Love, Tussles, and Takedowns (12 page)

Chewing on her lip, she added quietly, “So honestly, I haven’t really thought much about sex…until I met you.”

Holy hell.

“Honey, you can’t say things like that to a man who’s always followed the celibacy-during-deployment rule to the letter.”

Her eyes widened. “How long was your last tour?”

“Two years.”

If possible, those twin pools of adorableness widened even more. “And since you’ve been back…?” she ventured.

“Never thought about it much,” he gave her back her words on a silver platter. “Until I met you.” Her breathing hitched and he leaned over to brush his lips against her cheek. Fiery hot, just like her. “So I guess we’re at a stalemate.”

A damn mean one at that.

“Not necessarily,” she countered quickly.

He buckled in for what was undoubtedly going to be a doozey of a comeback.

“Now while I don’t know exactly what each constitutes,” she gave a disgruntled little frown, “and online searches have been surprisingly contradictory, I was thinking maybe we can just…round some bases.”

He almost swallowed his tongue. “You want to ‘round some bases’ with me?” Never had an offer sounded so sweet.

Or so dangerous.

Blushing cheeks and all, she gave him an avid nod, her gaze holding onto his firmly. Even in this, the woman was fearless. The smallest shuffle of her feet, and a slight waver in her voice were her only signs that she was way the heck out of her comfort zone.

Definitely dangerous.

“Honey—”

“Before you say no, I’m not just some sex-crazed virgin just wanting to use your body as my own acrobatic playground to sow all my wild oats.”

It was growing increasingly fuzzy which side of the argument her words were supporting.

For crying out loud,
he
barely knew which side of the argument he was on right now.

Those witchy catlike eyes of hers got bedroom soft in an instant. “I just want the freedom to stop ignoring all these feelings I’ve only really ever felt with you, the freedom to experience everything you make me
want
to experience. I get that my virginity is your hard line you don’t feel comfortable crossing, but other than that, can’t we just…be together in every other way but that? Without restrictions? Does it really need to be an all or nothing sort of thing?”

For the sake of his sanity, most assuredly.

But when he saw just how strongly she felt about this, he answered gently, “No. It doesn’t.”

The more she talked, the more he realized she wasn’t looking at him like the women he’d hooked up with in the past who’d talk about blowjobs and sex toys as a means to get him to sleep with them. No, Lia was looking at him like… Hell, he’d actually never had a woman look at him the way she was right now.

That was enough to help him tamp down the raging hard-on her bold little suggestion had inspired long enough to pull her into his arms and consider her proposal seriously.

“Honey, I’d consider myself the luckiest man alive if I got to be the one to share that freedom with you, to be with you without restrictions. But are you sure? Because we don’t have to go that far. Honestly, I’m happy just kissing on you every night.”

“But that would mean cold showers every morning throughout our entire relationship,” she retorted with a frown.

Yeah, probably. “But I’m okay with that, sweetheart.”

“I meant for me,” she muttered, her cheeks positively burning against his skin. “That’s all I seem to be doing lately after I see you or talk to you.”

Well, damn. “That makes two of us,” he assured her. “So then your solution to our showering problems is that we ‘round some bases’?”

“Yes.” She rested her face against his chest. “Preferably all the way up to third.” More deep-breathing bravery. “Or at least what I hope third base is. For both of us.”

That ‘both of us’ had him nearly falling to his knees.

“Lia, you’re killing me here.”

“Is that a no?”

Jesus, she argued the way she fought. Quick, no-nonsense, short-distance jabs.

“No. That’s not a no.”

She pulled back and a sweet, sexy smile traveled from her lips straight up to her eyes.

Another effective jab.

Then she slid her hand into his and kissed his knuckles.

“Honey, that’s the hand that can’t feel.”

“I know. And no, it isn’t,” she replied with a shrug, as if her answer made all the sense in the world.

Shockingly, to him, it did.

And though he knew he was diving into waters that were undoubtedly going to pull him out farther than he could make it back from, he dropped his lips down to hers and drank in all her sweetness, all her bravery.

Never had he ever wanted a woman so much.

Looking into her kiss-drunken eyes, he almost smiled when she seemed utterly shocked that her apartment door was now behind her back.

“Unlock the door, honey. Let us in.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

WHEN HUDSON’S EYES darkened to an intense, smoky gray, Lia felt her knees go weak.

Most of her other jellified joints soon followed as he all but stalked her to the couch and gently tumbled her backward onto the cushions.

Slipping his hands under her, he slid her back toward him and settled her between his rock-hard thighs as his eyes tracked the movement of her t-shirt inching up her torso. His eyes remained locked on the few inches of skin revealed while his palms smoothed over her belly.

“Have I told you how sexy I think your belly button is?”

A ludicrous statement she knew was untrue. Halfie belly buttons only looked sexy on women surfers and beach volleyball players. And while Lia was reasonably sun-kissed from her late afternoon jogs and frequent trips to the outdoor gun ranges, her belly was nowhere in the vicinity of tan.

Self-consciously, she slammed her hand over her navel.

“No,” he growled softly, pulling her hands up to circle his neck instead. “No covering up. If all I get is first base with you tonight, then your belly button is definitely fair game.”

“First base?” she grumbled, the female pout in her voice one she’d never heard come out of her mouth before. “I thought we agreed on third base.”

“One base at a time, sweetheart. Tonight is first base.”

He was smiling against her skin, she could feel it.

Well, two could play at that game.

She slid her hands back down to her belly and
reveled
in how quickly his eyes went from disgruntled to red hot with lust as she slowly pulled her shirt up and off.

“First base only, Lia,” he ground out, sounding like he was reminding himself more than he was her.

“According to the internet, that’s kissing and over-the-clothes action.” She grinned as she saw his eyes dart to her fingers at the button fly of her jeans. And hold. “So my boyshort panties and a sports bra seem perfectly within first base guidelines.”

He exhaled a long, slow breath. “Jesus. You are so beautiful, Lia.”

She watched, captivated as he proceeded to memorize every inch of her with his hands.

“Used to be, I could handle a combat weapon with the kind of speed and precision that guys in my unit were gladly willing to trade their left nut for.” A hard edge darkened his expression for a brief moment before fading, softening when his gaze fell on her face again.

“After the explosion, discovering that I wouldn’t ever have that level of fine motor control in my trigger hand again, or that I wouldn’t ever be able to fully process the feel of a weapon because of the nerve damage in my other hand…that just about destroyed me.”

He slid his hand over her skin gently. “But this—”

She gasped, gripped the cushions to keep herself grounded mentally, emotionally. To keep her silly heart from acknowledging the fact that he was shattering her defenses with that one simple touch, owning her with the intense, single-minded focus his eyes held as they followed the path his fingers were tracing across her belly. Hungrily. Reverently.

“I
thought
that was the hardest thing I’d have to get over because of my injuries. But this right here,” he whispered, leaning down to wreak even more havoc on her senses by shadowing his touch with his words, his evil, evil lips only just barely skimming her flesh. “Not being able to do all the things I want to do to you with the pace and precision I want to with this hand…”

She stopped breathing when she felt his other palm smooth up the back of her thigh.

“And worse, not being able to feel you fully with this one… Hell, Lia. That’s killing me more than you can imagine.”

* * * * *

HUDSON NEARLY CAME in his jeans when Lia gasped and bucked up against him, sending her sexy mound mere millimeters from his lips.

This was definitely
well
past first base.

So he backed off.

Only to find he couldn’t go another second without feeling her lips under his again. He pulled her up onto his lap with every intention of kissing her silly.

Until the rings on her necklace swung forward and caught the light.

His eyes snagged on the glittering anchors to her past and instantly he dropped back to put some distance between them.

With every heaving breath she took, those two rings served as a dainty, twinkling reminder he’d started to allow himself to forget.

That he simply wasn’t the man who could give her everything she deserved.

She gazed into his eyes and offered softly, “If it bothers you, I can take them off. I know if the positions were reversed—”

“You’d insist I not take them off until I was ready,” he finished, knowing the truth in that implicitly. “Just like I’m insisting.”

Not wanting her to think that his stopping was because of anything she did wrong, he placed a gentle kiss on her lips. “I didn’t stop out of jealousy over you wearing the rings or anything like that, sweetheart. Truly. I know you’re not pining. I know you’ve made peace with being a widow. But being at peace with something and moving on to the next step are two completely different things. Nothing about the situation you’ve had to survive is simple to move on from—not how your best friend was taken from you, and certainly not how he ‘died.’ You shouldn’t rush it just to round a few bases.”

With me.

In his mind, the unspoken two words held the heaviest weight of his concerns.

She sighed. “I’m sorry I come with baggage.”

Startled, he almost chuckled at the absurdity of that. Given all she’d gone through in her life, in his book, Lia was the most unbelievably strong and well-adjusted woman in the world.

He, on the other hand…

“Honey, you have dainty little carry-ons compared to the giant suitcases I have.”

He looked down and saw—but couldn’t feel—her fingers intertwine with his. It drove him crazy that he couldn’t feel the gesture.

Even more so when it was accompanied by her quiet question: “Will you ever let me help you carry your suitcases with you? Not for you. Just with you.”

Stunned both by her question and by the answer in his gut, he replied truthfully, “I don’t know. But you’re the first person who I’ve ever even thought of asking.”

* * * * *

AN HOUR AND A HALF later, Lia was fast asleep in his arms just as the film credits for the old kung-fu movie they’d been watching started scrolling across the screen.

Hudson flipped to one of the cable channels and saw that a cop show he liked was on re-run. Tucking a blanket around Lia, he settled in to watch some mindless TV, knowing he was far too keyed up to sleep for a while.

The idea of being in a ‘friends with benefits’ relationship with Lia was simultaneously perfectly-fitting and disquieting. He’d known it would be like this. He’d known he wouldn’t be able to stay away from her, despite the forked path in their futures. Not just because the idea of Lia with any other man made him violently ill, but also because of that feeling he got whenever he was around her. The feeling of not ever wanting to have her too far, physically or emotionally. He wanted to be by her side through all the good, and
especially
the bad. It went beyond possessiveness, and it was more profound than protectiveness.

She wasn’t just the newfound joy in his life that made him feel alive; she was the oxygen he didn’t have to think about needing to
live.
Being with her was as effortless as breathing.

And he imagined being without her would be just as devastating as if he stopped.

Truth be told, he’d passed that point of no return when she’d brought his nerve-damaged hand up to her lips, knowing he couldn’t
physically
feel the tender gesture.

She was the miracle he didn’t feel worthy of…but was going to fight like hell to hold on to.

For as long as his demons would allow.

The sounds of a scuffle from the TV show he’d glazed over filtered through his deep thoughts, and began filling the apartment. Car tire screeches and shouted threats followed.
Damn complicated universal remotes.
A round of gunshots blasted from the speakers in an eardrum-cracking pop-pop-pop.

Lia jolted awake beside him and he winced.

He grabbed the main TV remote from the side table just as the cop in the flash-forwarded scene on screen was asking if forensics had ID’d the weapon yet.

“A Glock 33—.357 sig,”
answered the guy’s partner.

In stereo with Lia.

Hudson grinned. “I guess you’ve seen this one before, huh? I’m a few years behind on my TV shows—” His grin faded when he saw that Lia was white as a ghost. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

A flashback on screen brought the muted sound of gunfire back in the apartment.

And Lia flinched—actually flinched—with her jaw locked and eyes suddenly turbulent with deep-set pain. When the cops came back on the screen, she took a deep breath and shook her head, giving him a shaky smile as she replied, “I’m okay. Just startled awake.”

Then, as if sifting through scattered thoughts, she answered belatedly, “No, I never saw that episode before. I don’t really like watching these crime investigation shows.”