Make Mine a Marine (6 page)

“I got scared. But I feel safer with you here.”

He was ready to wrap a comforting arm around her when she stepped back.

“You're soaked.”   Her fingertip caught the top button of his shirt and unhooked it. “You'd better get out of these before you catch a cold.”

She slipped to undo another button, and he grasped her wrist to stop her. “I'm fine. What scared you?”

She lifted her free hand and tugged open the zipper on his jacket.

“BJ.”

She giggled secretively, seductively. “You're dripping on the rug.”

When he looked to see the damage, she pushed his jacket off his shoulders and down his arms. She twisted behind him and pulled the sodden leather off, letting it fall to the floor.

“Oh, yes.”

He turned and questioned her downward focus. “What are you doing?”

“Fantasizing.”

She sounded as if she were joking about his backside. He reached for the light switch near the door, but she pushed him back. She had two more buttons undone before he snatched her by the wrists. “Stop this. You don't know what you're doing.”

“You said I was a grown woman.”

“It wasn't an invitation.”

“Of course it was. You try to be tough, but you're still a man. A man I want.” BJ tipped her head back, exposing the long column of her throat down to
…damn. Her jersey had picked up the dampness from his clothes, clinging and revealing high, firm breasts whose pouty tips flirted with him.

Suspicious mistrust flamed inside him even as his jeans grew tight. His anger fluttered into focus again. Not at BJ, but at himself for reacting like a man instead of her protector.

She ignored his grip on her and rose on tiptoe, pressing her lips against an aroused male nipple. Her touch sent a shockwave straight through him. He had never imagined this forthright woman to be such a tease. Did she think toying with his baser needs was some kind of joke?

He might be a living, breathing freak of nature. But he still felt normal male desire.

He gave her wrists a slight shake, not wanting to hurt her, but wanting her to realize that she played with fire by taunting him. “BJ, you're exhausted. I don't think you know…”

She inched her body forward, rubbing herself against him. She knew exactly what she was doing. The tips of her breasts brushed against his stomach and he caught his breath.

If her honey sweet voice warmed him, her body set him on fire.

But her actions angered him. He had sworn an oath to protect her. Did she think she needed to pay for his help by sacrificing her self-respect? Was this the kind of comfort she craved?

He released her wrists and grabbed her shoulders. “Don't do this. You don't know anything about me.”

Her response was to unfasten the top button of his jeans and pull out the tail of his shirt. “I know all I need to.”

Brodie felt the vestiges of self-restraint slipping away. Nobility became hard to hold onto. Years of denied need slowly eradicated an age-old promise to never become involved with a woman again.

BJ was intelligent. She had the IQ to prove it. She had to know where this was leading.

“BJ. Stop.”

It was a pathetic command. He wanted it. He wanted her. He had found no true release outside. His rage still simmered below the surface. Now, the embers of passion mingled with it.

This wasn't right. Yet she was so seductive, so sure of what she wanted. He hated that he had misread her so. He hated himself even more for losing control of his self-imposed distance.

Dear Lord, part of him was still human. Muttering an oath about eternal damnation, Brodie scooped her up by her bottom and lifted her high off the floor. He crushed her mouth beneath his, locking her in a fiery conflagration that consumed them both.

Chapter
Three

He wrapped her legs around his waist, swallowing her triumphant cry. Her hands clutched wildly at him, ripping his shirt open, digging her fingers into the hard muscles of his chest. Her nails teased his skin, eliciting shockwaves that made him dizzy. She fired his cool, damp skin everywhere she touched him.

Brodie collapsed in the chair and reclined it backward, stretching her out on top of him. Her lips left his to softly trace the trails marked by her fingernails. His hands roamed beneath her jersey, finding nothing but a pair of plain cotton panties to impede his progress.

Brodie loved the feel of her, solid and curved in all the right places. And not so fragile that he felt she was going to snap in two beneath his big hands.

With impatient clumsiness, he unfastened her jersey and tossed it to the floor. When his mouth found her breast, she arched her body backward, snatching at his hair and clasping his head to her.

BJ's guttural response fueled his need for her. Briefly, he thought of slowing things down for sanity's sake. But BJ had other things on her mind. She shifted and guided the other breast to his willing mouth. Her bold maneuvers enticed him into a trap from which he didn't want to escape. Brodie obliged her by rolling his tongue around the rosy peak, teasing and sucking until she cried out his name.

Lifetimes had passed since he had known loving to be this good. This free. This passionate. He was mindless with her uninhibited need. Somehow he had misjudged her. This irresistible seductress simply couldn't be as innocent as he had imagined. He felt bound to claim her. To take what she so eagerly offered.

“BJ,” he gasped, seeking her mouth again, dragging the lower part of her body squarely over his. She rubbed her heat against his, temporarily robbing him of the ability to speak. He slid his hands over her hips and stilled her provocative moves. “This isn't the best time to explain why I don't carry any protection. But I promise I can't hurt you. I can't get you pregnant.”

“Just shut up and kiss me again.” BJ lifted her head and smiled wickedly at him, her lips swollen with his kisses, her eyes …

That was when he saw it. The blank look in her eyes. Like an invisible curtain shrouding the natural light and sparkle.

That look carried him back centuries in time. Back to a time when sorcerers cast spells and damned warriors with curses.

Her eyes could see, yet saw nothing. He clasped her head between his hands, squeezing a little roughly, forcing her to look at him when she wanted to return her attentions to his body.

“BJ, look at me.” He shook her without hurting her, and tried to capture her hands to stop them from bewitching his body with their erotic play.

“Damn it, BJ! Do you see me? Do you know who I am?”

She wedged her peach-soft thigh between his legs, and he damned his body for its involuntary response.

“Bridget!”

Suddenly BJ froze, stock-still above him. Even by the dim light of the computer, he could see the color draining from her body. She blinked rapidly, like a sleeper startled into wakefulness.

Her tentative fingers traced the most hideous scar on his body, the abstract zigzag that covered his heart. He knew she was seeing it for the first time.  Really seeing it.  She started to shake.

“Brodie?”

A panicked whisper replaced her husky sexiness.

In a sudden jerky movement, BJ rolled off the chair and stood, shaking, clutching her arms across her naked breasts.

Her gaze darted around the room and back to him.  Brodie slowly straightened the chair and got up, moving cautiously, never taking his eyes off her.  She cowered like a cornered animal, expecting to be attacked at any minute from any direction.

“BJ?”  He ignored the protests of his body and kept his voice low and steady.  “Do you know where you are?”

She glanced around her.  Her nod was quick, rabbit-like. “Home.”

“Do you know who I am?”

Her eyes bored into his before she nodded, very slowly.  “It happened again, didn’t it?  I mean… I’m not sure…”

She shivered.  Brodie removed his shirt and draped it over her body, overlapping the front to cover her.  Then he stepped away from her and turned on the overhead light so she wouldn’t be frightened by a monster in the shadows.  When the light came on, she saw his unsnapped jeans and her own clothes on the floor.

Red blotches dotted her cheeks. “Oh, my God. Was I…? Did we…?”

She covered her mouth, clutched the shirt together, and dashed into the hallway. Brodie followed her to the bathroom where she slammed the door in his face. He heard the toilet flush and water running for several minutes. Finally, it grew quiet.

He retrieved his jacket from the office floor to cover himself, and rebuttoned his jeans before knocking on the door. “BJ, are you all right?” Silence. He tested the knob. It was unlocked. “I'm coming in.”

Brodie found her sitting on the edge of the tub, huddled inside his shirt. The thing hung past her knees, making her look like a little girl playing dress up. Curly wisps of hair clung to her skin where she had splashed water on her face. She looked deathly pale except for the pink rims around her eyes, evidence of more crying. Her eyes were dry now, but shadowed with trouble.

He closed the toilet lid and sat across from her. Brodie wanted to hold her hand or pull her into his arms, but thought it wiser to keep his distance. He didn't want to startle or alarm her in this disoriented state.

She glanced up at him, but quickly averted her eyes.

“I'm so embarrassed. I'm mortified. Brodie, I'm so sorry. You must think I'm an idiot. I kissed you, didn't I?” She bent her head with a strangled groan of frustration and self- reproach. “Hell, I was practically naked when I woke up. I'm so sorry.”

“I should have realized sooner.  If it helps, we didn’t consummate anything.”

“I couldn't have been in my right mind to throw myself all over you like that.”

“Quit apologizing!” He barked the order more harshly than he intended. The sight of BJ cringing away from him tore him in two. How could he have been so stupid to let her put herself in such an awkward position? He should have been looking out for her welfare from the outset. He should have seen her dazed expression. He should never have inflicted the kind of pain he saw etched in her eyes.

Brodie softened his voice and hunched his shoulders. “Do you remember anything?”

He held himself still, giving BJ the time she needed to summon herself once more. She leaned forward, lifting her fingers to his lips, tracing them with the delicate inquisitiveness of a blind person reading Braille. It required all his will not to jerk away from her tender, unwittingly arousing fingertips. A frown crinkled beside her eyes. She concentrated, trying to replay the episode in her head. He kept still because this was his mission, and BJ needed to find answers.

“I don't know.” She leaned even closer, trying to see with her eyes something her memory could not. “You were wet and cold and we kissed. I think.”

Brodie couldn't account for what possessed him then. He fleetingly excused it as research for the case when he pulled her hand away, closed the distance between them, and kissed her.

Slowly, reverently, less volatile than before. He kissed her until her lips shyly responded. Until her hand cupped the less damaged side of his jaw. Until her mouth opened to let him taste the honeyed softness inside. She had been fire before. Now she had changed into a soft rain, mesmerizing and life-affirming.

He pulled away even more slowly, hesitant to believe that
he
wasn't under some kind of spell. Her eyes fluttered open, close to his. They were clear and bright—and aware.

“I remember,” she whispered. “Nothing else is clear. But I remember this. I remember you.”

When she looked at him with those honest, trusting eyes, he could almost wish…he could almost believe…Hell, this was too much. Too soon. It would never be right to have feelings for BJ. It would never be safe.

Abruptly, Brodie cleared his throat and stood. He steeled himself against her visible withdrawal and the habitual way she had of crossing her arms and hugging herself. “That doesn't make any sense. You can't remember what you were doing in your office. But you can remember what I did?”

“Vaguely.” BJ spoke quietly, almost apologetically. “I remember the sensation more than the actual embrace. I knew I wasn't alone. I knew it was you.”

Nothing made any sense. “You don't recall anything else?”

She struggled to find an answer that remained just out of reach. “No. Not until I woke up, on top of you.  Mostly… naked.”

BJ winced at the last phrase, looking acutely embarrassed by the intimacy she had unconsciously shared with him. At that moment, Brodie felt the sting of every wound ever inflicted on him, every tragedy of which he had been a part. To have let his sordid, sorry existence touch this innocent woman felt unforgivable. Instinctively, he zipped his jacket to the neck and turned the more frightening side of his face away from BJ.

“Do you remember what you were doing before you went into the trance?”

BJ couldn't blame Brodie for his abrupt change in manner. Somewhere along the way she had crossed that indefinable barrier between employer and bodyguard and gotten very, very personal. Even if she didn't remember much of what happened in her office, she could tell that Brodie was extremely uncomfortable at being reminded of just how personal things had gotten between them.

She wanted him to protect her and comfort her as he had earlier. She wanted to know the true man inside of him. Was he the gentle giant of a moment ago or this cold, fierce warrior?

But just because she felt unfamiliar desires and curiosity didn't necessarily mean he wanted anything from her. In fact, Brodie had gone out of his way several times to show her how much he needed his privacy and distance. BJ felt rather selfish for violating those needs, regardless of whether she'd been sane at the time or not.

BJ did remember the tender kiss they had shared moments ago. His crooked mouth had been unbending, but infinitely gentle. Brodie's raw, sensual touch scattered the murky clouds of shame and confusion in her mind, and replaced them with the clarity of awareness. Of him and of herself. Man and woman. Not damsel and rescuer. Not monster and misfit. Brodie and BJ.

If he could deny the connection between them, then so could she.

She answered his question in as businesslike a manner as she could. “I couldn't sleep. The storm came and I knew you were outside. I went out on the porch and called, but I guess you couldn't hear me. I came back in to play on the computer until you got in.”

Her recollection went fuzzy.

“I don't know.” She shoved her fingers through her hair, frustrated with herself for being so confused. “What's wrong with me?” she demanded, to no one in particular. “My mind is so screwed up!”

“When the other incidents occurred—when your designs were stolen—do you remember anything at all about them? What you were doing when they started? When you woke up?”

“I don't know.”

“Think!” She jerked at his clipped command forced herself to concentrate.

She closed her eyes and tried to picture the episodes that had left her feeling violated. “Usually they happen late at night. When I've been working really hard. But tonight I wasn't doing anything. Just playing a game.”

BJ's cheeks grew hot. That wasn't all she had been doing. She had been thinking about Brodie. In her mind, there were no scars. There was only strength and understanding, enough to make her feel feminine and desirable. In her imagination, his comfort became a caress. He smiled with her.

She snapped her eyes open. Brodie still wore his perpetual frown. BJ channeled her thoughts back to business. “I kept myself awake by rewriting the game program.”

Suddenly her thinking skipped off on another tangent. The computer. Something about the computer. A flash of insight toyed with her consciousness.

“What is it?”

BJ shot to her feet, shoving her arms into the sleeves of Brodie's shirt. She darted back into her office. His question hung in the air, unanswered, while she focused everything on the computer in front of her. Brodie moved behind her chair while she typed in a command. Nothing.

She banged her fist on the table and typed again. When she pushed the enter button, a myriad of geometric shapes floated across the screen.

“Damn!”

“What are you doing?”

She ignored Brodie's question. Clutching the oversized shirt together with one hand, she crawled under the computer table and checked the wires on a recording box she had installed.

Nothing.

The word became a mantra in her head.

BJ slid out from beneath that table and repeated the same manic process on the other computer. She stared at the figures moving randomly before her, pressing the heels of her hands against her temples, desperately trying to make sense out of the garbage on the screen.

Nothing.

She jumped to her feet, grabbed the computer monitor, and slung the machine into the corner of the room. Brodie grabbed her by the collar and jerked her away from the shower of sparks and glass that followed the impact of wall and hardware.