21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (24 page)

“So you want to capture the passion again?”

“Yes. I don’t date. I don’t like men, I mean I like guys, a lot of them, but only as friends.” She sighed. “This keeps coming out wrong.”

“You’re scared.” Brody tested a theory and raised his hand to stroke a finger down her cheek. She went completely still at the action, but she didn’t withdraw. Her pupils dilated, her lips parted, and her breathing grew shallow. “You’re really scared, and you’re not even sure totally what you’re scared of. That makes it harder to put into words.”

He paid attention to the sensitivity training he’d received. As an officer, it was his job to look after his men and to watch for the warning signs. Posttraumatic stress radiated off Shannon, whether she was aware of it or not and made worse because she didn’t remember her assault, just the guilt and shame of waking up after the fact.

“It seems easier with you. Maybe you’re right, it’s because you’re a stranger, but you don’t even feel like a stranger now.”

He liked that admission and continued to stroke her cheek gently. She relaxed. Brody was a patient guy and he could give her the time she needed. “I have an idea…it’s a little unconventional though.”

“Oh?” Interest flared in her eyes.

“I take it you have a studio?”

“Yes. A loft space in a reclaimed warehouse.”

“How far away is it?” He traced the line of her jaw, edging gently toward her ear and down again to her chin, the motion smooth and even.

“Just a couple of blocks, actually. A huge section of this area used to be nothing but old industrial warehouses. But most are converted lofts, apartments, studios, and clubs.”

He slowly nodded. “Would you be comfortable taking me there?”

Her breath caught and her chin jerked up. “Why?”

“You want to touch, to find the passion for the body again. I happen to have a body, and you can touch me at your leisure with no expectations, no demands, and all the control you could desire.”

When she pulled back, he released her and let his hand rest on the back of the booth. Her mouth worked, but no sound emerged. A wild battle waged inside of her and every emotion flickered across her expressive face. Brody ordered himself to still and gentled his expression. It was a crazy idea, but fear was an insidious enemy. It burrowed in, sinking hooks into the tender part of the soul, rending and tearing when it was tugged at. Soon it became easier to hold onto the fear than risk the wounds of breaking free.

He understood it.

He’d fought it every day in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and more countries than he could name. He fought it when he got on a plane, when he stepped out of a Humvee and when he woke up in the morning. He never let the hooks sink in. She wanted to rip them out. It was why she’d signed up with the 1Night Stand service. She wanted to find passion with a stranger, face down her fears and drive them away.

Brody was the right guy for the job. He’d face down every fear, no matter how bad it left him aching.

“I don’t know if I can,” she admitted.

“But you want to try.” He heard her unspoken words.

At her slow nod, he slipped his hand around the back of her neck in a light caress. Her pulse beat madly in her throat. “Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen. You want it to stop, you say stop. You want me to hush, say hush. You say it and I will do it, you have my word.”

“Do you mind if we walk there? It’s not far and the crime rate’s really dropped in this area.”

“Sweetheart, it would be my honor to walk you to your studio, and trust me, no one is going to bother you.”

Shannon folded her arms across her chest as they stepped outside the club. The October air carried the promise of chill, but warmth from the day still drifted up from the cement. The smell of car exhaust mingled with scents of ivy, a hint of beer and from upwind, the rich, roasting aroma of beef from the steakhouse a block away. Brody spoke to the valet and came back with his keys. He wanted access to his car in case the club closed before he returned. He walked with such an easy, loping confidence. His posture never varied and his shoulders never slumped.

He really was a beautiful man.

And she was completely out of her mind. He lifted his brows at her.

“Oh.” Another blush rushed to her cheeks. She’d forgotten he didn’t know which way, and she pointed east up the block. “It’s this way.”

He hooked his thumbs into his jean pockets and cocked an elbow toward her. Uncrossing her arms, she slid her hand carefully into the nook created. He tugged her a fraction closer, sandwiching her hand into the warm of his body.

“Are you for real?” When she’d signed up for the one-night stand, she’d read all the literature, forced herself through the online interviews and questionnaires with the idea that it would all be worth it, if she could just get back on that horse again, take control of her reactions, and her body.

“Last time I checked. Want to pinch me and find out?”

“No.” She shook her head, laughing at herself. “If I am imagining all of this, I don’t want to wake up.” The words sang with more truth than she could have believed. A surreptitious glance at her watch told her it had been less than two hours since she’d walked up to Brody in the club, since she translated that first song and been transported by the sweeping emotions in the words to this warm bubble that now included the Marine.

Sitting in the booth, she’d forgotten how tall he was. He stood more than a head taller than her, the perfect height to rest her head on his shoulder. It helped that he shortened his stride to accommodate hers and once again she was grateful not to be teetering on high heels.

“If you were imagining all this, what would you change?”

“Hmm…I’d be taller, prettier and a heck of a lot more confident.” The words rolled off her tongue without a second thought, but they trembled with honesty. An honesty that was easier with Brody than any person she’d ever met. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

He didn’t answer immediately. At the corner, he leaned away to hit the button and waited for the walk signal before answering. “I don’t
not
believe in it, but I can’t say I’ve really thought about it that much, either. Why?”

She twisted to walk sideways, wanting to see his face, but her hand stayed firm in his arm. The casual contact was almost overwhelming in its intimacy. “Because I’ve known you for less than two hours and you’re easy to talk to. I never thought anyone in the military would be easy to talk to, so damn easy to look at, or that I would invite him back to my studio.”

Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “And you’ve known a lot of us ‘military’ types?”

“A couple. Army mostly.”

“Oh.
Them
. That explains it. You just needed to meet a Marine, ma’am.” The easy wink and gentle smile boosted her hear, and she skipped a half step and then they were at her building. Her legs locked, as though the cement reached up to grab her ankles.

Indecision swept over her. What was she doing, inviting him back to her place? Had she invited him? Or had he invited himself? Raw terror clawed at the insides of her belly and scraped against her spine.

What if she couldn’t go through with it? Was that fair to him? Wouldn’t that make her a tease of the worse kind?

“You’re having a whole conversation inside that beautiful head.” Brody’s slow drawl tugged her gaze upward. He tilted his head, consideration and patience tangible in his gentle smile. “Be nice if you’d invite a guy to participate in his own defense.”

“I’m crazy,” she blurted.

“Okay.”

“What?” Shannon blinked, turning until she faced him. He shifted his arm, her grip slid off the crook of his elbow, but he caught her hand in his. The chill of the air teased the warmth suffusing her hand, adding tingles to where his fingers caressed hers.

“Okay, you’re crazy.”

“How is that okay?”

“Because crazy is in the eye of the beholder. I’ve jumped out of planes, driven right into enemy fire, and conducted building-by-building searches in hostile territory for insurgents where the natives would be just as happy to blow my head off. Top that.”

Shannon’s mouth opened and then promptly closed. Her heart pumped a little drum cadence against her ribs. Laughter popped the bubbles of nervousness flooding through her. “Are you sure you want to come up to the studio?”

“Only if you want me there. Remember, this is all about you. You control what we do and you make the decisions. I am in your hands, ma’am.”

Absolutely no artifice, teasing, or even hint of untruth flavored the words. The earnest declaration carried simple fait accompli. He meant it. Her confidence unraveled swifter than she could gather it together.

Get it together, Shannon. This is what you wanted. To feel, to touch, to look, and to experience passion again. Passion is standing right there, staring at you with those fuck-me-hard brown eyes and love-me-longer lips
.

“All right.” Nothing like grabbing the bull by the horns. Or the Marine by the hand. She squeezed his fingers lightly. “We go upstairs, I can show you around the studio, and we take it slow.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The verbal snap of his heels in his words emboldened her further.

“But if I say no….”

“No means no, ma’am.”

She giggled. “Please don’t call me, ma’am.”

His eyes crinkled with amusement. “Sir, yes sir.”

Laughter burst through her nerves, and she shook with it as she plucked her keys from a pocket and let him into the building.

***

They rode up the rickety basket elevator to the top floor, and Brody waited patiently while she disengaged the electronic security and relocked the door’s four slide bolts. Shannon leased the entire top floor of the converted warehouse, with statues and sculptures in various states of completion filling a full half. She’d been getting ready for another show and she’d already sold three of her marbles. Their owners loaned them back to her for the duration of the show. But the dispassion her critics pointed out was easy to see in the warm yellow light of the studio’s night system.

Her heart started jogging as she watched him stroll through the studio space. His gaze seemed to absorb every inch of the vaulted ceilings, the floor to ceiling windows, the stone and wooden bracers that created an illusion of filler, and the statues themselves. Brody paused in front of one, a sandstone-colored marble of a man sitting with a laptop propped open on his lap. Modeled on Rodin’s, The Thinker, she’d added careful hints of modern technology from the computer to the iPhone sticking out of one pocket. The phone had taken her a week to get right.

“Where do you want me?” He stood in the center of the room, patient and relaxed.

“You are so male.” Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him. In the low illumination of the studio’s nightlights he was pure man, shadows feathered half his face, casting him in sharp relief. His lips were barely parted, but were full, firm and even. His nose curved gently along the line of his profile, adding just the barest hint of softness to the hard jaw line.

“Thank you.” The easy grin stretched his mouth wide, but she shook her head slowly.

“Don’t smile and just stay right there.” She stripped off her jacket and tossed it uncaringly onto a table littered with brushes, pencils, sketch pads and chisels. She fumbled through the stack until she found a clean sketchpad and a pencil.

Sliding off her shoes, she padded in a circle around him. The light was damn near perfect, but with only a look over her shoulder at him, she bounced over to the wall switches. Flicking two off, she glanced back and grinned. The change bathed him in a pale, golden glow and gave his tanned skin a burnished edge. The shadows were softer.

He watched her with amusement glittering in his gaze, but his lips were relaxed and unsmiling, just like she’d said.

Now to find the perfect spot
….

Somewhere between deciding on the settings and where to sit, her heart calmed to a gentle, sure cadence. The tension eased out of her joints and she moved in a slow loose, fashion. Brody waited patiently until she’d settled, six feet away from him. Gliding down into a yoga position, she hooked her ankles on her knees and flipped open the sketchpad.

“How long can you stand like that?” she asked, her chin tilted up and pencil poised.

“As long as you need me to.” Confident, not arrogant.

She just might be in love.

For the next two hours she drew him, moving him to a new position about every third or fourth drawing. She concentrated on his face and his posture. When she asked him to take off the jacket, he’d lifted both eyebrows.

“Is that an order?”

A delicious shiver of pleasure uncurled in her belly at the challenge. Her mouth dried and she flicked her tongue over her lips, desperate to moisten them.

“Yes?” The question mark punctuating the word didn’t sound as confident.

“Then make it one.”

A second finger of heat stroked through her. Biting down on her lip, she glanced at the profile on the paper. It was probably the best she’d done in years, and she still hadn’t quite captured the pure masculine beauty standing in front of her.

“Take the jacket off.” She swallowed the please.

“Yes, sir.” The words reflected humor that didn’t crease his lips reminding her that she’d told him not to smile earlier.

And he hadn’t.

He stripped off the jacket. The white cotton stretched hard against thick biceps as he hung it neatly off the back of a chair just a foot away. He took his position again.

Did she dare
?

“Take the shirt off, too.” Her voice squeaked at the end, all the oxygen rushing out.

The barest hint of amusement curled the corners of his lips, but relaxed immediately and he nodded. Approval gleamed in his eyes as he stared right at her, his fingers loosening the buttons down his glorious chest. He tugged the shirt out of his pants and peeled it off, folding it like the jacket before setting it down.