Maureen Child - At Her Service

His hands swept around and up, cupping her breasts, thumbing her nipples through the soft angora sweater she wore. Kelly tore her mouth free of his and moaned gently at his touch. “Jeff …”

“I know, baby,” he muttered thickly. “Me, too. I need to feel you. All of you. Now.”

“Yes,” she murmured, opening her eyes briefly to look up at him. “Now. Please.”

Jeff’s hands dropped to the hem of her sweater, and in one swift move, he had it up and over her head. Tossing it to one side, he ran his hands up and down her back while his gaze locked on her lace-covered breasts. Fuller, he thought. Rounder than before. And still so damn perfect.

She trembled against him, and that gentle movement echoed inside him. Reverently, he lifted both hands to the front clasp between her breasts and deftly undid it. She sucked in a huge gulp of air as the bra came loose and stood perfectly still when he scooped it off her shoulders and down her arms.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, and cupped her breasts in his palms.

“Jeff …” she said on a sigh.

His thumbs and forefingers tweaked her already rigid nipples, tugging and pulling gently until her breath came short and fast. She reached out and held on to his forearms, curling her fingers into his skin until her trim nails dug into his flesh. Then he dipped his head and gave into the urge riding him. Taking first one nipple and then the other into his mouth, he tasted her, rolling the sensitive tips with his tongue, swirling across her skin, luxuriating in the feel of her beneath his mouth.

“Oh, my,” she whispered. “I missed you so much.” And she held on tighter even while she arched into him, offering herself to him, silently demanding he take more, give more.

So he did. He suckled her, drawing on those pink tips until she quivered in his grasp and only his hands at her waist were holding her upright. And when she groaned, deep and low, he straightened up and looked down into her eyes. Keeping their gazes locked, he unbuttoned her jeans and pulled the zipper down. She smiled at him. A soft, small, knowing smile and then returned the favor.

She slowly undid the buttons on his fly, and each time her knuckles brushed his skin, he sucked in another gulp of air and knew it would never be enough.

She freed him from his jeans and curled her fingers around his hard flesh. Jeff clenched his jaw and pulled air in through gritted teeth as he slid one hand down the front of her jeans and beneath her silk panties to cup her heat.

The smile on her face died instantly, but her fingers continued to work their magic on his flesh as he delved first one finger and then two into her hot center.

She rocked her hips against his hand, lifting up, moving so that he could touch her more fully, more completely.

“Jeff,” she whispered, “I can’t … I can’t breathe.”

“Then don’t,” he told her, his own voice tight. “Just feel.” He smoothed the tip of a finger across her most sensitive spot, and she groaned, adjusting her stance to give him more access. Again and again, he touched her, rousing her, pushing her higher and higher, all the while trying to control his own response to her hands on him.

Her breath came fast and furious. Her body trembled. And when she cried out his name and fell against him, shaking with the force of the climax pounding through her, he carefully eased her down onto the floor. There he whisked off her clothes, got rid of his own and paused to grab a condom from the pocket of his jeans. When he was protected, he pushed himself inside her warmth and relished the feel of her legs lifting and coming around his waist.

This, he thought, feeling her body surround him, hold him, this was what he’d waited for. What he’d missed. This one woman. This one place where everything else in the world fell away.

He’d lived through misery and combat and loneliness, but here with her, none of it mattered. She held on to him, her hands running up and down his back as she urged, “Again, Jeff. Take me there again. It’s been so long.”

“Again,” he repeated, lifting his head to look down into her eyes as his own climax hovered just out of reach. “And again. I’ll never stop,” he promised, meaning every word.

He’d thought about this for too long. Waited for it. Dreamed about it. And now that she was here, in his arms, her breath dusting against his face, he had to have her. He worked her body with his fingers, his hands. Touching, soothing, stroking, plunging. No rest. No stopping. He couldn’t get enough of her and felt in her response that she felt the same.

Plunging in and out of her warmth, he stoked the fires within them both until they were engulfed in the flames. Thought fled, only hunger remained and still they touched and kissed and stroked.

His body tightened, his control slipped and she held him close, lifting her hips, racing to meet the climax crashing down on her. And when he thought he would lose his mind with the want, she said on a sigh, “Oh now, Jeff. Hold me.”

He held her tightly, took her mouth with his and as her body quickened around his, he surrendered and rode the wave of his own completion, nestled safely in her arms.

“Wow,” Kelly murmured when she found her voice again.

“That about says it,” Jeff agreed, and slowly, like a man afraid to move too quickly, rolled to one side of her. Keeping her close, he wrapped one arm around her and held her tightly to him.

She ran the flat of her hand across his chest and paused to feel the rapid beat of his heart. Smiling to herself, she cuddled in, nestling her head on his shoulder. Okay, maybe that hadn’t solved anything. Maybe they still had problems to resolve and questions to answer. But by heaven, it had been wonderful. Just to be with him again.

“Glad you dropped by,” Jeff said, and his voice rumbled through his chest like the echo of a passing train.

“Yeah,” she said, tipping her head back to look up at him. “Me, too. By the way, nice floor.”

One corner of his mouth lifted into a quirk of a smile. “Nothing but the best from me.”

It figured that with a perfectly good bedroom just steps away, she and Jeff would end up on the plushly carpeted floor. It had always been like that between them. From the moment they’d met.

Well, she corrected silently, from the moment she’d regained consciousness to discover this gorgeous Marine giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. She hardly recalled getting hit in the head by a stray surfboard. She certainly didn’t remember sinking beneath the waves and swallowing half the ocean. But everything else about that day was etched in living, brilliant color in her memory.

Stretched out on the sand, someone’s mouth on hers. She coughed, opened her eyes and looked up into a pair of blue eyes so pale, so clear it was as if she could see right through them into the hunk’s soul. Then, as coughing spasms wracked her, he held on to her, soothing, stroking, gently whispering words of encouragement that reached into her heart and eased away the fear.

He’d saved her life, everyone said. She heard the smattering of applause from their bathing-suit-clad audience. But all she focused on was him. There was something between them, even then. And when he took her to lunch and then dinner, that something grew, blossoming out of nothingness to envelop them both in a wild, rare burst of passion and need that Kelly had never known before.

And for two weeks, they’d reveled in it and each other. It was as if they’d known each other before. Some other time, some other place. Not that she believed in that sort of past-life thing. But what other explanation was there for the connection that only strengthened with each passing day?