Chapter Seven
G race bit her lips . No. She wasn’t going to laugh. It wasn’t funny. He wasn’t funny. “Are you trying to make me want to kill you?”
“No. Not really.” He seemed to think about it for another second or two. “Okay, maybe a little.”
She hovered between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry. Her best buddy was trying his hardest to help her, but she wasn’t entirely sure his flirting was all fun and games. There was a serious glint in his eye she’d never seen before.
“You’re nuts, you know that?” she asked as she began removing the gun holster strapped to her right leg, then moving on to the belt with forty-two different things hanging off it. “You’ve been cracking jokes since the crash, and none of this is funny .” Oh God, her face was wet. “Why aren’t you angry?”
“I’m angry, but not at you.” The smile on his face lost its razor edge. “Never at you.”
Tears clouded her vision and her chest stuttered with silent sobs she refused to let out.
One escaped.
Grace slapped her hands over her mouth and fell to her knees onto the dirt.
Strong hands and hard arms grabbed her up, and she found herself drawn onto Sharp’s lap, her head buried in the hollow of his shoulder. She shook both of them with the force of her restrained cries.
Her father would be mortified if he knew she was crying on someone’s shoulder. She’d heard his stories of operating in sandstorms during the Iraq War. He’d survived horrible situations with his sense of humor and dignity intact. Why couldn’t she?
She was so focused on keeping quiet, controlling the crest of grief flooding through her, she lost track of time. Eventually, she came back to herself only to realize her situation was no less emotionally explosive and dangerous now than when she started crying.
She faced Sharp, straddling his lap with her knees on either side of his hips, plastered to him like a lover who took what she wanted. Between her legs she could feel his response. No amount of clothing could hide the long, hot length telling her he was big all over.
He wanted her.
It was the crazy situation, not because he actually wanted her.
So why did feeling his erection between her legs, proving they were both still alive, give her so much pleasure?
She wanted him.
Was it wrong to want to feel something other than horror and fear? If she moved against him, would he offer the comfort of his body?
Of course he would. He was a good man, the kind of man who’d do everything he could to help her get through this until they were safe.
She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t use him like that.
Grief and guilt formed a tsunami of nausea that rolled up from deep in her gut, and she tried to jerk herself out of his tight embrace. How sick did she have to be to want a man only hours after being in a crash that killed several men, after she’d killed several men?
Sharp held her tighter. She fought, pounding his back and using the strength of her thighs to push away from him. He held her tighter still and whispered words of reassurance that made no sense in her ear. He should be angry at her . She hadn’t been able to save Rasker’s life. His friend’s life .
She shoved, punched, and pushed until her muscles trembled with exhaustion. Panting, she stilled, waiting for an opportunity for him to relax his vigilance, and finally understood what he was whispering to her.
“It’s okay, Grace. You’re good, honey. You’re good. I’m going to keep you safe, I promise.” Over and over, he repeated the words.
“Sharp?” she managed to say, her heartbeat a thunder of drums in her ears.
“The bad guys don’t know where we are. You’re safe.”
“Sharp?” she said again. “I’m okay, sort of, now.”
He sighed and held her even tighter for a moment. “God, I thought you were never coming back.”
“Neither did I.” She trembled and returned his embrace, her hands flexing against his body armor, needing to feel him, solid and real. “What’s wrong with me?”
“We’ve all got ghosts haunting us,” he said, his voice rumbling out of his chest. “You needed to let go of a few of yours, that’s all.”
She tilted her face up to tell him to stop placating her, she needed the truth, but never got the chance to say a word.
He kissed her.
His mouth was hard and hot on hers, his tongue stroking past her lips, his taste waking something cold and alone inside her.
So good.
Oh God, no kiss had ever felt this good before.
A voice in the back of her head whispered that this was bad. This would change things between them.
A whip of pleasure silenced the voice, blinded her to everything else, and she kissed him back, groaning, needing this connection to the real world. To him. Her hips rocked against the erection confined to his pants and she lapped up the growl that came out of him as a result.
“Grace.” He jerked her closer, pressing her pelvis against him with one hand on her lower back as he rocked upward.
She wanted that.
She needed him. Now. Her hands clawed at his body armor, trying to rip it off. When that didn’t work, she shimmied backward far enough to work her hand between them to find the long length of his cock, then squeezed.
He wrenched his head away, breathing hard. “ Fuck. ”
Grace nipped and sucked at his neck, but his hands pushed her away so he could catch her gaze with his.
“Grace, honey, slow down,” he crooned to her.
She blinked, desire a fog clouding her mind. “What?”
“Tell me you’re with me, sweetheart.” His words were spoken with the same gentleness a man might use to coax a wary animal or small child.
The fog lifted and reality, with all its cold, harsh truths, slapped her face.
They’d survived a helicopter crash, killed extremists who would have killed them, and there was no guarantee they would survive the next twenty-four hours, let alone get rescued.
Oh, and her best friend turned out to kiss like something out of her most intimate fantasies.
She still had his cock in her hands.
Fuck it .
She stroked him through his clothing. “I don’t want to slow down or stop.” She did it again and got a groan out of him. “Are you with me ?”
“Oh, holy fuck, yes ,” he hissed between gritted teeth.
She nibbled on his neck again, and was rewarded with hands cupping her ass, his fingers curving under her bottom and stroking her through her pants.
Her breathing had become as ragged as her pulse. What he was doing with his fingers had to be illegal.
“What,” he growled into her ear, “will get you off?”
At that moment, he stroked over her, his fingers finding her clit through her clothes, his thumb rimming the sensitive tissues of her body. It didn’t matter that there were several layers of clothing between them. It felt like they were skin to skin.
She shuddered and whispered in his ear, “Penetration.”
He reacted like she’d shocked him with an electrode. He jerked her up and took her mouth in a kiss so carnal she was shocked they didn’t self-combust. His tongue fucked her mouth while his hands shifted her back until he could open her pants and get his hand down the front of them. His fingers found her clit and began to circle it.
Then he put the other hand down the back of her pants. One long finger entered her and began fucking her hard and fast.
She ground and rocked against him until she thought she was going to lose her mind. The orgasm that resulted blew every circuit she had.
He was still kissing her when she finally came down from the high enough to recognize it was his turn to lose it.
She sucked his tongue into her mouth, opened his pants and took him in hand. Not a small job. He filled her palm, a handful and then some, his length a delicious tease.
He growled into her mouth, took over the kiss, and his hands were everywhere. Touching her, grasping her, making her wish they were naked in a bed with a locked door between them and the rest of the world.
When he came, his whole body shook, his head falling back as he gave himself over to it. She stroked him until the shaking stopped.
His head came down and he looked at her like she was someone he’d never seen before. “Penetration, huh?”
His question cleared the haze clouding her mind.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. She was plastered to him, his taste in her mouth, his lips so close to hers she could feel every breath he exhaled on her face. Her hand full of his cock. “We just...”
Had sex. In a cave. With God only knows how many bad guys trying to kill them.
She didn’t even want to think about the best-friends label she’d stuck on his forehead, now irrevocably ripped off.
He must think her a fool. She let go of his erection, now at only half-mast, and tried to jerk herself out of his arms. “I’m sorry... I shouldn’t have—”
“Whoa,” he interrupted, kissing her temple and gathering her close despite the stiffness of her body. “Nothing to be sorry about. I started it.”
“Then I attacked you.” She rested her head against his shoulder and relaxed a little. How was she ever going to look him in the face again?
“I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting it,” he said. “I figured kissing you might distract you a little from the shit we’d been through, but you know, if I have to defend myself against a beautiful woman and give her an amazing orgasm...” He sighed theatrically. “It’s hard being me.”
She snorted into his shirt. Shock. That must be what she was feeling. There could be no other explanation for the burst of humor grabbing hold of her frazzled nerve endings and calming them. Not only calmed, but made their situation a tiny bit humorous.
She lifted her head and looked him right in the eye. “You are the strangest guy I have ever met.”
He raised a brow. “That’s a good thing, ’cause a minute ago you were trying really hard to fly apart.”
“Yeah. I guess I was.” Now, what was she going to do? How was she going to look at his face without remembering the expression he wore when his own orgasm overtook him? She shivered, the pleasure in watching him a glow warming her from the inside out.
“Hey,” he whispered into her ear. “Can you move back a little so I can get at my pocket?”
Her hand was sticky, and she scooted backward, intending to get off him entirely. He stopped her.
“Whoa, hold still.”
She froze. Had she done something wrong?
He opened a pocket and pulled out a package of Wet Wipes. After quickly cleaning himself, he offered her one as well. He took it from her when she was done and put the used wipes into a small sealable plastic baggy from the same pocket.
“What else have you got in there?” she asked, momentarily distracted.
“Shampoo, hand sanitizer, and a little Vaseline.”
She blinked. “Vaseline?”
“Yeah, you never know when you’re going to need to lubricate...something.” There was humor in his voice, but also caution.
She swallowed hard, staring at his chest. “How bad did we just screw up?”
He didn’t answer right away, and after a few seconds, she finally looked up to meet his gaze.
He considered her for a long moment. “You know I care about you, right?”
She nodded.
“And you care about me?”
She nodded again.
“Then where’s the mistake? ’Cause I don’t see one. We needed each other.”
“That’s it?” She couldn’t quite believe it was as simple as he made it sound.
“Does it have to be complicated? Would you have rather screamed murder at the top of your lungs?”
“I suppose not, it’s just...intimacy isn’t casual for me.” If it was casual for him, she didn’t know how she’d ever look him in the face again.
“Hey.” He leaned down to catch her gaze again. “It’s not for me either.” He kissed her forehead.
He made it sound like sex was a coping mechanism. “Has this ever happened to you before?”
He grunted. “Nope. Never survived a helicopter crash, killed a bunch of bad guys, and creatively calmed down a woman having a panic attack before.”
“Well, it worked.” She snorted. “Okay, you can let go of me now.”
He didn’t just drop his arms. He gradually released her, comfort-rubbing her back before she found herself in front of him on her butt in the sandy dirt of the cave.
The need to crawl right back into his arms was overwhelming.
She stared at him, her whole body trembling, trying to figure out what to say or do next. She had no idea. He’d surprised her, done nothing she’d expected.
She’d done nothing she’d expected. She didn’t know this other Grace, a woman who took her pleasure, and gave it, without hesitation.
He watched her, his shoulders relaxed, his hands limp as they dangled off his knees, but his eyes were far from tranquil. She’d seen that look on his face, the one where the wrinkles around his eyes flexed and the furrow between his brows appeared. It was the one he wore when he was waiting for an attack, or preparing to make one. Battle ready.
Her breathing became deeper, labored, and she had to focus on it before she could calm herself down. “Stop looking at me like I’m a bomb about to go off.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Are you kidding? You already went off. I’m just waiting to see if there are any aftershocks.”
“I’m not going to go screaming out into the night,” she said, then paused. “I don’t think.”
His gaze examined her with unrelenting focus. “Is something else bothering you?”
She didn’t know if he was asking her about the crash, her reaction to their lovemaking, or something else entirely. It didn’t matter. She was done talking. “No.”
He didn’t react except to ask, “Who am I?”
“You’re Sharp—Jacob Foster.”
When he didn’t respond, she added, “Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Jacob ‘Sharp’ Foster.”
He shook his head. “I want to know who I am to you .”
The sneaky bastard. Did he think he was some kind of weekend psychologist?
She leaned forward, narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth. “Right now, you’re an irritant, like all men who think asking the same question a different way is going to get you what you want. But when you’re not being an ass, you’re usually my best friend.”
“Yes, exactly, we’re best friends.” He grinned at her for a moment, but the smile fell away from his face all too quickly. “Something hasn’t been right with you since we arrived at Bostick. What the hell is going on between you and Marshall?”
Sneaky, sneaky bastard. She opened her mouth to yell at him, to let the anger boiling beneath her skin out into the space between them to batter him with the secrets he thought he could easily ferret out.
He spoke before she could utter a sound. “Don’t throw me a bullshit flag. There’s a history there, right? You weren’t alone with him long enough to start a new argument.”
“You’re right, it’s not new, and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it, so, please just drop it.”
He watched her face as she struggled to decide whether she should say anything. “Look, I get it. Shit happens. In my case, my dad beat the hell out of me on a regular basis when I was a kid.” Sharp snorted. “He said it was character building. He wanted me to be tough.” Sharp’s face reflected pain, fear, anger, and despair. “Breaking a kid’s arm in three places doesn’t make them tough.”
He’d been abused ? Oh God, no. Horror’s frozen fingers wrapped around her throat. “Did you fight back?” It came out as a quivering whisper. She’d fought. When the enemy attacked, she’d killed.
Sharp’s chuckle was unexpected, and it loosened the cold grip cutting off her air. “Not in the traditional sense.”
“Traditional?”
“I didn’t hit back. After he broke my arm, there was a social worker who figured out what happened, but she couldn’t prove it, and I wasn’t talking. Instead of badgering me, she saw to it that the community center where I went every day after school offered martial arts training.” He paused. “I forged my dad’s signature on the permission form.”
“ What? ”
A grin came and went so fast on his face she wasn’t sure she’d seen it. “She made sure I could hit back, if I wanted to.”
“But you said you didn’t.”
“I didn’t. What I did was block every punch my father tried to throw at me. I never hit back. I didn’t shove or kick. I just blocked. Blocked and blocked until my arms were bruised and my father realized he’d succeeded.”
After that litany of pain, she couldn’t reconcile the last word with the rest. “Succeeded?”
“I’d become what he wanted...tough.”
What a sad, awful way to grow up. Yet, here he was, healthy, strong, and resilient. “What happened then?”
“On my eighteenth birthday I signed up for the army. I haven’t talked to him since.”
“Has he tried to communicate with you?”
“He did at first. He doesn’t anymore.”
“Well, that just sucks.” She released a breath and made a decision. Rationally, she knew he was safe and no threat to her, even if the primitive part of her brain had been programmed by circumstances to protect herself emotionally by whatever means necessary. The only way to reprogram herself was to leave her comfort zone.
Ever since the IED explosion, she’d stayed away from making emotional connections with people. She’d loosened up enough to befriend Sharp and the other men on the A-Team, but it had happened only because they’d ended up training together for nearly a year. Anyone else, she’d kept at arm’s length.
Change of plan. She was going to put herself in his hands. Again.
“Okay. Right.” She swallowed hard, met his gaze and held it. “Here’s who you are to me: my friend, my partner, and the one man I trust. I can’t promise I won’t freak out again, because I just did, but I know you’d never hurt me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
There was a long silence.
“So,” he said, drawing out the word. “Are you ready to talk?”
She tried, she even opened her mouth, but admitting she’d made mistakes that resulted in the death of a fellow soldier, no matter the circumstances, was more than she could do. “Could we compromise? Could we talk about it after I’ve had a chance to...” She glanced around at the cave, at the two of them bloodied, dirty and tired. “Wrap my head around everything?”
He considered her for a long moment. “Yeah, I think I can agree to that.”
Relief was a balm on her frayed nerve endings.
“Next question. Are you going to finish taking off your pants?”
She blinked. “You...are the weirdest guy. It’s a good thing you’re my friend or I’d have to—”
“Kill me?” he finished for her.
“I can’t joke about that right now.” The young soldier’s dead face flashed across her vision. Followed closely by the sight of the bodies of the five men she’d shot today. Other memories surfaced. Memories she wished she could forget. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to joke about it.”
“Fair enough. You look like you’ve got your groove back, so I’ll lay off the jokes, but I reserve the right to go back to being funny if you lose it again.”
She blinked away sudden tears. “I did lose it, didn’t I?”
He shrugged, as if it was all good. “It’s been a pretty shitty day.”
That’s when she noticed he had tear tracks running down his face. “Did you lose it too?”
He snorted. “You’d know if I’d lost it. I prefer something a little more...physical.”
***
G race sucked in a breath , but responded with a shaky smile. “Right, the martial arts stuff. What do you do to blow off steam, break a bunch of boards?”
She looked so confused, uncertain and shocked, Sharp had to force himself not to take her in his arms and hold her until the sorrow left her face. He wanted to touch her again, to put his hands on her and watch the pleasure make her light up like a fucking Christmas tree again.
“Punching bag is more my style. Sometimes I spar with another one of the guys. Rasker...” The rage he normally kept locked down threatened to explode. He had to forcibly stuff it down into the mental prison he’d constructed back when he was a kid. Everything that went in there never came out.
“Rasker and I liked to keep our skills sharp.”
A soft, feminine hand slid over one of his to squeeze and stroke. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have saved him.”
“Not your fault. The assholes who shot our aircraft down are to blame.”
She stroked his hand once more before pulling hers away. “Sounds like we’re both going to need therapy when we get out of this mess.”
“That’s my girl.” She wasn’t his. He had to keep telling himself that, because the second he didn’t, he was claiming her in his head.
Kissing her.
Taking her on the dirt.
Get a hold of yourself, asshole. She was a career officer, and a damn good one. This was not a woman he could romance and see when he was on leave. Right now, they were working together, a collaboration of the brRT and Special Forces. Though she wasn’t in his chain of command and he wasn’t in hers, it was made clear that forming a relationship would be frowned upon.
He had to stop creating X-rated fantasies of her in his head. What happened today was a onetime thing born out of the stress and danger they were in. That was all. He was a professional, damn it. She was a fellow soldier and a good friend. Nothing more, nothing less.
She sighed, shook her head, got up on her knees and opened her pants. She had to wiggle a little to get the waist down over her butt, then she sat down in the dirt and pulled her left leg out.
Her panties were pink.
The panties his hands had just been inside were fucking pink .
Holy Mother of God, he was going to go to hell. He couldn’t take his eyes off the scrap of fabric between her legs, and he could almost feel the wet heat of her against his fingers again. Then she let out a pain-filled groan, and his gaze jerked loose to land on her bloodied calf. It was still oozing blood.
“Damn it,” Grace hissed between clenched teeth. “I think I just tore the scab off.”
He should shoot himself in the foot for lusting after a wounded woman. “What made the wound? A piece of shrapnel or a bullet?” Sharp scooted over until he could get a good look at it. He reached into a pocket on his right thigh and pulled out a small LED flashlight covered by red translucent tape. He turned it on and shone it at her leg.
“Shrapnel probably. During the crash,” she answered.
He palpated the skin around the wound, trying to discover if anything was in it that shouldn’t be there. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Close it with a few Steri-Strips and bandage it up,” she ordered, sounding much more like her normal, businesslike self. “I can get it properly cleaned out when we get to a base.”
He had a few of those small, but useful bandages in another pocket, but he didn’t want to use them up until he had to. “We got extras of those?”
She reached into the backpack behind her and pulled out a compact first-aid kit. It had everything he needed inside.
He cleaned up her leg first, using a few iodine swabs. He waited for that to dry, then closed the jagged-edged wound with four Steri-Strips, covered it all up with a nonstick dressing pad, then wound a self-adhering bandage around her calf until he was certain it wouldn’t come undone.
She watched him silently throughout the whole operation, but as he finished, she said, “Nice job. Ever thought of going into medicine?”
“Not really, though adding medic to my skill list wouldn’t be a bad idea. Uncle Sam likes us special soldiers to have as many skills as possible.”
She snorted at that, got to her feet, tried to stand on one so she could put her pants back on, but wobbled badly.
He surged up and caught her, wrapping both arms around her waist and back before she landed in the dirt. “I’ve got you, you’re okay,” he whispered.
Her whole body shook once, then she pressed her face into his neck, took a deep breath and seemed to completely relax. “Oh.”
Since she wasn’t screaming or trying to get away, he was going to go on holding her, earning himself another decade or five in hell. A few seconds passed before he asked carefully, “You okay?”
“Yeah, you just smell good.”
“Finally, a use for my dirty, stinky laundry.”
“Oh no,” she said, her elbow in his ribs telling him to let go. “You’re not turning me into your laundress.”
“Laundress?” he asked, loosening his hold on her until he was sure she wasn’t going to fall over. “Who uses the word laundress ?”
“Fine. Housekeeper, maid, girl Friday, whatever you want to call a woman who cleans up after you. I’m not it.”
Sharp sighed with all the theatrical oomph he could muster and said, “Mom?”
Grace pushed him over with a shove from both hands.
He rolled with it until he was a couple of feet away. Thank God he’d managed to keep her off the ledge this time with nothing more than his sweaty self. He glanced up and froze at the sight of Grace taking her shirt off. She shrugged out of the left sleeve and lifted her arm up to eye level. “This one isn’t as bad as the one on my leg.”
Sharp hardly heard her. He was too busy staring at the finest set of breasts he’d ever seen. She wasn’t wearing any fancy lingerie, just the opposite. Her bra was beige, plain, and appeared to be more solid than some canvas tents. No, what had his attention were breasts bigger than he’d imagined, and he’d imagined hers a lot. And her waist was smaller than he’d expected. Her body armor made her look more padded around the midsection than she really was.
She was hot .
And very, very quiet.
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. Oops, she was giving him the stink eye. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. They’re—” he glanced down again real quick “—amazing, and wow, you’re totally gorgeous, you know that, right?” So much for professional, jackass.
She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you turned into a college junior just by looking at my boobs. I’m wearing more fabric than most bikinis.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t put that image in my head. Have you no compassion? No pity?”
“Fine. Here. They’re covered up.”
He cracked open one eye. She’d brought her shirt across her chest to cover herself.
“Now, can we get on with dealing with my arm?”
Damn. That fabulous view was all gone. He should have kept his mouth shut.
Patching up her arm took less time than her leg. Then she turned around and put her shirt back on.
Spoilsport.
“Your turn,” she said. “Take off your pants. I want to take a look at your thigh.”
On one hand, he was happy to take off his pants and get that wound dealt with. The problem was, now he knew just how much she loved being touched, how her internal muscles had gripped his finger, and he could imagine what it would feel like when they gripped his cock. He was primed and ready to go all over again.
Waiting was only going to make her pissed at him again. Might as well get the yelling over with. He began to disarm all the extra gear strapped to that leg, then went to work on his belt. Just before he pulled down his fly, he cleared his throat and said, “Don’t take this too personally, okay?”
Grace frowned. “Take what personally?”
He pulled his pants down enough to pull his leg out, and managed to keep the bulge in his underwear somewhat hidden. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to notice or not. A smart man would go for not, but he’d been all kinds of stupid today. “Never mind.”
Grace shook her head and leaned forward to prod his thigh.
Having her head so close to him made things even bigger than they already were. Fuck, she was killing him.
“Looks like a through-and-through. I’ll clean it now, but it may need to be cleaned again.”
“No problem, Doc. I expected that.” If she didn’t hurry up, he was going to poke a hole in his shorts.
She didn’t use Steri-Strips on him; rather, she used iodine to clean the wounds, packed the holes, front and back, then covered them with pads and began bandaging them both to his leg with another self-adhesive bandage. They were rapidly running out of those.
She couldn’t quite get the roll of bandage around his leg. He was still holding his pants over his crotch. She nudged his hand.
“Uh, Doc, maybe I could do this part?”
“You need two hands and a clear view of where the bandage is going. Not happening. Move.”
He hesitated. This was going to suck.
He removed his hand, taking the material he’d been hiding behind with it.
She moved to continue with the bandage, but stopped suddenly as she noticed his aching boner.
Her mouth dropped open. “Holy shit, Sharp. Do you always rearm this fast, or has it been a while?”