Chapter Twenty-Seven
Everyone stood and clapped for the newly pinned lieutenants as they were announced. Ceremony over. Real life commences.
The blue uniforms blended into the crowd as the families embraced. Cameras were pulled out and images snapped, but I couldn’t move. My heartbeat sped up until it should have taken flight, lodging my heart in my throat.
Josh tunneled his way through the crowd, determination, awe, and a little worry dancing across his features. Anticipation curled in my stomach. God, that man was beautiful. Beautiful, and mine. I just had to be brave enough to hold onto him.
He stopped just short of me, unsure if he was supposed to come closer. “December.”
“Hi.” It was all I could say, there were too many emotions racing through me to form a more coherent thought.
“Don’t do this unless you—”
I stopped his words with my mouth, wrapping my arms around his neck and pouring everything I felt into that kiss. For a few seconds, I thought I’d made a huge error when he didn’t respond.
I ran my tongue across the seam of his lips, and he came to life, swinging me in his arms and consuming me in his kiss.
“Walker!” Jagger called out.
Josh pivoted only long enough for Jagger to take a quick picture, and then he carried me out of the room, one arm under my knees, and the other behind my back.
I laughed breathlessly, happiness filling every corner of me for the first time since I couldn’t remember. “This is very An Officer and a Gentleman.”
“What is that?” His gaze dropped to my mouth, telling me his mind wasn’t on movies.
A slow smile spread across my face. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Walker!” Another lieutenant yelled down the hall at us, laughing. “No PDA in uniform!”
“Let me know when you lose your virginity, McAfee!” Josh fired back, opening the door to a lecture hall. He slipped us inside, locking the door behind him. He walked down the awkwardly spaced steps, and didn’t stop until he sat me on the professor’s desk.
I opened my knees, and he slid between them, pulling me against him. “I want to know what this means, but at this second, I just don’t care enough to hear it.” He slammed his mouth against mine, groaning at the contact of my tongue against his. He held my head with his hands, angling my head to his perfect fit, kissing me deeper and deeper, until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began. I had missed this so very much.
“Damn,” he muttered against my mouth. His muscles stiffened against me, and he pulled back slowly, leaving his forehead against mine.
“Josh?”
“I can say I don’t care what this means, but I can’t do this again. I can’t have you in my arms just to watch you walk away afterward. I’ve been dying inside since you left, and if you do it again, it will finish me off.”
I cupped his face in my hands, drawing back far enough to see him, but I couldn’t read his expression through his tightly shut eyes. “Look at me.”
He opened his eyes slowly. His eyebrows drew together and his lips tensed. “What are we doing, December? I leave in two days.”
“Do you know where you’re going next?” I hated this part of army life, but this was a small price to pay for him.
“Fort Rucker, Alabama. I know it’s in the middle of nowhere, and really far from Colorado.” His gaze flicked back and forth, and his hands tensed on my waist, like he was preparing for me to bolt.
“I know where I’ll be.”
His eyes narrowed. “Oh?”
Here it was, what would make or break us. “Josh, a letter came yesterday. I got accepted to Vanderbilt to transfer. I start in the fall.”
He sucked in his breath and let it out with a huge smile. “That’s amazing! Your dad would be so damn proud of you.”
“Yeah. He’d be proud of you, too.” I stroked my thumbs over his cheekbones. “Proud of us.”
“Is there an ‘us’?” He started to draw back, his smile replaced by tense lines. “I’d go through hell for you, but I have to know you’re in this with me.”
I closed the distance between us, kissing him softly until his lips eased above mine. “I’m all in, yours if you’ll still have me. I’ll do the distance and the waiting.”
“I thought that wasn’t what you wanted? A life of waiting? Worrying?”
“It’s just not much of a life if I don’t have you in it. I’ll worry about you whether or not we’re together.” His lips pursed again. Was he going to reject me? After everything?
He searched my eyes for a long moment and then smiled. “This time, I’ll wait. You go to Vanderbilt, and I’ll go wherever they send me. I’ll wait until you graduate. We’ll make this work. I don’t care how far away you have to be as long as I know you’re mine, and I’m yours.”
“We can do this, be together.” Saying it out loud made it real, possible.
“We will do this. I’ll never lose you again, December.” He kissed me gently, pulling on my lower lip with the slightest tug.
He lifted his head, stared into my eyes, and his pupils dilated when his gaze dropped to my lips. They parted. His breathing picked up for a few poignant seconds before he crushed my mouth to his, kissing me with the ferocity I had missed all these months.
Yes. This was where I belonged. Josh was my home. I lost myself in the taste of him, the feel of his skin against mine, and gave myself over without reservation. His hands tunneled into my hair, pulling just enough that I dipped my head back. He moved down my neck, licking and sucking in the perfect rhythm that drove me insane. “Hey,” I gasped, balancing myself on my elbows. “No PDA in uniform, remember?”
Without breaking contact with my skin, he ripped off his jacket, the buttons flying. Next went his starched white shirt. I grabbed his tie and drew him down to me, laying back against the desk. He pulled me to the edge, my dress riding up to my thighs as I pressed against him. I let out a sweet sigh; he wanted me.
I gripped his white tee, pulling it and the loosened tie over his head. They both joined the growing pile of clothes on the floor. With that simple move, he wasn’t Lieutenant Walker anymore, he was my Josh, flaming tattoos and all. He kissed down the skin of my shoulder. “God, December, it’s been so long.” His hands slid up under my dress, keeping the fabric over my thighs.
“Take it off,” I begged recklessly.
“No, someone could see, and I can’t let that happen to you.” He groaned against my clothed breasts.
Every part of me throbbed, needing him. It had been so long since I’d been near him, let alone touched him or been touched by him. I was starved for Josh and unwilling to wait another minute. “Please?” I arched my hips against him and was rewarded with a moan.
His hands slipped higher up my dress, skimming my thighs until he dipped between them. He pulled aside my soaked panties and stroked exactly where I was pulsing. I couldn’t stop the cry that tumbled from my lips, echoing around the lecture hall.
“Yes,” he said into my mouth, rocking his hand against me. He stopped, resting his forehead against mine, and took huge, gulping breaths. “Shit. I don’t have any protection with me. I’m clean. I just did my medical eval for basic, but . . .”
“And I’m on birth control. Have been since I was seventeen.” I wiggled my hips against his hand, desperate for more of the sweet pressure I knew would get me off. “Josh, if you want me to beg you, I will.”
A flash of something akin to anger flashed across his eyes as they bored into mine, an intense sea of brown and gold. “Don’t you get it? You don’t have to beg me for anything. I’m already yours.” His kiss scorched me. I heard a rip, and my panties fluttered to the floor. Thank God. He unzipped and unbuckled enough to slide his pants and boxers down past his delectable ass and was back against me before I could appreciate how exquisitely beautiful he was.
Everything in me tingled and throbbed, aching for him. “Please—”
He stopped my plea with a kiss and thrust inside me with one powerful surge, stretching me to the max. “Oh f*ck, December. I’ve never. Without. Amazing. You’re perfect.” He rested on his elbows, sharing my breath.
I skimmed my hands down the silk-smooth skin of his back and brought my heels up to balance on the edge of the desk. With what leverage I had, I pushed against him, bringing him even deeper. “Not perfect, but I am yours.”
Joy passed between us, the sweetest feeling of the meeting of two hearts, one soul. It was just . . . right. I swirled my hips around him, and his eyes darkened. Talk time was over. He gripped my hips, pulling them back into him as he slid inside, kissing me with the same desperation.
Everything about him consumed me, from his mouth on mine, to his body moving within me. Tension spiraled, coiling tighter until my muscles cramped and movement seemed impossible. He broke our kiss and stared into my eyes, his breathing as harsh and ragged as mine. He slammed into me over and over, gripping my hips so I didn’t slide back across the desk. “Josh!” I cried out, hovering so close to the edge. “I-I-I . . .”
He kissed me softly, but didn’t stop moving. “Shhh. I’ve got you.” He held my weight with one hand, and used the other to slide back under my dress. With the first taste of pressure on my *, I moaned. He rubbed, and I gasped, arching off the desk as everything crashed in release. He caught my cries in his mouth, and fell over the edge with me in intense shuddering waves.
For what seemed like eternity, yet not long enough, we lay there, holding onto each other and absorbing what we’d both been longing for.
Josh braced himself and met my eyes. “You’re mine?”
I let loose a slow, very satisfied smile. “Yes.”
“Say it once more.” There was an anxiety in his eyes I never wanted to see.
“I love you, Josh. I’m yours for as long as you want me.” I was laid bare, every emotion raw.
He kissed me softly. “Like I’d let you get away again?”
I laughed. “You’re going to have to let me get a little bit away, before someone peeks through that window.”
Like I’d said the devil himself was watching, he was off me in a second, pulling my dress back down across my thighs before putting on his uniform. Once we were cleaned up and presentable, he stood between my knees, tucking my ripped panties into his pocket with a wicked grin. It had taken more than a few minutes to find all of his buttons.
He kissed me again, but there was no rush to it this time, no desperation. He kissed me like he’d been doing it forever and would continue the same way.
“You and me.” I met his lips one last time as he lowered me to the floor. “Against the world?” I couldn’t help the cliché.
His smile radiated pure joy. “Always.”
Epilogue
“How many clothes did you bring?” Josh asked as he huffed up the stairs to my second-floor walk-up apartment in Nashville. It was in a great area, safe and close to Vanderbilt, for which my mother left a sizeable amount of money in my account to pay for. She excused her actions by saying it’s what Dad would have wanted.
“Enough,” I answered with a smirk, opening the door with my foot so he could get inside. The mid-August heat had sweat dripping between my shoulder blades, and the air conditioning offered sharp relief. Josh collapsed melodramatically on my couch, throwing his head back.
“Dying. I’m dying.”
Well, if that wasn’t an invitation. I straddled his lap, and he immediately came alert. “Better?”
He skimmed my shorts and gripped my thighs with a playful squeeze. “I just think you have too many clothes. I like you with none.”
He kissed the laughter out of me and had me relishing the perks of my own place. “When do you have to be back?”
“Tomorrow night.”
Too soon. I tried not to pout, and instead ended up kissing him again. I could’ve lived off kissing Josh. “That means you’ll be here all weekend,” I whispered suggestively.
“It does,” he agreed, pulling me harder against him.
“Sweet! I like my closet color- and weather-coded according to the order of the rainbow.” I gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek and bounced off his lap, heading to unpack the kitchen.
He groaned. “Can’t we just have lots of sex?”
“Sure, as long as everything is put away . . .” I laughed uproariously as he jumped over the back of the couch and chased me into the kitchen. He lifted me to the counter and mercilessly tickled me.
I wondered if this is how it always would be with him, laughter and smoking-hot chemistry, with enough soul mixed in to melt me. Whatever it was with us, I knew it would always be more than enough. Josh was my home, even six hours away at Fort Rucker.
Two more years here, and we’d both finish together; him with flight school, and me with college. And we would make it, not because we were strong, or determined, but because there was no other option for us. We simply were.
He ceased the tickle-assault and kissed me, stealing every last thought from my head with that wicked mouth. “What do you say we enjoy what time we have?”
It would be the motto of our lives, I had no doubt. “I can’t think of anything better.”
“December, there’s nothing better than you.”
I pulled him closer, thrilled that this phenomenal man was mine, and stole a kiss before I whispered against his mouth. “There’s nothing better than us.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you, God, for this beautiful life, your mercy, and the blessings I don’t always deserve.
Thank you, Jason, for choosing me. For a dozen years of marriage, and never once doubting we’d make it here to hold this book. For folding laundry, making dinners, supplying caffeine to the edit cave, and being here, even when you can’t be “here.” Our incredible children, I love you more than life. You’ve put up with four deployments, thrown-together dinners, and heard “one more minute,” way too often during this process, but never begrudged me a hug or kiss. You are everything exquisite about this world.
Thanks also goes to: my rock star agent, Jamie Bodnar Drowley, for standing in my corner for every aspect of this insane military life we both live. For taking a chance on me, and making my dreams come true. Karen Grove and Nicole Steinhaus, my amazing editors—for your keen eyes and fabulous comments that kept me from using “pull” 232 times. You ladies keep me on my toes with laughter and grace. To the Entangled team—I couldn’t be happier with what a beautiful family you are— especially Brittany and Sarah. LJ Anderson for this beautiful cover. My critique partners and agency sisters—Nola, Lizzy, and Molly—for midnight conversations and thousands of words of encouragement. This story would not have been the same without your input and cheerleading. Mindy—for dropping everything to read. The fabulous Backspace Survivors: Sean, Monika, Malia, Alicia, Lauren, Michael, and Ulana—Thank you for pushing my limits, both in literature and Korean food, but more importantly, thank you for being my friends. I am blessed to have you.
Thank you to my friends, who put up with my moods and my hermitish ways. Emily, thank you for being my shoulder for the last seventeen years, no matter where I happen to live, and for carrying me with your strength when I’m at my weakest. Christina, for your phenomenal timing, selflessness, and understanding. Best battle buddy ever. Tami, for reminding me who I am when deployment makes me forget. Thea, for your endless encouragement and unconditional friendship. Kierstan, for always being a safe place. My fabulous military spouse sisters who have held my hand through these four deployments, and stood by my side with steadfast love and loyalty. My Drum girls, the Rucker crew, the Germany gals, and my Apache ladies, I’m humbled by all you endure, and am honored to stand among you.
My incredible family—my parents who never stopped pushing me to be what they knew I could. Mom for Godzilla, and coming when I need you, and Dad, for keeping your office in my playroom, impromptu German road trips, and always making me your priority. My brothers, Chris, Matt, and Doug, for your inspiring enthusiasm, and always, my sister, Kate, for being my friend, confidant, hair-curler, and constant during our army-brat upbringing—love ’ya, mean it.
Lastly, to Jason again, because you’re my beginning and my end. From Colorado to Capri, you are the inspiration behind every hero, because you’ll always be mine. I love and live you.