The Military Wife (A Heart of a Hero, #1)(54)

His fleece jacket still wrapped her in its warmth. She slipped it off, knocked on the door, and waited. Softer, she knocked again. Nothing. She leaned her forehead against the door and closed her eyes. Everything was ruined.



* * *



Bennett popped his eyes open. He’d dropped back into a doze after waking from familiar childhood dreams, but something more benign woke him this time. A second knock was definitely not dream induced. He grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it on as he padded barefoot to the door and opened it. Harper crashed straight into his chest with an oof, knocking him back a step. Surprise pumped adrenaline through his body.

Jack whined from the floor but didn’t rise. Bennett glanced toward the window and the angle of the moonlight put the time around midnight. She was in the same T-shirt she’d been wearing earlier.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered. After their disaster-ish kiss, she hadn’t been able to get away from him fast enough. And now she was practically in his arms, even if it was because she was off balance.

“Did I wake you?”

“Sort of.”

“Bad dreams?” How did she see straight through him like that in the dark? “Here’s your jacket.”

She shoved his fleece zip-up into his chest. He tossed it into a chair. “You came to my room in the middle of the night to return my jacket?”

“Yes.” She was so close, he could feel her body sigh. “No. Can I come in? We need to talk.”

The four scariest words a woman could utter. Now he was the one off balance. “It can’t wait until morning?”

Her hands tightened around his forearms. “No.”

He disentangled himself from her and closed the door to keep from waking Ben or Gail. The distance was good. She was too soft and warm and tempting. Which was exactly what had gotten him in trouble earlier.

He perched stiffly on the side of the bed with his legs outstretched and his arms crossed over his chest. “Go ahead.”

She stepped closer, the shadows giving way to moonlight. Her nerves were obvious. Was she going to tell him to take his money and get gone? Had one kiss screwed up everything?

“Earlier … you know, on the dock … well, I didn’t mean … that is to say—” She cleared her throat and whispered, “Aw, screw it.”

She straddled his legs and put her hands on his face. Before he could do more than unlock his arms and grab her waist, she kissed him.

Instead of the slow deliberation of their kiss on the dock, desperation thrummed around her, infecting him as well. He pulled her closer, fusing their bodies. She hooked an arm around his neck while her other hand played in his hair. Her sexy whimper was like flint to dry tinder.

He rolled them until she was on her back and he was between her legs. She arched against him, and a shiver coursed through him. As much as he would love to peel off all their clothes and wake up in the morning with her, too many questions burned for answers.

Except her lips felt perfect and he was having problems locating sufficient willpower to actually detach them. He moved his lips against hers. “Harper. What are we doing?”

“Kissing.” She trailed her hand down his back and into the waistband of his boxer briefs.

Another inch or two and he would lose any semblance of self-control. Harper was a woman who’d lived in his imagination for years. Except she’d turned out to be sweeter, funnier, smarter, sexier … basically more of everything than he’d imagined. He had no defense against the real thing. Not even guilt over Noah could keep him from wanting her.

He tried one more time. “We can’t have sex with your mom and son down the hall.”

“Sex?” She startled enough to break the kiss but not the hold she had on him.

“Isn’t that where we were headed when you put your hand in my underwear?”

She didn’t snatch her hand away but moved it slowly up his back, her nails scraping pleasurably. “I didn’t come in here for sex. I swear. I really did come to talk.”

“Darlin’, believe me, I’m not judging you. Given the green light, I’d be all in.” He paused when she turned her head to the side. Had he come on too strong? “But I don’t think you know what you want. Am I wrong?”

He barely heard her whisper, “You’re not wrong.”

With the effort of separating industrial-sized magnets, he rolled off her to his back and concentrated on the slow turn of the ceiling fan to regulate his breathing. “Why did you come sneaking to my door at midnight, then?”

She turned to her side and propped her head up on her hand. “I was afraid if I waited until morning, things would be ruined.”

“What things?”

“Us things.” She made a gah sound and rolled to her stomach, her feet hanging off the bed, her face hidden in the covers. “Put me out of my misery.”

He smiled. He wasn’t a smiler or laugher or hugger. Except around her he found himself doing all three more than he remembered for years. Maybe forever. “You haven’t ruined ‘us’ things.”

“I haven’t?” She propped herself up on her elbows. “I didn’t run off because I didn’t enjoy kissing you out on the dock. Boy howdy, I enjoyed it all right. And that was why I ran off.”

“You’re afraid of getting physical?”