Before the Mission Begins (When The Mission Ends) (5 page)

“What about our snowman?”

She glanced back at the half-formed ball and then to Chris’s extremely wet clothes. She had a goal for today and that couldn’t be accomplished if they spent the evening in the ER while he was treated for frostbite or hypothermia.

“Don’t you think pizza sounds better? That is, if you’re not going to freeze to death because you’re too wet.”

“I’m definitely wet, but not enough that I’ll turn down a trip to One Guy’s. It’s worth a little discomfort. We don’t have anything comparable in New Mexico.”

* * *

Julie felt bad when Chris grimaced as he sat in the booth, his jeans wet. “I’m sorry. We could get it to go.”

He was already shaking his head.
“No way. We walked over here. If we took it to go, the pizza would be cold by the time we got it home. I can deal with the dampness.” His teeth chattered a bit. “You’ll just owe me a hot shower.” His voice lowered and his eyes smoldered with promise. It was enough to curl her toes. “Together. When we get back to Cassie’s house, I’ll need your help so I can warm up.”

A shiver snaked down her spine directly to her core.
Oh my. Time for a bit of deflecting before she spontaneously combusted. She shifted in her seat and fiddled with the straw in her drink. “I know from Cassie that you can’t usually talk about where you’re deploying to. Is that the same this time?”

He nodded and frowned. “Unfortunately
, yes. Cassie hates that when we go somewhere.”

Concern ate at her gut. “Do you
know how long you’ll be gone?”

“Right now, it’s a six month deployment, but depending on the situation we find, it could be extended. That’s why I wanted to see Cassie in person to say goodbye to her. I’m sure I’m not
telling you anything you don’t already know when I say that she doesn’t handle it well when I’m out of the country.” As twins, Chris and Cassie were much closer than most siblings. Cassie hated it when he was out of the country and talked about it feeling like she was missing one of her limbs. Saying she didn’t handle it well was putting it mildly.

“Do you ever think about getting out
of the Air Force?”

“No, I love flying too much. I can’
t imagine not getting to experience that adrenaline rush when my jet takes off. There’s nothing like it in this world and even if I go to work for an airline, I won’t get the speed and natural high I get from my F-22. There’s just nothing else that can compare.”

His sapphire eyes literally sparkled
with the passion he had for his job and she understood why Cassie didn’t push him into the cockpit of a safe airline job.

Chris cocked his head.
“What about you? I know you work at the hospital, but I don’t even know what you do.”

“I’m a physical therapist.”

“Is that something you’ve always wanted to do?” He leaned forward and Julie was surprised that he actually seemed interested.

She
nodded. “My younger brother was in a car wreck when he was seventeen. He was in a coma for a couple of weeks and then spent months more in different forms of physical therapy trying to get his life back. I saw what the PT’s were able to do for him and decided I wanted to do that.”

“How is he now?”

She laughed indulgently. “He’s hell on wheels…literally. He’s part of a motorcycle gang and causing problems wherever he can.”

“Does he realize that he’s the reason you do what you do?”
He smiled as he said it, his eyes sparking with admiration.

Warmth
spread through her.

“Oh yeah, there’s no denying that. Everything about what I do in my life can be directly traced back to my brother and sister. We may not be twins like you and Cassie, but I have a really close relationship with both of them. They’ve held me together over the years.”

“It seems to me that you’ve done a pretty good job of that for yourself.”

He looked at her searchingly, but he didn’
t need to know all of her secrets. He knew too many already and she needed to keep today sexy and fun. Luckily their pizza arrived to distract him.

* * *

Chris had warmed up by the time they finished their pizza, but the walk back to the house in his wet clothing brought the shivering back. By the time they got into Cassie’s house, his teeth were chattering so hard, he couldn’t even talk. Julie tugged his hand and pulled him toward the bathroom. While she turned on the water to heat it up, he fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.

Realizing his difficulty, she
pushed his numb hands away and began to undo the buttons for him. Damn, he wished he wasn’t an icicle.

“I shouldn’t have l
et you talk me into eating the pizza at the restaurant. You’re frozen now and well on your way to hypothermia.” She pushed the shirt off his shoulders and his skin blossomed with goose bumps. Her soft kiss brushed his puckered nipple.

“S’okay,” he told her and leaned into her warmth. She began to work the buttons on his jeans and
he wished he wasn’t so damn cold so he could actually enjoy this. He knew better than to let himself get into this kind of state. Now he was losing a perfect scenario for seduction. Shivering was not sexy, besides being this cold didn’t do great things for a guy. He could only stand there and shiver while she worked to peel the cold, wet clothes off him.

She had him down to his underwear when he halted her hands.
“Got it…from here.” He gasped out the words between full-body-racking chills. He needed to get his balls out of his body cavity before she saw anymore or else she might just rethink her idea for tonight. He leaned down and brushed his cold lips against hers. Despite the cold fracturing throughout his body, he felt the blood begin to flow back toward his cock. He just had to get the shivering under control and then they could get back to the seduction he had planned. “Join me…five minutes…please.”

Her hazel eyes glowed
more emerald than brown above her cold-reddened cheeks. She nodded hesitantly and placed her palm against the side of his face. “Get in there and get warm. The water’s hot so be careful when you get in.”

Already steam from the shower filled the room and Chris exhaled shakily as
Julie left the room. He needed to get warm and quick. He peeled off his underwear and stepped under the cascade of hot water, hissing as the sting of the heated droplets hit his frozen body. He stood there for a couple of minutes just letting the heat from the water soak in. Finally, the shivering began to slow and Chris could refocus on Julie and the evening to come.

As the feeling came back into his extremities, the blood surged toward his cock
. He needed to calm down or he was going to intimidate her even more when she joined him.

It did make
him wonder about her. Her self-defense moves were impressive and he’d been surprised as hell when she laid him out on the ground this afternoon. He knew Special Forces guys who couldn’t take him out that fast and he wasn’t a small guy. But damn, she’d looked hot standing over him panting from her effort. Who knew that a kick-ass chick would turn him on so much?

H
ow many other surprises did she have in store for him? She’d managed to shock him time after time from the moment she’d tumbled out of his bed this morning. The only thing he’d definitely figured out was he had no idea who Julie really was. He just wished he had more time than a single day to figure her out.

Something occurred to him while they’
d been at the pizza parlor and he didn’t even think she realized it. Today was Valentine’s Day. A day meant for seduction and romance. He planned to give her the full-Chris seduction plan.

If he was honest with himself though, it had already been the perfect day even if they never
got to the seduction part. He liked her, a lot. He’d just never realized how fun, sassy, and sexy she truly was.

H
e didn’t know what the future held, but he had a full evening to enjoy her. He wasn’t going to waste it with ‘what ifs’. Glancing down at his pulsing cock, he sighed deeply. That wouldn’t work. As excited as he was right now, he’d go off like a teenage kid. He needed to be able to take this slowly which meant he needed to take the edge off now. He slowly slid his hand down to his now fully-erect cock and hissed. He closed his eyes and leaned up against the tile, with the water cascading down his back.

He wrapped his hand around his throbbing member and
stroked, remembering the feel of Julie’s puckered nipple under that same hand this morning. This wasn’t going to take long.

His breath grew harsh
as he thought about how close he’d come to sinking into her wet heat this morning. The promise of her and sweet heaven had been right there at the tip of his cock.

He imagined her riding him naked on the seat of her motorcycle. That again, was another piece to the puzzle of Julie that didn’t fit the idea he had of her in his head, but damn, it was hot. In his imagination, she wore leather riding chaps and nothing else.
He could see her straddling him, her sitting backwards on the bike as she sank down onto him, her full breasts bouncing as she rode him.

That was all it took. He groaned as all his muscles and his hand tightened. The tingling at the base of his spine built and
he shot jets of hot cum against the tiles of the shower.

As he washed off, he pondered. Where had she gone? She’d said she was going to join him. Had something scared her? Had he done something wrong? Whatever the case, he needed to go figure it out, now that he had his unruly body under control. He’d just had the hardest orgasm he could ever remember having and it was just from the thought of her. If the reality compared, he was in trouble.

She’d been under his nose for years and he’d never seen her. To discover her now that he was deploying, seemed almost too cruel. But it wouldn’t be fair to ask her to wait for him. Deployments killed even the strongest of relationships. He couldn’t do that to her. He just had to hope that she didn’t meet someone else while he was gone.

Julie stood at the French doors in the living room looking out unseeingly over the snow which continued to fall. She was such a wuss. When faced with the challenge of joining Chris in the shower naked, she couldn’t do it, even though her body craved him almost as much as her next breath.

She just couldn’t find it in her to strip down naked and join him.
Just the thought of what would come next made her stomach clench with worry. She’d liked seeing the light and admiration in his eyes all day. It made her feel powerful and sexy. She wasn’t sure how she would be able to bear it if that changed to disappointment because of her fear.

Instead
, she stayed in the living room and started a fire in the fireplace, her hands trembling as she lit the tinder. Did she honestly think she could go through with this?

She
heard his approach, but was still surprised when he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her neck.

“I’m much warmer now. Thank you for helping and getting the fire going. I missed you though. I thought you were going to join me.”

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I just couldn’t…” How did she explain this to him?

He turned her in his arms and
tugged her into his chest. “Hey, it’s okay. I understand and I’m fine with that. Remember, we’re taking it slow today and if things don’t happen, then that’s okay. There’s no pressure here.”

She nodded against his chest and tried to curtail the sudden
tightness in her throat that came from his beautiful understanding. He smelled like soap and male, and she could stay in the comfort of his arms forever. The hard ridge of his erection pressed against her and she felt a flood of arousal soak her panties.

He kissed the top of her head. “I like the fire. Why don’t we lay back and enjoy it for a while?”

“Okay. Would you like me to open a bottle of wine or would you prefer beer?”

“Wine sounds g
ood.”

As she went to raid Cassie’s wine cabinet, Chris added another log onto the fire. Julie took her time
opening the bottle, working to compose herself. Rubbing her hands together, she tried to control their trembling. This was Chris. She could trust him. He wouldn’t hurt her. She took a deep breath in and then out. In fact, if she would just relax, she was pretty sure that he could make this the best night of her life. She poured the wine into the glasses and enjoyed the way his back flexed under his t-shirt as he tended the fire. A fluttering settled into the pit of her stomach and she took a long sip from her wine glass.

He turned around and grinned at her. “Are you going to stand in there and drink all the wine or are you going to come back and join me?”

She tilted her head as if to debate the idea. “Well, I don’t know. The view is awfully nice from here.” She took her time leisurely eyeing him from his bare feet to his firm lips, wondering if he still tasted as good as earlier.

While she watched
, those eyes darkened. “I promise I will make it worth your while if you come back in here. It’s much more fun to touch than just look.”