CHAPTER 13
Jamie felt Audrey’s arms tighten around him and he clung to her, sapping up her strength just like every other selfish bastard who’d come before him. God, he was pathetic. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. She’d just kept on and on, and then when she’d told him that she could feel it too--that his pain was hurting her--that was just the last damned straw.
“Oh, honey,” she said. She tugged him toward the cottage. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”
Jamie allowed her to guide him, was numb from the cold, from arguing, from the grief he’d been carrying for so long. He should be taking care of her, not the other way around, and yet he wasn’t strong enough to deny himself her comfort. Selfishly, he needed it. No, it was more than that--he needed her.
Audrey grabbed the bottle of Jameson from the kitchen counter, then lead him toward the bathroom. She quickly adjusted the tap and started the shower. One quick guzzle of whiskey later, they were both naked and under the spray. The hot water beat down like little needles of fire, warming his skin back up. She lathered him up, washed his hair, was gentle but not overtly sexual. It was nice, Jamie thought, to be able to be with a naked woman--one he admittedly wanted more than any other on the planet--and yet be content to not act on that desire. He supposed that’s what happened when you found the right one.
In short order, she had them both clean, warm, dressed and situated in front of a small fire. She’d tossed a couple of easy-start logs into the grate and a cozy warmth soon permeated the room.
Her hair still wet, and wearing one of his shirts, she sat down beside him and offered him her hand. A simple gesture, but one that had a singularly profound effect on his heart. His throat clogged.
Okay, he thought, blowing out an uneasy breath. She wanted to know about Danny. Where to start? “You were right,” Jamie told her. “Danny was in my unit. I’m assuming your grandfather told you a little bit about him and--“ He cleared his throat. “--what happened?”
She nodded once. “Some. He’d mentioned that you’d lost a good friend recently.”
“That’s the watered down version.” He traced a finger over her palm. Swallowed. “Danny was more than a good friend. He was more like a brother. Our unit was like that. Tight. We met in college, the four of us. Me, Danny, Guy and Payne.” Jamie smiled, remembering. Young and dumb, he thought, hell-bent on changing the world. “Guy and Payne are my business partners in Ranger Security,” he added as an aside. The silence yawned between them, then shook his head. “When Danny died, we... We all wanted out.”
“That’s certainly understandable,” Audrey told him. “Surely you don’t fault yourself for that?”
“No, not for that,” Jamie said. “I fault myself for not saving him.”
“Oh, Jamie,” she sighed, smoothing the hair above his ear. “You can’t fault yourself for that either.”
He could and he did. Tears burned the backs of his lids, his chest ached with the pressure of guilt. Jamie swore, wiped his eyes. “I was supposed to have his back,” he said, his voice cracking. “Not Payne. Not Guy. Me. I was the one who was supposed to make sure nothing happened to him.”
In an instant, Audrey was in his lap. She straddled him, framed his face with her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye. “Jamie that’s a good intention, but it’s not always possible.”
“But--“
She shushed him. “Let me ask you something. Did you follow procedure?”
“Of course.”
“Didn’t vary from what you were supposed to do and took every precautionary measure?”
“Yes, but--“
“Were you operating on good intelligence?”
She was definitely the Colonel’s granddaughter, Jamie thought. He’d asked many of these same questions. “Yes.”
“Then what went wrong?”
A cold chill slid down his back. “We were ambushed.”
Her thumbs gently swept his cheeks. “Then how were you supposed to have his back?”
Jamie started to reply, but found he couldn’t answer.
“You would have had to been psychic to know what was going to happen,” she said softly. She bent forward and sipped up his tears, causing the flow he’d been holding back for eight months to come rushing forward in a cleansing torrent he didn’t have a prayer of stopping. He cried for Danny, he cried for himself, he cried for his friends.
“Let it go,” she said, hugging him tightly. She rocked him back and forth, the movement soothing and tender and heartbreakingly sweet. “I’ve got you, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Just let it all go. If he was the kind of friend worthy of this grief, then he wouldn’t want you holding onto it like this, would he?”
No, he wouldn’t, Jamie thought. Odd how he’d never looked at it that way. It was sobering and freeing and he felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off his chest.
Audrey drew back, showered his face with healing kisses, sprinkled them along his jaw, lingered around the corner of his mouth. Jamie turned his head and caught her lips, fitted his hands on the small of her back. God, she tasted wonderful, he thought, savoring the flavor of her against his tongue. What had he ever done without her?
Knowing what he wanted--what he needed--she upped the intensity of the kiss, slid her hands down his chest, then back up again, over his neck and into his hair. An arrow of heat landed in his groin, stirring his dick beneath her.
Audrey groaned into his mouth--the sound desperate and erotic--and wriggled on top of him, rocking her hips forward to catch the ridge of his arousal. A sweet sigh stuttered out of her mouth and into his. He cupped her rump and smiled against her lips as he made a pleasant discovery--no panties. They were piled on the bathroom floor with the rest of their wet clothing.
Jamie found the hem of the shirt and tugged it up over her head, then cast it aside. Full creamy breasts crowned with rosy budded nipples. Tiny waist. A thatch of dark brown curls.
Heaven.
He bent his head forward and drew one perfect nipple into his mouth, and a commingled sigh of pleasure leaked from both his and Audrey’s lungs. “I love it when you do that,” Audrey told him. “I can feel it all the way down here,” she said, rubbing herself against him. “It makes my belly all hot and muddled. Makes my joy juices start running.”
Jamie growled low in his throat as his dick jerked beneath her. The only thing that separated him from her was a pair of boxer briefs. She leaned forward and licked a hot path up his neck, sighed into his ear, causing a wave of gooseflesh to break out over his skin. He felt a single bead of moisture leak from his dick.
She rocked against him once more, gasped as the pleasure barbed through her. “I need you,” she said, her voice throaty and broken and every bit as desperate as he was.
Jamie shifted beneath her, freeing his dick from the briefs and felt her warm juices slide over the swollen head of penis.
He set his jaw and gritted his teeth.
Audrey’s mouth opened in a silent O of pleasure and she moved against him once more, bumping the head of him against her clit. “God, that feels good,” she told him, arching her neck back.
Jamie pushed against her, deliberately coating the length of him with her wet heat. “It can feel even better.”
A sexy chuckle rattled up her throat. “Oh, I know it can,” she said confidently. Then she arched herself up, positioned him at her entrance and impaled herself upon him.
A smile of sublime satisfaction transformed her gorgeous face to something almost painfully beautiful. Her lids drooped and a gasp of sheer erotic delight slipped past her lips.
Hot, wet, tight, Jamie thought, struggling to keep from coming right then. He’d never been one to detonate upon entry, but nothing had ever felt so fabulous as the feel of Audrey’s sweet little body hovering over his, balancing on his dick. He grasped her hips, thrust up, pushing himself even further into her.
Her mouth found his once more, desperate, frantic, but confident and sure. She wasn’t just making love to him, he realized, she was laying siege. For every parlay of her tongue, she rocked against him, tightened her feminine muscles. The combination made every one of senses soar, made him buck frantically beneath her. She was everywhere. On top of his body, inside his mouth, inside his head...inside his heart.
“Oh, Jamie,” she groaned, the throaty purr the sexiest thing he’d ever heard. “I’m gonna-- I think--“
The seed of climax had taken root, Jamie knew, upping his thrusts. He reached down between their joined bodies, found the bud nestled in the peak of her curls and stroked her.
Predictably, she went wild.
Her breath came in short broken gasps, she tightened around him, making his balls shrink and his dick threaten to explode. Jamie set his jaw, stroked her harder. Come on, baby, he thought. Give it to me so I can let it go.
A second later, she went rigid with release, a long scream tore from her throat, and she convulsed around him. The picture she made in that instant would forever be burned into his retinas. She was...amazing. A goddess.
Jamie’s own release followed hers. The orgasm shot so hard from his loins it would have blasted paint off the wall. He went weak--literally weak. His vision blackened around the edges, his breath came in ragged gasps and his legs felt like they were going to fall off.
Sweet mother.
Audrey sagged against his chest, rested her head against his shoulder and pressed a breathless kiss against his neck. “Can I tell you something?” she asked.
It took effort, but he managed to find his voice. “Sure.”
“I think I’m in love with you.”
Emotion clogged his throat, preventing him from immediately returning the sentiment. Danny may have died in his arms...but he’d just been reborn in hers.