21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (126 page)

One could not make up for eight years in eight days, but he needed to try. When she’d dozed on the sofa behind him the day before, he’d experienced a contentment he hadn’t felt in too long.

After showering, he sent her a text to say he’d meet her at the center by lunchtime, and hoped the message wouldn’t wake her. He needed to talk to a friend, and thought about going to see Zach or one of the others at Mike’s Place. They were Marines. They would understand. Or he could talk to Nona, since his grandmother seemed to know his heart better than he did. Deciding against both, he headed to Temple.

Relatively new when he’d left, Rabbi Glassman had known what he needed right then was to reconcile the two halves of his soul—the angry young man who’d left and the warrior who had returned. When she echoed the same advice he’d received from his grandmother and Zach, he understood he couldn’t avoid Zehava any more than he could avoid breathing. She was in his blood and his soul.

The community center was packed when he arrived. Unlike the previous day, the kids had returned in force. Thankfully, they divided their time in the various rooms; some did chores, some played, and more ate. Even with little opportunity to get Zehava alone, he enjoyed the time with the kids nonetheless. The sound of her laughter drifted around the corners and filled up the empty patches in his soul.

Later, after they’d ushered the children out and lit the candle for Benjamin, he knew what he wanted.

What he’d always wanted.

Night Five

Isaac was different. Zehava couldn’t put her finger on exactly when it happened, but he’d changed. If anything, he flirted, acting almost playful. He didn’t let her pass by without touching her, and during the candle lighting he’d been right at her side. Later, after they lit the candle for their son, he walked her home and pressed his lips to her cheek. He wanted to have dinner with his family, but he promised the next night to her.

Sleeping had been impossible after the brush of his lips. Too many old passions and needs woke up. She remembered their first kiss. Walking her home after a movie, he drew her beneath one of the old oak trees shading their street and brushed his mouth to hers for the first time. It had been sweet and full of promise. Neither of them had a whole lot of kissing knowledge, but they’d practiced.

Their last kiss had been the morning he left for boot camp. They’d taken a hotel room because he’d wanted to hold her all night long and that wouldn’t have happened at either of their parents’ homes. When it came time for him to leave, he’d told her to stay in bed—because that’s what he wanted to remember—and bent and claimed her mouth three times in sensual caress. One for being his girl, two for being his friend, and three for being there for him—and he left. If she’d known then what she knew now….

Shaking her head of the maudlin thoughts, she looked over at Isaac playing on the X-Box. He wanted to take her out to lunch, but she had paperwork to finish. One of the joys of running the center was the absolute autonomy she had. Most of the funding came from local families and businesses, but she had to file budgets and oversee the books.

Festivals like Hanukkah usually meant a sharp increase in spending, so she needed to make sure they weren’t going to run short before the next projected set of donations. Someone had been adding cash to the collection box each night after she went home. As it was, they were firmly in the black—so firmly she didn’t even think they’d have to worry about the post-holiday fundraiser she usually had to manage to keep the doors open through spring.

“I want to take you out to dinner tonight, Z.”

The statement pulled her completely out of the ledger program. “What?”

Isaac didn’t glance away from the screen where he ran some character up over walls and clobbered monsters. “I said, I want to take you out to dinner.”

“I heard what you asked. I guess I just—”
What?
She couldn’t put her finger on the indefinable emotions brewing. They’d made so much progress in the last few days….

The game paused, and he twisted toward her. The steadiness in his dark gaze pinned her in place. “But?”

She swallowed the unmistakable lump in her throat. “Why?”

“Why do I want to take you to dinner?” A familiar, teasing gleam appeared in his eyes. “I know you eat.”

Her face heating, she scowled at him. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I don’t know, Z. We’ve had several meals over the last few days. Why would asking you out to dinner be all that different?” And he continued to play coy.

Two could play that game. “In that case, why don’t we just grab some takeout on the way to my place?”

“I’d love to have dinner at your house with you. Quiet, more intimate. Good call.” His grin grew and his attention returned to the X-Box.

Rattled, she blinked at the ledger without seeing it. She’d just agreed to an evening alone with him, at home. Where no one could interrupt them. Each time she opened her mouth to disinvite him, however, the words died unspoken. Her window of opportunity slammed shut with the arrival of the first set of teens.

Isaac kept his distance, including getting the older kids involved in a pick-up game of basketball when they got too rowdy indoors. Sundown brought the candle lighting and exhaustion wore away at her reserves once they sent the last child home. She’d done her best to keep the center cleaned up during the afternoon and into the evening. In addition, the number of children coming there continued to grow each night and at that rate, she’d have to call in some favors from the neighborhood to increase their adult presence.

She became aware of Isaac only seconds before he ran his knuckles up her spine; a light, almost too-familiar caress transporting her back in time. He’d used the gesture to say hello at school, where overt public displays of affection were frowned upon.

“Okay, where’s your brain?” He murmured the words, breath whispering a caress along the shell of her ear, and she couldn’t suppress a shudder.

“It’s right here and wondering what you’re doing.”

“Well, right now I’m going to take a beautiful lady home and feed her dinner. I’m thinking Italian. D’Augustino’s still delivers, I checked.” He was close, too close, and his heat trapped her deeper in the past when touching had been as natural as breathing.

Turning into him proved risky, but she needed to see his face. Retreating a step, she bumped into the doorframe to the game room. He didn’t let her get far. “Isaac, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

He lifted a strand of her hair and curled it around his finger. “It’s just dinner, Z. Unless there’s someone else for you and you’ve been hiding him all week?”

Danger signs flashed over the not-so-veiled current running under that question. A lie would be the easy answer. Of course she didn’t do
easy
. Isaac didn’t deserve the lie, either. “No. I don’t date that often.”

“Although you
do
date.” He honed in on the admission with laser-sharp precision. and she wanted to kick herself. “So…who do you date?”

Folding her arms and leaning against the wall, she tried to cloak her continued need to retreat with an air of casual comfort. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“I don’t. Date, that is. I’m a Marine who’s been deployed pretty steadily for the last eight years.” His rapid-fire response came with a faint curve of his lips. “Your turn.”

“No women at all?” She found that hard to believe. Isaac had been a demanding lover, not that he hadn’t given in equal measure, but once they’d become sexually active, it had been more a case of finding the opportunities rather than the drive.

“I won’t lie. There has been an occasional woman, usually someone I picked up on a leave and wouldn’t see again.” His lids dropped, hiding his eyes from her. “No one who meant anything.”

The knowledge hurt, however, and deflated any playfulness. Of course there had been other women. Why wouldn’t there be? They had no ties, not after that last conversation. He’d never reached out to her, and she hadn’t attempted to either.

“Z?” He nudged her chin up again.

“Of course. I mean, it makes sense.” It didn’t stop the trembling in her limbs or the bleeding cut in her soul. “I’ve dated a few men. Nothing serious.” None became her lovers. One or two seemed to be on the fast track for that, but something always held her back. “I’m not sure about dinner though. I have a bit of a headache and….”

“Hey.” He cupped her face. “Stop.”

“What?” She blinked up at him.

“Stop. And breathe.” Once he’d mentioned it, she realized she’d been panting in shallower and shallower breaths. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wished she could close down the awareness of him holding her and being so close. The deep inhale she sucked in tasted of Isaac and turned her insides to jelly.

“Z, tonight was about dinner, about getting to know each other again. We connect on a lot of levels, you and me. We have a lot of history and a lot of emotion.” The patience in his voice accompanied the soft stroke of his thumbs on her cheeks, and eased the rapid pace of her heart.

She forced her eyes open. “I’m scared.”

“Me, too.” He met her bald bluntness with raw honesty. “I thought I was over you.”

“You’re not.” It wasn’t a question, because her emotions were so tangled up between the present and the past. She didn’t know which feelings belonged where.

“No.” He shook his head and dipped his face closer to hers. “And I don’t think I want to be.” He gave the words a moment to register before slanting his mouth across hers.

Surprise rippled through her and the knot inside loosened a fraction. Unwilling, or maybe simply unable to stay a passive participant, she wrapped her arms around his neck and opened her lips to his questing tongue. He crushed her to him, and she forgot to think about anything else at all.

He’d meant to tease her, especially when she stared at him with such vulnerable eyes. What began as a simple brush of his lips over hers turned molten. Heat flamed through him with an intensity he hadn’t experienced since he was a teenager. The flash of need he felt the first since the last time she’d been in his arms. A part of his brain detailed the sensations like a catalog of first experiences. Zehava was the first girl he’d ever kissed, the first one whose body he ever touched. They’d lost their virginity together in a series of fumbling moves as passionate as they were inexpert.

Kissing her was like going home, returning unerringly to where he belonged, and damn if she didn’t know how to light him up. Her mouth opened, and she tangled her tongue with his. She dragged her nails lightly along his scalp and pressed into him with only the slightest urging on his part.

Zehava fit him, from the swell of her breasts to the lush curve of her hips. His body tightened, remembering her well, and he traced his hands up and down her spine then cupped her ass and lifted. Trapped between him and the wall, she wrapped her thighs on his hips and let him support her.

The open trust, the tiny laps of her tongue and soft vibrations from her—he drank it all down. He loved her so damn much it tore him in two. Her shirt was in the way and it aggravated him. He wanted skin and tugged her blouse half open to find her nipple peaked and hard, shoving at the fabric of her bra. Pulling back, he glanced down. He wanted to see.

A red flush spread from her face down to her chest. She’d always been creamy-skinned, eschewing tanning except on her arms and face. It pleased him to see that had definitely not changed. Palming her breast, he rubbed in slow circles, teasing the nipple until it hardened further.

“Isaac.” The ragged whisper dragged his attention upward. Her eyes were dark, the pupils dilated until they threatened to drown out the deep brown with utter blackness. “Not here.”

He wanted her then and there, against the wall, and it took time for her words to sink past the haze of desire coating his mind. She leaned in and nibbled a path of kisses from his jaw to the corner of his mouth, not helping him get control. Blood rushed south to his cock. He massaged her breast and she squirmed, releasing another delicious moan.

“Isaac,” she repeated, digging her nails into his nape. “We can’t do this here.”

“Why not?” The question far more petulant than he cared to admit.

“Because I work here.” Laughter underscored the words. “And I don’t want to check on the kids and remember they’re standing or sitting where we were getting naked and sweaty.”

He grinned, ignoring the kids part, but liking the image of her all spread out below him, panting with need. His cock ached to be free.

“It would be our secret.” He claimed her mouth again, drowning in the want of her. She groaned a laugh, the sound managing to invite and push him away at the same time. Attempting to unhook her legs from his hips, she flattened her hands on his chest. Still, he didn’t let her go.

“You are a bad, bad man, Isaac Janko.”

He raised his head, delighted by the echo of the past. “You said that the first time, too.”

“We were at your parents’ house and everyone was downstairs in the backyard, having a cookout.” Amusement and passion danced in her eyes.

“Oh, I remember, and we had to be quiet.” And she’d had a hard time being quiet, every touch eliciting another sound from her, and he’d loved how she turned to liquid heat in his arms.

“Hmm….” She traced a finger around the collar of his shirt. “But no one is at my house remember…? We can be as noisy as we like.”

More want fisted him from his spine to his cock. “That’s a long way to go.”

“It’s two blocks, and you can handle it.” Challenge laced her words, and he wondered how much cajoling it would really take to get her naked on the sofa in the game room. Probably not much. Although soft and willing in his arms, she didn’t want to do it there, and he didn’t want the sting of regret to mar this.

Getting his body under control took no small amount of effort. Discipline fraying, he focused on her and what
she
needed. Thinking about what to do for Zehava helped him put a lid on his desire. “Okay.” He withdrew a step, straightened her shirt, and something tender unlocked in him as he closed each button. “I did promise you dinner.”