A Candle for a Marine (Always a Marine) (8 page)

“I’d love to have dinner at your house with you. Quiet, more intimate. Good call.” His grin grew and his attention returned to the X-Box.

Rattled, she blinked at the ledger without seeing it. She’d just agreed to an evening alone with him, at home. Where no one could interrupt them. Each time she opened her mouth to disinvite him, however, the words died unspoken. Her window of opportunity slammed shut with the arrival of the first set of teens.

Isaac kept his distance, including getting the older kids involved in a pick-up game of basketball when they got too rowdy indoors. Sundown brought the candle lighting and exhaustion wore away at her reserves once they sent the last child home. She’d done her best to keep the center cleaned up during the afternoon and into the evening. In addition, the number of children coming there continued to grow each night and at that rate, she’d have to call in some favors from the neighborhood to increase their adult presence.

She became aware of Isaac only seconds before he ran his knuckles up her spine; a light, almost too-familiar caress transporting her back in time. He’d used the gesture to say hello at school, where overt public displays of affection were frowned upon.

“Okay, where’s your brain?” He murmured the words, breath whispering a caress along the shell of her ear, and she couldn’t suppress a shudder.

“It’s right here and wondering what you’re doing.”

“Well, right now I’m going to take a beautiful lady home and feed her dinner. I’m thinking Italian. D’Augustino’s still delivers, I checked.” He was close, too close, and his heat trapped her deeper in the past when touching had been as natural as breathing.

Turning into him proved risky, but she needed to see his face. Retreating a step, she bumped into the doorframe to the game room. He didn’t let her get far. “Isaac, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

He lifted a strand of her hair and curled it around his finger. “It’s just dinner, Z. Unless there’s someone else for you and you’ve been hiding him all week?”

Danger signs flashed over the not-so-veiled current running under that question. A lie would be the easy answer. Of course she didn’t do
easy
. Isaac didn’t deserve the lie, either. “No. I don’t date that often.”

“Although you
do
date.” He honed in on the admission with laser-sharp precision. and she wanted to kick herself. “So…who do you date?”

Folding her arms and leaning against the wall, she tried to cloak her continued need to retreat with an air of casual comfort. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“I don’t. Date, that is. I’m a Marine who’s been deployed pretty steadily for the last eight years.” His rapid-fire response came with a faint curve of his lips. “Your turn.”

“No women at all?” She found that hard to believe. Isaac had been a demanding lover, not that he hadn’t given in equal measure, but once they’d become sexually active, it had been more a case of finding the opportunities rather than the drive.

“I won’t lie. There has been an occasional woman, usually someone I picked up on a leave and wouldn’t see again.” His lids dropped, hiding his eyes from her. “No one who meant anything.”

The knowledge hurt, however, and deflated any playfulness. Of course there had been other women. Why wouldn’t there be? They had no ties, not after that last conversation. He’d never reached out to her, and she hadn’t attempted to either.

“Z?” He nudged her chin up again.

“Of course. I mean, it makes sense.” It didn’t stop the trembling in her limbs or the bleeding cut in her soul. “I’ve dated a few men. Nothing serious.” None became her lovers. One or two seemed to be on the fast track for that, but something always held her back. “I’m not sure about dinner though. I have a bit of a headache and….”

“Hey.” He cupped her face. “Stop.”

“What?” She blinked up at him.

“Stop. And breathe.” Once he’d mentioned it, she realized she’d been panting in shallower and shallower breaths. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wished she could close down the awareness of him holding her and being so close. The deep inhale she sucked in tasted of Isaac and turned her insides to jelly.

“Z, tonight was about dinner, about getting to know each other again. We connect on a lot of levels, you and me. We have a lot of history and a lot of emotion.” The patience in his voice accompanied the soft stroke of his thumbs on her cheeks, and eased the rapid pace of her heart.

She forced her eyes open. “I’m scared.”

“Me, too.” He met her bald bluntness with raw honesty. “I thought I was over you.”

“You’re not.” It wasn’t a question, because her emotions were so tangled up between the present and the past. She didn’t know which feelings belonged where.

“No.” He shook his head and dipped his face closer to hers. “And I don’t think I want to be.” He gave the words a moment to register before slanting his mouth across hers.

Surprise rippled through her and the knot inside loosened a fraction. Unwilling, or maybe simply unable to stay a passive participant, she wrapped her arms around his neck and opened her lips to his questing tongue. He crushed her to him, and she forgot to think about anything else at all.

He’d meant to tease her, especially when she stared at him with such vulnerable eyes. What began as a simple brush of his lips over hers turned molten. Heat flamed through him with an intensity he hadn’t experienced since he was a teenager. The flash of need he felt the first since the last time she’d been in his arms. A part of his brain detailed the sensations like a catalog of first experiences. Zehava was the first girl he’d ever kissed, the first one whose body he ever touched. They’d lost their virginity together in a series of fumbling moves as passionate as they were inexpert.

Kissing her was like going home, returning unerringly to where he belonged, and damn if she didn’t know how to light him up. Her mouth opened, and she tangled her tongue with his. She dragged her nails lightly along his scalp and pressed into him with only the slightest urging on his part.

Zehava fit him, from the swell of her breasts to the lush curve of her hips. His body tightened, remembering her well, and he traced his hands up and down her spine then cupped her ass and lifted. Trapped between him and the wall, she wrapped her thighs on his hips and let him support her.

The open trust, the tiny laps of her tongue and soft vibrations from her—he drank it all down. He loved her so damn much it tore him in two. Her shirt was in the way and it aggravated him. He wanted skin and tugged her blouse half open to find her nipple peaked and hard, shoving at the fabric of her bra. Pulling back, he glanced down. He wanted to see.

A red flush spread from her face down to her chest. She’d always been creamy-skinned, eschewing tanning except on her arms and face. It pleased him to see that had definitely not changed. Palming her breast, he rubbed in slow circles, teasing the nipple until it hardened further.

“Isaac.” The ragged whisper dragged his attention upward. Her eyes were dark, the pupils dilated until they threatened to drown out the deep brown with utter blackness. “Not here.”

He wanted her then and there, against the wall, and it took time for her words to sink past the haze of desire coating his mind. She leaned in and nibbled a path of kisses from his jaw to the corner of his mouth, not helping him get control. Blood rushed south to his cock. He massaged her breast and she squirmed, releasing another delicious moan.

“Isaac,” she repeated, digging her nails into his nape. “We can’t do this here.”

“Why not?” The question far more petulant than he cared to admit.

“Because I work here.” Laughter underscored the words. “And I don’t want to check on the kids and remember they’re standing or sitting where we were getting naked and sweaty.”

He grinned, ignoring the kids part, but liking the image of her all spread out below him, panting with need. His cock ached to be free.

“It would be our secret.” He claimed her mouth again, drowning in the want of her. She groaned a laugh, the sound managing to invite and push him away at the same time. Attempting to unhook her legs from his hips, she flattened her hands on his chest. Still, he didn’t let her go.

“You are a bad, bad man, Isaac Janko.”

He raised his head, delighted by the echo of the past. “You said that the first time, too.”

“We were at your parents’ house and everyone was downstairs in the backyard, having a cookout.” Amusement and passion danced in her eyes.

“Oh, I remember, and we had to be quiet.” And she’d had a hard time being quiet, every touch eliciting another sound from her, and he’d loved how she turned to liquid heat in his arms.

“Hmm….” She traced a finger around the collar of his shirt. “But no one is at my house remember…? We can be as noisy as we like.”

More want fisted him from his spine to his cock. “That’s a long way to go.”

“It’s two blocks, and you can handle it.” Challenge laced her words, and he wondered how much cajoling it would really take to get her naked on the sofa in the game room. Probably not much. Although soft and willing in his arms, she didn’t want to do it there, and he didn’t want the sting of regret to mar this.

Getting his body under control took no small amount of effort. Discipline fraying, he focused on her and what
she
needed. Thinking about what to do for Zehava helped him put a lid on his desire. “Okay.” He withdrew a step, straightened her shirt, and something tender unlocked in him as he closed each button. “I did promise you dinner.”

Her tongue swiped over her lips, and the motion fascinated him. He dipped his head and stopped when she pressed an index finger against his mouth. More humor filled her expression. “Bad man.”

“It’s so good.” He grinned and bit her fingertip with a light possessive scrape of teeth.

Shaking her head, she pulled away farther, then caught his hand and tugged. He followed willingly, the jaunty sway of her hips an invitation and torment.

“Now who’s being bad?” He groaned, but not in complaint.

“Only if I’m teasing.” Zehava tossed a look over her shoulder at him as they paused in the front room and began blowing out the candles. He didn’t want to spend the time on it, but the fire burning him inside didn’t need to spread to the rest of the building. Refusing to let go of her hand, he followed her around the table. She found her purse, and he braced it with his free hand while she fished out her keys. Outside, he locked the door.

First time he regretted not having driven to the center, and apparently neither had she. Eyeing her flats, he grinned. “Want to run?”

Another laugh bubbled up. “I’m sorry?”

“Yeah, I don’t want a leisurely stroll.” He turned his back to her. “Hop on.”

“Isaac!”

Bumping into her, he bent enough to help catch her thighs as she climbed onto his back. Despite her luscious curves and heavenly body, she’d never weighed much. He teased her with an oomph sound anyway and got a smack for his troubles. She tickled his ear with her lips and a breathy whisper. “You realize people will see us.”

That gave him pause. “Do you care?”

Her arms tightened around his shoulders and she kissed him behind his ear. “No.”

Pure masculine delight unfolded within him. If being seen bothered her, he’d put her down, but he liked it better that she didn’t care. He wanted their neighbors and friends to see them striding down the darkened sidewalk. He wanted everyone to know. The night carried a biting chill after the relatively mild days the city experienced since he’d come home. He barely felt any of it; her warmth blanketing him kept the fires stoked.

“I’m not too heavy?” Self-conscious worry layered the question and the little catch of self-doubt teased him.

“Hardly.” He wasn’t about to compare to her an eighty-pound rucksack, but if he could handle that in searing temperatures and no sleep, without any promise of warm, pliable Zehava at the end—yeah, comparatively, clearing two blocks carrying her was a cakewalk.

His ground-eating pace brought them within sight of her house in no time and fortunately— despite the celebration of the evening—no one was out to slow them down. Up the walk to her porch, he had to swallow a groan when she slid down, her hands lingering on his shoulders.

Turning, he wrapped an arm around her waist, dragged her up against his chest, and indulged in another long, soul-searing kiss. When he came up for air, they both breathed raggedly.

Uncertainty slid across her features. “Are we making a mistake?”

Pushing past the painful shiv poking into him, he traced her cheek with a finger. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes, both of us. I think the bigger mistake would be ignoring what we feel. I don’t want to do that again.”

She dragged her teeth over her lower lip, and he braced for the rejection. They were going fast by most expectations, and too damn slow by his. He’d had eight years to get over her, eight years marked by a deep longing, and he refused to waste any more time.

“Isaac?”

Here it comes
. Swallowing once, he made a firm promise to respect her decision, no matter how much fire burned in his blood. He would take the time to prove to her she could trust him again. Saying no tonight didn’t mean no forever. “Z?” It came out huskier than he intended, and every muscle in him coiled tight.

“I love you.” The unexpected, sweet declaration relaxed him in a way nothing else could have. She was still his.

The admission startled her both in its intensity and content, although once the words slipped past her lips she didn’t regret them. Didn’t want to, either. Isaac closed the space between them and branded her with another kiss, as gentle as it was demanding. He coaxed her mouth open and delved his tongue in with a sensual invasion. Clinging to him was the most natural thing in the world and, when he showed no sign of releasing her, she nipped his lip. They had all night and she’d rather play in bed than neck on the porch.

A deep, masculine chuckle vibrated her chest. “I’ve missed you, Z.”