you two have to get married?"

"No." Flashes of their wedding poured alcohol over his wounds, their big church ceremony packed with family, flowers and smiles. "We'd been married over a year before she got pregnant even though we'd both agreed to wait until after graduation to start a family. I got slack with birth control. And, well, there we were..."

"Oh, Jack," she sighed over him, rubbing more soothing circles across his back. "It's horribly unfair that anyone should die that young, and especially during what should be a time of celebration. But you can't really blame yourself for making love to your wife."

"I can't?"

"There were two of you in that bed. Birth control is the responsibility of both partners."

His ever-practical Monica.

"You're a woman. I don't expect you to understand."

"I would slug you for that sexist comment, but you're injured, so my Hippocratic oath prohibits me from harming you."

"Okay, so I grew up in an old-fashioned home, maybe a little behind the times. But my dad hammered it into my head from day one. A man takes care of his responsibilities. A real man protects women. His woman in particular. And I can't get past the sense that I failed on that one."

Monica went silent. Dangerous. She always could outthink him. He'd be ambushed and on his butt in a heartbeat.

"Is that really all you believe you have to offer a woman?'' Her hands slowed on his back.

"I'm not following."

"Is that really all you think you give me? Tantric sex and protection, whether it be with a condom or your 24/7 escort through a war zone?''

Trick question alert. He kept his yap shut. No answer had to be better than a major screw-up response.

"I carry my own condoms and gun." Her voice filled the small chamber, soft but firm. "If that's all you think you have to offer me in a relationship, then we really are toast."

Something he'd known from the start, but just kept hoping if he dazzled her enough...

"I love you. No maybes or someday about it." Her sad laugh drifted over to him. "It's strange how you used to say those three words all the time and I never thought you meant them. But now, when you're keeping quiet about your feelings, I sense more emotion coming off you than before. Not—" she pressed her fingers to his lips "—that I'm hinting for you to say anything. Those three little words that carry such a big commitment should only be said without reservation. Otherwise, it's damned cruel when they're taken back."

This line of argument, at least, he knew how to combat. "Don't confuse me with your mother. I would never walk out on a commitment. You know I'm not going to leave you."

Still missing those three words, Korba,
logic taunted.

"I'm not just a commitment or someone to protect, Jack."

Damn, this was getting out of control. He
was feeling out of control, something he sure as shit didn't need right now in the middle of a combat zone. Jack nudged her back until she had no choice but to sit up as he swung his legs off the bunk, a maneuver that hurt like a son of a bitch. "What the hell are we fighting about?"

"Nothing." She rushed to stop him, her hands falling on his shoulders to keep him from moving. "We're not fighting. You're resting."

"Then we're canning this conversation now or I'll be doing all my best Greek dances from the cockpit out the load ramp."

The fight seeped from her hands. "God bless it, Jack, I'm pissed. Don't make me laugh right now."

Yeah, he was good at that. Lob a joke at life when things got rough and leave the deep stuff to more sensitive dudes. Hell, he'd already dug so
deep
inside himself for what to give this woman he was damn near bleeding out.

And just that fast, an image of his dream slammed over him. Of Monica bleeding out. Time passing. Him not able to save her.

Now he knew. Her wounds weren't outside, but rather inside. Insecurities inflicted from her childhood. An elusive enemy he couldn't fight with weapons, but would have to look in himself for weapons he didn't possess.

This was his brother's territory, damn it. She needed substance that Jack was afraid hadn't been issued him by the big man upstairs along with a sense of humor and a cache of knock-knock jokes.

A whistle sounded from below. Crusty. Jarring Jack as well as Monica beside him.

"Hey, Korba," Crusty shouted up the stairwell with plenty of notice for anyone needing a chance to straighten clothes. "The licorice is all gone and the sandstorm is easing up. So roll your lazy ass out of the bunk and let's get Tiara to her sister."

A flashlight gained brightness as Crusty climbed the stairs. The beam increasingly illuminated Monica's face as she expected., .what? Jack stared back. He didn't have a clue what to offer her other than finishing this mission. Hell. It seemed they both agreed that's all he could do.

It was all Yasmine could do not to duck and run.

Perched on the top step of the building that had first been her jail and then her haven with Drew, she watched and waited with the others for the sister reunion. Finally, Monica and Sydney would see each other. Certainly she did not begrudge them one moment of the impending closeness or joy, what they had all been working toward.

She just hated feeling on the periphery of it all. She wanted to be invited into the circle of hugs and to rejoice with them, but knew she would not be welcome. No one had even bothered to tell her Sydney was being held hostage, instead leaving her to discover it in such a painful way.

Early morning sun poured over the crowd of Rangers parting as Monica plowed past, her pilot lover firmly at her back for support. The possessive stance stabbed at Yasmine, reminding her too much of what she could have had with Drew.

She focused on the throng of Rangers instead, studied their grit-covered faces and uniforms, sand from the now-passed storm caked in their sweat. For some, it caked in blood. Jack Korba limped ever so slightly as he followed Monica. What had all of these people been through during the night? Her eyes skittered along the group again, searching for Drew just to reassure herself he wasn't hurt and hiding it.

The mass parted on the opposing side. Sydney stepped through. Alive. Yasmine snuck a hand behind her back to steady herself against the cement wall while she searched her sister for signs of mistreatment.

Sydney walked slowly, but then she always did, their dreamer sister never rushing for fear she might miss something or someone. And yet this woman who already gave many of her days to others had been robbed of months of her life. Her normally short caramel hair now grazed her shoulders after so long without a cut, attesting to those lost months.

Monica and Sydney fell into a hug. There was no other way to describe it as both stumbled the last steps.

Reaching. Laughing. Crying. Unrestrained emotions and so much love mixed with grief.

The solid block of cement behind Yasmine wasn't enough to steady her. She couldn't imagine what would be.

Rage and shame scoured her. If only she had loosened her hold on her pride enough to communicate with her family, she might have known her sister was in Rubistan, then held hostage. Perhaps she could have sought information. Helped. Brought an easier end to the situation so all these battle-weary faces might have seen less blood today.

So young Private Santuci might have lived.

Self-examination stunk. Yasmine slipped her other hand behind her back for a double dose of steadying against the bullet-pocked wall.

Monica and Sydney eased apart from their hug. Tears streaked tracks down their dusty faces and slid into wide smiles.

"Are you okay, kiddo? God, I've missed you." Monica hugged Sydney again, pulled back. "Look at your hair. It hasn't been this long since you were in the second grade. Are you okay?" she asked again in an un-Monica-like jumble of words.

Sydney's hand tucked into the clasp of the grubby oversize soldier beside her. "I am now. I just want to go home. Sleep. Eat a whole pizza. Sleep some more."

"Soon. Very soon. Just a few more hours. And, hon, that pizza's on me." Monica's smile held firm, but her hands shook as she hooked her sister's hair behind her ear, eyes searching, sister and doctor in tandem seeking reassurance. "I need to check the three of you over while the rest of the medical team treats and loads up the wounded. And these folks need to check airfield security. Then we're out of this place."