Men of Courage (17 page)

S
OMETIME LATER
, Molly jerked awake. Her senses kicked in first. She was seeped in warmth, wrapped tight to the source. Above her the shrieking wind howled. Candlelight flickered over the dark, musty room, and as she blinked the cot, the wall lined with shelves into focus, she remembered.

The storm. The rescue.

Her hero.

Oh, yeah, her hero. They were spooned together, her back to his front. She was using one of his arms as a pillow, the other was draped over her, his fingers curled around her hip.

His legs were much longer than hers, which left his bare feet sticking out of the blanket. Not that it affected the heat radiating off his big body, which, given how she’d cuddled up to him in her sleep, she’d been grateful for.

As she lay there marveling over how lovely it
felt to have a man holding her, he stretched and groaned, then went still again.

But not her heart, which had started pumping at the flood of realizations. With the storm still raging, she remembered him waking her several times in the night, his low, husky voice murmuring questions. Feeling better each time, she’d hoped for more.

There had been no more.

Gallant, her hero was. But she didn’t want gallant. She wanted passion and heat, all of which she’d seen in his eyes. She wanted to know she was alive, and that she’d stay that way.

His breathing was deep, even. He was lost in slumber while she lay here smoldering. Couldn’t have that, so she stretched, wondering how he’d react to her arching like a cat against him.

“Mmm,” came from deep in his chest, but he remained perfectly still, his breathing still deep and even.

One hard thigh lay against the back of hers. It took little to shift that powerful leg between hers. Little to rock her hips back so that there wasn’t an inch between them.

Oh, yes, he was aroused, and it wrenched a helpless little murmur from her throat.

Suddenly, instantly awake, Matt sat straight
up. She imagined years in the E.R. had taught him how to do that.

“Molly?” The blanket fell away from him as he surged up and leaned over her. He put a hand on her forehead as he frowned down into her face. “What’s the matter? You hurting?”

Oh, yeah, she was hurting. Just looking at him. His dark hair had rioted in his sleep, falling over his forehead. He had a shadow of growth along his jaw. His eyes were deep and full of concern. And his chest…good Lord, his chest was bare, his every muscle perfectly defined, and lit by the soft glow of candlelight as he was, he looked like a pagan god.

“Molly?”

“I’m…good.”

“Your head? Your ribs?”

“Better.” Unable to help herself, she tipped her head down the expanse of his flat, hard belly, trying to see the rest of him, but her own body thwarted her view.

When she struggled to sit up, he slid his hands beneath her to help, one getting caught in the material of his grandfather’s shirt so that his fingers touched her bare spine.

Her gaze flew to his just as he practically leaped off the cot.

He wore a pair of sweats, low-slung on his hips and untied. “I…” He looked around him as if he desperately needed something to do, and if she hadn’t wanted him to touch her again so badly she might have laughed.

“I remember there being a box of dried foods,” he said quickly. “I’ll…find us some breakfast.”

Interesting. They could be close only when he was the caregiver, she the patient. When she became a flesh-and-blood woman, he went for distance.

Carefully holding her ribs, she sat up. She put her feet to the floor and tested her equilibrium. Pretty good, considering, so she stood. She wobbled for a moment, but held her own, even when the sweats she wore threatened to fall off her hips. Smiling, she held them up and shook her head at the man who’d done nothing but take care of her. “It’s my turn now.”

He looked adorably wary. “Your turn to what?”

She made her way to him. Her head didn’t quite reach his wide shoulders. Up close and personal like this, with all her wits about her for the first time, it wasn’t easy to tear her gaze off his body, but she figured, given the volume of the
storm still raging outside, she’d have all day to look her fill. “It’s my turn to take care of you. I’ll make breakfast.”

He stared down at her as if no one had ever offered to do anything for him before. Which only stirred up a lot more than lust within her. She moved past him on her way to the boxes and, quite accidentally, her arm brushed his. Just that light touch brought her to a level of awareness she didn’t know exactly what to do with.

Especially since it suddenly was more than just his body she wanted. That was a first for her, too.

She found that by moving slow, her ribs didn’t hurt too much. In the storage bins there were granola bars and dried fruit, bottles of water, more candles and a radio and batteries.

She held up the bounty and smiled. “Breakfast and news is served.” Her smiled faltered when he came close with an intent expression on his face. Then it was her heart that faltered as he cupped her face, tilted it up and put his mouth on hers.

“What was that for?” she asked shakily.

“I’m not sure.” He looked shaky, too, as he spread a blanket on the floor. “But it felt right.”

That it most definitely did. So right, she wanted another. And another.

Instead they sat leaning against the wall, their legs out in front of them, because sitting any other way was uncomfortable for Molly’s aching ribs. They shared the food and listened to the radio tell them what they already knew.

The storm hadn’t abated. The damage was extensive and reports of injuries and deaths had started rolling in.

Molly watched Matt’s face grow more and more somber. “There’s nothing you can do,” she said gently, putting a hand on his forearm, feeling the muscles jump beneath her touch.

“I should be at the hospital.”

“You will be. Soon as you can get there.”

“Yes, but—”

“If you’d been there already instead of looking out the window of the house when the storm broke out…” She lifted a shoulder. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t be here, all warm and toasty. I’d be…”

He grimaced, reaching out for her hand. “Molly.”

“I’m glad you were there,” she said fiercely, clutching his hand to her heart. “I wasn’t ready to die—”

“You wouldn’t have—”

“I would have. If not for you.”

The wind roared. The house above them groaned. Cracked. Beside her, Matt’s eyes darkened with worry.

To take his mind off the house and the very good possibility he was losing it, Molly rose to look through the other boxes. She found one that didn’t have supplies, but a teddy bear, a cap gun and a photo album. On the front of the album was a picture of two smiling little boys’ faces, their arms tossed around each other, each missing their front teeth.

“What did you find—” Coming up behind her, Matt peered over her shoulder and let out a slow, shaky breath.

“You?” She pointed to the boy with piercing eyes filled with wit and humor.

He ran a finger over the teddy bear and the cap gun, then picked up the album. “Yeah. And Luke. I had no idea…” He slowly turned the pages.

Molly wondered if he had any idea how stunned he looked, how touched.

“I didn’t know Grandpa kept anything. I thought…”

“That it didn’t matter?” she wondered softly. Oh, yes, he was moved. Unbearably so if the working of his throat and warmth in his eyes
meant anything. And so was she that it meant so much to him. “Want to look through the rest together?”

He started, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“Come on.” She backed him to the cot and carefully sat, patting the spot next to her. “Sit.”

Wearing nothing more than sweat bottoms, he did. He put a hand behind her so that she was settled into the crook of his arm. When she tipped her head to see his face, he let out a half smile and she nearly melted because truly, he was the most thrilling, intense, sexiest man she’d ever met. “Is the teddy bear yours?”

Lifting it, with its missing eyes and ripped arm, he grinned. “This was my best friend. Max.”

“Did Max keep all your secrets?”

“He did.” His smile faded slowly and he shook his head, his eyes dark with memories. “My grandfather wasn’t a sentimental man. Nor an affectionate one. He took care of us because my parents dumped us on him. In fact, he’d been thrilled when we were too old to come and destroy his world. Or that’s what I used to think…”

“Would a man who wanted you out of his life have kept these things?”

Matt stared down at a picture of himself sitting
in front of a bonfire, roasting marshmallows. His grandfather stood beside him, guiding the stick into the fire, watching him with love and pride while Matt just grinned at the camera. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“When was the last time you smiled like that?”

Turning his head, Matt met Molly’s gaze and slowly shook his head. “I look pretty happy there, don’t I?”

She never took her eyes off him. “Yeah,” she said softly. “You look pretty happy.”

When she’d been standing, he’d noticed she’d needed one hand to hold up the too big sweats. He’d wondered what would happen if she let them fall, but she hadn’t.

Now, sitting, her hands were free and she ran a finger over his lower lip, a touch that went straight to his groin. “I meant right now, when you were smiling as you looked at the picture. You looked happy.”

When he looked at her in surprise, she cupped his jaw. “It’s a good look for you.”

How long
had
it been since he’d felt that content? Carefree? That he couldn’t remember didn’t seem good enough.

And yet in spite of the storm, in spite of pos
sibly losing the house, and not being at the hospital where he needed to be, he did. He felt…content. Happy.

She did that for him. He had no idea how that was possible, when for years and years he’d avoided any emotional attachments. But in a matter of twenty-four hours she’d found her way past those barriers.

Taking her hand in his, in a gesture he didn’t know he had in him, he brought her fingers to his lips. “Thank you,” he said a little hoarsely.

She looked a little stunned. “You saved my life. What are you thanking me for?”

“For being here with me.”

Her lips curved in confusion. “But you know I didn’t have a choice.”

“Yeah, but if I had to be stuck in a basement during the storm from hell…” He set down the album. Slid a hand into her hair, his thumb lightly tracing the bruise on her temple. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have with me.”

She went still, searching his gaze with that heart-stopping vulnerability he’d seen before.

Then a horrifying crash sounded above them, and another. Then yet another, and he instinctively reached for her when she cringed. “It’s okay,” he said, knowing it wasn’t. Knowing that
above them everything he knew and loved might just have been torn off its very axis.

“You don’t have to be strong for me,” she said, her face pressed into his neck. “You don’t.”

The noise above them was incredible. It was terrifying.

Or it would have been if he’d been alone.

But he wasn’t. There was Molly, holding him as tightly as he was holding her, looking at him with so much trust in her eyes it hurt.

“Matt…”

When he met her gaze, she kissed him. Just another of her sweet, unbearably arousing kisses, but this time apparently it wasn’t enough for her.

Hell, it wasn’t enough for him, but…

She nibbled at the corner of his mouth, tearing a groan from his throat. “Molly. This isn’t—”

“Shh.” Cupping his face, holding it still, she nibbled at the other corner of his mouth. “Let me do this,” she whispered. “Let me be there for you for a change.”

He didn’t need that. He never would.

“Don’t hold back, Matt. Not with me.”

He gripped her hips and rocked them to his so that she couldn’t possibly mistake the throbbing
bulge behind his insubstantial sweat bottoms. “Does this feel like I’m holding back?”

Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breathing. The pulse at the base of her neck had rioted. And she kept her wide, wild eyes on his as she purposely slid the neediest part of her over the neediest part of him. “But you
are
holding back. Please, Matt…”

“We’ll be out of here by tomorrow morning at the latest,” he said with his last vestige of control. “You’re going back to your life and I’m going back to mine.”

“I’m not going back to the same life.”

“But I am.”

She made a sound of regret. A sound of sorrow.

“I am, Molly.” His fingers traced her jaw. “My life is full, I don’t have time or room for anything else.”

“Or anyone?”

Fingers still on her, he swallowed hard and fought with the need to pacify. But he never said anything less than the truth. Ever. “No,” he said softly.

“Well, then.” Her eyes were bright as she sank her fingers into his hair. “We’ll just have to make the most of this time, won’t we?”

“Moll—”

Her tongue outlined his lower lip.

With a rough groan, he hauled her close and surrendered. “God, Molly, what is it about you?”

She lifted her face, smiled a smile that reached straight through and grabbed his heart and squeezed. And this time when their mouths met, he knew. When she touched him, when she kissed him, she soothed a part of him that no one had ever touched or soothed before.

She needed this, she needed him, and for right now he could be what she needed.

After this, they were still going back to their lives, their very separate lives. He didn’t have time or the heart for anyone in his, so he could do no less.

Yet right now, with her arms around him, with her body arching against his, and her tongue in his mouth, he was hers.

Just as when he was with her like this, she was his.

As simple and devastating as that.

A
S THAT SHOCKING
realization came to Matt, he stood. Molly stood, too, her mouth wet from his, her eyes half hopeful, half resigned.

“Is that it?” she whispered, holding the ridiculously too large sweats up. “Is that all you’ll let me give you?”

He’d thought this was about her, and what he could do for her. Take her mind off the storm. Keep her safe. Keep her comforted.

But he’d been fooling himself, it wasn’t about that at all. From the moment they’d ended up in this basement,
she’d
been keeping
his
mind off the storm. She’d been keeping him safe. Keeping him comforted. “We can’t.”

“Why not? We’re both consenting adults.”

Yeah, Matt, why not?
“We don’t have protection.”

“I’m…on the pill.” She looked away. “I, um, like the regularity.”

“The pill isn’t protection against—”

“I haven’t…done this in a long time.” Her voice dropped to a low whisper. “A very long time.”

His heart took yet another stumble, and he cupped her soft cheek in his hand. “Me neither.”

Her gaze flew up to his. “You…haven’t?”

“No.”

“Then let me—”

“No. Let
me.
”

Her breath caught when he trailed his fingers down her cheek, caressing her jaw. He’d never in his entire life touched a woman this way, this slow, purposeful memorizing of features. But Molly put a craving deep inside him he’d never felt before, a need he’d never felt before. His mouth skimmed over hers, once. Then again.

She made a whimpering sound in her throat and pressed closer, and the kisses turned wild and wet and deep, as necessary as air. Everything about her attracted him; her touch, her scent, her smile. He didn’t know how he could get enough of her in just this one heavenly interlude, but he would try.

Cupping her breasts, he rasped his thumbs over the nipples that were already hard for him.

“Matt.” Her sigh came thick and husky, and
made him want more. She lifted her hands and held them to the backs of his.

As she did, taking her hands off the too big sweats she wore, the material slipped off her hips. Past her knees.

Puddled around her ankles.

With a gasp, she would have bent and reached for them, but Matt held her still with one arm very carefully hooked around her waist, lower than her bruised ribs. The other toyed with the hem of the shirt that covered her to mid-thigh.

Dressed only in the shirt now, with the sweats still pooled at her feet, it took nothing more than a slight touch here, a button undone there, and the shirt floated down as well, leaving her soft and pale and gleaming by candlelight.

With a dreamy smile she reached out and untied his own bottoms, then added a shove of her hands until they both stood there bathed in the flicker of candlelight and anticipation.

Supporting her weight, he worshiped her breasts one at a time until her breath came in hard pants, her hands clutching and unclutching his shoulders, his name on her lips.

Taking care with her bound ribs, he laid her on the cot, but he didn’t get on it with her.

Eyes opaque with desire, she blinked. “Matt?”

Kneeling on the floor at her hip, he turned the other way and kissed the very top of her big right toe.

“Matt?”

With a glance over his shoulder, he sent her an innocent smile. “Hasn’t anyone ever kissed your toe before?”

“No.” She was looking at him with a heart-melting mixture of shameless need and wariness. Then her breath sucked in hard when he trailed his tongue up her calf.

“How about there?” he asked.

“Uh—” She broke off with a strangled gasp when he took a foot in each hand and spread her legs so he could kiss the inside of her knee.

Then above that knee, eliciting another gasp.

“Or here, I take it?” he murmured, dotting openmouthed kisses over the tender skin inside her thigh.

“N-no.”

“Hmm.” Slowly, ever so slowly, he moved his hands up her legs until his fingers met, and then he kissed her there,
there,
light feathery kisses that tasted like pure heaven.

She cried out, her breath coming in little gasps
while her fingers fisted themselves in his hair. “Ohmi—”

“Good?”

“Oh, yeah.” The low, rough sounds she made as he pleasured her nearly undid him. “
Please,
Matt…”

“Come.” With slow, knowing care, he took her into his mouth. “I want you to.”

Watching her, touching her, tasting her as she did just that was everything. He used his fingers, his mouth, and then she was arching back, shuddering, shuddering, shuddering, sobbing out his name while he slowly brought her back to earth.

“Hold on to me,” he whispered, shifting between her legs, careful to keep his weight off her ribs as he slowly sank into her. “Oh, baby, you feel good.”

She opened her eyes on his, her own bright and shimmering and full of unspeakable emotion as she gripped his upper arms and lifted her hips, desperately seeking the same thing he was, burying her tongue in his mouth when he lowered himself over her.

Desperately afraid he was looking into his future, his heart, he closed his eyes and thrust home. She was hot and wet, and his.
His.
He felt release coming too hard, too fast, from his body
and his heart, and he tried to hold back, to regain some control.

“No,” she murmured, reaching down, gripping his hips in her hands, urging him on, urging him to match the flex and pull of her movements. Then they were reaching together, for something he’d thought impossible…

The moment, when it came, was shockingly powerful. And together their breathing, their bodies, became one.

When it was over and they lay panting in each other’s arms, Matt held her, overwhelmed by an emotion he had no defense against. It would fade now, any second, he told himself. She’d sated him physically. It was over.

But her arms still clung to him, and he waited for the inevitable claustrophobic feeling he always felt when a woman clung.

He waited.

And waited.

Then, with a low, sexy purr that started his engines again, Molly kissed his ear.

And still, Matt waited. Yeah, any moment now. The glowing emotions would fade away, leaving him back the way he’d been before.

But Molly turned her head, lined up their mouths.

His body was already hard again when they made love a second time. And then a third.

And still, the emotions never faded.

“D
O YOU HEAR THAT
?” Molly asked. They were sitting on the floor, Matt pretending they hadn’t just shattered each other while making love over and over, and Molly pretending it didn’t matter what he thought.

Matt set down his bottled water and got to his feet. Turning away from her, he studied the door they’d crawled through sometime yesterday. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly.”

He whipped back toward her, his mouth dropping. “My God. You’re right. It’s…over.”

Yeah. And he was climbing the walls to get out there and on to his work. His life.

It wasn’t easy for Molly to admit she’d hoped the storm would never end, but she did. She’d come to life here in Matt’s arms, as she never had before.

Because of it, she now knew what people meant when they spoke of love, just as she now knew exactly what she’d been missing.

“Yeah, it’s over,” she whispered, but she was talking to his bare, sleek back because he’d
turned toward the door and was trying to pry it open.

“Don’t you want to get dressed back into your clothes first?” Anything to postpone the inevitable. Anything to have a few more moments.

He turned back, his chest heaving from the exertion. “Yeah, good idea.”

He headed toward the back shelving unit where they’d spread out their drenched clothes. Without any of the hesitation currently stabbing her heart, he collected their things.

Handing hers to her, he grimaced. “They’re not dried all the way through, so they’re probably going to be cold and damp.”

“Better than nothing,” she said, clutching her stuff to her chest, trying not to stare as he unselfconsciously dropped the sweats from his hips, leaving him gloriously nude for one moment before he stepped into his clothes.

Then, realizing she wasn’t doing the same, he cocked his head in concern. “You okay? Your head hurting again? You dizzy, or—”

“I’m fine.” And she would be. Even if it killed her.

Which it might.

Her clothes were indeed still damp. And cold. And her heart hurt. So did her ribs. But hell if
she was going to say a word about any of that while he walked right out of her life.

Nope, she was going to hold her head up and watch him go.

But she didn’t expect him to come close. To take her clothes from her suddenly cold fingers. Didn’t expect him to smile a smile that reached her chilled heart as he stripped her out of his grandfather’s spare clothes.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, his breath catching as she let go of the shirt and held out her arms for her own, causing her breasts to sway inches from his face. “So beautiful.”

Her nipples hardened. Not because she was cold, but because of him. For him. “Matt…”

His expression shuttered, and he turned away. Got to his feet. “I need to see the house.”

“I know.” She buttoned herself up and came up behind him, staring at his stiff shoulders, knowing he was already lost to her, already out there and moving on.

Then he muscled the door open and reached back for her hand. “Ready?”

No.

“Molly?”

“Yes.” She forced a smile. “I’m ready.”