Make Mine a Marine (18 page)

“I thought of that. Damon certainly possesses the power to influence minds. That whole research center of his is full of automatons who have no clue about what he's doing to them.”

The two men paused to sip their tepid coffee. “What do you want to do?” asked Hawk.

“I was hoping you could remove the spell from her mind.”

“Under normal circumstances, removing that kind of mind control would be risky.”

Brodie swore softly.
Normal
had never been a part of his life. “Then there's nothing we can do?”

“Only BJ can undo the magic that consumes her. Or the sorcerer who placed the spell.” Brodie waited expectantly while Hawk deliberated. “BJ must discover the evil for herself, if she is to believe that this father figure you speak of is responsible.”

“How do I help her do that?”

“Let her pursue the tangible leads. This Rick Chambers. The computers he tampered with.”

“How can she do the work without succumbing to any suggestions? She could forget the answer the moment she finds it.”

“You'd be there. That symbol, combined with her given name are what control her. Find out how. She has a very strong determination to fight this. And she has you for an ally.” Hawk's features creased into a smile. “I know I always felt safer knowing you were covering my back.”

Brodie responded with an echo of a laugh. He dug a couple of bills out of his pocket and tossed them onto the table. “Coffee's on me since you won't let me pay for your help.”

“You can return the favor sometime.”

“I'll do that.”

Hawk stood and the two men walked side by side out of the coffee shop down the sidewalk to Hawk's office.

“Are you in danger?” Hawk asked. “An old enemy is usually the toughest.”

The question surprised Brodie. He assumed he'd be invincible as always. And a few more scars couldn't make any difference. After a moment's consideration, he answered. “The only way Morrisey could hurt me is through BJ.”

Hawk gripped Brodie's shoulder and gave him a sympathetic squeeze. “Then, my friend, he can destroy you.”

Hawk's parting wisdom haunted Brodie all the way back to BJ's house. He climbed out of the SUV and opened the temporary gates, which repairmen had installed earlier in the day.

He can destroy you.

After eight hundred years of losing the people he loved, and denying his love to any who might save him, Brodie thought he might have grown immune to heartbreak. Clarinda and her sons had filled a special void in his life. He had cared deeply about Lynelle, Jane, and Zora.

But his love for BJ felt different. Destined. Somewhere in his knight's soul, he knew he had survived the centuries searching for his true lady. The one woman to whom he would pledge honor and devotion above all others.

Bridget Jacoba Kincaid was that woman.

One small, nameless part of him was glad he had been cursed through eternity. How else would he have met his lady of the computer world? His lady of the baggy clothes masking generous curves to be revealed to him alone?

His lady of the beautiful eyes and laughter and life-affirming smile?

He gladly accepted his curse for the opportunity to know BJ Kincaid.

But what about afterward? What about when she stopped believing in him? What about when she turned away and put him out of her life for the remainder of her days?

What would happen to him then?

Then he truly would be cursed, living forever with the memory of what once had been his. Long after BJ was gone, he would still love her.

BJ must have sensed his mood when he shut the gates behind them and returned to the SUV. Her chatting stopped. Her plans for running a diagnostic of LadyTech and her own private computer systems, her idea of breaking into Rick Chambers' private files, all evaporated into pensive silence.

The somber mood followed them into the house. He checked the security while she went into the kitchen to phone the vet and ask about Duke's condition. A while later, she joined him in the computer room, where he stared, immovably, at the blank screen. He would always associate technology with her. As eons passed and the status quo changed, he would think of BJ, knowing that her brilliance played a part in the evolution of the modern world.

“What's wrong?”

The inevitability of losing her made Brodie interpret her innocent question with shades of despair. He turned to see her leaning against the door jamb, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, lifting them toward him in innocent invitation. Her eyes were smoky, with flecks of blue darkening the bright green fire.

He started at the top and traced her figure with his gaze, memorizing each curl, each curve, each nuance of personality that was BJ Kincaid. His body felt parched for what he could not, should not have. He licked his tongue across his dry lips. Her gaze instantly darted to the tiny gesture. The matching need that flared in her eyes washed over him like a cooling, healing caress.

He was a starving soldier, wandering through a desert without hope for eight hundred years. BJ was his fortress, the home of welcoming love and acceptance he had finally reached. But like the most inept of young knights yearning to return to safety too quickly, he’d led the enemy straight to her door and sealed her fate. Maybe he himself was the real enemy. For if a sorcerer's magic didn't destroy BJ Kincaid, then
he
most certainly would.

But knowing what could happen to BJ didn't stop the wanting. It didn't stop the need.

“I love you.” He ground the words between his teeth, a raw promise of devotion.

Her chin lifted a fraction. Fear flickered through her eyes. The blunt intensity of his need consumed the room's atmosphere with a daunting force.

Throw me out, sweetheart. Get me out of your life.
His conscience rang inside his head but found no voice.

Just when he thought she would politely refuse him, just when he thought she would supply the conscience he lacked, trust blossomed in her eyes, replacing the shadows of fear.

“What's going to happen to us?” she asked.

He imagined the quiver in her voice revealed the same futile desire he battled to suppress.

“I can't give you what you deserve, BJ. I can't promise you any tomorrows.”

He held his breath while she processed his words, giving her the opportunity to turn away, but desperately wanting her to say that nothing but the two of them together mattered.

“You wake up day after day for eight hundred years, and you honestly believe there are no tomorrows?” Her eyes gleamed with a surprising look of worldly knowledge and sheer determination. “Between your experience and my ingenuity, we can make tomorrow happen.”

He almost believed her. He could almost see the future through her eyes, a future filled with hope and promise. Almost.

Then she came to him, never giving him the chance to doubt what he felt in his heart. He swallowed her in his arms and pulled her up to his chest as she laced her fingers around his neck and held on. Her mouth met his halfway, ready to welcome his tongue. Her lips moved hungrily beneath his, instinctively compensating for the stiff side of his mouth. Her sweet, sassy tongue entwined with his, making him feel like both a gifted and a giving lover.

He reached down and squeezed her bottom, pulling her higher and anchoring her against him with one hand. She wrapped her legs around his waist, fitting herself snugly against his thickening heat. The surrendering moan he elicited from her answered the victorious call deep in his own chest.

She dug her fingers into his shoulders when he tipped her back over his arm to plunder the beckoning curve of her neck. He neared the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat, felt the warmth of her pulse hammering beneath her peachy skin. He nudged apart the placket of her shirt and nuzzled even lower. When he reached the first button of resistance, he growled his frustration and shifted to take the tip of her breast into his mouth, clothes and all.

The cotton barriers of shirt and bra couldn't hide her instant reaction to his touch. Her fingers raked his shoulders, clawing for grip, scratching for balance in a world that reeled around them.

“Brodie,” she gasped her need for him. She gripped him tighter with her legs, twisting her hips in search of release. The delightful friction aroused a painful need. Brodie throbbed with torturous pleasure. His legs tingled and grew weak.

He set BJ down, smothering her protest with a hard, searing kiss. While holding her prisoner with his mouth, he searched for the buttons of her shirt. The damn things proved too tiny and uncooperative, so he grabbed a handful of material and tugged. Buttons popped, cloth ripped, and without apology, he moved on to the clasp of her bra. The thread binding the hooks in place surrendered easily to the strength of his hands.

He pushed aside the offending material that kept her from him and gave up her mouth only to step back and use his gaze to caress the rose- tipped peaks that filled his hands so perfectly.

His admiration was short-lived, though. BJ drove on with reckless abandon, unbuttoning the front on his jeans and pulling down his pants and shorts, freeing him. She wrapped her fingers around him, her unabashed assault robbing him of the ability to do anything more than feel.

With rough, clumsy hands, he stripped off her shorts and panties, and retreated to the recliner, pulling BJ with him. He positioned her on top of him, with her knees bent at either side of his legs. Her gaze sought his for steadying reassurance as he reached beneath the hanging drape of her shirt and covered her breasts, holding the ripe treasures in his calloused palms.

“I'm sorry I can't make this absolutely perfect.” He offered the husky apology, then watched her catch her bottom lip between her teeth as he slid his hands over the indentation of her waist to grip the generous flare of her hips.

Locking his eyes onto hers, he pulled her forward and down, teasing her sensitive core with the hot tip of his arousal. He felt her heaviness there, her slick, waiting readiness for him.

“Trust me,” he rasped. “This will be more comforta—”

With a bold advance, she slipped herself over him, leaving him senseless. She sank around him, her sweet, honeyed folds swallowing him entirely.

“Ah, hell.”  Brodie gritted his teeth and tried to hold back, clenching, gasping, yet straining for release.  “I can’t—“

“No. Don't stop.” Brodie barely heard her, but BJ communicated in ways that didn't need words. She tightened around him and rocked her hips in sensuous rhythm, binding them together through a wild march that defied both time and an immortal enemy.

He threw his head back and closed his eyes, humbled by her symbolic acceptance, reveling in her willingness to give everything to him. He snatched at her thighs, anchoring her heat around him, straining in counterpoint to her sensual rhythm, thrusting himself inside her again and again. As the tremors of her release caressed his shaft, Brodie drove himself upward one final time, echoing her triumphant cry as he erupted into her.

When they returned to earth, BJ collapsed against him. He freed her legs and gathered her comfortably into his arms. She lay half on top of him, half tucked to one side. Her hand spread possessively over the middle of his chest, not put off by the scars beneath her palm. She nestled her head contentedly against his shoulder.

He loved this calm aftermath filled with serenity as much or more than the fiery passion they had shared.

“Tired?” He broke the peaceful silence, finally regaining a bit of his own strength.

“Exhausted.” He felt her smiling against him. “But happy. We got kind of carried away, hmm?”

“I'm sorry. I behaved like an animal.”

She pressed her fingertips against his mouth. “Don't spoil this for me. You made me feel like I was the only woman who could make you come apart like that, like you needed me to make you whole. I feel that way about you. I believe anything is possible when you're with me.”

He assimilated her statement. “I don't think I've ever felt emotions as powerfully as I feel them around you.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Her drowsy murmur reminded him just how vulnerable BJ really was. Intelligence and de-termination aside, she could be hurt too easily. Her trust, rarely given, could be shattered with the flicker of a shadow or misspoken word. Brodie brushed his fingers through the curls above her ear and hugged her a little more tightly. “I don't know, sweetheart. I honestly don't know.”

Then, with a reverence befitting a woman of BJ's grace and generosity, Brodie stripped off the remainder of their clothes, lifted her into his arms, and carried her to her bed, where he intended to take his time showing her the depth of all he felt for her.

Sometime later, in the indefinite hours of early morning, BJ roused herself from a deep, contented sleep. She kept her eyes closed, savoring the memory of Brodie's furiously needful, then almost reverent lovemaking. She snuggled up to her neck beneath the top sheet and quilt, not wanting to lose the peaceful warmth that turned her muscles to mush, yet energized her with a womanly confidence.

The first chill swept over her naked skin and she snapped open her eyes, only now aware that she was completely alone.