Page 44 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
I say, “Charles, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t do much more for you unless we remove the jeans.”
“You’ve turned me into putty,” he mumbles into his pillow. “Do your worst, woman.” He reaches beneath him and undoes his belt.
I help him ease his jeans off, leaving his Fruit of the Looms in place. Disability notwithstanding, his legs are well-muscled, the simple briefs emphasizing the perfect sculpting of his gluteus maximus. He’d not given me the opportunity to appreciate his appearance in the storm shelter, nor was I in any condition to appreciate it, between my fear and my intense reactions to his practiced attentions to me.
But now, in the mellow light of the emergency lantern, I admire his trim swimmer’s musculature, the breadth of his shoulders in his rumpled t-shirt that is hiked up above his waistband. I warm with the memory of that beautiful body face-up beneath me.
If his hip replacement needs attention, there is little I can do about that, but I can ease the rest of his body.
I cease my attention to his legs and move to the soft curls at the back of his neck. They’d grown out in the months since the funeral. “Need a haircut,” Charles murmurs, as I run my fingers through them.
“I like your curls,” I say, rubbing gently behind his ears, and at the base of his jaw, before running my thumbs down his spine. I still have the impulse to kiss the swirl at the base of his skull. It seems oddly endearing and vulnerable, like the hollow at the nape of a child’s neck.
Not surprisingly, his muscles are knotted and tense. I knead the hard muscles at the base of his neck, using my palms at the same time to sooth and relax his shoulders.
So much long, lean muscle! He has a swimmer’s or runner’s build, rather than that of a weightlifter. Even so, it is well toned. As I work, his muscles slowly relax. I am rewarded with a deep male grumble of sound, almost like a cat purring. “Oh,” he says, “You have about a hundred years to stop doing that!”
I giggle but don’t stop. He is gorgeous! Long, lean, with alight dusting of dark hair over his shoulders and down his spine. How had I missed that?
The hair becomes soft down as it approaches his waistband. I gently run my thumb down his spine. Nothing seems misaligned, but he seems, somehow, warmer. I feel an answering heat in my lower abdomen, a longing to see if it is possible to repeat the hurricane of emotion and physical response I had felt in the shelter.
I gently massage his buttocks. No one seems to remember that those are massive muscles and that they are capable of storing enormous amounts of stress. At least that’s what I tell myself. Deep down, a part of me knew that I wanted to touch, to explore, and to see what his response might be.
An inner fire smolders in my nether regions, prompting me to be rash, wanton, like a romance novel heroine. I slip my hands, palms against his skin, under the top of his briefs, easing them down to expose the top of his well-toned, muscular ass. Daringly, I brush one thumb across the base of his spine.
The rumble-purr sound stops with a gasp. I stop, alarmed. “Did I hurt you?”
“Oh, heck, no,” he replies. “But if you keep going in that direction, this massage will have moved from being therapeutic to erotic.”
“Is that bad?” I’m ashamed to hear a quiver in my voice. Had I misunderstood what had happened in the storm shelter?
“Not bad,” Charles says, easing over onto his back. His erection makes a massive bulge in his tighty-whities. “Oh, sweetheart, not bad at all. But I wanted you to know where you were headed. Are you sure you are ok with this?”
“If you are,” I say, suddenly worried. I’d stuck my hands in his pants! I had! What the heck is wrong with me? But Iknew that was a rhetorical question. I knew exactly what I wanted.
“Kate,” he says softly, “You are a gift from the gods. No one else in the world . . .” He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he goes on, “I think you are a little overdressed for the occasion, if you plan to do more than tease me.”
I feel heat rise in my face, making it almost as hot as my lower regions. I catch the edges of my t-shirt and pull it off over my head, then shuck out of my jeans.
“That’s better,” he says, the purring note back in his voice. “Now we’re more on an even keel. Come, lay down beside me, little lost lamb, and tell Uncle Wolf what exactly you were trying to do.”
I giggle nervously and stretch out beside him. His skin feels hot against mine. I suddenly want to rip those briefs off him, throw them to the winds, and throw my underwear after them. Instead, I ask, “What about your hip?”
“It hurts, but it isn’t locked up. You’ve done me a lot more good than the pills over there in my duffle are going to do. Let’s get you caught up to me. If you don’t mind being on top again, I believe I have already risen to the occasion.”
That makes me giggle again. Then I gasp as he slips his hand in my panties and finds my clitoris. “Hot and wet,” he purrs. “I’d almost think the massage was a ploy, if you weren’t so darn good at it. Where did you learn to do naughty massages?”
“Backstage at summer tent, camp-outs...”
“Naughty girl,” he says. “Were you really a virgin before we . . .”
“Yes, I was saving myself for a boy I knew in high school . . . only he got married sometime when I wasn’t looking.”
“Foolish man, didn’t know what he was missing,” Charles assures me, sliding two fingers into me. I try to get more, rocking against his palm. The glow that had begun while Iwas admiring his muscular backside now builds into a demanding blaze.
My nipples tingles, and I feel as if I want to climb inside his skin so I can get closer. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I want to touch him everywhere.
“Easy there, cowgirl,” he says, mimicking the tone I’d once used to show him that I wasn’t going to be anyone’s unpaid housekeeper. “Let’s get rid of a few more bits and pieces.
