Falling for Her Soldier (12 page)

He gazed down at her lowered eyes. Why did she seem so nervous? She was the pro here, not him. “Ellie?”

She looked up; her light green eyes were the shade of moss in a sunbathed pond, the most bewitching color he’d ever seen. By just looking at her, he felt his own breath hitch and his throat go dry. He knew he was going to kiss her in about five seconds unless he did something. “What…is Ellie short for?” he managed to ask.

“Eleanor.”

“As in Roosevelt?”
There’s a nice mood-killing image
, he thought.

She rolled her eyes. “As in Rigby.”

He lifted his brows. “Ah, the Beatles. I like that better.” He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “Okay, what’s next?”

“Next?” For a moment, she seemed at a loss. “My hand…goes here.” She rested her left hand behind his right bicep, their elbows overlapping. Finally, they were touching for real. “This is the position. Lock it in.”

“Locked and loaded.”

“The basic pattern is slow-slow-quick-quick-slow.”

“I’ve never been a
slow
kind of guy,” he couldn’t help saying.

She arched an eyebrow. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Let’s start with the eight-count basic. The first two steps we walk slowly, then close on the three. You’ll lead eventually, but for now, just follow and hold on to me.”

Charlie did not need a second invitation. He moved his hand to the small of her back and pulled her close, smiling when she didn’t resist. When he leaned forward to touch his forehead to hers, her hand behind his shoulder slid down and curled around his bicep. He swayed them back and forth, though their feet didn’t move.

“You’re not…locking your frame,” Ellie said, her voice a ragged whisper.

“I can’t do what I want to do with a locked frame.”

She lifted her chin and looked at him. “Hunter, didn’t we come here to dance?”

He exhaled, wishing he could erase that name, and all its implications, from her mind. “Sorry.” He repositioned his body. “Frame locked.”

Chapter Eleven

Okay, so he was no Fred Astaire, but Fred Astaire didn’t have arms like rocks or killer chest muscles that were constantly driving Ellie to distraction. And Fred Astaire had certainly never looked at Ginger Rogers the way Hunter was looking at her.

Holy mother of distractions…

After about two hours, Hunter got the basics of the eight-count down. The tango-close was tricky, but that was probably because she kept tripping over her own feet when their slow promenade brought her stepping leg between his thighs. Very up-close and personal. Then he would give her a look, accompanied by a sexy smile, and her frame would buckle.

Some teacher she was turning out to be. If he kept eyeing her like that, Friday night would be a disaster.

“Ready to try with music?” she asked, needing to step away and not breathe in his aftershave for five seconds.

“Aw, damn,” Hunter muttered. “Bublé?”

She laughed at his tragic expression. “No, you’re safe for now. The tango is a passionate dance. Bublé lacks a certain…”

“Urgency?” he finished.

As he gazed at her, Ellie got a funny feeling deep in her stomach; the feeling that usually preceded dragging someone into a janitor’s closet.

“Um, yeah,” she said after a swallow. She sifted through some music on her phone. “We can practice with these songs, and maybe one of them might be good for the performance.”

She noticed how he flinched at the word “performance.” This was probably pretty agonizing for him, being a macho soldier and everything. Ellie had been surrounded by military men most of her life, and not many of them would volunteer to dance in public. He must be an exceptionally brave guy.

She thought about that, genuinely, then she looked at him, imagining Hunter the soldier. There was probably no one better at his job. The concept was unexpectedly comforting.

“I’ll start the music,” she said, snapping back to reality. “We step on the four.”

Hunter nodded, his hands on his hips, looking a little stiff. She hoped some music would loosen him up. “Smooth Operator” by Sade was the first song to come on. The rhythm was slow enough that they wouldn’t have to rush.

“Ready?” she asked. Hunter nodded. “Let’s try it. On the four.”

After one or two false starts, they did a few promising eight-count promenades, some pretty decent closes, and even one left swivel, though Ellie figured that was just luck. Half the time, it felt like Hunter was holding his breath and when she peeked up at him, his jaw was clenched.

“Are you counting to yourself?”

He nodded. “Otherwise, I’ll trample you. I’m not…getting into this,” he said through gritted teeth. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. This song is over.” She dropped her arms and shook them out. “Relax for a second until the next one comes on. We’ll try again.” Hunter nodded and shook out his arms like she had.

A few seconds later, the next track on her “tango” playlist started. Hunter’s head snapped to attention at the “ooh’s” and the Spanish guitar intro. The second the velvety voice broke into song, she watched as a smile appeared on Hunter’s face.

“Elvis?”

“You mentioned him.”

He stepped up, locked his stance, and leveled his chin. Ellie was about to start counting aloud to prepare him to follow her lead when Hunter pulled her to his chest. His left leg slid back, balancing his weight. She followed, stepping between his thighs, her body bowing over him, both of them dropping into a lunge.

Ellie held her breath in shock and anticipation, feeling his hard leg muscles flex against her.

It was the music; something seemed to come alive in him. He walked them in two proms, then a tight swivel left, whipping her around. His steps were in rhythm, and…were those his hips swaying?

Oh, my.

“Try the open turn,” Ellie said.

“Shh—” His fingers pressed into her lower back and he turned them in another pretty damn good eight-count basic, his left foot dragging to finish the close.

There wasn’t much eye contact with the tango, but Ellie couldn’t stop herself from peeking up at Hunter, expecting to find him all clench-jawed. But he was peering down at her, that anti–Fred Astaire gaze that made her core tighten, then burst into spasms.

His locked frame was suddenly not so locked, and he took her hand, linking his fingers through hers. Her breaths were becoming more and more shallow, reacting to his touch. A moment later, he moved his hand to her hip, where his other hand had wandered. He pressed his forehead to hers, like this morning, slowly box-stepping her to the rhythm of Elvis.

She held on to his elbows, letting herself be led, feeling her heart pounding as Hunter’s hands curled around her hips. And then, as naturally as how they moved to music, he tilted his chin and pressed his lips to hers.

It was like she’d been holding her breath for an hour and could finally breathe. She didn’t realize how much she’d been waiting for this moment until they broke apart, inhaling in unison, in perfect timing. His hot, firm mouth covered hers again. He slid his arms around her back, holding her so tightly against him that her back bowed and her arms fell loose at her sides like she was floating, being swept away. His breath on her skin shot delicious shivers through her limbs.

When her knees buckled, she didn’t think, she grabbed him around the neck, tasting his sweet mouth, never wanting the kiss to end.

He led her backward, still in rhythm, though Elvis’s voice had died out. Her back hit the wall and he leaned into her, pulling away from her mouth to smoothly maneuver to the side of her neck. Ellie sucked in a breath and tilted her head, giving him free access to whatever he wanted while she slid her fingers over the sides of his hair.

A tiny corner of her mind knew what she was doing might technically be against the rules—so many rules—but she couldn’t stop. He was so much fun and gorgeous, and man alive was he a good kisser.

Slow-slow-quick-quick-slow
went her heart.

“Damn, I love the tango,” he whispered, tickling her ear.

She giggled, his hot breath and skilled hands flooding her body with more sweet shivers.

He planted kisses across her jaw. “Why didn’t you teach me this earlier?”

“I wanted to,” she whispered in raggedy little pants, gripping the back of his head. “But I couldn’t. I…”

She was about to finish her thought by saying she couldn’t kiss him before because she thought she was kind of in love with another man, a man she only knew online. The memory of Charlie Johansson had drifted so far from Ellie’s mind that it seemed ludicrous to even think it.

It wasn’t Charlie she wanted to kiss again and again and again and again.

When she didn’t continue her thought, he pulled back, his intense blue eyes gazing down at her. “I wanted it, too,” he admitted, his breathing just as ragged as hers. “Very badly. But I couldn’t, either.”

For a moment, she wondered if Charlie had ever mentioned her or their e-mails to the other guys in the unit. Or was this about Sam? “Why?” she asked, pressing her hand to his warm, scruffy cheek.

Hunter closed his eyes, leaning into her hand. But a moment later, he blinked and pulled back another inch, his troubled expression turned the other way. “Ellie,” he said, keeping his hand under her hair. “We need to talk about something.”

She sighed, feeling knots of dread in her stomach, her stomach that had been filled with beautiful butterflies only seconds ago. “I know.”

He lifted his eyes. “You do?”

“Yeah. We need to talk about Sam, and what he told me.”

…

After one hard beat, Charlie’s heart slowed to a sluggish crawl, foreboding made his body feel heavy. But if he was going to tell her the truth, now was as good a time as any—except for, you know, three days ago.

Maybe he’d get lucky…maybe that kiss had been as insanely mind-blowing for her as it had been for him. He’d kissed a lot of women, but not one had ever made him feel like that, hungry and helpless and spinning out of his mind.

He hadn’t meant to back her into the wall like an animal, but he was afraid if he didn’t have help keeping them upright, he would end up pulling them both to the floor. A few months ago, he would have done that without a second thought, but not now, not with Ellie. That was a Hunter move, and the hunter was dead.

“Sam,” he repeated, still holding her body in his arms. He wasn’t ready to let go—not if this was the last time he would touch her this way.

Without thinking, he leaned down and kissed her, slowly, loving the way her lips parted immediately, trembling under his. He’d never made a woman’s lips tremble from just a kiss before. Or maybe his were the ones trembling; he couldn’t be sure. He held her face between his hands, combing his fingers into her hair. Then slowly, regretfully, he let go.

She was breathing hard, her eyes closed. “Anyway,” she said after a shaky inhale.

“Sorry. You were about to say something.”

“No, no.” She nodded. “It’s okay…
that
was okay.”

Charlie laughed, gazing at her beautiful face. He slid his hands in his pockets and stepped back, allowing her to come away from the wall. “What about Sam?” he asked, letting her lead the conversation as she’d so lovingly led him in other ways.

But Ellie seemed at a loss for the moment, then her expression cleared. “He doesn’t want me to date you.”

“We’re not dating.”

She nodded her head a few times. “True. He didn’t say this specifically, but he probably doesn’t want you to pin me against a mirrored wall while Elvis plays, either.”

Charlie ran a fist over his mouth, trying not to smile. “Probably not.”

“I told him to butt out,” she said, twirling some hair around a finger. He couldn’t help grinning; she was so adorably sexy that he was on the verge of trying out the stability of that wall again.

“He’s right, though,” she added. “We can’t date or”—she motioned to the wall behind her—“anything like that.” Her voice suddenly lost its joy. “I just… I’m sorry, I can’t.”

It felt like his stomach dropped like a boulder to his feet then straight through the floor, along with his hopes. He’d faced unspeakable danger in Afghanistan, numerous times, yet he’d never truly felt like he might die until right now.

“Is that what you wanted to talk about?” he forced himself to ask.

“There’s more.” But she didn’t continue. Instead, she was staring at his mouth, her gorgeous lips parted, the word “more” whirling around his head.

It took everything in him not to go to her. Whatever her reasons were to keep a distance, she was struggling, too. Charlie knew she was right—they shouldn’t be doing this. She just didn’t know his real reason, but she needed to.

“If that’s the case,” he said, “we probably shouldn’t stay here, because I can’t think of anything besides you and…” He nodded toward the mirror, catching the reflection of Ellie from behind. His temperature shot through the roof.

She giggled but then coughed inside her throat. “I need to tell you something else, if that’s okay, but where—”

“Dinner?” Charlie asked, knowing exactly where he wanted to take her, especially if this was the last time they’d be together. “Not a date, and not an…
anything
.”

She was watching him with a dubious expression. “Okay.”

“Grab your bag; I’m driving.”

Ellie turned off all the lights and Charlie waited outside while she locked the front door. After they were both in the Impala, she asked, “Back to Phoenix or the pie place?”

“Neither.” He revved the engine. “My place.”

Ellie blinked then stared at him, still holding her seat belt. “Your…” She trailed off. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Probably not
, Charlie considered. But he needed her there. “You’ll be perfectly safe. I swear, no more Elvis.”

She laughed. “Okay.”

They chatted as they drove to his apartment. He didn’t want any heavy subjects to come up, not yet, so he did everything to steer their conversation toward the frivolous. Her current favorite food was hot fudge sundaes. He already knew that. She’d had a summer job as a lifeguard at the city pool—which probably set off her desire to surf. He also already knew that, from the e-mails.

In the back of his mind, he heard Jack’s advice, reminding him to take it slow, get to know her better. For the past three days, Charlie hadn’t needed that advice. He could sit and listen to and learn about Ellie Bell for hours. If he could find a way to
also
kiss those delicious lips of hers every hour, he’d be set for life.

It wasn’t to be. She was about to drop some bomb on him; he didn’t know what it was, exactly, but if her news didn’t kill the mood, his would.

He pulled into his covered parking space and turned off the car. “This is me.” He pointed to his apartment.

“Cool neighborhood. How long have you lived here?”

“I’ve had this apartment about two years. Of course I was deployed for some of that.”

“Oh,” she said, “yeah.”

He couldn’t tell, but it seemed like she was disappointed about something. “You okay?” he asked as they walked up the steps.

“Sure.” She was nibbling on her bottom lip. “Just thinking.” Charlie knew that, too, of course: Ellie’s tell.

He unlocked the door and stepped in first so he could turn on the light. Then he held the door open wide. “Come in.”