CHAPTER 3
Dara wanted to sneak up behind Matt and place her hands over his eyes. But she knew better. He’d been black ops for far too long; if she silently approached him from behind, she’d be in danger of triggering his muscle-memory response to defend and kill when an enemy tried to catch him off guard. He’d repeatedly warned her never to do that, and she’d taken his advice seriously.
Instead, as he was puttering in the kitchen of their rental home after their evening meal, putting the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, she stood at the entrance to the open-concept living area, her hand resting on the doorframe of their bedroom. They’d gotten home at five p.m.; Matt had bought fresh blue-striped snapper from a local fishmonger and gotten everything else he’d need to fix them their first Hawaiian meal from a local market. By six p.m., Dara was stuffed. They’d sat down on the bamboo couch and caught up with the international news from Al Jazeera America. It was the only station that Matt would watch for what he called “real news,” without the sensationalized drama that other news networks trotted out. He also liked BBC World News, broadcast from London, England. Those two, he said, he could sift through and get relevant, true news reporting. They both watched the two news-hour presentations and then discussed the events of the day.
Dara had discovered early on that Matt being a sergeant—an enlisted person in the Army and not an officer—was a fact that had no bearing on his innate intelligence, knowledge, or experience. The truth was, he’d taken courses long-distance and on campus for eight years in order to get his degree in politics. He never used the degree to become an officer in the Army, which he could have done. He liked being in the trenches with his men and his team. That was more important to Matt.
Dara had seen that leadership side of him at Bagram when they’d first met. She’d seen it when he’d rescued her from that ambush and was still seeing it now that he was home for thirty days’ leave.
This week in Hawaii was his last on leave. Dara was already mourning the fact that after their vacation he’d have to go back to Bagram to finish out his enlistment, which was up on March 1. Back into the hell of black ops and the possibility that he’d get wounded or killed. She worried a lot about that. She loved him with a desperation she’d never known. Craved his nearness, his thoughts, how he saw the world and how he loved and saw her. She was privy to his gentle side, and how she craved that closeness and tenderness with him! Dara didn’t know how she was going to survive without Matt’s presence. He was larger-than-life but humble, quiet, and an intense warrior and man. He knew who he was and made no excuses for it. He had a job waiting for him at Artemis Security, heading up the KNR—Kidnapping and Ransom—division. And he was looking forward to becoming a civilian and living with her, counting the months until June, when they would wed. Matt was anxious to leave the Army, anxious to have her in his bed every night and share his life with her.
Would Matt remain safe in Bagram? He had tried to explain to her that, during the winter months, the Taliban left and things quieted down in Afghanistan. It was only when spring arrived in April that there was an influx of Pakistani al-Qaeda and Taliban coming across the border, flooding back into war-torn Afghanistan, and Delta Force had to become more active and vigilant. Dara wasn’t completely convinced, because she knew how much Matt hadn’t told her during their run from that ambush. Only after the fact did he tell her the real shape they were in and how close they had come to getting captured. And it was all because of her lack of physical stamina, but he’d never said anything of the sort to her. Dara knew she had been too slow, clumsy, out of breath, out of shape, for hard winter mountain climbing. Matt had been like a nimble bighorn sheep, acclimated and enduring physical hardship with ease in comparison to her. But still, she worried about losing him over there when he returned to Afghanistan. She tried to push that worry away and focus on only now, only Matt.
“Hey,” she called softly, watching him lift his head from the dishwasher, where he’d placed the last of the dirty dishes. Matt grinned as he straightened.
“That sarong looks damn nice on you,” he said, shutting the dishwasher and turning it on.
Her whole body reacted heatedly to his burning inspection. “Like it?” Dara’s heart beat a little faster as she saw him wash his hands in the sink, dry them, and drop the towel on the counter, heading in her direction with focused intensity. Her breasts firmed, and her nipples hardened beneath that hooded, hungry look he was giving her as he approached.
“Like it?”
Matt gave her a dark look, absorbing her as she stood barefoot before him in her sarong. “Sweetheart, you give ‘sexy’ a whole new level of meaning,” he said, reaching out, lightly trailing his fingertips along her naked shoulder. She had fastened the sarong just above her breasts, the two ends of it pulled through a wooden clasp, so that the folds flowed down to her knees. The silk fabric was gossamer, and he saw her nipples clearly pushing outward against it. She had brushed her hair until it gleamed with molten highlights, the strands thick and heavy, curling against the top of the sarong. His erection responded when he saw how that sexy piece of nothing lovingly outlined her tall, graceful body. “I’d like to take a picture of you in that sarong. I want it for my cell phone, so when I’m in Afghanistan, I can open it up when I’m alone, look at it, and remember us . . .” He trailed his fingers up her slender throat, seeing the pulse of her artery fluttering against her thin flesh.
“I’m up for it,” she said, her voice wispy, unsteady. His fingers barely grazed her, more like a whisper than actual contact. Dara closed her eyes, absorbing that feathery touch of his, aching in her channel for him, feeling the heat burn bright and strong deep within her. Already, her inner thighs were damp with the promise of what he would share with her shortly.
Matt pulled out his cell phone and then moved back far enough to take the photo. Then he put his phone on the lamp stand next to the bamboo sofa. “You look incredible, like a vision.” He approached her, his fingertips trailing from her high cheekbones downward, outlining her lips, which parted beneath his touch. “Or,” he rasped, smiling into her upturned gaze, those midnight-blue eyes of hers dappled with gold in their depths, telling him how sexually starved she really was, “you’re one of the ancient goddesses. Maybe Artemis herself? Coming to visit a poor, mere mortal like me?”
She sighed beneath the skittering heat his stroke had created, her lips tingling, hungry to taste him, inhale his male scent and open herself up to him in every possible way. “I like Artemis. Can I pretend to be her tonight? And you’re that handsome mortal I saw from the marble steps of my temple at Ephesus?”
His smile increased as he studied her passionate expression, inhaling her womanly scent. He knew that Dara had found some plumeria oil, and he could smell its delicate scent on her skin. “I think,” he murmured, skating his fingers down her bare arms, making languid, slow patterns across them, “that you put Artemis to shame. You’re already my goddess.”
His words were so beautiful, so heartfelt, that Dara melted, because she knew Matt always said he wasn’t a man of words. But he really was. When it counted, he said the most incredible, heartwarming things to her. She stood quietly, allowing him to do whatever he wanted with her. She trusted him with herself. And always, he approached loving her as if she were indeed some beautiful goddess from the ancient past, worshipping her, respecting her, pulling her into himself, allowing her the freedom of her innate feminine expression, sharing it with him. Dara had never felt so valued, so important, to any man as she did with Matt. He adored her. And she’d never been cherished by a man until she met him. Before she could say anything, he scooped her up into his arms. She gave a little cry of surprise but quickly relaxed against him, feeling his strength, his hardness, and relishing that dark, hungry look he gave her.
“Well, goddess of mine,” he told her while walking her into their bedroom, “I am going to love you so well tonight that you will agree, upon waking tomorrow morning in my arms, to remain with me all week. Are you in agreement with my desire?”
She kissed his sandpapery cheek, inhaling him, tasting the salt on his skin, the scent of Hawaii upon him. “If you love me well enough, my mortal, I will deign to remain in your presence.”
“I believe,” he said smugly, depositing her on the bed, “I can please you, my lady. Stay there. I need to get a quick shower. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Dara sat there, her legs tucked beneath her, the folds of the sarong partly open between her thighs. She was sure Matt would find that exquisitely sexy. The man loved it when she wore seductive nighties, because he so enjoyed the slow torture that he put her through as he removed each scrap of cloth. It would be no different tonight because Matt, she had discovered, was a very tactile person. Taste was vital to him—licking her skin, driving her to distraction with that skilled tongue of his. He would inhale her scent and she would hear him growl with satisfaction, because he loved the fragrance of everything about her body. She was amazed that he could discern the subtle differences in the skin between her thighs, her breasts, her neck, and behind the lobe of her ear. He had an unerring sense of where the thinnest areas of her flesh were and would wring pleasure out of those super-sensitive areas until there were times when Dara thought she would faint from the intense sensations he gave her.
She was so deep in thought about him, she didn’t even realize he was coming out of the master bathroom until he was halfway to their bed. He’d washed his short hair, and a few strands dipped across his broad brow. As he drew near, she could smell the subtle odor of lime around him, and her channel tightened from that scent alone. Matt was teaching her how such subtleties all combined to make a session of lovemaking so very, very special and one of a kind.
“I’d take a cell photo of you just like that,” he said wryly, dropping the thick pink towel he carried over a nearby chair, “but if someone ever got on my phone and found it, they’d accuse me of downloading pornography.” He closed the bedroom door, shutting off the light. She had lit two tall yellow candles that sat on the dresser opposite their bed, and they lent just enough light.
She laughed with him as he knelt on the mattress, which dipped with his weight as he moved behind her, trapping her between his opened thighs. “Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” She could feel the heat of his body, inches from her own, her breasts tightening with anticipation. His thighs were long, incredibly honed, hard-feeling against her outer hips as he bracketed her. Matt was teaching her to use her sense of smell, and she inhaled the dampness of his skin as it tantalized her flaring nostrils, that teasing hint of lime combined with the sensation of tense, controlled masculinity. Dara wasn’t sure where imagination began or ended with him. Matt had admitted once that Delta Force put them through a lot of training to enhance their six senses, and yes, he was sharing what they’d taught him with her. Only he was opening up those remarkable, intriguing senses in a sexual way, which only made her burn hotter, need him more and much sooner. Dara was impatient to release her orgasms, which he could easily trigger. But he was what she termed a slow lover, someone who appreciated sensual nuances, gloried in them, drowned in them, before moving on to the next level, which was orgasms for her and a climax for him.
She groaned as he sat behind her and rested his hands on his long thighs. “You aren’t going to tease me to death tonight, are you, Matt?”
She heard him chuckle, that rumble across the expanse of his broad, dark-haired chest. “Why?” he asked, lifting her gold hair, moving his tongue languidly across her nape, feeling her react, hearing her breath catch, the sound feathering through him, telling him how much pleasure that one small touch gave her.
“Because,” she said poutily, turning, looking into his shadowed face, his eyes almost a gold color, “I’m hungry for you.”
“I thought you were tired from the jet lag.”
She gripped his thighs. “I’m not that tired, and you know it! It’s just thinking about you all day today, wanting more of you, more closeness with you . . .” She saw his eyes grow thoughtful, and she felt his male energy surrounding her almost like magic. He hadn’t touched her, but she felt him wrapping warmly around her, as if to say that he loved her, that he would always be this close to her whenever she needed him. “I mean”—her voice faltered as she held his gaze—“you’re going to be gone in seven days . . .”
“That’s it,” he rasped, leaning forward, licking her nape once more, holding that thick, silky hair to one side in his palm. “I’m always with you, sweet woman. You know that.”
The grittiness of his low, hungry voice thrummed through her, and her fingers dug into his thighs. “Matt, I need you. I want you to take me fast tonight, not slow. Can we do that?” She searched his hooded eyes, his mouth curving faintly as he lightly skimmed her shoulders with his fingers.
“You can have anything you want. You know that. You just have to tell me.”
Usually, that was true, but Dara had encountered times when fast still meant slow to Matt. “Then,” she said archly, “I’m taking over,” and she unwound from her position, slid off the bed, and turned around. She pulled on the clasp of the sarong and its folds fell to the floor, revealing her nakedness. She stood in the shadows, appreciating the primal expression that instantly came to his face. There was amusement in his eyes, and she knew he was pleased with her feminine assertiveness. Dara wondered, as she pushed him back on the bed, allowing him to straighten out his legs before she straddled his hips with her thighs, if sometimes he was teaching her how to go after what she wanted.
“I like my alpha goddess,” Matt teased, sliding his hands around her flared hips, bringing her wet core down across his erection. The moment her juices encased his length, he groaned, closing his eyes, feeling the zings of pleasure coursing through him like ragged bolts of heat and lightning.
“Well,” she warned him throatily, her hair cascading across her shoulders as she leaned down, her hands flat against his chest, her core sizzling and needy as he slowly moved his hips, sliding her back and forth, “you’re right. I’m feeling very alpha tonight.”
A pleased expression came to Matt’s face, and she felt him tightening his hands around her hips.
“Then come and get what you want, sweetheart. I’m all yours . . .”
A dream come true! Dara gave a pleased sound deep in the back of her throat. “About time,” she said, and returned his curving smile, loving him for allowing her to be who she needed to be, not what he wanted her to be. Normally, Dara wasn’t this assertive, but tonight, for whatever reason, she was starving for some orgasms. Maybe it was the right time of month for her, the hormones pushing her. Right now, she wanted this man inside her, swelling, thickening, so hard and stroking her insides until she erupted and one of those long, throbbing, delicious orgasms rippled down through her.
“Ready?” she asked, challenging him.
“More than you’ll ever know.”
She gave him a wary look but became convinced when Matt easily lifted her off him just enough for her entrance to settle over him. That made her quiver, and she shut her eyes, lost in the sensations of their centers suddenly and unexpectedly meeting, the juices thickening and quickening within her. World burning up, fire cascading through her as she eased down upon him, impaling herself on the warm, hard steel of him sliding deeper and deeper within her, she luxuriated in the delicious fusion. She didn’t need a lot of foreplay to get her ready for Matt. Just his slowly moving her up and down upon his willing shaft, feeling him grow and swell within her, made her moan with anticipation.
There was giddy power in taking him, doing exactly as she needed to do to gain that wonderful, building orgasm. He’d hardly even touched her nipples, tasted her, or licked her at all. She was so ready, and when he brought more weight down on her hips, her orgasm triggered. A scream caught in her throat, she threw her head back, her long torso arching as he prolonged the milking of that explosion swiftly undulating through her. The world stopped existing and there was only her, riding that orgasm, being hurled into light, tumbling, free, the pleasurable sensations moving up and down her spine like burning lightning. Floating, unaware of anything in those moments, Dara heard a hoarse cry tear from her throat. Her fingers dug spasmodically into Matt’s taut chest, her entire body flexing around the melting orgasm that was flooding every sense she had.
The sensations were like small tidal waves of heat combined with tinier explosions, racing outward, making her surrender and collapse against Matt’s long, damp body. He caught her, easing her down against him, her hair swirling around his face and shoulder where she nestled her brow next to his jaw. Dara’s breath was ragged and she couldn’t move, lost in the satisfaction glazing her heart and soul as he continued to gently thrust into her, initiating more sensations, prolonging the initial orgasm for her. Her heart exploded with such fierce love for Matt. He cared for her, he cared that she be gratified fully and completely. Never had a man been so focused on her needs. How lucky she was to be loved by him.
Later, Matt lay quietly, feeling Dara’s ragged breathing begin to calm. He loved her long, sinuous form paralleling his, the dampness of her flesh, the plumeria scent combining with the lime of the soap he’d used earlier. The tickling warmth of her blond hair against his neck and jaw made him smile. There was no part of his woman that he didn’t love, want to touch, lick, kiss, and nip as the occasion arose. She was an ongoing dessert to him, to his wide-open senses, and he smiled, eyes closed, luxuriating in her fully and completely.
As Dara slowly emerged from being dazed, and he kissed her hair and rasped, “Better now?” He felt her laugh. No sound escaped her, but he felt it and smiled, his hand resting lightly against her back, skimming her damp skin, hoping to give her more pleasure through his touch. Very soon after that, she fell asleep. He tugged the nearby sheet upward, drawing it over them. Matt was more than content to have Dara sleep on top of him. Her weight was half of his, and she was like a warm, fragrant blanket poured over his body. Dara was tired, and he knew the past few months were catching up with her. Matt didn’t have the heart to move or disturb her now. It was going to be a deep, healing sleep.
He lay there, his one arm resting against her waist, the other across her opposite shoulder, the thick strands of her hair beneath his fingers. Never had he loved anyone so deeply, so completely, as he did Dara. She slept like an innocent baby in his arms, trusting and vulnerable in every possible way. Closing his eyes, he felt filled with happiness. Matt was sure he was going to burst wide open from the intense emotions he felt for her. He’d never had a woman pry him open, steal his lonely heart, and then hold it with such sweet, innocent love as she had for him.
Matt felt her breath against his body, absorbing the moisture of it against his neck and upper chest, his mind moved languidly to the weeks they’d spent on her family’s ranch in Montana. Callie, her younger sister, was improving after the trauma she’d suffered, with the help of Beau Gardner, who was there to fortify and support her. Callie had nearly been raped by several Taliban soldiers while they were running for their lives after that ambush. Beau had taken her in the opposite direction from Dara and Matt, hoping to split up the Taliban faction. It had been a brilliant strategy, but all told? Matt had taken Dara into the mountains. Beau had elected to take Callie toward the river in the valley and then thirty-five miles south through a lot of hilly country, to reach Bagram on foot. And they were within miles of Bagram when Callie disobeyed his order to hide and not move as he went to engage a group of Taliban coming their way. She was a civilian and didn’t realize how crucial it was to follow Beau’s instructions. As the Taliban had drawn closer to where Callie was hidden, she’d panicked and bolted. She’d brought six enemy down upon her, and they were in the midst of tearing her clothes off to rape her when Beau heard her screams and came running back to save her. It had been close. Too close. Callie had been emotionally broken by that attack. They never got to rape her, but it was close enough to shatter her. Beau had saved her life and ended up getting a leg wound out of the deal as he placed himself between her and their enemy.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Matt moved his hand across Dara’s sleeping form. Thank God, she’d listened to him at every turn. She had never panicked as Callie had. She’d done exactly as he’d requested. His admiration for her courage under lethal circumstances rose. Because Dara had done what he asked her to, they’d survived.
At the McKinley ranch, Beau was falling in love with Callie. But the guilt she felt because she’d disobeyed him at a critical juncture in their escape, drawing down an attack that had left her damaged and Beau wounded, had driven deep into Callie. In that week when he and Dara had visited after Christmas, there had been a lot of tension in the McKinley family. And it was Dara, the big sister, who had slowly pulled Callie out of her shame and guilt over her actions. Matt had seen how hard it had been on Dara. Every night, when they went to bed, he’d hold her and she’d cry quietly in his arms. And then he would slowly love her, getting her to release the pain her sister was going through, to focus on her pleasure, on them, instead. And he’d purposely moved slowly as he made love to her, because her attention was centered on Callie, not on herself or him.
By the end of that week, he’d watched Dara begin to drag. Dark smudges appeared beneath her eyes because of her long, emotional, intense late-night discussions with Callie. Unlike her sister, Dara was not likely to fall into the emotional trap of allowing her feelings to run her. As a doctor, she couldn’t do that and still be of help to her suffering patients. But Callie wasn’t built like that, so it took extra energy, emotion, and sheer physical endurance to reach Callie and get her to look at the necessary changes she had to put into place for herself.
It had been a long week for Dara, so Matt wanted to make these last seven days before he had to leave hers. Dara needed to heal from that intense family drama with her sister. The McKinley family was flummoxed by how to help Callie. Beau had become her anchor, and Dara was the chain attached to that anchor. Both of them had helped Callie out of the hellish guilt that she’d carry forever if she were allowed to do so. Dara and Beau had talked privately to one another on how best to pull her sister out of the notion that everything that happened to them was her fault. After all, it had been Callie who had persuaded a reluctant Dara to go out to that Afghan village with her. When things went sideways, Callie took all the guilt onto her shoulders.
Matt spent many hours talking with her sister as well. Beau helped a lot, too. Their grandfather Graham McKinley had been a Marine Corps sniper during the Gulf War. He had earned medals, including a Silver Star, for his black-ops heroism, which the world would never know about. He was instrumental in helping Callie reorient and see that her actions were forgivable. After all, she was not a trained military person, but rather a civilian with no training. And anyone in her place would have done the same thing. Between the three parties, Callie had finally emerged from that dark hell that had entrapped her. And Beau was there to welcome her back into his arms, love her, and support her.
The toll on Dara was something Matt saw daily, but he couldn’t say anything. He knew how devoted Dara was to her little sister. He was the same with Tal and Alexa. They were family, and when shit happened, families came together to support one another, no matter what it took out of them. This was one of those times for the McKinley family, but Dara had paid the steepest price, other than Callie herself. There were days when Matt could swear that Dara had given part of her life energy to Callie to help her survive. He’d seen other situations where a person’s soul or their emotions had been fractured, fragmented, or parts of it had been torn away from them forever. It was the worst kind of wounding in Matt’s opinion. He was lucky. He’d only experienced physical injuries, and the body healed up a helluva lot faster than emotions and minds.
But Matt knew now, more than ever, that love could heal the most egregious wounds in another person. And as Dara slept innocently across his body, the sweet smell of her skin an aphrodisiac to him, he knew that tonight, this was what she needed. He didn’t try to figure out why; he just tried to love her as completely as he could. And if that meant he didn’t climax, that was all right. Some things were more important than personal sexual gratification.
That was the last thought Matt had as he slid into a deep, healing sleep himself, the woman he loved more than life in his arms. He would never get enough of Dara, those warm feelings flowing through him like light chasing away darkness. She flooded him with her joy, taking him into a place where only promises of bliss existed and held him in their embrace.