“I hear that Marines are good with explosions,” Beka said, turning sideways so their bodies faced each other. She ran eager hands over his chest, marveling at the strength and breadth of him and the crisp hair that tickled her palms, then up his shoulders and down his strongly muscled arms. His lips found hers again, and everything dissolved into a delirious blur of touch and taste and blissfully erotic sensation; his fingers and tongue explored her, discovering secrets she never even knew she had.
Their clothes flew away as if enchanted, and the feel of his naked body on hers drove her almost mad with desire. As they joined together, she could feel her nails biting into his back, but that only made him move faster and deeper and wilder inside her, the floodwaters of passion rising up to drown them both in waves of ardor, intensifying and ebbing, swirling and racing, ever higher, ever stronger, until together they crested with a moaning, throbbing crescendo that made their two bodies into one, gloriously united in joyous celebration.
Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms, panting and sweating and laughing. Beka rested her head against Marcus’s chest, listening to the strong beat of his heart, and had a sudden, appalling realization: Chewie had been right. Somehow, no matter how impractical, no matter how improbable, she had fallen in love with this man. And that meant that she had no choice—she had to tell him the truth. Even if it meant she lost him forever.
SEVENTEEN
MARCUS TRIED TO remember the last time he felt even remotely as good as this, and failed completely. Lying there with Beka in his arms, spent after a passionate bout of lovemaking he had never expected, the summer sun sliding in past slanted shades to bathe them both in buttery yellow warmth, was as close to nirvana as he ever expected to get.
His life up until now had mostly been about survival? nothing more. He’d survived his mother’s abandonment, survived his father’s harsh and brutal approach to parenting, survived the loss of his beloved younger brother—though that one only barely. Then he’d gone on to join the Marines and survived boot camp and twelve years in the harsh desert.
For the first time since he was a kid, he felt something almost like . . . hope. A shimmer of happiness, a glimpse of optimistic possibilities. Clearly, Beka was not the craziest one in the room. And yet, despite all that he had seen and learned in his years on this planet, he suddenly felt as though a curtain had opened and revealed a future he could never have hoped to achieve.
All because of Beka.
He looked down at her; this unexpected miracle. Her head was pillowed on his shoulder, that glorious blond sheaf of hair falling in a tumble of silken strands over both of their naked bodies. One tanned leg was thrown on top of his in comfortable abandon, and her arm was flung over his chest as if she lacked the energy to move it. It was a position he could get used to.
In fact, it was with some shock that he realized he could get used to the entire package: Beka, sex, curling up together . . . forever.
Forever was never a word he had considered before. Everything in his life had always been temporary. Living with his father until he was old enough to get away, staying with the Marines until he couldn’t stand the killing anymore, coming back to take care of his sick da until the old man died or got better enough to manage without him. But suddenly, he found himself thinking of the long term; settling down, finding something to do with the rest of his life that actually meant something to him, and maybe, just maybe, sharing that with someone.
He laughed a little, knowing that he was getting ahead of himself. Way ahead, where one completely inappropriate but bewitching hippie surfer girl was concerned. There was no way that things could work between them. They were so different, and he came with so much baggage. Why would a woman so full of light and life ever be interested in a man as dark and haunted as he was?
And yet, for a moment, he actually dared to hope. There was something so real and true about Beka, it made him feel as though he could find whatever was real and true in himself and bring it to the surface. He’d been accused of having trust issues—and no wonder if he did, between a mother who’d left when he was a kid, a father who had allowed his only brother to be killed, and a dozen years spent living in a war zone. But with Beka, he felt as though somehow he might find a way to learn how to trust. Now there was a crazy thought.
“What’s so funny?” Beka asked, a strange shadow coming over those glorious blue eyes as she tilted her head back to look at him. “Something you’d like to share with the class?”
Marcus smiled at her. “Just thinking. Mostly about how wonderful you are.”
She flushed, and he enjoyed watching the pink tide moving across her face and down her chest.
“I’m not wonderful,” she said. “Although that certainly was.”
He bent his head to kiss her. “Yes, it was. And yes, you are, Beka. I know I don’t always seem to appreciate your quirkier side, but I don’t want you to think that doesn’t mean I don’t like you just the way you are.”