As if sensing her mood trying to slide downward again, he gave her a playful squeeze, shifted to speak closer to her ear, tease her with his breath. “I admit, I throw in the pay-it-forward thing to make me sound sensitive, rather than a macho chauvinist Rambo.

Impress the girls.”

“I like Rambo.” She smiled against his muscular heat, brushed her lips there. “And you’ve already blown your cover. I know you’re a macho chauvinist. Sitting out on your dock, making your woman give you head while you drink beer and watch alligators.”

“You passed the audition with flying colors. Most I interview fail miserably, though I give a few of them points for enthusiasm.”

She thumped him, but when he caught her fist, the humor had disappeared from his voice, leaving a rough note that told her she wasn’t the only one vibrating with need. “My woman. I like the sound of that.”

So did she, fool that she was. “You are sensitive, in some ways,” she said. The way a man should be sensitive. She could hear the reassuring beat of his heart so easily this way, her cheek pressed to his chest. “A little heavy-handed and possessive, but there’s nothing mean about you. You’re determined, and you believe in what’s right and wrong. You’d tear your heart out if someone really needed it.” She traced his pectoral again, let her fingers start to drift downward.

“Using flattery to have your way with me?” But despite the teasing, there was a strained quality to his voice.

“I know you’re hard, Master. Why won’t you fuck your slave?” She made it a whisper and felt the jump under her hand where she’d managed to inch down to his cock, slide it over the head, straining against fabric. He caught her hand.

“Because she’s tired, and my first job is to take care of her. So she’ll be up for serving my needs later.” He brushed his lips across her brow. “Though I’m pleased you’re thinking about wanting to please me.”

She was. She was also surprised by how urgent her need was to perform that role for him, no matter her exhaustion. Before her accident happened, she’d realized that the night between them had gone far beyond roles and performances. Her need for him, to be his submissive, had only gotten fiercer the longer she was away from him. The craving was as relentless now, practically blood and bone deep. She’d been so quick to believe it was gone, beyond her reach, but a need like this didn’t evaporate on command. Every time she’d thought of him or heard one of his letters, it had stirred, but at his reappearance, it had flared high and hot, restored to full, vibrant life. Vibrant anything was something she’d thought beyond her reach as well.

He held her like a velvet cuff, relentless and gentle both, and she relaxed into that hold.

When she slid into the warm waters of a dreamless sleep, she was still confused, but for the first time in a long time, she lacked the jagged ache in her throat, the lonely sense of isolation squeezing her heart. He was here, and she could sleep in his arms.

Nine

She didn’t wake until the next morning. While the loss of time chagrined her, she was amazed she’d slept so deeply. She woke as she’d fallen asleep, secure in his arms, and wondered if he’d moved at all. His body was warm and strong beneath hers, his thigh still tangled with both of hers, which initiated all sorts of prurient thoughts. He wasn’t going to be deterred, however. He pressed a kiss to her temple before she could push for something more, and lifted her out of the bed.

“We’ll do a workout, and then have some breakfast. I’ve got a sports bra and shorts here for you.”

The man had a damn Gold’s Gym in his house. Within no time, she was sure he must have been a drill sergeant before he was an officer. He put her on his treadmill, guiding her hands to the supports, and then worked her up to some god-awful speed guaranteed to send her into cardiac arrest. Right before that red zone, he put her into cooldown. While she listened to the faint clink and thud of weights as he did his lifting near her, she could smell the pleasant aroma of male sweat, and imagined him there, on his back, lifting the bar over his head.

“How much do you press?” she asked, fumbling for the towel he’d left on the treadmill arm to pat her sweaty neck. Now that she was thinking about it, she realized the speed and incline probably weren’t that hard—she was just so damn out of shape.

“Two hundred this morning. I do about four hundred in a deadweight lift. You did good.

Pull the tab out and the treadmill will stop. Then come over here.” A clank and shudder through the floor suggested he’d dropped the weights into their cradle. She stepped off the treadmill, lifted her hands, seeking the weight set or him. She located him, or rather his bare, slick chest. Her fingers drifted, finding from his loose waistband that he was wearing only a pair of jeans. She wondered if he was barefoot, liking that picture. His short hair maybe a little rumpled, since neither of them had showered yet. Lifting her hand to his face, she traced his jaw, felt the morning shadow.

“Is it gold, like your chest?”

“Yeah, sweetheart. Or as Lucas calls it, baby hair.”

She smiled. “You know there’s an inverse relationship between how much men care about one another and how much they insult one another.”

“That’s why we have girls. So we can be emotional and wimpy with someone who won’t hold it against us.”

“Yeah, right. You big pussy.”

He chuckled. “Not a good idea to insult your personal trainer this morning. Not if you want pancakes for breakfast.”

He took her through the machines and again pushed her to her limits, though she found that severely below where she’d once been. It didn’t matter that she’d been part of the cause, unwilling to move out of a chair for months. She couldn’t help resenting it, how quickly she exhausted, the weakness of the left side. For some perverse reason, it underscored how handicapped she felt, even though this was something she knew she could change. She was biting back tears by the time she worked her way around to all the machines and found she could barely meet the minimum recommended reps.

It didn’t make it any easier that he held all the control, holding himself away from her like a damn animated piñata she couldn’t see, taunting her with his proximity.

“Sweetheart, you’re getting there. Here.” He guided her hands up to the triceps pull, even though her arms were shaking. “Hold on to these.”

“I can’t do any more. I’m—”

He closed his hands over hers, holding her grip, but instead of getting tougher with her, he bent to her throat to suck off the beads of sweat gathered in the tender pocket formed by her collarbone, right under her collar. Her rapid breath caught in her throat, and she let out a moan he answered by following the track down to her cleavage. The sports bra was tight, too tight. When he cupped her, she wanted to feel the callused palms against her female flesh. He answered her unspoken desire, pushing up the plastic band and letting it constrict over the curves, baring her nipples to the air.

“Oh, God . . .” He was fondling her, slow kneading, strokes and pinches of the nipple, as if he had all the time in the world. Her hands convulsed on the pulleys. How did he know to shift his attention from the weight of the curve, to tracing the shape, to teasing the nipple, and alternating the stimulation in myriad delicious ways, making her rock against him, gasp and groan at the torture? He didn’t have to say how much he adored her breasts. She felt it in every touch, in his heated attention to every inch of them, but then he spoke, making her crazier.

“I’d love to do breast bondage on you, sweetheart. Use rope to lift and squeeze these beauties, put a bar clamp on them so when I removed it you’d feel tingling through every nerve ending, make you come when the blood rushes back into the nipples. Get them pierced so I could keep you in jewels, tug on them whenever I want.” The military didn’t allow body piercings. But that wasn’t a problem anymore, was it?

Though that brought a shot of pain, it was balanced by the image of what he was suggesting. “I bet you like sparkling things, don’t you, Dana? I’d put you in diamonds, maybe some gorgeous emeralds, like your eyes.”

She tried to use her stomach muscles to lift her legs and wrap them around his hips, but she couldn’t do it without his help, and he wouldn’t let her get that close. “You want me to touch your pussy so bad, don’t you?”

“Please . . .” she whispered.

“I love your begging, but you don’t want it bad enough yet.” Adjusting her sports bra back over her breasts, he smoothed his palms over the aching nipples. Before she could say something nasty she was sure would get her into all the right sorts of trouble, he had her doing triceps pulls. Christ. Then hip abductions, the seam of her shorts rubbing against a very wet pussy. But she was using her other senses, and she noted that when he counted off for her, his voice had a tight note. When he went into the next room to get them some more water, the rhythm of his steps through the vibrations of the wood floor was uneven. She curled her lip in feline satisfaction.

“Your gait sounds a little off there, Captain. Hauling something heavy?” Coming to her side, he helped her find the weight blocks and showed her where to put the pin for the next rep. As he did, he bumped her hip in warning, bouncing her off him a couple feet. “Keep it up, Sergeant.”

When she snorted, she heard his sexy, self-deprecating chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, I know.

You are. Behave and I’ll give you some water.”

The bottle had a straw, which he guided to her lips as he drew her close within his arm span. As his palm smoothed over the curve of her ass, he let her rest her hand on his bare chest, though she itched to drop her touch to explore straining denim. “Ready for another rep?”

“No.” She suppressed a sigh. “Everything’s harder. My joints hurt and my balance isn’t for shit. I feel like such a damned girl.” God, she was whining.

“You are a girl.” He gave the back of her head a quick stroke. A soldier’s reassurance, not a caress. A brisk gesture that said, You can do this. “You know, there’s a great yoga person who can help you improve your flexibility and balance. She’s a PT as well. We think Jon has the hots for her, so he could charm her into a discount rate.” That should sound like a good idea, but instead it irritated her. She didn’t want to go through all this. She just wanted to be herself again, now. She chose not to respond, since she knew she would only sound waspish, but Peter wouldn’t let her get away with that.