“For such a small woman, you gotta fucking caboose on you. Watching it bounce up and down on my dick was too much. Gimme fifteen minutes and we’ll go again.”
For the record, he’d been ready in ten. And that time he’d lasted through every position change she could think of, gently adjusting her angle or increasing her rhythm when something didn’t work for her.
Now, two hours and three orgasms later, she was spent. A little delirious. And a whole lot in love with the act of procreation.
Of course, that last thing probably had something to do with her being a whole lot in love with the man she was procreating with.
“You could send the letter to me,” he said, the sweat on his brow making his deeply tanned skin sparkle in the glow of the moonlight. His accent turned the word letter into lettah.
She rolled onto her side and propped her head in her hand. “Why? I did all the work.”
“All of it?” He quirked a brow, and she was reminded of how busy his lips had been. The industriousness of his wide-palmed hands and callused fingertips.
“Okay,” she allowed, “maybe not all.”
Tossing a leg over his thigh, she nestled her head against his chest so she could listen while his heartbeat wound down from a rapid tattoo to a steady thud.
Steady. Strong. Relentless. Just like the man himself.
She went to place a tender kiss over the organ but jerked to a sit when a distant snap sounded through the window. “What was that?”
“Dunno.” Mason was sitting up and frowning next to her.
Sound traveled far in the middle of the ocean, so it was possible the noise was simply a heavy palm frond falling to the ground on the south side of the island. The guys didn’t groom the trees back there, and they were always shedding their dead foliage.
“You think it—”
“Shh,” he interrupted, turning his head to listen to his walkie-talkie. But seconds ticked by and the gadget remained mute on his dresser. “Probably a palm frond falling,” he said, echoing her own conclusion.
When he fell back into bed, she followed him, pillowing her head on his chest and running her fingers through the hair between his pecs. Crinkly strands wrapped around the tips of her fingers, enchanting her.
She’d never appreciated the difference between men’s and women’s bodies before. Had always considered them basically the same. Arms. Legs. Organs. Skin. But now she understood what truly made the sexes unique were the subtle variations. The way he was hairy where she was smooth. The way he was hard where she was soft.
“Mason?” She watched his areola contract when she brushed a finger over his nipple.
“Mmm?” he hummed, absently running a hand over her hip, making goose bumps break out under his fingertips.
“If you had one chance for a do-over in life, what would it be?”
He tucked his chin to frown at her. “You always philosophical after sex?”
She made a face as she grabbed her glasses from the nightstand so she could clearly see him. “How would I know? This is only the second time I’ve done it.” Then she scowled in consideration. “Or do you count orgasms? In that case, it’s the—”
He hooked a thumb under her chin, lifting her face so he could quickly kiss her mouth. She knew it was to shut her up. Even so, the slow, soft glide of his tongue had her rubbing her nipples over his chest and humming in delight when the sensations at the tips of her breasts echoed through her womb.
He knew what he’d started because he jerked back and groaned. “You’re gonna be the death of me, woman.”
“Nuh-uh.” She nibbled on his warm neck. All he had to do was last a couple more hours. Then he’d take over lookout duties from Doc, the sun would rise, and he’d be safe from her ministrations and machinations. Forever.
The knowledge was a stone in the center of her chest. Wasn’t it a stone in the center of his? Didn’t it depress him beyond all reason? Or at least enough to make him want to reconsider their deal?
“So?” She pinned him with a look. “The do-over?”
His mouth curved into a frown. He lifted his hand as if to say, Dunno. Why are you always asking so many questions?
“Mine would be spending more time with my maternal grandparents,” she told him, figuring he might open up if she went first. “I know Grandpa Gene fought in the Korean War. I know Grandma Iris was a hairdresser. But that’s it. I have all these questions now that I’m older, but Gran and Gramps are gone and there’s no one to give me answers.”
“When we’re young, we don’t understand the one fundamental truth about life.”
Her brow wrinkled. “What’s that?”
“Nothing lasts. Including the people we love.”
“The people may not last, but the love does,” she insisted.
He said nothing to that, his face absent of expression.
“So?” She prodded him again by poking him on the shoulder. “The do-over?”
“Fuck, Alex.” He let out an aggrieved breath. “Dunno. There are a hundred of them. That’s the thing about being a fighting man. I’m plagued by what-ifs. What if I’d been faster to the LZ that time in Afghanistan? Would that chopper gunner still have gotten shot by militants? What if I’d had more Intel during that op in Syria? Would that kid still have gotten killed by an IED? What if I’d waited longer before pulling the trigger? Could that firefight have been avoided?”
“What if you gave us a chance?” she added quickly. “Don’t you think it’s possible there’s more to life than memories and maybes?”
Her words hung in the air like priceless figurines unearthed from a shipwreck. His answer would determine whether she walked away a million times richer or whether those figurines fell to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces that would cut her heart into ribbons.
“Don’t do this, Alex.” His blue eyes looked brittle in the silvery moonlight.
“I can’t help it.” Her voice was achingly small. But her heart was the size of a galleon. “I don’t want to look back in twenty years and have this moment be one of my what-ifs, one of my do-overs. I love you, Mason.”
She put her hand to her mouth. She hadn’t meant to tell him. But like so much that was in her head, it just fell out of her mouth.
“Fuck me.” He threw back the covers and clambered out of bed to stand with his back to her. The expanse of tan skin and the tattoo on his back—a stylized Celtic cross—looked a mile wide.
He’d only moved three feet away, but it felt more like three hundred yards. A chill replaced the space where his big body had been next to her in bed. She shivered and pulled the sheet over her breasts.