The Defiant Hero (51 page)
John shifted onto one elbow, leaning on her slightly as he reached across her to turn on the lamp. His body was heavy against hers. Muscular and completely solid. Capable of pinning her down—probably with one arm tied behind his back.
It was funny, but she hadn’t realized until that very moment exactly what John had done. Oh, she’d guessed it, but she hadn’t truly known until now.
All those hours in the car . . . He’d had countless opportunities to overpower her. He could have gained control of her gun nearly any time he’d wanted to.
But he hadn’t. He’d used words and compassion instead of physical strength, reason and kindness over violence. He’d used love.
His hair was rumpled and he squinted a little as his eyes got used to the light. He smiled at her, completely at ease with her scrutiny of his face.
“You want to talk more?” he asked, propping his head up in his hand, elbow bent. “About Amy? Or how about your grandmother? I’d love to hear about her. Eve, right?”
Meg touched him. His shoulder, his face, his hair. She’d always loved his hair, even in Kazbekistan when it was shaggy and long. Even after she’d given him a Marine-style, square-topped crew cut. It was such a pretty shade of brown, so thick and soft to the touch.
She ran her fingers through it. She’d always wanted to do that. There’d been way too many times she’d wanted to touch this man, but hadn’t. Couldn’t.
But there was nothing stopping her now. In fact, this would probably be her last chance.
Before she’d fallen asleep, they’d played at normal. Pretending that Amy and Eve were unharmed, that she and John were going to survive the violence that was still to come. Talking about September, talking about the future.
When in truth, her future was down to these few final hours of existence.
And, no, she didn’t want to spend that time sleeping.
John’s smile faded as she gazed up at him, and the look in his eyes, on his face, was a heart touching mix of uncertainty and desire. Apprehension and need. Meg knew that he was afraid of reading her wrong.
So she gave him a message he couldn’t possibly misread.
She kissed him.
Meg kissed him.
Nils heard himself make a low sound in the back of his throat. She wasn’t just being friendly. This was no sweet thank-you kiss. This was a kiss, complete with her tongue swept into his mouth, complete with her arms around his neck, complete with her leg thrown up and over his.
Her mouth was so soft, so warm, so what he wanted.
He pulled back to make sure this was really what she wanted, too.
And found heat in her eyes.
“If the phone rings,” he started.
“I’m answering it,” she finished for him fiercely. “No matter what.”
“Of course,” he said.
She kissed him again, pushing him completely onto his back, straddling him, just the way she’d done that day on the Mall lawn. It was as if three years hadn’t passed, as if they were right back there, almost where they’d started, white hot desire primed and ready to erupt given half a chance.
What she was doing was way more than half of anything.
She unbuttoned his shirt as she kissed him. She swept her hands up and across his chest, pushing his shirt off his shoulders. He wanted to take her shirt off, too, and he tugged it free from her jeans. Her skin was like silk beneath his fingers. After one touch, he just wanted to stay there for an eternity, kissing her and running his hands up and down her back.
But she sat up, positioning herself more exactly on top of him, pulling out of his reach.
“Last chance,” she whispered, with the kind of smile he’d only dreamed about. Except in his dreams she hadn’t had such sadness in her eyes. “You want to say no or throw on the brakes, you’ve got to do it now.”
He had to laugh. “You honestly think I’m going to stop this?”
“You stopped us three years ago.”
“You were married,” he countered.
“That really mattered to you?”
“Whoa,” he said. “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve told you? I was in love with you, Meg. I didn’t want just one night. I wanted . . . a lifetime.” Jesus, he couldn’t believe he’d actually said that aloud. But he had. And in retrospect he knew it was true. He had wanted a lifetime. He’d just been too stupid, too scared to know it.
He looked up at her now, praying that she wouldn’t laugh at him or fall over in a dead faint from shock.
Her eyes were even more sad. She gave him a tremulous, beautiful smile.
“When you say whoa,” she said, obviously trying desperately to keep things light, “does that mean you’re putting on the brakes?”
So okay, she wanted to skip the lifetime comment. She clearly didn’t want to go there now, and Nils wasn’t about to make her. Instead he followed her lead.
He answered her question by lifting her up and flipping them both over so that he was on top of her. He managed to get both her shirt and her bra off in the process—no small feat—and she was laughing breathlessly as he kissed her breasts.
She was impossibly beautiful, and he wanted to spend another eternity just looking at her. But he couldn’t look without touching, couldn’t touch without wanting to taste.
Her laughter turned to a sigh as he did just that, drawing her into his mouth, using his knee to push between her legs so that he could settle against her, cradled there by her softness and heat.
She was touching him, running her hands across his back and shoulders as if she, too, couldn’t get enough of him.
“Please,” she said. “John . . .”
She wanted out of her jeans. Which was perfect, since he wanted her out of them, too.
Together they pulled them off her, peeling down her panties as well.
She was naked and beautiful—the most beautiful, incredible woman he’d ever known—and she was lying back on that bed, waiting for him.
Nils let himself look at her as he stood back and unfastened his belt. “I’m not putting on the brakes,” he said. “FYI, I’m just taking my time.”
“I know.” Meg watched him as he stepped out of his pants. Her gaze shifted down to his briefs, lingering there. She looked up at him and smiled. “I can tell.”
Yeah, okay. Now he was completely on fire. “You wouldn’t happen to have two dollars in quarters, would you?”
She laughed. “Wow, you’re a real bargain.”
He loved that she could make jokes, that she could tease. He hoped it meant that she’d decided to go on living, that no matter what happened over the next few hours or days, that she’d take the time she needed to get past it and keep on breathing.
He sat down next to her on the bed, unable to keep from touching her legs, running his hands down the softness of her skin. “There’s a machine that sells condoms in the bathroom.”
“Really?” She laughed. Shook her head. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.”
He grinned. “This place is four star all the way, baby.”
“I didn’t pick it,” she objected.
“I know, I’m just . . .” Shit, the mood had shifted. All fun was erased. She hadn’t picked this place. No kidding.
Her eyes filled with tears, and he reached for her and gathered her into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said, clinging to him.
“Shhh.” He stroked her hair, wishing that he could somehow hide the fact that he was completely aroused, hoping she’d understand that what he needed right now had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her. That sex was secondary to everything. That putting his clothes back on and holding her in his arms was more than he’d expected, more than he’d ever dreamed possible. “You don’t need to—”
She lifted her head and kissed him. Hot, wet, and passionate. A tongue down the throat, every nerve cell jangling, every pleasure center up and completely online kind of kiss.
It was a take-me-now kiss. A throw me back on the bed and give it to me hard and fast kiss. She reached into his briefs and wrapped her fingers around him—no doubt just in case he hadn’t gotten the message from her kiss.
He came up for air, gasping. “Meg—”
“Please,” she breathed between more frantic kisses. She’d straddled him again, pushing him back on the bed, yanking down his briefs and freeing him completely from their confines. “I need you, John. Now.”
She shifted her hips and would have driven him hard inside of her if he hadn’t caught her and held her in place. Jesus! He started to sweat. “We need one of those condoms.”
She gazed down at him, breathing hard, a vision of female arousal. She needed him. Now. Hoo, baby. He was either a saint or an idiot.
“Why?” she asked.
He could see in her eyes that she honestly didn’t think it would matter. Birth control. Safe sex. What did any of it matter if they were going to die?
Shit. She still expected to die.
“What if we live?” he asked her, shifting her back so she was sitting on his thighs, still holding her securely in place. “I want to live. And I’m going to die myself before I let you die.”
Emotion flared in her eyes. “I don’t want you to die!”
“Good, that makes two of us,” he countered. “So let’s decide right now. We’re not going to die, okay?”
She shook her head. “Please,” she said.
Great, now the gorgeous naked woman who needed him desperately was begging. Both an idiot and a saint would have long since caved in—the idiot discovering some brain cells that worked, and the saint throwing over his sacred vows. But Nils was neither. He was just a man—who loved her.
“Do you want to get pregnant?” he asked gently. “Will you please just consider for a second what could happen if—shit, not if, when—when we live. When this is over and—”
“Yes.”
“—we’re still alive,” he finished. “Excuse me?”
“I would love that more than anything,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “As long as we’re pretending we’re going to live happily ever after, let’s pretend that, too, can’t we?”
“If we don’t use a condom, Meg, that’s not pretend anymore. That’s real. That’s—”
“Please,” she said. “If I live and Amy doesn’t, if we find out tomorrow that she’s already dead, I’m going to want to die. Give me something, John—someone to live for. Please.”
Oh, shit, that hurt.
“How about me?” he said, all but slicing himself open and laying his beating heart out on the table. “Couldn’t you maybe live for me?”
She didn’t answer. Whether she wouldn’t or couldn’t, Nils didn’t know.
All she could do was whisper, “Please, John.”
It was all over. He could refuse her nothing she asked for. Not even this. Maybe especially not this.
And maybe he would get her pregnant. Christ, he hoped he did. Then he’d have her forever. She’d stayed with Daniel for Amy’s sake; surely she’d marry Nils if he got her pregnant.
And maybe, in time, it wouldn’t matter so goddamn much that she didn’t really love him as much as he loved her.
He lifted her up and lowered her down on top of him slowly, watching her face as she moved to receive him.
She held his gaze as he filled her, as she surrounded him. He knew she could see the tears in his eyes, knew he was unable to hide the crazy mix of emotions that crossed his face.
Anger, hurt, relief, need.
Love.
He pushed it all aside, all except the love.
He was here, right where he’d wanted to be for too many hundreds of nights. Meg loved him on some level—he knew that to be true. He wouldn’t be inside of her right now if she didn’t.
He let all the other bullshit escape, let nothing remain but the sweet pleasure of her body around him and the liquid heat of his love for her. Let her see that. He wanted her to see that.
She sat there, atop him, intimately joined with him, for several long seconds, just looking into his eyes.
But then she fell forward and kissed him hungrily, moving in a rhythm that was much too fast, too soon. Nils caught her hips again, slowing her down, wanting and needing them to take their time, refusing to give in to the part of him that wanted her hard and fast and three years ago. He took control of her kisses, too, turning them languorous—deliciously, wickedly slow.
She moaned her approval as he filled his hands with her breasts, and he swept his fingers across her bare skin, kissing and touching as much of her as he could.
Without a condom, the sensation as he moved inside of her, as they moved together, was impossibly intense. Each stroke brought him dangerously closer to his release. Each stroke was heaven, each withdrawal ecstasy. And the knowledge that when he came, he would send his seed deep inside her, was a total turn-on. He loved her. Forever. What better way to show that to both Meg and the entire world?
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