Christmas at Twilight (19 page)

“With you,” she said, “I feel normal for the first time.”

“That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I lied,” she said. “I am scared.”

“I know. It worries me that you're afraid of me.”

“I'm not scared about you.” She paused. “Or about us.”

“It's him,” Hutch said coldly, flatly. “What he did to you.”

“Not just that.” She covered her head with her hands.

He stroked her hair. “Talk to me, Meredith.”

She pressed her chin to her drawn knees, turned her face away from him. “Sex comes easily to some women.”

“It can come easily to you if you let it. Most natural thing in the world.”

“My body knows that. My mind? Other story entirely.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

“That I'll disappoint you.” She said it so softly that he could barely hear her.

“Look at me,” he commanded.

Reluctantly, she drew her head up.

“Meredith, you could never disappoint me.”

“You say that now . . .”

“Oh, babe. I want you. If our first time isn't so hot, we keep trying until we're perfect.”

“What if . . . what if it can never be any good between us no matter how much we practice?”

“You're overanalyzing. Relax. Just let go and let it happen. Or not. Remember, we don't have to take this step. No pressure at all.”

“I want to take this step. I want you to make love to me.”

“But?”

She covered her head with her hands and mumbled. “I equate sex with pain.”

The hot taste of anger filled his mouth, and his hatred for the monster who had treated her so terribly jerked his stomach up into his throat.

“I'm afraid he ruined me forever.” She lifted her head. A tear slid down her cheek.

“Babe, oh babe.” All anger fled and the only thing he felt was deep sorrow and sympathy for her. “It's okay, it's okay.”

He drew her into his arms and rocked her as tenderly as if she were Kimmie. She rested her head against his chest and cried silently, her shoulders moving up and down, her tears soaking his shirt.

Finally, she pulled away and swiped at her face with the back of her sleeve. “This isn't going very well, is it?”

“It's going fine.”

“How many girls have cried on your shoulder before you made love to them?”

“You're my first,” he admitted. “But hey, that makes you special. Usually they cry after.”

“With relief that it's over?” she teased, smiling past the tears.

“With joyous rapture.”

“Hmm, I'd like to try that sometime.”

“We'll get there.”

“I want to do something special for you. How about we redeem that gift card for your free backrub now?”

He was going to tell her he didn't give a damn about a backrub, but maybe giving him one would give her a sense of control.

“Sure.” His voice went up slightly for no good reason.

“Still rusty?” she asked.

“As a door hinge.” That was the thing. He hadn't had time to process the return of his voice. He was glad, and it was a monumental boulder scaled on his trail to recovery, but that meant it was time to start his pilgrimage to see the families of the teammates. That was not going to be easy. A lot of dark stuff was going to pop to the surface like a bobber on a pole after a hooked fish got away, and it meant leaving Meredith and Ben and Kimmie behind.

How could he leave when they still needed him so much, but how could he not go when completing his mission was the only way for him to fully heal?

“Give me a few minutes to get the room ready,” she said.

“You want me to leave?”

“Please. But come back. Definitely come back.”

Hutch left the room and considered not returning. Taking a step back was the right thing to do, the smart thing to do. So why couldn't he do it?

M
eredith was so very happy to see Hutch poke his head around the door. She'd freaked out on him and he hadn't run away. The man was either a keeper or a glutton for punishment. He'd been beyond patient with her.

“You ready?” he asked.

Gingerbread candles flickered on the dresser. The lights were off. The table was set up, and the massage oil warmed.

“Come . . .” she squeaked. She couldn't blame a rusty voice for the changes in her pitch. It was pure nerves. She cleared her throat, tried again. “Come in.”

He strutted into the room, cock-of-the-walk, with nothing but a towel around his waist. He took one look at her face and said, “You're not ready for this.”

“I'm always ready to give a massage.”

“That's not what I'm talking about and you know it.”

She ignored that. Patted the table. “Up here.”

His eyes narrowed to her neck.

She reached up to finger the simple gold chain that had once belonged to her mother.

His gaze dropped to her body. “You put your jeans back on.”

“I got cold.”

“You have me at a disadvantage.”

“That wasn't my intention.”

“I've never had a professional massage.”

“Really?”

“I'm a virgin,” he said, his voice all heat, silk, and chocolate now, any signs of rust gone. “Be gentle.”

“You're mocking me.”

“No.” His teasing tone vanished. “I didn't mean to sound that way.”

“Table,” she said, but she couldn't keep looking into those dark enigmatic eyes. “Facedown.”

He climbed up on the table, and once he was settled with the towel still draped around his waist, Meredith poured a quarter-sized dollop of jasmine-scented massage oil into her palm. She ran her hands over his hard body, her fingers exploring his tight muscles. Everywhere she touched him, her own body lit up in the same spot.

“You're the Secret Santa who paid off everyone's layaway at Wal-Mart, aren't you?”

“It's called Secret Santa for a reason,” he said. “Santa remains a secret.”

“I know it was you.”

He didn't say anything, but she felt his muscles tighten.

“It was very nice of you,” she went on.

He shrugged as if it were no big deal. “When I was helping with the Angel Tree drive, it occurred to me that there were a lot of single parents and young families out there that weren't poor enough to receive help from the Angel Tree, but were still struggling to make ends meet. Paying off a few layaways at Wal-Mart was the least I could do.”

“It was no small thing.”

“In the grand scheme of things, yes it was. Please don't tell anyone.”

“Your secret is safe with me. You're a good man, Brian Hutchinson.”

His muscles grew even tauter. “I'm no hero.”

“You're so wrong about that.”

“I had a job to do and I did it. That doesn't make me a hero.”

She fisted her hand, dug it into a big knot beneath his shoulder blades. Talking about this was tensing him up, not relaxing him.

“There,” he said. “You've hit the spot.”

She worked the hard muscle, concentrating on loosening him up. No matter what he said, she knew he was a good man. Only a good man would be plagued with guilt over the things his job as a soldier forced him to do. In spite of his absurdly masculine body and strategic mind, there was an inner gentleness to this big man.

Meredith had always been attracted to über-alpha guys because they made her feel safe and secure, but after Sloane, she'd come to fear strong men. If an alpha man had a cruel and vindictive nature, he could just as easily turn his strength against you as protect you with it. But a truly strong man would never hurt a woman. Hutch possessed real strength. Not just the external strength that came from granite muscles and carrying a gun. Hutch had strength of character and strength of mind as well.

“Why did you become a soldier?” she asked, kneading her knuckles along his spine.

He didn't answer right away. His breathing was slow and deep, and just when she thought he'd fallen asleep, he said, “You want the practical reasons or the lofty ideals of a goofy teen or the darker reasons I don't like to think about?”

“All three.”

“I really couldn't think of another way to make money and my friend Gideon had just joined up. I thought it would be fun.” He laughed at that.

“What were your lofty ideals about military service?”

“I felt a personal obligation to make things right. Someone has to protect our country. If not me, then who?”

“That's a big burden to carry around.” She ran her hand over his scapula. “While these shoulders are broad, they weren't meant to carry the weight of the world.”

“What I learned is that the world is not either black or white like I thought. No clear-cut path to the truth. After all, a mother with borderline personality disorder raised me, and that black and white lens is how people with BPD see the world.”

“Going to other places, being around other cultures, showed you other ways of being.”

“Yeah. I learned that not only are there hundreds of shades of gray, but that black isn't really black. It's a mix of all colors—red, yellow, green, blue, orange. And that white, not black, is the absence of color. It's all in the way we perceive things. And because of that, good people can justify doing bad things, and bad people can sometimes do good things, until you can no longer label people as bad or good.”

“Wow. That's insightful, brawny, and brainy too. You're the whole package, Brian Hutchinson.”

“Don't go putting me on a pedestal, Meredith.” His voice rumbled through his chest. “My feet are made of clay.”

Her pulse skipped. Not because he scared her, but because his compassion touched her so deeply. “What is the dark reason you joined the army?”

He paused, took a deep breath.

“It's okay if you don't want to talk about it.”

“No, it's okay. Maybe talking will help me work through it.”

“I don't want to pressure you to discuss something you're not ready to discuss.”

He cleared his throat. “Ashley was the reason I joined the army. I couldn't control her anymore. She was only fourteen and slipping out at night to meet guys. I was working two jobs to make ends meet and I couldn't keep an eye on her twenty-four/seven. I could scare off the guys, but I couldn't scare Ashley.”

“That's because she knew what a real softie you are inside.”

Regret and shame tinged his voice. “Honestly, I wanted some relief from being her parent. I know that makes me a coward—”

“It does not,” she said sharply. “It makes you human. You already did so much for her. You couldn't surrender your entire life over to her.”

“I tried,” he said. “But it didn't work. The more I did for her, the more she took advantage of me. When I tried to lay down the law, she called her biological father and asked if she could come live with him. The guy was an alcoholic, but he'd finally gotten into recovery and joined AA. I guess he was working step nine and feeling guilty for having abandoned my mother and Ashley and he was trying to make amends.”

“You two are half siblings?”

“Yeah. So once Ashley went to live with him, I was free to pursue my own career. I was so relieved to be free . . .” Beneath her fingers, his muscles turned to marble slabs.

“Don't beat yourself up for feeling relieved. It's easy for caretakers to get burned out. We keep taking on more and more responsibility and beating ourselves up for being selfish if we take time for ourselves, but the truth is, if we don't take care of ourselves, we really can't take care of others.”

“You're talking about your grandmother.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I know how that guilt feels. I'd been at my grandmother's bedside every single day for the last six months of her life and the one day, just this one day, a friend comes over and insists I get out of the house. I was at the park sitting on a bench with my friend, warming my face in the sun when the hospice nurse calls to say Gramma passed away without me.”

“Aw, babe.” Hutch sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the massage table and tugging her into his arms.

“I'm okay,” she said. “It's okay.”

“I know.” He kissed her forehead.

She closed her eyes and sank against him.

He kissed her eyelids, first one and then the other. Kissed the tip of her nose. Softly claimed her mouth.

They kissed for a long moment and finally, Meredith broke the kiss. “I can't take any more of this.”

His eyes gleamed feral in the candlelight. “Me either.”

“I need you, Hutch,” she said fiercely.

He gave her a poignant smile that cracked her heart wide open. “You've been doing just fine on your own for five years. More than fine. You've survived, thrived in spite of the awful things you've been through. You're a strong woman, Meredith. You don't need anybody.”

“That's where you're wrong.” She was surprised to realize she was ready to fully trust, one hundred percent. And she did need him badly. She'd tried not to fall for him, had set up ground rules to keep her heart safe. The last thing she had wanted was to be with a man.

But Hutch wasn't just any man, and over the course of the last few weeks, he'd chipped away at the resistance she'd put up, until that wall was so full of holes her heart was leaking out.

“Let me rephrase,” she said. “I
want
you.”

His eyes simmered with sadness; the smile that tugged at his lips was soft and gentle. He'd changed from an embittered, wounded warrior to a man well on his way to a full recovery, and Meredith knew she was seeing the man he'd been before he was wounded, before pain and loss and anger had twisted him up inside.

“I want you too,” he said.

“I can't promise you any more than right now. The future is not mine to give.”

“I don't need anything else,” he said.

She reached up to cup his face, the stubble of his heavy beard rough against her palm. She kissed him lightly. “I am ready for this. I'm ready for you.”

“I'm not convinced.”

“Does this change your mind?” She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him with every ounce of passion she had inside her.

In answer, he pulled her up onto the massage table beside him and they were kissing like mad people. His hot mouth took command of her, fully in control.

But surprisingly, that did not scare her one bit. She trusted him and did not fear letting him take the lead.

Before this, he'd only kissed her tenderly, sweetly, taking great care to make sure she was comfortable, but now his kisses were wild and fiery, guiding her toward unknown terrain.

His fingers undressed her as his lips did their magic, his hand at the buttons of her shirt, slipping it over her shoulders, and then at the hook of her bra.

He tipped his head up to look at her, his long black lashes softening the hard angles of his cheekbones, his dark chocolate eyes searching hers. He looked so vulnerable and endearing in that moment that she touched three fingers to her lips. He might be strong and in control, but her love had the power to shatter him into a million pieces, and that knowledge shook Meredith to the core.

He trusted her too! Her heart liquefied in her chest.

Hutch dipped his head and tenderly sucked her nipples, first one and then the other until she squirmed with need. He stopped and straightened, knowing just how far and how fast to push things.

While his eyes stayed fixed on her, watching every emotion that flitted across her face, and gauging her reaction before he moved on, Hutch's fingers plucked at the snap of her jeans. The snap popped open. Millimeter by excruciating millimeter, he eased down the zipper. Leisurely, he hooked a thumb in the waistband of her jeans at each hipbone and peeled the pants down her legs, his palms skimming the backs of her thighs as he went.

Awed, she stared down at the top of his head. “That's a cool trick.”

“I've learned a few things over the years.”

“How many women have you undressed?”

“Let's not get into specifics. Just know that none of those women could hold a candle to you.”

“You're making me blush.”

He stared into her. “It's not a line, Meredith. I've never felt like this with anyone else.”

“Not even the girl you almost married?”

He winced. “Gossip. Gotta love small-town life. But no, not even with Celia.”

“How come you asked her to marry you if she didn't make you feel like this?”

“Because until you I didn't know it was possible to feel like this.”

“Me either,” she whispered.

He positioned her until they balanced sitting face-to-face in the middle of the massage table, totally naked. His legs were around her waist. Hers locked around his. The flagpole of his erection jutting up between them.

They couldn't get enough of staring into each other. His intense eyes rippled with unspoken emotion.

Oh, the things that man could do with his hands. His skillful hands seemed to be everywhere at once—on her lips, on her chin, on her belly and her shins. And then he eased her onto her back and straddled her.

He paused. “You okay?”

Mutely, she nodded.

He lowered his head and began to explore her body with his tongue.

The fact that she was so willingly, so eagerly allowing him full access to her body, without a shred of fear or panic, was earth-shattering. She'd never dreamed she could get here. So open. So willing to trust him.

Slowly, sweetly he loved her with his tongue, in a way she'd never been loved before.

He kissed languid circles of heat and she was hypnotized. Her skin was incredibly sensitive, her body tingling and tender.