Page 73 of Dangerous Lover

It was almost as if he were seeing her for the very first time. Caroline had been in his head for most of his life, it seemed. A mysterious, otherworldly beauty, unreachable, unapproachable. Someone to fantasize about while jerking off in lonely places. A unicorn. A myth.

But this—this woman wasreal. This woman with the gallant, warm heart wasn’t a myth, but a real flesh and blood woman. Strong, yet vulnerable. Steadfast, yet fragile.

She was also the bravest person he’d ever known.

If you’d asked him, Jack would have said he was brave. Christ, he was a soldier. He’d been in more firefights than he could count. He went into battle each and every time fully prepared to die. He didn’t back down from anyone, man or beast.

It didn’t mean anything. When the Colonel had fallen ill,thatwas when his courage had been tested. It had been three weeks of utter and total hell. He’d spent all the time he could at the hospital, wishing he could escape each and every second. Watching the Colonel die, inch by inch, watching him become weaker, day by day, had taxed his courage to the maximum.

Jack had gone home every evening, gone down to the basement and worked out at the punching bag for an hour a night, and it barely took the edge off his desperation.

At the end, he could barely look at the Colonel. He was ashamed of it still, but he couldn’t stand to see that emaciated face, the skin paper-thin and almost bloodless. The tubes running in and out, the gasps for breath.

When the nurses came to change his bed linen or give him his medication, Jack took the excuse to escape, if only down to the canteen for a cup of what they laughingly called coffee. And each time he came back, he stood outside the door of the Colonel’s hospital room, hand flat against the door, willing himself to push it open. It sometimes took himhalf an hour to finally get the courage to go back in and help his adoptive father to die.

It had nearly killed him, and it had lasted three weeks.

Caroline had done that for her brother for six fuckingyears, while laboring under a terrible financial burden.

She deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor.

She was a woman in a million.

Caroline could be hurt at any time, be taken from him at any moment. The world is a big, cold and cruel place. No one knew that better than Jack. No one knew better than he how brutal and savage life could be. One swipe of the reptilian hand of fate and Caroline could be wiped off the face of the earth in an instant, shattered and forever gone to him.

The beauty and goodness in her could vanish as quickly as a candle being snuffed out.

This woman was incredibly precious, light in darkness, grace in sorrow.

At that moment, Jack realized, with a sense of truth that went deep as bone, strong as blood, that Caroline held his heart forever, and that his mission in life was to keep her safe and happy, bring a smile to her face and the rose blush back to her cheeks.

As long as he drew breath, he would make sure no harm came to her that he could prevent. But even more than protecting her, he wanted her to be her truest self. Nothing could take her back to the carefree, privileged girl she’d been, but by God, he wanted the woman he’d caught glimpses of during the weekend back. A charmer, good-natured, secure in her beauty without being run by it. Well-read, with a goodsense of humor, even earthy. That woman was Caroline, the essence of Caroline, when life wasn’t beating her down with a big stick.

Jack couldn’t go back in time and undo today, but he sure as hell could drown her in pleasure at the end of it.

“Come,” he said suddenly, standing up.

She looked puzzled when Jack placed two clean stem glasses and the half-empty bottle of excellent wine they’d been having for dinner in her hands, then yelped as he scooped her up in his arms.

“Where—” she began, then held her tongue. Where they were going was very clear as he headed up the stairs.

“I thought we’d have a nightcap up here.” Jack smiled in her eyes as he carried her along the upper story landing to her bedroom.Theirbedroom now.

He didn’t switch on the light in the bedroom, but the light on the landing filtered in. It was just enough to wrap them in the intimacy of darkness, yet let him see her. He needed to be able to watch her as he loved her. He knew her body well enough by now to know that he could tell by touch what was happening to her, but he wanted to see it, too.

Nothing in the world was as exciting as watching Caroline’s eyelids drooping with arousal, as if keeping her eyes open was too great an effort. Or watching her skin turn an even deeper rose where he touched her, or the barely perceptible beat of her speeded-up heart over her left breast.

God, it all turned him on. Everything about her was designed to make his dick swell, his heart beat faster, his blood rise. The sight of her, the sound of her, the feel of her, thesmell of her—everything kept him in a state of semi-arousal whenever he was near her or even just thought of her.

He wasn’t in semi-arousal now, it was the full blown deal. Jesus, good thing he’d bought himself another pair of tight jeans, because he needed to keep it in his pants for a while.

Tonight was a night for romance and romance meant foreplay, though it wasn’t what he was good at. Once he got a woman naked, sex was only a few minutes away. He wasn’t used to pacing himself, or holding back.

Tonight would be a crash course in control, because tonight was all about her.

Jack sat her on the side of the bed, poured her half a glass of wine and put it in her hand. He poured himself a glass and clinked it to hers. The pure ring of crystal blossomed in the room. “To us.” He drank, watching her over the glass.

“To us.” Caroline smiled, swirled the wine around, sniffed deeply, then sipped.That’s my girl, he thought. It’s all about the senses tonight.

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