Nauti Dreams (37 page)

He chuckled at that, then sobered. “You know, Chay, the last time I spoke to him I was

twenty. I had cracked ribs, one was broken, my mouth was full of blood, and I could have

sworn I was dying. I told him, as Dawg, Rowdy, and Uncle Ray dragged me off of that

floor, that the next time I spoke to him, I’d kill him.”

He’d spat his blood on the bastard’s shoes and made a vow, and Dayle had laughed at

him. Natches had never forgotten that gloating laugh; he had heard it again tonight.

“And you’re not going to kill him,” she told him.

“Yeah, I am.” Natches smiled as she stiffened in his arms, and at the thought of what he

was going to do to Dayle. “Betraying him to DHS will be the same as death for him. It’s

the ultimate revenge for me. Because I’ll know, every day, that he’s breathing; we’ll both

know I beat him.”

He held that inside him, though he knew clear to his gut that things weren’t going to be

that easy. He was a Marine. A sniper. An assassin. He’d always worked alone, without a

spotter, sometimes without extraction. Because shit happened after blood was shed, and

when shit happened, information came out. He’d learned to go with his gut. To know

when to run and when to hang around. And when something wasn’t going to go as

planned.

This wasn’t going to go as planned.

And if it all went to hell and back, then he wanted this night. He wanted to hold her, he

wanted to talk to her.

His hand slid along her stomach once again.

“If our child is a boy, I want to teach him to play baseball,” he told her softly.

She laughed at that. A soft, amused little sound that had a smile curling at his lips.

“If it’s a girl, you’ll be a tyrant.”

A girl? A frown drew at his brows. A daughter, with her mother’s hair and eyes and, God

help him, Mackay blood. He shuddered. “I’ll lock her up until she turns fifty.”

“You will not.” Her hand covered his, her fingers twining those of his other hand as it lay

on her thigh.

“I promise you. Till she’s fifty. That girl will be wilder than the wind and harder to

control than a green mule.”

She looked up at him, the dim light in the room catching the sparkle in her eyes, the love,

the concern, the fears that would ride her until this was finished.

“She’ll be a lady.” The sound of her laughter was almost a giggle, because she knew

better, just as he did.

“Wild as the wind,” he argued again.

“And a boy wouldn’t be?” She reached up and touched his face, and that touch,

tenderness and warmth combined, was another memory he stored inside him.

“Boys are different,” he told her.

She frowned, just as he knew she would. “How do you figure?”

“Boys are born to be wild.”

“And girls are born to tame the wind,” she said softly. “What are you doing, Natches?”

He knew what she was talking about. Why was he just holding her, just talking, just

building memories?

“I’m creating my shield.” He lowered his head and kissed her lips. “You’re my shield,

Chay, you just don’t know it. Soft and sweet, born to tame the wind and to tempt my

dreams. When I walk into that meeting, I want to carry this with me.”

“Why?”

He was silent for long moments, wondering if there was any way to make her understand.

“So I won’t kill him,” he finally admitted. “Because this memory and all the others will

be wrapped around me, and I’ll remember what you’re fighting for and how important

keeping him alive really is. You’re the only thing standing between him and death, Chay.

Just this, and knowing he’s more important to your fight than he is to mine.”

“Then I’ll be your shield,” she whispered, turning, facing him, embracing him. “Always,

Natches, I’ll be your shield.”

TWENTY

He didn’t make love to her that night. He waited until the sun rose and carried her to the

bed. There, he stripped her slowly, gently, and gazed at the woman splayed out before

him.

Sweetly rounded breasts, her nipples hard and red. Her stomach was smooth, only

slightly rounded. There was no sign yet that his child rested there, but he knew it did.

Sweetly curved thighs, and between them, silky bare flesh.

The hours he had spent holding her, kissing her, stroking her, had stoked the fires inside

them to a burning simmer. Something Natches had never known before. It was the first

time in his life he had ever spent time just holding a woman, just stroking her, just laying

velvet kisses wherever he could reach.

He’d been hard for hours. He could have fucked her ten times over in the time he had

taken just loving her on that couch. But he wouldn’t have traded it for anything he’d

known in the past. Each touch, each kiss, each little laugh, sigh, and whispered love word

had bound them closer together.

She had felt it. He felt it. He knew there were silken-wrapped chains in his soul now, and

they led back to her. The burn was now a flame though. Natches smiled down at her,

wild, wicked hunger raging inside him.

He’d been born as wild as the wind, and like the wind, he had torn through his own life,

whipping around it without direction, shearing his own dreams as he moved, until he met

Chaya.

And she had been born to tame that wind inside him. Not the man, she made the man

wild, made him hungry. But the rage, the burning fury that had driven him before that

day in a dry, hot desert, was now tamed, held in the hands of one tender woman.

“Are you going to just stare at me all morning?” She stretched beneath his gaze, her eyes

flickering to where he stroked his cock, anticipating, holding back that final moment

when he would have to let her go.

“Would you let me?” He smiled, using one finger to trace a line from between her breasts

to the silken, soft mound between her thighs.

“If that was what you wanted to do.” She lifted her hands and let her fingers trail along

the path he had made. “I didn’t take you for a watcher, Natches. Though I’m sure we

could adapt if that’s your kink.”

If that was his kink? He almost laughed; he did smile. God, he loved her. Smart mouth

and all.

“What if it is my kink?” He lifted his brows curiously. Not that it was, but he could play

with her. That was the joy with Chaya, she enjoyed playing. Even patched and healing in

that hospital in Iraq, she had enjoyed playing with him.

“Isn’t it too bad you broke my vibrator then?” She let her fingers whisper over her mound

before returning, stroking along the top of the glistening slit.

Hell, he’d come in his own hand at this rate.

“You would have let me watch?” He hadn’t anticipated that.

“Oh, I would have,” she whispered, letting her finger dip into the folds, her hips arching

as he watched. “I would have shown you how I survived five years without you. I would

have let you watch, and let you hear me crying because I couldn’t reach the same peak

you could bring me to. Would you like to see that?”

See her cry? God no.

“I’d finish you, baby,” he promised her. “I’ll let you show me how you do it, then I’d

show you how it’s done.” His wicked smile drew a light vein of laughter from her, a

twinkle of the same wicked hunger to her eyes.

“Then show me how it’s done.” Her fingers lifted from her flesh, dewy with her juices

and he couldn’t help himself. He snagged her wrist and brought her fingers to his lips.

Her taste exploded against his tongue. Sweet and earthy. Nothing tasted as good as

Chaya’s passion. He covered the tips of her tasty fingers, licked them clean, and watched

her eyes darken as he caressed the sensitive tips with his tongue.

“I’ll show you exactly how it should be done,” he murmured. “You should be savored.”

He stretched out between her thighs, pressed them wide, and blew a breath across the

dampened flesh, his gaze lifting to her as a tremor shook her body. “Savored in the most

delicious ways. With a kiss.” He covered her hard little clit in a heated kiss, nudged it

with his tongue, and felt it throb in anticipation.

“Just a kiss?” Her voice was hoarse with pleasure now.

“Hmm. A kiss wasn’t enough?” He kissed the silken folds, drew the taste of her juices

onto his tongue, and hummed in appreciation.

“Not enough.” Her hands were in his hair now as she tried to press him closer.

“A taste?” He dipped his tongue inside those luscious folds, licked softly, slowly, felt the

soft flutter at the entrance of her core and the echo of the clenching need building in the

muscles there.

“Taste isn’t enough.” She writhed beneath him, her hips arching, pressing her pussy

closer to his mouth as he kissed and licked and listened to her cries of pleasure building

in his head.

Making love. He’d never made love before Chaya, but that was what he was doing now.

Making love to her. Loving her with everything inside his soul.

“Kissing or tasting?” His own voice was ragged now. “Demanding little thing, aren’t

you?”

He lifted his head, smiling back at her as she watched him, lashes lowered sensually, a

sheen of perspiration on her face now.

And those sweet, lush breasts. They were swollen, her nipples hard, tight, and flushed

with need. He couldn’t help but lift one hand, slide it over her stomach, and cup one of

those sweet mounds as he went back to kissing, tasting. And licking. He licked around

her clit. He laid little kisses on it, pursing his lips and drawing it inside the heat of his

mouth until she unraveled beneath him, arched and cried his name in release.

Before the tremors finished sweeping through her, he jerked to his knees, lifted her legs

until they lay against his chest, and began working his cock inside her.

Fuck. She was tight. So hot he had to clench his teeth, tried valiantly to think about car

motors, anything, everything but the destructive, velvet grip encasing his cock.

And nothing worked. Nothing filled his mind but the scent and the feel of her. Her voice

crying out his name, her hands gripping his wrists as he held on to her hips. Until he was

buried fully inside her, balls deep in the sweetest, slickest haven a man’s soul could ever

find.

“Natches. Oh God, it’s so good.”

Good wasn’t even a description. There was no description for this pleasure; it defied any

poet’s ability to voice it. He tightened, arched deeper inside her and felt the sweat

running down his chest as sensation upon sensation whipped over his body, dug into his

nerve endings and filled him with ecstasy.

His head lowered until he could kiss her ticklish little ankle, before she jerked, a panting

little cry falling from her lips.

He glanced up at her and grinned before licking over the side of her foot. And she

moaned, her foot flexing as he lifted one hand from her hip to her foot, and as he began to

thrust, let his teeth bite down, just below her big toe.

Chaya screamed with the sensation. He bit her. Bit her foot and thrust inside her, once,

twice, and she was coming again. Exploding into a million brilliant fragments as his hips

moved harder, moved faster. He was pounding into her, his expression tightening, sweat

rolling down his neck as she felt herself flying from one peak to another, then joining him

as his release flowed into her.

She watched him, the way his eyes narrowed on her, became sensual and heavy a second

before they closed and a shudder wracked his body.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he breathed out roughly as he collapsed over her, allowing

her legs to embrace his hips before sliding to the bed. “Every time, I only want you

more.”

Running her fingers through his hair she smiled. “Good. Because I can’t get enough

either.”

He rolled to his back, dragging her to him until she was draped over his chest, weak and

exhausted and knowing there was no time to sleep.

They lay like that, their hearts finally easing in their chests, their breathing returning to

normal.

“When you leave the boat, don’t look back,” he told her. “Don’t stop, don’t pause.

You’re a woman walking away from something she can’t deal with.”

“I know how to do my job.” But her voice caught on a sob. Walking away from Natches

without looking back?

“I know you do. But it won’t be easy, Chay. And you can’t pause. You have to keep

going.”

She nodded against his chest.

“I have a duffel packed for you. Some clean clothes Dawg brought over in a plastic bag

last night. Your other clothes. You’ll take your briefcase, but only your laptop inside it.

They can tell by the way you carry it, the way you move, the way it hangs from your

shoulder or your hand if there’s anything more in it.”

She nodded again.

“When it happens, when I meet with him, you’re not to come near until he’s cuffed. Do

you understand?”

His voice was so hard, his tone cool, but she could feel the emotions coursing beneath the

surface. As able as she knew she was, she had also come to realize something. He called

her his strength, but she could also become his weakness. Just as he could become hers if

anyone ever wanted to hurt him to strike back at her.

“Not until he’s cuffed,” she agreed, praying she could keep that promise.

“Let’s get you ready to go then.” He lifted her from his chest and moved from the bed

with her.

Standing beside it, he touched her face and gave her a hard, lingering kiss.