MILITARY ROMANCE: The War Within Himself (Alpha Bad Boy Marine Army Seal) (Contemporary Military Suspense & Thriller Romance) (143 page)

Chapter Two

Frigid air stung Ethan’s nose as he retrieved the big padlock from his saddlebag.  He also fished a piece of apple cookie from his pocket to feed to his mare, Rosie.  As she crunched, he stroked her strong neck and eyed the wide, dark bank of clouds rolling in from the west.  “Last job of the day, girl.  From here we head home.”

The paint horse snorted and shook her head as if she didn’t believe him.

As Ethan locked the gate to the access road, he glanced down and saw fresh tire tracks in the snow.  Pushing back his hat, he gazed down the road.  He couldn’t see Demesse’s big white car, but there was an odd-looking pit in the snow bank halfway down the fence line, and a trail of footsteps leading into the pasture.

Had the attorney broken down and tried to walk out in the wrong direction?  Ethan scanned the snow until he spotted tracks. 

“That idiot.”  He mounted Rosie and rode toward the trail.  It led from the snow bank across the pasture, and appeared to stretch all the way to the pine grove, which was a good mile away.

If Richard Demesse had walked that far wearing his usual outfit – one of his designer suits – he was probably half-frozen already.  Tempted as Ethan was to leave him out there in the woods, with the storm only an hour away, it would be an automatic death sentence.

“All right, Rosie, one more job.  Let’s go rescue the dumbass.”  He wheeled the mare toward the grove and urged her into a quick lope across the snowy pasture.

Along the way he noticed how small the tracks were, and frowned.  The attorney had damned tiny feet for a man, Ethan decided – but at least they matched his brains.  Once he reached the tree line, the trail grew fainter and the tracks longer, as if Demesse had been dragging himself along.

“Richard?” Ethan shouted, and peered through the trees. “Call out if you can hear me.”

A faint moan drifted to him, but it wasn’t made by a man.

He swung off Rosie and tethered her to a branch before he ran into the trees, following the trail into a thicket of brush, where one small, white foot protruded from the bushes.  Ethan reached in and felt the violently shivering body of a woman – and the clumsy bat of hands trying to push his away.

“Don’t be afraid, ma’am.”  He crouched down and tugged her out of the bushes, frowning as he saw her bare legs and then the silvery tape binding her wrists.  “It’s okay, darling, I’m not going to hurt you.  I’ve got to get you back to my house to warm you up.”

Once he had pulled her out, he quickly took off his jacket and wrapped her with it.  He saw that frost blanched her matted, apricot-colored curls, and blood had frozen on her lips.  When she opened her green eyes and saw the knife in his hand, he heard her utter a rasping moan.  The terror in her eyes ebbed as Ethan used the blade to cut through the duct tape. 

              “Please,” she whispered.  “Don’t.”

              Ethan bent closer.  “Don’t what, darling?” 

He felt her go limp, and after checking her for injuries, lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the grove.  He placed her on Rosie and then swung up behind her, clamping one arm around her waist as he decided on the quickest route back to the house.

              He kept Rosie reined into a fast walk as he cut across the ranch, but the storm rolled over him before he got within a mile of home.  While Ethan tried to protect the woman from the wind with his body, her violent shivering had stopped – not a good sign. 

“Come on, lady,” he murmured against the icy stiffness of her pretty hair.  “Don’t quit on me now.”

Ethan had never been so glad to see the old ranch house in his life, and his brothers came running as he rode into the yard. 

Liam’s eyes widened as he lifted the woman down, so Ethan could dismount.  “Where are her pants?”

“Not on her.”  He handed the reins to Chris and said, “Take care of Rosie for me.”  To Liam, he said, “Let me have her.”  Once she was back in his arms, he strode into the house.

Liam followed him inside.  “Where did you find her?”

“Out in the woods.  She got away from whoever took her.”  Ethan headed for the stairs.  “Call the sheriff.”

              “Can’t.”  His brother caught up with him.  “We’ve already lost phone service and the power.  We’ve probably still got some hot water left.  Want me to run a bath?”

              “No, she’s too cold.  She’ll go into shock.”  Ethan carried her into his room.  Rewarming her slowly with heated compresses or an electric blanket was what she needed, but without power he’d have to resort to the oldest of treatments.  “Go downstairs and make me a pot of strong, sweet tea.” 

              Liam nodded and took off. Ethan placed the woman on his bed and gently removed what clothes she still had on before he tucked her under the thick coverlet.  He then quickly stripped out of his own clothes, climbed in beside her, and pulled her on top of him, tucking her head under his chin as he began to carefully peel the remains of the duct tape from her wrists.

              Liam returned a few minutes later with the tea and two mugs on a tray.  When he saw Ethan in bed with the woman, he closed the door behind him.  “She hurt?”

              “Her wrists are raw, and it looks like the bastard popped her in the mouth.”  Ethan stroked his big hand over the damp curls.  “Still, she got away.  Walked over a mile in the snow like this before she collapsed, and even then she had the sense to crawl into the bushes.”

“God Almighty.  She can’t weigh more than a buck and a quarter.”  His brother handed him a mug of tea along with a troubled look.  “After all that, how do you think she’s going to react when she wakes up naked in bed with you?”

Ethan checked her pulse and felt it growing stronger.  “When she does, I’ll explain things.  Real fast.” 

* * *

              The heat seeping into her felt delicious, and after being so cold for so long, Jessa only wanted to bask in it.  The bed where she huddled felt strange – hard and unyielding – and yet so wonderfully safe, she never wanted to leave it again.  She rubbed her cheek against the resilient smoothness of the mattress, and turned her head to bury her face in her pillow.

Only the pillow was odd, too.  It felt like . . . skin.    

              She opened her eyes to see a flat, reddish-brown male nipple an inch from her eye.  Beneath her cheek, a strong heartbeat steadily throbbed.  She smelled soap, and sweat, and man, and when she lifted her head, his eyes were the first thing she saw:  long, narrow eyes, the color of good whiskey. 

              “Hey there.”  The man had a soft, deep voice that made her toes curl.  “Don’t be scared.” 

She wasn’t.  She recognized his rugged face at once.  This was the cowboy who had found her and pulled her out of the bushes.  He’d brought her somewhere safe.  He’d stayed with her.  “You saved my life.”

“You saved yourself,” he corrected gently.  “I just got you out of the storm, ma’am.”

He was kind, Jessa thought.  Kind in the gallant, old-fashioned way that few men were anymore.  “Thank you.”

              “My pleasure.”  He sounded as if he meant it.  “By the time I got you here you were hypothermic, and the storm knocked out our power.  That’s why I’m in bed with you, ma’am, to warm you up.”

              “It’s working really well.”  Now she realized she was sprawled naked on top of him, and he wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothes, either.  Before being kidnapped that probably would have bothered her, but now she was so grateful to be alive that it seemed wonderful, too.  “What’s your name, Cowboy?”

              “Ethan Boone.”  He brushed some of her curls back from her brow.  “I’ve been wondering what yours is.  I bet you have a real pretty name.”

              She loved how his deep voice stroked over her, like a caressing hand.  “It’s Jessa Cooper.”

              “See?”  Ethan grinned, and it transformed his austere features like a flash of sunlight.  “I was right.”

              Jessa felt as if she’d been punched again, but this time in the heart.  “Where am I, exactly?” 

“Ghost Lake Ranch.”  He studied her face and added, “Our land borders Crystal Valley in Granite County.  You’re not from these mountains, are you?”

She shook her head a little.  “I live in Billings.  I have a practice there, too.  I’m a veterinarian.”

“Well, you’re a long way from home.”  Ethan’s expression grew more serious.  “You remember what happened to you out there, Dr. Cooper?”

              “Jessa, please.”  She shivered and rested her cheek against his hard chest.  “Can we talk about that later?  I don’t want to think about it right now.”

              “You don’t have to, darling.”  Ethan wrapped his arms around her.  “Go back to sleep.  I’ll keep you safe.”

              “I know you will.”  Without thinking Jessa traced a little circle around his nipple, and stopped when she saw it pucker.  “Sorry, I’m, ah, not – sorry.”

              “Neither am I.”  Ethan’s hand curled over her nape, slid down to the small of her back, and then returned to tangle in her curls.  “But if you keep doing that, things are going to get a lot hotter in this bed, for both of us.”

              Jessa didn’t know Ethan Boone.  He might be married, or involved with another woman, or a total womanizer.  Maybe he’d hoped this would happen when he’d stripped off her wet clothes and crawled into bed with her.  But if he were that kind of man, he wouldn’t be such a gentleman about it. 

I’m not going to let that monster poison me against men.
  Jessa remembered all the things she had promised herself in the trunk of that car, too — the things she would absolutely do if she were able to free herself.  Her hand trembled a little as she reached out and used her finger to circle his nipple again.

              “Jessa.”  His big hand cradled the back of her head.  “We don’t have to do this now.  You’ve been to hell and back today, darling.”

              “But you want to.”  She’d heard the yearning in his voice, and when she shifted, she felt the hard, thick length of his shaft brush against her inner thigh.  “Don’t you, Cowboy?  And I need you.”  Suddenly it became imperative to kiss him, and she used his broad shoulders to pull herself up so she could touch her lips to his.

              Ethan didn’t move as she kissed him, but when Jessa licked the seam of his lips he groaned and rolled her onto her back, clasping her chin and covering her mouth with his.

Chapter Three

              Jessa groaned as he ravished her with his tongue, stroking it in and out of her mouth with avid hunger, but she needed more.  She caught his hand and brought it to her breast, rubbing his palm over her tight nipple to ease the ache.

              Ethan wrenched his mouth from her lips and looked down at his hand beneath hers.  “Damn, woman, you taste like heaven, and you feel . . . darling, if you’re going to change your mind, now would be good.”

              He sounded gruff, but Jessa felt no fear.  “I don’t want to be good, Cowboy.  I want to be alive.  I want to live.”  She wriggled under him until she could twine her leg around his.  It made her feel like a delicate flower vine winding around a massive oak.  “And I want to be wanton, and wicked, and wild while I do it.”

              He rested his brow against hers.  “You don’t even know me, sweetheart.”  He hissed in a sharp breath as she rolled her hips, and rubbed her slick, trembling folds against his shaft.  “Oh, man.  Do that again.”

              Jessa arched her back as she pressed her breasts against his chest, and then tilted her hips until she felt the thick bulb of his cockhead press where she needed it.  “Your turn, Cowboy.  Anything you want to do to me?”

              He reached down between them, fisting his shaft and working the heavy dome against her until it parted her.  “Look at me, darling.  That’s the way, there it is.”  He thrust the first inch inside her, shuddering when she tightened around his girth.  “Your pussy feels like a hot, slow kiss.”

              Jessa loved how his voice had dropped to a rumble, and how it made a word she’d always thought dirty sound sexy.  “You like it that much?”

              “Oh, yes, ma’am.”  He forged in deeper and went still again, and when she clenched around his shaft to draw him in deeper, his shoulders tensed.  “You keep doing that, darling, and this will be all over, real quick.”

              “I don’t mind,” she said, and nuzzled his neck before she nipped his lobe.  “If you come, we can do it again.”  She let her breath whisper against his ear.  “Next time maybe I’ll give you a slow, hot kiss with my mouth, Cowboy.”

              He went still at her sensual threat, and then he dragged her thighs up around his hips.  With a slow plunge he sank into her until their body hair meshed.  As a moan escaped Jessa’s lips he drew out, watching her face as he did.  Whatever he saw made him groan and thrust powerfully into her, his thickness stroking and filling her softness over and over.

              The firm, smooth pumping of his shaft made Jessa writhe wildly under him, and she clutched his arms as she whimpered, her breasts bobbing with every deep stroke.  “Ethan, oh, please.”

              “I’ve got you, darling.”  She felt the sensual laugh rumble in his chest as he bent his head and latched onto one nipple, tugging on it until she cried out. 

Jessa arched into him, tightening her thighs around his hips as he plowed into her.  Her eyelids fluttered as he changed the angle of his strokes, and his shaft prodded something deep inside that sent little explosions of sensation through her belly.

              “There you are,” he murmured, his whiskey-colored eyes glowing with masculine satisfaction as he slowed his thrusts and watched her face.  “That’s where it feels so good, yeah, I know, darling.  Don’t fight it, let it happen now.  I want to feel your tight little pussy drench my cock when you come.  You going to come for me, Jessa?  You going to give me all that sweetness?”

              She cried out as his delicious questions and soul-stirring strokes sent her spiraling out of control.  Ethan held her and murmured to her as she exploded under him, her body heaving with the force of the hot delight, until all she could do was go limp and quiver from the aftershocks.

              “That’s my girl,” Ethan said, kissing her lips and her chin and the tip of her nose as he kept moving in her, drawing out his penetrations so they added to the glow of pleasure in her belly.  “You’re so lovely when you come.”

              As she emerged from the sensual daze, Jessa realized how tightly coiled Ethan’s muscles were, and saw the trickles of sweat gleaming on his face.  He was controlling himself so ruthlessly, she realized, so she could come down slowly.  This when all he probably wanted to do was take her hard and fast until he pumped her full of his seed.

              Jessa wanted that, too, and boldly reached around to clasp his buttocks with her hands.  “Stop holding back, Cowboy.  I want all of you.  Give it to me.”

              Ethan shuddered over her.  “No, you don’t.”

              “I’m not going to break.”  She pulled his head down to hers, and whispered, “Do whatever you want to me.”

              Ethan groaned, and then jerked his penis out of her and rolled with her.  Urgently he pulled her up on all fours as he clasped her breasts in his big hands.  “This is what I want.”  He squeezed her mounds as he pumped deep into her pussy, his cock like a piston as he fucked her.  “Take it, yes, darling, take it all.”

              Jessa pushed back against his strokes, impaling herself on him and clenching around him as his thrusts grew wilder.  “Give it to me, Cowboy.  Like that, like that.”

              Ethan crouched over her, his chest heaving and his hands convulsing. Then, he groaned and jerked.

              “Oh, yes.”  Jessa tightened around his pulsing shaft, milking every warm spurt of semen that he jetted inside her.  “That’s so good.”

              Ethan gently disengaged their bodies before he pulled her into his arms and rolled onto his back, draping her limp, quivering body atop him.  “That was . . . .” he simply shook his head.

              “Everything.”  Jessa lifted her head and offered him a sleepy smile.  “It’s everything.”

* * *

              Ethan woke just before dawn with Jessa curled up beside him like a contented cat.  Watching her sleep made him hard, but as much as he wanted to wake her up with his hungry mouth, and plum her tight, wet pussy again until she whimpered his name, he knew he should let her rest.  His brothers would be worried, too.                              

Once he slipped out of bed and dressed, Ethan went downstairs to find Liam and Chris dishing up breakfast by lamplight.  The smell of coffee brewing in the camp pot, bubbling over a can of sterno made him sigh.  “Sorry I didn’t come down last night.”

              Chris made a scoffing sound.  “The hell you are.”  He shot him a wry look.  “I wouldn’t be, either.  So was she born strawberry blonde?”

              “Shut up.”  Liam handed Ethan a steaming mug.  “How is she doing?”

              “Better,” Ethan said.  “Her name’s Jessa Cooper, and she’s a vet from Billings.  She was too shook up to talk much about what happened, but I’ll guess he snatched her in the city, and brought her out here to do her.”  His jaw tightened.  “She has a burn from a cattle prod on her back.  That must be how he took her down.”

              “Fucking coward, to do that to a woman.”  Chris, the largest and most even-tempered of Ethan’s brothers, bunched his huge hands into ham-size fists.  “When we hunt him down, I want a few minutes alone with him.” 

“You’ll have to stand in line, brother.”  Liam’s expression grew bleak.  “Did she tell you anything more?”

              “He was taking me to his house,” a calm, sweet voice said, and Ethan turned to see Jessa standing in the doorway.  “So he must live around here somewhere.”  She had put on one of his flannel shirts, which reached to her knees, and a pair of his long socks.  “May I have some of that coffee?  Black, please?”

              “Yes, ma’am.”  Liam quickly filled and handed her a mug.  He caught Ethan’s glare before he said, “We don’t have to talk about this right now, Dr. Cooper.”

              “I think we do, and please, call me Jessa.”  She padded over to Ethan, and blushed as he tucked his arm around her waist.  Her discomfort quickly faded as she said, “This man is a psychopath, but he looks and acts completely normal.  I never suspected for a moment that he intended to harm me.”

              “Did you know him before he snatched you?”  When she shook her head, Liam grimaced.  “Do you know why he targeted you?”

“He didn’t say, but I do a monthly pet adoption feature with the local news, so he may have seen me on television.  I’m not the first woman he’s abducted, either.”  She dragged in an unsteady breath before she repeated what her abductor had told her.

Ethan watched his brothers’ eyes darken with fury, and grimly clamped down on his own outrage.  “No wonder you nearly killed yourself trying to get away.”   

“Death would have been a mercy, compared to what he had planned for me,” Jessa said softly, and then squared her shoulders.  “And I am not letting this maniac hurt anyone else.  I need to call the police and tell them what I know.”

              “We will, as soon as the storm passes,” Ethan promised.