Page 123 of Thick as Thieves

“No, it was a wreck. I fixed it up.”

“By yourself?”

“Took me a couple of years.”

“That involved a lot of labor.”

“Yeah, but it gave me a lot of time to think, work through some postwar shit. It was my psychotherapy.”

She leaned back against the wall. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”

r /> “About the war?”

She gave a slight nod.

“Arden—”

“Just one thing. Tragic or hilarious. Share a moment that stands out for whatever reason.”

He turned his head and stared thoughtfully out the window. “We, uh, went into an Afghani village that had been decimated. We were going from building to building, looking for survivors and injured, whether they were on our side or Taliban sympathizers.

“I went into this—you couldn’t even call it a house. A dwelling. It was a mess. Carnage. Everybody was dead except for a young woman. Real young. Sixteen, seventeen. She was nursing a baby, an infant.

“I started toward her to help. But her face was uncovered. It flashed through my mind that I couldn’t, shouldn’t, let any of the surviving villagers know I’d seen her like that. It might have gone bad for her.

“She and I just looked at each other, frozen like, then I backed out without saying a word. It lasted maybe ten seconds at most, but of all the things I witnessed over there, it’s seeing her with her baby that sticks with me. Not because it was the worst thing I saw, God knows, but because it was the most human.”

“Do you know what happened to her?”

He turned back to Arden. “Before we pulled out, I saw her and the baby as they were being cared for by Afghani medics. Both were all right.”

“Did she acknowledge you?”

“No. Hell no. She wouldn’t have in any case, but, geared up, we all look alike. She wouldn’t have known me from the others.”

She gazed up at him for a moment, then whispered, “She knew you.”

She set her glass on the windowsill and reached for his free hand. She turned it palm up and ran her fingertips over the calluses at the base of each finger.

“That morning when you came uninvited to my house, you ran your hand—this hand—along the bannister and across the mantel. Appreciatively. Like a caress. You probably weren’t even aware of doing it. But it was so sensual, it took my breath. And ever since, I’ve fantasized you stroking me, just that way.”

Lust as incendiary as lava coursed through him, overtaking everything. In its path, conscience, morality, and honor were consumed, and supplanted by unstoppable desire.

Glass of whiskey still in hand, he curved his arm around her neck, hooking it in the bend of his elbow, and growled, “Your fantasy is a helluva lot tamer than mine.”

Chapter 34

He claimed her mouth.

Arden was vaguely aware of him letting go of her long enough to set his glass on the windowsill alongside hers, but he didn’t break the kiss until he had to in order to pull her top up over her head. He reached behind her and unhooked her bra, slid the straps down her arms, then angled back and looked at her breasts with frank interest.

He flicked a glance up to her eyes. His reflected the raindrops that dotted the windowpane, but the light in them burned with a blue flame. The glimpse lasted for only a fraction of a second, but she read in it that he liked what he saw.

He slid his arms beneath hers, splayed his hands over her back, and drew her to him. He lowered his head. This time there was no cloth filtering the wet heat of his mouth. It tugged at her ardently but sweetly. She held his face between her hands and rubbed her palms against his scruff, loving its scratchiness in contrast to the sleek, fluid caresses of his tongue.

As she’d fantasized, he stroked her back from her shoulder blades, down past the dip of her waist to her bottom, then back up. She gave a little hiccup of delight at the feel of his calluses against her skin. His large hands made her feel slight, feminine, wanted. Desperately wanted.

He worked his hands into the waistband of her leggings. She squirmed in an effort to help him remove them, but he bracketed her hips and held her still. He nuzzled beneath her ear. “Are you okay to do this? It’s been enough time?”