“Yes, I know what you mean. And, no, I’m not pining after Crystal.”

She regarded him, her brow furrowed. “There’s a story, isn’t there? Something in her past?”

“It’s Crystal’s story to tell, not mine.” No one would ever hear about Morg’s abuse from him. Even with his uncle, he had hinted at it just enough to enlighten him so something could be done to stop it. She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “You’re very good at keeping secrets.”

He damn sure was. He was especially good at keeping his own.

“You’ve been rained on.” He motioned behind her. “The bathroom is down that hall, second door on your left. Grab a towel; grab two, one for me. I’ll pour you a whiskey.”

He turned and beat it into the kitchen before she could detain him again. He got the bottle of bourbon from the pantry, took two glasses from the cabinet, thought about cheating and taking a hit straight from the bottle for an added measure of courage, but resisted.

He poured an inch into each glass and added a couple of ice cubes. Leaving the bottle, he returned to the living room with a glass in each hand. Arden hadn’t come back from the bathroom yet. He went over to the opening into the hall. “Did you get lost?”

The bathroom door was standing open, and the light was on. “Arden?”

Getting no answer, he walked down the hall. When he got even with his open bedroom door on his right, she said, “In here.”

She was standing at the window, looking out at the rain. “You have a view of the lake from this room.”

Seeing her there in his shadowy room, his heart began to thud with a mix of dread and anticipation. But he ignored the dread. Officially they hadn’t had a drink yet. He’d made a vow to himself to tell her “after a drink.”

He walked into the room and joined her at the window. “This view sold me on the house. When the mist rises over the water, it looks otherworldly.”

“Hmm. A lot different from the landscapes of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“Like different planets.”

“When you were over there, did you miss this?”

“Something terrible.” He passed her one of the glasses, but neither of them drank.

“Did you buy this house as is?”

“No, it was a wreck. I fixed it up.”

“By yourself?”

“Took me a couple of years.”

“That involved a lot of labor.”

“Yeah, but it gave me a lot of time to think, work through some postwar shit. It was my psychotherapy.”

She leaned back against the wall. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”

“About the war?”

She gave a slight nod.

“Arden—”

“Just one thing. Tragic or hilarious. Share a moment that stands out for whatever reason.”

He turned his head and stared thoughtfully out the window. “We, uh, went into an Afghani village that had been decimated. We were going from building to building, looking for survivors and injured, whether they were on our side or Taliban sympathizers.

“I went into this—you couldn’t even call it a house. A dwelling. It was a mess. Carnage. Everybody was dead except for a young woman. Real young. Sixteen, seventeen. She was nursing a baby, an infant.

“I started toward her to help. But her face was uncovered. It flashed through my mind that I couldn’t, shouldn’t, let any of the surviving villagers know I’d seen her like that. It might have gone bad for her.

“She and I just looked at each other, frozen like, then I backed out without saying a word. It lasted maybe ten seconds at most, but of all the things I witnessed over there, it’s seeing her with her baby that sticks with me. Not because it was the worst thing I saw, God knows, but because it was the most human.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

He turned back to Arden. “Before we pulled out, I saw her and the baby as they were being cared for by Afghani medics. Both were all right.”

“Did she acknowledge you?”

“No. Hell no. She wouldn’t have in any case, but, geared up, we all look alike. She wouldn’t have known me from the others.”

She gazed up at him for a moment, then whispered, “She knew you.”

She set her glass on the windowsill and reached for his free hand. She turned it palm up and ran her fingertips over the calluses at the base of each finger.

“That morning when you came uninvited to my house, you ran your hand—this hand—along the bannister and across the mantel. Appreciatively. Like a caress. You probably weren’t even aware of doing it. But it was so sensual, it took my breath. And ever since, I’ve fantasized you stroking me, just that way.”

Lust as incendiary as lava coursed through him, overtaking everything. In its path, conscience, morality, and honor were consumed, and supplanted by unstoppable desire.

Glass of whiskey still in hand, he curved his arm around her neck, hooking it in the bend of his elbow, and growled, “Your fantasy is a helluva lot tamer than mine.”

Chapter 34

He claimed her mouth.

Arden was vaguely aware of him letting go of her long enough to set his glass on the windowsill alongside hers, but he didn’t break the kiss until he had to in order to pull her top up over her head. He reached behind her and unhooked her bra, slid the straps down her arms, then angled back and looked at her breasts with frank interest.

He flicked a glance up to her eyes. His reflected the raindrops that dotted the windowpane, but the light in them burned with a blue flame. The glimpse lasted for only a fraction of a second, but she read in it that he liked what he saw.

He slid his arms beneath hers, splayed his hands over her back, and drew her to him. He lowered his head. This time there was no cloth filtering the wet heat of his mouth. It tugged at her ardently but sweetly. She held his face between her hands and rubbed her palms against his scruff, loving its scratchiness in contrast to the sleek, fluid caresses of his tongue.

As she’d fantasized, he stroked her back from her shoulder blades, down past the dip of her waist to her bottom, then back up. She gave a little hiccup of delight at the feel of his calluses against her skin. His large hands made her feel slight, feminine, wanted. Desperately wanted.

He worked his hands into the waistband of her leggings. She squirmed in an effort to help him remove them, but he bracketed her hips and held her still. He nuzzled beneath her ear. “Are you okay to do this? It’s been enough time?”

Emerging from a fog of desire long enough to translate his raspy whisper, she rubbed her lips against his, smiling. “Yes.”

He mumbled something that might have been a prayer, then dived into another deep kiss that reignited the passion that had been put on pause. Together they got her out of her leggings and him out of his shirt. She unbuckled his belt; he undid the buttons of his fly. Then he lifted her and carried her over to the bed.

He set her on top of the covers. She lay back and scooted up toward the headboard. He pulled his belt from the loops and dropped it to the floor. He tugged off his boots. As the second one landed with a soft thud onto the floor, she hooked her thumbs into the sides of her underwear.

“No. Me.”

He got onto the bed, standing on his knees between her legs. Every time she’d seen him, his physique had caused lazy currents of sexual awareness down low and deep inside her, but seeing Ledge shirtless caused a tidal wave.

He had a warrior’s body. On the underside of his left biceps was a tattoo. His abs were a firm, solid six-pack. Just the right amount of hair fanned over his pecs. His yummy trail begged to be followed, because inside the jeans, now open and riding low, there was nothing except Ledge.

Planting his hands on either side of her, he lowered himself as though doing a pushup, dipped his head to her breasts, and again applied his mouth. He left her nipples beaded and flushed, the slopes of her breasts rising and falling with unsteady breaths.

He began working his way down the center of her body. He paved a damp trail of kisses in the hollow between her rib cage and around her navel, down to where his lips encountered stretchy lace.

But not for long. He finessed away that filmy barrier and sent it sailing over the side of the bed to the floor. His breath soughed over her as he whispered, “Blond everywhere,” and planted the sweetest kiss there.

His thumbs scaled down the twin channels at the tops of her thighs to where they met. He uncovered that softest, most sensitive spot and stroked it with the tip of his tongue. Exhaling his name, she dug her fingers into his hair.

Then for the next while, he alternately tormented and gifted her. He was maddening in the way he teased, intuitive and deft in the way he responded to her slightest movement, pleading whimper, pleasured sigh.