Make Mine a Marine (42 page)

"I wasn’t.  One of my powers as a shaman…" He tilted his face up to the heavens and willed his spirit guide and Creator to strengthen him on this difficult journey. "I'm attuned to the spirit world. Through many of my visions I have visited there. It makes me one with them sometimes. They can channel through me to this world. I can feel their presence, even when they don't wish to communicate. Much like I can read the energy fields that surround people."

When he dared to open his eyes and read the skepticism on her face, he found Sarah propped up on one elbow, looking at him, her eyes shimmering an iridescent green beneath a veil of unshed tears.

"They use you?" she asked.

"Oh, honey…" He brushed her cheek and caught a teardrop where it began to fall. He’d expected censure or skepticism or more curious questions. He’d never expected compassion. He never realized how much he needed it.

He tunneled his fingers into her hair and brought her closer. He kissed away the salty moisture from her eyelids, then lowered his head to her mouth. The kiss was gentle, healing, reverent. And the shy pressure of her response catapulted him from the role of healer to patient. He held her close and gratefully accepted her restorative touch on his mouth.

Humbled by her generous gift, Hawk ended the kiss and brought her to rest on top of him, hugging her slender form in his big arms until he thought she might snap. He didn't have the words to thank her for believing in him

The tremulous flutter in her whisper told him that the kiss had been as soul-shattering for her. "At the tomb, the king's spirit was using you to see into this world?"

"He felt violated." Hawk feathered her hair through his fingers and begged apology for his actions there. "He thought you were the intruder who had disturbed his rest. That's why I tried to kill you."

"
He
tried to kill me. You saved my life by getting me out of there." The distinction in her words thawed a hurtful place around his heart. He almost missed the hesitancy in her next question. "So why didn't he try to hurt me at the truck?"

"He's awake now. Fully aware. He knows that Salazar and his men are responsible for stealing his treasures and disturbing his eternal rest." Despite the melding of their bodies beneath the blanket, Hawk felt the blood run colder in his veins. "I believe he killed Hernandez somehow, and he's pursuing the others. I felt the resonance of his presence in that crown. It’s something important to him. Something that, if he were a physical entity, he would never leave behind. He wanted me to take it somewhere, back to the tomb, I guess."

"So when I took it away from you, that broke the connection?"

"You touched the crown?"

She nodded. "I pried it from your fingers so I could lead you out of there. It seemed to hypnotize you as long as you held it."

He'd been cold before, but now his soul bottomed out like Arctic ice. Sarah must have sensed the change in him. She stiffened as if his chill touched her, too. "Didn't I do the right thing?"

Hawk captured her head between his hands, roughly framing her face and forcing her to look at him. "You didn't feel it? His hatred? The pain? That need for retribution?"

Her eyes widened in fear. "No. I just set it down. I wanted to help you."

"And you did. I couldn't break free. But…"

"But what?"

"I don't know." Hawk sighed deeply and loosened his hold. Sarah trembled above him. Only a real bastard would scare Sarah the way he just had, and he never wanted anything or anyone, especially himself, ever to cause her to doubt herself or be afraid. He relaxed and rolled over, laying Sarah on the ground cover. He lay on his side next to her and tucked the blanket securely around her.

"There's an answer there somewhere," he tried to explain in calmer tones. "Something about you makes a difference to Meczaquatl. He may never rest until we figure it out."

He brushed a curl off her forehead and kissed the spot, trying to atone for his roughness a moment earlier. "I know you must have some power over him. You've reached me each time he… took over. I don't understand it yet, but I'm grateful."

Sarah's hands fluttered to the edge of the blanket, pulling it up to her chin. "Is that why you held me like that? After the tomb, and on the hillside? Because I keep the evil spirits away? Is that why you like to hold me?"

Chapter
Ten

"You're joking, right?"

Hawk hovered in silence above her, waiting for her answer. He hoped she'd smile and bat her eyes, let him know this subtle turn in the conversation was a display of feminine wile, staged for his benefit to elicit a compliment or put him off until she grew more comfortable having him so physically close to her.

But Sarah had never been a teaser. Finding the words to express herself might prove challenging at times, but she'd yet to speak words that weren't true to her heart. His radar tapped into the underlying question she had asked. Not why did holding her help him resist Meczaquatl's influence. But why
her
. The fact that she'd mentioned it at all put him on alert. It made him wary, and absolutely positive that the issue needed to be resolved now, or it would fester and grow, paralyzing the fragile trust blossoming between them.

But he'd stopped to analyze his observations a fraction too long. Something about his utter stillness must have alarmed her. Her fingers clenched and unclenched on the blanket, creasing it with wrinkles similar to the lines of apology marring her face. "Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I can help you. I will, no matter what. It's just that I was curious."

"Curious? About what?"

Hazel eyes met midnight and she flinched. Suddenly she was pushing at the blanket and rolling away. "I can't have this conversation."

Hawk caught her by the shoulder and pulled her back down. He threw his leg across her thighs and pinned her beside him. His Sarah had proven herself time and again to be a woman of courage. He wouldn't let her back away from this challenge.

"I think we'd better."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

She squirmed beneath him and pushed at his chest. He would have released her at once if he hadn't sensed the halfhearted effort behind her struggles. Something inside her was killing her, like the mother Kodiak with her heart ripped out. She wanted to share this. She needed to. But acknowledging that need humiliated her.

She waged an inner battle as savagely soul-stealing as his war with Meczaquatl, although he suspected her demon came from a source much closer to earth. If Hawk didn't force her to deal with it now, she might bury the hurt so deeply that it could never get out, and his beautiful, brave she-bear would slowly die from the inside out.

"Sarah." The fists that had pushed against him now clutched handfuls of his shirtfront. She lay still beneath him, staring up at her own hands. "Why would I hold you for any other reason than that I wanted to? I needed to?"

"People need each other for a lot of reasons."

"They do," he agreed. "Sex, for one."

Color stained her cheeks immediately, and he heartened at the speed of her healthy response.

"What about warmth? And comfort? Human compassion?" He released her shoulder and covered one of her hands with his own. "What about a need to connect with another person that’s so strong that you'll waste away and die if you can’t find it? What about that need to have somebody see you and accept you for what you are?"

“
What
you are?” She blinked twice, long, languid brushes of caramel lashes on her creamy, smooth cheeks. And then she lifted her gaze to his. Awash in green and gold and sparked with a tremulous hope, her eyes met his. She looked into him. She wanted to listen. She wanted to understand.

Hawk swallowed hard, awed by her willingness to trust, humbled by the responsibility she gave him. He chose his next words very carefully. "I’m not like other men, Sarah. And yet, I’m still a man. When I hold you I forget about my demons. I'm so turned on and lucky and grateful, I think like a man. I react like a man. Not something weird or outcast."

"Do… do you think I'm attractive?"

She held his gaze as if it were the riskiest thing she had ever done. Hawk stared back in disbelief. A tiny kernel of resentment took root inside him, licked slowly through his veins. Long before Martin de Vega had assaulted her, someone had done something awful to this woman.
His
woman.

She'd been hurt. Purposefully or carelessly, she'd had a wound inflicted in the most vulnerable part of her—her shy sense of self. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on keeping his face smooth and expressionless while rage spiraled through him. He knew an uncharacteristically violent urge to ram his fist down the nameless destroyer's throat. He turned his focus to his hands, willing them to remain gentle where they touched her.

"If I didn't know you better," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, "I'd think you were fishing for compliments. But you're not that type."

She nodded and dropped her gaze. Her brave light faded and she began to slip back into her protective shell. "I'm not like other women."

"No, you're not." Giving in to a flare of temper, he grabbed her chin and made her look at him. "You're special."

"That's not true."

"You're calling me a liar?"

She snatched at his wrist to pull his hand away, but he clearly outmatched her strength. He held on gently, without fear of losing his grip. She stopped tugging at him, but tightened her fingers around his arm. "No. You’re being kind. You're a nice man. You would be."

She wanted to reason away his compliment? He'd been as patient as a counselor could be and had gotten nowhere. She'd claimed she needed to talk to the man in him earlier. That man in him surged forth, giving vent to temper and need.

"Who did this to you?" He heard the edge in his own voice, saw it reflected in the widening of her eyes. "Who made you think you were anything less than beautiful and desirable and perfect?"

"I'm not—"

"Stop saying that!" He brushed her hair off her forehead, atoning for the harshness in his voice. Then he opened up his heart and let all the emotion stored there speak for him.

"You want to know what I think?" He dropped his gaze to the unadorned lushness of her lips. She caught her breath and they parted. Hawk stroked her bottom lip with his thumb, loving the soft suppleness beneath his callused touch. "I think you have the sexiest mouth I've ever seen on a woman."

And then, because she needed him to, because he needed to, he moved his thumb and covered the spot with his mouth. He apologized for his temper, praised her, beseeched her. He tasted and stroked, wooing her gently, urgently, begging for a response.

He felt the telltale pressure of her fingers clutching at him. She angled her face slightly, and then she lifted her mouth to his. The combustion was instantaneous. A gratifying rush of triumph flowed through him. He pushed her mouth open and deepened the kiss. She tasted of chocolate, a womanly confection whose essence was sweeter than any he had ever known. He savored her a moment longer, then drew his mouth away to sample the smooth, creamy skin along the delicate curve of her jaw.

Her hands fluttered over his chest, up across his neck and face, and then in a bold move that delighted him, she buried her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth back to hers. Hawk dutifully obeyed, giving her all she asked for and more.

While they explored each other's mouths, teaching and learning about pleasure, Hawk ran his hand down the graceful column of her throat. His fingers slipped lower, discovering the soft neckline of a black cotton T-shirt. His shirt on her. His scent on her. Something powerful and primitive exploded in his veins.

He tipped her head back and ran his tongue along the path his fingers had traced. He kissed the warm pulse point at the base of her neck, and moved his hand lower to cover her breast. Through cotton and lace and ladylike inhibition, she swelled beneath the warmth of his palm. He squeezed her once, learning her size and shape, marveling at the perfection of nature that made them the right proportion for the slender contours of her body.

"I love how you respond to me," he praised her. "Such a lady with the rest of the world, but like fire when I kiss you." He slipped his mouth lower and drew the sensitized peak into his mouth.

"You shouldn't—" She gasped aloud, as startled by her body's immediate reaction as he. Eager to know more of her, he tugged at the hem of the shirt, pulling it free. He spread his hand across her middle, his splayed fingers nearly spanning her rib cage. She was so delicate, so feminine, and the soft skin beneath his hard palm felt hot to the touch.

His body throbbed in anticipation. He skimmed his hand upward beneath the shirt and found the treasure he sought encased in satin and lace. She whimpered with the first stroke of his tongue there. Hawk pushed the material aside and laved the protruding bead, filling his mouth with her. Filling his mind and his heart with nothing but Sarah.

Her hands flailed at his shoulders. "They're too small," he heard with the tap of one weak fist. She gasped when he moved his attentions to the other breast. "You'll be disappoint—"

"They're perfect." Anger warred with the desire humming through his body, making his voice a ragged breath of air. "Any bigger would mar their natural beauty, in such perfect harmony with the rest of your body."

"But Walter said—"

"He's an idiot. A fool." Hawk lifted his mouth to hers, hating the sound of another man’s name on her lips as he claimed her mouth in a searing stake of possession.

His blood thundered into a roar inside his ears. His senses filled with the fresh woman scent of her. His mouth gloried in her sweet, passion-drugged taste. He filled himself with the heady knowledge of her clutching, demanding fingers paying no heed to the caution in her words.

He ran his hand down her side, roughly skimming her exposed breast and searching lower, finding the feminine indentation of her waist and sliding down to cup the flaring earth-mother cradle of her hip. He pulled her into the vee of his legs, pinning her most feminine center beneath his most masculine response to her.

Hawk groaned at the sheer, nearly painful delight of the friction between them. Unable to help himself, he rubbed against her. Sarah caught her breath and pressed her face into his neck, riding the same physical tidal wave that threatened to carry him away.

"Don't you know what a turn-on you are?" He rasped the question into her ear, kissed her temple, clasped her in his embrace. "I know what it costs you because you're shy, but you respond as if you can't help yourself, as if you're so turned on by me you can't resist. As if I'm the only man you've ever kissed this way."

"You are."

She whispered the admission, soft as the abating rain, against his sun-roughened skin. She pulled her fingers from his hair and curled them into the collar of his shirt. Hawk recognized the symptoms of withdrawal. Though stretched out beneath him, he imagined her curling into a ball deep within herself.

Hawk lifted his head to study her face. Her lips were pink and swollen, branded with the imprint of his kisses. Her hair fell in wild, sexy disarray around her face. But her eyes were unreadable. Downcast, they were looking at her own hands again.

"What's wrong?" He touched his forehead to hers, inhaling deeply, knowing his body would have a difficult time recovering from this unbridled need for her. But he suspected his heart would have an even more difficult time, judging by the quivering indecision of her bottom lip.

"I… you want something more, don't you?"

"Yes," he answered simply and honestly. "But not until you're ready."

A horrible eternity passed in silence, only a moment of real time, but long enough for Hawk to finally fully understand the damage done to this woman.

"I may never be ready. When I was engaged, there were certain things… certain aspects of our relationship that took me a while to warm up to."

"You mean sex?" He wished he could retract the bluntness of his question. He wished he had Walter Kensit's scrawny neck between his hands.

Her cheeks colored with a rosy blush. "We never…
I
never—"

"I suspected you were a virgin."

The heightened color drained from her cheeks. "It's that obvious?"

"Because of your morals, the way you conduct yourself in the world. Not because there's a stamp on your forehead. Your innocence doesn't make you undesirable. If anything, it adds to your appeal.”

“But I’m thirty-four years old.”

“You're waiting for the right man. It makes me hope that I'm the right man. I can scarcely hide how badly I want you." Hawk shifted slightly, easing the pressure on their lower bodies.

She might be inexperienced, but she was no prude. She clearly understood the rigid evidence between them. "But Walter said..."

"What the hell did Walter say to make you believe you’re some kind of freak?"

Her gaze flashed up and met his. She seemed startled by his anger, but not yet persuaded by it. "He didn't.  I...  He wanted…" She smoothed the collar of his shirt absentmindedly.  "I couldn't… "

A hard and painful knot of compassion cooled the unfulfilled needs of his body. "Did you like the way he touched you?"

He waited patiently while she chose her words. "I thought it was kind of fun at first. It was all so new.  But then, sometimes, I wanted something, I don’t know—different?"

"Did you tell him what you wanted?"