He was such a big man. She liked that, liked the aura of heat around him, liked the fact he didn’t mind when she reached up and traced where their lips joined. He kept kissing her as she explored his face, the curl of lashes, the lines across his forehead and around his eyes, his strong facial structure. Short, silken hair, just as she remembered.

Moving down to her breasts, he nursed the sore tips, aroused and soothed at once, until she was quivering, her hips rising in signal of what she needed. His palm slid along her thigh, teased her mound, but then he capitulated to the tug of her hands and lay down upon her, chest to thigh, letting her feel all of him. He’d stripped, so they were blissfully naked in each other’s arms. The curve of muscle along his back, the breadth of his shoulders and network of bone and muscle were there, accessible to her touch. The different texture of skin where the tattoo of PEACE followed his shoulders, the Don’t Tread on Me flag against his impressive biceps. She traced the letters. P . . . E . . . A . . .

C . . . E. Her body was spinning slowly toward a climax, as strong and pleasurable as at the club, but so soft and easy at once. This was what peace was. The pleasure and time to do this, wrapped in a cocoon of darkness that was comforting, not frightening, because every chamber of her mind, her heart and her soul was filled with him.

He was hard and ready for her. When he slid in, she tilted up to meet him, an instinct as old as life itself, two coming together to be one. It brought a guttural sigh of pleasure from her lips and he made a similar noise against her ear. Fondling her neck, he followed the line of the hearing aid and stroked the shell of her ear. “Am I too heavy, sweetheart?” His voice was throaty, thick.

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and breathing him in, pressing her face into his corded neck. Her heels slid over his taut buttocks, the rhythmic press and release, the matching sensation in her womb as he slid in, slid out, his movements powerful, but slow, cherishing. As he’d said, a natural skin-to-skin meeting, the need to be inside each other taking over everything else.

Loosening her hold, he curved his powerful back in order to cup her breasts together again, making her arch into his mouth as he nursed on them, his tongue flicking, at first with gentle playfulness, but then a more insistent lashing. She thought about what he said about having them pierced, and thought she would like that, knowing he would adorn them as he wished, and tease her into mindless arousal like this.

He was putting more thrust into his strokes, and her body was responding, arching up like an opposing wave to meet that impact.

“Oh, God . . .” She clasped his broad shoulders, the sensations becoming too much. She loved his mouth, his beautiful cock, all of him. Everything about him. All hers, hers, hers

. . .

She clutched him with her muscles, wanting him to come, wanting to feel it, and realized he hadn’t put a condom on. That bareback sensation she’d wanted was there now, and while she knew the risk was minimal this time of the month, it was all right. She just knew it was.

“I needed to feel you, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely against her ear. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head, tears springing to her eyes again. When it’s the right one, you hear each other’s thoughts, know his mind like your own. . . . Gram, talking about Granddad, her eyes full of distant, misty love and memory.

In answer, she held him tighter, inside and out. He increased the power of his thrusts and she met him, the sensations inundating her such that she thought she’d probably never experienced the act as deeply or intensely, physically or emotionally.

“Peter . . . Master . . . I’m so close. Please . . .”

“Come for me.”

She shattered in his arms, like plunging into waves of warm tropical waters, churned in a wild direction as the surf caught her up, headed toward shore, toward home. She cried out, and that cry intensified as his joined her, his seed releasing in a hot, searing rush that drove her higher, gave her climax an extra jolt of intensity that kept her clinging to him, working her hips up against his, her legs clamped tight around him.

As he came down, she realized he was breathing hard, harder than a fit man should, even after a climax. When she reached up to his face, he caught her fingers, but she lifted the other hand, refusing to be dissuaded. “Peter, you promised. All of you, too, remember?” He made a noise of protest, but he couldn’t grab both her hands because his other arm was holding his full weight off her. When her fingers rested lightly on his cheeks, felt the dampness of something that wasn’t sweat, her brow furrowed. “Peter.”

“You’re beautiful, Dana. You’re everything I want. And I almost lost you before I found you. It’s tearing me up inside, not letting you see how crazy it’s made me. I love you. I’m sorry if you can’t handle hearing that, or you don’t believe it. But I do.” Raw, quiet words, uttered in a rough voice that tore into her worse than shrapnel. But it was the missing piece. She’d been right to ask for all of it, to find the bravery to face it.

With their emotions twining around them, binding them even closer, she was finally ready to hear anything he needed to share. Closing her eyes, she held tighter to him.

She’d needed to hear the voice of his soul, as raw and fragile as her own. For months he’d written her letters, without her writing back. He’d come to her, brought her here, bullied and cajoled.

Loved her. There was nothing else to call it, no matter what skeptics said, those who relied on some irrational formula between emotion and the passage of time. In truth, those letters had been her lifeline, helping her to hold on until he got to her. Which meant she very likely loved him as much, right back.

When she’d stood at his bed, and told him she wanted him to make love to her, that she would stay, she hadn’t really understood why she would stay. She’d still feared it might be lack of options, or something else equally destructive. But that moment had been too overwhelming, his body too close behind her, his powerful need, and she’d gone forward on faith or mindless instinct. Now she knew it wasn’t anything destructive. No matter what had happened in Iraq, he was right. This would have happened between them, because something stronger than sex had forged their bond that night at The Zone.

Freeing both her hands, she brought them to his face, cupped his jaw. He was so powerful, so strong. Yet the heart was both the strongest and most fragile part of any person. Her gram had told her that, too. She’d said, “If you find someone strong enough to love you through thick and thin, you don’t never take that for granted, girl. Because if he loves you that much, that means you’re the person who can break his heart.”

“I’m so, so sorry, Peter,” she said. More tears slid along her cheeks, found his fingers.

“I’m sorry I didn’t write you back. I’m sorry I made you be so strong, while I’ve been so lost. I want to be the type of person deserving of your love.”

“Damn it, you already are.”

“We both know there’s a ways to go. I’m going to trust you to help me get there.” She swallowed, took a deep breath and gave him a ghost of a smile. “But when I do, I’m going to learn to take care of you right back, Captain Winston. So you’d better watch out.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. She heard the expulsion of his breath, and ran her hands up and down the broad back, slow, kneading, the strength of a river, the constancy of a woman’s love, the promise of it in a touch. In some ways, it was the most intimate moment they’d yet shared.

“My mother warned me about short, determined women,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “Said they’re meaner than any other kind.”

“Boy, you haven’t seen anything,” she whispered, catching the corner of his mouth with her own. When she tightened her arms around him, he did the same, nearly squeezing the breath out of her, his intense emotions washing through her, making her ache, happy, scared and anxious all at once. “You think I’m fragile, but I’m not.”

“Yeah. You are in some ways.” His hands gentled on her face. “I’m going to protect you, Dana. Love you. Always.”

“Same as I’m going to do for you, Master.”

Eventually, he lay next to her, making her smile anew since she knew he did it because he was worrying about his weight upon her, her considerate, loving Master. She was stronger than he believed. For the first time in a year, she believed it.

And instead of wishing this moment could stay the same, now she was thinking ahead, to other moments. Thinking of the next time he’d roll over and they’d do this all over again.

What she’d do tomorrow. Where she’d go shopping with Cassandra and Savannah. What she’d do with her life. Peter would have her six. She could do anything she wanted, including care for him as well.

Her fingers drifted down his biceps, over that tattoo, bringing another thought. She didn’t know how she felt about it, and she was afraid he would think she was asking because of her situation. No, she wouldn’t bring it up now.

However, he had overly fine-tuned senses himself. He turned on his side, gathering her in to him, putting a thigh over hers, her breasts against the coarse hair of his chest. “What is it, sweetheart?”

She bit her lip. “Will you go overseas again?”

His arms constricted around her, his strength such that he was able to roll her halfway onto his body with the embrace. She snuggled into him, waiting for his answer.

“No. I’m going to resign my commission.”

“What? Why?” She lifted her head. “Peter, I don’t want you to make that decision because of me. I’ll learn to take care of myself, and you shouldn’t change your life. . . .”

“You have changed my life, Dana.” He put his lips to her temple, held them there.

Tentatively she found his face, felt his closed eyes, the taut line of his jaw. “By taking care of you, I’m serving my country as well, in just as important a way.”

“I’m not helpless.”