Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (16 page)

Hanna could feel his heartbeat. It was
tapping out a strong, quick tempo. In step to the slow, sensuous music, he
wedged a knee between her legs and the loose folds of her long skirt. The
momentary pressure of his hard thigh against her pelvis made her throb. It also
allowed her to feel his arousal.

Shivers of pleasure skittered across
her flesh. Thinking she was chilled, Nick tightened his embrace. Hanna melted
against him, wanting to crawl into his skin. She also wanted another kiss,
another taste of him, a long, deep, slow taste; an uninterrupted taste. It
seemed the more he kissed her, the more she wanted him to do it again.

He nuzzled her ear, his breath hot
against her skin. Dispensing with the traditional dance position, he slid both
arms around her and fit his hands to the curve of her hips. Her own rose to
twine around his neck. Their new position arched her against him, pressing her
lower body intimately to his. His arousal was much more noticeable than before,
pressed against the lower half of her abdomen.

They were simply swaying to the throbbing
music now, barely moving their feet, their lower bodies rubbing up against one
another’s. Hanna was immensely thankful the dance floor was cast in such deep
shadows. The room began to spin for her. She pressed her forehead to Nick’s
shoulder and leaned against his big body for balance. With a single fingertip,
Nick lifted her face to his. The unmistakable desire she saw there startled
her, but it also pleased her immensely. Lowering his head, he pressed his lips
to hers.

“Hey, buddy, mind if I cut in?”

Hanna’s head snapped up. The man who
spoke was big and burly, covered in leather and tattoos.

“Hell, yes,” Nick growled over one
shoulder. “Get lost.”

When the intruder failed to step away,
Nick swiveled to face him. Hanna stepped behind him. There was no way she going
to dance with the Neanderthal confronting Nick.

“How about it, sweet thing?” The man
grinned at her. “Want me to show you how a real man dances?”

“Not particularly.”

“Does it look like the lady needs
anyone to dance with her?” Nick shot back. “She’s with me.”

He turned to take her back to their
table when the man put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Nick spun around
more fiercely this time, and Hanna groaned. She hated fights. She looked around
for Yancy. He had spotted the trouble and was on his way.

“Hey, Piper, leave this couple alone!”
Yancy snapped. “They’re friends of mine. You’ve had too much to drink anyway.
Go home to your old lady.”

“You kicking me out?” the biker
challenged.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m doing.”

The biker named Piper stared at Yancy
for a long moment, then finally shrugged and walked away. Hanna breathed a sigh
of relief.

“Thanks Yancy.”

“No problem. The next round is on me.”
With that, he motioned to his waitress.

The woman came up to their table a few
moments later with two more beers. Hanna held up her hand to prevent the woman
from putting them on the table. “Could you bring us a couple of sodas instead?”

When the woman left to change her
order, Nick turned to Hanna. “Do you think you could get Yancy over here and keep
him busy for ten minutes?”

“Sure, but is that long enough to do
what you’re going to do?”

“Can you keep him talking for
fifteen?”

Hanna grinned. “Oh yeah. I’m a doctor,
and people just love to talk about their aliments with me. Yancy loves to tell
me all about his arthritis. I’ll just give him a little free consultation.”

Nick’s smile broadened. “You make a
good partner.” He stood up. “Tell Yancy I went to the bathroom or something.
See you in fifteen.”

“Be careful.”

“Always.”

His smile disappeared with him, and
Hanna immediately missed it. When the waitress returned, she asked her if she’d
send Yancy over.

He came over quickly, and sent her an
anxious look. “How are you doing, Doc? Hope Piper didn’t upset you too much. He
had a fight with his old lady and has been drinking his sorrows away all
night.”

Hanna shook her head. “Don’t worry
about it. No harm done, thanks to your vigilant intervention.” She motioned to
the seat on the other side of the table. “Sit and talk awhile. You look like
you could use a break.” When he grinned at the invitation and took her up on
it, she asked, “So how’s your arthritis?”

“Not too bad with all this warm dry
weather, but my stomach sure has been giving me problems lately?”

“Really? What kind of trouble?” Hanna
smiled. This would keep him busy talking for fifteen minutes or more. Sure
enough, fifteen minutes passed by and Yancy was still telling her all about his
latest aliment. He had never even asked where Nick went. When Nick did return,
though, he stopped talking about his stomach and asked Nick about his promotion
and his next assignment, then about how things were going in Afghanistan.
Finally, he asked if he’d heard anything from Lance.

“Not a word.”

“How’s your mother holding up?”

Yancy seemed truly concerned, so much
so that Hanna wondered if he really knew anything about Lance’s disappearance.

“She’s not taking it well. Neither is
his little boy. You know Christopher, don’t you? He’s handicapped.”

“Yeah, I’ve met him. Cute little guy.
I know Lance dotes on him. Damn, I sure hope he comes home soon. Do you think
he could have drowned and his body just hasn’t washed ashore yet?”

Hanna put her hand to her mouth to
quiet her gasp at Yancy’s bluntness.

“Then why would his boat have
disappeared?” Nick wondered.

“A rubber boat isn’t as sturdy as a
fiberglass or wooden one. It could have hit some rocks and sunk.” Hanna glanced
at Nick, but he was staring intently at Yancy, who seemed to have had enough of
this line of conversation. “Well, I gotta get back to work, folks. Enjoy the
rest of the night. I’ll make sure you don’t have any more trouble.”

Nick nodded, and Hanna pushed her hair
behind her ear. When the bar owner was out of hearing range, she said, “How did
he know that Lance’s boat was rubber? To my knowledge, no one’s mentioned that
fact.”

“How indeed,” Nick commented.
“Interesting slip.”

“Do you think he had anything to do
with Lance’s disappearance? He mentioned drowning. Do you think he knows Lance
drowned?”

Nick heard the fear and desperation in
her voice. “It’s too early to know anything, Hanna. Don’t lose hope. We still
have no idea what happened to Lance.”

A wave of sadness swept over her. It
was awful to realize that fact was still true after four weeks. “Did you
complete your task successfully?”

“I sure did, without a hitch.” He
stood up and reached for her hand. “Let’s go home. We need to get an early
start tomorrow if we’re going to Seattle to see Kurt.”

It was just past eleven o’clock by the
time they pulled up in front of her grandmother’s house. Hanna asked Nick if he
wanted to come in for coffee or tea.

“No, not tonight,” he politely refused
as he walked her up the steps to the front door. “Thanks for the help tonight,
Hanna. You did a good job with Yancy.”

“It was a nice evening, Nick.” She
glanced up at him, then lowered her head. She’d known this man since she was
six, but he could still make her nervous and tongue-tied.

Nick chuckled. She always ducked her
head like that when she was feeling unsettled. It was an endearing trait, a
familiar one. “Hanna, do I make you uneasy?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Oh, Nick, don’t make me answer that.”

He reached for and caught both her
hands in his, staring pensively at her a moment. His mouth eased into a gentle
smile when she glanced up at him again. Before she could look away, he caught
her chin with one hand. “Do I make you uneasy because you think I want to kiss
you?”

“Do you?” she ventured bravely. “Want
to kiss me?”

“Oh yeah, I do...a whole hell of a
lot.” He let that sink in, then asked quietly, “May I?”

She responded with a breathless little
‘yes’.

He didn’t wait for her to change her
mind. Slipping his arms around her, he folded her tightly against his long
length, one big hand pressed to her lower back and one between her shoulder
blades. His mouth swept down to settle over hers in a hot, greedy, fiercely
possessive kiss. Her lips parted beneath the pressure of his, and his tongue
plunged inside to mate with hers.

Sucking the very breath from her, he
made her feel dizzy and light-headed. Her fingers curled into his shoulders,
and she rose up onto her toes to better reach his mouth. A ribbon of desire
snaked through her body. Her knees wobbled, and his embrace shifted and
tightened further.

Lifting his mouth from hers, he moved
it along her jaw to the shell of her ear, then dipped his head to nibble along
her neck, stopping finally to take a gentle bite. Hanna couldn’t help herself.
She rubbed herself against him to ease the voracious ache between her legs.

With a groan, his mouth returned to
hers, his tongue filling her mouth, devouring her. She gloried in it. She was
pressed so tight against him, she could feel his heart slamming against her
chest and the hard edge of his sex grinding against her own.

Lord, he was so intoxicating, so
heartbreakingly special! She was his and always would be. Even thousands of
miles away, he was the center of her world. Did he have any idea she felt this
way? That she was so incurably in love with him? She simply didn’t have the
courage to tell him with words. Could he tell by how she returned his kiss?

On her grandmother’s porch, there
wasn’t any better conclusion to the kiss than simply to bring it to an end.
Finally, they moved apart, each reluctant, each breathless, but resigned to it.
Hanna lifted her hand to stroke his cheek and whispered a rather ragged ‘good
night’.

“Dress for a motorcycle ride
tomorrow,” he warned with a big crooked grin on his face.

“But what about my boat?’ she called
out to him as he all but hopped off the porch.

“We’ll get to it. Sweet dreams, pretty
Doctor,” he called back before he disappeared into his brother’s Jeep.

Inside, in the living room, her
grandmother was watching television. The second Hanna stepped into the room,
Christine hurried away from the front window.

Hanna gave her a suspicious look.
“Were you spying on me?”

“Not the whole time,” her
sister-in-law defended herself sheepishly in the darkened room. “But I did see
that torrid kiss, Doctor Wallace.” Softly uttering the word ‘torrid,’ she shook
one hand like it had gotten burned.

Hanna immediately glanced at her
grandmother.

Colleen laughed. “You don’t have to
answer to me, young lady. You’re old enough to know what you’re doing.”

Hanna could feel her cheeks turn
scarlet. “Neither one of you had to wait up for me.”

“We weren’t.” Colleen hadn’t removed
her eyes from her television program. “Just watching the idiot box for a bit.”

“I think I’ll go on up to bed,” Hanna
said lamely.

“Sweet dreams.” Christine echoed
Nick’s directive. “Or maybe I should say hot dreams.”

Hanna shook her head and headed for
the stairs.

“Better not let him get away if he
kisses that well, girl!” Colleen called out as Hanna ascended the stairs.
Behind her, she heard both her grandmother and her sister-in-law laughing.

CHAPTER
12

HANNA WAS STILL IN HER PAJAMAS when
Nick pulled up to her grandmother’s house on his fancy new Harley the following
morning. She was in the kitchen making a pot of coffee as the roar of the
motorcycle’s engine announced to all inside that he was out front.

Colleen McHenry came into the room and
looked out the window over her granddaughter’s shoulder. Nick was in the
process of cutting his engine and swinging off his bike. “Better go get your
leathers on, sweetie,” the older lady teased.

Nick came through the back door just
as Colleen was sitting down. Hanna set three mugs of coffee on the table and grumbled
under her breath about him being too early.

Nick arched a dark eyebrow and gave
her a visual once-over. “Still wearing flannel p-jays, I see.”

Hanna tossed him a grumpy glare as she
sat down next to her grandmother.

“Not a happy camper this morning?” he
teased.

Colleen chuckled and motioned for Nick
to take a seat and a cup of coffee. “What are you up to with my grumpy
granddaughter today, Nicholas?” she asked as she passed cream and sugar to
Nick.

“We’re going to see my FBI friend in
Seattle. Hanna hasn’t met Kurt yet, and I’m hoping he’ll have some information
for us by now.”

Hanna scowled at him again. “You said
we’d take my sailboat to Seattle. I don’t want to ride on your motorcycle.”

Enlightenment finally dawned. “I
thought we’d take the bike over on the ferry.”

“I don’t like motorcycles.”

“Have you ever been on one?” he asked
her, taking a sip of his coffee.

“No.”

“You might like it.”

Hanna shot him a mutinous look over
the rim of her mug. “I doubt it. They aren’t safe.”

When she set her mug down, Nick saw
the stubborn set of her wonderfully kissable mouth, recalling how much he had
enjoyed it last night. “That’s not true. And I can see I’m going to have to
bribe you to get you on my new bike.” His eyebrows wiggled in a wickedly
challenging expression. “You ride on mine first, then I’ll ride in yours.”

Colleen chortled. “Oh my! That sounds
naughty.”

“Nick!” Hanna shot him a look of
embarrassed ire.

“Ladies, I’m referring to my
motorcycle and Hanna’s boat,” he stated in complete innocence.

Colleen and Hanna both rose from the
table simultaneously. The older woman shooed the younger one away. “Go upstairs
and get dressed, sweetie, while I fix Nicholas some breakfast.

“Did you eat already, Colonel?”

“No, but don’t go to any trouble,
Colleen.”

“It’s no trouble. What time does the
ferry leave?”

“Nine.”

“Hurry up, sweetheart.” Colleen gave
her unhappy granddaughter a little push. “Wear your leather jacket. It will
make you feel like you belong on the back of a Harley.”