Sloan left but kept the door slightly open. She knew he wouldn’t be able to bend over to dry his legs or lower body. Sure enough, as she peeked through the opening, she saw him grimace as he tried to dry off. Finally, she stepped in. “Dan, let me help you? You’re pushing too hard, too soon. You don’t want to rip those stitches inside your body.” He stood with the towel gripped in his right hand, looking like a beautiful Greek god come to earth just for her. Sure enough, his erection stirred.
Forcing herself to concentrate, Sloan quickly dried him off. She asked him to sit in the small chair so she could help him get dressed. His hair was still dripping, and she took a small towel, quickly drying it and his nape. She felt him twinge a little, knowing that was an erogenous zone for him. Picking up the comb, she drew the damp strands into place.
“Sloan…”
Her head snapped up, and she stopped breathing for a moment, drowning in the stormy look his eyes. “I want to kiss you so damn bad I can’t stand it anymore,” he rasped, his fingers tightening around her arms, holding her those inches away from him. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, Sloan? It’s all I’ve thought about for the last week. I promised you I’d try to treat you as my equal. I’m asking. You need to tell me what you want from me?”
She placed her hand on his shirt, feeling his powerful chest beneath, the pound of his heart against her palm. She’d been so alone, abandoned for so long, without the touch of the one man she’d needed more than life, and it rendered her incapable of thinking clearly.
“Yes or no, baby?” he growled.
It was impossible! It was so unfair that her body turned traitorous against her. “Yes…kiss me, Dan,” she heard herself whisper. The moment he curved his lips against hers, she collapsed lightly against him, trying to be aware he was still wounded. Slipping her hand around his shoulder, she caressed his nape, his mouth becoming powerful and commanding against her opening. A deep groan of pleasure rolled through his chest. Sloan allowed her breasts to barely graze him, the nipples suddenly hardening to sharp peaks begging to be further seduced.
He kept one hand on her upper arm, the other cupping her cheek, angling her expertly, gaining full entrance to her eager lips. Dan had seen Sloan fighting her need for him over the week. He’d seen it in her eyes. How many times had he wanted to reach out, tunnel his fingers through her hair, and pull her mouth toward him and take her, just as he had so many times before? And she’d loved it, his need for her matching her own intense desires.
This time, Dan knew it had to be different. He couldn’t arbitrarily take Sloan as he had four years earlier. She’d been like a willing, hot-blooded sex slave to his whims and lusty appetite then. Whatever feelings he had for this beautiful woman, he was going to show her he was trying to change to be what she needed him to be. He’d asked to kiss her, and that was all he’d do. She kissed him with eagerness, with such hunger and need, he felt himself starving to please her. He tore his mouth from hers. If he didn’t, Dan was going to tear that blouse of hers open, pull her breast out of that bra she wore and capture one of those hardened nipples, pulling it deeply into his mouth. Sloan was particularly sensitive in that area, and he gloried in teasing her, sucking her deeply, making her so wet that sweet, thick honey flowed out of her small, tight entrance. He could almost taste her, wanted to taste her, wanted to eat her until she screamed with the need of release as he sampled and stroked her beautiful body.
Breathing harshly, Dan watched her through slitted eyes, feeling the pain of his erection. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes drowsy with arousal, her lips swollen from the power of the kiss they’d just shared. He continued to cup her cheek, feeling her quiver. It was a sign of the need for her to have an orgasm. Dan had never forgotten how Sloan’s body reacted to his lust for her.
“Dammit, Sloan, don’t deny yourself to me. Let me ease your pain, baby. I know how much you’re hurting.” He searched her eyes. She could hide nothing from him. Not when it came to sex. He felt her fingers dig into his shirt, saw the flit of agony she was trying to hide from him.
“Let me help you. Do you think I’m going to hold this over you? I can see you need me. I can give you the relief you want. Let me at least do that for you. You owe me nothing, Sloan. It doesn’t mean I own you. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying to be a better man for you.” He caressed her lips, feeling her tremble. It was then that he realized that those same intense feelings he’d held for her were front and center right now. He didn’t know what to call them, except that he swore he could feel her raw need of him. She had suffered so long without him, and they’d had something so beautiful. Good sex with the right partner, as Dan had found out too late, was one in a billion. And Sloan was here, in his arms, giving him a wild, confused, hungry look.
“Give me your answer,” he demanded harshly. “I can’t stand to see you like this. It’s not necessary. Let me help you…” Dan could still see her trying to fight her body, fight what occurred naturally between them. It was more than lust. The hunger he harbored for Sloan burned down to his soul and enclosed his heart.
“Your wound,” she whispered unsteadily.
“Don’t worry about it. No gymnastics today, baby. I intend to get you on your back, and I’ll make damn sure you get the relief you need. Let me help you for once?”
He’d never kissed her that way before, and yet, it was exactly what she’d wanted from him. Now, he was offering to ease that awful ache between her legs. Before, Dan would have dragged her off to the bed and had his way with her, not asking her what she wanted or needed. He had always taken, never given. When they had sex, he came first, climaxed, and only later, would he attend to her needs.
It spun Sloan into a quandary she’d never expected. She felt if she gave into his request, she was reverting to what they were at Bagram. That all the progress, the rules she needed to open her heart to this man once again, were part of this terrible choice.
Her body made her decision, and she whispered brokenly, “Help me, Dan.” She couldn’t think anymore, lost in that powerful sexual heat of her own body that had been starving for so long for Dan. She didn’t blame him at all. As she shakily undressed, she could no longer think.
“Lay on the bed, Sloan. I’ll join you. I don’t need my clothes off to do what I’m going to do.”
Dan came around to the left side of the bed and lay on his right side, his hand moving her thighs apart, she closed her eyes. He was going to touch her. She moaned, her back arching as his fingers grazed her wet entrance. She couldn’t stop calling his name, turning toward him, wanting his fingers to magically touch her, capture that swollen, hurting knot at her entrance. “Hurry, hurry,” she cried out. “Please, Dan…please…”
CHAPTER 17
Sloan whimpered as Dan’s fingers slipped easily between her wet folds, lifting her hips, desperate for him to engage with her knot. It was so swollen, throbbing with a painful ache. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was moan his name, and hungrily absorb his skilled fingers moving toward her entrance.
She heard his voice, low and thick, as he slid his arm beneath her neck, lifting her against him. He guided her thigh over his, opening her fully to him. Her fingers dug into the soft lavender bedspread.
“Easy, baby,” he crooned near her ear. “I know you’re hungry.” He kissed her cheek, trailing his mouth down the line of her jaw.