Fall to Pieces (25 page)

"Sadie, you make me so fucking hard," he
murmured, rocking his hips until his cock was nestled even more
firmly against her belly. Unable to resist anymore, she slid her
hand up between them, fisting it around the granite hard column of
flesh.

Felt her own sex throb as he tipped his head
back and squeezed his eyes shut as though it was almost too much to
bear.

Apparently done teasing, he dipped his own
hand between her legs, and this time she was the one who bit her
lip and cried out as his fingers moved over her clit in sure, firm
strokes. He bent his head and took a nipple in his mouth as she
pumped him with her fist.

His groan vibrated through her, joining the
pressure between her legs to send her hurtling towards the
edge.

"Dylan," she gasped, the hot spray and his
hotter touch making it hard for her to breathe, "I'm don't want to
come yet. Not without you."

One last stroke of his fingers and he slowly,
almost reluctantly, pulled his hand away, then reached for the
condom he'd stashed.

He quickly slid it on and turned her so her
back was against the tile, his wide torso protecting her from the
spray. Bracing his big feet, he hooked her knee in his hand and
drew it over his hip. Knees bent ever so slightly, he guided his
cock home.

She moaned at that first thrust, the thick
intrusion as her body stretched to accommodate him. One smooth
stroke had him buried deep, and immediately she felt herself start
to come. She tried to hold it off, tried to make it last, but with
him so deep inside her, the base of his pelvis grinding so
deliciously against exactly the right spot, and she was a
goner.

###

Dylan marveled at the fierceness of her
response even as he struggled not to come at the feel of Sadie
quivering and pulsing around him. He kissed her, tasting her cries,
absorbing her pleasure until it almost felt like his own.

He'd never been with a woman like Sadie, so
immediately responsive to his touch. Never had a woman hold him,
touch him, like she couldn't get enough of him.

Like she'd never get enough of him.

And unlike with any other woman before her,
he wanted to give her as much as he possibly could.

He waited for the last tremors to fade before
he started to move. Shallow, grinding thrusts that soon had her
moaning and squirming against him, her fingers digging into the
muscles of his shoulders as she tried to steady herself.

He bent his head, sucked a nipple into his
mouth with a hard pull. He flicked the sensitive flesh with his
tongue and felt her try to flinch away.

But there was nowhere to go.

"Dylan," she said on a moan. "I can't, I
need..."

"You need to come for me again," he said
tightly. "
I
need you to come for me again," he said and
rocked his hips harder against her.

He could feel her standing leg trembling
against him, and he gripped her hip to steady her as he swung his
hips harder, withdrawing almost all the way before sinking back
inside. "I've never felt anything better than you coming around my
cock, your sweet, tight pussy squeezing me like you don't ever want
to let me go," he growled against her cheek.

Sadie gasped and moaned as he continued to
whisper in her ear, telling her how beautiful she was, how hard she
made him, how when he was with her he almost didn't want to come
because he didn't want it to end.

Oh, God, if he only knew how closely he
echoed her feelings, but not just about the sex.

Never want it to end. Never want it to
end.

The words echoed through her head in rhythm
with his hard, heavy thrusts. As her body strained for the release
he was so determined to give her.

One last hard, grinding thrust and her orgasm
hit her with the force of an avalanche. Blowing her apart,
scattering her in a million pieces as every nerve pulsed with
light.

This time he came with her, his shout of
pleasure echoing off tiles as his cock jerked and trained inside of
her.

His breath coming hard, he let her leg slide
down his. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her so
tenderly that when he lifted his head, she hoped the shower would
disguise the fact that there were tears in her eyes.

"I thought I was supposed to be thanking
you," she said shakily, trying to banish the echo in her brain.

Never want it to end.

His own eyes were shining with satisfaction
as he smiled down at her. "Believe me, I felt your gratitude." He
bent and kissed her again, and when he lifted his head there was so
much affection in his eyes she could almost believe...

"You are something else, Sadie Thornton," he
said and turned away to shut off the water.

Maybe so. But she knew that wouldn't change a
thing when it was time for him to leave.

###

"So once you're cleared for duty, how long
before you leave?" Sadie asked around a bite of the sandwich he'd
made. As busy as they'd been, there hadn't been time to stock up on
groceries, so they'd had to settle for grilled cheese to go with
their beers.

"A few days, most likely."

"That soon?" She said. Though she tried to
hide it, he didn't miss the dismay.

He took a swig of beer to hide the discomfort
bubbling up in his gut. In the past, when a woman had expressed
even the slightest upset that he was leaving, the only thing he'd
felt was annoyance. An obligation to extricate himself as
gracefully as possible, without making it obvious to the other
person how eager he was to get away.

Right now, it wasn't Sadie's obvious upset
that made him uncomfortable.

It was the fact that, as much as he was ready
to get back to active duty, he didn't want to leave Sadie.

For a split second, he imagined what it would
be like to life a civilian life. A life where he didn't have to
leave for parts unknown at the drop of a hat.

A life where he got to go to bed and wake up
with Sadie every single day. A life where instead of being a
soldier he would... and that's where his mind hit a brick wall.

There's nothing else for you,
he
reminded himself harshly.
You've worked so hard to get back to
where you need to be. Don't lose your focus now.

While his heart pounded and his stomach
twisted at the prospect of not going back to his team, that didn't
mean his heart didn't twist at the idea of not looking across the
table at Sadie as she was right now. Dressed in one of his t-shirts
that fit her like a dress, her hair rumpled, lips swollen from his
kisses.

Not seeing her every day, not having her in
his bed every night.

Had he fallen in love with her?

Oh shit.

"Are you okay?"

He realized he'd been sitting there with his
beer halfway to his mouth. "I'm fine," he said and quickly pushed
back from the table. He gathered up their empty plates and moved to
the sink as his mind struggle to wrap itself around a concept he'd
never even entertained.

Could he be in love with Sadie?

He'd thought he was in love once, with
Jessica Ferguson back in high school. But when she'd moved to
Billings their junior year it had only taken a few months for him
to decide the drive was too much of a hassle.

Looking back, he could chalk it up to being a
dumb teenager whose hormone-soaked brains mistook simple biology
for emotion.

He'd never felt anything approaching this.
The urge to seek Sadie out at every opportunity. When they weren't
together, he missed her, even if it had been only a few hours since
he'd last seen her.

Holy shit.

His brain started to swim, hard enough that
he put one hand on the counter to hold himself steady.

Was this why they called it falling in love?
Because right now he felt like he was sailing off a cliff.

There's no rule this has to end when you go
back. Lots of guys do the long distance thing.

Yeah they do. And seventy percent of the
guys you know who started out married got divorced after their
second deployments.

It was no secret military life was hell on
relationships. And life as a Delta Operator was even worse. His
work meant having to leave at the drop of a hat, unable to tell
anyone where he was going or when he'd be back.

Sadie came up behind him and slid her arms
around his waist. He closed his eyes, drinking in the warmth of her
touch as bitter reality settled in. Even if he did love her—and he
still wasn't a hundred percent sure on that—it would be supremely
selfish of him to ask her to put up with that kind of life.

He turned in her arms, bent his head to kiss
her as he shoved thoughts of the future from his head. He'd known
from the start he would have to let her go.

###

Sadie woke up to an empty bed, something
she'd gotten used to with Dylan. She climbed out of bed, pulled on
his t-shirt, and wandered into the living room.

The TV was tuned to ESPN and set to such a
low volume she wondered how he could possibly hear. But when she
got closer, she saw it didn't matter. Dylan's head was flopped back
against the cushions, sound asleep.

She started to tiptoe back to bed, not
wanting to disturb him when he was actually getting some rest, and
caught sight of his laptop sitting open on the little kitchen
table. Though the screen was dim, she could see the lines of text
filling a page.

You never find out anything good by
snooping,
a little voice warned even as she padded across the
room. Guilt pinched at her stomach, but it wasn't enough to
overcome the curiosity driving her over how he spent his sleepless
nights.

She gave a furtive glance over her shoulder,
reassuring herself Dylan hadn't stirred, and traced her finger
across the mousepad to illuminate the screen.

Khalid had just turned twenty-two, but he'd
lived a hundred lifetimes by the time he became our translator. Six
feet tall and rail thin, he had dark, fathomless eyes full of deep
compassion that would have been beaten out of a man with a weaker
heart…

Sadie sat down, immediately drawn into the
story of the young Afghani, who had volunteered to act as the
translator for Dylan's company, despite the danger he knew it would
pose to his family. She was struck by Dylan's talent, his writing
so vivid it was as though she was there with him.

She smiled as he described Khalid's literal
interpretations of American idioms, felt her heart warm as Dylan
and the other members of the team took him under their wing, taught
him about American football and offered unsolicited advice on how
to treat his young, pregnant wife.

Then the burn of tears as he described what
happened when the local warlords exacted their revenge on Khalid
for his betrayal.

"What are you doing?"

Sadie jumped in her chair, startled, and
wiped at the tears coursing down her cheeks. She'd been so absorbed
she hadn't heard Dylan rise from the couch and come up behind
her.

"I'm sorry," she said, her stomach clenching
at Dylan's dark frown, mouth tight with anger. "I didn't mean to
snoop—"

"You shouldn't be reading that," he snapped
and reached past her to slap the laptop closed.

He snatched the computer off the table and
stuffed it into the bag resting on the floor.

She jumped out of the chair. "I'm sorry," she
said again.

Dylan was silent, his anger radiating off of
him in waves. "You had no right to read any of that. It's none of
your business."

Tears once again clogged Sadie's throat, hurt
spearing her like an arrow to the chest. What she'd read offered a
glimpse into what she could sense going on beneath Dylan's
easy-going demeanor. Insight into the way his time in the Army had
changed him from the carefree charmer he'd been in high school.

Pieces of himself he had no interest in
sharing with her.

"I should go," she said, hating the way her
voice quavered. She started down the hall, hoping she could make it
before she made an idiot of herself by bursting into tears.

###

Dylan swore softly under his breath, his gut
clenching at the wounded look he'd caught on Sadie's face before
she hustled down the hall. He hadn't meant to be so harsh, but his
entire being rebelled at the idea of someone reading his private
journals, seeing all the rawness, the ugliness seething inside of
him.

But Sadie hadn't meant any harm, and she
didn't deserve to have her head bitten off about it.

He found her in the bedroom, jeans on, in the
process of buttoning her shirt. Her hair fell in her face, hiding
it from his view.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have
jumped down your throat like that."

She gave her head a little shake. "You made
it clear you didn't want me to see whatever you spend your nights
working on. I shouldn't have pried."

The telltale sniff that followed made him
feel like something she'd scraped off her shoe. He closed the
distance between them and reached out to brush her hair back from
her face, urging her to meet his gaze.

"You have to understand, what I write... it's
the only way I can deal with everything that's going on up here,"
he circled his hand around his own head. "It's not just you I don't
want reading it, I don't want anyone reading it."

"I understand," she said with a little smile
that didn't quite reach her eyes.

He hated seeing that look on her face. There
was only one way he knew of to erase it.

###

Sadie lay with her head on Dylan's chest,
listening to the steady beat of his heart as his hand lazily
stroked up and down the length of her spine. As the haze of
satiation faded, the heartbreaking images from Dylan's story crept
back into her brain.

"How long have you been writing?" she said
into the darkness.