Make Mine a Marine (47 page)

Her body throbbed in one pounding pulse beat. The shock of her reaction to that one intimate touch froze her for an instant.

An instant too long.

A wave of cooling air whispered across her body. Did Hawk pull away? Or had she pushed him?

She curled her hand into a fist as she reached out, grasping nothing but air. Hawk turned his back to her, shoving his fingers through his hair and stalking across the room to the window.

"Did I do something wrong?" She barely recognized the throaty timbre of her own voice.

"Don't ever say that." His sharp words bounced off the windowpane. His shoulders heaved in a cleansing breath before he turned to face her. "Did it feel wrong to you?"

His shaman eyes pinned her across the room. Even with him blending into the shadows, she knew she couldn't hide the truth from him. "No. Not wrong. Just… new."

"I'm sorry if I scared you, if I went too fast. If I reminded you of… someone else." He hitched his shoulders in an uncharacteristic shrug. His unexpected show of doubt touched a responding chord in her. This proud man's hesitancy made him more human, made her more powerful.

Walter had denigrated her, taken her uncertainties and used them as leverage to raise himself above her. Hawk embraced his doubts and her own with honesty, and for the first time Sarah realized that she shouldn't be ashamed of her inexperience. She should be accepting of it. She should accept herself, just as Hawk accepted her. Just as she accepted him.

"You didn't scare me," she offered by way of apology, moving to the middle of the room in a literal attempt to meet him halfway.

The hard lines around his mouth softened. "I want this to be right for you. I want to make this night as perfect as a man can make it for his woman."

His
woman?

His words alone rekindled a spark in that most primitive part of her. The heat of it blossomed and spiraled through her, warming her with its energy, restoring that fragile scrap of ego held together by hopes and dreams and sheer will.

"If I'm with you, it will be perfect."

"Those are powerful words to say to a man, schoolmarm."

"I've never said them to anyone else."

At last he joined her at the foot of the bed, standing inches away, but not yet touching her. Instead, his hands hovered in the air around her, as though tracing her outline like an invisible sculpture. Could this man caress her aura? Could he touch the air surrounding her and make it feel like the stroke of fingers against her skin?

As profound as his touch, she felt his comforting embrace deep in her heart "I don't want to say or do anything that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you doubt yourself."

"You're the counselor. What kind of therapy would you prescribe for me?"

Hawk's hands stopped in midair. His eyes lit with surprise. "Miss Mack, I do believe you're flirting with me."

Sarah licked her lips, nervous about the idea taking shape as she spoke. Hawk's gaze darted to the movement of her tongue, and suddenly her whole mouth went dry.

"Well, counselor?" she prompted.

Hawk dropped his hands and cleared his throat, apparently craving a drink, or something more, just as she did. "I'd let you lead us through this. You would need to be the one in control of how we proceed. That way, you could recognize any feelings of panic and alter the progression of things."

"Like this?" She brushed the strands of hair that had fallen across his forehead back into place. "I could do anything, and you'd go along with it?"

His gaze zeroed in on hers, dancing with wry amusement. "Whatever you want."

This rangy, hungry, male jungle cat was hers to command. Feeling empowered by his willingness to play, and thrilled by the danger of it, she closed her eyes for a moment and let her imagination come to life. "I like it when you're not wearing your shirt." She stumbled over the first words, getting used to the idea of taking charge. "You have a very nice—“ she swallowed hard, “—chest."

"Look at me, Sarah. Don't be afraid of me."

She opened her eyes and noticed the tinge of color in his cheeks. Had she embarrassed him with the compliment? Could anything she said possibly have that kind of effect on a man? "I'm not. It's just that no one's ever asked what I wanted. It's harder than I thought to put it into words."

"Just speak from the heart. I'll listen to whatever you have to say. And I'll listen even when you don't have the words to say it."

Hawk's vow settled over her like a blessing, easing her doubts.

"You're nothing like Walter," she whispered, wanting to give back some of the reassurance he had given her. "He was never this patient with me."

"That's his loss," he said, the brackets of strain fading at the corners of his mouth. "So tell me, schoolmarm. What do you want?"

With the generous gift of Hawk's healing words, Sarah's shy heart grew bolder. "Would you take off your shirt?"

"No."

"No?" Her initial shock abated at the subtle hint of a smile on his lips.

She'd never seen that boyish sparkle in his eyes before. The breadth of his shoulders and the careworn lines on his face reminded her that he was a man in his prime—strong, earthy, a force of nature to be reckoned with. But his willingness to play this game with her humanized him, made him approachable. This was a man she could trust.

He crossed his arms in the time-honored stance of a dare being made. His powerful biceps strained the lightweight denim he wore. "You take it off me."

Sucking in a fortifying breath, Sarah rose to the challenge. She started at the top, undoing the first two buttons with clinical, perfunctory efficiency. Then she ran into the roadblock of his forearms across his middle.

"A little help?" She touched his wrist and glanced up. Watching her with the same keen intensity of a big cat in the circus cage with its trainer, he lowered his arms to his sides.

Hampered by a sudden shallowness of breath, she fumbled with the third button, her fingers stiff and unsure as she pushed it through the hole. When she reached the fourth button, his shirt veed open, revealing an inviting strip of coppery skin and that oblong black stone he wore around his neck.

She brushed against the stone, felt the heat it had absorbed from his skin. The escaping warmth should have thawed her fingers. Instead it only slowed her progress. With all the awkward anticipation of a child trying to unwrap a gift without tearing the paper, she slowly undid the fifth and sixth buttons.

By now she had reached the belt on his jeans. Her hands hovered in the air in front of the buckle.  She wanted that next step, but not quite yet. What should she do? What had Walter said a man liked?

Hawk's rough palm cupped her cheek and turned her face up to his. "Whatever
you
want."

With that husky reminder, Sarah banished all thoughts of the blond, careless egomaniac who had crippled her so. She absorbed Hawk's strength—his gentle touch, his beautiful voice, his compelling eyes—and let it become her own.

She trailed her gaze over his prominent cheekbones, across the rock-solid dimension of his jaw, and down the tanned cords of his throat, stopping at the point where her hands rested on his shirtfront. Then, enjoying her journey of discovery, she pushed the material to either side, grazing her hands across his shoulders and down over the swells and shallows of his powerful arms as she removed his shirt.

She marveled in the glory of the man before her, simply filling her gaze and storing in her memory the sculpted perfection of healthy living and Mother Nature's handiwork. Her fingers tingled to share the delight of her eyes. Equally aware of his body's utter stillness and the unblinking scrutiny of the midnight gaze that followed her every move, Sarah spread her fingers over the sinewed planes of his upper chest.

The sizzling electricity she had felt earlier scorched her palms. She pressed with her fingertips, holding on, unwilling to break the contact. The heat of it seeped into her wrists and spread up her arms, firing her pulse and melting her lingering misgivings into mush. She dragged her hands over the swell of muscle, brushed across his flat, bronze nipples and stopped, feeling the quiver of skin beneath her sensitized palms.

"You like that?" she said softly, afraid of breaking the beautiful serenity that surrounded them in this private, intimate world.

His answering moan emboldened her. She stroked him again. The swift rise and fall of his chest matched the pace of her own breathing.

Pulling her hands lower, she ran them across the spare form of his rib cage and out onto his sides, where she encountered a thin mound of gauze and adhesive tape. The rough textures of plastic and cotton disrupted the smooth connection between them. In a rush of concern, she pulled away, angling around to check the first-aid work.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" She smoothed the ends of the tape on his skin. "I don't want anything to—“

"God, woman, don't stop!"

He seized her wrists and brought her palms back to his chest, covering her hands with his to hold her there. "I've been stitched and doctored," he said, the wild look in his eyes rendering her speechless. "There are other parts of me that need tending. Take pity on a man, and don't stop your therapy now."

The husky plea in that sinfully sexy request blurred the questions in her mind. Her
therapy? Or his? Did it matter?

She wanted this man in every way a woman could want. His body, heart, soul, faith and trust. Maybe for just this one night. And, she hoped, for all her tomorrows.

But for now, it didn't matter. She simply needed him. Needed him...

A willing captive, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the swell of his pectoral muscle beneath their hands. She kissed the indentation near the vee of his necklace. Then she closed her mouth over one flat, male nipple. She felt his hands tighten on hers, heard him catch his breath. She kissed him again, flicked her tongue around the taut bud.

She pressed her nose into his chest, inhaling his earthy scent, kissing him again. His hands left hers and moved to her shoulders. Sarah clung to him, learning the feel of his shape, learning the taste of his skin, losing herself in her love for him.

"So beautiful," she whispered, moving her lips up his neck and discovering the hollow beneath his chin. "Hawk?"

"Hmm?" His response rumbled through the skin beneath her lips. His large hands kneaded her shoulders, caressed her back, tried to mind his promise to let her lead them through this.

"Will you kiss me? I love the way you kiss me."

"Oh, yeah," he said in a growl, and like a man triumphant, he cupped her face and pulled her beneath his mouth.

He caught her hard against him, pulling her up onto her toes, burying his fingers in her hair. He swept his tongue around her lips, swirled it into her mouth, staking his possession with a swift, hungry surge. She clutched at his dark hair, stretching herself along the length of his body. She reveled in the claim of his lips and the urgency of his hands.

She felt beautiful. Desirable. Perfect.

In Hawk's hands, she felt perfect.

Those same hands pressed near the neckline of her gown. "May I?" He lifted his mouth for only an instant, trapping her
yes
in her throat.

She nodded, and with far more skilled hands than hers had been, he unbuttoned the gown and let it pool at her feet. The cooling breeze from the ceiling fan raised goose bumps along her spine. But in seconds Hawk was there. His long fingers nearly spanned her back, warming her, branding her, pulling her closer.

Her aching breasts flattened against his hard chest. Standing skin to skin like this, she felt the blood in her veins boiling. He slid his hands downward and cupped her bottom through her cotton panties. He reclaimed her mouth and asked for her body as he pulled her up to him. She felt the tight brush of his jeans between her thighs, and a startling rush of heat flooded her feminine core and weakened her knees.

"Tell me you want me this way, Sarah." His plea was little more than a ragged breath against her mouth. "Tell me you want me, or tell me to stop."

"Don't…" She squeezed his shoulders and snatched at the midnight fall of hair between her fingers. "Don't stop."

Like a warrior's cry of freedom, Sarah's hungry request sang through Hawk's veins and freed his spirit to soar far beyond the realm of his earthly existence. His body thrummed with the need to become one with this woman, to bind their bodies and spirits in one perfect union.

He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bed. She nipped at the base of his chin again and he nearly stumbled, his normally sure-footed steps thwarted by the fertile earth-woman's call of her innocent seduction. With her bewitching hands and tempting lips and hungry eyes, she had quickly transformed him from a patient tutor into a primitive beast, intent on claiming his mate and bonding with her for life.

However short that life might be.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he forced the unwelcome future from his thoughts and concentrated on the insatiable curiosity of her fingers. Her every touch was a healing caress, a passionate promise, an undeniable request.