Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (23 page)

His life was so exacting and demanding.
Comfort and softness were foreign to his lifestyle. Force Recon, the Marines,
the military were harsh taskmasters. Often, when the conditions he lived in got
the worst, he’d remember being in Hanna’s arms, feeling her incredible warmth
and softness.

What would she do if he went into her
room and asked her to let him sleep with her tonight? He toyed with the
question. But the truth was, he was afraid to go in there and ask. His need for
her and the way he’d come to feel about her made him vulnerable.

What if she turned him away, told him
no? She was his closest friend. He didn’t want to jeopardize or destroy that.
He needed her friendship. He always had. It was why he hadn’t pressed her about
the one time they had made love three years ago. He didn’t want her feeling
uncomfortable around him. He didn’t want her finding reasons not to be with him
because she’d be afraid he’d pressure her to sleep with him again.

Then there was still the matter of his
brother. He thought Lance and Hanna were still simply good friends, but he
wasn’t entirely sure. And even though Ashley had told him she didn’t think
Hanna was seeing anyone, he still wasn’t sure of that, either. He could ask
her, but he was a coward, pure and simple. He was afraid of her answer.

But she had clearly been disappointed
that he hadn’t kissed her tonight. So what was he to make of that? Did she want
him or not? She’d been angry at him, too. He’d heard it in her voice when she’d
called him down. And he’d noticed the way she’d just dumped the bedclothes on
his bed, in one big heap. His pillow had been strangely damp, too. Had she been
crying?

Holy shit! How was a man supposed to
figure out what a woman wanted, especially a man who spent most of his time
with other men? Beyond the physical release they provided occasionally, women
didn’t exactly play a prominent role in his life. Damn it! He was too tough,
too old, for this nonsense!

He turned onto his side and slammed
his fist into his pillow to make a deeper dent for his head. When that position
didn’t help relax him, he rolled onto his stomach and crossed his arms beneath
his pillow. Everything felt lumpy. He rolled onto his other side, then onto his
back again. The wind picked up and the boat began to rock gently. He listened
to the harbor bells on the buoys in the bay. The rocking and the soft lapping
of water against the hull of the boat finally lulled him to sleep.

CHAPTER
16

SOMEONE WAS KNOCKING ON HER DOOR. Yet
that couldn’t be. There was no real door to her bedroom, only a folding,
pleated screen. But there was a persistent tap, tap, tap. It penetrated her
restless sleep so insistently, she knew it couldn’t be a dream.

She sat up groggily to listen. Her head
swam a little. Too much wine, she remembered. She checked her wrist watch.
She’d been asleep several hours. The wind had picked up outside. The boat was
rocking. Something must have come loose up on deck. It sounded like metal
banging against wood.

She groped around in the darkness for
her glasses, but couldn’t find them. Damn, where had she left them? She
couldn’t see well enough without them to go up on deck to check the rigging.

After a futile search through her
bedcovers and under her pillows, she crawled carefully to the end of the bed
and climbed down. Until she found her glasses, she had to use her hands to feel
her way. In the head, she groped along the narrow counter top, and came up
empty handed.

The last time she remembered wearing
them was when she had gotten Nick’s bedding down. She’d been crying. She’d
taken them of
f to wipe away her tears and set them on the
galley countertop. She must have left them in the galley, right next to where
he was sleeping. Great!

It was really dark inside the cabin.
She didn’t dare turn a light on for fear of waking Nick. Dimly, she could make
out sections of the cabin. The shadows and shapes were familiar to her. Still,
she had to edge her way along the wall, her hands extended to feel her way.

In the galley, she peered through the
darkness toward Nick’s bunk. She couldn’t see him, but she heard him, snoring.
The rat! He seemed to be deeply asleep, a fact that both relieved her and
angered her.

At the kitchen sink, she put her hands
on the counter top and felt around. She knocked over a cup, but caught it
before it made a sound. Her fingers splayed wide in their silent search.
Distracted by an alteration in Nick’s snoring, she knocked over an empty
plastic bowl that was also on the counter. Before she could recover it, it slid
off, right onto the spot where Nick’s head should have been.

“Crap!”

She was suddenly grabbed from behind
and slammed up against a wall of solid, inflexible muscle. A brawny male
forearm came over her shoulder in a cross hold that was like an ever-tightening
vise. Air whooshed from her lungs.

Managing to swivel her head sideways a
bare inch, Hanna saw the naked blade of a huge, partially serrated knife halt
inches from her throat. She tried to scream, but it was a strangled sound. Her
hands rose to the forearm across her neck and her nails dug deep into skin to
loosen the deadly grip. She didn’t dare try any of the moves Nick had taught
her, for fear she’d get her throat cut.

As instantly as it began, the attack
ended. Suddenly she was free. She whirled and stumbled away, trying to see who
her attacker was. A blurry big dark shadow stood across from her. She groped
along the wall for the brass lamp she knew was bolted there. Turning it on did
little to clarify the image of the man across the room. For a few seconds,
terrifying images of someone from the Triad raced through her mind.

Nick watched every expression that
crossed Hanna’s face. Cursing, he slipped his Ka-Bar back under his pillow,
then turned toward Hanna. Her big green eyes grew even bigger. He reached over
to the galley countertop for her glasses. She was looking at him like he was
some kind of monster.

“Hanna! Honey, it’s me. Here, put your
glasses on.” He stretched out an arm and carefully handed them to her. “I’m
sorry about the knife! I heard someone in the cabin, and I reacted.”

Anger began to replace the shock. She
gestured toward his bed. “Do you always sleep with that thing nearby?”

“Well, yeah... when I’m on a mission.
We’re dealing with some dangerous men here, and I....” He took a step toward
her, and hated the way she took a step back, away from him. She was still
peering at him as if she’d never seen him before.

He wasn’t going to let her be
frightened of him, damn it. He saw her anger replace some of her shock, but the
fear was still there. He moved slowly toward her, until he was standing
directly in front of her. He didn’t touch her. He just stood before her.

“I’m so sorry I scared you like that.”
When she started to retreat again, he stopped her by gently grasping her upper
arms. “You must know I would never ever hurt you, Hanna.”

She stared at the center of his white
t-shirted chest, knowing that he could feel her involuntary trembling. “The
wind picked up, and I thought I heard some rigging come loose up on deck. I was
going to check on it, but I couldn’t find my glasses. I couldn’t see anything
in the dark. I was looking for my glasses in the galley, near your bunk, when I
knocked over a plastic bowl. Did it hit you on the head?” She lifted her lashes
and peeked up at him.

A slight grin flickered at the corners
of his mouth. “I’d just come down from up on deck. I heard the rattling, too. I
saw your shadow. Didn’t know it was you.” He shrugged guiltily. “I am sorry I
scared you.”

Well, she’d scared him, too, she
guessed. And she did know he would never hurt her, but she was still shaken.
“Maybe you need glasses, too, huh?” She tried for a little levity, not certain
it succeeded.

For a fraction of a second, there had
been such violence in him. It reminded her that he wasn’t the boy she’d grown
up with. For the last twenty years, he’d lived a dangerous, violent way of
life. He’d been trained to kill, with any number of weapons, in any number of
ways, she imagined, with his bare hands if necessary.

She recalled the decal she’d seen on
the sleeve of his leather jacket. It read:
“Swift, Silent, and Deadly.”
His units’ motto, she assumed. Obviously, Colonel Nick Kelly was all those
things. She’d just seen a frightening example of how swift, silent, and deadly
he could be. She healed for a living. He killed. The realization hit her with
sudden chill.

“Aw, Hanna. Don’t look at me that
way,” Nick pleaded softly as he watched her face and eyes. Her small shudder
cut him to the quick. “I’m not a monster.”

That penetrated her shell-shocked
emotions. In spite of what he did for a living, she could never think of him as
a monster. Of course, he’d been taught to kill. A soldier had to learn that or
die. She’d just never seen an example of his abilities.

“I guess it was the knife,” she tried to
explain. “I thought you were going to cut my throat for a second.” If she had
been the enemy, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. Another shudder raced across
her skin.Nick swore and pulled her swiftly into his arms. “I would not have cut
your throat, Hanna! I’m trained to react.... To come alert at any sound, but,
God, I would not have cut your throat.”

He was holding her so tight, she could
barely breathe, but she did manage a short, strangled laugh. “That’ll teach me
never to creep around in the dark like that when you’re around!”

“I should have remembered that you
leave your glasses everywhere. I over-reacted. “He kissed the top of her head
and rubbed her back in soothing circles, then set her back from him in order to
look at her. His smoky gray eyes were full of tenderness. “You okay, now?”

She looked up at him and saw the man
she had loved all her life. They had both changed some in all the years they
had lived apart, and yet the essence of who Nick Kelly was had not changed,
despite what he did for a living. She still saw a good man, with a good heart.
She was sure that when he had to kill, he did so with regret, not pleasure.

“I’m okay now,” she finally reassured
him with a true smile. “I better go check the rigging.”

“I fixed it. Everything is fine up
there now.”

She stood staring at him uncertainly
and swallowed. He was wearing white boxer shorts and a white t-shirt. His dark
hair was windblown again from being up on deck. Short spiky strands fell over
his forehead. He smelled like salt spray and ocean.

His cheeks were ruddy from the night
air and the breeze outside, the hollows darkened by a day’s growth of beard. He
was looking at her with uncertainty and just a hint of speculation. With her
glasses on now, she saw each and every beloved crinkle around his eyes, the
grooves that bracketed his luscious masculine lips, the straight line of his
nose, even the scar that slashed its way through one dark eyebrow.

He was so handsome, he took her breath
away. She could be angry at him and frustrated waiting on his infrequent visits
home, but the irrefutable truth was that he was the one and only man she would
ever want and love. Nothing could change that. Everything about him was as dear
to her as life itself.

Some of what was going through her
mind must have shown on her face because his expression darkened as he
continued to stare at her.

“Hanna....” His hand rose then fell
back to his side. “Do you ever think about the night we made love three years
ago?”

She bit her bottom lip, then quietly
asked, “Do you?”

“All the time.”

Her green eyes widened with surprise.
“But that was so long ago. You haven’t been home since then.”

“I just haven’t been able to get home
with all that’s been going on in the world the past three years. I can’t seem
to get more than a few days leave at a time. But that doesn’t mean that I
haven’t wanted to come home to see you. I remember what happened between us
like it was yesterday. There hasn’t been a day that has gone by that I haven’t
thought about that night— or you.”

Hanna could hardly believe what he was
telling her. She was so skeptical, she knew it showed on her upturned face.
“Nick...” she paused for a moment, trying to collect her tumultuous thoughts.
“You were drunk!”

He gave her one of his mind-numbing,
slow, wickedly sexy grins. “Not so drunk, after all that coffee you poured down
me. Not so drunk that I forgot what you felt like in my arms” His hands rose to
settle on either side of her waist, underneath her silk pajama top.

Hanna caught her breath. It felt
suspended in her lungs for a long moment as she stared up at him and his
mesmerizing smile. Then anger and accusation took hold. “But you left the next
morning without saying a word, even a goodbye.”

His fingers curled into the slippery
fabric of her pajama bottoms. “I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t leave by
choice. I tried to call you, but your cell phone was turned off. I figured you
were probably in class, teaching, by the time I tried calling.”

As a Force Recon Marine, he had to be
ready for duty immediately upon being called by his commander. Her brain knew
that, but her heart had ached as a result of his abrupt departure. It was still
afraid to let her brain believe him now.

“You didn’t want to go?”

“Hell, no!” he adamantly reassured
her. “I wanted to stay and explore what had happened between us, and I’m not
just talking about sex, Hanna. I wrote and told you that I thought it was
special, but you never responded to that. I didn’t want to risk our friendship
by pushing it, so I dropped it.” Now he sounded disappointed. A touch of
accusation even tinged his voice. But that was replaced by chagrin when he
continued. “I didn’t know how to approach you about it further, either. I
tried, but I just couldn’t put my feelings about that night into a letter.”

“I guess I didn’t know how to put it
into a letter, either,” she admitted.

Hanna was just so stunned, she didn’t
know what to say to him. She hadn’t known how to address their night together long
distance, either. Not once in three years had she thought that night meant more
to him than sexual pleasure. Her mind was reeling.

Her look of astonishment made him
stifle a small laugh. “I was worried afterward that you might have gotten
pregnant. I hadn’t used anything. It’s not something I ever forget, either.”

That surprised her, too. He was
telling her that he had gotten so carried away with their lovemaking that he’d
forgotten his normal safeguards. “I wondered why you kept asking me how I
felt.”

“Now you know.” His hands maneuvered
their way higher up under her silk top to the bare skin of her back. “I want to
make love to you again, Hanna.” His eyes swept her figure in a wicked grin,
while his hands moved to caress her shoulder blades. Hers rose to curl around
his broad, linebacker shoulders. Nervously, her long, surgeon’s fingers flexed
into the soft, white cotton of his t-shirt.

“Nick....” She looked into his smoky
gray eyes, and wet her lips. “I’m kind of nervous about this. I mean I’m
not.... Well, I don’t have.... You know that you were the first, don’t you?”

One big tanned hand came away from her
back to caress her cheek. His thumb traveled over her moistened lower lip as he
gave her a curious chuckle. “Oh, sweetheart, I definitely know that I was the
first, and believe me, that blew my mind! But what about now? Am I encroaching
on someone else’s territory?” With that question, his eyes sobered and
narrowed. “Are you seeing anyone or involved with someone? Is it my brother?”
he demanded, his jaw clenched in a scowl.