The SEAL's Secret Heirs (11 page)

And the intense hope that things might be different this time.

How would she ever find out if she left?

“Okay.” She nodded and ignored the hammering of her pulse. “Let's see where it goes.”

Nine

K
yle waited on Grace to come back by pretending to watch TV.

His body had cooled—on the outside—but the inside was still pretty keyed up. He wasn't really interested in much of anything other than getting Grace back in his bed, but this time for the whole night.

When the crunch of gravel sounded outside, breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding whooshed out. She'd come back.

He met Grace at the door, opening it wide as she climbed the front porch steps, her hair still mussed from their thorough lovemaking of less than an hour ago. Her face shone in the porch light, so beautiful and fresh, and his chest hitched as he soaked in the sight of her.

“Hey, Grace,” he said, pretty dang happy his voice still worked.

He'd wondered if she might back out, call and say she'd changed her mind. She was still so skittish. She might have let him into her body but he didn't fool himself for a second that she'd let him into her head, or her heart. It wasn't the way it had been, when he'd been her hero, her everything. There was distance now that hadn't been there before and he didn't like it.

Of course, some of that was his fault. Not much. But a little. He didn't fully trust her, and while he'd sworn in theory to forget about the past, it was proving more difficult to do in practice than he'd thought it would be, so he didn't press the issue of the yawning chasm between them.

“Hey.” She had a bag slung over her shoulder and a shy smile on her face.

Shy? After the temptress she'd been? It caught him up short. Maybe some of the distance was due to sheer unfamiliarity between them. As comfortable as
he
felt around Grace, that didn't mean she was totally in the groove yet. Plus, they didn't know each other as well as they used to. Ten years didn't vanish just because two people slept together.

“We never had dinner,” he commented. “Come sit with me and we'll eat. For real this time.”

She nodded and let him take her bag, following him to the table where he laid out silverware and refilled their wineglasses. They ate the chicken salad and polished off the bottle of wine, chatting long after clearing their plates. Grace told cute stories about the children on her case docket, and Kyle reciprocated with some carefully selected anecdotes about the guys he'd trained with in Coronado during BUD/S. Carefully selected because that period had been among the toughest of his life as his training honed him into an elite warrior—
while
he was fighting his own internal battle against the hurt this woman had caused. But he'd survived and wasn't dwelling on that.

Couldn't dwell on it. Liam wasn't a factor and he wanted to do things with Grace differently this time. And by the time Kyle was done with her, she'd be asking, “Liam who?”

A wail over the monitor drew their attention away from their conversation and Grace gladly helped him get the girls settled again. It was nearing midnight; hopefully it would be the only time the babies woke up for the night.

Kyle didn't mind rolling out of bed at any hour to take care of his daughters, but he selfishly wanted to spend the rest of the night with Grace, and Grace alone. He got his wish. They fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms, and Kyle slept like the dead until dawn.

His eyes snapped open and he took a half second to orient. Not a SEAL. Not in Afghanistan. But with
Grace
. A blessing to count, among many.

Until he tried to snuggle her closer. White-hot pokers of pain shot through his busted leg as he rolled. He bit back the curse and breathed through it.

The pain hadn't been so bad last night, but of course, he'd been pretty distracted. Plus, he normally soaked his leg before going to bed but hadn't had a chance last night. Apparently, he was going to pay for it today.

All the commotion woke Grace.

“Good morning,” she murmured sleepily, and slid a leg along his, which was simultaneously arousing and excruciating.

“Wait,” he said hoarsely.

“Don't wanna.” She stretched provocatively, rubbing her bare breasts against his chest, which distracted him enough that he didn't realize she'd hooked her knee around his leg. She fairly purred with sexy little sounds that meant she was turned on. And probably about to do something about it.

“Grace.” He grabbed her shoulders and squared them so he could be sure he had her attention. “Stop.”

Her expression went from hot and sleepy to confused and guarded. Her whole body stiffened, pulling away from his. “Okay. Sorry.”

“No, don't be sorry.” Kyle swore.
Moron
. He was mucking this up and all he wanted to do was pull her back against him. Dive in, distract himself. But he couldn't. “Listen.”

He took a deep breath, fighting the pain, fighting his instinct to clam up again.

He hadn't told anyone about what had happened to him in Afghanistan and didn't want to start with the woman who still had the power to declare him an unfit parent if he admitted to having a busted leg. But as he stared into her troubled brown eyes, his heart lurched and he had to come clean. This was part of closing that distance between them. Part of learning to trust her again.

She'd said she was going to let him keep his girls. He had to believe her. Believe
in
her, or this was never going to work, not now, not in a hundred years.

“I didn't tell you to stop because I wanted you to.”

Her gaze softened along with her body. “Then what's going on, Kyle?”

“I got wounded,” he muttered. Which made him sound as much like a wuss as he felt. “Overseas.”

“Oh, I didn't know!” She gasped and drew back to glance down the length of his body, her expression darkening gorgeously as she took in his semiaroused state. “You don't
look
wounded. Everything I see is quite nice.”

And now it was a fully aroused state. Fantastic. This was so not a conversation he wanted to have in the first place, let alone with a hard-on. “My leg. The bone was shattered. I had a lot of surgeries and they put most of it back together. But it still hurts, especially in the morning when I haven't stretched it.”

Sympathy poured from her gaze as she sat up and pulled the sheet back, gathering it up in her hand as she sought the scar. When she found it along the far side of his calf, she touched the skin just above it lightly with her fingers. “You hid this last night. With the low light and striking that weird pose. Why didn't you tell me?”

“It's...”

How to explain the horror of being wounded in the line of duty? It wasn't just the pain and the fact that he wasn't ever going to be the same again, but he'd been unable to protect the rest of his team. He'd been unable to
do his job
because his leg didn't work all at once. A SEAL got back up when he was knocked down.
Every time
. Only Kyle hadn't.

Maybe he'd fail at being a parent, too, because of it. That was his worst fear.

“I don't like being weak,” he finally said, which was true, if not the whole truth. “I don't like giving you ammunition to take away Maddie and Maggie. Like I might not be a good daddy because my leg doesn't work right.”

“Oh, Kyle.” She laid her lips on the scar for a moment, and the light touch seared his heart. “I would never take away your daughters because of an injury. That's ridiculous.”

He shrugged, unable to meet her gaze. “You were going to take them away because I didn't come home for two months. But I was in the hospital.”

“Well, you could have said that!” Exasperation spurted out with the phrase and she shook her head. “For crying out loud. Am I supposed to be a mind reader?”

Yes
. Then he wouldn't have to figure out how to say things that were too hard.

“Now you know,” he mumbled instead. “That's why I had to stop earlier. Not because I wasn't on board. I just needed a minute.”

“Okay.” But then she smiled and ran a hand up his thigh, dangerously close to his erection. “It's been a minute. How about we try this instead, now that I know?”

The protest got caught in his throat as she rolled him onto his back and crawled over him, careful not to touch his leg, but deliberately letting her breasts and long curls brush his skin from thigh to chest. She captured his wrists and encircled them with her fingers, drawing his arms above his head, holding them in place as her hips undulated.

“What are you doing?” His voice scraped the lower register as she ignited his flesh with her sexy movements.

She arched a brow. “Really? I should hope it would be fairly obvious. Since it's not, shut up and I'll make it clearer for you.”

He did as advised because his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth anyway. And then she leaned forward, still holding his wrists hostage, and kissed him. Hot. Openmouthed. The kind of kiss laden with dark promise and he eagerly lapped it up. He could break free of her finger shackles easily, but why the hell would he do that?

She had him right where she wanted him, apparently, and since he could find no complaint with it, he let her have the floor. She experimented with different angles of her head as she kissed him, looking for something unknown and he went along for the ride, groaning with the effort it took to hold back.

Then she trailed her mouth down his throat, nipped at his earlobe and writhed against his erection all at once, slicing a long, hot knife of need through his groin. His hips strained toward hers, rocking involuntarily as he sought relief, and he started to pull his arms loose so he could roll her under him to get this show on the road. But she shook her head and tightened her grip on his wrists.

“No, sir,” she admonished with a wicked smile. “You're not permitted to do anything but lie there.”

This was going to kill him. Flat out stop his heart.

He got what she was doing. She wanted him to keep his leg still, while she did all the dirty work. Something tender hooked his heart as he stared up at her, poised over him with an all-business look on her face that was somehow endearing.

But he wasn't an invalid.

“I hate to break it to you, darling, but that's not happening.” He flexed his hips again, sliding his erection against her bare, damp sex, watching as her eyes unfocused with pleasure. “I suggest you think about how you're going to get a condom on me with your hands occupied because I'm going to be inside you in about point two seconds.”

“Don't ruin this for me.” She mock-pouted and promptly crossed his wrists, one over the other, and held on with one hand as she wiggled the fingers of her free hand in a cheery wave. “I always dreamed of being a rodeo star. This is my chance.”

He had to laugh, which downright ached. All over. “That's what's on your mind right now? Rodeo?”

“Oh, yeah.” She leaned against his abs, holding on with her thighs as she fished around in the nightstand drawer and pulled out a condom, which she held up triumphantly. “I'm going for a ten in the bucking bronco event.”

“I'll be the judge of that,” he quipped, and then raised a brow at the condom. “Go ahead. I'm waiting.”

In the end, she had to let go of his arms to rip open the foil package. But he obediently held his wrists above his head as she had so sweetly asked. Then there was no more talking as she eased over him, taking him gently in her hands to pleasure him as she rolled on the condom.

He groaned as need broke over him in a wave, and then she slowly guided him into her damp heat. He slid all the way in as she pushed downward and it was unbelievable. They joined and it was better than it had been last night. Deeper. More amazing, because there were no more secrets between them.

She knew about his injury and hadn't run screaming for her report to revise it. She hadn't been repulsed by his weaknesses. Instead, she'd somehow twisted it around so they could make love without hurting his leg. It was sweet and wonderful.

And then she got busy on her promise to turn him into a bucking bronco, sliding up and down, rolling her hips and generally driving him mad with want. He obliged her by letting his body go with the sensation, meeting her thrusts and driving them both higher until she came with a little cry and he followed her.

Clutching her to his chest, he breathed in tandem with her, still joined and not anxious to change that. He held her hot body to his because he didn't think he could let go.

“You're amazing,” he murmured into her hair, and she turned her head to lay her cheek on his shoulder, a pleased smile on her face.

“I wouldn't say no to thank-you flowers.”

He made a mental note to send her a hundred roses the moment his bones returned and he could actually move. “Where'd you get that sexy little hip roll from?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. I've never done it before. It just felt right.”

All at once, his good mood vanished as he wondered what moves she
had
done before with other men that she hadn't opted to try out on him. Like Liam. Was he better in bed than his brother? Worse? About the same? And yeah, he recognized that the burn in his gut was pure jealousy.

Totally unable to help himself, he smiled without humor and rolled her off him casually, as if it were no big deal, but he didn't really want her close to him right then. “It was great. Perfect. Like you'd practiced it a lot.”

What an ass he was being. But the thought of Grace with another man, some guy's mitts on her, touching her, put him over the edge. Especially since one of those Neanderthals had been his brother.

She quirked a brow. “Really? You're not just humoring me?”

The pleased note in her voice didn't improve his mood. What, it was a compliment to be well-practiced in bed?

“Oh, no,” he said silkily. “You've got the moves, sweetheart. The men must line up into the next county to get in on that.”