Once Her Man, Always Her Man (1 Night Stand Series) (3 page)

“You’re cold. It’s a jacket. It won’t bite.” He carefully measured the words, savoring the feeling of her under his hands although touching her had been a mistake. He didn’t want to stop.

The valet pulled his F450 into the slip in front of the Sybarite Club. The engine idled as she stepped out. He circled Rebecca, keeping one hand on her shoulder in case she tried to dart away again. He opened the passenger door and dared a look at her.

The pain and confusion shimmering in her eyes strangled him. I really do need to have my ass kicked.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to come with me and I want to apologize.” Honest, straightforward and not shying away from the problem. He could take the well-deserved lumps, but she didn’t deserve them. He’d done her a huge disservice. Time to put that right.

Long past time.

“Will you come with me?” Careful not to give her an order, not to push too hard, not to force a retreat.

“Why?”

“Because I won’t leave you behind this time….” I won’t leave you behind ever again.

She hesitated. “My car is here.”

“When you want to come back, I’ll bring you back.”

White teeth pulled at her lower lip, clearly conflicted.

“Becca, I don’t deserve the chance, but I need one. Just one. Please.”

She dropped her gaze. Luke held his breath. He wasn’t above begging. Not for her.

“Okay.”

He barely heard her too-quiet reply, and remained uncertain he heard the answer correctly until she took a step toward the truck. “I’ll go.”

He handed her up into the truck, careful to watch that she didn’t turn an ankle in the insane stilettos, no matter how great they made her legs look. Shutting the door behind her, he caught the doorman’s bemused expression. The man nodded his head, mouthing good luck.

Luke nodded in return, taking it.

He needed all the luck he managed to bank over the years and then some. He’d left her once, but this Marine didn’t make the same mistake twice. And he knew where to go. Leaving Dallas on I-30, he headed for Rockwall.

Chapter Three

The vents blasted a blanket of warmth into the silence, but the heat couldn’t quite touch the icy core solidifying in her chest. She sat next to a stranger. No, she sat next to Luke, far
worse
than a stranger. She didn’t know what to say. Her tongue seemed thick against the back of her teeth.

Two glasses of wine left her mildly tipsy. The only explanation for why she got into the truck with the man eleven years after he walked away and never looked back.
Stupid, stupid, childish mistake. You’re not seventeen anymore, Becca
.

At twenty-eight, she had no excuses for bad choices.

“Better?”

“What?” She pulled away from her internal monologue to stare across the shadowy gulf to the man driving.

“Are you warmer?” His voice gentled and she wished he’d stop doing that. Stop sounding like the boy who used to carry her over muddy spots rather than risk her slipping, or the guy who listened intently to every critique she gave him on his homework, or the sweet boyfriend who grinned like an idiot when she raced up to hug him.

She’d
missed
that boy for years.

“I’m fine.” She licked her lips.
This is a bad idea. Why now
?
Why tonight
? Why had Delilah cajoled her into changing her schedule so that she would spend the winter in Dallas rather than Dubai, to plan an event for Mike’s Place rather than an oil tycoon?
Did she know
?
I told her about Luke, but did she realize they were the same man before she set this up
?

“Why Mike’s Place?”

If the question surprised him, he didn’t show it. In fact, he looked very relaxed leaning back in the seat, his right hand resting on the steering wheel. Sliding her heels off, she shifted to tuck one leg over the other. The damn shoes cost a fortune and pinched her toes.

“I’ve seen what back to back wars do to the men and women who serve, and their families. Mothers who don’t see their kids for years. Fathers who return, a wad of stress and out of sorts. Soldiers who can’t reintegrate because their personal worlds moved on without them, and the injured who are struggling to figure out who they are now without an arm, a leg or the ability to walk. It’s a bitch and we don’t leave people behind, especially when they come home. Mike’s Place will provide the lodestone for a lot of lives.”

Tears misted across her vision. She’d poured over the literature for Mike’s Place, the thirty-acre complex providing physical therapy centers, mental health pavilions, free clinic services and a childcare facility. Donations requested, but not required, covered the near non-existent cost to patients. Out-of-state visitors would be provided with access to onsite apartments for both patient and family.

“It’s a beautiful idea.” She whispered the words and it was. Thoughtful, generous and compassionate. Just like the boy she’d loved. He had been Lowell High’s best football player. Even the year he’d left the team to enter the military, he’d been nominated for MVP. Not for being best player on the field, but rather because Luke took the concept of, no I in team, to the extreme.

Oh, I’ve missed him so much.

Missed him, past tense, not present. She tugged her gaze away from his profile lest the naked need running rampant through her shine on her face. Every man she’d dared to date had to live up to the ghost of his estimation.

None had passed.

“Thanks.” A note of shyness slipped into his deep voice. “It’s good work. It needs to be done.”

Rebecca rubbed two fingers carefully under one eye, sweeping away the tears that kept trying to slip free. “Who’s Mike?”

It was Luke’s turn to sigh. The poignant note pulled her gaze back. The highway’s interspersed lights strobed across his profile, revealing a raw emotion that had her hand reaching out to rest on his arm. He covered her slender hand with his own, trapping her there, but she didn’t care. Pain echoed through him and he needed her.

“Mike Nowiski went through basic with me. Two years older than me, he’d dropped out of college to enlist. He grew up in New Jersey. His parents owned a pizza joint, and he married his high school sweetheart for love. They had a baby girl, just a year old when Mike enlisted. He was a good guy, never shut up about his kid. He joked that the Marines would give him all the know-how he needed to cap any punk who wanted to date her. I met his wife, twice. Shari was a sweetheart. They had that real thing, crazy in love, but supportive as hell. She was amazing, we spent four years in Afghanistan, and Mike never had leave to go home except for one seventy-two hour furlough. Shari flew to meet him halfway in Germany.”

Dread curled around Rebecca’s heart. So many of Luke’s words were past tense, not present. But she squeezed his arm, the heat of his bicep melting the ice chips on her soul.

“Three years ago, Mike got injured. We were in Iraq, monitoring a school rebuild. Insurgents tossed a few grenades, brought down most of the unfinished building. Mike took shrapnel in the leg helping the workers get out. It was bad. They airlifted him to Germany, and he spent ten weeks getting pins in his leg to rebuild it. Then they sent him home.”

Fear squeezing her heart, she waited. A muscle ticked in his jaw and they were gliding down the exit ramp. He took a left at the light and blended in with the evening traffic. Lights from the strip malls illuminated the truck, reflecting off his angry, tortured visage.

“What happened, Luke?” She couldn’t stand the silence.

“Three weeks after he got home, he shot Shari and then himself. The reports said he suffered from severe PTSD. Shari had spoken to a chaplain about his violent mood swings and nightmares, but the day before the chaplain’s scheduled visit, something in Mike snapped. He was a good man, he loved his wife. What happened to him overseas, the war, the injury, changed him and he didn’t get the support services he needed. I know he shot himself because he killed Shari, but it doesn’t change the fact that his little girl is now an orphan. She’s barely eleven and she has no one, no family. Mike’s Place can’t save everyone, but kids like Amy Nowiski shouldn’t have to bury their parents, and guys like Mike should have a place to go to get better while women like Shari have the support they need to be there for their spouse.”

Her tears fell freely at his words.
What a horrible story
. “You should tell people Mike’s story,” she sniffled. Damn it, she’d always been a crier and the flow of damp grief stung her eyes. “You should tell them Shari’s story and Amy’s story. It’s terrible, but it makes it more real for those who can’t imagine what that’s like.”

“Aww, hell, Becca, I didn’t mean to make you cry.” His grief stricken expression dissolved in self-recrimination. He shifted to put his left hand on the wheel, his right capturing hers and lifting it to his lips. The tender brush of a kiss across her knuckles damn near brought her to sobbing.

“I can’t help it. You miss Mike. You’re pissed at yourself because Mike went home and you weren’t there to watch his back, to protect his family and save him from himself. But it’s not your fault.” The words hiccupped, but she didn’t care. He swung the truck into a dark parking lot and shifted into park before twisting in the seat.

Between one breath and the next, he’d snapped off her seat belt and tugged her across the bench until she crushed up against him. It was a mistake to hold him like that, to let him hold her. But he needed her.

Hell, I need him
.

She sobbed all over his nice dress shirt. Her arms slid around him, her hands going to his hair. Still cut high and tight, she missed the gentler waves where it would tumble in his eyes. He’d come back a bigger, harder man, but cocooned against him, the years slipped away.

A rumble shook through him, a low laugh tickled her and the bubble of tension inside her popped. Laughing through tears was the best emotion and the more he laughed against her, the more laughter punctuated her tears.

“Why are you laughing?” She chuckled, pulling back enough to look at him. But the circle of his arms trapped her close. His forehead drifted down to rest against hers, his eyes dark and unfathomable in the next to nothing light.

“This is so not what I meant when I asked you to come with me. I never wanted you to cry.”

She shrugged, no easy feat this close when it brushed her chest to his and her nipples stiffened. A lazy thread of desire unwound from the tension, zinging along half-forgotten nerve endings. Eleven years and his proximity still turned her on.

Who am I kidding
? She’d loved this man her whole life. When he asked her out on a date the day of her sixteenth birthday party, she’d written in her diary that she’d been born to love him. Eleven years and heartbreak didn’t diminish the feeling no matter how much hurt and resentment she’d tried to bury it in.

“Luke,” she whispered. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you told me. I’ve missed you.”

He went still against her. She shoved away the regret that crept through her. She would never regret reaching out to him. It hurt to think he might reject her.

Again
.

But she would never stop being there. He spoke of Shari in wonder, wonder for how she supported the man she loved, wonder for how she managed all those years and would be willing to fly halfway around the world for a couple of days, but she didn’t wonder.

I would have done the same damn thing if he’d just let me
.

Resolve exploded through her, she was through waiting for him to give her that opportunity. Nestled close to him, the warmth of his breath tickling her cheek, and the strength of his arms around her, she closed the gap to press her lips to his.

He stiffened, but his mouth opened to her questing tongue. The gentle kiss went from zero to raging forest fire. Liquid heat blasted through her blood and between one breath and the next, she straddled his lap, his hands pulling her hair loose to tumble down around them in a curtain. Every inch of his hard muscle pressed against her softer flesh. He tasted of the wine he’d ordered at Sybarite and something darker, deeper and more masculine.

He tastes like Luke
.

A groan rolled through her as his tongue sought entry, dueling with hers, stroking her teeth, lapping up every breath. Her dress inched up her thighs and the hard length of his cock burned through the clothes separating them. She rolled her hips, rubbing against him, sending tingles of electricity darting through her sex.

She soaked her panties at the thought of stripping away those last barriers. She wanted to feel him inside of her. They’d played it safe for years, never even made it past second base.

“Rebecca,” his voice slurred ever so slightly between kisses as their mouths moved together. It was like dancing, tongues waltzing together, circling each other. “Rebecca.”

He leaned his head back, fingers fisting in her hair, trapping her when she would have followed. His chest rose and fell. His excitement fueled her own. “Sweetheart, you’re killing me.” His murmur was low and throaty. Would he sound that raspy and hoarse when they were naked and rolling together? She shuddered, one aching tangle of need. Her body vibrated with it. Her hands flattened against his chest, the pounding of his heart a delicious cadence beneath her questing fingers as she unbuttoned his shirt.

“I don’t think it’s ever hurt this good,” she murmured. She wanted to feel his skin, to see his body, to touch every inch of him with her hands and her mouth. He covered her hands with one of his, halting her action.

“Becca, stop.” The order shuddered through the desire questing in her system.

“You don’t want me?” The traitorous words slipped out before she could stop them. Even in the low light cast by the dashboard, she saw the words strike their mark.

“Baby, I want you more than I can say. But not like this, not because you’re feeling sorry for me.”

He couldn’t have cooled her ardor faster if he’d slapped her. “Sorry for you?” She repeated the words, hardly believing them. “Sorry for you?”