And it included her.
One thing still tripped him up, though. He hated that he couldn’t tell her the truth about her father. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he also didn’t want to hurt her. Learning that someone you loved wasn’t the person you thought could be devastating—especially when that person was someone fundamentally important to your life. Nick knew that anguish firsthand. Realizing that the commander he’d looked up to for so many years was a liar and a manipulator and, really, damn close to a traitor to his country had ripped a part of Rixey’s heart out and shaken his faith in the sacred ideal of the brotherhood of arms. Bad as that was, he could only imagine how much worse it would be to learn those things about your father, and then not be able to confront him because he was already dead.
But Charlie knew something, so one way or another the truth was coming out. And maybe whatever her brother knew could get them around the restrictions of the damn NDA. Every moment until she learned what her father’d done, he was complicit in a lie of omission. And that fact sloshed like battery acid in his gut. Because no matter how unworthy he felt, he could no longer deny that he wanted her. The taste of her this morning hadn’t nearly been enough. He’d known that shit at the time, too. Now he wanted to make sure he didn’t do another thing to make her question where she stood with him.
Not when she stood at the center of his newly realigned universe.
A universe where he could see himself as being important again, as having a mission, as having a purpose. And, the thing was, the realignment had done more than make him fall for a girl; it had made him reconnect with and value parts of his life he’d been neglecting—his love of art, his brother, his team.
Last year, his losses had been catastrophic. That was incontrovertible truth. But he’d actually made it worse by pushing what he still had away.
And Becca had been the one to hold the mirror in front of his face and make him see the light.
His sunshine.
“Want some water?” he asked, hoping she didn’t hear the gruffness in his voice as he got up.
“Sure.”
Heaving a deep breath, he crossed to the sink and busied his hands with the simple task. He’d take anything right about now to distract his brain from all the churn and burn.
“Here you go,” he said, returning to her. He downed half his glass in one long swallow and wished it was something stronger.
When they finished their ice cream, she stretched and put the bowls on the dark, distressed coffee table. Her sigh was equal parts fatigue and satisfaction. He’d helped ensure one, now he could assist with the other. “Come here,” he said, opening his arms.
With a smile, Becca turned, knees facing the back of the couch, and laid her upper body across his lap so her head hit his shoulder. The feeling of her laying on him was warm and tempting, especially with the little purr of contentment that spilled from her throat. But it was also just really frickin’ peaceful. And, man, peace wasn’t something he’d had a whole lot of lately. Hell, not for his whole adult life.
Nick shifted down just a little, holding her close, and let his head fall back against the leather. This couldn’t be any better.
“I need something else,” she said, shifting against him. Head on his stomach, she looked up. And her eyes were on fire.
“What’s that?” His cock was pretty sure it knew what she needed, if his sudden erection was any guide.
“You’ll say no.”
Rixey ran his fingers through her hair, the word yes already on the tip of his tongue. “Try me.”
She pushed her body down until her face lay in his lap, and then she mouthed him through his jeans, eyes slanted up at him.
He sucked in a breath, and his hips rocked into the touch. “Becca.”
The denim allowed through only a hint of the heat from her mouth, but just the thought of it scorched him with lust and need. Her teeth grazed over the length of him, teasing until he knotted a hand in the soft length of her blond hair.
“I want you in my mouth,” she said.
Aw, fucking hell.
His brain ran a calculus of the likelihood of getting caught here versus the ability to pull his cock away from her lips. Marz wasn’t moving from his computers anytime soon, though. And Jeremy had made the cardinal mistake of asking how his equipment worked, so he’d most likely be caught in a Marz vortex for a good long while. And then she unzipped his jeans and pulled his hard-on out in her soft hand, and all those thoughts blew away like smoke in the wind. She bathed the length of him with a long, wet lick. And, damn if she didn’t keep those blue eyes on him like she knew how much pleasure he’d get from watching her tongue him.