A Home for Christmas (8 page)

“Not going anywhere, I promise.”

Riley lay in bed propped on an elbow, gazing down
at Jenna as she slept, still a bit in awe of her, but at the same time,
worried.  She was so strong; had carried the burden of carving out a new
life for her son and herself all on her own and had made a success of it for
five years.  Cam was a great kid; she’d done a fantastic job raising
him.  Her house was new.  He’d guess it to be no more than three
years old.  It was not big, probably around two-thousand square feet, but
it was nice and furnished and decorated nice.  Her pride of ownership
showed everywhere…and it was immaculately clean, a product of her being in the
cleaning service. 

In bed, she’d held nothing back, giving as good
as she got.  Her touch had been tender and loving at times, rough and wild
at others.  She was, quite simply, perfect to him, and he knew, as absurd
as it was, he was already deeply in love with her. 

What worried him, however, was her reaction to
his work.  True, what had happened today was blown out of proportion by
the presence of the news cameras.  She wouldn’t normally see him in
action.  She’d been terrified and he worried how she would be able to
handle the times when he went off on assignments.  He hadn’t really talked
extensively with her about his job.  Most of the time he and his founding
partner Mike Casiano stayed on the administrative side but they did get
involved in assignments as needed.  How would she handle that?  It
was the holiday season and all his brothers were overseas so he had decided not
to take any jobs that would take him away from his parents during this time,
but these last few weeks had been the exception, not the norm.  She needed
to understand that.  She was used to going it alone, so he didn’t think
handling his absences when he was working would be hard on her, but he needed
to know if she could handle the worry his job could place on her, as well as
Cam.  Probably a conversation they should have had before reaching this
point, but he’d been so happy just being with her, he hadn’t wanted to spoil
anything. 

He ran the backs of his fingers along her
cheekbone, delighting in the soft, feminine feel of her skin.  He hadn’t
been lying when he said it had been three years since he’d last been with a
woman, and that had been a casual thing that hadn’t lasted beyond a wild
weekend on shore leave, the only time he’d ever done anything like that. 
He’d thought he’d needed a release, and he had, but that encounter had left him
feeling hollow and hating himself and he vowed he would never again have
meaningless sex like that.  What he’d shared with Jenna tonight had been
far from meaningless.

She stirred and leaned into his touch, a sleepy
smile spreading over her features.

“Is it morning?” she asked, eyes still closed.

“No.  Go back to sleep,” he whispered.

She reached up and placed her hand over his,
holding his hand to her cheek as she scooted closer to him, nuzzling against
his chest.  Riley shifted, becoming instantly aroused when her thigh
brushed against him.  Her eyes slowly opened and he sucked in a breath
when she reached down and captured him in her hand, slowly, sensuously stroking
him.

“Why, Mr. Stanton, I believe you’re in need of a
bit of my attention,” she said, her voice low and throaty.

“So it would seem,” he said, leaning down to kiss
her.

Jenna returned his kiss, sitting up so that he
was forced to lie back against the pillows.  She pulled away and began a
burning trail of kisses down his neck and chest, pausing over his scars, down
his abs, and then lower still.

“Jenna,” he groaned when she held him up and her
pink tongue licked  him from base to tip like she was licking ice cream. 
“Baby.”

She smiled and did it again, letting her hand
fall below to cup his sac, gently rolling his balls one against the other. 
Riley watched her, enraptured.  She licked him from base to tip a few more
times, then ran her tongue in a circle around the tip.  He clutched the
sheets with one hand, the other buried itself in her hair when she finally,
finally
closed her lips around him and sucked him in. He couldn’t take his eyes off of
her, watching her mouth work him.  It had been three years since he’d last
had sex but even longer since he’d felt a warm mouth on him and even then he
was sure it hadn’t felt this good, this…”Holy shit,” he growled when her lips
slid all the way down to the base, and he felt himself deep in the back of her
throat.  “Baby, I’m close,” he warned.  She lifted her head and gave
him a sly smile, then continued working him until he found his release. When he
was done, she released him and sat back on her heels, tossing her hair back
like a nymph.

The smile on her face had him unbelievably
hardening once again as she slowly, like a cat, crawled back up his body and
pressed her center up against him.  Not one to question good fortune,
Riley snaked his arm around her waist and flipped their positions so that she
was once again tucked underneath him and entered her on a smooth, even
stroke.  Jenna bit her lip as she stared up at him, arching her back and
wrapping her legs around his waist.  She didn’t speak, but he could see
everything he needed to know on her face, and it made him feel like at that
moment, he could do anything. 

Jenna looked up into Riley’s handsome face as he
moved against her, and she could see the depths of his feelings shining down on
her.  It was absolutely beautiful.  She could see herself in his
eyes.  Everything she felt for him, she could see reflected in his
face.  It was unlike anything she ever experienced with Wade.  She
thought she knew what love was.  Looking up into Riley’s eyes; that
sparkled even in the dark of the room, she realized she hadn’t had the first
clue about what it was before now.  Riley gave freely to her and to her
son and expected nothing in return, and what he gave, was himself; one hundred
percent.

She lost all train of thought when he reached
down and pressed his thumb to her core, circling her and tipping her over the
edge as he continued to pound into her.  She screamed her release, and
soon he was joining her, collapsing in exhaustion over her, though still
mindful to keep his full weight from crushing her.

“Oh, God, Riley,” she whispered, combing her
fingers through his hair, his face buried in her neck.

After catching his breath, Riley pulled back to
look down at her, brushing her hair back from her face.  He leaned down
and gave her a heart-shatteringly tender kiss, bringing more tears to her eyes.

“You are…I have no words,” he said, pressing his
forehead to hers.  “Amazing doesn’t seem to quite cover it.”

She smiled and kissed his cheek.  When he
started to pull back, she tightened her hold on him.

“Just stay here a bit longer, let me feel your
weight on me,” she asked.

He wrapped his arms around her, gathering her
close, kissing her tears away.  He wanted to tell her he loved her, but
held back.  This moment was everything he’d ever dreamed of and he didn’t
want anything to interfere.

“You feel so good.  So strong,” she said,
“you make me feel safe.”

He did pull back then and looked down at her.

“You are safe with me, Jen.  I’ll never let
anyone hurt you, and I’ll never do anything to hurt you.  I promise.”

“Everyone gets hurt in a relationship at one
point or another.”

“Not always.  You’ve only seen the
bad.  Give me a chance to show you the good.  I’m not Wade.”

“I know you aren’t, and thank God for it.”

He slid off of her and stood, holding his hand
out to help her to her feet.  When she stood, he placed her small hand on
his chest over his heart and cupped the nape of her neck in his other hand to
bring her gaze to his.

“I’m here to stay unless you want me to go. 
Do you understand?  I’m not here just for kicks.  I’m not here to
take what I want and then go.  I’m here for the long haul.  Bank on
it.”

She drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment,
then slowly released it.

“I hear you.  Once bitten, twice shy, you
know?”

“Yes,” he said, scooping her up in his arms and
carrying her into the bathroom.  “But, I’ll stick with, you’re safe with
me.”

She smiled and decided not to argue
farther.  He placed her on her feet beside the tub and started the water,
then lifted her back up and stepped with her into it, pulling her back to his front
between his spread knees.  He wrapped his arms around her and she hugged
her arms over his, resting her head back on his chest and together they sat in
silence while the tub filled.  Sitting in the soft light of the single
light over the tub, she could see scars on his thighs and calves as well. 
More from when he was caught in the razor wire; a couple of rounded scars that
matched the gunshot wounds on his chest.  He’d been through so much, her
soldier.  Or, was it sailor?  He was in the Navy so she supposed he
was a sailor not a soldier.

“What made you decide to join the Navy?”

“Family tradition.”

“And what about going into law?”

“That was because my best friend, Mike, asked me
to go to school with him.  He went to Yale.  His family was wealthy
and offered to pay my way.  Who was I to question it?  So, Mike and I
went off to Yale, but I was always firm about going into the Navy after
college.  Mike decided to go with me since I went to Yale with him. 
His family was floored.  He was supposed to go into the family law firm,
but he never really liked the law.  He did well in his studies. 
Finished way ahead of me in our class.  But his heart wasn’t in it. 
When we went into the Navy and were approached about going into BUDS training
to be a SEAL, Mike took to it like a natural.  I don’t think I would have
made it through BUDS without him.  He pushed me and kept me going when I
think I normally would have quit.  Mike is…sometimes I think he’s not
quite human.  He went through BUDS like he was taking a walk in the
park.  It was like he didn’t even break a sweat when the rest of us were
exhausted.  Didn’t take long for him to rise in the ranks and become team
leader.  He’s one of those types who were born to lead.”

“And he’s the one who allowed himself to be captured
so you could recover your friend's body?” she asked, remembering his earlier
tale.

“Yes.  They tortured him for twelve
hours.  He hasn’t ever said much about it, but I know it was bad.  He
was in rough shape.  But we knew he was too stubborn to die.  Not
like that, anyway.”

She tightened her arms over his, hugging his arms
closer to her. 

“So, what you do now, is still like being in the
Navy?  Except you get to chose what you’ll do?”

He took a deep breath.  “At times.  We
do a lot of kidnap recovery.  Americans who are kidnapped for ransom, that
sort of thing.  We do security systems and provide security on special
occasions.”

“And then you fill in on the Springfield SWAT
team on occasion,” she said, her voice soft.

“Yes.”

“It scares me, Riley, I won’t lie.  To know
you put your life on the line like that?  It terrifies me.”

“It’s what I do.  And I am good at it.”

“Will you continue to do it now?”

He was quiet a moment.  This was the
conversation he knew they needed to have but wasn’t looking forward to.

“Now that we’re together?” he asked.

“Yes…now that Cam and I are in your life.”

“Are you asking me not to?”

She turned in his arms then so she could look
into his eyes.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.  “You
survived the horrors of war, and I know you are highly trained and good at what
you do.  It’s my right, as someone who cares for you, to worry about you,
to be selfish enough to want you to have a desk job and be home with me every
night.  But at the same time, I wouldn’t change you or ask you to give up
what you love.”

Just as she most likely gave Wade the room to
pursue what he loved, Riley thought.  He drew her back into his arms,
kissing her.

“I’ll look into scaling back,” he said, “how
would that be?”

“You would do that?” she asked, her voice
suddenly thick with emotion.

“You’d be surprised what I would do for you,
Jenna,” he said, surprising himself with the admission.

Jenna smiled and he thought it was the most
beautiful smile he’d ever seen.

“You like me,” she sing-songed, her eyes full of
laughter.

He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her
until she was breathless and clinging to him.

“Yeah, baby, I like you,” he whispered.  “I
might even be falling in love with you,” he said, wiping the smile completely
off her face.

“What?” she asked, shocked down to her core.

“You heard me.”

“Yes, I did…and I fell for you the minute you
included my son in your plans to get to know me.”

“You’re a package deal.  I get that. 
And spending time with Cam is not a hardship.  I enjoy being around him.”

Tears began spilling down her cheeks, her whole
body trembling.  She knew that he liked Cam but to hear it!  She
threw her arms around his neck and held him tight, letting her tears fall
freely.