Waiting for You(39)

“I don’t care what you think I deserve. I just know what I want.” She lifted her chin. “What do you want?”

He looked into Erin’s eyes. “I want you.”

“Then take me inside.”

They made it into the house and up to her bedroom, and Jake scooped Erin up so he could lay her down, gently, on her navy blue quilt. She smiled up at him, and a sudden ache in his chest stopped him in his tracks.

Her beauty was like a hand squeezing his heart, so removed from his world of dust and ashes she might have been an angel fallen from the sky. She was warmth and strength and goodness and life. She was everything he’d become a soldier to protect.

She was everything he didn’t deserve.

But he wasn’t going to think about that now. During this time they had together, he was only going to think about Erin.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, reaching up to touch his face.

He closed his eyes. “I’m happy.”


His voice shook when he said those words, and Erin was suddenly afraid he’d change his mind. She could barely handle the feelings building up inside her, and she wasn’t dealing with all the complicated baggage that Jake was.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed. Now she sat up, too, pulling off her tank top and reaching for the hem of his tee shirt. He opened his eyes and met hers, and after a second he raised his arms and let her tug the shirt off over his head.

A stab of lust made her bold. She leaned forward and kissed his bare chest, and when she felt his hand on the back of her head, holding her to him, she knew he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

Relief made her even bolder, and she started to kiss her way downward. She heard him suck in a breath as his stomach muscles went rigid. She was almost at the waistband of his jeans when he stopped her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked softly, gripping her shoulders and exerting steady pressure until she lay on her back again, looking up at him.

“You didn’t like that?”

He bent his head to kiss her. “I liked it a lot. But there are things I want to do to you first.”

A rush of need made her twist restlessly against his hold, and when he gripped her even tighter she felt heat pooling low in her belly. “You’re going to do things to me?”

“Hell, yes,” he whispered. Then he kissed her again, long and slow and deep.

She’d never been so grateful to be lying down. Her body went boneless, her muscles trembling, and all she could do was kiss him back.

He bit her lower lip until she gasped, and then he soothed the place with his tongue until she moaned. He teased her mouth open and then he was everywhere, demanding and enticing and overwhelming her all at once. She wanted to touch him, to grab onto those powerful shoulders, but he had both her wrists pinned now and the raging fire in her body could find relief only in surging against him again and again.

He let her go and braced his arms on either side of her, his chest pressed against her breasts with only her cotton bra between them. She closed her eyes, arching her head back as he kissed her throat.

Then he slid a hand underneath her, between her shoulder blades, and unhooked her bra. A moment later it was on the floor.

She opened her eyes to see him looking down at her, and felt an instant’s shyness.

But then she saw his expression as he cupped her with his hands, shaping his callused palms to her curves. His thumbs stroked her so softly that she arched her back in pleasure, and all her shyness fell away.

Jake thought she was beautiful.

His mouth went where his hands had been, and she gripped his hair in her fingers.

Her nipples were hard peaks now. He bit down lightly, and she gasped. Her breasts were aching, a new sensation that felt thrilling and voluptuous and decadent.

Jake slid lower, kissing his way down her torso before hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her jeans and panties and pulling them off.

They joined her bra on the floor.

He spread her thighs gently and moved between them, and even though she was almost dizzy with desire she tensed up just a little. Late afternoon sunlight spilled across the bed and she was naked, exposed, with nothing at all to hide behind.

He kissed one knee and then the other as he caressed her softly, his palms stroking from her calves to her inner thighs and back again. He moved a little higher each time, his touch so hypnotic and arousing that her muscles began to relax.

His hands brushed up her legs again, and this time he didn’t stop until he was framing her center, his fingertips at her hipbones and his thumbs resting along the sensitive crease at the top of her thighs.

Her heart was pounding, her whole body humming with anticipation. Her fingers curled in the material of her quilt. Then he trailed his index finger down the very heart of her, and the sensation sent a rush of moisture flowing from her core.