The Marine Next Door (22 page)

She stretched up on tiptoe to replace her thumb with her mouth. She kissed him gently, felt his hands nip into her waist. She kissed him again, more firmly this time, and his lips chased after hers when she pulled away. Green-gold eyes locked onto hers. And then John’s arms snaked behind her back, drawing her tight against his chest and lifting her so he could claim her mouth in a fierce, passionate kiss.

Maggie wound her arms around his neck and held on as the emotions she’d unleashed poured out of him with every kiss and caress. She met each foray—taste for taste, touch for touch, need for need. He squeezed her almost painfully tight, imprinting brass buttons against her breast and stomach. His hands slid inside her blouse, dipped inside her jeans, stroking her skin, sending shivers along her spine even as she grew feverishly hot.

“John,” she whispered, brushing her lips across his cheekbone, nibbling at his jaw. As much as she loved seeing him in uniform, she was beginning to think he needed to take it off. She wanted to touch the heat of his skin. She wanted to learn the supple movements of his body beneath her hands. She wanted to feel his thudding heart beating against hers.

His mouth opened warm and hot over the bundle of nerves beneath her ear and she gasped at the instant response in the tips of her breasts and deeper inside. With blind impatience, she pushed at the collar of his jacket and he quickly shrugged out of it and tossed it onto the couch. His lips moved from her throat down into the V of her blouse. He slipped one button free and rasped his tongue against the open spot.

“Your skin is so soft.”

Another button opened and he dipped his tongue into the cleavage between her breasts.

“So pretty, so hot.”

Her blouse fell open to her waist and John fit his big hands to her breasts, gently kneading, squeezing. His thumbs teased the proud tips straining against the confinements of satin and lace.

Each touch was a torment, every kiss a call that beckoned her to answer. She ached to feel his skin on hers, to feel his hardness against her curves. She wanted to feel the weight of him on top of her, inside her. It had been so long since she’d wanted. And she’d never wanted like this.

She tugged at the hem of his shirt and pushed it up beneath his arms to take the same liberties he had. She touched. His smooth muscles quivered beneath her hands. She closed her lips around his flat nipple and coaxed it to attention, tasting the musky flavor of his skin.

He groaned in response and slipped his hands down to cup her bottom and drag her up against the hard evidence of his desire. “Maggie, I want… I need… Can you? Will you?”

“Yes.” Her answer was too breathy, too unsure.
Say it louder.
“Yes,” she repeated.
Make this right, Maggie. Do it.
She pulled his mouth back up to hers and whispered against his lips. “Yes.”

Seconds later, they were in her bedroom with the door closed behind them, tumbling onto the bed. Her blouse was gone, her jeans MIA. Maggie reached for the snap of his jeans and eased the zipper over his erection. But she got no further before his hands closed over hers and pulled them away. “Wait a second. Slow down.”

“I don’t need slow right now, John. I just need…” Oh, no. Had she done something wrong? Been too bold? Danny had never even asked her what she wanted, much less encouraged her to take the lead. Scrambling up onto her knees beside him, she grabbed a pillow from the head board and hugged it over her chest, feeling suddenly unsure. “I’m sorry. What should I—”

John sat up and pressed a finger to her tender lips, silencing her. “Whatever you’re thinking right now, stop it. And you don’t need this.” He plucked the pillow from her grasp and tossed it to the floor. “I want to see every beautiful inch of you.”

Maggie followed him to the edge of the bed where he swung his legs over the side. “Then what’s wrong?”

“There’s not a damn thing wrong with you—with this.” He combed his fingers through the loose waves of her hair and draped the ends over the swell of her breast, stroking her with the backs of his knuckles and raising chill bumps there. “I know my timing sucks, but…” He released her hair and raised his hips off the bed to tug his jeans down to his knees. “I need to take my leg off. It’ll get tangled in the covers or it might knock against your shins or hit the bedpost if I’m not thinking about what I’m doing with it, and I don’t want to bruise you or spoil the moment.”

The self-conscious cloud cleared and Maggie knelt on the floor in front of him to help him pull off his shoes and jeans. When he was naked and vulnerable in front of her—his desire for her as obvious as the worry shining from his eyes—she bent forward to press a kiss to the elastic brace encircling his knee. She gently touched the strong, surprisingly lightweight post that extended down to his false foot. Tears scratched beneath her eyelids. “Oh, John. How you must have hurt.”

“Actually, the burns killed most of my nerve endings.” A tear spilled over at the suffering he’d endured. He cupped her cheek and brushed away the tear. “Hey, I thought these were going away.”

If he could come to terms with his past and focus on this moment together, then so could she. With a brave smile, she sniffed away her sorrow and began peeling back the elastic band that covered the joint between his real and artificial leg. “Show me how.”

“Ah, Sarge.” She’d exposed the joint itself, revealing the miraculous testament to medical genius and the human will. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.” With gentle, reverent touches—and fingers that were more sure than she’d expected—she followed his instructions and removed the prosthetic. She pushed his hand aside and took over the job herself when he massaged the rounded stump. “I’m not scared of this, John. It’s a badge of honor, even more than your medals. I’m scared of…”

“Of what?” He pulled her up and fell back across the bed with her. He propped himself up on his elbow beside her and flattened his palm at the center of her stomach. “Maggie, what scares you?”

She was obliquely aware of the shorter leg falling on top of hers. Yet it wasn’t the handicap she noticed, but the erotic differences between his crisp, masculine hair and her smoothly shaven thigh. She was aware of the corded strength in his leg, the arousal nudging against her hip. She was aware of the desire shading his hazel eyes and knew he was a powerful, potent man.

Maggie splayed her fingers over John’s and looked down at them, embarrassed to speak the truth. “I haven’t had sex in ten years, and I was never great at it, even before the rape.”

For several awkward moments, John said nothing. And then he pulled his hand from beneath hers. “I’m not having sex with you, Maggie Wheeler.”

Shocked at how easily he’d changed his mind, her eyes darted up to his. Embarrassed, heartsick, she tried to scoot away. “You don’t have to do me any favors. If you think you’re being noble or you’re worried I’ll freak out or—”

John rolled his body half on top of her, caught her chin in his hand and silenced her protest with a kiss. She went completely still except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath his, and the needy, inevitable response his lips triggered in hers.

He finally pulled back when she was clutching at his shoulders and shamelessly giving whatever he asked for in that kiss. She lay back on the bed, trapped in his eyes and confused by the delicious promise of his embrace. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know what kind of garbage Danny put into your head, but we’re not having sex.” He pushed a bra strap off one shoulder and then the other. “I’m making love to you. Slow, wonderful, make-you-cry-out-my-name love to you.”

The vow in those words made her blush. She felt the heat of them sinking into her blood and shimmering throughout her body. John dipped his head to kiss the rosy stain of heat on her breast. He kissed her again, pulling away the satin covering and tonguing the puckered nub of the nipple that sprang forth to meet him. Beneath his tender, thorough seduction, she moaned with helpless need. “Neither one of us is perfect. But together, I think we just might be.”

It was an intoxicating promise. Maggie framed his face between her hands, drew his mouth back to hers and nodded.

“Yes, what?” he whispered against her swollen, tender lips.

“You’re a good talker, John Murdock. Now show me perfect.”

Soon, she was just as naked, just as needy, just as sure that being with John was what they both wanted. With her body on fire in ways it had never been before, she willingly climbed into John’s lap as he sat up and pulled her onto his thighs. He entered her in a slow, patient stroke that finally bound them together as one. There was no need for words as they fell into a rhythm that took him deeper, faster, completely inside her.

She wanted to feel, to fly, to know the joy of loving a man who wouldn’t hurt, who wouldn’t take, who wouldn’t force. She wanted to be with John Murdock tonight as much as she’d ever wanted anything in her life. He held her close, chest to chest, as the tiny tremors inside her quaked and grew.

And when he thrust up inside her, groaning with his release, and waves of sensation cascaded down all around him, Maggie buried her face in his neck because she did, indeed, cry out John’s name.

* * *

L
ATER IN THE NIGHT,
John awoke to the clinging blanket of the sleeping woman wrapped in his arms. Maggie’s freckled skin was somehow both pale and warm in the dusky moonlight filtering through the blinds at her window. For all her height and strength and courage, she seemed fragile and vulnerable and oh, so feminine draped against his side, her bare breasts pillowed against him, the even rhythm of her breathing fluttering across his skin.

Humbled by the gifts of her passion and trust, he pressed a kiss to the soft jut of her shoulder. Then he extricated himself from her bed as gently as he could and pulled the covers up over her.

Dressing in nothing but his boxer shorts, he made a quick trip to the john to freshen up. Hopping on one leg, bracing his hand against a wall or door frame when he needed some balance, he made his way throughout the apartment, double-checking the locks on the front door, securing each window and making sure the answering machine was clear of any vile messages from Danny before he went into Travis’s room.

The ten-year-old was sprawled out in sleep, covers kicked to the floor. John removed the medal box and set it on the lamp table beside the boy’s ball glove before tucking the covers around him again and heading back to Maggie’s bedroom.

“Is everything okay?” she asked in a warm, drowsy voice that made him want her all over again.

“We’re safe. Travis is asleep and the placed is locked up tight. Everything’s perfect.” He climbed beneath the covers with her and gathered her into his arms. She might have been asking about her son or building security, but he was talking about her, this—Travis, too—all of it.

“John?”

“Yeah, Sarge?”

She walked her fingers across his chest and rose up in the bed beside him. “Is Travis hard asleep?”

“I think so.”

“Then can we… Again?”

The covers had fallen to her waist and his thoughts zeroed in on her peachy breasts and how the cool, air-conditioned air excited them. His body responded with an instant heat at her shy request. “Oh, yeah.”

He raised his head to capture a tempting breast in his mouth. She was so responsive, so giving, so beautiful. Without any words about hang-ups or handicaps, he pulled her down and rolled her beneath him, taking his sweet time to reacquaint himself with her body. He let her explore his as well until he was too hard and too needy to resist her mewling cries of pleasure any longer. She wound those long legs around his hips and welcomed him deep inside her feminine heat.

And when they were both sated and spent, he spooned himself behind her and they drifted off to sleep. Once upon a time, he’d gone to war because he couldn’t forget a woman he could never have. Now his heart was so full of Maggie Wheeler and how much he loved her that he couldn’t even remember any other woman’s name. And he wasn’t going anywhere.

John brushed her hair away from her face and kissed the back of her neck. He nuzzled his nose in the scent of her there, finally understanding that of all the things he’d lost in his life, nothing could destroy him like losing this woman could.

* * *

“
A
RE YOU OKAY?”

Maggie smiled into her phone, wondering if she’d ever get used to having a man like John be interested in her welfare. “I’m fine. Really.” She turned and waved to the uniformed officer who’d driven her straight to The Corsican’s front doors after her shift at KCPD and a trip to the grocery store. “I’m home now. Someone was with me all day today and I’m about to knock on Joe’s door to let him know I’m here.”

Following their agreed-upon checklist of safety precautions, Maggie had called to report her location.

“I still wish you would have let me pick you up,” John groused.

Maggie walked up to the building supervisor’s door. She couldn’t really do anything more unless she set down her bags of groceries or ended the call. “Your shift doesn’t end until four, and because you’re picking up Travis at school, it doesn’t make sense for you to leave the station to bring me home, then go all the way back to his school and here again.”

“I’d do it.”

“I know you would, John.” And even though she loved how he wanted to protect her, as a cop, she knew a thing or two about the protection business herself. Besides, “Knowing that you’ll be there to get Travis home is a huge relief for me. I can watch out for myself. But when I’m worried about his safety, I tend to get distracted.”

“Don’t be distracted. Travis will be safe with me,” he reassured her.

“I know.”

“You call again as soon as you’re in the apartment. And lock everything behind you,” he reminded her unnecessarily.

“I will. I’ll see you for dinner, then?”

“Sarge?”

“Yes?” She waited expectantly for him to continue. She knew they’d promised to move their relationship along slowly. But at what point did a man and woman declare their love for each other? When was it so soon that she’d scare him away? When was it too long that he’d lose interest in her?