Nobody's Hero (6 page)

Time to regain control now. “Hon, it’s not
like you seem to have had a lot of experience with being turned
on.”

Karla pulled away and her eyes, reddened from
her recent crying jag, became narrow slits. “Not true. I’ve been
turned on by you for a long time. You just chose to ignore me.” She
cupped his cheeks in her hands, forcing Adam to stare into her eyes
again. “The only person I ever wanted to turn me on was you,
Adam.”

If she didn’t stop whispering like that, he
was going to embarrass himself.

“When I saw you in my parents’ kitchen
without your shirt—oh…my…God. I was ruined for any other man right
then and there.” She grinned.

He’d turned on a sixteen-year-old? Hell, he’d
thought she’d been embarrassed, not excited. If her mom would have
let him put his damned shirt back on, maybe none of this would have
happened. Karla definitely took after her mother. Two strong,
dominant women.

He needed to get Karla off his lap. It was
wrong to take advantage of a naïve, innocent—well not as innocent
as she’d been an hour ago—woman who was just discovering the joys
of love. No, not love. Sex.

Wrong to wrap his arms tighter around
her.

Wrong to want to kiss her.

He knew all that, so why was he ignoring his
inner compass and doing those things anyway?

Adam’s arms tightened around her and she felt
a charge of electricity rip through her. Still holding his face in
her hands, she moved her lips toward his, brushing them lightly,
enjoying the tingling sensation. She wanted to savor this moment.
His lips were firm and soft at the same time. She kissed his upper
lip, then his fuller lower one. He didn’t reciprocate, but that was
okay. They had hours before daylight would bring the house to life
again. With his walls of resistance still lowered, she had no doubt
how her first seduction scene would turn out.

Adam Montague, you are doomed to be loved by
me forever, whether you choose to accept me or not.

With the tip of her tongue, she traced the
line between his lips, and he groaned, his hand moving up to cup
her breast. Her bare breast. The towel must have slipped down
again. She hadn’t even noticed. Nor did she care.

Yes. Touch me, Adam.

“Oh God, Kitten.”

The special endearment was growing on her. He
rolled her nipple between his finger and thumb, sending another
zing straight to her clit. She squirmed on his lap and felt his
erection pressing against her thigh. Karla smiled. What a feeling
of power. Now to move in for the kill. Thank God she’d watched a
lot of romantic movies, or she might not have even known how to
kiss him like a woman would. She’d fantasized about this for many,
many years.

Karla took her fingers and splayed them over
the very short hairs at the nape of his neck, then held his head
firmly as she pressed her tongue against his lips, breaking through
and delving inside his mouth. His hand convulsed over her breast
and nipple at her gentle, but persistent, invasion.

He pushed her away, and she looked at him
through half-lidded eyes. Both of them gasped for air. Then he
pulled her toward him with a groan that sounded like surrender.

His tongue met and welcomed hers, teasing,
stroking, dancing. Her clit throbbed.
More.
She wanted more
but knew she needed to go slowly. God, she’d die if he pulled away
from her again. His tongue pressed into her open mouth and
assaulted her senses. Air became a precious commodity, and she
gasped, trying to fill her aching lungs.

Throwing her head back, she gave him access
to her neck, and he pressed kisses against the throbbing pulse
there. His whiskers scratched and tickled at the same time. Her
clit throbbed in response. As a teenager, she hadn’t imagined him
with whiskers. She stifled a giggle. What a giddy feeling. At last,
Adam was kissing her, loving her.

Well, maybe love was too strong a word. He
wasn’t ready for that. But she definitely hoped he would make love
to her. Again. Slowly. With great feeling.

His lips nuzzled into the hollow of her
throat, and she felt her girly bits growing wet. Her entire body
tingled at the awareness he awoke inside her.
More
. Dragging
her hands from around his neck, she touched his chest with
trembling hands, wishing he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt now. She
wanted to see his chest in the light coming from her bathroom door.
She hadn’t been able to see much of him before in the darkness of
his room.

Adam’s hand moved from her breast and grasped
her wrists, pressing her hands against his chest. Confused, she
lifted her head and watched him close his eyes as he leaned forward
until his forehead pressed against hers. He took several raspy
breaths, apparently having as much trouble breathing as she
was.

Don’t pull away from me, Adam. Not
again.

He sat up and opened his eyes, a look of pain
on his face.
No!
Karla felt her heart squeezing tight before
he even spoke.

“I can’t do this to you, hon.”

“I want you to do this
with
me, not
to
me.”

“You deserve better than me.”

Her voice sounded hoarse when she spoke.
“Adam, they don’t come any better than you.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“Bullshit. I know you’re a good and honorable
man. I know you would lay down your life for someone you love.”
Yes, including me.
“And I know you have a lot of hurts
buried deep inside you that are fucking with your brain.” When his
eyes grew round at her second f-bomb, she continued. “When are you
going to stop thinking of me as a child? I’m not sixteen anymore,
Adam. And I’m not crushing on you like I did back then. I came to
you this summer because I needed you to help me deal with Ian’s
death. Then I realized how much I’ve loved you all these years. But
when you were lying in that hospital bed, I realized how much you
need me, too. Please don’t shut me out. I can help slay your
dragons.”

Adam pulled away as if she’d struck him.
“What are you talking about? I don’t have any dragons left. I’ve
slayed them already.”

“
I’ll be good. Don’t lock me in there,
Mommy!”

Karla remembered Adam lying in the hospital
bed, feverish from infection, and screaming those words out in a
high-pitched child’s voice. She reached up to stroke his cheek,
wondering how to get him to open up to her about the pain buried so
deep inside he didn’t even know it was there.

“I want to know you better. Tell me about
yourself, Adam. Where did you grow up?”

He seemed wary, as if uncertain of her
motives. “Minneapolis.”

“Any siblings?”

“No.”

This was going to be like pulling teeth. She
needed to ask open-ended questions that would elicit more than
one-word responses. Karla tried to stifle a grin. “What was school
like for you?”

“Fine.”

She sighed. “Which subjects did you like—and
why
?”

“History and math.”

When he didn’t continue, she coaxed,
“Why?”

He drew a deep breath. “History because I
liked reading about wars and military campaigns. I figured even as
a teenager it was good to learn from past mistakes and not repeat
them. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.” He paused a
moment, lost in thought, then blinked himself back to the present.
“Math because it’s like a puzzle, a challenge. I like finding ways
to solve problems using predictable mathematical rules that don’t
change on a whim. The way to the answer is the same yesterday and
today as it will be tomorrow.”

Ah, so math was safe for Adam. No wonder he
enjoyed running the club’s business so much. She imagined that
skill had served him well in the Marines, too. Procedures. Duty.
Code of Conduct.

“Why did you choose to join the Marines and
not another branch?”

“Family tradition. There’s been a Marine in
the Montague family since back to the Civil War when my
great-great-grandfather served.”

“Wow, that’s a long history. I don’t think I
know what my family did before World War I even.”

“Well, sometimes the blood gets watered down
through the generations. You have to go further back to find
someone to be proud of.”

Oh, here we go
. Best to avoid his
mother at this point, given his nightmare in the hospital. “Tell me
about your dad.” His body grew rigid, and he went straight on the
defensive.

“He was a dickwad. Drank too much. Abused my
mother. Is that what you wanted to know about me, hon?”

Had his father abused Adam, too? “Oh, Adam,
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. But you aren’t your father
and you’re not responsible for the choices he made. Is that why you
don’t drink?”

In a flash, he placed his hands around her
waist and tried to lift her off his lap. He grimaced in pain at the
exertion.

“Don’t lift me! You’ll hurt yourself. I’ll
get up.”

She scooted off his lap and stood, then sat
down beside him on the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine.” He gritted his teeth through the
obvious pain, then stood and made his way toward the door. Why had
talking about drinking set him off? “Get some sleep, Karla. I plan
to do the same.”

But I want to sleep with you, Adam.

“Adam.” She waited for him to stop and turn
toward her, his hand resting on the doorknob. “You might win this
battle with your retreat, but you haven’t won the war—and you
won’t.”
I’m the most formidable foe you’ve ever encountered.
“Run, if you must, but you can’t hide from me.”

He blinked a couple of times, then turned the
knob and left the room, softly closing the door behind him.

Adam Montague, I am going to hunt down all
your ghosts, including Joni, and put them to rest so you can get on
with your life.

Your life with me.

* * *

Had Karla just declared war on him? Over
what—not telling her more about his fucking childhood? Or how his
drinking had turned him into the very monster he’d been running
from his entire life?

Adam remembered the night he’d gotten drunk
with some buddies at the enlisted men’s club and scared Joni so
badly she’d threatened to leave him if he didn’t stop drinking then
and there. They’d only been married a few months. Hell, they were
still practically strangers, given how quickly they’d married after
meeting. He wasn’t even sure what had set him off, maybe her
telling him he had to quit drinking. He did remember spanking her,
harder than ever before. Not an erotic spanking, but a damned near
abusive one. He’d lost control and struck her in anger, something a
Dom should never do.

He’d stopped drinking the next day, after
he’d sobered up and had seen how hurt Joni was, emotionally, if not
physically. He hadn’t touched a drop again until after Joni died,
when the thought of life without her scared the shit out of him and
sent him on a two-week self-pity drinking binge. In the early years
of their marriage, Joni had pulled him back from the brink of
disaster. She’d even helped him decide to make his career with the
Corps, when he could have just finished his first stint and moved
on to something else. She’d sworn she was proud of him for making
that decision, but he knew her input had a lot to do with it.

Adam made his way back to his room, reaching
up to rub the back of his neck and finding a new scar from one of
the cat bites or scratches. Imagining Karla’s delicate skin ripped
open by the cat’s teeth and claws caused his gut to churn.

The day of the attack, Adam and Marc had left
the girls behind with Luke when Angelina had told them where to
pick up her hogtied ex-boyfriend. Damián hadn’t been able to
negotiate the steep trail as well and had stayed a little further
up the trail. They almost met up with Karla’s group again when he’d
heard Angelina scream, “Karla! Watch out!” His heart jumped into
his throat as he dropped the ex and ran down the trail only to find
Karla, scared and pale, pinned against a boulder by a cougar. She’d
looked to him to help her. To rescue her.

He’d never get that image out of his head as
long as he lived. All he knew to do was to distract the big cat and
get it to go after him. It did. Thank God.

He wouldn’t have traded placed for the world,
but just wished he hadn’t added to her hero-worship fixation that
had begun when he’d fought off a pimp and his buddies in that
Chicago bus station. He’d done what anyone would have done if
they’d seen a young runaway in trouble like that. He had a long
record reaching hero pay grade. Men had died because of him. Joni
had chosen to suffer alone until the very end, rather than ask for
him to return from Kandahar. He’d never been able to protect his
mother, either.

But Karla just kept getting herself into
situations where she needed rescuing. Looking to him to be her
hero. Now he’d repaid that trust by doing what? Attacking her
himself.

His dick throbbed as he slammed the door and
walked over to the bed.
Oh, Christ
. The bloody stain showing
the aftermath of his assault on her innocent body stared him in the
face. He went to the bed, removed the blanket and comforter and
stripped the sheets.

Cold water and soap removes bloodstains.

The voice of his mother invaded his head for
the first time in…forever. Damn her, why had Karla made him think
about his father and those dark days of his childhood? It was no
one’s business where he’d come from. He’d left that nightmare
behind more than three decades ago and had no desire to dredge any
of it up.

He carried the bloodied sheet into the
bathroom and scrubbed away the evidence of what he’d done to Karla.
So why had she declared war on him? She should
want
him to
retreat from her. Why the sudden interest in knowing more about
him? About his past? Some things were better left buried.