8. Mandy
8
MANDY
I fell, breathless, into Chance’s arms, scrabbling at his shoulders to keep from falling over completely. His mouth claimed mine, and I felt myself shatter. Every nerve ending in my body overloaded at once, and I blew apart and came back together as I gripped his biceps and breathed in his scent.
My lips craved more, so I kissed him deeper while my fingers traced rippling, exquisite muscle.
Tilting his head, he assaulted my mouth, and I lunged forward to mount my own offense. Crawling onto his lap, I straddled his hips, wrapping my legs around him, raking my fingers through his hair.
He groaned and besieged my lips, kissing me without mercy. I urged him on, just as desperate, brimming with need.
Chance yanked me forward with a hand at the base of my spine. He jerked down my pants and underwear, and I freed his cock. His hand slid between my thighs, and he thumbed at my clit. Ripples of pleasure chased through my body, each wave of ecstasy more powerful than the last.
I almost came, just like that. Barely managed to hold it back with a moan. Nothing about this spoke of tentative re-learning or getting reacquainted. This was passion, pure and raw, and we attacked each other like two starving people exposed to a feast.
I shivered at his callused fingers caressing my spine. His tongue parted my lips to taste me and be devoured in return.
Jesus God . I couldn’t get enough. I pulled his hair hard and stroked one hand down his back, hating the tank top keeping me from feeling his skin. He shifted and nudged his cock against my slit, teasing me with the promise of what I craved most. My toes twitched and curled, and my fingers flexed, wanting to dig in, to hold on and never let go. I needed him inside me, but he made me wait, circling my clit with the head of his cock.
“I need you,” I whispered, and I moaned at the tension inside coiling tighter.
Grabbing the bottom of his tank, I yanked it up and flattened my hand on his back. Thick, sinewy muscles bunched beneath my palms, ratcheting my primal side to the point where I was almost out of control. I attacked his mouth again, my tongue dancing with his until it almost hurt. I needed him. Now. The primitive instinct to mark him raged, and I ferociously wanted him imprinted on my skin. Wanted his scent mixed with mine, just like long ago.
He matched every movement and countered with his own. Giving even better than he got.
Consumed by him, I bit his lip, then licked it.
He growled, the vibrations teasing my nipples. I sucked in air and squirmed against him. Chance bit my lower lip and tugged it with his teeth while his hand wrapped in my hair, gripping it tightly enough to prick my scalp with pain.
“More,” I breathed, when he released my lip.
Forcing my head back by the curls, he licked the column of my throat. I let out a groan. “You’ve been driving me crazy.”
“Me too,” he muttered against my collarbone. His tone was ragged, like he’d swallowed gravel.
I shifted my hips to get more sensation, grinding my clit against his thick length.
“Hold on.” He twisted, laying me down. Soft grass tickled my back, and he leaned down to kiss me as his hard body covered my front.
Memories rushed in, but I pushed them away. My mind had no space for any moment but this one, couldn’t bear to focus on any sensation but his body on mine.
My thighs fell open, and Chance settled between them, his hard, full cock nestling against my belly. He kissed a path down my neck and his hand slid up, the rough fingers of a working man against my sensitive flesh, and oh , that felt good. Everywhere he touched, my skin rippled in response. My muscles quivered beneath those hard, callused palms. His caresses felt new, and yet they felt old. Familiar like he’d never left, and at the same time so foreign, laced in carnal confidence he certainly hadn’t had the last time we’d been like this.
Unable to take it anymore, I pulled on his tank top, needing it gone. Chance reached over his shoulder and yanked it off, tossing it toward the tree.
Holy … I swallowed hard. Acres of muscled flesh hovered just above me, and my eyes gorged on the feast. Another black tattoo I’d only caught glimpses of sprawled across his right pec. Using my fingertip, I traced the tips of the SEAL Trident standing tall, then savored the smoothness as I stroked over the inked ribbon winding down it.
“‘The only easy day was yesterday,’” I quoted huskily, reading the words within.
He nodded, his eyes blazing as they traced my face. “Heard it a lot during BUD/S.” His skin goose-bumped under my wandering hand. “AKA twenty-five weeks of miserable hell called SEAL training.”
White ridges of old scar tissue riddled his skin. I pressed a kiss to the closest scar, then licked it gently. Sweat’s salty tang teased at my tongue, and I traced a path to the next one, craving more.
Chance sucked air through his teeth, and he jerked back. “I’ve waited so long to taste you again.” He pushed up my sports bra and forced the spandex over my breasts. The breeze made my nipples throb, and I arched my back, showing him where I needed him.
Roughly, he grabbed my right breast and squeezed.
“Again,” I moaned, arching even higher.
Latching onto my nipple, he sucked it in deep. Then, when the sensation grew almost too intense, he pulled back just far enough to flick the tip with his tongue.
Crying out, I dug my fingernails into his scalp, pulling him closer. Jolt after jolt shot through my body, high-octane ecstasy, leaving me weak.
His teeth scraped my nipple on their way to torture my other breast.
Involuntarily, my hips jutted up, and I worked my clit against his heavy cock. Over and over, I stroked.
Quicker and quicker, his tongue lapped.
He twisted my right nipple between his thumb and forefinger, just as he sucked my left one hard .
“ Ohhhh ,” I groaned. “ Chance .” Explosions rocked my body, flooding me with waves of bliss. My vision blacked out as my orgasm took control.
Slowly regaining focus, I purred at him where he sprawled, lazily swirling his tongue around my areola. Muscling him up by his hair, I sealed my mouth on his. In half a second, he took over and the gentle kiss turned into a raging inferno.
“Man-dy!” called Pepper, from somewhere inside. “Are you out…OH! Sorry!”
Chance growled and broke the kiss, resting his forehead against mine. “I’m going to kill your roommate.”
I giggled— giggled! What the hell?
“Yeah, um,” Pepper poked her head out, half laughing, half strained. “Sorry to interrupt y’all, but we’ve got to leave. The awards ceremony starts in an hour, and we’re supposed to be manning the check-in table.”
I stared blankly. Awards ceremony?
“What?”
“The Tiny Tikes. Did you forget?”
What the hell was a Tiny Tike? I hadn’t forgotten. I would never—no, wait. “You mean, the kids’ soccer team?”
“You said you’d come help. Last week, remember, when we were watching The Bachelor ?”
I groaned deeply. I did remember, sort of, something about soccer and prizes and kids. Why had I ever said I’d help out with that?
“I know how to make it look like an accident,” Chance whispered grumpily. “Better yet, I’ll make it so they never find her body.”
I whapped him on the bicep and had to hold back a moan at the way my hand bounced off the granite muscle. “Be good.”
“I wanted to be amazing.”
A spasm clenched my lower belly, and I suddenly wasn’t so amused at Pepper’s intrusion.
He pulled my sports bra back into place and rolled onto his back.
I situated the fabric and yelled out, “I’m coming.”
“Not as many times as I’d hoped,” Chance muttered as he snatched his tank off the ground.
Reality crashed in, along with regret. I’d let Chance distract me, but we hadn’t finished talking. I hadn’t got to the important part, about him staying safe. About the FBI’s failure to deal with the threat. I couldn’t let him go with that hanging in the air.
“Listen, about before…” I fidgeted, nervous. “We need to finish talking. There’s a lot you don’t know.”
“We will,” Chance assured me. He stopped fixing his coveralls and raised his eyes to meet mine. “I’m just glad we’ve started. I know that was hard.”
My eyes swam with unexpected tears, but I blinked them back before they could fall. This was new, too, this willingness on Chance’s part to listen. This patience—he’d never had that before. I liked this new Chase. More than liked him. Needed him close to me, needed to know that he’d be there—that he wouldn’t go rushing off into danger.
He reached out and helped me up off the ground, caressing my jaw with his fingertip. The light kiss he feathered across my lips made me shiver.
I watched him slip out the back gate, then jogged to meet Pepper. This evening had changed everything, tipping the scales toward Chance. Every instinct I had urged me to trust him. Or rather, I finally had to admit that I did already. I hadn’t told him everything, but I’d tested the waters. And the way he’d reacted proved he’d grown up. He wasn’t the same careless boy who’d rush into danger without considering the consequences. He was a man who could help me. I wasn’t sure yet if what I felt was love, but it was something , not just nostalgia. The past was behind me, but for the first time in years, the future held promise.
Chase
Sitting on the back deck watching storm clouds blotting out the dying light, I lifted my beer and swallowed the cool liquid. The wind ruffled my damp hair, but it did nothing to cool the inferno still boiling inside. I had stroked myself off in the shower but only found emptiness, not relief.
Thunder rumbled ominously, but no rain fell from the fat clouds yet. Hopefully, the storm would relieve the humidity choking the air. I thumped my bare feet on top of the railing ringing the covered deck and rested the bottle on my shirtless stomach.
Should I stick to my diet regimen or ? —
My cellphone blared in my pocket, and I fished it out, snorting at Harris’s picture filling the screen.
“How’s the adventure going?” I asked, placing the call on speaker and setting the device on my stomach beside the beer.
“You should be...”—dead air—“…us.”
“You’re breaking up.” I gulped more beer. The sky flashed with lightning.
“Yeah,” Lee chimed in, letting me know they were together. “Coverage has been spotty.” Silence. “…a pain in the neck on the music app.”
“Would you get off that already?” Harris groused. “We’re stopped for the night in Arkansas. Close to the Oklahoma border.”
I chuckled. I could just imagine the fights my two brothers were probably having about the music. Harris tended toward southern, classic rock, and country, while Lee preferred alternative rock and heavy metal.
“Don’t be worried…” Silence. “… you can’t reach us,” Lee stated. “The Shelby’s doin’ fine.”
A knot unfurled in my stomach at this pronouncement. Maybe they wouldn’t get stuck on the side of the road after all. “Hey, heard from anybody about how to reach Zach Vale?”
“Yeah, turns out he and my buddy Jake are still tight,” Lee said. “But Jake says he’s…mission…”
“What was that?”
“He’s on a special mission—no contact at all. Sorry, bro.”
Damn. Maybe I’d see if I could get in contact with one of the other brothers. Colin, the middle brother, was on a team with a guy I knew back in basic. We hadn’t been in touch for a while, but I was pretty sure I still had his number.
“Don’t worry about it—I’ll try something else. Tell me more about your trip. You seeing anything interesting?”
“Sure are,” Harris answered just as the clouds released their payload, a curtain of rain sweeping across the yard. “We’re trying to stay off the highways as much as possible.” Dead air. I increased the volume to drown out the rain. “…to see more than ugly road signs and median trees.”
“It takes longer,” Lee added, “but we’re not on a schedule so we could give a?—”
Staticky silence.
“Sounds like a plan.” I inhaled the ozone saturating the air. I loved a good thunderstorm.
“How’s it going there?” Harris asked.
“You figure…Mandy’s in danger?”
For a brief instant, I thought about confiding in my brothers, unloading what I had learned about her father’s gambling and Walter’s role in collecting. Instead, I bit my tongue. Why betray Mandy’s privacy? I’d just make them worry. Worst-case scenario, they’d cut their trip short. Lee needed this trip to unwind and recharge. He’d lost so much faith in himself; he needed the road trip to let off steam and hopefully restore his confidence. As for Harris, he’d been the closest to Dad, so his untimely death had hit him the hardest. And whether he admitted it or not, I had spied signs of Harris struggling with his military career. I prayed the road trip would give Harris a measure of peace and maybe some of the answers he was internally seeking.
“All’s quiet on the home front,” I finally answered. “Mandy and I have gotten…closer.”
Harris and Lee seized on that opening.
I dropped my head back as they tagged-teamed mercilessly between dead air spots and thunder, ragging on me both about Mandy and about calling Springwell home.
“I think I’m staying,” I announced, when I finally got a word in. “It’d be nice after nonstop missions to be settled in one place.” I lifted the beer but didn’t drink. “I thought I’d be stifled, but,” I debated whether to keep going, “when I’m around Mandy and the garage, the world slows down and I feel in sync again.”
“That makes sense,” Harris said, his voice full of contemplation. “You had been about to ask her to marry you?—”
Lee’s snort cut in, with a harsh burst of static. “But instead she broke up with you before you could say a word.”
I grunted. To this day, I had no clue why she’d ended things between us. Well…after our bar date, maybe I had a clue , but I still had questions. Couldn’t we have talked? Couldn’t she have heard me out, just for five minutes?
“Hey.” Harris interrupted my musing. “We’ve gotta go. I’m hungry, and we’re about to find out what this town has to offer for Saturday night entertainment.”
“Keep us posted on the Mandy situation,” Lee demanded, almost growling. “We’re here if you need us to back you up or?—”
The call dropped.
Staring at the rain, I contemplated my next move. This evening had been a turning point with Mandy. What kind of turning point, I wasn’t sure, but I intended to find out. If I had my way, I’d find out what happened twelve years ago, then do my damnedest to never repeat the same mistake. When I thought of the future, Mandy wasn’t just in it. She was it , always had been. I’d make this right.