Forbidden Love with the Marine(44)

Finally, she was still, though her chest was heaving. Ever so slowly, he kissed her sensitive inner thighs, reluctantly moving away from her glittering pink and pouty * before wending his lips upwards. Her belly, her breasts, her throat. He licked at the gentle sheen of perspiration coating her skin there, and felt her shudder endlessly. He smiled, raised his head to look down into her hooded, glistening eyes. Tears. Puzzled, he stared into her streaked face. “What’s wrong?”


She let out that spontaneous, beautiful sounding laugh he was getting to love. “Nothing’s wrong! It just...it felt so good. Nothing like that’s ever felt so good,” she told him, her tone sobering. Her hands rested on his chest, and Blade felt the ultimate wall come crashing down when he looked into the open window of her face.

He loved her.

He knew that now. Without a doubt in his mind he knew.

It was as gut-deep an instinct as he’d had whenever he was stationed on that wall, about to bring down that ‘mark’ with just one bullet from his sniper rifle.

The analogy might seem unsavory to some but it was the truth. Blade had lived by the gun and it had been a tough choice to make but he’d been darned too good at it to do anything else while he was in the Army.

And yet now that he was out of active duty he’d always been afraid he’d lost some part of his humanity. That piece had fused right back when he met Makayla. Now, with her gazing up at him with the same kind of glow on her face that he was sure was showing on his, he felt like he was finally finding his way back. God! It felt good to be home.





Chapter Seventeen


Makayla didn’t care how much Gina or Evelyn teased her. She was in love and it was about time.

Gina got back from her trip to find that her stepbrother may have moved out to his new place, but he was firmly ensconced in Makayla’s heart.

Evelyn too, finally got resigned to the possibility that she might have been wrong and that her sister had actually hit a goldmine with Blade.

Between her sister and her roommate, Makayla went through enough good-natured ribbing to make her feel a tad uncomfortable about her new emotions. Now that she was dating Blade seriously, she’d done all she could to stay sensible – outside the bedroom, at least. Behind closed doors, she let go of every notice of sound judgment. When Blade made love to her, it was another time zone, a whole alternate universe where she didn’t need to hold anything back.

But she was still holding back in the real world. She had to. Only her friends and sister really knew just how she truly felt about Blade. She was crazily infatuated with the guy and she wouldn’t let him see it. Oh sure, he knew she was wildly attracted to him and that he drove her up the beanstalk with his bedroom skills, but self-preservation kept the L-word or any real show of sentimentality out of the deal.

For one, she knew he still had issues. There were nights they spent together that she had to wake him up gently from whatever was making him groan and shiver in his sleep. She could tell it had something to do with his time in the Army but she wasn’t professional enough to handle any of that. She gave him all the support she could as a friend and a lover and hoped that whatever he was suffering about, he’d get through it. She was counting on one day bringing it up and finding out how he could seek peace from what had broken inside him.

Then there was the other part of the picture, involving his ex-lover Jessica and her son, Jamie. She knew they were an element of Blade’s life and she’d never dream of questioning or getting jealous of that. She respected the fact that he saw Jamie as his even after what Jessica had done in trying to trick him.

Makayla knew he spent quite a bit of time over there with the boy, and she tried hard not to feel insecure of Blade being around Jessica. For all Makayla knew, Jessica had a boyfriend or was even married so there was no chance of Jessica trying to get Blade back, was there?

Although it was beginning to get annoying the way Jessica always seemed to be calling about some emergency whenever Blade was with Makayla. She wasn’t sure how Jessica did it, but the woman seemed to have perfect timing; always interrupting Blade and Makayla just at certain moments that made her want to scream.

But so far Makayla had never complained. It almost killed her, but she kept her opinion to herself each time Blade apologized to say he had to rush over to Jessica’s after one well-timed emergency call or the other. Makayla was a woman and she begin to realize exactly what Jessica was up to; she only wished Blade could see it too.

A part of her feared that Jessica had a more powerful hold over Blade and if Makayla didn’t do something soon and put her foot down, she’d be losing out on the best thing that had ever come into her life. But if she pushed too far, she took the chance of losing Blade forever...





Chapter Eighteen


Jessica hid her smirk when she opened the front door and saw Blade standing there with a worried frown on his face. “Where is he?” was all he asked.

She jerked her head back. “In his room.”

Without another word, Blade shouldered past her into the small hallway before making his way down to the end and turning right to Jamie’s bedroom.


She followed and soon saw Blade standing over the sleeping form of the pajama-clad child. Jessica watched as Blade very gently brushed back the dark blonde hair off the boy’s forehead. Jamie’s breathing was soft and steady, and there was only a slight pallor beneath the flush of his cheeks to indicate he was nothing other than a healthy, sleeping young child.