Willing

Chapter 15

“You feel good to me, too, sweetheart.”

She loved it when he called her that, and she rewarded him with a kiss against his neck.

“You ready to go back to the room?”

Darkness had fallen while they played in the pool, and no one else had come out to disturb their solitude. Summer wasn’t exactly high season in the Nevada desert. It was too hot, but she didn’t mind the heat, and she liked the fact the hotel wasn’t booked to capacity.

“I’d rather go in the Jacuzzi. Is that okay?”

“Will you make the delay worth it?” he asked with a mock leer.

This teasing Daniel was someone she could spend the rest of her life with.

She tipped her head back and fluttered her eyelashes at him, surprised at how naturally some things came to a woman. “Don’t you think I can?”

The kiss he gave her answered that question and any other she might have on her desirability.

“I’m counting on it,” he said when he lifted his head.

“Good.”

He started walking through the water to the pool steps, and she let him carry her, but when they reached the first step, she tried to unwrap her legs.

His hold on her bottom tightened. “No. Let me carry you to the spa.”

She looked around and didn’t see anyone, not sure that it would matter if she did. “All right.” She wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up anyway.

His resilience amazed her.

It was incredibly erotic being carried in such an intimate position across the pool deck. Her imagination drummed up some pretty interesting scenarios in the same position, but without any swimsuits to hinder them. He stopped at the whirlpool controls to turn on the jets before stepping into the now bubbling hot water with her.

Her body tensed in involuntary reaction to the shock of the high temperature after the colder water of the pool. “It’s hot.”

“You’ll get used to it pretty fast.” Then he dipped down, immersing them both up to their necks. “This is the quickest way.”

She gasped and tried to shoot up out of the almost unbearably hot water, but he held her tight. “Relax, it will get better soon.”

He was right. Within a second or two, it felt too good for her to want to get out. “It feels wonderful.”

“I know something that feels even better.” He unwrapped her legs from around him and changed his hold on her to one at her waist.

Lifting her through the water, he placed her on the cement seat running the circumference of the spa. A jet of water shot against her lower back, massaging her with a steady stream of water pressure.

Her eyes closed, and she reveled in the delicious sensation. “Umm…That is nice.”

“I know.” He sat down beside her and started kneading her shoulders with strong fingers. “I designed my house with a multiperson hot tub in the master bath.”

Tension drained out of her as a sense of utter peace pervaded her being. “No luxury like this for your guests?”

“I’d share with you, but there’s another, much bigger one in the backyard.” His fingers moved up her neck. “It’s fed by an artificial waterfall pumped up from a natural spring.”

“Wolf’s house has a hot spring under it,” she remembered out loud.

“I know. I incorporated it into his house’s design, too, but his is heated. I have to heat the water for mine. Summers are hot, and the rest of the year isn’t much cooler, so I leave it set at a low temperature most of the time.” He guided her into a position leaning with her back against his chest. “You can stay in it longer that way.”

“It sounds wonderful.” She let her head fall back onto his shoulder. “I’d like to see your house someday.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“I can’t believe you designed it and Wolf’s house, too. His is amazing. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as the jungle room downstairs.”

“Thank you.”

“How did you learn to design like that?”

He shrugged, causing her shoulders to lift and fall in unison with his. “When I first joined the Rangers, everything was so intense, I realized I needed something to do between assignments that wasn’t related to warfare. Architecture and design interested me, so I started reading about it.”

“You’ve done a lot more than read to have designed Wolf’s house the way you did.”

“I played around with plans, designing things on a small scale, and then I met this old guy who was a retired architect. He would look over my plans and tell me what was wrong with them until I learned the fundamentals. Then he suggested I start using computer simulation programs for design. It’s the one thing I like doing on the computer.”

“He sounds like a neat man.”

“He was. He died the year I designed Wolf’s house, but he liked my plans.” The sense of accomplishment in Daniel’s voice was unmistakable.

“Have you ever thought about becoming an architect?”

“I’m a soldier.” He said it as if it was an incontrovertible fact.

“But if you weren’t one, would you have pursued architecture and design as a career?”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t matter now.”

“No, I don’t suppose it does.” Except that he was obviously not open to a different way of life.

Just like her dad.

“Where’s your house?”

“New Mexico.”

“Isn’t that a long way from the merc school?”

“I can go home between training sessions the same way I stay there between assignments now, but I might build again on the Oregon coast. I haven’t decided yet.”

“What part of New Mexico is your house in right now?”

“About an hour from Roswell.” He slipped his arm around her waist and spread his fingers out over her naked stomach.

She sucked in a breath. “You mean the Area 51 Roswell?”

“I don’t think there’s another one.”

“Are you interested in UFOs?” Her interest in their conversation was rapidly dwindling as his fingers brushed up and down on her wet skin.

“Not really, but I like the sparse population of the New Mexico desert. You can drive miles without seeing any signs of civilization but the road you’re taking. It reminds me a little of where I grew up, but the winters aren’t cold like they are in South Dakota. To be honest, I like that as much as not having a lot of neighbors to disturb me.”

She rubbed her head against his shoulder, loving how solid he was. “Do you ever want to go back?”

“To the reservation?”

“Yes.”

“I visit once a year.”

That shocked her, and she jerked around to look at him, dislodging his hand so it settled on her hip. “You do?”

“Yes, but my close family is gone, so it’s more of a pilgrimage.” He’d been looking up at the sky, but transferred his somber gaze to her. “My grandfather’s art is displayed in one of the small museums. I like to go and see it, to remember my dad’s temper isn’t the only legacy I have from that side of the family.”

“You learned to control your temper, so I’d say it’s not much of a legacy anyway.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

She scanned his sculpted features, wondering what his dad looked like if everyone said the two of them could pass for twins. He must be a very beautiful man, on the surface anyway. “Do you remember any good times with your parents?”

He was silent for a long time, and she thought he was going to refuse to answer, but then he nodded. “They got along great when he wasn’t drinking and she wasn’t trying to talk me into going to college and him into paying for it. He used to teach me how to carve with his hands over mine. I still do it sometimes; it’s good for my manual dexterity.”

A huge bubble of emotion welled up in Josie and spilled over, warming her from the inside out. Daniel had made choice after choice to keep the best of his past and dismiss the rest of it. If only he could see how far he had come from being anything like his lost father.

Daniel sighed. “She loved his art, and he acted like he loved her.”

“But he didn’t love her enough to stop drinking.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Looking back now, I realize they could have had a great marriage, but his violent rages stopped that. There were times he went to kiss her that I could tell she was just tolerating him. She never denied him, but he had to know she didn’t want him. I vowed I’d never do that to a woman, would never touch her unless she welcomed my touch.”

That’s where he’d gotten the need to be welcomed, not just accepted into her bed.

“Your mom must have believed it would get better.”

“Maybe in the beginning, but by the time I was in school, the pattern had been set. He drank every weekend and lost his temper almost as often. The older I got, the more frequently he drank during the week as well. She always made excuses for him, but the truth was, he didn’t care about anyone else enough to stop, and she didn’t think enough of herself to leave him.”

“That must have hurt you a lot.”

“Yes.”

She liked that he didn’t try to deny it.

“Dad may have strange ideas about how to raise a daughter, but he always loved me. He would never have hurt me. I know it doesn’t change anything, but I’m sorry your dad hurt you.”

“I’m sorrier he hurt my mom, but it couldn’t have been easy training to be a soldier when you were so little.”

“He was a lot easier on me than he was his soldiers…until I got older, and then he expected me to be better than all of them.”

“You are.”

“I tried. I thought my dad’s love depended on me being the best soldier I could be. I didn’t realize he loved me for being me until a couple of years ago.”

“What happened then?”

“I got shot on assignment and almost died. I was in a hospital in the Middle East for ten weeks.” Remembering that time made her shiver despite the hot water bubbling around her. “He cancelled his spring training session and flew out to be with me. He sat beside my hospital bed that first night and cried, telling me how much he loved me and begging me not to die. I’d never seen him cry before. I couldn’t talk much, but I tried to tell him I would be okay. He never left my room until the danger zone was past.”

“He realized that what he’d raised you to be put you at risk in just the way he’d been trying to protect you from all your life.”

“You’re pretty smart. I think that’s exactly how he felt.”

“I read enough of his journals to realize how he would have reacted to you almost dying. It would have hit me the same way.”

“You and my father have a lot in common.”

“Not so much. He succeeded in protecting you.”

“He didn’t think so when I got shot. He kept saying he was sorry, and I couldn’t understand why. Now I do. But one thing became very clear: He didn’t love me because I was a superior soldier. He loved me because I was his daughter.”

“Is that when you decided to get out of the business?”

“When I realized I didn’t have to be a soldier for my dad to love me, I asked myself if I wanted to spend the rest of my life being one. The answer was no.”

“You’d rather work with computers?”

“In some capacity, yes. I’m not like Claire and Hotwire, though. I’d be content to work in a job that used my computer skills, but didn’t focus on them.”

“So, you don’t know if you’ll take the job Wolf and Hotwire offered you with their security business?”

“No, I don’t. There’s a whole wide world out there, and I don’t know where I want to live in it or what I want to be. It’s pretty strange realizing at the age of twenty-six I can be anything I want.”

“All I ever wanted was to be a Special Forces soldier. I chose the Rangers because the army was the easiest military organization to join.”

“Why did you get out?”

“After my mom died, I couldn’t stay in it.”

“Because she asked you to leave the army and come home to take care of your dad and you refused? You felt guilty having your dream when your mom was dead.”

“Yes.”

She understood, but she thought it was such a waste. “You’re an incredible soldier, Daniel.”

“There’s a lot more freedom being a merc than there was in the Rangers.”

“Yes, but I think you would have been happy if you’d stayed.”

He pulled her back against him, tucking her head into his shoulder again, but didn’t respond. The silence lasted a long time, and she let her gaze drift lazily across the now star laden sky.

“My dad is up for parole this year.” His voice after such an extended silence surprised her, but no more than the words.

“I thought you didn’t keep track of him.”

“I don’t, but Sergeant Major does. He’s gone to visit Thunder in prison.”

“Does he encourage you to go, too?”

“No. He says that kind of thing is something a man can only do if his soul leads him to it.”

Daniel’s sergeant major was a wise man.

“Do you want to talk to your dad again?”

“I want to ask if the drinking was worth killing her.”

Josie knew with the same instincts that had saved her life more than once that Daniel wanted to ask a whole lot more than that, but she said nothing. If he ever did decide he wanted to see his father, she hoped Daniel would let her be there for him because no matter how hard he sounded, his heart wasn’t as invulnerable as he wanted to believe.

“Has he told the sergeant major he wants to see you?”

“If he has, Master Sergeant Cordell didn’t pass it on, but he wouldn’t.”

“No matter what you decide, you’re a good man, Daniel.”

“You’re good for me, Josette.”

“Thanks.”

In her mind, they had spent enough time talking about deep subjects. Daniel needed his thoughts directed to something more pleasant, and she had a pretty good idea how to do that.

Slipping her hand up his thigh, she brushed it quite deliberately against his sex. His body went instantly rigid, and she could hear the increased pounding of his heart against her head.

She smiled and relaxed against him as if she hadn’t a care in the world, while at the same time guiding her hand beneath his waistband. “Keep your eyes on the stars, Daniel.”

Anyone looking at them from outside would think she was just resting against him while they both unwound in the spa. Her hand slid inexorably downward until her fingers tangled with the light, curling patch of hair above his penis.

His hand latched on to her wrist, stopping her from moving lower. “What are you doing?”

“Can’t you tell?”

“We’re in a public place, Josette, or hadn’t you noticed?”

“What I noticed is that the bubbles make it impossible to see what is happening under the water.”

“You don’t think my raw shout of ecstasy will give you away?”

She laughed softly, wiggling her fingers against him even if she couldn’t reach her main target. “That’s a long way off. If you keep your face expressionless, no one will know what I’m doing. You’re good at controlling your temper, Daniel. Do you think you can control your passion?”

“You make it hard,” he growled.

She grinned at the double entendre. “Don’t you like it?”

“Yes…,” he hissed, and his grip slackened.

She immediately went in search of and found his penis. She began stroking up and down his length. “Just relax and let me pleasure you.”

“You are pure pleasure, sweetheart, but I’m not sure this isn’t torture.” He groaned as she squeezed his quickly growing member, and his head fell back against the stone edge of the spa.

She snuck a peek at him and smiled. His eyes were closed, and his face was impassive, but there was a line of stress around his mouth. Arrows of pleasure shot through her core at the evidence of how strongly she affected him. She turned her head away, her eyes fixed on the stars overhead.

It felt deliciously naughty to have her hand inside his swim trunks and touching him intimately while anyone looking on would think she was doing no more than contemplate the night sky. With a sense of wanton delight, she slid her palm over the head of his penis. Wetness more slick and silky than the water told her he was closer to coming than she could have imagined, and she felt a corresponding moisture between her legs.

She played with the silky wetness, rubbing it over his head with her palm and then caressing his length in turn until his legs were jerking with the effort to stay still. She felt close to orgasm herself, and he hadn’t even touched her. She stroked him, enjoying the sounds of pleasure and need he was making and letting her mind run wild with images of him inside her.

Suddenly he erupted from the water, lifting her from the pool with him.

She squeaked out a shocked, “Daniel,” but he ignored her surprised protest and carried her at double time to their room, the expression on his face one that would live with her for a long time.

He was a feral warrior claiming his mate, and she exulted in being that woman.

Daniel carried Josie into their room, his body on a collision course with a desire he could no longer control. Her little green bikini had started a chain reaction in him that was set to explode with nuclear proportions any second.

Stepping over the threshold, he kicked the door shut with enough force to leave it reverberating on its hinges.

“Daniel?” Josie’s eyes were fixed on him with a mixture of breathless passion and trepidation.

“I want you,” he growled down at her and then took possession of her mouth with all the hunger crashing through him.

He ate at her lips, tasting the sweet warmth that she reserved for him alone. His tongue pressed into the seam of her lips, and she gave him entrance, letting him taste her, tasting him, sucking on his tongue as though she couldn’t get enough of his mouth against hers.

The need to bury himself inside her expanded with each slide of her tongue against his and the swollen responsiveness of her lips until it was too big to contain. He dropped her to her feet, but couldn’t stop kissing her long enough to do something about the storm raging through him.

Finally, with a monumental effort of will, he broke the kiss and stepped back.

Damn, that little nothing of a swimsuit was going to give him a heart attack. The water had turned the green fabric dark, but it clung to her obviously aroused nipples and swollen curves in a way designed to send him over the edge of reason. If he wasn’t already there. His gaze shot down to where two small bows held the secrets of her femininity hidden behind a shimmering wet bit of fabric.

He wanted to get rid of that barrier.

“Take it off,” he ordered, his tone so guttural it was a wonder it didn’t scare her.

He forced himself to look at her face and make sure, but she didn’t look frightened at all, just dazed. Her eyes were dilated with passion, and her lips pouted an invitation to be taken again.

She licked them. “What?”

“Take off your swimsuit.” He’d managed a marginal improvement in his tone, but not enough to make his words sound like anything but a demand.

“Is that an order, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’d better obey. I don’t want to be court-martialed.” The words were teasing, but her voice was filled with desire.

He waited for her to comply, too far gone to help her without ruining the suit.

She reached around behind her and undid the bottom string holding her top in place. It fell down her sides, pulling the material away at the edges, but not revealing what he most needed to see.

“The other one, too.”

She reached up and untied the bow at her neck, pulling the top farther up until the underswell of her breasts showed, but nothing else. Her eyes glowed feminine challenge at him as she peeled the top away to reveal dark red nipples, puckered and swollen. She cupped her own breasts and rotated her palms over her turgid peaks until he thought he would explode in his trunks from watching her.

Her head tipped back, her mouth parting and her breathing rupturing. “This feels good, Daniel, but not nearly as good as it does when you touch me.”

“Then let me touch you.”

He started forward, but she put her hand up. “Not yet.”

He stopped, every muscle in his body vibrating with tension at the stress of holding back.

“I’m not finished.” Her hands dropped to her sides, and she tugged at the ends of the bows on either side of her hips.

Sweat broke out on his brow, and his fingers curled into tight fists with the effort it took not to reach out and touch her.

With teasing slowness, she unraveled the ties, but the wet suit stayed attached to her body.

“Pull it off.” He kept his hands locked at his sides, needing to watch her unveil herself for him on a primitive level he couldn’t begin to understand. “Please.”

Using them to tug the bottoms away from her skin, she spread her legs, and the green scrap of material fell to the floor, leaving her gloriously naked.

The burnished brown curls at the juncture of her thighs glistened with moisture that could be from the spa or her own excitement. The scent emanating off of her said she was very aroused, and he needed to taste that wetness to tell.

He fell to his knees in front of her and pressed her lips apart with his fingers. More glistening moisture beckoned as well as her clitoris, deep red with arousal. He put his mouth on her, and she screamed his name, her fingers locking tightly in his hair.

Swirling his tongue around her swollen bud, he reveled in the way she thrust her hips toward him, silently demanding more. He wanted to give it to her and changed the angle of his mouth so he could taste her very essence.

So sweet. He could eat her like this into eternity.

With a desperate rhythm, she pleasured herself on his tongue, but her panting pleas told him, she couldn’t find the ultimate satisfaction without his cooperation.

He wanted to be inside her when it happened and surged to his feet. She swayed, and he reached out to steady her, ready to pull her to him and make love.

But she stepped back. “Wait right here.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m still wet.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“I mean my body,” she croaked on a laugh that should have been impossible considering how excited they both were.

She spun on her heel and disappeared into the bathroom. She reappeared scant seconds later holding a fluffy bath towel. She used it to dry herself off, touching herself in places he was dying to taste again, and then moved forward until she stood directly in front of him.

“I want to dry you off, too.”

“Okay.” His voice cracked like an adolescent’s, and he didn’t even care. “But hurry.”

She started by taking his trunks off, carefully pulling the wet nylon over his throbbing hard-on and then pushing it down his thighs until he was as naked as she was.

“Step out of them,” she instructed, and he did, wondering how long he could let her be in charge.

If he’d thought the way she dried herself off was erotic foreplay, it was nothing compared to the way she used the towel to soak up excess moisture from his skin while exciting him to a painful level of arousal.

“I need you,” he whispered thickly as he lifted her against him.

“I need you, too, Daniel. Always.”

He couldn’t concentrate on the significance of that word, but he relished the knowledge she was as much his as he was hers. The ongoing obsession was a shared one.

She locked her legs around him like she’d done in the pool. This time there was no barrier of swimsuits to get in their way, and his sex pushed up inside of her. She pressed downward, so slick with her own excitement that he achieved penetration in one smooth advance.

Wrapping her arms around his head, she kissed him with voracious passion he more than matched. Using his hands on her hips, he moved her up and down on him, gyrating his pelvis with each thrust, and she came without warning on his fourth surge upward.

She convulsed around him, her body locked to his with complete and utter abandon. He couldn’t stop thrusting, and she made a guttural noise low in her throat, tearing her lips from his.

“Daniel, it’s too much!”

He just shook his head, unable to verbalize, but she wasn’t trying to get out of his arms, so he didn’t stop. Suddenly, she buried her face in his neck, and her body shook in a second orgasm. She bit him, and he reveled in the small violence, feeling his own orgasm build at the base of his shaft.

He wanted to drive for fulfillment with everything in him. Moving until he could press her against the wall, he started thrusting inside her with the power and depth he needed.

“I’m going to come!”