The Marine's Red Hot Homecoming (19 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Somehow Caleb managed to carry Hannah to the bedroom, wanting only to show her how much he cared for her, never wanting to let her go. She had become the anchor to his soul. The beacon of light that called him back to the one place he swore he’d never return to again.

She was everything he had wanted and all she had ever asked for was him to commit to her. Not because she was the mother of his child. Not because she couldn’t take care of herself. And not because she was desperate to fill a void.

But because she loved him.

Still kissing her, her lowered her, then tugged down her dress’s zipper. With an urgency he didn’t know he possessed, he removed the red, figure hugging sheath, eager to touch every square inch of her naked skin and rediscover her all over again.

Panting, she jerked his shirt out of his slacks and smoothed her hands along his bare back. Her caress, hot and sensual, charged through him. He moved a thigh between her legs and edged her closer to the bed.

She hooked her hands around his neck and pulled him with her until they tumbled onto the duvet. Somehow he managed to undo her lacy black bra and release her breasts while still kissing her deeply, his tongue tangling with hers intimately, plunging and licking and tasting her with the hunger of a starving man.

Too long. He’d waited too long to lose himself in her again. Now he couldn’t wait, couldn’t stop the blood that rushed through him and made him strain to be inside her.

He cupped her breast, and her nipple pebbled instantly. No other woman had ever driven him this wild, this insane with wanting. Never had he craved a woman like he craved Hannah.

She was the end to his beginning. The missing piece that made him whole. Only with her could he lose himself and yet be found all over again.

Hannah moaned, arching her back to give him greater access to his impatient touch, but he wanted to give her more. More of himself. More of what she deserved. More of what he wanted her to crave from him, too.

He moved his mouth away from her lips, licking and kissing his way down the length of her beautiful, naked body, pausing to trace the faint silvery lines on her belly. She shivered and trembled beneath him, tunneling her fingers through his hair and crying out his name, begging him to take her.

But as much as he wanted to surrender to her demands, he wanted to show her how much he cherished her first. Glancing up at her, he hooked his fingers through her panties and slowly pulled them off her body one excruciating inch at a time.

She writhed and clasped his shoulders. “You can’t.”

Her feminine scent intoxicated him, sultry and earthy and sexy as sin. “Oh, but I will—if you want,” he said.

“I want.”

He melded his mouth onto her sweet sex, and she hitched her hips while he held her steady, licking her slick folds and tasting her honey. Gently, he sucked in her essence, then swept her hot arousal across her clit with his tongue.

She jerked. “Caleb. It’s too much. I can’t...”

He looked at her, pausing his mouth’s exploration long enough to stroke the seam of her sex. “You can do anything with me. Just don’t think. Just let me love you.”

She gasped when he pushed his finger into her, pumping it in and out. “God. Yes...”

He licked her clit simultaneously, her orgasm spasmed through her and came against his mouth. Holding her steady, he increased his pressure with his tongue, sliding around her slick folds and pushing another finger deep into her.

She bucked against him. His cock grew hard as granite, straining for release and the sweet sensation of burying all the way to the hilt when she came.

But all this was for her. For Hannah. For the woman he loved even though he wasn’t sure he’d ever be the man she truly desired.

“Caleb,” she cried. “Oh. My. God.”

She came, her orgasm spasming over and over around his fingers and the waves of her incredible response trembling against his mouth. He drank her in until he felt her body’s orgasm subside to slow waves and her breaths returned to a normal rhythm.

Decisions and choices swirled in his brain and a sharp pain lanced behind his sternum. He didn’t want to think about the uncertain tomorrows that had the power to cast shadows into the corners of his soul. Not now. Not in the afterglow and tenderness of Hannah holding him and trusting him and loving him.

He moved over her, kissing her dew dropped skin and tasting the salt and spice of her delicious, sexy body until he returned to her mouth and captured it all over again. And when she sighed her love against his lips, he knew he had everything he ever wanted, but that he wouldn’t ask her to be with a man who couldn’t guarantee he’d always be part of her future—or that he’d return without the emotional scars that had destroyed her last boyfriend.

Nothing had been decided yet. Everything he had done while he had been troubleshooting and solving his company’s problems had taught him that with the right people in place, he’d serve his country and protect his family’s company at the same time—not just for his brothers, but for his son, too.

Did he want to go back?

Had he been using his service to his country as a way to prevent himself from becoming like his father while at the same time allowing the Marines to become his mistress?

Confused, he deepened his kiss, desperate to find a way to give Hannah something more tangible than what he’d already set into motion. He wanted to prove that he would always come home to her. But would she still be waiting for him if he chose to answer his commander’s call to duty?

###

Hannah held onto Caleb, drawing him into her mouth and tasting herself. Small aftershocks still rippled through her body. The intensity of his ability to make her feel adored and cherished while denying his own satisfaction completely melted her heart.

When he had first kissed her, he had stolen her breath. Undressing her and loving her in the most intimate way possible had broken through her every defense. He hadn’t demanded or expected anything in return. Oh, how she could get used to thousands of nights like this one.

With Caleb.

Only him.

With him what had happened was pure love, primal, visceral, and generously given.

She felt the tension in his back, the bundling of his shoulder muscles as he restrained himself. She wanted to return that love. That generosity. That gift of trust and passion intertwined between a man and a woman who belonged together for now and eternity.

His shirt rubbed against her bare breasts, the light fabric abrading her sensitized nipples. “No fair,” she said, breaking their kiss. “One of us is at a serious disadvantage.”

He grinned. “How so?”

“I’m naked.” She feathered her fingers down his cheek and flirted them across his gorgeous lips. “You’re not.”

“Easy enough to fix,” he said, then rolled over taking her with him.

She lay on top of him and his broad hands caressed her bottom. Delicious tingles shot through her body. “Wait a minute. How is this a fix?” she asked. “I’m still naked and you’re in a pin-striped shirt and slacks.” Though the expensive designer pants rubbed against her sex in the most delectable way. More tingles zipped along her nerves, and charged into her core.

“You’re a capable woman.” He shifted his weight and she felt the full length of his arousal between her thighs. “Do what you want with me to even the playing field.”

Her breasts grew heavy and heat pooled low. The idea of being in charge of this man sexually excited her in ways she had never imagined. “With pleasure.” Hannah unbuttoned his shirt very slowly and pushed it off his shoulders to expose his broad chest. “Nice pecs.” She lowered her head and licked first one nipple, then the other, loving the way his cock jumped against her sex in response to her sexy exploration.

He coiled his fingers in her hair, holding her to him. But she maneuvered her way down his torso, spending extra time kissing and nibbling the ridges of his perfect ten pack abdominal muscles. He tasted like man and musk and she sensed her essence lingering on his skin.

She followed the v line of downy light hair that disappeared into his pants, stopped long enough to unbuckle his belt and pop open the button just above the zipper.

His grip tightened. “For the love of Pete, woman. You’re driving me insane.”

“You said I could even the playing field.”

“I didn’t mean for you to take all day,” he groaned.

“I’m in charge,” she said while she unzipped his pants. “You just lay there and let me do my thing.”

She heard his shoes land on the carpet in a soft thud as he lifted his hips. “Your wish is my command.”

“Excellent,” she said, then pulled his pants and briefs off, dragging them down his powerful legs and tossing them on the floor next to his shoes along with the rest of his footwear. “Much, much better.”

She knelt beside his body, naked and glorious and all hers for the taking. His shaft jutted straight into the air, large and spectacular. Oh, the things she wanted to do to him before she took him deep inside her.

Hannah traced small circles along Caleb’s inner thighs until she reached the base of his cock. Gently, she clasped the length and stroked him to the tip. A small bead of moisture tantalized her, and she lowered her mouth to lick the head.

He twined his fingers in her hair, muttered her name in a rough groan. She smiled inwardly. A secret thrill pulsed in her veins, empowering her and filling her with a rush of desire. She drew him into her mouth, gliding her tongue along the underside of his shaft while moving her hand up and down.

His cock grew and throbbed with each kiss and pull on his member. She caressed his balls and they contracted. He cradled her head to his cock as he moved his hips up and down. She took him easily and felt his release building, beginning to shudder through him.

She wanted to swallow him whole, but Caleb had other plans, pulling his cock from her greedy mouth. Hannah didn’t stop him. Not when she only wanted to feel him inside her.

“Ride me. Ride me all the way home.” He dragged her all the way up the length of his body until she felt his cock head pressing between her slick folds.

Her clit pulsed and she lowered herself onto his length until he was buried deep inside her. Slowly, she lifted and lowered herself onto his shaft, while he caressed her breasts, rolling her taut nipples between his fingers until she thought the sensations charging through her body would overwhelm her.

Faster and faster she rode him, flying higher and higher as each thrust went deeper, and deeper still. The sensation of his hands on her body, the increasing rhythm of their age old dance of intimacy and reckless abandon brought them to the release they desperately needed, craved, yearned.

Mindless, operating on an instinct born out of trust and love and sheer exhilaration, she rode Caleb, plunging onto him again and again. She heard him cry her name, the sounds of her body slapping against his, and strength of her desire to make him hers consumed her. Filling herself, wanting to keep him with her forever. She took him into her over and over until at last she could feel his cock shuddering, each wave pulsing inside her while her own orgasm crashed through her in multiple, earth shattering spasms and stars burst behind her eyes.

Chapter Seventeen

Friday morning, only three days before she reopened her store, Hannah finished inspecting her boutique’s final restorations with her mother, then climbed the stairs for a final tour of the upstairs apartment where she and Jason had lived for most of his life.

“Looks good,” Shannon said, moving into the main living area.

The walls had been repainted a neutral shade of cream and the hardwood floors gleamed. The dings and scars of the fire department’s equipment had been sanded and resurfaced to the oak planks’ original luster.

She stared at the pristine interior. “You’d never know how extensive the damage was a month ago,” she said. Soon the company that had cleaned and de-fumigated all of her furniture would be here to put everything back where it once belonged. But now she wondered if she’d ever fit in here again when she’d given her heart to Caleb.