Uniform Desires (Make Mine Military Romance) (68 page)

“I think there’s something going on with those two.”

She looked at Grif sharply, then glanced back at the two standing off in the corner. The way they moved definitely intimated at some kind of history. “Hm, I kind of think you’re right.”

But something made Hunter shift away from Deedra, frowning. He shook his head but watched her as she left the room. Kendall glanced around to see if anybody else had seen the little interaction, but she and Grif seemed to have been the only ones. When she looked back at Hunter, he was just disappearing through the doorway Deedra had gone through.

“Looks like a tryst in the works.”

Kendall clamped her jaw in anger, tempted to go after the two of them. How dare they do that at her wedding?
 

“Don’t let it ruin your day,” Grif murmured into her ear.
 

Kendall took a deep breath just as Hunter walked back into the room.

“Hm. Nothing happened apparently.”

Kendall tried to watch for Deedra to return but she got lost in other things. Grif was right. She had better things to think about than that crazy woman.

The afternoon wore on and guests started to leave. She and Grif weren’t going on a honeymoon, so they headed down the mountain to her condo. Lilly and Duncan were going to stay at her father’s house to give them privacy for the night.
 

Kendall felt strangely elated. A week ago she never would have imagined how her life would change.
 

She looked at Grif. His expression seemed relaxed. He didn’t appear to regret anything about the day, which also made her unaccountably happy. She didn’t want to be responsible for making his life hard.

Ortiz grinned and folded away a knife when they got off the elevator. “You two look like a cake topper. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ortiz. Mr. Calvert is bringing some cake down for you.”

Ortiz grinned at her. “I’m sure it will be delicious.”

He opened the door for them and they stepped through. Grif closed the door behind them with a frown on his face.

“What?” she asked.

He shrugged and played with the car keys in his pocket.
 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t carry you over the threshold.”

Kendall’s mouth dropped open. Not what she’d expected to hear.

“It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

But he shifted on his feet. “Even though it was kind of last minute, I wanted your wedding day to be as complete as possible. Carrying you over the threshold would have been part of that, but I can’t bear weight like that on my forearm. I thought about putting you over my shoulder but then I worried about the baby.”

The indecision on his face was very out of character, but made her more sure that she’d done the right thing. Grafton Parks was a genuinely good man.
 

Stepping close, she smoothed her hand down the suit jacket of the uniform, then over the medals on his left chest. “I’m not worried about that part of it. I appreciate the thought, though, truly. And I appreciate this.” She held up her left hand. “I never expected it.”

His lips spread in a smile. “Good. You weren’t supposed to. Lilly gave me suggestions on what you liked.”

Kendall leaned up for a kiss. “You did perfectly. I was very touched.”

Grif looked at his feet and cleared his throat, nodding slightly. Then he held his own hand up. “I didn’t expect this either. I’m not into jewelry, really, but I like this. Very understated.”

She smiled, glad she’d been able to pull it off without his input.
 

“I think we both did really well. The wedding was beautiful. I know it was a bit of a headache, but I truly appreciate you going along with the show.”

Shrugging, he ran his finger over the neckline of her dress. “Well, it was for a good cause. And a few hours in my Blues isn’t going to kill me.”

Kendall was unfamiliar with the term, but she assumed it meant his dress uniform. “Do you miss it? The Marines?”

“Every single day. It’s a hard family to leave. Still be there today if it weren’t for…” He held up his prosthetic.

The thought of his going back to that environment sent fear flowing through her. “Well, I’m glad you don’t have to risk your life like that any more.” She glanced toward the bedroom. “This is kind of strange to ask, but are you going to stay here tonight? I would completely understand if you didn’t want to,” she rushed to add.

Grif seemed to be weighing her words. “I’d like to stay, if you’d have me.”

Kendall nodded, almost shyly, and turned for the bedroom.

Chapter 7

Grif realized why she’d asked a few seconds later. He started to unbutton his uniform but realized either he would have to leave or she would. He only wore a T-shirt beneath the outer jacket.
 

Or he could just bare it all and get it over with.

Tiredness beat at him. It had been a stressful day. He didn’t know if he was up to an even more stressful night.
 

“Uh, Grif?”

Shit. She had to be wondering why he’d stood there so long.

“Yeah,” he sighed.

“Do you think you can unbutton me?”

He jerked into motion. “Sure. I can try.”

She turned her elegant back to him, and when he saw the row of little tiny buttons, he started to sweat. There was no way. The fingers on the prosthetic couldn’t even pinch that tiny.

Left handed, fumbling, slower than fuck, he managed to get one button through the tiny satin loop holding it.

“This may take a while. My right hand is useless for stuff like this.”

“I’m sorry. I’d have had Lilly help me undress if I had known it would be an issue.”

“It’s just impossible for the prosthetic to squeeze this small. And I don’t have the dexterity for it even if it could.”

“Ah, okay,” she murmured. “I didn’t really realize that the hand could make movements like that.”

It was a subtle probe. Grif found that he didn’t mind talking about it as much because her back was to him, waiting patiently for him to move. He started on button number two of fifty. “It can make several movements as long as they’re not intricate.”

“So,” her voice was very soft, “how do you make it move?”

He stopped fiddling with the buttons, realizing that there would be no better time than now to explain it all to her. “If you turn around I’ll show you.”

Coughing to clear his throat, he took a heavy breath, his heart pounding. Revealing himself to new people was never easy. Hell, he hadn’t revealed himself to a woman that wasn’t a medical professional ever. Any romantic liaisons he had the shirt stayed on. Period.
 

Kendall was different. Besides being drawn to her more completely than any other woman, she had now become his wife. She deserved to know what she’d gotten herself into.

The medals on the left breast of the jacket jingled softly as he let it fall from his arms. Without looking at her face, feeling more naked than ever before, he draped the jacket over a nearby chair.
 

She hadn’t said anything. When he looked at her face, he only saw curiosity in her clear green eyes. She reached out to touch him and he raised his arm to her. “Explain to me about this. Does it hurt?”

Her gaze met his and he shook his head. “Not really. Not anymore.”

“So, how did you lose your hand in the first place?”

If he’d seen anything in her look hinting at pity or disgust, he’d have clammed up, but she seemed genuine in her need to know.

Sighing, he shook his head in disgust. “I screwed up. I was in an explosive ordinance disposal company in the Marines. EOD. We went in with other Marines and cleared out IEDs and traps. One day a fellow Marine brought in an improvised device that had been disabled. We thought. When he handed it over, there must have been enough charge left in it somewhere that when the wires touched, it detonated. The other Marine was fine, but my hand was obliterated. There was nothing left to save. I had shrapnel in my gut. Lost my sight for a while.”

She cringed. “I’m very sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

Her eyes were soft as he pulled from her grasp to remove the prosthetic, then the soft fitted sock underneath it. As he finally revealed the stump of his forearm to her for the first time, he tried to tell himself it didn’t matter what she thought.

Right.
 

She shocked him when she snorted softly, then reached out to touch it. A shiver coursed through him as she ran her painted fingernails down the sensitive skin, tracing the line of scar at the end. She stepped in close, and wrapped both hands around the end of his arm. “I don’t know why, but I thought it would be gross and scary looking, but it’s not. I didn’t exactly expect it to be bloody, but nasty, malformed. This just looks like your skin was wrapped around the end of the joint. Like a wrapped baseball bat.”

The knot in his gut eased. At least she hadn’t freaked.

“So, how does the prosthetic work?”

As she seemed to go through life, she wanted to learn everything there was to know about his amputation. She asked intelligent questions and didn’t seem pitying or condescending in any way. Actually, she seemed fascinated that the entire hand could be manipulated by the nerve impulses from his brain. He rolled on the sock, then pressed his stub into the socket, sealing it tight. Then he showed her the reverse process, removing it.

“I have to apologize.”

Grif narrowed his eyes at her. “Why?”

Standing there in her wedding dress, looking radiant in spite of the hour and her drooping hair, she lifted her face to his. “Because I wasn’t very nice when my father first hired you. I said some things I shouldn’t have, within your hearing, and I apologize.”

He appreciated her words. “It’s over and done with. Don’t worry about it. It’s not something I haven’t heard before. Turn around and we’ll see if we can get you out of this dress.”

He leered at her and she laughed. Exactly as he wanted.

It took him a long time, but he eventually released enough of the buttons that they could tug the dress up over her head and off. He grabbed a padded hanger from the closet and draped it on, then hung it from the top of the bathroom door. When he looked back, she had unfastened her bra and tossed it across the room, baring her lush, pink-tipped breasts. As he watched she stepped out of her panties to stand before him completely bare.
 

A bolt of awareness rattled his bones. Kendall Herrington, or was it Parks now, belonged to him, as well as the boy or girl growing in her stomach. Stepping forward, he ran his hand over the smooth expanse of skin, from hipbone to hipbone. “This is going to change.”

Her eyes flared with excitement and fear. “I know.”

Needing the connection, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug.
 

“I’m going to shower. Want to join me?”

His cock hardened beneath his pants. “I do.”

Seemed to be the night for ‘I do’s’.

Kendall walked away from him and into the bathroom. Grif watched her perfect ass until she disappeared from sight, then scrambled to shed his own clothes. He took care with his uniform pants, but everything else just got tossed. Seconds after she stepped into the glass enclosure, he stepped in behind her.

There were several jets in this particular shower, projecting in from opposite sides of the stall. She’d turned the heat up high enough to warm their bones, but not so hot to make them overheat.

Grif watched as she lathered and rinsed her hair, then went through the motions of scrubbing her body. Whatever she used smelled phenomenal. A little fruity, yet sexy at the same time.
 

“May I?” He held his hand out for the spongy thing she was running over her skin. She handed it over and he motioned for her to turn around. When she did, he ran the sponge up and down her back, across her shoulders, down her arms. Kendall leaned against the tile wall, forehead resting on folded forearms. She moaned when he ran it down her sides and gasped when he brushed her nipples.
 

Grif’s cock had only gotten harder as he watched her bathe herself. When she gasped, he felt the stirring in his balls. Snugging himself up behind her, he dropped the spongy thing to the floor and ran his soapy hand up her side, then up her breast. Her nipple was rock hard already and he had a feeling she was as aroused as he was.

He leaned down to her ear. “Ever use these benches in here?”

A seat had been fashioned from tile in the very front corner and another along the width of the back. Grif turned a dial and the jets at the back of the stall turned off.

“No, I haven’t. I’ve always wanted to, though.”

Sounded like a green light to him.

He spanned his hand across her chest to reach her opposite breast. It puckered as hard as the other one and he fondled the weight in his hand. She moaned as he aligned his dick with the crack of her ass, gliding up and down in the slick water. Tilting her hips back, she sharpened the contact between them. Grif was about to guide his erection down and into her pussy when she turned in his arms and pushed him back. His heels hit the tile and he allowed her to press him down onto the bench.