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Chapter Twelve
Luke let her body slide down his, then scooped her up, one arm under her knees. She turned the knob on the bedroom door, and he carried her to the foot of the bed. Carefully, as warranted for the most precious cargo he’d ever carried, he set her on bare feet. His gaze swept over her. Damn, she was beautiful—and he’d never look at his blue shirt the same way again.
His hands moved to the buttons and started undoing them one at a time. He could tell the instant she became nervous, uncertain. She took a step back.
“Don’t move,” he whispered. “You wore this for me, didn’t you?”
A faint nod accompanied her slight smile.
Finishing the last of the buttons, Luke softly caressed the underside of one of her breasts, where the fabric had fallen open. “You do a number on me in that shirt—no doubt about it. But I’ve got a hunch this is nothing compared to what’s underneath.” He tugged on the shirttails teasingly. The lamp, near the head of the bed, provided just enough light to see desire darken her irises.
Luke stepped toward her and, with a flick of his fingers at her shoulders, the shirt slid down her arms, landing in a blue mound of fabric behind her. He started to reach for her, then dropped his hands to his sides. Mesmerized, his gaze moved slowly over her, and the rightness of the moment amazed him.Perfection. Her long strands of wavy brown hair hugged the flawless innocence of her face, of which the focal point at the moment was her larger-than-usual, luminescent blue eyes. Surely she could see clear to his soul. Her small, rounded breasts and firm, flat stomach gave way to a tiny triangle of fabric—light blue—that barely hid her womanhood and disappeared between strong, shapely legs that Luke could almost feel wrapped around him.
She was exquisite in a world that had stopped making sense.
Sally took the step that separated them and tugged upward on the bottom of his T-shirt, her lips curved in a playful smile. “Your turn. I’m not going to be the only one in the room who’s naked.”
She didn’t have to tell him more than once. He reached over his shoulder, grabbed a handful of shirt and peeled the garment off over his head and arms. Then he wadded it into a ball and, not caring where it landed, tossed it behind him. That brought a laugh from her, and he was just about to grab her in his arms and satisfy his burning need to touch her everywhere when she stopped him short.
“Don’t move,” she said in a sexy whisper that froze him to the floor.
Luke recognized his words of only a few minutes ago. She was turning the tables on him again, and hell if he wasn’t inclined to let her do any damn thing she wanted. Although, considering he’d been hard and ready for a while now, this would be an exercise in self-control. He took a slow, deep breath and fisted his hands as she placed hers on his chest.
Sally skipped her fingers lightly over his pecs until his nipples peaked in eager anticipation, sending sharp pangs of need straight to his groin. She smiled in smug satisfaction when a groan tore from his throat. Any sign of humor disappeared, however, when she spotted his scar.
Nearly dead center, just below his heart, the bullet wound still ached if he pushed himself too hard. And he’d done a lot of that while trying to regain his strength after the surgery that gave him back the use of his legs.
Sally pressed her palm lightly over the scar, and he sensed her starting to pull back. Ignoring her directive to stay still, he tilted her head and gazed into her troubled eyes. Tears threatened, and he had no choice. He had to put a stop to this before she saw the rest of his body. The scar beneath her hand was only one of many. There’d be a time for full disclosure…but not tonight.
He bent slowly and kissed her lips. Then he framed her face with his hands, capturing her complete attention. “Tonight, we’re looking ahead to our future. You, me and Jen. The past is behind us. It can’t hurt us anymore unless we let it.” He gently drew her hand away from his scar.
Sally’s gaze flicked briefly to the rutted and pulled skin on his chest, then she firmed her jaw as she blinked away her sadness, and her fingers traced circles down his arms to his wrists. Her eyes shone with warmth and caring that lit up dark places within him—places that had known only emptiness for a long time.
Small hands landed on his open waistband, and a mischievous grin took up residence on her full lips. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” She tugged his jeans down a couple of inches before she stroked teasingly around his engorged shaft, never touching him but managing to set every nerve on fire.
“No, ma’am. I’dneverforget something so…essential.” Luke pushed his jeans down below his knees and sat on the edge of the bed to unlace his boots, kick them off and jam his socks inside. Sally watched him intently as he stepped out of his jeans and briefs. Color flowed freely into her smooth cheeks when she grasped the narrow bands of lace at the top of her panties and stripped them down her legs, dropping them on the floor.
The knowledge that she obviously wasn’t an expert in midnight trysts with men turned up the heat on his possessive nature. He wanted her all to himself when it came to shedding clothes. Her uncertainty appeared in her body language and her slight hesitation, yet she was willing to place herself in his hands. That meant the fucking world to him.
He quickly reached for her and pulled her against him, pressing the full length of his erection into the softness of her belly. Covering her mouth with his, he kissed her hard until she was breathless and his restraint was stretched to the breaking point. “Sorry, babe. It’s been a while since…do you happen to know where those condoms ended up?” Luke moved around the side of the bed and began searching through store sacks.
Sally kneed her way onto the bed and stretched on her side, bracing her head on one arm. “How long has it been?”
He stopped and looked at her. “Well, not that this is appropriate first-time sex small talk, but…it was about a month before I met you.”
She chuffed a laugh. “That’s not so long. Try ten years.”
His first instinct was to laugh at the improbability of that statement, but the acute embarrassment that washed over Sally’s face told him she hadn’t just pulled that number out of the air for the sake of topping his. And she wasn’t talking about someone else. This was an incredibly personal confession. It was also too much of a coincidence that ten years would place her last sexual partner at about the time Jen was conceived. Even if he couldn’t feel her anguish from where he knelt, the SEALs had taught him to discount anything that resembled a coincidence.
Luke had heard pieces of whispered conversation between Rachel and Sally, and he’d been the cause of their dialogue abruptly ending when they’d become aware of his presence. He’d had his suspicions about what they’d been discussing, but he’d respected Sally’s privacy…until now, but damned if he didn’t want to know what had happened to her that turned her off men for ten years.
He renewed his efforts to find the elusive condoms, finally locating them at the bottom of one of the sacks, and tossing them on the nightstand by the bed as he rose to his feet. Carefully composing his expression so Sally, hopefully, wouldn’t notice how much her admission had affected him, he climbed onto the bed beside her. He slipped his arm around her waist and laid her down amid the pillows with him, gently smoothing back the hair that had fallen into her eyes. “Let me get this straight. Ten years ago, you had sex so incredible you knew every other man in the world would suffer by comparison…so rather than damage their egos, you’ve just been waiting until I came along? Well…no pressure there.” Luke rubbed the back of his neck and let out a harsh breath.
The sweet smile he’d hoped to evoke spread across her lips, and he kissed both corners of her mouth before moving to her ear. Oh, he’d given her a pass—a way out without having to explain herself and a situation that he suspected had been just the opposite of the scenario he described. The anger that still stirred in his belly correlated to whatever had happened to Sally, and he’d wager it hadn’t been good. Eventually, he’d find out what it was.
Luke slid his hand up her side until he covered her breast, his palm rubbing over her pebbled nipple, the sensation hardening his shaft even more, and he pressed the throbbing member against her. A growl worked from his throat as he took her breast into his mouth, his tongue running back and forth across the swollen tip.
Sally shivered in his arms, crooking her leg over his hip and pulling herself tighter. Luke guided her leg forward until he draped it over his shoulder, using it to push off and move his body down hers. Slowly, he kissed his way to her belly button, pausing to thrust his tongue in and out of the small cavity, a precursor to the hot, tight receptacle waiting for him only a few inches away. With an impatient snarl, he continued his exploration to the small rise of her stomach and then to the patch of hair that led to her folds. Her soft moans encouraged him as he cupped her delicious ass, pulling her toward him while he positioned himself between her thighs.
