Healing A Hero (The Camerons of Tide’s Way #4) (15 page)

“I won’t be your patient for much longer.” He turned her hand over and brushed his fingertips over her wrist and palm. It was his right hand and his fingers seemed to be working just fine. They were certainly doing a number on her.

“Then you’ll be gone.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, then drew his hand back and picked up his wine glass.

“I thought you wanted to join one of those forward deployed units that are stationed on ships.”

“I want to be with Marines who do more than warm chairs. But maybe that doesn’t have to be on a ship.”

“How is everything?” The waiter appeared on silent feet. He picked up the now-empty bottle of wine. “Shall I bring another bottle?”

Philip looked at Elena. Her brain was already swimming with too many emotions and revelations. More wine wasn’t going to clarify any of them. She shook her head.

Philip looked back at the waiter. “Just the check, please.”

“What do you say to a walk along the river before I take you home?” Philip asked a few minutes later as he tucked his credit card back in his wallet and signed the charge slip.

With a quick glance at the now completely dark sky and the river glittering with the reflections of dozens of lights, she hesitated a moment. This was a moment of decision. Keep her distance and maintain what shreds she could of their professional relationship. Or take a chance there was a future for them, her job and reputation be damned.

Philip stood and reached for her hand and again she was overwhelmed with the enormity of her feelings for him. Memories of nights like this all those years ago merged with the feeling of inevitability that had been building between them for weeks.

It probably wasn’t smart to agree to anything so provocatively romantic, but she was tired of fighting the desire to be close to him. And Meg’s advice kept coming back to tease her.
Rules are meant to be bent
.

“Okay,” she said, taking his hand.

“Okay what?” he asked, his gaze intent on hers.

“I’m not ready to go home yet either, so let’s go for that walk.”

They walked in silence for a while as she soaked up the nearness of him and how alive and excited he made her feel. The breeze coming off the river caught the fabric of her dress and fluttered it around her knees. She felt young again. Young and in love. With Philip. No longer the responsible woman with a respected position.

When they arrived at the little park by the Coast Guard monument, Philip stopped and pulled her into his embrace in the leafy shadows. She went willingly and laced her arms about his neck.

He kissed her gently, but the pent-up hunger in him vibrated like a tightly strung bow. She melted into him and kissed him back with matching hunger. When she slipped her tongue between his lips, he groaned and pulled her closer.

When he drew back, his breathing was not quite even. “It’s getting late. Maybe we should head back to Lejeune.”

The shadow of reality swooped back. If the moments in his arms had lasted forever, she would have welcomed it. But perhaps these were stolen moments, not meant to last. Just like their week in Tide’s Way fourteen years ago.

“Right! You have to be up at oh-dark-hundred, and you need to be on your toes for Captain Clueless.”

Chapter 28

April 2015

Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

IT WAS LATE WHEN Philip walked Elena to her door, but not so late that he was ready for it to end. If she asked him up for nightcap or a cup of coffee, he probably needed to say no, though. The heated desire between them in those moments by the river had been curbed only by their surroundings. It would be tempting fate to stay.

Her immediate empathy about Tommy touched him. The way she’d jumped to his defense over giving the boy up made him love her even more than he had fourteen years ago when he’d been falling head over heels for her.

What he felt now was more mature. He hadn’t been a kid back then either, but in the years since he’d lived through so many losses and so much anguish, it was a miracle she still found something in him to like, much less desire. But somehow, in spite of her anxiousness about their relationship and her position in the physical therapy unit, she did desire him. Her body and her kiss told him so, loud and clear.

Elena pulled her key from her purse and fitted it into the lock. She twisted it and pushed the door ajar, but stopped and glanced at him over her shoulder. She turned to face him. He pulled his left hand from his pocket where he’d been worrying the lining fabric with his fingers and spanned her slender waist. Her hands were warm and tentative when she placed them against his shirt as he bent to kiss her. Even without their bodies touching, the fire that had always flared so easily between them leapt to life.

He kissed her again. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, sliding her hands up his chest to his shoulders. Aching hot desire seared his whole being as he plundered her mouth, but she gave as good as she got. Spontaneous combustion seemed imminent, and he could hardly breathe. It took every effort of will he could summon to lift his head and step back to catch his breath. And get a grip on his self-control. She looped her arms behind his head and pulled his head back to hers.

“Do you want to come in?” she whispered, her lips brushing his.

“I probably shouldn’t.”
But I sure as hell want to
.

“For coffee? Or a beer?” She laid her head on his shoulder and toyed with the buttons on his polo shirt. “Or something stronger?”

“If I come in, you know where it will lead. And it won’t be about a beer.” The hunger to make love to this woman had not diminished even the slightest over the years. But he was more cautious now. Not so much in a hurry to get laid. He was playing for keeps this time.

Come to think of it, she’d been the one to initiate their lovemaking fourteen years ago. Both the planning and the executing. He’d gone willingly along for the ride, and it had been the ride of his life. But she’d started it. His will power began to slip.

He slid his hands up under the hem of the little sweater she wore. Her skin was warm and inviting and when skin met skin, she sucked in a quick breath. He brushed the smooth flesh just below her ribcage with his thumbs, and his slacks grew tight.

Elena murmured something he couldn’t make out. He stifled his desire, gripped her shoulders, and pushed her away so he could look down into her face. “You
do
know what
will
happen if I come in?” he asked again.

She nodded.

“And you’re sure this is what you want?”

She nodded again.

“And it’s okay if we break some rules?”

“I already broke the rules when I agreed to go out with you.”

He swallowed hard, and prayed he was not making the second biggest mistake of his life. He pushed the door open and walked her backward through it.

ELENA DREW IN a ragged breath. Philip’s hands were warm and large, and when his thumbs brushed against the curve of her breasts, she stopped breathing completely for several seconds.

She’d invited him in, and he hadn’t even tried to pretend he didn’t know what she wanted. What they both wanted. Everything had been building to this moment since the first day she’d seen him sitting in the waiting room, his arm in a sling and an expression of total shock on his face.

He shut the door with his foot. With a sexy growl, he lifted her off the floor and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He was as aroused and ready as she was.

“This way to your room?” He started walking toward the hall on the far side of her living room.

She dug her heels in grinding herself against his erection. He groaned and lengthened his stride. He correctly ignored the closed door to Julie’s room and set Elena down when he reached the side of her queen-sized bed. A few weeks ago in therapy, he’d made a snarky comment about her being in a rush, but tonight he was in as big a rush as she. Their clothes were off and abandoned in haste. She glanced at the drawer beside her bed, remembered there were no condoms in it at present and shot a sudden panicked look at Philip.

But he was already bending to retrieve his slacks. He found his wallet and pulled out a little foil packet that looked like it had been there for years. Was there an expiration date on those things? Who knew? Who cared? This wasn’t her fertile time of the month anyway. She hoped. She yanked the spread down and fell back on top of the sheets. Philip crawled onto the foot of the bed and came up over her with a look of reverent determination on his face.

“I dreamed of this. You’ll never know how often.” He spread her thighs and settled between them, never taking his gaze off hers.

Me, too,
she wanted to say, but didn’t. A heartbeat later, he was inside her.

She gasped at the sudden stretching fullness.

He was bigger than she remembered. How could she have forgotten? On that last night together, when he’d pushed himself into her and asked her if
that
was how she wanted to remember him, she’d thought she would never forget. But she had.

The muscles in his arms flexed as he supported his weight and began to move. He’d stopped looking into her eyes. He was looking down at the place where their bodies joined. Driving into her with deliberate, hungry thrusts. Making up for all the lost years.

She pressed her hands into the mattress and lifted her hips, meeting every urgent plunge. Her climax came swiftly, and she called out his name as she spiraled out of control.

Philip threw his head back and uttered her name in a low keening groan. He plunged into her twice more, then collapsed as his big, hard-muscled body shuddered with release.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him as the tremors gentled and finally stopped. He pressed his face into the sweat-slick skin of her neck and slid his arms beneath her.

“I love you, Elena.” He tightened his embrace. “I should have told you fourteen years ago.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered. She clung to him, not caring about the weight of him pressing her into the mattress. They’d both wasted too much time.

WHEN ELENA WOKE as Philip rolled off the bed, she was astonished to discover they’d slept for over an hour. Never once had she fallen asleep with Eli still inside her. Or with his weight pinning her to the bed. Everything about Philip was different. Excitingly, enormously different.

A little self-consciously, she tugged the covers out from under herself and slithered between the sheets. The toilet flushed, then the water ran in the sink. Embarrassment began to invade the feeling of contentment. She’d behaved with such heated abandon. What must he think?

Then Philip strode back into the room, and she stopped wondering.

He was magnificent. Tall, muscular and magnificent. He was all loose-limbed grace as he came back to the bed and sat next to her. She reached out to touch a tattoo she hadn’t noticed before.

Slashing angrily across his hip just above the fleshy part of his butt was a vicious yellow bolt of lightning. On one side in black,
9/11
contrasted starkly against his pale untanned skin. Along the other side, also in black,
Payback is a Bitch
. The artwork was crude and nothing like the other two tats he bore.

“When did you get this one?”

“On the
Peleliu
. The officers who might have forbidden it turned the other way.”

“Why?” she asked, holding the covers up so he could join her.

He rolled onto his back.

“Why did they pretend we weren’t doing it? Or why did I get it?”

“I guess I understand why you got it. You were angry.”

“Damned right, I was angry. We all were. That was my promise to all those men. The cops and the firefighters who charged into hell to save lives and paid for it with their own. It was in honor of the courage it took those guys on flight 93 to thwart the hijackers and fly that plane into the ground in Pennsylvania, too. And the lives lost at the Pentagon. Those bastards brought their evil to us, and I wanted payback.”

His face echoed the fury he must have felt. Even more than most Americans, those who dedicated their lives to defending America must have been champing at the bit to seek revenge. “Do you feel like you got it?”

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

This was obviously not something he wanted to talk about. At least, not right now. Maybe he’d share when he was ready. Or maybe not. She regretted having brought the subject up because now he was a million miles away. His body was rigid, his fists balled tight at his sides.

“Some,” he finally admitted, opening his eyes to look up at her. “I got some payback. But they’re still out there, and they’re still plotting our downfall. It’s not over.”

He relaxed his hands and lifted one to push a lock of her hair behind her ear. “But surely there are better things we could be spending our night doing than talking about payback.”

“How about I give you a massage?”

A smile grew, stretching his generous mouth until his eyes began to twinkle. “That would be outstanding.” He folded his hands behind his head. “Have your way with me, ma’am.”

Elena reached into the bedside table drawer and retrieved a bottle of body lotion.

“Roll over, Gunny.”

He laughed and complied. “My therapist even makes house calls,” he mumbled into the pillow.

She began with his shoulders and worked her way methodically down his back, past his buttocks to his thighs and finally his calves and even the soles of his feet. He murmured his appreciation as the tension drained out of him.

When she set the lotion aside and he rolled onto his back, he looked relaxed and pleased. And hard.

“Come here,” he beckoned, urging her to straddle his hips.

She complied, leaning forward and resting her hands on his chest.

“My turn to pleasure you.” He cupped her breasts and brushed his thumbs over her nipples. He lifted his head off the pillow and latched onto one nipple, sucking and teasing until she whimpered.

“I remember now, how much you like that,” he said, chuckling in approval, and moved to the other breast.

“Mmmm,” she agreed. Renewed excitement streaked through her. She wrapped her hand around his arousal and deliberately rubbed her thumb over the head, mimicking what his tongue was doing to her nipple. He grunted and dropped his head back to the pillow.

When she rose up onto her knees to guide him inside her, he grabbed her hand and stopped her. She frowned at him in surprise.

“I haven’t got any more condoms. Do you?”

She wanted him, and she didn’t care if he wasn’t wearing a condom. But apparently he did.

“I don’t care,” she said, refusing to let go of him.

They froze like that for a long tense moment. His hand over hers, their bodies just millimeters from connecting.

“I don’t care,” she whispered.

Slowly he removed his hand from hers. “Then neither do I.”