Ripped! (12 page)

I
F HE COULD JUMP OUT OF A DAMN
plane under enemy fire, as Greg had pointed out, he could damn well go for what he wanted with the one woman who was driving him crazy. Time to man up.

Eli interrupted her as she was about to walk out the door with a bridesmaid he didn’t know. He snagged Tara’s arm. “Can I see you a minute, Tara?”

The other woman looked from Tara to him and back again. “I’ll see you later.”

“Okay,” she told Eli, while nodding for the other bridesmaid to go on without her. They stepped to the side, out of the flow of traffic in and out of the restaurant. She turned to face him, her lips slightly parted. Would he ever get to the point that he didn’t feel as if he was slightly off balance every time she fixed those green eyes on him? “You wanted me?”

That was an understatement.

Color washed her face. “I mean, what can I do for you?”

He had a whole long list. It was one thing to decide to keep his distance when she wasn’t there. Now he
was having a damn hard time remembering why being with her was a bad idea.

“Can you give me a lift to my folks’?” he said.

For several long seconds she simply stood there, as if she was waging the same internal war he’d just fought.

“Sure. I can give you a ride.”

Was there a look in her eyes or was it simply wishful thinking on his part? He wasn’t going to waste time wondering. “Give me a minute to grab my duffel bag out of Greg’s car.”

Eli held the door open for her as they headed for the parking lot. She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Thanks. I’ll warm up the car.”

“Be right back.”

He ran across the parking lot and waylaid Greg. “Hey, man, Tara’s giving me a ride home.”

“Okay. You know we’re all heading over to Smokey Joe’s around ten. Last night of freedom.”

Eli was
so
not game for the strip-club scene. But he wasn’t gonna stand in the parking lot and argue about it. “I’ll give you a call later.”

He made short work of getting back to Tara’s Mini-Cooper. He tossed his duffel into the back, slammed the door and folded himself into the front passenger seat. Her scent wrapped around him before he even had the door closed. God, she was hot and he was hot for her.

James Otto’s “Just Got Started Loving You” was
playing on the radio. The guy had that damn straight—one weekend with Tara wasn’t going to be nearly enough, but it’d have to do.

Tara broke the silence. “Are the guys picking you up for the bachelor party?”

“I’m ducking out.”

She slanted him a look as she pulled up to the Stop sign, her left blinker on. “I’d think after three weeks of training, you’d be honor bound to visit a strip club. Besides, it’s a bachelor party.”

She drove a manual and her hand gripped the gearshift knob. Eli reached between them and trailed his fingertip down the back of her hand, to the delicate bones of her wrist. He felt her tremble, or was that him? “
That’s
not what I’m interested in.”

Heat exploded in the air between them in shimmering waves. Damn, but it was always this way between them. His briefs were suddenly much, much tighter.

She caught the fullness of her lower lip in the edge of her teeth and then eased her tongue over the spot. She drew a deep breath, made her left turn and announced, “I’m going to exercise a woman’s prerogative and change my mind.”

What the hell? He’d overplayed his hand. “You’re not going to give me a ride?”

She rolled to a stop at a red light and turned to him. “I can give you a ride to your parents’…or you can stay at my place.” An I’m-gonna-rock-your-world promise curved her lips and gleamed in her eyes.
“There’s room for your duffel bag at the end of my bed, Captain.”

“Tara, are you sure?” What the hell was wrong with him? Why give her a chance to back out? Because she was more than he deserved after the way he’d treated her. He knew it had been a crappy thing not to contact her the last two years.

What the hell was he supposed to say?
The first time I wasn’t ready for a relationship because I was just starting my military career and didn’t want to be tied down? And the last time I woke up in bed with you, I realized I wanted to crawl inside your skin. It scared the hell out of me, so I ran?

She leaned over, closing the gap between them and nibbled at the edge of his jaw, sending his pulse into orbit. “I’ve never been surer.”

The traffic light turned green. “Then how far is it to your house? Because, baby, I can’t kiss you the way I want to when you’re driving. And I really, really want to kiss you.”

She laughed, low and sexy. “I really, really want you to do a whole lot more than kiss me.”

He realized he’d been waiting two years for that very thing.

T
ARA THREW THE CAR INTO PARK
, killed the engine and turned to face the man she’d wanted for two long years, the man she’d loved for even longer, even if she’d never acknowledged it before. This time would be different. This time they had longer. A whole weekend. Still, she didn’t dare touch him because the front seat of the Mini was too tight for sex. And once she touched him, they were going to have sex. “We’re here.”

“I’m not going to touch you until we get into your house because once I start, I’m not going to stop.”

The low gravel of his voice and his words sent an express train of desire hurtling through her. They were
so
on the same page. She ached for his hands, his mouth, all of him on her, in her. “Grab your duffel bag and I’ll unlock the kitchen door. It’s closest.”

Her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t get the key in the lock. Eli came up behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist. His warm breath stirred against her shoulder, “Here, baby, let me.”

She let him. She’d let him do anything.

And then they were in her house. He toed the door
closed and she turned in his arms. It was right where she wanted to be. Right where she belonged.

She wrapped her arms around the column of his neck and their mouths fused in a scorching kiss. His hunger, his frantic need matched hers. He cupped her breasts in his big hands through her thin sweater. She moaned into his mouth, pushing her breasts, her nipples harder into his hand. She slid one leg up his hip and wrapped it around his waist, bringing the bulge in his slacks into direct contact with her aching core.

It was as if he touched her in a place only he could, somewhere deep inside her, at the very center of her being. She tugged his shirt free of his pants and winnowed her hands beneath the material, plying her fingers over the sculpted muscles, his hot skin. He was so hard where a man should be hard—all over. Her warrior.

He tore his mouth from hers, his breathing ragged. “Where’s the bedroom? If we don’t move there now, I’m not gonna make it at all, Tara.”

Here. Now. “Too far. I want you in every room before you leave.” She was making memories. Once he left, she wanted to be able to remember making love to him, regardless of where she was in her house. “
Here
is a good place to start.”

She relinquished her hold on him. She stepped out of her skirt and panties and tugged her sweater over her head, but left on her heels. He used to like heels. The hiss of his indrawn breath told her he still did. He dropped his pants and briefs and ripped his shirt off
over his head, leaving him standing in her moonlit kitchen totally naked. He was leaner, harder than two years ago. His arousal jutted out from a thatch of dark curling hair below six-pack-ripped abs. His eyes glittered as he rolled on a condom…or at least tried to. It took him three tries to sheathe himself.

Tara lay back on the kitchen table, propping herself on her elbows. Eli wrapped his big hands around her thighs and leaned forward, his mouth finding hers, his erection nudging between her slick, ready folds.

And then he was inside her, stretching her, filling her, and she shifted up at the same time, using her feet to pull against his tight buns, taking him all the way home.

“Tara…oh, baby…so, so sweet…” He drew her eager nipple into his hot, warm mouth and she arched up off the table, into him.

“Eli—” She gasped his name as he suckled her. “Harder—” His teeth scraped against her sensitive tip even as he thrust into her. “Yes…yes…
yes
.”

She tightened around him, already halfway to finding her own release. She didn’t say the words, but as she rocked with him she imbued each thrust with a silent
I love you
.

The first threads of an orgasm rippled through her. Eli threw his head back, pumping into her harder and faster. Claiming her. “Tara…Tara…Tara…” he roared as she spasmed around him.

He might not want it, but he owned her heart as well as her body.

D
AMN
! W
HEN HAD HE EVER FELT
so good? He was stretched out facedown on Tara’s soft flannel sheets and she was working some massage magic over his shoulders and back. Her sheets smelled like her. Spicy, sensual, his for now. The other two times they’d hooked up, it had been a Saturday night and they’d only had a few short hours. This was different. They had time. They had all weekend, except for the hours they were obliged to be at the wedding.

This was so much better than a hotel. Her house was a lot like he’d come to think of her—earthy, yet sensual.

“Relax, soldier-boy,” she said, her fingers working at a knotted muscle. Damn, but it was sexy the irreverent way she called him that.

“You’re a woman of hidden talents,” Eli murmured.

She stroked across his shoulders, a soothing rhythm. “We lived with my aunt for a while when I was about twelve. She was a masseuse and she taught me a lot.”

He could get used to this. He’d had a massage once before but it hadn’t felt like this. Tara’s touch was magic. “You were obviously a good student.”

She laughed softly. “I thought you might enjoy getting pampered after spending the last three weeks jumping out of planes.”

“Everything you do feels good.” He’d never been the possessive type but a sudden thought speared him. He didn’t want her making any other guy feel good. Right. She was supposed to wait around for him to show up every two years or so and sleep with her? He couldn’t see that working for her, but he didn’t want to think about some other guy stretched out on her bed. Or plunging into her on her kitchen table.

She slid her hands down his spine and began to knead his ass. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

In the kitchen, his cell phone went off. “Damn. That’s probably Greg, wondering why I haven’t shown up at the bachelor party.”

Her hands stilled. “Do you want to go?”

He rolled to his back. She was serious. “Woman, why in the hell would I want to go to a strip joint when everything I want is right here.” He circled her nipple with his fingertip and watched it harden at his touch.

A slow smile curved her mouth and lit her eyes. “
That
was the right answer.” She leaned forward and kissed him. Slow, long, deep.

His phone went off again. Tara sat back and laughed. “I think you better tell him you’re unavailable.”

Eli sat up and swung his legs over the mattress’s edge and then paused. “You know Greg isn’t exactly discreet. Everyone in Jackson Flats will know I stayed
here tonight before Greg and Lisa even get to saying their I do’s tomorrow.”

She wrapped her arms around him from behind, her bare breasts pressed against his back, and kissed his shoulder, her hair a silken slide against his skin. “Does that bother you?” she asked.

“I’m a big boy—”

She slipped her hand around his waist and wrapped her fingers around him. “Yes, you are.” She stroked him. “Just one of the things I like about you,” she said before releasing him with a naughty laugh.

He grinned but continued. “I’m heading to Bragg on Sunday. But you live here and you’re a schoolteacher. I don’t want you to catch shit because I can’t keep my hands off you.”

She rubbed her breasts in a circular motion against his back. “I’m not too good at the hands-off business, either.” She nipped an erotic path against the back of his neck. “Don’t worry. Do you really think I care if people know I’m doing my best to wear you out before you leave?”

“Oh? Is that the plan? You know, I’ve trained for a high level of endurance. Do you really think you
can
wear me out?”

“I don’t know…but it sure will be fun to find out, won’t it?” The vixen took her foot, put it on his ass and, with a quick thrust, shoved him off the bed. “For goodness’ sake, go call Greg. And hurry back. I’ve got a mission to accomplish.”

He hurried.

“W
AKE UP, SLEEPYHEAD
,”
Eli whispered in her ear the next morning.

It took a second for Tara to realize she wasn’t in the middle of some wickedly good dream. She blinked her eyes open and gave an inner sigh of contentment at finding his sexy, beard-stubbled face next to hers. It should be against the law for a man to look that good first thing in the morning, or anytime. Eli was, plain and simple, too hot.

“Morning,” she said. And then she noted a marked absence of sunlight at the bedroom window. “What time is it?” His finely sculpted chest and shoulders were blocking her view of the clock.

“O-seven-hundred hours.”

“Seven in the morning?” If it were anyone but him, she’d groan and roll back over. She didn’t like to get up early on the weekend, but he was here for such a short time, sleep really didn’t matter, did it? She reached out and skimmed her fingers over his bare, hair-smattered forearm simply because she could. She loved to touch
him. She loved to look at him. “What time did you get up?”

“I get up every morning at 0500,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her face in an intimate gesture.

“That’s obscene.” She couldn’t hold back a groan. He made her feel like a veritable garden slug.

He grinned. “That’s discipline, baby. I’ve already gone for a six-mile run.”

“Show-off. Although there probably wasn’t anyone up to see.” She noticed the dark stain on his T-shirt that she’d missed earlier. She wasn’t the most observant human being on the planet first thing in the morning. “So that’s why you’re kind of sweaty.”

He shook his head and gave her an indulgent smile, as if he thought she was too cute and too sexy all rolled into one. Hey, he could look at her like that all day, any day. “I made breakfast for us,” he said.

She sighed. “You’re not a man, you’re a god.”

“You’d better wait until you’ve eaten my cooking to decide.”

“Do you always…” She petered out. Her brain definitely wasn’t fully functional or she would’ve never started that line of questioning. Did she really want to know if he did this for other women? That was a resounding no.

As his gaze tangled with hers, he reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. The tenderness behind that gesture stole her breath. “No,” he said. “I don’t. You’re the first.” His gaze didn’t waver and she
glimpsed an unexpected vulnerability in her big bad paratrooper. “That massage last night, do you…”

It was gratifying. He didn’t want to think about her doing those things for some other guy any more than she wanted him preparing breakfast for another woman. “No. Never before like that. You’re the first, too.”

“Give me a minute and I’ll bring you breakfast in bed.”

“You don’t have to—”

He stopped her with a finger to her lips. “I want to.”

She hurried to the bathroom to take care of morning business while he headed back to the kitchen. If you skipped the part where he disappeared for years at a time without a word, he was damn near perfect. His being gone for years at a time, however, was sort of problematic.

He sauntered back in, bearing a laden tray. He’d lost the sweaty T-shirt along the way and the bulge of his biceps, the cut of his pecs, the ripple of his abs all gave her a totally different kind of hunger.

He sat on the edge of the bed and placed the lap tray between them. A mountain of eggs, half a rasher of bacon, buttered toast and coffee were on the tray. Was he crazy? “I can’t possibly eat all this.”

“I’ll share it with you,” he said with a grin, picking up a fork. “Remember, babe, you’ve got to keep your strength up.” The look in his eyes set her internal tem
perature soaring. “So, you lived with an aunt when you were a kid? Just you or your whole family?”

“My whole family is me and my mom.” She nibbled at a piece of crisp bacon.

“What about your dad?”

“My parents divorced when I was three. Louis—” she hadn’t called him Dad since she’d had a choice in what to call him “—remarried and his new wife didn’t want to be bothered with a stepkid. My mother’s way of forgetting about the divorce was to crisscross the great state of Tennessee. We never lived anywhere longer than six months…until we got here.”

A frown drew his dark brows together. “So, your mom decided to settle down in Jackson Flats?”

“No, I decided to settle down in Jackson Flats. There was something about here that spoke to me. I’d always wanted a place that belonged to me, where it felt as if I belonged. I don’t know what it was about Jackson Flats, but we hadn’t been here long before I knew this was what I’d been looking for. It offered me the roots I’d always craved.”

“And look at you now. An upstanding citizen, a home owner, a teacher—fully vested in the community. I heard you talking over dinner about the town-square renovation.”

“That’s me.” Firmly settled in Jackson Flats. “When did you know you wanted to join the service?” It was the first really personal question she’d ever asked him.

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know. My grandfather was a career military man and I grew up hearing his stories. I’ve always known it was my duty to serve my country.”

“And Special Forces?”

“I’m good at what I do, Tara. But I wasn’t challenged anymore. Joining Special Forces makes me a more valuable asset to the military.”

She nodded. She didn’t like it, but she knew where he was coming from. “It notches up your ability to serve.”

“Exactly.”

She shifted some eggs on the plate with her fork. “It doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for relationships, does it?”

His look was direct, open, honest. “It can be done, but it takes a special kind of woman. Orders come down as alerts and you’re gone. You can’t tell where you’re going, mainly because you don’t know, yourself. Most women find it too hard to take.”

And that was that. She had her answer. Still, she had plenty of time after he left to be depressed. She refused to waste the time she had with him now. Scooting over on the mattress, she pulled his T-shirt she’d slept in over her head and tossed it to the floor.

“Well, you might not know where you’re going on your next assignment, but I know where I’d like you to go now.”