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.”
