LEXI WATCHED Cord’s eyes darken as he looked at her standing naked in front of him. He took his time, too, taking all of her in slowly, heatedly.
“Lexi,” he breathed again, his voice so low on the register it was barely audible. It was so sexy her knees wobbled.
Shaking his head, he backed her to the opposite wall. Unsteady on his feet, he nearly fell, taking her down with him, but managed to get a grip on her. “Fuck,” he muttered, clearly embarrassed, and tried to pull away.
No. He was her best friend, and she’d missed him and worried about him and hoped for him…and now he was back and she couldn’t let go. She knew if she did, if they shoved this under the carpet as they’d been doing with their feelings for a while now, that it would forever be awkward between them, too awkward to fix. Refusing to allow that, she grabbed him, flinging her arms around him to hold them both steady. She had no idea how bad his injuries were, what had happened to him, or even how long he’d be here. All she knew was that he was obviously hurting, and if she could take it away, even for a second, she would. “Stay.”
“Lexi—”
“Stay.” And then she kissed him.
He went still as stone for a single heartbeat, and then it was as if a dam burst. He pressed her hard into the wall, leaning on her, one hand bracing himself, the other on her jaw. His mouth took over, deepening their connection, stroking her tongue with his, taking her lips in a possessive, hard, wet kiss that took her to another plane entirely.
Or maybe that was his hand, skimming down her throat to her breast, his fingers grazing her nipple. Her knees wobbled, and so did his, and this time she let the momentum take them both down to the floor.
THEY HIT HARD, his own clumsy fault, and Cord’s heart landed in his throat. Ignoring the pain shooting up his leg, he reached for Lexi. “Are you okay?”
Proving she was, she crawled into his lap to straddle him. His eyes went straight to the apex of her thighs, and from his position, it was a hell of a view.
It rocked his world. She rocked his world. “Lexi, you—Jesus,” he managed in a raw voice, finding his hands on her bare arms. Gripping her hard, pulling her closer.
“Wait.” She tugged his shirt over his head and then bent to kiss his throat. When she dipped even lower, licking his collarbone, a nipple, he hissed in a breath as his hands came up and fisted in her still-wet hair. “You shouldn’t be here,” he grated out, trying to make himself let go of her, but his hands only tightened. “I shouldn’t have come home—”
“But I am. And you did.”
He swore roughly, and in the next beat, he claimed her mouth again, the kiss belying his own words. God, he was in deep here. Her eyes were twin pools of jade waters, and he was drowning in them. It’d been so long, so damn long, since he’d felt anything like this. For weeks, it’d been nothing but pain and agony, both physical and mental, and then, flying home, finally numbness.
But now, on the damn floor no less, he was feeling again. Because of Lexi. Torn between a terror that he’d screw this up and lose their friendship, and a need so strong it was blinding, he held her tight, too tight, not even realizing until she cupped his face, stroking his jaw, soothing him with soft words he couldn’t quite catch and the gentle movement of her body.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she was murmuring, his brain finally making sense of her words, and then her mouth shifted down his chest, her busy hands undoing his cargoes. And then, oh, Christ, and then she wrapped her fingers around him. She lifted up to her knees, then sank down on him, bringing him home.
They both cried out, and he held on to her for dear life, the need for her filling him, shaking him to the core. How was it that this felt so—powerful? He’d known how important she was to him, but this went beyond what he’d imagined he could feel.
That it was her, someone so integral to his life, made him feel it all the more intense. Urging her closer, over him, his lips went to her breast, sucking her nipple into his mouth. He felt her pant for breath above him as he slid a hand down her belly to where they were joined, finding her wet, God, so wet for him. Stroking a finger over her core, absorbing her rough gasp of pleasure, he tried to thrust up into her, needing to be deeper, needing to move, but a sharp pain shot up his leg, stilling him, and in frustration, he shook his head. “I can’t— I—”
“It’s okay. I can.” And before he knew it, she’d shifted, allowing him deeper inside her. Using his body as leverage, she began to move on him, again and again, until the pleasure pinnacled, until he couldn’t see anything but her face, couldn’t feel anything but her silky heat as she let go with a cry that reached into him, and he followed her over, pulsing powerfully within her.
FOR LONG MOMENTS they remained tangled in a pile of damp, sated limbs. Lexi tried to take a deep breath, and couldn’t. Her heart had swelled, blocking her lungs from getting air.
Damn. She’d had no idea it would feel like that with him. She was still trembling with the little aftershocks, and so was he. She could feel them reverberate from his big body to hers.
“Jesus,” he finally breathed on a shaky sigh, stroking a hand up her back. He didn’t seem inclined to move, which was fine with her. She was still clinging to him, her arms tight around his neck, her face buried in his throat, basking in the scent and feel of him, the rush of joy and gratitude that he was back, if not quite whole, at least safe.
Eventually, Cord lifted his head, cupping hers so that she had to do the same. He started to say something, except he then stopped and, with a little shake of his head, kissed her instead.
It was a great kiss, another of his holy mother of all kisses, and she was well on her way to round two, her head already ringing—
Wait.
Correction. Not her head, but his cell phone. “Cord.”
He was kissing and nibbling his way to her ear. Sinking her fingers in his hair, she lifted his face to hers. “Your cell phone.”
“Ignore it.” He went back to lightly biting her throat, soothing the sting with hot, wet, open-mouthed kisses.
She was happy to ignore everything but him, but then the house phone started ringing, and again she lifted his head. “Your land line.”
With a rough oath, he let her slip off. She handed him his crutches, then bent once again for the towel, not missing his harsh groan at the view she gave him as she did. She smiled at him as she began to wrap herself up. “You want me to get it?”
“No.”
“Maybe it’s important.”
He sighed and, using his crutches, began to make his way down the hall, only to stop and snatch the towel from her first. With a wicked gleam in his eye, he headed toward his bedroom and the ringing phone.
“Hey,” she called after him. “Butt-ass naked here.”
But whether he couldn’t hear her or just chose not to, he kept going.
CORD STOOD in his bedroom, leaning against the window-sill, staring out at the beach.
Santa Rey had been his home all his life. Well, up until he’d gone into the army, but even then, he’d come in and out in between missions whenever he could. His two brothers were here in town, one a detective, one in the air force, which still amused him when he thought about it.
The Madden brothers, now saving the world instead of doing their damnedest to destroy it as they had when they’d been younger.
Austin and Jacob wanted to save him now…
Lexi came into view, moving to where he could clearly see her. She was quick. She’d already learned he couldn’t hear shit, and was adjusting for him.
He hated that.
To spite him for taking her towel, she’d covered up the most beautiful body he’d ever seen with a knit T-shirt and a pair of shorts. A damn shame. He’d wanted to stare at her all day, wanted to touch again, and taste and bury himself deep…
But it was Lexi. Lexi, who brought in his mail when he wasn’t home and made him food when he was. Lexi, who dated soft computer techs and laughed at him for dating bimbos. He lifted a hand and touched her pretty hair, wrapping a finger in one of the loose auburn waves he loved so much. Then he ran it over the slight shadow beneath one of her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping again.
And he’d taken her on the goddamned floor.
“Who called?” she asked before he could question her about her obvious exhaustion.
“Jacob. And Austin.” And twenty other concerned family members and friends. “About what just happened,” he said, needing to get this out between them. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Why?” She smiled. “We’re good at it. If I’d known just how good, maybe it would have happened sooner.”
His body twitched. No, it wouldn’t have. “We’re…friends.”
Her eyes flickered with amusement at his obvious erection.
“Fine, I’m hard.” Again. “But I can think with both heads.” He drew a breath. “We’ve always been friends, Lexi. You’ve been there for me. And I was there for you when Brad—”
Again with the flicker of emotion across her face, this one not amusement. She didn’t like thinking about the fiancé she’d lost to Hodgkin’s disease two weeks before their wedding. It had been a horrible, tragic shock that had only added to her fear of losing those close to her. She’d had a lot of loss, far too much. And that fear made her worry about him, more than she should.
He hated that, hated that he caused her pain.
“I know you’ve always been there for me, Cord. After my parents died. After Brad. Always.”
“If we take this past that friendship,” he said quietly, feeling the weight of what he meant to her, even knowing she meant at least as much to him, “we might lose it.
“And then there’s the fact that I have nothing to offer a woman right now. Nothing,” he repeated when she opened her mouth to speak.
She looked at him in that way she had of making him feel like a bug on a slide. Like she could see everything she needed to see no matter how he tried to hide it, and he braced for the questions.
But she neither said nor asked a thing of him.
“I’m sorry if I misled you,” he finally said.
“You didn’t. You couldn’t.”
“Lexi.” He let out a slow breath, hating the hurt beneath her words. “What do you want to hear?”
“Whatever you can tell me.”
Fair enough. “For starters, I’ve been put on disability as of two weeks ago.”
“Is your hearing loss permanent? Your leg in danger?”
“Don’t know on the hearing. No on the leg. But…” Might as well tell her. “My team, my brothers, friends, hell, everyone I know is feeling sorry for me and walking on eggshells thinking I’m on the edge getting ready to jump.”
“Are you?”
“Only if one more person offers me a single goddamn ounce of pity.”
She was quiet.
A miracle. One that made him want to rip her clothes off and lose himself again.
“I’m starving,” she finally said. “Want to call for a pizza?”