Safe in His Arms (20 page)

Obviously, she’d seen a bit more of the world.

He speared down into the shallow water and finally nailed another fish. He bent and retrieved it, being careful of its sharp spines. A second later it landed next to the other two on the banana leaf he’d set on a rocky outcrop. Glancing at the sun fast approaching the line of the ocean he waded a bit farther out in the bay’s warm waters.

She’d wanted him and he’d been so damn hard he could have broken through his BDUs with very little effort. And he’d left her. Hot. Probably wet.
Probably?
He knew she’d been wet. He remembered how wet she’d been last night. She’d drenched his fingers at the hotel room. When he’d made love to her that first time, she’d coated his cock.

“Fuck!”

Was there a way to get his head on straight? Not when Mandy was horny. Not when they were out here alone. She was horny. She’d
said
she was horny.

He squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled through his nose. Had he ever seen anything as hot as Mandy stripping off that tank top? Teasing him? Telling him to strip for her? Hell no. And, damn it, he wanted her demands. He’d dreamt over the past five years of bringing her out of her shyness and into her sexual maturity. She’d be a wildcat, he’d thought. But now, once she
was
a wildcat, for him, what did he do? Let the idea of other men teaching her to be wild turn him into a jealous, stupid bastard.

Mac tossed the spear downward, missing a silver striped fish, and stopped to wipe the sweat from his eyes. The sun was still strong along the horizon, but it would be night soon. He’d have to go back to their camp.

He’d fucked up.

Why? He smacked his forehead. He knew why, because he’d been celibate the last five years thinking of her. And before her? He’d fucked around but every single woman had been a replacement fuck for her. He’d always felt like shit afterward because none of them were her.

So why was he out here? Because jealousy was tearing his guts to shreds. She’d let another man touch her. Maybe even more than one. She was beautiful, and clearly eager to have him. Any man would kill to have her. Someone had—

He froze with the spear up. Some women grew more promiscuous after being raped. They had it taken, so why not give it out? He’d heard that from women before, even. Was that it?

Fuck. He had no idea.

He took a deep calming breath and let the spear fall to his side. They had enough fish. He’d had enough time. He’d simply have to tell her that there was no fucking, no sex with him. It was him, making love to her, or it ended here. Either she was his, or she wasn’t. He stopped halfway to the beach.

No way, he wasn’t accepting defeat like this. He had her now. All he had to do was convince her that he was worth spending the rest of her life with. His chest felt like someone had tightened a band around his lungs, making it hard to breath. What if she didn’t think he was worth it?

 
She’d thought he’d cheated on her—for five years she’d thought he’d called her to a bar to see him cheat on her. How fucked up was that? After thinking such a stupid thing of him, how could he blame her for sleeping around? He might have too, if he’d thought she’d left him for another man. And called him to rub his damn nose in it.

“Mac?”

He twisted around and spotted her on the shore. She waved tentatively when he saw her and that band around his chest loosened. She looked so damn beautiful. He met her halfway. She looked serious, and a bit hesitant. He’d been angry. Had he frightened her? Feeling worse, he opened his mouth but she cut him off.

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck, you have nothing to be—”

“No, listen. I don’t just want sex, Mac. If that’s what you thought?” She shrugged a shoulder and gave him a look he remembered, a look like he’d made her do something she didn’t really want to do. “But I do want to be able to say what I want, when I want it. If you don’t want that, you need to tell me. I can’t be whatever it is you want me to be, I guess, but I—”

“Mandy, baby I want your demands, I just, fuck, I just screwed things up, didn’t I?”

She bit her lip, but shook her head.

“I thought it would make it easier, you know, on you. And me,” she whispered, then said even quieter, “When, you know, you, well, leave again.”

It took a second for her words to penetrate and less time for him to haul her up into his arms until her feet didn’t touch the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist with a surprised ‘oh’, and looped her arms around his neck automatically and stared down at him in shock.

“Mac!”

He rested his head against her chest and inhaled her sweet scent. Nothing smelt like Mandy. Even just out of the ocean, she smelt soft and warm, sweet. “Sugar, I’m not leaving. Say it after me,” he said, lifting his head to watch her face.

She smiled and gently bumped their foreheads. “Are you sure?”

“Mandy, listen to me.” He hitched her up higher in his arms by her lush ass and concentrated on making this right. She was offering him a chance. Mandy didn’t come clean often, especially if she thought she’d expose a weakness. She’d done that for him, exposed her fear, an idiot fear of him wanting something she wasn’t, but still she’d revealed a lot. He could only do the same for her.

“I told you I rushed things that night, but what I didn’t say was I’d waited for you forever and couldn’t let another day go by without making you mine.”

He watched her grey eyes shimmer with unshed tears and pressed a kiss to the corner of her lips.

“Shhh, sugar, hear me out. Things should have waited.” He tightened his arms on her when she shook her head silently. “Mandy, you were only twenty. I should have waited. No”—he pressed a kiss to her lips when she opened in protest. He looked deep into her eyes, marvelling at how the darker browns looked like shards of amber against the lighter grey of her eyes.

She grimaced and caressed his jaw over his scar, blinking back the tears.

“I was pissed off at myself, not you. Just like I was earlier. I have no right to demand forever from you now. But I want it. I want more, sugar. I—” He broke off and struggled to say what he really meant. He simply shook his head. There was nothing for him if not her. “I need more.” He needed her. He needed her like he needed oxygen.

She softened in his arms, and rested her head back down on his, running her soft hands over his jaw and into his hair. She looked deep into his eyes for so long that he thought she had to see how much he loved her. Soon, when he got them out of this shit, he was telling her.

“I need more, too,” she whispered the words, but he felt them deep inside, like she’d hit a tuning fork against his soul.

It was the bravest thing she’d ever said to him, he realised. She trembled a little when she spoke and he caught the quiver of her lips against his. She still didn’t trust him completely and he wanted to beat the hell out of her stepdad all over again. Sarge had done this to her, made her insecure of others’ feelings. But her stepdad hadn’t been the only one. He knew, now, that he’d done the rest.

“I won’t let you down again, Mandy.” He’d be there for her, right by her, for the rest of his time on this fucked-up earth.

“You never let me down, Mac—”

“I did. I said things that night I never should have and look what happened. Five years of missing you.”

Mandy rubbed her cheek to his.
Had anything ever felt so perfect?

“You missed me?”

“I did. Drove the men nuts looking for you.” Mac grinned and kissed her jaw.

“You did?” She sounded happy about that so he gave her more.

“Yeah, beat the shit out of Larry ‘cause he was supposed to be watching you.”

“Mac! You did not!”

Mac had had enough. He was in pain. His body was tight, harder than hell and he needed to feel her in his arms. He kissed her, pulling her hips down at the same time so she could feel his erection against her pussy, and he covered her mouth with all the pent-up lust simmering in his veins. She responded with a soft exhalation against his face and thrust her eager tongue along his. He winced, so hot for her the mere pressure of that pink little tongue had his brain popping with images of her on her knees sucking the pain right out of his cock. She tasted perfect, felt so sweet in his arms that he shoved his hands inside the back of her pants and gripped her bare, rounded ass.

“Mac!” she cried. “We have too many clothes on.”

“Yeah. Damn, sugar, I need you.” He set her down then quickly pulled her top back off. He threw it over his shoulder and immediately filled his hands with her rounded breasts. She wore a lacy bra that revealed the hard points of her nipples poking up for attention. “No more bikinis unless I’m right there with you. Damn, you kill me,” he growled, loving it when she laughed and tugged at his belt. She got it open but not before he had the buttons on her pants pulled free and the fabric shoved down past her matching white lace panties. She laughed and nearly fell trying to kick them off but she managed to keep her lips mashed to his and slip her warm fingers inside his boxers to his erection. It felt incredible. Holy hell, five years of jacking off and he could feel his body surging up ready to blow just from her warm grip. She used both of her soft hands to stroke around the swollen head and down the stalk with the perfect amount of pressure. Had he ever been so hard? He felt like his dick weighed a ton.

Their lips broke apart when she cupped his balls. She did something with her fingers and he came up for air with a husky groan.

“Son of a—”

“More kisses, less swearing,” she whispered and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth.

He peeled her panties off and managed to unleash her breasts from the bra in no time flat. A second later he cupped two perfect globes of flesh in his palms. The lush tops spilled over his hands and he dived down, sucking one tight nipple in his mouth. She gasped above him and stroked his cock with tight, long passes he instantly loved. On a downward pass she did that thing with his balls and broke free to groan into the valley he had made of her breasts.

“Damn, baby, do that again. Ah, God, just like that. Cup my balls, that’s so fucking right.”

She shivered and did what he said while he rose up to take a hot kiss from her wet lips. Her breasts pressed against his chest while he touched every inch of her he could reach. “So big, God, how did you fit inside me?”

“Ah, baby, we’re going to find out, eh?”

He pulled her hands free and picked her up, kicking his pants off and released her mouth from his long enough to scan the area. A rocky shelf not ten feet away and half in the water made him groan in relief. “I’m going to eat you out on that rock, baby, then we’re going to see about fitting ‘cause I’m near to blowing just from that hand of yours.”

“Oh, God, Mac, talk dirty to me.”

“Shit, you’re going to make me come with those sexy demands.” He laughed and choked on his words, meeting her grey eyes and recognising the happiness bursting from her. He felt the same. “I’ll do more than talk dirty to you, Mandy. You remember how good it was, how wet you get from my mouth? I’m dining on that sugar-coated pussy now, baby.”

“Oh, Mac, I want to taste you too.”

He nearly dropped her on the rock and barely caught a fist around his erection to stop the immediate rush to orgasm at the thought of her mouth on him. The fantasy of her pink lips spreading wide to take him in had kept him sleepless for five years. “Holy—we’re doing that. Damn, I might need your mouth on my cock daily.”

“Mmm, think you deserve that much sugar, huh?” She went back on her elbows and lifted one leg to rub her small foot along his shaft. “You’re pretty wide, think I can manage you?”

He wasn’t small. He had some girth that made him nearly have a heart attack the first time he’d fucked her for fear of harming her. But he wanted to see her suck him, take him in her mouth, and drive him wild. She would too. She was now.

“I guess you’ll have to practise—”

“‘Cause practice makes perfect, huh?” She laughed lightly and sat up to kiss him again.

“Hell, yeah, haven’t I always told you that? Now, spread those pretty thighs for me. Let me see you. All of you.”

Surprising him, Mandy slowly eased back, hot as hell on her elbows, and lifted one foot up on the smooth rocky ledge, letting her knee fall to the side. Sexy didn’t even begin to describe her, he thought. She was liquid gold, desirable beyond words. He sucked in a lungful of air and held it at the image she presented. Jesus, she was gorgeous. She had a tiny, pink pussy with the smallest, most amazing lips, thin, lush, and erotic.

“Holy fuck, Mandy.” He squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his control. It was that or drop a nut on the spot. “Jesus.” Slowly he got the tension to blow back under wraps and opened his eyes to her again.

She blushed, but she reached up with her foot again and rubbed it up his stomach to his chest playfully. “You like?”

Like? Like wasn’t even in the realm of what seeing her did to him. She was his. This was his woman, spread for him, eager for him. “Damn, baby, you’re so beautiful. I love your pussy.”

Laughing she shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “You’re crazy.”

He got down on his knees and kissed the inside of her slender legs, breathing her in. Sweet, sugary Mandy. “For you, only for you.”