Thunder Running (8 page)

She heard the clank of aluminum and his muttered curse, opening her eyes just in time to see the world tilt and jolt as he stumbled. He twisted as they went down, and she landed hard against his chest as the sound of bone thunked hard against the floor as he rolled onto his side.

He sucked in a harsh breath, baring his teeth. “Holy mother of—”

“Please tell me that was your arm, not your skull.” She moved to scramble off him but his hand closed on her thigh, holding her in place.

“My elbow. It's fine, but damn, that hurts.”

“Serves you right for trying to toss me like a javelin.”

“Javelins are the spear things. You're thinking of a discus.”

She leaned over him, pushing him flat on his back and pinning his wrists to the floor. “I'm thinking of the fool who tried to hurl me across the room. Try that again and I'll—”

“You'll what?” His grin was wolfish.

Suddenly she registered their proximity, her knees straddling either side of his torso, the inch and a half between his mouth and the tips of her breasts. She jerked backward, freeing his arms as she moved to stand up. “You didn't even shut the front door.”

“Tara.” He gripped her thighs, but his firm tone stilled her more effectively than any touch. “We've got to start talking to each other, sugar. From now on we just say what we're thinking, good, bad or half-cocked crazy. No more secrets. No more misunderstandings.”

She shifted uneasily. “Some of those women today said you shouldn't stress your soldier out when he's overseas. Like, don't bother him with little household problems since he's got enough to deal with.”

He pulled himself up to a sitting position so she was astride his lap, his palms steadying her hips. “Don't listen to them. I want you to tell me everything, you hear? If you watched a stupid movie on TV, if the mail was full of bills, if someone cuts you off in traffic I want to hear it. I don't want to miss out on the next six months with you. I don't want to lose you.”

“You won't,” she whispered, pressing her thumb against his lips. “I promise.”

He watched her for another second, green eyes big and unreadable, and then he kissed her. Her hands slid to the back of his neck as his mouth found hers, the press of his lips so familiar yet so exhilarating, like slipping into a favorite dress to find it fits even better than last time. Like joining him under the sheets these last few nights, not knowing where the nighttime hours would take them, slightly apprehensive about the journey but completely unworried about the destination.

The instant bulge in his trousers bore testament to the level of their restraint thus far. A few hushed words, several deep kisses, one daring hand underneath her shirt, a thumb circling her nipple before retreating.

She was done with that tentative exploration now, bored of all these polite barriers they'd yanked up between them. He said he didn't want to lose her, but he hadn't really had her yet.

She drew back in his embrace. “If I don't shut that door now, it's going to be too cold for me to take off all my clothes.”

His face lit up as he practically shoved her off his lap. “Go.”

By the time she made the four steps to the door, shut it and turned around, Chance had disposed of his ACU jacket and was tugging the tight, tan T-shirt he wore beneath out of the waistband of his trousers.

“Hold on, give me a minute to admire.” She crossed to him and ran her hands up his chest, savoring the hints of hard muscle beneath the soft cotton. “I love a man in uniform.”

“Does that mean you love me?” The playful question was only half-joking.

Of course I do
. But she couldn't bring herself to give voice to that sentiment, not yet, not now. It stuck in her throat and she busied herself with the fly on his camouflage trousers, reaching inside to grip his erection through his boxers and hoping to distract him from her non-response.

It worked. He groaned and yanked her against him, dragging them both down to the floor until he had her pinned on her back.

She beamed up at him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “If you insist on being on top you need to give me something to look at.”

He pulled his T-shirt over his head with an obliging grin, and Tara's own smile vanished from her face. From his lean muscles to his narrow hips and the black-ink tattoo on his left arm, he couldn't be more exactly her type if she'd designed him herself.

“Your turn.” He took hold of either side of her button-up shirt and wrenched it open, sending buttons flying and clattering onto the floor around them.

“Damn, boy,” she laughed. “It's going to take me forever to sew those all back on.”

“Good, something to keep you occupied while I'm gone.”

His hands moved to her bra and she swatted him away, reaching behind her back to unclasp it. “Uh-uh. Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep these things in place?”

As soon as she'd freed the breasts she rued for being so disproportionately large she had to buy shirts a size too big she reached to unzip her jeans, but Chance moved her hands out of the way and pressed her wrists against the floor.

“I haven't seen these gorgeous girls in nearly a year. Give us a second to reacquaint.”

He leaned over her, lowering his mouth to her breast and taking her nipple between his lips. She moaned as his tongue moved in a tight, quickening circle that intensified into a merciless suck. By the time he'd finished applying the same process to the other breast, she was writhing in his grip.

“Please tell me you have condoms somewhere in this house,” she managed hoarsely when he sat back.

“Upstairs. If you're not naked by the time I get back down here I'll rip those jeans apart with my teeth.”

“Sweet talker,” she cooed as he clambered off her and bolted up the stairs.

She listened to his heavy footfalls move across the ceiling as he traversed the second floor, and obediently she shucked off her jeans and underwear. She pushed a couple of cardboard boxes out of the way to make room, slid some canned goods across the floor with her foot, then grabbed the red fleece blanket from the couch and spread it on the hardwood. Then she stood and waited.

It was only a minute before he came thundering back down the stairs. “This probably isn't the right time to mention this but in the interest of full disclosure, the reason it took me so long to find these is I haven't—” He froze at the last step. “Holy shit, you're hot.”

She put her hands on her hips, relishing his gaze. “You haven't what?”

He swallowed hard, making slow progress toward her. “Slept with anyone. Since you.”

“I'm sure those six months in the mountains helped your impulse control. I can't say I was worried about a string of hot Afghan women plying you with…”

The words dissolved in her throat as he stopped in front of her, trailing his fingertips down her sides. His expression was intent, his eyes dark with sincerity.

“You know why. No one compares to you, Tara.”

She gazed up at him, her heart thudding in her chest. “I haven't, either. Been with anyone else. It never even occurred to me.”

Without another word he dropped to his knees. He slid his arms between her legs so his triceps pushed them apart, clamped his hands on her ass and brought his mouth to her core.

She nearly staggered at the sudden, molten pleasure that ripped through her. There was no buildup, no tender caress, no romantic foreplay—that wasn't his style. Chance was a straight-to-dessert kind of guy, and she loved that about him, loved that she didn't have to apologize for her insistent lust, that they could dispense with the niceties and allow the instant, blazing flame of their desire to burn wild and hot.

He lapped at her clit with the flat of his tongue, dragging it around and around in unrelenting circles. The sounds escaping her mouth were barely human, and as her knees began to tremble she leaned forward, supporting herself with one hand on his shoulder and the other clenched tightly in what little hair his crew cut permitted.

She sank her teeth into her lower lip, torn between the accelerating chase toward conclusion and the nagging awareness that it could be even better. “Stop,” she gasped finally, pushing him away and finding the strength to stand up straight. His eyes twinkled with mischief when she managed to focus on them, and she decided it was her turn to call the shots.

“On your back, Sergeant. Now.”

He arched a brow but did as he was told. She knelt to straddle his thighs, yanking down his trousers and the boxers he wore underneath.

“My boots—do you want me to—”

“Leave them,” she ordered breathlessly, unable to look away from the flushed, swollen length of him. She patted the floor beside her for the condom, found it and tossed it on his chest. “Put that on.”

He propped himself up on one elbow, his eyes finding hers and holding them as he closed his teeth on the wrapper and ripped it open. He pushed himself up a bit more, but she barely had a chance to appreciate the defining effect of that half sit-up on his abs before she was distracted by the lazy, indulgent way he stroked himself before rolling down the condom.

He flopped back down wearing a teasing smile. “All yours.”

His trousers were bunched up around his calves, his cocky grin was nowhere near tamed, and there were still so many places on his body she wanted to touch, taste, lick until he squirmed. But the throbbing between her legs was reaching a fever pitch and she didn't want to wait another second. There'd be plenty of time for long, lingering sex later.

Well, for the next week and a half before he left, anyway.

Shoving that horrible thought firmly to the side, Tara positioned herself above Chance's jutting erection, then lowered her pelvis so slowly her quads ached. That first brush of his tip was ecstasy, that initial stretch of entry almost maddening. Strain replaced the mirth in his face as he watched her, clearly tormented by her unhurried descent but enjoying it all the same.

She was halfway down when she stopped, closing her eyes against her burning leg muscles to focus entirely on the agonizingly sweet fullness at the apex of her thighs. How many nights in the last ten months had she fantasized about this moment? How many times had she brought herself to completion, her fingers and memories poor substitutes for this man's body? How many tears had she shed in the secretive darkness of her bedroom, convinced her one shot at happiness was already over?

When she opened her eyes Chance was staring at her, his expression a mix of incredulity and apology and promised devotion that softened her heart until she worried it might dissolve altogether. She smiled at him, braced her hands on his thighs and slid home.

Given his natural impatience with drawn-out foreplay and post-coital pillow talk, Chance had never considered himself a particularly selfless lover. But as he watched Tara move above him, rocking her pelvis and digging her fingers into his hips, he couldn't have cared less how good it felt or whether he came at all. She was so powerfully, ethereally beautiful that he would've done anything in the world to keep her so happy.

He touched her reverently, tracing the curve of her abdomen, cupping her breasts. He brought his thumb to her mouth and she sucked it hard, then he planted it between her legs. The faintest pressure transformed her rhythm and soon she bucked above him, moaning, her head thrown back in such delirious ecstasy that the sight nearly ended him.

By the time her internal muscles ceased their clamping spasm and she rolled her head back to look at him with a drowsy smile, he was so close he thought he might go insane. He wrapped his arm around her waist and flopped her onto her back, gritting his teeth as she stretched her arms over her head languorously, thrusting her taut nipples into his chest.

The pressure was building within him now. His thrusts were frenzied, sloppy, desperate. This was adolescent backseat fucking, but Tara's grin only encouraged him, the fingertips digging into his back urging him to go harder and faster. It had never been like this before—an acquiescence instead of a conquest, a subjugation of reason to need, a wholeness so complete he wasn't sure he'd survive the withdrawal from her body.

Wait—yes it had. In Kansas City, in December. It had been exactly like this.

As he neared the edge something in her expression changed. Her eyes softened, her lips parted. She trailed her finger over his cheek, and he knew exactly what she meant.

“Say it,” he gasped, lowering his face to hers.

Fear flashed in her eyes. She shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“Don't be scared,” he ground out through a clenched jaw. “Say it. I want to hear it.”

“I can't.” There were tears in her voice.

“Please, Tara.”

“Chance…”

He came with a bone-clattering shudder and an almighty groan, his heart pounding and his vision blurring. His whole body sagged from the force of release, his energy completely spent, the muscles in his arms trembling as he heaved himself off her and onto his side.

When the silence stretched so long it was clear she wasn't going to speak, he pulled her stiff form into his chest. She pressed her face into the base of his throat and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

“It's okay,” he murmured. She nodded against his skin.

But it wasn't okay, not really. It was a nagging hole in his contentment that grew larger with every minute, as he realized more and more how badly he wanted to hear those three words.

The hole widened while they sat at the table eating a thrown-together pasta dinner. She was dressed only in his ACU jacket and although just the thought of her bare breasts filling the front of it was enough to harden him, it couldn't banish his burgeoning uneasiness.

After they ate he carried the rest of the boxes out to her car while she stood on the doorstep, arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the cold autumn air. When he was done he pushed her against the wall of the house, reached under the jacket to caress the exposed place between her legs, knelt and finished her off with his tongue right there on the porch. As she limped back inside she commented that it was a good thing the nearest neighbors were so far away, but the smile he offered in answer was hollow. The hole was getting bigger.