Chapter 14 #2
“Walker, you’ve spent a decade pulling together a ranch for wounded veterans and kept your team tight from what I can see. You’re creating a new business that specializes in helping people. You talked to a freakin’ psychologist to make sure the cottages would be soothing.”
“Sure, but that’s for other people. I guess I wasn’t there enough for her.”
Serena harrumphed. “Walker, I never met your ex, but I’ll wager that none of your friends liked her. Am I wrong?”
She wasn’t, and that had always burned more than a little.
Serena read his expression. “Mmm hmmm. To me, the evidence points to a woman who was pissed you didn’t make her your whole world.
That you had commitments to other people you honored.
I’ll bet you never, ever forgot a birthday or anniversary, and went out of your way to make them special for her. How long were you married?”
“Five years,” he said, not sure how this had turned into a triage of his failed marriage. He sure as hell didn’t like it. He’d been through this with his mother ad nauseum and didn’t particularly want Serena to see this part of him.
Carrie had so charmed him that he’d made excuses to himself for the fact everyone seemed leery of her after a while.
Everything had been fine until he’d left the Army and started his career in private security.
He’d been gone a lot, so he’d attributed her unhappiness to being lonely.
He’d offered to bring her along when he could, started turning down longer jobs, all with the goal of making it work. Nothing had been good enough.
Toward the end of their marriage she’d claimed he was cheating, then when it became apparent he wasn’t, she’d honed in on the fact he’d become ‘distant’ and spent all his free time with his friends.
She hadn’t been totally wrong there, because being around her had been almost unbearable by that point.
Serena brought him back to the present by grasping his face and turning it toward hers. “Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. You’re a hyper-responsible man. It must have been the military that did that, because you weren’t that way back in the day,” she grinned and made him smile in return.
He looked into those piercing blue eyes that still captivated him to this day. “I don’t know that I have it in me again.” His voice sounded raw, even to his own ears. “I don’t know that I can lose like that again.”
“Oh hell,” she said, and leaned over to pull him into a hug.
Either one of them could have made it into something sexual, but instead Walker accepted the affection, the love of a friend, and felt something inside begin to heal.
Serena had forgotten how nice it could be to sleep in until it was light outside. It wasn’t something she did often, but her encounter with Walker last night, and the fact she knew he was sleeping right down the hallway had made her sleep the sleep of angels.
She pushed out of bed and took care of her morning ablutions in her bathroom, then headed to the upstairs kitchen for her first cup of coffee. As she stepped out of the main suite, she barreled right into Walker, who was coming out of the hallway bathroom.
He’d just come from the shower, his hair wet, wearing jeans and a hastily thrown-on shirt that was open at the front.
Everything in her went hot seeing him like this.
It was so intimate, and even though he had clothes on, it was all too easy to picture them gone.
Especially after his revelations last night.
Opening up about his vulnerability, even if it’d been sorta-involuntary, had made him even hotter in her estimation. And now, with the early morning eye candy? It didn’t get much better than this.
Or maybe it did.
“Morning,” he said. “Since we’re going hiking…” whatever he was going to say drifted away as he got a good look at her face.
She tried to school her expression, tried to go for a casual good morning, but the words dried up in her mouth.
“Serena…” he said, stepping toward her, and the yearning on his face matched what she felt.
She met him halfway, and something inside her sighed almost in relief as she placed her hands on his chest, felt the hard strength of the muscles beneath the satiny skin, felt his heart thumping as hard as hers.
“Serena…” he said again, and this time there was more of a warning in his tone. She took it for what it was, restraint. But she was tired of being restrained. So instead, she went up on her tiptoes, combed her fingers through the wet strands at his nape, and kissed him.
The taste of her crashed over him like a tidal wave, all minty toothpaste and warm woman. He knew he should put the brakes on this, but she was lush and warm and right there. When her tongue teased the seam of his lips, he didn’t resist and instead threw caution to the wind and dove in.
He pulled her tight against him, the thin fabric of her pajamas an inconsequential barrier.
She hummed deep in her throat, and he felt it in his bones. This was what he’d waited twenty years for. His cock went hard as a post, and all he wanted was to sink into her, to feel her again.
She made a frustrated sound and then gave a little leap. He caught her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. His hands were full of her warm, luscious ass, and with that, he fell.
Walker made a sound deep in his throat and stepped forward, carrying her easily. She felt the wall at her back and ground against him, feeling his erection through his jeans. God, he felt so good, all hard muscle and warm skin. But there were too many damn clothes between them.
He disengaged their lip lock for a precious second and looked her straight in the eye. “I won’t be able to stop in a few minutes,” he ground out, his voice hoarse and hitting every one of her buttons.
“No stopping,” she panted. “Take me to bed, Walker. Take me to bed now.”
The only sound he gave was a grunt, and she wondered if he’d lost the capacity for speech. She sure as hell had. Then he was pushing through her bedroom door. He placed her on the bed with such reverence, with such care, that it brought tears to her eyes.
This was the Walker she’d known twenty years ago. The man she’d talked with last night. Considerate, a little desperate for her. And she was as desperate for him.
She hadn’t been with anyone in a while and was glad of it. She wanted this to be magical, wanted it to be like it had been when they were riding the brink of adulthood.
He shrugged out of his shirt, and for the first time she saw him bare-chested.
A tattoo twined over his right pec, a shield with two stylized F’s embedded within it. Having watched the movie, she knew immediately what it meant. The Frosty Fuckers. And he’d put them over his heart.
It grabbed her by the throat, made tears sting her eyes, but she blinked them back.
This was Walker, the boy she’d loved twenty years ago, and the man who, with every action and deed, was quickly making her feel the same things, but so much bigger.
So much better. He leaned over her and then began to unbutton her pajama top quickly, efficiently, his fingers barely brushing her skin as he did.
But every touch sent an electric shock through her.
God, this was going to be so good.
She shimmied out of her sleep shorts, pausing as he began to unbutton his jeans, mesmerized.
He’d always been lean, but now that leanness was roped with sleek muscle, with a trail of hair that disappeared down into his jeans. She couldn’t wait to see what she was unwrapping, couldn’t wait to see the new and improved version of Walker Landry.
He went so slowly she wondered if he was teasing her, then she saw the rise and fall of his chest and realized he was fighting for control. The thought made her infinitely hotter.
“Now, Walker,” she commanded, and finished pushing down her shorts.
He froze on the spot, his eyes glued to her bare body, roving from tip to toe. If his expression was any indication, he was more than happy with what he saw.