His Very Own Girl (23 page)

He collapsed on top of her, breathing hard. The room seemed preternaturally still and quiet in the wake of their frenzy.

Lulu petted the damp skin at the back of his neck and smiled against his shoulder. “Now, my darling boy, wasn’t that worth waiting for?”

Joe grabbed a pack of Lucky Strikes from his duffel and returned to bed, pulling the blanket up to cover their naked bodies. Lulu snuggled against him. The sun had set, and the unimpressive little hotel room had closed around them like a protective cave.

“You’ve probably ruined my stockings.”

“You want me to check?” he asked, his lips against the top of her head.

“No, I don’t want you to move. Not yet. But now you know what to get me for Christmas when you’re in Paris.”

“By Christmas, who knows? Paris, Antwerp, Berlin. No one has any idea. And I think your chances of finding stockings are better here.”

“Probably.”

Lulu sighed with the contentment he felt. She smelled of feminine sweat and her lavender perfume. Nothing had ever smelled sweeter. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t lit a cigarette yet. He wasn’t finished breathing her in.

“Joe?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry about Smitty.”

He flinched. Pain lanced through his heart. But he survived it. He kept on living. That was his job now, in honor of all the fellas who hadn’t survived. And he admitted—aloud, for the first time—what he knew to be the truth.

“I’m sorry, too. But I . . . I made the right choice.” As his nerves got the better of him, he sat up and grabbed his Lucky Strikes. After a deep drag, he released a shuddering exhale. “I couldn’t leave McClure—ah, that was his name. And if I’d been in Smitty’s place, I’d have wanted him to do the same.” His voice cracked. “There just wasn’t enough time to save them both.”

Lulu sat up, too. She painted delicate, comforting circles on his bare back.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispered. “So very proud.”

Joe couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t share her pride, not when every foot of ground they’d claimed for the Allies had resulted in the death of men he knew and respected. Men who’d been his friends. They were a long way from being able to assign words like
pride
to what had happened, not until the whole job was finally done.

But he knew Lulu didn’t mean any offense by what she’d said, wouldn’t understand why it rang hollow in his ears and in his heart. He croaked out his thanks and hoped she wouldn’t push it any further.

She smacked a quick, playful kiss between his shoulder blades, as if sensing the somber turn of his thoughts. “Well, get up, then.”

Joe frowned. “What? Why?”

“I want to go dancing.”

She was kneeling atop the blanket now, her knees slightly apart, providing Joe with a devilish view. Her hair was unbound and tousled. Her lipstick had long since given up the ghost. She was still naked except for the garter and stockings. Joe traced a runner that went from her left knee up to the lace at the top.

“Sorry,” he said with a grin.

Her eyes never left his. “Don’t mention it.”

“Dancing, eh?”

“That’s right. There must be something in the works. It’s a Friday night.”

Joe slid his hands around the backs of each thigh, then tugged her closer until they knelt face-to-face. He was hard. So hard.

“If you think I’m leaving this room tonight,” he said, nestling his lips along her neck, “you’re insane.”

“Fine. I’m insane. But after this we’re going dancing.”

He found her earlobe and suckled. “You sure about that?”

“Yes, I am.”

With two fingers he found her soft feminine center and the little nub that made her gasp, shiver, moan. “What about tomorrow?”

“
Oh
. Maybe.” Then she laughed. “I do love you, Joe.”

He stilled. It was the first time she’d said it aloud. He hadn’t been prepared for how those words would rejuvenate him, even heal him. Her body was a wonder, a thing of perfection, but her love was the most priceless treasure he’d ever been offered. Overcome, Joe kissed his best girl. He kissed her until his senses spun, filled with her essence and still demanding more.

She began laughing again, her eyes wet with tears. “Very well, then. No dancing tonight. You seem to have the situation well in hand, Doc Web. Carry on.”

Joe leaned her back against the mattress. “Anything you say, Captain Davies.”

“Captain,” she said on a sigh, her eyes closed and her mouth smiling. “I do like that.”

chapter twenty-one

Late the next evening Joe looked up from where he sat on the floor lacing his jump boots. Lulu stood in the doorway of the hotel room. Her body was draped in a short-sleeved black party dress. Chiffon, maybe? It flowed like a cloud down to just below her knees. She’d used the bathroom at the end of the corridor while Joe dozed.

Maybe he was dreaming all of this. Could he still be in a foxhole? Or bedded down in a shabby farmhouse? Any minute now he’d awaken to the wind chime squeak of tank tracks in the distance, or the sharp tat-a-tat of an enemy machine gun nest.

If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.

He could just live in this moment. That would be enough. Not even touching her or hearing her voice—just watching her and waiting for what would come next. Such expectation could fuel a more complicated man for a lifetime, and Joe had never thought of himself as complicated.

He tried to swallow but just about choked on his own tongue. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you,” she said, running a hand down one thigh and giving the skirt a little swish. The dress shimmered with the slightest movement. The fitted bodice hugged the lush curve of her breasts, where his love bites hid. A beaded collar encircled her neck, below which a keyhole cutout revealed an enticing glimpse of skin. “Although you’re probably only saying that because you’ve never seen me out of my uniform.”

“I have, actually.” He winked.

“Oh, you know what I meant.”

“Besides, I’ve seen you in your flight suit. The one you wear without a skirt on underneath?”

“I’d forgot about that.”

The distant history of that day, the day of her crash, hovered between them. But Joe didn’t want it. He didn’t want the war or her flying or how he’d have to say good-bye the next afternoon. None of it.

Instead he let his eyes return to Lulu. Her lips shone red and full. He loved the provocative pinup look, but now he’d have to restrain the urge to kiss her. His cock twitched. But hell, maybe anticipation wasn’t a bad thing.

She shut the door and crossed the room, tossing her bag of toiletries on the wardrobe. Empty tin cans and wine bottles were a testament to the fact they had yet to leave the hotel room.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “this doesn’t solve the dilemma of my stockings.”

From there on the floor Joe had the best view of her legs—swear to God, eight feet long. “You don’t need them. You’ve got great gams.”

“Thank you again,” she said, almost blushing this time. “But you could help me, you know.”

“With what?”

She pulled a tiny stub of kohl pencil from her toiletries bag. “Use this to draw on the seams, like seams on a stocking—well, as close as we can get these days. I can’t draw them straight by myself.”

The erotic and the surreal mashed together. “You want me to draw on your legs?”

“It’s not art. Just two straight lines. Not so challenging if you can keep your hands steady. You can manage that, can’t you, Doc Web?”

“I don’t know.”

“At least you’re honest,” she said with a giggle. “Give it a go. Worst case, I’ll have to wash up again, but I’ll make you help.”

“That’s no incentive.”

“You’re right. Well, then, don’t waste my kohl. This is the last pencil I own. Even if I were rich as Croesus, I doubt I’d be able to replace it.” She arched one of those decadent eyebrows. “You game?”

“Give it to me.”

Lulu turned her back to him while Joe shifted to his knees. He found himself staring at the ankle of her right leg. Could an ankle be sexy? He’d never given it much thought, not until faced with that absolutely perfect specimen.

She held very still as he trailed the black kohl up the center line of her Achilles tendon, then her shapely calf. But when he reached the back of her knee, she twitched and giggled.

“Tickles,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

When he reached the smooth alabaster skin just above her knee, he asked, “How far up?”

“All the way up, if you could. I want to be able to spin when we dance.”

He was breathing too quickly. “You assume you’ll make it to a dance floor tonight.”

“I told you, I’ll have my way on this.”

“Fine. But you’ll pay for it later.”

“Promises, promises.”

How he managed to lay down those twin streaks of kohl was a mystery. But then he was done. “Lord, I need a drink,” he said, looking up at her.

“Me, too. C’mon, soldier.” She fluffed the loose hair off her shoulders, although her bangs and sides were pinned back in neat Victory rolls. He liked it unbound. It fit the civilian dress—playful and flirty.

He stood and took her hand. “Where to?”

“The WAAF I met in the loo was getting dolled up, too. She said there’s a shindig at Hemming’s Warehouse. It’s on the Embankment down by Waterloo station. No one uses it much anymore because it’s been bombed.”

“We’re going to a party in a bombed warehouse?”

“Where else? Every building in good repair is being used by the military or by refugees—anything that still stands.” She shrugged. “London and the southern ports are different than up north. Goodness, what we endured down here.”

“We? You were here during the Blitz? I’d always assumed you were up north by then.”

When she raised her face once more, tears glittered in her eyes. “We haven’t talked much about that time, have we?”

“No,” he said quietly. Curiosity urged him to press, but he didn’t want her to cry. Instead he rubbed her bare upper arms and let her decide what to share.

“My mum and dad—did I tell you this?—they were shot down by an Italian fighter over Egypt. They’d been flying an unarmed survey plane.”

A sympathetic pain sizzled beneath his sternum. “Lulu, I had no idea.”

“My fault, I suppose, for not sharing.” She tried on a wobbling smile, but it didn’t have the strength to stick around. “That was ’39. October. Robbie was already in the army. He killed himself the following July, just before the Blitz began.”

“So you were alone. Just like that.”

She nodded. “The Aldwych tube station had been shut down to serve as an air-raid shelter and to keep treasures from various museums safe. I slept there for, oh, two months. It’s not far from here.”

Joe felt hollowed out inside. The idea of Lulu—young, homeless, alone—made his heart race. The urge to hold her and never let go was almost too strong to resist.

“Then I found the ATA,” she said, smiling as if she’d reached the happy ending to her tale. Joe hadn’t thought of her flying that way before. “Initially they’d thought eight female pilots would be enough. But the Blitz changed everything. It was no longer a ‘phony war’ but a fight for our very survival. The chaps in Spits and Hurricanes weren’t coming home, and there certainly weren’t enough of them to ferry planes about. Everyone stepped up to defend the nation.”

Suddenly her independence and resolve were easier to understand. The woman he’d come to love had been defined by loss and by the institution that offered her a way out. No wonder she’d always been so damned determined. He’d mistaken it for stubbornness. In truth it was a quiet sort of vengeance. Every plane she ferried brought the world closer to victory over the Axis powers that had taken her family.

“I’d logged over six hundred hours and had a navigator’s license.” That familiar pride poked into her words. “They couldn’t keep me out.”

Joe touched her cheek. “And why would they want to?”

She blinked back her tears. “This is the first time I’ve been to London since. I’ve flown in and around, but to actually be back here again, seeing the ruined buildings and the streets, these people
 . . .”

“And you came back here for me?”

“For us.”

A heavy pressure settled on Joe’s chest, but he couldn’t decide if it was born of relief or pride or happiness. Maybe all three.

“And now let’s leave it. Deal? Tonight’s for dancing.”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “Capital idea.”

Joe grabbed his tunic and let Lulu button it for him. That simple act, one he’d performed a thousand times throughout his years in the army, became intimate now. They shared it. He wondered if he’d ever be able to do it again without thinking of her little frown of concentration. Probably not. She touched him in indelible ways.

They left the room, then left the hotel—just a soldier and his girl. Joe felt good. He’d made love to Lulu, repeatedly, and she looked as gorgeous as any starlet. Only Lulu was a daredevil, brave and smart and tender. And she loved him. That humbling knowledge swelled in his chest until he thought he’d burst.

He’d assumed the streets would be deserted. Hell, he didn’t even know what time it was. Yet the city throbbed with life—defiant, young, determined life. Among such vibrancy, his feeling of being able to take on the world didn’t ebb. He was shocked by it, because his rational mind knew exactly how fragile life was and how powerless a man could be.

But not with Lulu at his side.

He patted the ring box tucked in his tunic pocket. By the end of the night, he’d ask her to be his wife.

“Lulu! Louise Davies!”

Lulu turned to see a familiar woman crossing the street. She was wearing a drab jumpsuit and waving.