The Defiant Hero (40 page)
“Not really. See, there’s Texas, and then there’s the other forty-nine states, all interchangeable. Muldoon comes from small town America—real small town. Someplace caught in a time warp. With a population of less than a thousand. Where children address their elders as sir or ma’am, and the F-word isn’t uttered even in back alleys—let alone in mixed company. Where women stay home and clean and bake apple pies and—”
“Yeah, thanks. I liked it right until you got to that part.”
“And men’s jobs are to provide for their families and keep their wives barefoot and pregnant and in those kitchens, baking apple—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said. “Are you in therapy? Because clearly you have some kind of fixation.”
She was teasing him, smiling at him.
“I’m not saying I approve of it,” he countered. “I’m just giving you a report on Muldoon. You’re the one who wanted to know. Personally, I think it’s unnatural. You know, I find myself watching my language around him, wanting to protect his innocent little ears. I swear, it’s like having George Bailey—you know, from It’s a Wonderful Life—join the team.”
She laughed again. “I think George Bailey would be a great addition to any team.”
He snorted. “Spoken just like a woman. What’s wrong with you, Locke?”
“Nothing,” she countered indignantly. “Considering I am a woman.”
A woman who was lying next to him on his bed, handcuffed to him, her hair spread out on the pillow, her breasts full against her T-shirt . . .
Sam yanked his gaze back to her eyes, forced himself to smile, to keep his voice light despite the sudden five hundred degree temperature increase in the room. “Yeah, I kind of couldn’t help but notice.”
Too late for keeping things light—the mood had already shifted. And Alyssa wasn’t smiling anymore. She was looking at him with those ocean green eyes, with an expression on her face that he’d never seen before. She was looking at his shoulders and his chest, his stomach and . . .
Sam shifted his legs, lying even more on his side. God damn, she was looking at him as if she wanted to touch him. Was it possible . . . ?
“This is really weird, isn’t it?” she asked quietly, looking back into his eyes.
He nodded. Cleared his throat. Ached for her. Forced another smile. “Why don’t you try closing your eyes again?”
She closed her eyes immediately, and he instantly regretted not suggesting that she kiss him. Would she have done that as obediently, too?
“Good night, Sam.”
Maybe it was because she called him Sam. Maybe it was because she looked so young and vulnerable, lying there with her eyes tightly closed. Maybe it was because he was just flat-out insane. But on a complete and total whim, he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead, just like her mother used to do.
It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t thought out. It just seemed like the right thing to do at that one particular moment in time.
Honest to God, the last thing he expected was for her to reach up with her free hand and catch him. To put her arm around his neck, and hold him there, his face inches from hers, her fingers skimming across his shoulders, her touch impossibly, wonderfully intimate.
“That was nice,” she said. “Thank you.”
Her mouth was right there, right there—that mouth he’d dreamed about for years. And he couldn’t stop himself. He kissed her again, just as gently but on the lips this time, brushing his mouth across hers.
“That was even nicer,” she whispered, and smiled. At him.
It was all over. Right then and there. Battle lost. Surrender was inevitable and immediate.
She was drunk—drunk enough to handcuff herself to him. He knew that. And he was scum, excrement, toxic waste.
Because he kissed her again, kissed her anyway. Not so gently this time, with his lips completely covering hers. And when she opened her mouth to him, welcoming him, he didn’t hesitate. He took all that she offered and more, drinking her in, like a man all but dying of thirst.
She tasted like the best whiskey he’d ever had in his life—sweet and sharp and incomparably intoxicating.
He could feel her fingers in his hair and on his back as he kissed her longer, harder, as she kissed him just as hungrily—hot, deep, delicious kisses that promised heaven was just a few heartbeats away.
She made a sound that was half laughter, half frustration as, when she tried to pull him closer, the handcuffs got in the way.
It was long past the time she should have pushed him over to his side of the bed. It was long past the time she should have gasped and come to her senses, long past the time she should have been using words like mistake and shouldn’t and stop.
Instead, she wrapped one of her legs around him, pulling him against her. Tightly. So that there was no way she couldn’t notice how completely turned on he was. There was no amount of alcohol that would have kept the hard truth—as it were—hidden from her now.
And it was only then that she stopped kissing him.
Sam was ready to pull back, ready to apologize, ready for damn near anything but the way that she smiled up into his eyes.
“Oh my,” she murmured. “Is that for me?”
He laughed at that—he couldn’t help himself. And the sound of her laughter wove its way around him, too.
“You are one amazing looking man, you know that?” Alyssa told him, pulling his head down so that she could kiss him again.
He knew what he should do.
He should put some space between them and make sure she knew what she was doing. Instead, he found her breast first with his hand, filling his palm with her softness, then with his mouth, drawing hard on her, right through both the cotton of her T-shirt and her bra.
She was on fire. She was lightning in his arms, arching up against him, opening her legs. If she hadn’t had on her jeans, he could have pushed his way inside of her—just like that, he could have slid home.
“Do you have any condoms?” she gasped. “Please tell me you have condoms.”
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t quite so completely drunk after all. If she were able to think clearly enough to ask for condoms, she couldn’t be that drunk, could she?
“Bedside table, top drawer,” he told her, and got a beautiful smile in return.
She was struggling to get out of her jeans and Sam tried to help, but the handcuffs made it close to impossible. “Maybe you should get the key.”
“What?” she asked, kicking her legs free. “Set you loose and risk having you run off somewhere? No way.”
It was a joke. She was making a joke. She knew damn well that he wasn’t going anywhere. There was nothing in this world short of a call from his CO telling him to mobilize that would make him leave her right now. Not a million dollars, not all the best friends in the world.
Her panties were white, but there was nothing conservative about them. He slipped one finger under the edge, but she laughed and pulled away, kneeling on the bed beside him.
“Besides,” she added, “the cuffs really work for me.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him, then reached out to touch him, grabbing hold of him right through his shorts. “This really works for me, too.”
She was laughing again, and he caught her mouth with his in a burst of pleasure and happiness that was so intense he was nearly blinded.
He pulled her shirt up over her head, only to realize he couldn’t get it past the handcuffs. It hung there on her arm, and she laughed again. She laughed even more as she dragged his shorts down his legs and his erection sprang free.
“Dear Lord,” she said, laughter bubbling in her voice. “I think you better get a condom right now because I don’t know how much longer I can wait before I flat out attack you.”
If she was kidding, she was only half kidding. The look in her eyes was pure desire. She wanted him. She wanted him.
Sam dove for the top drawer—and the handcuffs pulled Alyssa with him, right off the bed.
She landed on top of him, laughing giddily at his pratfall as if Buster Keaton were her idea of a dream lover.
She kissed him hard, straddling him as she reached between them to ensheath him with her fingers. He nearly lost it. Just like that, he almost came in her hand.
And she knew it, too. She was laughing at him now, but he loved it, loved the sound. He pulled her hips forward so that she had to let go of him, so that she covered him with the heat between her legs instead. And then there was only a small slip of white satin keeping him from paradise.
Dear Holy Father. He wanted her naked and he wanted her now. Her bra had a front clasp that was made out of plastic, and he took it and twisted hard—and it snapped in his hands.
“Shit!”
But, again, she was laughing. He’d broken the damn thing into pieces, and he would have laughed, too, except there she was, so impossibly perfect. He wanted to look and touch and taste all at once—there was no time for him to laugh.
She moved against him, murmuring her approval as he rolled her nipples first between his fingers and thumb and then between his teeth and tongue. Her head went back, and she arched her back, and it was all he could do to keep from tearing her panties off and burying himself inside of her.
He had to get a condom.
But his condoms were in the drawer of the bedside table that now towered above him. He would have to sit all the way up, and even then he wasn’t sure he could reach.
He wanted . . . He wanted . . . He slipped his fingers beneath the edge of her panties, finding her slick and hot from desire.
He looked backward, up at the bedside table again, and when he looked back, Alyssa was watching him. She knew what he wanted. She wanted it, too.
She crawled forward, until she could lean even farther across him. Until she could reach the drawer and slide it open. Until she was straddling his chest instead of his hips. Until that white flash of satin was right there, nearly in his face.
He couldn’t not do it. He couldn’t possibly resist. He shifted down and kissed her, breathing in the sweet muskiness of her perfume.
Her thighs tightened around his face and she gasped. But she didn’t pull back. And that was all the invitation he needed.
He reached up and tore her panties free, and then, oh yes, he was in heaven.
The sounds she made were incredible—laughter mixed with pure, desperate pleasure. She wasn’t at all shy about letting him know how much she liked what he was doing.
“This isn’t fair!”
He didn’t bother to answer her. She had absolutely no idea how incredibly, wonderfully fair this was for him. It was stupendously fair. Amazingly fair. Deliciously fair. He held her tightly, so that unless she really tried, she couldn’t get away.
She didn’t really try.
Her breath came faster and the sounds she made were more frantic, until she gasped, “Sam, please, I want to come with you inside of me.”
He let her go.
She had a condom in her hand, already unwrapped, and Sam sat up so that together they could cover him.
She was breathing hard, her hair tumbled down around her shoulders. She was breathtakingly beautiful—he wanted to freeze time so he could look at her and memorize her, so he could have this moment to remember, pure and clean and crystal clear, for the rest of his life.
This moment, this amazing, anticipation-charged, here-and-now moment, was without a doubt one of the very best moments of his life. In a few seconds he would be inside of Alyssa Locke. He would be intimately joined with Alyssa Locke. They would be making love.
He laughed aloud, and she smiled at him as she slowly lowered herself on top of him.
Dear God, she was tight. He thought he saw a flash of pain on her face, and he nearly stopped breathing. “Please don’t tell me you’re a virgin.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She laughed. “Unless virginity is something that grows back after four years.”
“Four years? Since you’ve . . . ?”
She kissed him, pushing his shoulders back down to the floor, pushing him all the way home. She made a sound that might’ve been pleasure, might’ve been pain.
“Alyssa, I don’t want to hurt you,” he said hoarsely.
She laughed. “I don’t want to hurt you either. How about I settle for making you scream? And you can do the same for me. After four years, I might have some screaming to do—you up for that, Starrett? It sure feels like you are . . .”
Silently, Sam shook his head. Who knew? Not even in his wildest dreams—and his dreams had been extremely wild—had he imagined cool, controlled Alyssa Locke would dare to whisper such things, even in the privacy of a lover’s arms.
She began moving on top of him, impossibly slowly, her eyes half-closed, pleasure clearly etched on her beautiful face.
Dear God, he was on the edge. He drew in a deep ragged breath, and she leaned forward and kissed him, her nipples taut peaks against his chest.
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