Midnight Promises (14 page)

The thought of that, the thought of finally entering her whenever it could happen, caused him to jerk a little. She pulled back in surprise.

He was trying to think of something that would explain why he jerked without making him sound like a moron but
sorry about that
,
I
flashed on fucking you and my system went haywire
didn’t cut it.

Then he couldn’t think of anything at all because she did what he’d done. She placed her palm flat on his chest. They both looked down. Her hand was slender, long-fingered like the hand of a musician’s. Ivory skin against his tanned chest. The contrast between her hand and his chest was amazingly erotic.

Metal usually thought that erotic things had to be connected to fucking. Man, he was so wrong. Just looking at her was erotic. Yeah, she was naked, but he’d wanted her just as fiercely when she’d been covered up by his T-shirt. Everything about her was erotic and turned him on enormously. Her coloring—sunny-blond hair, sky-blue eyes, ivory skin. Her shape—slender but totally female, a tiny waist between breasts that were perfect for his hands and hips made to be gripped.

She was so enticing. Not jumping her right now, not sliding into her, was costing him years off his life.

Felicity patted him then her fingers curled into his muscle. She had short fingernails but even if she had those claws some women had she wouldn’t hurt him.

“You feel wonderful,” she said. Her gaze switched from his chest to his eyes and back. When she moved her eyes it was like lightning flashing. He was mesmerized.

Her lashes were light brown tipped with gold and he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her as she looked up and back down again, the thick gold-tipped lashes like little fans. Her eyebrows, too, were fascinating, gold and ash brown hairs, the gold glinting in the dim light. And her hair. Purely her own color too. There were a thousand colors in there, though mainly gold. Tiny almost invisible pale gold hairs fluffed around her face. If any hairdresser could replicate that color, he’d be rich.

“What?” she said, as he continued scrutinizing her.

“You’re so beautiful you melt my eyeballs. Everything about you is so perfect.”

She shook her head, smiling. “I’ve got defects.”

“Name one.”

“A mole right above my left buttock.”

A mole right above her left buttock. He closed his eyes, imagining it. Oh God. His dick wanted to punch its way out of his jeans.

“Let me see,” he said urgently. “I want to see it.”

She smiled slowly. “You want to see it? My mole?”

He huffed out a breath that she would have to take on faith was ‘Yeah’.

“All right,” she said quietly, that half smile on her face driving him crazy.

Slowly, she pushed down the bedclothes and turned over.

Metal felt his eyes widen, his jaw drop. How could she be as beautiful on side B as she was on side A? Yet she was. That long elegant back narrowing to a small waist, dimples just above her ass which was pale and round and perfect. Like a peeled apple.

He wanted to bite it.

Sure enough, right above the left buttock, next to the adorable dimple, was a small mole. He bent down slowly and kissed it, one hand smoothing over her right buttock.

“Not a defect,” he said, voice rough. “More like a decoration. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

He lifted his head and she turned back over, searching his face with a slight smile.

“Okay. I can’t cook,” she warned. “I mainly eat takeout and frozen pizza.”

“That’s fine. I cook.” Metal was touching her breasts, rubbing his thumb over the smooth satiny skin. He didn’t give a fuck about takeout and frozen pizza.

She was doing the same to him, feeling his pecs. When she scraped a fingernail over a nipple it shot straight to his dick. He made a strangled sound deep in his throat.

“You feel so very good,” she sighed. “Just amazing.”

He saw her mouth move but couldn’t make out the words because his head was about to explode. “What?”

Her eyes were half-closed. The skin was so fine he could see tiny blue veins in her eyelids. “You. Feel. Good.”

“God. Can barely understand English.” Now the words penetrated. “See what you reduce me to?”

She blinked blankly, not having made the connection of him unable to understand words and her own allure. He placed his hand over hers and man, double whammy. Her palm over his chest, his palm over her hand.

He really was going to stroke out when they had sex if this tiny amount of stimulation got him going like this.

Gently, he eased her down in the bed until she was lying flat on her back. Her breasts were so soft. The last woman he’d had sex with had had breasts that looked like basketballs perched on her chest when she was lying on her back. That was when he’d sworn off implants.

Had been sometime ago too.

Months, in fact, come to think of it. Was that why he was so worked up? Because it was a long time since the last time he’d had sex?

Nah.

He hadn’t been having sex because he’d sort of lost interest in it. He was interested now. Oh man, was he interested. A bomb could go off in the next room and he’d still be staring at Felicity’s breasts.

He bent his head and kissed her there, where his hand had been. He nibbled his way around her left breast, relishing the hard beat of her heart under his lips.

She was alive and well and that was a miracle. She could have died the other day. The fucker could have slashed an artery and she would have bled out there alone on the airport concourse and he would never have known her. Never held this miracle woman in his arms.

“Metal?” She’d clued into his sudden change, probably to the air molecules shifting around him. Because all of a sudden he needed to claim her, claim this woman he’d almost lost before knowing her.

He looked up at her slightly breathless tone. Did he hear a touch of fear?

No way. No way was he going to hurt her.

“Not going to hurt you,” he said in a guttural tone. “But I gotta do this.”

As a declaration of intent it wasn’t much but somehow it reassured her. Her head had lifted a little from the pillow to look at him, but now she plopped her head back.

He consciously made his hands gentle. When the image of a dead Felicity lying in a pool of her own blood coursed through him he’d stopped himself just in time from gripping her hard.

His hands were strong and if he gripped her hard he’d hurt her. Nope. Not going to happen. So he opened his hands and used only his outstretched palms to touch her, running them over her breasts, down her narrow torso, down over her smooth flat belly.

Down.

Before he had to ask, her legs slid apart. Oh yeah. Smart Felicity.

Metal watched his hand as it smoothed his way down her body. Had he ever seen a woman more gorgeous than this?

Back in the Sandbox, porn magazines had been everywhere. Sex and alcohol had always been stress relievers for soldiers. Alcohol was out because it was a dry country. They doled out maybe one miserable bottle of beer a day, if that. The supplies were kept under lock and key.

Sex—well there were women on base though not out on missions. But the women on base were mostly officers and untouchable. And, well, for him at least, a fellow soldier just didn’t inspire sex. Loyalty and respect yes, but sex? After about a month the women were just as sexless as the men. Covered in dust and sand, eating bad food, shitting infrequently because they were so gummed up from the crap food and smelling kinda ripe because the showers were clogged up and disgusting, even for the guys.

No one ever showered barefoot because you could pick up nasty fungi and yeah, everyone stank.

So no sex and the guys just looked at porn magazines. God knows what the women did. But for a couple of years, the barracks were awash in pictures of naked women with tiny hips, humongous boobs, pouty lips and empty eyes. Caricatures of women. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they were CGI.

Jesus, this woman was so different she could have been another species.

Soft yet strong. Escaping a killer twice while wounded—well not many soldiers could have managed that. Razor sharp. Amazingly beautiful, and the real deal too.

Amazing.

Between her legs was an ash brown cloud tipped with gold and farther down gleaming pink lips. She was so beautiful here too.

Carefully watching her eyes, he slid his fingers over her, sliding in gently. Full lips blew out a breath and her eyes narrowed so that only a slit of bright blue showed. She felt like wet silk. He penetrated her with his finger, watching her carefully. He didn’t have to look at her to see how aroused she was, he could feel it against his hand. She was hot, wet, her body weeping for him.

His was weeping for her too. If his dick hadn’t been encased in briefs and jeans it would have been wet with precome. His balls were tight and his entire groin hurt. That was okay. He could deal with pain. SEALs lived with pain. They marched to the cadence of “pain is weakness leaving the body.”

Luckily, Felicity wasn’t in any pain. No, she looked relaxed, pleasured.

He slid his finger out, then in again, exactly what he’d like to be doing with his cock. She sighed and he nearly sighed too. God, just this was better than sex with any other woman.

“Like that?” he asked hoarsely.

“Hmm.”

“Say it.” His voice was sharper than he intended. But he really needed her to say it out loud.

She should have slapped him down but she didn’t. Her lips curved in a dreamy smile and she watched out out of those brilliant semi-closed eyes. “I like that, Metal. A lot.”

“Say my name.”

“Metal.”

“My real name.” Jesus, why was he behaving like such an asshole?

“Okay. Sean, then. I like what you’re doing to me, Sean.” No censure in her voice. And it slammed him upside the head that she understood, on a deep level, what he wanted. Metal was his military nickname and he was fine with it. Most of the people he dealt with on a daily basis were friends from his soldiering days anyway.

He was Metal. Metal was a soldier. But Sean—Sean was a man. Sean O’Brien of a family beyond his military family. He wanted to be Sean for her. Something more than a soldier.

And who better to recognize that he was two people than someone who’d been someone else all her life?

She did understand. She was smiling at him, caressing his skull trim.

“Sean,” she murmured.

Oh God. His heart gave a huge kick in his chest. Even with her eyes half-closed, Felicity saw him better than anyone else ever had. She saw straight into him. And from the dreamy smile on her face she liked what she saw.

Against all the odds.

“I was going to go down on you but I really need to kiss your mouth instead,” he said roughly.

She blushed and it was such a beautiful thing to watch.

“Oh, um. Okay.”

Metal shifted so that his head was even with hers and kissed her, while keeping his fingers inside her, staking his claim.

The kiss was deep and he didn’t lift his head. They breathed through each other. His tongue stroked hers while his fingers stroked between her legs, in rhythm with his tongue. She was wet and warm in both places and felt like heaven.

Carefully, he rolled a little on top of her. Just enough so that his mouth was right above hers as they kissed endlessly. His finger stroked in and out. He reached deep inside her and felt her gasp in his mouth.

“Like that?” he whispered without leaving her mouth.

“Oh yeah.” He could feel the exhalation of breath as she said the words.

His finger reached deeper into her softness. “And that?”

She made a noise deep in her throat. But he knew she liked it because she contracted around his finger and her hips lifted slightly. He stroked her inside, deep and slow. Her arms twined around his neck bringing him even closer to her.

Her thighs started trembling as he increased the rhythm of his strokes and her mouth went slack. The kiss deepened. He pressed her harder into the pillow as he stroked her faster and faster. Their mouths and his finger in her sex were making little noises in the quiet room. It was like a little symphony. Then her gasps were added and then another deep noise. It took him a second to realize it was him, growling in his throat as he felt her sex contract once, twice. When he bit her lips she exploded, hips rising and falling, clenching hard around his hand and oh God, he’d never felt anything as wonderful as that.

He held her tightly, kissing her through her orgasm until she subsided, a light sheen of sweat over her flushed body. The hold around his neck relaxed and her arms fell bonelessly to her sides. He lifted his head to look down at her, that beautiful face pure sex. Beard rash, mouth swollen and wet, a slight smile on her face.

She lifted a hand as if it weighed a ton and caressed his face. He was slightly bristly and needed a shave. He was going into the bathroom to jerk off and wash off but first he had to kiss her. Because it was impossible not to.

Her eyes half-opened, like lifting a lid hiding the summer sky. The smile widened. “Wow.”

“I’ll say.”

At any other time he’d be doing internal capers and smiling smugly because he’d gotten the woman off. But this felt different. Real and serious. Felicity’s face was so soft as she looked at him. That expression of intelligent wariness had disappeared. He’d heard her story and understood how she’d lived a life undercover, which meant hiding emotions from the world.

Metal had never been sent in undercover. He was too big and fair for one thing. But it was also recognized that he didn’t have the mind-set for it. He was a warrior and he went into battle in uniform. He never had to pretend to be what he was not.

Felicity, her whole childhood, never had that luxury. He recognized now how she hid behind a facade because that facade was…down. She was open to him. And he was open to her.

They were touching only via her hand on his face and it was as if his molecules were melding with hers. It was such an intense feeling it was almost unsettling. He opened his mouth, closed it, then thought
what the hell.
“At the risk of sounding stupid, I never felt anything like that before.”