Sugar (21 page)

Curiosity piqued, he pressed, “Such as?”

She blew out a breath. “If you’ve acted in porn, you must be a sex addict.”

“And that’s not true? You certainly had me fooled.” He softened the asshole remark with a smile.

She reached out to swat him. “You are such—”

Dodging her, he said, “An asshole, I hear you. But that time I was joking, so go on.”

“Adult films are shot in very short time frames, anywhere from several days to just a few weeks. An average shoot is twelve hours, but I’ve been on set for as long as twenty. When you’re filming as a lead, you work a lot—and don’t roll your eyes at me. It is
work
. When the shoot wraps, you’re tired, you’re sore. Sex is the very last thing you want. I used to go straight home, wash my face, and then draw a bubble bath. Soaking in the tub and reading a romance novel were the only things that got me to unwind. Afterward, I’d sink into my California king—
alone
—and watch old movies until I fell asleep, which was usually in the first five minutes. Sorry if I’m busting any fantasies, but you did ask.”

“No, go on, this is fascinating.” It was.

“Having sex professionally makes you more discriminating in your private life, at least that’s how it’s always been for me. I’ve worked with all the leading adult actors in the business, guys who know every ‘dick trick’ in the book, as well as a few that aren’t, who can stay on the edge for hours and then come on command—as in thirty or so seconds.”

Thirty seconds, Jesus!

“After that, do you really think I’m going to go to bed with any gonzo that walks up to me in a club?”

Cole didn’t like to think of Sarah going to bed with anyone else, “gonzo” or otherwise, not on screen and definitely not off. The thought of anyone else making love to her seriously messed with his mind. “I never thought about it that way before, but I see your point.”

His concession earned her smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He hesitated and then edged closer. “So how’d I get so lucky?”

She made a face. “What are you, fishing for compliments?”

“No, I’m asking . . . for the truth.”

Sarah seemed to consider the question. “I liked your eyes.”

“You brought me back home with you because you . . . liked my eyes?” This was a first so far as he knew.

She nodded. “That and you made me laugh.”

He reached up and peeled the towel from her head. Honey-colored hair, still damp from the shower, spilled around her shoulders. “That’s really interesting, because as I remember it, I was doing everything but back flips, and I could barely get you to crack a smile.”

Smiling now, she quipped, “I do my laughing mostly on the inside.”

“Is that so?’ Setting the towel on the counter, he moved closer. “So if you just saw . . . Peter in group on Monday, why the lunch today? You guys miss each other that much?”

Sarah sighed. “Again, none of your business, but he proposed to his partner last week. They’re getting married, and I’m the best woman, so to speak.”

“That guy’s gay?” If so, that was the best news he’d had all day.

She stiffened. “Yeah, why? Do you have a problem with homosexuality?”

“Me, no, I’m all for it.” Her lips quirked, and he quickly clarified, “I mean I believe people should love and marry whomever they want.”

Her approving nod took the pressure off—for now. “Actually I’m glad you brought it up, because I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“They want a June wedding but given the short notice, we’re having trouble finding a venue for the reception. I was wondering if you might have any leads. Someplace nice but not too extravagant that can accommodate up to forty people.”

Cole thought for a moment. “I might.” Alger House off Sixth Avenue and Bleecker Street might just fill the bill, assuming it was available. Until he knew for certain, though, he didn’t want to get Sarah’s hopes up. “Let me make some calls tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, that’d be great. Thanks.”

He reached out and tucked a damp lock of hair behind her ear. God, he loved her like this, no costumes, no cosmetics, just fresh, clean woman. Not any woman but Sarah, his at least for the following few months.

“Now that’s settled, let’s get you back to smiling.”

He dragged his fingers along the line of the rove from the vee neckline to the belt at her waist. Parting the fabric, he slid his hand over the well of her belly and then lower, his palm cupping the coarse curls crowning her thighs. Cole smiled. It wasn’t only her hair that was damp.

He slid two fingers inside her. Sarah’s eyes flew open.

Working her pussy, Cole focused on her face, her eyes especially. “Are you smiling here? No, what about here?” He wiggled one finger.

Rocking ever so slightly toward him, Sarah bit her lip. “No.”

“Hmm, I’ll have to try harder then.” He crooked his finger, then pressed the knuckle over what he was pretty sure was her G-spot. That time Sarah jumped. “Well, okay, maybe I am a little.”

As apologies went, an orgasm was a hell of a lot more effective than flowers. Still, later as he lay in bed with Sarah half-asleep and snuggled up beside him, he couldn’t dismiss the inconvenient truth. Sugar—Sarah—was seriously getting under his skin. Back in Iraq, her screen persona had captivated him, but that surface-level lust was nothing compared to the reactions—feelings—the flesh-and-blood lover evoked.

Moving forward, he’d have to approach their arrangement with greater caution. Sarah was a really great fuck and a really great person, but he couldn’t afford to let himself feel more for her than lust and liking.

As much as he might want to, he just couldn’t go there.

“I
ED
to the left!”

“Jesus, help us!”

“Exit the kill zone! Exit the kill zone! Get outta there!”

The kill zone, the kill zone, the kill zone . .
.

Engulfed by stinging smoke and blistering flame, spewing guts and flying nails, Cole opened his mouth, a scream scoring his throat. “Nooooooooooooooooooooooo.”

Slender arms banded about him, towing him out of the nightmare and back to consciousness. Floral-scented hair fell against his cheek. Hands, gentle and knowing, stroked back the hair from his sweating forehead. A voice, soft yet firm, reached out to him through the darkness.

“Cole it’s all right. You’re all right. You’re not alone. I’m here—Sarah.”

Sarah
. Shuddering and lathered, Cole pulled himself upright. A wave of nausea rolled over him. He doubled over. Bandaging both trembling arms tight around his middle, he rode it out. Curling into himself, he tucked his head against tented knees.

Sarah sat up beside him. She wrapped her arms about his hunched shoulders, a futile effort to still his shaking. “Baby, you’re okay. It was just a dream, a nightmare.” She pressed a kiss atop his sweat-matted hair.

Despite how confident she sounded, she had it all wrong. Cole wasn’t anything close to okay. And his nightmare wasn’t any dream at all. It was an instant replay.

He lifted his head just enough to look at her. “Sarah,” he said, the sound of her name on his lips anchoring him to the present—sanity.

Her strained gaze met his in the semi-darkness. “Cole, what is it? What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

His throat was raw from screaming. When he finally spoke, his voice was quaking and gravelly. “Our convoy was headed to xx on a reconnaissance mission. We’d been on the road for about ten minutes. I was the one to spot the IED. We cleared the area, and then pulled over so my team could stabilize it for removal. Compared to the stuff we usually came across, this bomb was a cakewalk. Most IEDs are constructed without metal or electronics, which makes them impossible to detect with standard monitoring equipment, but this one was old school.”

He hadn’t realized it at the time, but it was also a decoy, a distraction.

“Disposing of it was bread-and-butter stuff. I told my teammates, Sam and Joe, to hold back. I’ll never forget saying, ‘I’ve got this, guys.’”

“Because you were trying to protect them,” she broke in, defending him.

Only Cole didn’t deserve defending, and he knew it. He shook his head, sweat from his hair spattering the bed sheet. “I was arrogant, fucking full of myself. The guys in the unit had started calling me the Bomb Whisperer. I pretended not to like it, but I did, too much.”

Cinching her arm around him, Sarah whispered, “Go on.”

“That’s when . . . Kirby showed up.”

“Kirby?” Sarah’s question struck him like a bullet in the darkness.

Cole braced himself to take it. “Our dog.”

“Possible enemy combatant at three o’clock.”

“Shoot, it’s just Kirby,” someone, Sam maybe, had called out.

Shoulder weapons lowered. Strained faces broke into smiles. Relieved laugher made the rounds.

The medium-sized, brown dog crossing the road toward them was a welcome sight, their unofficial mascot for the last few months. Like so many abandoned animals in Iraq, Kirby had shown up at their base camp one day scrounging for scraps, his rack of ribs threatening to poke through his concave sides. Despite being emaciated and full of fleas, he was unflappably good-natured. Before long, rotating turns sneaking him scraps had become part of everyone’s routine.

Some wiseass had suggested calling him Spot, but Cole had vetoed that and come up with Kirby. The name had just seemed to fit. Kirby’s coat was brindled, not spotted, his flea-bitten fur a mosaic of various tans and darker browns, his once-white paws the rusty color of the unpaved roads. He had bright, alert eyes and a perpetually lolling pink tongue that made it seem like he was grinning. In a land with so little to smile about, a friendly face meant a lot.

Kirby trotted up to them, tail wagging. He’d gone missing a few days earlier, and Cole had begun to think he might not be coming back. Unlike the pampered pets he’d grown up with, companion animals in wartime Iraq lived short, harsh lives frequently ended by brutality. The roadsides were littered with carcasses, many of them dogs killed or cut open by the enemy and stuffed with improvised explosives.

Relieved that hadn’t been Kirby’s fate, Cole called over his shoulder, “I’ll catch up later. For now, keep him back, okay?”

“Will do.” Joe, the goofy, sweet kid from Tennessee who they all teased for dipping tobacco, was a sucker for anything with four legs and a tail. Pulling off his glove, he whistled through his fingers. “C’mon here, boy.”

Cole’s other teammate, Sam, started walking over, his face wreathed in a wide grin. “How’s it goin’ buddy?” he said to the dog. “We thought you went AWOL.”

Eager to be done, Cole focused back on the bomb, ignoring the nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. The temperature had climbed to almost one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit, and the advanced bomb suit he’d donned wasn’t exactly lightweight. Basting inside it, he was setting himself up for a good case of heat stroke. Hurrying through neutralizing the explosive, it wasn’t until he finished that it struck him.

What was Kirby doing wearing a collar?

Cole whipped around. “IED on the dog! Exit the kill zone. Exit the kill zone! Go, go,
go
!”

On his knees petting Kirby, Joe swiveled toward Cole, eyes frozen and mouth agape. A few feet away, Sam stalled in mid-step.

Cole hauled up his heavily padded arms and flagged them back. “Exit the kill zone! Exit the kill zone! Get outta there!” he screamed, hoping to jar them into motion.

Ahead of him, the earth heaved. Blacktop ripped up like ribbon. The plume of smoke reminded him of a twister he’d once seen on
Storm Chasers
. Suddenly he was awash in a hailstorm from Hell, pelted by nails and rocks, dirt and debris, as well as some sticky resin that smelled like melted metal. Blood?

“Everybody’s good, everybody’s good,” he screamed, hoping to calm whoever might be left alive to hear.

He raced through the shimmering wall of heat, into the smoke and flames as fast as the heavy armoring of his suit would let him. Even shielded inside it, he felt like his skin must be melting.

Voices, frantic and furious, shouted him back.
“Get back here, you crazy motherfucker!”

“Canning, clear the kill zone. That’s an order!”

“Jesus Christ, Cole! Cole!!!”

Ignoring them all, he combed through the rubble, tossing aside a tree limb as though it weighed no more than a toothpick, kicking at charred grass and melted machinery. He found Joe first. His head was blown off. So were his legs. The arms were still there, shorn off at the elbows. Cole stared at the trunk, unable to comprehend that it was his teammate and friend. Joe, the sweet, aw-shucks kid who’d been raised by his “granny,” who’d enlisted hoping to do his war-veteran daddy and country proud. Joe, who’d once confessed in the dead of yet another sweltering night that his biggest fear was being captured and beheaded by the enemy.

“Shit, they don’t waste time beheading grunts like us,” Cole had assured him, stubbing out his cigarette in the sand. “Now get some sleep.”

Cole’s eyes poured, tearing with grit and grief. “Joe, Jesus Christ, no.”