Chapter Twenty-One

It seemed surreal, holding Chance in a full embrace like she was, but Suede didn’t care. This was what she’d wanted since he’d left to go after York. To have him safe and sound in her arms after all the terrible things that could’ve happened, warmed her like nothing else. He’d come for her and that made twice she owed him. Once for saving her life, this time for saving her soul.

Her fingers wandered up the back of his neck to tangle in his shaggy hair. He smelled of wind and snow mixed with manly sweat, and that epithelial-filled combination was fast becoming her favorite fragrance. Lifting her chin, her nose grazed his bearded chin.

“What’s wrong, Chance?” He seemed distraught, but why he’d thought she’d died was a puzzle she didn’t have the answer to. “And don’t tell me ‘nothing’. I’m not stupid. You’re upset. Talk to me.” She had been sleeping extra sound after her debacle in the kitchen and puking her guts up in the bathroom with Pagan, but she didn’t look that bad, did she? She’d brushed her hair, and she’d finally found a toothbrush. Her breath was decent again. Okay, so maybe she had a bad case of bed-hair, but what’d he expect from a woman who was lucky to be alive?

He tilted his upper body away from her but kept his hands on her biceps. “Pagan told me you weren’t feeling well, and I thought—”

Canting her head, she got into that space between them where he had no choice but to look down at her. “You thought I was dying?”

A nearly imperceptible quiver was her only answer.

“You called me Mom,” she whispered. He’d sounded so desperate then, as if he were beseeching his mother for help.

“No, I didn’t, I… I...” He rolled his neck, drawing his gaze away from her as he huffed, struggling with something that seemed to be tearing him apart. “It was just that… Shit. I mean…” One hand stabbed into the dark shadows of his hair like a rake in a pitch black haystack.

Suede tapped her index finger to his lips, tracing the lower lip because it was so full and soft. So inviting.

Chance blew out a tremendous sigh, feathering the tangles that had fallen over her forehead with a gentle peppermint breeze. She closed her eyes and took it in, promising to remember him for the rest of her life by this simple fragrance. Peppermint and evergreen would forever bring back memories of Chance Sinclair and the time he saved her life.

“Mom died when I was out of the country on my last deployment, Suede. I wasn’t there and I should’ve been. Pagan and Kruze made it to her bedside in time, but I was… I was—”

“On an important mission, right?” she finished for him. “You couldn’t get home to her in time, and you haven’t forgiven yourself for not being there, have you?”

His eyes closed and Suede was afraid she’d ruined the tender moment. No man had ever confided in her like this before and she wasn’t quite sure if she’d responded correctly. This was a new and rewarding experience to be allowed an intimate insight into a warrior as fierce and as locked up tight as Chance Sinclair. Compared to him, Pagan was a big fluffy teddy bear and York was an empty scarecrow, stuffed full of BS.

“That’s the thing. The Navy would’ve sent me home if they’d known, but I thought I had more time. My mission was important, and I thought she could wait until…” Chance blew out another sigh. “Shit, never mind. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You sure you’re okay?”

His voice had grown thin and tight with every word. He still suffered for what had happened to his men and his mom. His grief was a living, breathing monster on his back, and Suede wanted, somehow, to make it go away.

She nodded, bumping against his scruffy chin in the process. “Like I said, I am now that you’re here.” But she wasn’t about to let him change the subject. “Did you know how bad your mom was? Did you know she was dying?”

He shook his head. “None of us boys did. We didn’t know she’d had breast cancer before then either. Damn. There were a lot of signs we missed.”

Suede found it endearing that he still referred to himself and his brothers as boys. “She sounds like a normal mother, shielding her boys from the ugly side of life.” I wish mine was more like her.

“But I thought we were tight. Why’d she keep that from us? We weren’t babies. We deserved to know.”

Suede bit her bottom lip. She had no experience with the behavior of a caring woman like Scarlett Sinclair in her life. The closest she could relate was her high school girlfriend, Karen Singleton’s relationship with her mom. They treated each other like girlfriends, like best friends. They confided in each other. Shared things. Went to movies together. “I don’t know, but I’m a little jealous for the time you did have with your mom. I’d give everything to have had someone like her in my life, even if it was just for a couple years.”

“I lived with her, Suede. I lived with her, and she still kept that from me.”

Her eyes widened. She’d assumed he’d been divorced, or something the way he’d tended to her. “You weren’t married?”

“No way. Deployments are tough on married guys. I’ve watched plenty go through divorces. Why would I do that to a woman?”

She had no answer, but wow. A man like Chance still living at home with his mom. You didn’t hear that every day. “You, umm, lived with your mother?”

His brows slammed together. “In the same gated community, not the same house. Not like either of us was home much, but she wanted to stay close. Said it made her feel safer. I didn’t mind. Lots of SEALs lived there with their families.”

Oh, good. It was her idea. Not his. That helped. An older woman on her own deserved someone she could trust within driving distance. For a moment there, Suede thought he might have been a mama’s boy. It was time for another change of discussion. “So you were injured during the time you lost your mom?”

A groan eked out of Chance. “Yeah. Same time.”

Her fingers lifted automatically to his cheek, threading through the scruffy beard there, wishing she knew how to make him feel better. “So you were distracted when you got the news, weren’t you? That’s when you were hurt.”

“No, I didn’t get the news she’d passed until after I was rescued. That wasn’t why I lost most of my team. We hit a piece of bad intel and ended up in the middle of an ambush. The only things that saved us were the Little Birds on our six that day.”

She cocked her head, her hand not breaking their link. “Little Birds?”

“MH-6 light helicopters. We were working with the Night Stalkers on that mission and—”

This man spoke in code. “Night Stalkers?”

The tension eased out of his body while he explained. “I forget, sorry. You’re not one of the guys. The Night Stalkers are the 160^th Spec Ops Aviation Regiment out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They fly us black ops guys into tight places. It’s called an insertion. That day we went in by Blackhawk, but lucky for us, we had four baby birds on stand-by. While one laid down suppressive fire, the others pulled us out. So, yeah. Same fucking day.”

Oh, oh, he’d cursed. “The same day?” Suede swallowed hard. Not the same week? “So your team was hit the same day that... you nearly died the same day that...” She couldn’t say it, so she cupped the back of his head, pulling him in closer, so damned sorry that he’d lost his sweet mom the same day he’d lost his team and almost his life. “I’m so sorry, Chance. You didn’t know she was gone until you finally called home, did you?”

He shook his head, blinking, but not meeting her gaze. “I never got the chance. My CO gave me the news when I came to in the hospital.” Chance cupped her chin, rotating her head to one side then the other, studying her from what angles he could, given the lack of much light in his bedroom, but still not making eye contact.

She wasn’t certain if he meant to hit her or kiss her. York would’ve told her to shut up long ago. He would’ve punctuated that order with a smack or two, and she would’ve run to her room to escape the prying eyes of his ‘friends’. But then, he never would’ve shared this much of his heart in the first place.

Chance met her eyes then. “Let it go, Suede. I can’t change what happened six months ago. What’s important now is that you’re not dying. You never were, were you?” His fingers traced her still swollen bottom lip, seeming to need to make certain.

She allowed the change of discussion. Some things were too hard to talk about. “I did too much today, and I wore myself out. I should’ve listened to Pagan and stayed in bed, but I’m definitely going to live.”

She would’ve sung and danced to prove her point, but her eyes had finally grown used to the dark and Suede couldn’t look away. His face was dark and fierce. Predatory at an instinctual, elemental level where animal impulses ruled at a glance. Where anything could happen.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said, a gruff growl to his tone.

Every last one of her resolutions vanished into thin air. “Ah huh,” she said, her tongue already moistening her lips in preparation and her heart singing its happy song, ‘Yes, oh yes, oh yessssssss!’

Chance closed the distance by one painfully slow centimeter at a time, not taking his gaze from her. Suede lifted her arms and circled his neck. But where she’d expected rough handling and frenzy, he took her with the most reverent kiss she’d ever tasted instead. There was no biting or mashing of teeth to this peppermint flavored encounter, just a gentle connection that sent shivers racing up her spine and over her scalp. He drew her against his massive chest, pressing her breasts where she wanted them pressed, molded her to him like she belonged Right. There. Like a shirt or a coat or his—heart.

A quiet, sad groan wound up and out of his throat, sparking a maternal instinct inside Suede she had no idea she possessed until then. This gentle man needed something from her, and it wasn’t sex. There was no foreplay to this contact, no wandering male fingers probing her feminine defenses or roaming under her shirt. No pinching. Rubbing. No fondling.

If anything, he seemed intent on absorbing what was left of her wounded soul into his, offering his strength as he took something, she wasn’t quite sure what, from her. Whatever it was, he seemed to need it as much as she needed him, so she relaxed into his embrace like a lover.

For the first time, Suede was aware of the hard balance of his musculature against her soft curves. Her heart awoke to the easy give and take of the male and female forms. He wasn’t using his strength against her. He didn’t have to. Puzzle pieces. They were two lost puzzles pieces that had found each other compatible, and were interlocking in a physical way that defied all the frenzied, smutty, sexual lies ever told. Man and woman weren’t created merely for the sake of a good fuck. They weren’t play things for the other’s basest needs. No. This was different. There was something magical about the respectful way Chance held her. He wasn’t groping, stroking, or petting. It felt more as if he were—praying. And she was the answer to that prayer.

Suede let him own her mouth and her lips, arching backward as she surrendered to the spirit of the moment. If this man was her other half, the part of her she hadn’t realized she’d been searching for, was this—she dared think it—love?

Can’t be. Love’s another one of those lies. Isn’t it?

Yet the need to offer every last bit of herself, such as it was, swelled within Suede until there was no holding back. The time was now, and Chance was her reason for breathing. She wanted him to be happy with her and for her. It was enough. It truly was.

Carefully, cautiously, he broke the link, but didn’t go any farther than her nose. Nuzzling her cheek, he whispered, “I should let you rest.”

No, you should let me love you, sprang to her lips, but she caught the words before they leapt the distance between Chance and herself. If this thing was real, she meant to become the woman he deserved first, not some spineless tennis player’s discarded toy of the month. Chance was too good a man to be reduced to a rebound.

As hard as it was to dampen the tempting fire bubbling in her veins, Suede swallowed her lust and did just that. The day would come that Chance Sinclair would look at her with better eyes than the raw, emotion-filled ones tonight. If he could see past the woman she was yesterday to the woman she planned to be tomorrow, then she’d know she was good enough for him. Until then...

“I am tired,” she admitted, the blankets now puddled on the floor.

Like the gentleman she knew he was, Chance extricated his body from hers and ended this extraordinary encounter by climbing to his feet, tugging the blankets up and tucking her into his bed like he cared. “Sleep tight, Suede,” he whispered as he dipped low to plant a warm kiss in the middle of her forehead. “Goodnight.”

One thing was very clear: she’d never get enough of this man. Suede lifted to her elbows. “Will you be here in the morning?” Because if you’re not, I’m not going back to sleep.

“That’s the plan. My brothers took over my operation without so much as a by your leave. Do you believe those jerks telling me you were on the verge of death?” He raked a quick hand through his beard, but she could tell he wasn’t as mad as he let on. “Sweet dreams,” he murmured.

A sigh escaped her lips at that affectionately spoken command. Little did he know that was exactly what he’d given her: a reason to dream. Suede sank into the pillow, her hands clasped over her breastbone. If this was love, it had all the earmarks of a terrible, wonderful, frightening thing. Chance Sinclair now had the power to hurt her worse than her parents or Lionel York ever had.