Chapter Nine
Chloe had no business kissing Joe again, but as those amazing blue eyes reached deep inside of her, as his arms slipped around her and he drew her close, she couldn’t help leaning toward him and just...letting go.
She expected the kiss to start slowly—much like the first one had. But the moment their lips met, hers parted, and the kiss exploded with passion.
As their tongues touched, twisting and mating, their hands stroked, explored, caressed.
She knew she should pull back and stop things before they got out of hand, but it had been so long since she’d lost herself in a man’s arms, in his kiss.
Then again, her only experience had never been like this.
Before she was blinded by a haze of lust and found herself making love outdoors, she drew her mouth from his.
She meant to explain her reason for stopping, but she didn’t dare say a word until her breathing slowed to a normal rate and her heart stopped pounding.
“That was some kiss,” he said.
It certainly was.
“I don’t mean to be a tease,” she finally said, “but I don’t think we should jump into anything.”
He ran his knuckles along her cheek. “Because of my amnesia?”
That was one reason to be cautious. She hardly knew the man as it was. And while her heart—not to mention, her body—seemed to insist it didn’t matter, that she could easily fall for him anyway, she had to be reasonable.
“Don’t you think we should take things slow until your memory returns?” she said.
“Probably.”
She bit down on her bottom lip, pondering how much to share with him about the mistake she’d made, but there was a part of her that didn’t want him to think she was flighty or that she didn’t have any morals.
“I made a bad choice once, and I told myself I’d be more careful next time.”
“What happened?”
She really hadn’t told anyone before, other than Teresa, but it seemed as though Joe deserved an explanation. “I was lonely and got caught up in a relationship that wasn’t right for me.”
She’d met Mark Foster her first semester at the junior college in Wexler. She hadn’t had a chance to make any friends in town yet, and he’d been funny and charming. She’d been flattered by his interest in her, thinking that he actually cared for her.
He’d pursued her, coming on pretty strong, and she hadn’t been experienced in the ways of the world.
She should have taken the time to think things through, to get to know his true character, but she hadn’t.
He’d taken advantage of her naivety by taking her out to an expensive dinner in Wexler, pulling out all the romantic stops and plying her with enough champagne to make her head spin.
She’d never in a million years thought that she’d have sex in the back of a car—especially her first time. She’d cried afterward. And then she’d gotten sick. The whole thing was a disappointing and embarrassing experience she’d like to forget.
Apparently, Mark had more luck at forgetting than she had. He never called her again, while she couldn’t get that awful night out of her mind.
“So what did he do to you?” Joe asked. “Did he break your heart?”
No, it was her self-respect that had suffered the most, which was why Chloe had never shared the embarrassing details with anyone.
“My heart was a little bruised,” she said, “but not broken. Let’s just say that things didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.”
She’d learned a hard lesson that night, one that didn’t need repeating. From then on, she’d resolved not to drink on a date and not to have sex with someone she didn’t love—or barely knew.
And even though she felt as though she could fall for Joe, he had amnesia, and she didn’t know any more about him than he knew about himself.
After that heated kiss by the pond earlier that afternoon, Joe had been careful to respect Chloe’s wishes, even though it had taken every ounce of his resolve to put some distance between them once he’d come in for dinner.
He was bone tired after a hard day’s work, and the hot shower he’d taken upon entering the house had refreshed him only enough to eat the chicken and roasted potatoes Chloe had made for dinner.
When his eyes began drifting closed at the table, his little Florence Nightingale returned and ordered him to bed.
Within minutes of his head hitting the pillow, he’d fallen into a deep sleep, and his dreams took him far away from horses and watering holes, from two laughing boys and an irate rancher.
As Dave’s father’s words grew dim, the vision’s backdrop shifted from a green and fertile Texas ranch to a dry and dusty urban war zone in Afghanistan, where bullets flew and mortar boomed...
Three or four Taliban insurgents carrying assault rifles and strategically hiding in an abandoned apartment building fired on Joe and his men. And they took cover behind an overturned minibus.
“Hold your positions,” Joe commanded.
His communications specialist had radioed for backup. He just needed to keep his troops in cover position a few more seconds until reinforcement arrived.
The metal tracks of the cavalry tank sounded, just a short distance away, providing a sense of relief. But the corporal beside him fidgeted with his rifle, clearly on edge from more than just the gunshots around them.
“I can’t take this no more,” the corporal said, tears streaming down his face. “If she doesn’t want me, then what do I have left?”
“Hold tight, buddy. The armored tanks are almost—”
Before Joe could finish his order, the young marine was up and running, revealing their hiding position and exposing the other members of their patrol squad.
“Fall back, Dave. Fall back!” Joe screamed. But the hotheaded corporal didn’t listen. Instead, he charged toward the snipers, spraying bullets at no target in particular.
Dave only had so many rounds, and when he emptied his rifle, he’d be a sitting duck. As the squad commander, Joe was responsible for all of his men, even those who were hell-bent on disobeying direct orders and compromising the safety of fellow marines.
“I’m going after Corporal Cummings,” Joe told the man beside him. “Cover me, but don’t move until the armored vehicles set up a blockade. On three...”
Joe ran out to Dave, grabbed the crazed man by his pack and pulled his body back toward the safety of the minibus. But his friend swung his rifle around, clocking Joe in the face, allowing the snipers above them to get a free shot.
Dave, weighted down by his full gear and a rage of helplessness, fell onto Joe just as the first lumbering Humvee pulled in front of them. But not before Joe’s knee exploded.
“Dammit,” Joe yelled. “I told you to fall back, Dave.”
A tap on his shoulder, followed by a gentle hand tugging at him, drew him out of the gunfire, the dust and the heat.
“Joe, wake up. You’re having another nightmare.”
At the sound of Chloe’s voice, he almost lurched out of bed, determined to dive over her body and protect her from enemy fire. But her calming strokes along his biceps told him that she was real, not just a figment of his nocturnal imagination.
“Here,” she said, “have some water.”
He sat up, letting the sheet drop to his waist, and took a deep drink from the glass she offered him.
“Sorry for being such a...” What? A head case? A nut job? He shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry for waking you up. Again.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, her words coming out softly, soothing him.
Just having Chloe near helped. His racing pulse slowed, but his pounding heart wasn’t so quick to respond.
“You went through a traumatic ordeal,” she said, “and it’s only natural that you’d dream about it.”
Was she talking about the accident that had robbed him of his memory? Or the battle he’d just relived in his sleep?
He let out a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair before taking another gulp of water.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked as her fingers continued their soothing caress along his upper arm.
She was wearing a thin cotton nightgown, the hem barely reaching her thighs when she sat beside him on the bed. She meant to comfort him, no doubt, but his decelerating heartbeat leaped back into action, quickening its tempo.
He’d tried so hard to be a gentleman earlier tonight. To keep his distance so he wouldn’t be tempted to pull her into his arms for another heated kiss like the one they’d shared on that picnic blanket.
In the dim light filtering in from the hallway, he could see her expression and realized it was one of concern, not lust. So he didn’t dare meet her eyes. Not when his thoughts had shifted from the war zone to the bedroom.
He lowered his gaze to her chest, where the clinging cotton gown she wore couldn’t hide her rounded breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and as her arm moved up and down so she could rub his biceps, he could see the outline of her dusky nipples with each movement.
“Another dream?” she asked.
“It was the same as before, only more detailed. I think it was a memory of the battle I read about in Danielson’s report.”
Her hand shifted from his side to his back, and with each stroke of her fingers along his spine, his arousal grew. If he couldn’t get his hormones under control, he’d have to get her off his bed and out the door before he did something they’d both regret later.
Amnesia or not, he was still a man. And if she kept touching his bare skin like that...
“I’m okay now,” he said. “Go on back to bed. You need your rest, too.”
“You’re still shivering. I’m not going to leave until your body settles down.”
Oh, yeah? If she kept stroking him like that, taunting him, his body would never calm down. He wasn’t shivering because of his nightmare. Just looking at her tousled hair and sleepy eyes had riled him up.
Unable to take it anymore, he grabbed her hand, his fingers circling her wrist.
Her mouth opened slightly in surprise, but she didn’t try to pull away.
“Listen, Chloe. If you don’t get back to your room right this second, I’m going to do a lot more than kiss you.”