Have Yourself a Marine Christmas (Always a Marine) (8 page)

“I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours….” Sensuality drowned out the traces of melancholy in his tone. Desire bloomed hot and fierce, and she blew out another breath.

Keep it together
…. “It was your first week at Mike’s Place, but you were asleep—probably the sweetest you’ve ever been.” His bark of laughter was reward enough. She found a spot to park and slanted a look at him. “Well? I told you mine.”

“I don’t know what day it was, but I said you looked like a dream, you told me to go to sleep, and then I asked you for your number.” The admission kicked her in the heart.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah.” His slow smile turned her inside out. “I remember because you said it was 555-BABE.”

Noel covered her mouth. “Oh, my God—”

“But my favorite part is what BABE stands for.” The smolder in his grin lit another match under her resistance. Give this man an inch and he’d take her all the way to home plate.

“You can’t remember that, you were really medicated….”

“If I remember it—you come inside and spend the night.” He traced a finger down her arm.

“Rebel—” Damn if she didn’t want to, but were they really ready for that?

“I don’t care if you sleep on top of the covers or under them with me—you can even sleep on the sofa, but I’d prefer the bed. Just—stay.”

Moistening her lips, she nodded slowly. “Okay, if you have my number, then.”

“Oh, I have it.” He caught her hand and tugged it away from her mouth and punctuated his response with a kiss to each of her fingertips. “Balanced. Authentic. Bold—and my personal favorite—erotic.”

Oh, yeah. He has my number
….

Walking from the car to the apartment proved more of a challenge than talking Noel into staying. What had been a nagging ache at the mall turned into raw skin and a blister—
damn it
. Thank God for her though. She made soothing noises as she helped remove the prosthetics, cleaned up his stumps, and rewrapped them until the burn alleviated. Only then did she torture him with a massage.

A puddle of warmed muscles and half-asleep on the sofa, Rebel dozed while she made her phone calls. He loved the way she spoke to people on the phone, no matter whether she was brisk and factual about a medical status, or offered emotional support as she explained why some patients were less enthusiastic about their family involvement, she never failed to be kind.

“When you get to my mom, let me know,” he said when she hung up from the most recent call. “I want to talk to her.”

“Yeah?” She stroked her fingers through his hair.

“Yeah.” His scalp tingled with every gentle caress. “I need a haircut, too.”

“Hmm, I kind of like it a little longer. It’s soft.”

The compliment rolled over him. “Yeah?” Peeking up at her, he grinned. “Maybe I’ll keep it a little beyond regulation for you, then.”

“Tease.” She winked.

Chuckling softly, he cupped her nape and she accepted the invitation. The sweet hesitation in her gentle nuzzle at the corner of his mouth tormented the hell out of him. He shifted and dragged his tongue across the seam of her lips, and she opened to him. Claiming her mouth, he delved inside and her soft moan was all the encouragement he needed.

She tasted so familiar, but exotic in the same breath. Deepening the kiss, he kneaded her tight muscles, skating his thumb over her soft, silky skin and her pulse beat madly—or maybe it was his. Her second breathy, low moan went straight to his cock and he wanted her in a bed, below him, and crying out his name.

The intoxicating scent of her—peppermint with hints of vanilla, sexy, sweet, and fresh, wrapped around him. A man could drown in her scent. Dark, hot arousal burned in him and he lost himself in her. When she shuddered, he slid his free hand to her breast. Brushing a thumb over her nipple, he delighted in the pebbling of the tip beneath the fabric.

Noel dug her fingers into his shoulder and his control began to slip. He craved the feel of her nails raking down his back, and the idea of her hair fanned over a pillow, hearing the long, low, sultry cries as he discovered every glorious inch of her body. Holding her was a revelation, but he needed to make it as special for her as he knew it would be for him—and special meant that he carried her into the bedroom, not the other way around.

With regret, he pulled away. The fever in her eyes threatened to drag him under once more, but he adjusted his hold on her and caressed her lower lip. “You have more phone calls to make.”

Her slow blink of confusion fed his ego. “I’m sorry.” She licked her lips and he imagined repeating the action—in slow motion. “Who am I again?”

A burst of laughter rocked through him, puncturing the raw heat. “My lady.” He’d staked his claim. His woman. His funny, sassy, and oftentimes obstinate and determined woman.

All that mattered—she was his.

“I’m going to call your mom now, smartass.” She pressed a kiss to his finger as he traced the line of her mouth. “You still want to speak to her?”

Right then, he felt like he could fly. “Yes ma’am, I do.” The conversation was stilted at first. He didn’t know exactly what to say to her when she answered the phone. Stretched out on the sofa with his head in Noel’s lap, he found the words came easier and easier.

He skirted the issue of where Noel would sleep until she declared it was time for bed. Emotionally exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time, he didn’t argue. He kept a wheelchair in the house and he headed in to wash his face and brush his teeth while she got the coffeemaker ready for the next morning.

“What time do you have to be up?” He’d changed into shorts for sleeping and eyed the clock on the nightstand. Noel had borrowed his bathroom as soon as he’d finished.

“Seven,” she answered, the partially closed door muffling her voice. The sound of water running interrupted them, and he imagined her washing her face, brushing her teeth—getting turned on by such mundane activities didn’t prepare him for when the water cut off and she opened the door.

“Hey….” she said.

All he saw was her long legs. She’d borrowed one of his T-shirts and it hit her at mid-thigh. Her long, wavy brown hair flowed around her shoulders and seemed to shine in the warm lamplight. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his brain stuttered. “Hey.”

Pushing away from the door, she strolled toward him. “So I was thinking….”

“Yeah?” He couldn’t stop staring at her. She teased him with her gaze, and he’d been shirtless around her any number of times—hell, he’d been naked. She’d touched him everywhere, eased cramps in his thighs, rubbed his shoulders, massaged his arms—but this was different.

There was nothing clinical in the way she watched him or the heat licking over his skin in response. Stopping right in front of him, she kept her hands loose at her sides and he had to angle his head to meet her gaze. He waited, unable to do anything else.

“Do you have any idea what it does to me when you look at me like that?” she asked.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re a starving man and I’m the first meal you’ve seen in a long time.” The minute she’d said the words, she swallowed hard.

Hard.

The air between them thickened, and his heart slowed. The whole world narrowed down to that moment, and he studied her.

She was nervous. His beautiful, vibrant, wildly strong woman was anxious. The revelation took the edginess off.

“C’mere,” he invited and she closed the distance between them. Trailing his fingers up the backs of her thighs, he cupped her ass—her deliciously bare ass under the cotton of his shirt and lifted her until she straddled his lap. The silky dampness of her heat tormented the hell out of him, but he settled her in place and held completely still.

“I like looking at you,” he whispered half-to-her and half-to-himself. “I keep telling myself we have to take it slow, but it feels good to look at you—to want you—to touch you. And I like how you look at me, too.”

She shuddered and the action stroked him through the fabric of his shorts. The liquid heat beckoned, but he kept his grip on her gentle. Right then, it wasn’t about him, but about her. She balanced, resting her hands on his shoulders, but she made no move to pull away or to take control of her weight.

The trust speared him.

“I’m scared,” she admitted, and since he’d suspected as much—he only nodded.

“Of what?” He ordered his body to behave itself. Months of grueling therapy had given him a rigid sense of self-control. Noel needed him and by God, he would be exactly what she needed. “You know you can tell me anything,” he soothed when she continued to hesitate. If she retreated, it would hurt—but he would accept it.

Salter kissing her lit something in him, and he’d pushed hard all week. Pushed to keep her close and gotten drunk off her kisses. He could afford to be patient.

Her lashes lowered, shielding her eyes and when she raised them again, desire and worry flickered in their depths. “Worried that you’re attached to me because of your recovery.”

Yeah, the words hurt, but he ruthlessly suppressed the kneejerk reaction and concentrated on listening to her.

“I’ve seen it happen before.” She paused and sucked her upper lip between her teeth. “God, I sound like a baby. I like you a lot, not just as a patient, but the man underneath. The man who finds a smile even when he’s hurting, who makes other people laugh—who
listens
to me and does what he has to do. Hell, I even like it when you’re pigheaded and stubborn.” Tears sheened her eyes, but she blinked them away and her expression toughened. “I don’t want to get involved and find out in a month or two that it was all about a recovery attachment, and that when you don’t need me anymore—the attraction will go away.”

Well, he
had
asked.

“You don’t sound like a baby,” he assured her. “You sound like a woman guarding her heart—and I’m all for that. I want to protect your heart, too.” It would be so easy to sweep aside the cotton and explore the warm skin beneath, but he had to address her fear. “I
will
protect your heart. This isn’t about my recovery, babe. I adore you. I adore the way you don’t take my shit, you give it right back to me. You don’t let me give up, and you never let me think I couldn’t be something or do something—but most of all I love that you see
me
. Not my missing pieces.”

She’d never made him doubt his masculinity—never let him doubt it.

“The hardest part of any new beginning is not rushing it.” As a counterpoint to his words, he slid one hand up her back, over the cotton, and traced the length of her spine. “It’s admitting that we may not get everything right the first time, or the second, or the third. But I’ve had a lot of doctors, a lot of therapists, and a lot of nurses work with me this year, Noel. What I want from you—with you—is not about my recovery.”

He’d deserve sainthood for the next part, especially with her liquid heat pressed so firmly along his erection. “And nothing has to happen until you’re ready for it. I like feeling you in my arms and in my bed, and I like having you here with me.”

She closed her eyes and tipped toward him until their foreheads brushed. “It does feel good.” Her thighs tightened against him, the flex of muscle as alluring as a caress. “It could feel better….”

His arousal ratcheted up. “When you’re ready.” And not a moment before.

“Rebel.” Dark eyes met his.

“Yeah?”

“I’m ready.”

Crushing her to him, he met her open-mouthed, tongue-thrusting kiss with a groan. It would be fantastic for both of them, and damned if he wouldn’t prove it.

Understanding the sheer power housed in Rebel’s arms was completely different from experiencing the way he held her. He swung her around on the bed as though she were nothing more than a feather—and that was hardly true. She could lift a hundred-and-fifty pounds over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry, one of the requirements for her job. She appreciated strength, but damn, did Rebel make it sexy.

He never stopped kissing her; from tiny, teasing brushes to long, slow, wet ones that left her toes curling and her body humming. She had never been one for a casual affair….

Nothing about Rebel is a casual affair
. Intellectually, she believed that, but her heart stuttered, and when she dug her nails into his shoulders, he lifted his head, seeming to sense her hesitation.

“It’s okay.” He smiled and her breath caught in her throat. Flattening one hand on the bed, he lifted some of his weight off her and she shifted her own grip, tugging him down.

“I want this—Rebel, I’m just—”

“Don’t sugarcoat it, sweetheart.” He captured her mouth again, but it was slower—sweeter and all the more sensual. “There’s two of us in this bed. If it’s not good for you, it’s not good for me.”

He was right. They didn’t sugarcoat things. Sometimes a painful truth stung, but it was easier to digest if they didn’t try to disguise it as anything but reality. “I’m not a casual girl. I never have been. I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you—and there’s this little voice in the back of my mind that keeps screaming if we cross this line….”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his nose to hers; the boyish gesture made him seem so young and indescribably gentle. “Onward and upward, Noel—I want our relationship to change.”

With a few words and the most innocent of touches, he’d set her body humming. Rubbing her palm against his cheek, she sighed and the last, flagging remnant of her resistance melted away. “I don’t want to go back either.”

He dipped his head as though he were about to kiss her again, and paused—searching her gaze. “So, we’re good?”

“I think so.”

Leaning away fractionally, he lifted his brows. “Still good?”

Laughter bubbled up inside of her and she widened her thighs, easing him against the cradle of her legs, but he kept staring at her. “Yes. We’re good.”

Another slow descent, followed by another hesitation so close, his breath tickled her lips. “How about now?”

“
Madre de Dios, Marine!
Kiss me already.”