Chapter five
“Excuse me?” Juan asked. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had shocked him. Or the last time so few words sent a wave of heat, twisted with pleasure and need, scorching through him.
Amber curled her hands at her side, her dark hair falling over her shoulder as she struggled to hold his gaze. He admired her resolve; she desperately wanted to look away but refused to allow herself.
“Will you teach me to enjoy sex again?” she repeated. Her body vibrated with a palpable stillness. Aroused yet cautious, ready to flee, ready to apologize, ready to make herself small for daring to ask for something for herself.
She wasn’t the first woman to make such a raw, vulnerable request of him. She wasn’t even the tenth. But hearing it from her unsettled him, and his stomach tilted, unbalancing him like the one time he’d walked through the mirrored room of a fun house.
Unlike that hot summer night at the local fair decades ago, though, his skin prickled and his muscles tensed in anticipation.
That was different.
Was it awareness? Or a warning? He acknowledged it could possibly be both.
He poked around inside his head for the source of his unease.
Was it because she’d been living at the clubhouse for over a year, and he was far closer to her than any other woman he’d helped?
Or was it because she was considering dating again and only needed him to help make those specific wounds from her marriage slightly less raw before moving on?
He’d helped a number of women in the past six years heal in just that way, though.
That possibility shouldn’t give him pause.
The fact that it did—and the knowledge that no less than four men had given her their number today—told him it mattered.
Although hadn’t he also been telling himself only hours earlier that if she decided to date, as her friend, he needed to support her?
Of course, he hadn’t envisioned this type of support.
She swallowed, the quiet sound ricocheting across the space between them, drawing his attention back to her question.
He moved to cross his arms, then stopped mid-motion and dropped them awkwardly back to his sides. “You don’t have to answer, but can I ask why?”
“Why, in general? Or why now? Or maybe why you?” she countered, her head tipped, seeking clarity. Clumped strands of hair fell over her shoulder, and he wondered how she managed to get lemonade on her head. And where else she had it on her body.
“Any? All?” he responded. He didn’t begrudge Amber her desire to take back that piece of her life, but he wanted to understand it. Understand why now, why him.
A first for him. And not a welcome experience. Untrodden territory rarely was.
“Never mind,” he said with a shake of his head. This wasn’t about him, and he didn’t need to make it about him. He didn’t need to understand anything other than the fact that she’d asked for his help. “Yes, I’ll help you,” he said.
His stomach swooped as if he’d navigated a plane into a zero-gravity free fall.
Hopefully, his decision wouldn’t kill the engines.
Not that he couldn’t recover, but he didn’t need that kind of excitement in his life anymore.
After nearly ten years in Special Forces, he’d had enough to last a lifetime.
And if that didn’t make him sound forty years older than his current thirty-five, then he didn’t know what did.
Amber blinked her big brown doe eyes. He’d only recently learned that she’d been a model before marrying her arse-wipe of a husband.
The revelation hadn’t caused so much as a ripple in the club.
It had been news, sure, but the kind of news that slid into their consciousness as if it had always been there.
As if they’d known it all along but simply forgot for the moment.
“You will?”
He didn’t like the surprise in her voice. “Yes.”
A thousand questions pinged inside his head. When did she want to start? Did she want to be in her room or his? Before her husband tried—and failed—to destroy her, what had she liked?
She inhaled, her breasts pressing against the cotton of her V-neck T-shirt. His fingers twitched.
“I need to shower. Maybe we could grab a drink later tonight?”
“Maybe I could help you shower?” The words came out before he had a chance to think. They were too much too fast, he knew that. But the bloom of color spreading up Amber’s chest distracted him too much to take them back.
The idea aroused her. Or at least interested her.
His stomach tightened as images of his hands running over her water-slick body filled his mind. He could all but taste the tangy lemon on her skin.
She faltered.
“Nothing happens that you don’t want to happen,” he said. Now set on this path, he’d make damn sure she didn’t regret it. The little devil on his shoulder suggested he ruin her for all other men. Annoyingly, the angel on his other shoulder remained silent.
Her nod of acknowledgment came without hesitation, sending a rush of pleasure through him.
“You trust me?” he asked.
“I do.” Again, without hesitation. “But is it going to be weird?”
Yes, no, maybe. He smiled back. “Only if we make it weird. You deserve to have this part of your life back.” He took another step, stopping close enough to smell the tart sweetness of the lemonade mixed with a subtle scent, maybe her shampoo.
At six foot one, he was only three inches taller than her.
Standing less than a foot apart, he decided he liked that her lips were an easy dip of his head away.
Slowly, he lifted his hand. Her gaze tracked it, flickering to his in question before darting back to his fingers.
Painfully aware he’d be the first man to touch her since her husband, and the first man to touch her in years with only pleasure—not control, not anger, not violence—in mind, he kept the contact light as a butterfly as he grazed her cheek, then dipped his fingers into her hair to brush the strands back.
She didn’t flinch, but he didn’t miss the sharp edge of tension rising in her body. Surprising him again, she leaned into his touch. “You’re not going to hurt me.” A reminder to herself that she’d chosen him, that she trusted him, and he took no offense at the words.
“I won’t,” he replied. He’d cut his arm off before hurting her, but he didn’t need to add that violence to the conversation.
“This is my choice,” she said. Again, more to herself.
“It will always be your choice.”
She tipped her head up in invitation, and without hesitation, he pushed aside his questions and lowered his lips to hers.
A featherlight touch, then another, then another.
Tentatively, her hands came to rest on his hips.
The next time their lips touched, he lingered; when she didn’t move away, he brushed his tongue across the seam of her lips.
Her body tensed beneath his, and she stilled.
But she didn’t withdraw. A beat later, she opened to him.
Angling his head, his tongue met hers, the caress so gentle the fragility of it rattled through his body, shaking something deep within him loose, something nameless and lost.
Amber leaned into him, taking the kiss deeper.
He didn’t hesitate to follow her lead. Sliding his hand into her hair, he tipped her head back and gave her everything he had, everything he was.
Her fingers tightened on his hips, pulling him toward her.
She tensed again when their bodies pressed flush against each other.
Focusing on the kiss, he kept still, giving her a chance to remember that she trusted him.
That nothing would happen that she didn’t want.
Slowly, she relaxed again, melting into him, fitting against him as if they’d always been this way.
Lifting his other hand, he reached for her jaw, wanting to cup her cheek, wanting to hold her as delicately as this thing spinning between them.
His fingers brushed her skin and she flinched, her spine stiffening as she sucked in a breath. He froze.
He pulled back enough to speak but not so far that she’d misinterpret it as withdrawal. “Amber?” he whispered against her cheek.
Her eyelashes fluttered against his skin and she took a long, slow breath. He remained still, waiting for her to decide what happened next. He’d promised her it would always be her choice, and he’d stand by that.
The heat of her filtered through his clothes as she took another deep breath, then a third. She didn’t move, though, so neither did he.
“He was left-handed,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. It wasn’t unusual or unexpected for her to have a flashback. It had happened before with other women. But this one hit him in the solar plexus like a grenade.
He fought not to apologize, to beg her forgiveness for causing the flashback he neither anticipated nor intended. If he did, she’d feel as though she’d need to do the same for her reaction. And her apology was the last thing he wanted.
Dropping his left hand, he wrapped it over her right hand resting on his hip. When she released her hold, he twined their fingers together and curled them both against her lower back. “Hold on to my hand, keep it there, as long as you need,” he said.
Her eyes lifted, searching his. Slowly, he lowered his head again and touched his lips to hers. A not-so-tiny whoop of triumph swept through him when she softened again.
Not everyone enjoyed kissing, viewing it as something to get through to reach a different goal.
He wasn’t one of them. He loved every part of intimacy.
He loved the gentle touch of Amber’s lips on his, the brush of her hair over his skin, the heat of her body filtering through his clothes, the tentative but determined way she tested herself, and him.
He knew that appreciation, that adoration, more than anything, was the reason a few of the women who came through the Falcons’ lives turned to him.
A distant thought with Amber in his arms. Although if his past helped bring her to him, then he was grateful for it.
Because now, whatever Amber asked of him, however much or however little, he’d be right there with her.
He’d make their time together—all of it—hold meaning. For both of them.
Without having to say it, he knew this moment wouldn’t go beyond kissing. Amber didn’t throw caution to the wind. She thought about things, considered them, weighed them. He wondered how long she’d been thinking about taking this step. And whether she thought about asking anyone other than him.
Not liking the direction of that thought, he speared his right hand through her hair and deepened the kiss.
She tasted and smelled like lemonade—a little tart, a little sweet, and a tiny bit of mint.
Complex but balanced, much like the woman currently occupying every one of his senses except sight.
But with his eyes closed, every other one heightened in an edgy, tantalizing way.
Her sighs vibrated through his body, her taste unleashed a thirst of his own, his fingers slid over her skin like silk, and her scent mingled with his, sharpened by the heat between them into something indescribable and, he suspected, unforgettable.
She shifted her feet, the sound of her soles unsticking from the floor shocking them both out of the moment.
As she pulled back, his fingers tangled with a lemonade-snarl in her hair.
She wrinkled her nose and blew out a tiny laugh as she released his left hand.
He kept his palm flush against her back as she raised hers and rested it on his biceps.
“I need to shower,” she said. Her eyes darted away, avoiding him.
He couldn’t have that. “Want help?” he offered again as he gently untangled his fingers. Her gaze flew to his. He waggled his eyebrows. She blinked, then laughed. As he’d hoped.
“Maybe some other time,” she said with a smile. Although judging by the look of confusion on her face, the words surprised her. They surprised him, too, but what else caught him off guard was the way his body reacted to the possibility. Desire, swift and hot, seared a path through him.
He stepped back. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He made it to the door when she called his name. He turned.
“Do we…can we…” A bloom of pink spread over her cheeks.
“Yes,” he said, answering her unasked question. “Whenever and wherever you want, Amber. I am happily, and completely, at your beck and call for however long you want me to be.”
Her eyes searched his, then she nodded. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “Not to sound cliché, but believe me, the pleasure is all mine.”
Again, as he hoped, he drew a smile from her. With a nod of his own, he turned and left. And as he closed the door behind him, a little stutter in his chest made him wonder if maybe he’d inadvertently opened another.