Jace stretched and groaned and finally opened his eyes. The room was very dimly lit by light sneaking under the doorway and through his window. It was nighttime, he was in his bedroom, and the moon glistened everything with a silver sheen. He rolled toward it, letting out a groan because the bullet wounds were still fresh, only to find Piper sitting next to his bed.
A wide grin was plastered on her face.
“Oh, um…” he mumbled. “You’re here.” Very articulate, Jace. He swallowed and tried to come up with something coherent to say, but his throat was extremely dry.
“Hello, big sexy thing,” Piper said with a smirk. She handed him a glass of water that she snatched up from the floor next to his bed. “I’m glad you decided to wake up on my watch. I’d hate for one of your brothers to have the pleasure of that very special greeting.”
He propped himself up on his elbow and grimaced through the pain. He took a sip of water before trying to speak again. “Thanks for saving my life.” That seemed a little better, and a hell of a lot closer to how he truly felt.
“I’m afraid that honor belongs to that healer girl, Macy.” She cocked her head. “I hope that’s not a requirement for sticking around.”
He smiled. He could hardly believe it—they had found her brother, rescued the others, and he’d lived through the whole thing—best of all, the bad guys had been caught. At least, he hoped so. He had pretty much passed out during the critical part. And his wolf… it still boggled his mind that he’d been wrong all along about that. That Colonel Wilding had let him take the fall for that village. That he wasn’t a murderer… and his wolf was something that enjoyed the hell out of Piper scratching him behind the ears. The truly best part was her, sitting in a chair at his bedside and looking after him. He didn’t know if he could convince her to stay, not really—she had a job that took her all over the world. And she was damn good at it.
But she couldn’t have any doubts as to how he felt about her now.
He dipped his head to peer at her. “I’ve been trying to get you to stick around since you snuck into my house in the middle of the night.” He smirked. “In fact, maybe we could go back to the kitchen and start up where we left off.”
She gave him a sexy grin and leaned closer. Her simple V-neck was cut low enough to remind him that he hadn’t paid anywhere near enough attention to her gorgeous breasts the last time they had made love—which had also been their first time. That was something he planned to remedy one way or the other. Soon.
“I don’t know, soldier. You sure you’re up for those kinds of gymnastics? With the amount of ammo Macy pulled out of your body, you could start your own Army surplus shop.”
He handed the glass of water back to her, but as soon as she took it, he snagged her hand and pulled her closer. “How about you come over here, and we find out?”
She set the glass down and crawled into bed with him. His body still ached, but the delicious feel of her sliding into his lap made him forget all about it. Then she kissed him, and his hands got full really fast, holding her back with one to pull her closer and palming her breast with the other.
When she pulled back from the kiss, he said, “Now this is the way to wake up.” He kneaded the hot, heavy globe of breast again and went for another kiss, but she stopped him with two fingers to his lips and a serious expression.
He stilled his hands and brought them back to her hips. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head but didn’t answer… just looked at his chest, which was apparently left bare after the surgery. It was crisscrossed with fresh scars, shining sliver-pink in the moonlight. She traced one with her fingertip, and all the aches and pains faded in a surge of lust that had his cock rising to the occasion.
But she hadn’t answered his question. He gently lifted her hand from his chest, kissed her fingertips one at a time, then curled her hand to rest on him again. “You’re not saying what’s on your mind, Piper Wilding. And that’s just peculiar.”
She smiled. “You know me so well, do you? Now that we’ve been acquainted for…” She pretended to think. “About six minutes.”
“Best six minutes of my life.” He said it with utter sincerity. She’d come in like a tornado and turned his life upside down… and fixed everything that was wrong with it. She gave him back a hope that hadn’t simply died—it had been obliterated. He didn’t have words for the magnitude of the change she’d wrought in his life in just a few short days.
“The Colonel is officially under arrest,” Piper said, totally switching subjects and dodging whatever she had been hiding before. “Daniel’s bringing him up on charges.”