21 Marine Salute: 21 Always a Marine Tales (43 page)

Logan wasn’t quite ready to yet. He wanted to lie there, holding her, and listen to them both. Home never sounded so sweet. He cupped a hand around her breast, the pulse of her heart beating a calm cadence. Sleep came for him slowly, but he never let her go.

***

Sparks lighting up his cock drove the curtain of sleep from his brain. The first weak light of morning pushed at the mini-blinds in the room. Jazz wasn’t curled up next to him anymore. Zach lay with an arm across his face and sprawled over half the bed. Wet heat licked from the slit of his dick to his balls, and Logan shoved up on his elbows to look down. He went from relaxed to coiled like a spring in seconds as he watched his cock disappear between Jazz’s lips. She licked him up and down, maintaining a wild, erotic rhythm. He pulsed in anticipation. She glanced up, meeting his gaze as her head bobbed up and her tongue swirled around the head.

He reached a hand down, but she shook her head slowly. “My turn to play.” The words vibrated against him and sent another surge upward, spiking his pleasure. Frustration curled through him, she was all over the place, never quite lingering long enough in one motion to let him blow—and by God he was going to come. His balls sucked up tight to his body, his dick thrumming with need.

She traced her tongue across the slit again, lapping up the bead of liquid pearling there, and he growled. She laughed and opened her mouth wider, swallowing him all the way to the back of her throat. He worried she might gag, but she controlled the motion, sucking him deep. The continued torment of her tongue whirling around him was the single most sensual thing he’d ever felt. His concern burned up in a flame of need. On the next thrust, an orgasm shot through him like a bullet and he came. She never let go of him, swallowing everything he pumped out, and his heart fisted in his chest.

He slumped back against the pillows, shaking with every tender lick she bestowed while she cleaned him. She crawled up to lay her head against his belly, and he drifted a hand down to caress her scalp, ever mindful of how tender some spots might still be.

“Fuck that’s beautiful.” Zach lay on his side, head propped on his hand as he stared at them. “I don’t know whether to join in or ask for an encore.”

Jazz laughed. “Give me a minute and I’ll happily suck your cock, too.”

“I love it when you talk dirty. But who gets to eat her pussy?” Zach arched a brow and Logan laughed.

“I had her for dessert. You can have it for breakfast—”

She groaned a luscious sound of anticipation. “I don’t know that I’ll ever walk again at this rate. I have PT in a couple of hours—” Zach shifted off the bed and her words broke off. Her body bucked, and Logan didn’t have to look to know Zach found his way between her legs.

“That’s more than enough time for a few more rounds, sweetheart. Don’t worry, we’ll feed you.”

Her laughter matched his.

Yeah, this was the perfect way to start the day.

***

The packed and folded wheelchair leaned against the wall next to the door. Jazz sat perched on the edge of the dining room table, her robe askew and her mussed hair a testament to Logan’s early morning pounce when she walked into the kitchen. He’d noticed her lack of a limp right away. He picked her up and feasted on her until the world danced. She needed another shower, but there was something almost romantic about how easily and thoroughly she came when either of her men started touching her.

She looked at the ring on her finger. She wore two of them, interlocking bands, placed there by each of the men she loved. They hadn’t quite figured out the logistics of the wedding yet, but a private ceremony for the three of them would accompany whatever other splashy event they needed for their families. Families that supported the decision remarkably enough.

She’d already gotten requests for at least one boy and one girl from Logan and Zach’s mothers. That embarrassing conversation left her with a quiet thrill of acceptance, too. Her own mother’s response startled her, but in retrospect, it probably shouldn’t have. They went out to lunch a week after Jazz said yes to the guys.

She spilled the news to her mom at a little French bistro in Southlake. Zach drove her to the date, but excused himself at her request. The late summer heat finally gave away to autumn chill in the Dallas suburb. The quiet patio, emptied of the lunchtime crowd, seemed the best place to broach the subject.

“Mom, Logan and Zach asked me to marry them and I said yes.” She didn’t beat around the bush with the confession. Despite the occasional twinge of worry, she committed herself to the relationship. If that meant accepting censure from others, she would take it. But she wanted her mom’s approval—even if she didn’t—she needed it.

“Well, I’m proud of them for waiting until you were back on your feet.” Her mother cut the sandwich in half and divided the roasted fries between them. They’d split meals that way since Jazz was a child. Her mother didn’t have it easy when Jazz was growing up. She hadn’t been a difficult child, but she’d been heavily involved in sports, martial arts, and a fascination with her uncle who died in Beirut in 1982. Raising a Marine hadn’t been easy, but her single mother was unflagging in her support.

“Mom, you get that I just said
they
asked me, right?”

Her mother seemed to take the news far better than her Episcopalian upbringing would have suggested.

“Yes, darling. I heard you. Eat your sandwich. Logan told me you haven’t been eating as well as you should and that you’ve increased your workouts, which means a higher carb-burning threshold.”

Jazz picked up the sandwich automatically, but she hesitated to take a bite. “You don’t have a problem with it?”

“Do you love them?” Elizabeth Winters was a cool customer, tough, and forthright. She never minced her words.

“Yes.”

“Then I think it’s wonderful. They are good men, both of them. They’re honorable. They love you.” Wiping her fingers on a napkin, her mother pinned her with a look. “You’re worried about what people think? Don’t. You have served your country with distinction. You have given and given and given. You want those men. You take them. I rather like having two sons added to the family.”

Jazz stared down into her coffee. Her mother’s reaction and encouragement provided the last push she needed to feel totally confident about it. Parental disapproval wouldn’t have changed her mind, but giving her mom the first really girly thing of her life in a wedding to plan—that was priceless.

“You planning on getting dressed today?” Zach strolled out, bare-chested and beautiful, and shook her from her musings. His jeans were open at the top button as though he’d dragged them on after crawling out of their bed.

“Yep. But I have a couple of hours before my meeting, and I didn’t feel like repolishing my buttons if you guys decide to go all caveman and rip my clothes off.” Her lips curled up with the tease and Zach laughed. He reached out to take her cup, and she pulled it to herself protectively. “Logan already made me spill the first cup. Get your own.”

He laughed again and she loved the sound of it. “You make up your mind?”

“Yep.” Logan answered for her as he wandered in, his hair still damp from the shower. The white T-shirt was a crisp contrast to his darker skin, and stretched beautifully across his muscles. “Pour me one, too.”

They grabbed their mugs and joined her at the table, Zach one-armed her right into his lap and she leaned back, almost content. Almost. After meeting with her commanding officer later in the day, the final seal would be placed on their future.

“Do I get to know what you chose?” Zach sipped his coffee, blue eyes dancing with mirth. He had to know, he’d been campaigning for her to take the offer since it arrived two weeks before.

“Recruiting. I’ll be working with the local school districts and their ROTCs. I’ll rotate, primarily, through Plano, Allen, and McKinney, until I’m cleared for full active and then I’ll add more schools.” The recruitment position was perfect. She would remain on active duty, but she wasn’t stuck behind a desk. Her superior officer’s offer stunned her, but both Zach and Logan supported the idea. “It’s not Fallujah or Bamyan, but it’s still serving.”

He grinned and kissed her nose. “You’re going to have the guys lining up around the block to join.”

She snorted. “They can enlist, but they’ll have to prove they have what it takes to be our Marines.”

“As it should be.” Logan grunted and tilted his chair back on two legs. He gave her a sleepy smile, but the pride and love in his expression could be mistaken for nothing else.

“So,” she glanced down at the ring on her finger. “How do you guys feel about a Christmas wedding?”

Always a Marine - Book 7

By

Heather Long

~Dedication~

Those who defend our country should reap its benefits
.

With air brakes hissing, the bus rolled to a stop. A.J. grabbed his ruck out of the seat next to him and made his way up the aisle of the Greyhound. The driver gave him a friendly smile and a wave on his way past then the sun hit him as he stepped into the open air. The old depot, about a mile outside Freewill, Wyoming, was surrounded by green grass right up to the edge of the old blacktop two-lane road.

He tilted his head back, drinking in the cool air, warm sunshine, and silence.
God bless the silence
. No men catching up on what happened on watch. No gunfire. No babble of foreign voices. Nothing to rankle nerves rubbed raw after five years with too few breaks in the blistering heat and desolation of Iraq.

Opening his eyes, he skimmed the mountains in the distance, an uninterrupted vista of lean, green, and free. Three deep breaths of fresh, clean, mountain air and he almost felt like a new man. He hefted the ruck over one shoulder and began to walk. The shape of the town’s exterior sharpened with every step he took.

He pushed the door to the Blue Moon Café open and stepped inside to the jingle of the bell. Bud Gaines glanced up from behind the counter and shot him a wide-welcoming grin. “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch! Look what the cat dragged in.”

A.J. crossed the room and took the older man’s outstretched hand in a firm grip. “Hey, Bud.”

“Hey there, yourself. Why didn’t you let me know you were coming home?”

The words carried a decade of chastisement. A.J. spent half his youth in trouble with, or being praised by, the café owner, a close friend of his father’s. When his dad passed ten years before, Bud stepped up to the plate and gave A.J. an ear when he needed and left him alone when he didn’t.

“Didn’t want to make a fuss. Is the coffee fresh?” He slid onto a stool and set his bag down next to it.

Bud answered with a baleful expression that said ‘of course’ and filled a fresh mug for him. “On leave?”

“Nope. Home for good.” He glanced around the café. The mid-morning lull was in full effect. His didn’t recognize a dark-haired female sitting in a window booth. She read a book and didn’t even glance up.
Definitely a newcomer
. All the old-timers gave him a friendly nod or at least met his eye. He turned back to Bud, eyeing him over the rim of his coffee cup.

“There will be fuss as soon as Mattie hears.” Bud may not be that fond of his siblings, but A.J. was one of Mattie’s favorites. He’d worked at the Misbegotten Gaines Ranch all the way through high school and two years into his studies at community college.

Before I talked to a recruiter. Before I left for Parris Island
. In the seven years since, he hadn’t been home, not once. But he saw the postcards stuck to Bud’s corkboard on the back wall, all sent by A.J. from his training to deployment.

“Well, hopefully I’ll be home before she gets wind of it. How many horses do I have left?”

There’d been a herd of over a dozen, all trained by him. Two stallions, ten mares, and a two-hundred acre spread staked out by his father that they’d shared until the man’s death. It wasn’t much, but it was home.

Bud wiped the counter and gave him a crooked grin. “Left? Try about fifty head at Jamie’s last count. Brady’s been looking after them. He brings them into MGR when the weather turns, but otherwise, they’re still running on Turner property. You had four new foals this spring.”

Fifty
.

A.J. smiled, the unfamiliar stretch to his mouth relaxing him for the first time since he’d signed the discharge papers and accepted his C.O.’s congratulations. He’d believed he needed to start over from scratch. Fifty meant he’d be working from dawn to dusk. Hot, sweating, honest work.

“I’ll give him a call and let him know that I’m home.” He finished the coffee and set the mug down. Bud slid across a keychain with the gold coin that served as a fob. Scooping them up, he rose. “Thanks for everything, Bud.”