High Octane Heroes (19 page)

 

Amanda Greer pulled her best stainless-steel pots and pans from their hooks above the stove and began to create Mickey Kent’s dinner. She chased the kitchen staff out of her way while she pan-seared steak, caramelized onions, and steamed vegetables using distilled water and real organic butter.

The chocolate cake she’d baked from scratch cooled on a sideboard. When Mickey was ready for dessert, she’d spread homemade chocolate icing over its thick layers and then make espresso. She’d cut two thick slices, pour two cups of coffee, and sit with Mickey at the table. Andy and Elena would join them for after-dinner brandy.

When her boss told her about the handsome paramedic with penetrating blue eyes and sand-colored hair who saved Jack’s life, Amanda had been anxious to meet him. Her motive then had been to offer thanks with the finest meal she could create. The stranger had rescued not only a child and his family, but Amanda, as well.

Jack’s death would have destroyed his parents and their business. If Amanda lost her way of life to tragedy and devastation, where would she go? After losing her apartment in a Colorado
wildfire and resettling in Pennsylvania, she wanted to put down roots. Appleton suited her. Rich with agriculture and open space, here she’d instantly felt at home. She’d grown fond of Andy, Elena and Jack, and the community too. They were like extended family. Mickey Kent had saved the hearts and spirits of many people by his intervention.

Maybe that’s why she’d fallen a little in love with him before they met.

While the steak sizzled, Amanda warmed Mickey’s plate and checked the vegetables for proper tenderness. She pulled fresh-baked bread from the oven, and its delectable scent filled the air. Her mouth watered. This meal must be perfect. Though her original motive for cooking had been gratitude, that had changed with a single impulsive kiss.

Mickey’s entrance into her life proved she could trust the outcome of the unexpected. He put ego aside for the sake of others and took a risk with her by exposing his feelings. Through food art, Amanda wanted to share an intimate part of herself to bring them closer.

Her lips still tingled in response to his. The throbbing between her legs beat gentle reminders that the most desirable man she’d ever met waited outside her kitchen. Her arms ached to hold him, and her belly tightened at thoughts of them moving naked together.

Mickey Kent had unleashed the woman in her.

When the time was right, Amanda would act on her feminine impulses. For now, she would feed him. She sensed that making love with Mickey would be as natural and nourishing as the wholesome foods that filled them.

 

Mickey sat back in his chair a week later at Organics Fantastic, just before closing time, and groaned with satisfaction. “You’re
a genius, Amanda. That chicken breast with wild mushrooms was delicious.”

Amanda smiled from her seat beside him. “That’s how chickens taste when they’re not shot up with steroids and hormones. All I did was roast yours with a little sauce and some artistic ingenuity.”

“My grandmother used to cook meals like these. Are you sure you’re not a nineteen-fifties throwback?”

“I’m told I have an old soul.” Amanda grinned at him in the sexy way that made his heart and everything below his belt go thump. “As they say, everything old is new again.”

He reached out and touched a shining tendril of her hair. “This will be my third and final visit here, unless I pay for my meal. I appreciate your hospitality, but I refuse to wear out my welcome.” Mickey had taken things slow but steady with Amanda after their initial meeting, to see if their attraction held or burned itself out.

He’d never wanted her more.

Mickey called or texted Amanda all week to let her know he was thinking of her, and brought some of the guys from the stationhouse around for lunch to help Andy and Elena grow their business. The restaurant had been a hit with the crew and adopted as their watering hole. As a bonus, Mickey hadn’t faced a single medical emergency inside the restaurant. He could relax here. His life blended with his newfound friends at Organics Fantastic, and he’d never been happier.

He brushed a hand over Amanda’s shoulder, savoring the sensations of pliant skin beneath sleek cotton. He wanted to drag his hand to the fullness of her breast and knead its softness, or reach beneath her skirt to the source of her heat, but resisted the impulse. “Take a walk with me.” He needed to be alone with this woman.

Amanda stood and urged him to follow. Mickey pulled his jacket from the chair beside him and Amanda lifted her sweater from the coat closet. Hand in hand, they stepped outside into the crisp autumn air.

“This way,” Amanda whispered. She led him along the path stretching from the front porch to a stand of pines and oaks on the rear lawn, illuminated by lamplight and a bright harvest moon. When they reached the privacy of the trees, Mickey removed his jacket and wrapped it around her back. In one fluid motion, he pressed her torso against an ancient oak and kissed her.

Amanda wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back while her fingers stroked his hairline, raising goose bumps along his skin. His breathing turned heavy as she lowered her hands to his chest and ran her palms over his nipples and pectorals. Quickly, she unbuttoned his shirt and reached inside to pinch and caress him.

His head lolled back with the sensations her fingers created. Silken hands ran over his flesh and then worked his belt buckle. His erection strained beneath his pants zipper. Her mouth trailed hot kisses over his throat before her tongue lapped his chest. The knowledge that she wanted him sent his senses reeling. He wanted to do right by her.

Mickey lifted Amanda off her feet and pressed her back against the tree for support while she wrapped her legs around his waist. The short skirt she wore shifted above her hips. Mickey cupped her bottom and groaned with pleasure as his hands touched firm, naked skin. Amanda wore only a thong.

It took mere seconds for him to tear the fragile fabric and toss it to the ground. He stared down at the most beautiful pussy he’d ever seen, or would ever see again, spread wide and
waiting for him. Using his thumb, he ran circles around her clitoris until Amanda shuddered.

Then Mickey released the fly of his khakis.

 

Amanda had gone out of her mind with desire for Mickey. Was this what crazy in love meant? That offering yourself, body and soul, to another seemed the most natural thing to do?

She rested the crown of her head against the oak tree. Her back remained cushioned by Mickey’s jacket and her sweater, and his waist supported her legs, while he suckled her nipples and stroked her breasts as if he were a starving man.

While he pinched the sensitive areolae and plump flesh, the length of his cock slid over her slick folds in a steady rhythm. The underside of the wide head rubbed her swollen clitoris until the pressure inside her built to near bursting. Pleasure rode over her in waves, and she cried out in anticipation of her climax.

“I want to make love to you,” he said against her ear, his breaths coming in rapid pants. “Let me fuck you.”

Amanda clutched his hips tighter against hers, lifting and sliding her clit along the thick length of his shaft. Her slick juices made the motions easy. “I want that too.”

He released her and set her feet on the ground. Then Mickey took his jacket and spread it over the grass. Holding her hands, he guided her to the makeshift bed. Amanda lay under the bright fall moon and slid off her skirt in anticipation.

The crackle of cellophane preceded Mickey’s return to her. He spread her legs, lifted her hips and lay between her thighs.

Instead of penetrating her as she expected, he lowered his mouth to her vulva and licked the tender skin in quick, erotic strokes. She cried out with pleasure unlike any other she’d known, and then covered her mouth, for fear the others inside the farmhouse would hear her.

No man had ever done this for her. She’d let men touch her and she’d had orgasms by their hands or hers, but no one had ever licked her clit or slid his tongue inside her channel.

“I’m so close,” she warned. She wanted to climax around him. Though she’d never had intercourse, fingers had stretched and teased her. She knew enough about her sexuality to measure her responses.

Mickey lifted himself over her body and guided the tip of his sheathed cock into the opening of her pussy. “I’ll try not to hurt you,” he whispered.

“I know,” she replied, and meant it.

He circled the head against her rim for maximum lubrication and then pushed inside, just a bit.

She inhaled audibly, though not from fear but bliss. Mickey brushed a hand over her cheek while he held himself upright with the other. “Are you ready?”

A husky reply escaped her throat. “Oh yeah.”

Apparently, that was all the encouragement Mickey needed. He thrust into her again, harder this time, and then withdrew. He repeated the pattern until he met no resistance and she had taken in all of him. She lifted her hips to meet his tempo.

They swayed together until Amanda soared past her pain to her peak. When Mickey reached between her legs and rubbed the pad of his thumb over her clit while he fucked her, Amanda fell over the edge. When she climaxed, Mickey came too.

 

Mickey and Amanda arrived at Organics Fantastic for a special birthday celebration weeks later. Andy, Elena and the waitstaff set out lunch in the main dining area while children played games in another room under the watchful eyes of their parents.

The restaurant had been decorated with orange and yellow crepe paper streamers and a banner that read HAAAY 8
^TH
BYRTHDAY JACK in block lettering. An enormous cake, shaped like a train, took center stage.

Mickey eyed the decorations as he set their colorfully wrapped present on the gift table. “No balloons.”

Amanda nodded. “They’ve been banned from the premises.”

“Ah.” Mickey wrapped an arm around Amanda’s waist. “So, what do you think, gorgeous? Should we have two children or four after we get married?”

Amanda lifted on tiptoe to press a kiss against his cheek. “I need a proper proposal first. Then let’s decide.”

Mickey pulled her closer. “The sooner the better, my love.”

 

 

 

 

 

S
pecial Operator Chief Luke Paulsen had that dream again.

Her red lips pressed like tiny pillows against his cool mouth. Though he was buried in his Afghan dugout bunk, he could feel the delicate vibration of her moan as her lust for him whispered things. Unmentionable things. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall her words. He could only remember the heat washing over him as she breathed life into him. Again. Like she did every night.

A sharp crack of gunfire forced him to open his eyes. He caught a glimpse of Carson’s scared face in profile just before the young marine got the round in the chest that exited out between his shoulder blades. In a graceful dance performed all too often, Carson fell into his arms, and Luke watched the youngster’s life bleed out onto the sandy pit and all over his boots. He held Carson’s clear blue gaze, and, without saying a word, told him he’d see him again one day. The boy’s eyes remained open and fixed after his soul had departed. Luke became witness to the
young marine’s passage from his arms into the arms of death.

A split second later, Luke remembered who he was and why he was here. A day’s ride by donkey from anywhere. He lifted the tiny mirror on a wire, the sun to his back.

Still clutching the body of the lifeless marine, he followed the trajectory of the round that had killed his young apprentice and caught the glint of dark blue steel disappearing into a blackened doorway. Laying the marine down gently, he picked up his H&K MP5, counted to five while he clicked the safety once. Before he saw the barrel of the insurgent’s rifle again, he fired off several rounds that landed exactly ten inches above the protuberance and saw the red spray of a kill.

Was it wrong that the color of the spray reminded him of her crimson lips? That he died a thousand little deaths with each of her kisses?

His dreams were stealing his present.

 

A week later, SOC Luke watched the sun pour itself into the horizon on one of San Diego’s white sand beaches. The afterglow felt good. So did the blush on his face from the three beers he’d finished. He usually drank with the rest of his SEAL Team III. But this last DT, Dissociative Tour, in Afghanistan had given him a cadre of young marines eager to prove themselves, along with Carson, the medic-in-training.

But Carson had drawn a different card and would be taking the short flight home. Luke raised his long-necked IPA to the sunset and toasted the man.

“To all the young hearts you won’t break,” he whispered to the soothing waves and the sunset.

It was a damned shame. He thought Carson would have made an excellent doctor.

Luke heard laughter as two lovelies in shorts ran past him to
splash in the surf. Slender tanned legs kicked droplets of white foam into the air. He loved watching the girls’ carefree spirit, just being goofy and lacking an ounce of self-consciousness. He couldn’t help but smile.

The dark-haired one with the cutoff inside-out sweatshirt that showed her muscled midriff stopped and turned to face Luke. Her brown eyes were wide set. Her thin nose led to full lips that were stained bright red. She licked those lips and pushed her chocolate-brown hair from her forehead, exposing a delicious ridge of little lines on an otherwise smooth and flawless forehead. With a tiny angle she tilted her head to the side and waved in that embarrassed way her mother must have told her never to do. Especially to a strange sailor sitting alone on the beach with empty beer bottles at his feet.