“Good girl.” He touched a finger to her cheek, then reached for his jeans again.
She jerked away. “Don’t patronize me. Stop this head game you’re playing and talk.”
“I’m just communicating. Watch . . .”
The gentle hiss of his zipper lowering filled the quiet room. Tara’s heart began to careen crazily, and she sucked in a breath to calm herself. But as he lowered the denim over his hips, revealing the fact that he’d been commando underneath and that each and every inch of him was velvety hard and standing straight up for her, she couldn’t stop her gasp.
“I want you to get a good look at this . . . Cherry.”
She frowned. Logan had called her that a thousand times, but this time was somehow different.
Before she could question him, he reached to her side and yanked the desk chair beside her, bringing it close. He watched her with a dark stare.
“What do you have on the inside of your left thigh?” he demanded.
“A—a birthmark.”
“Sit back, lift your skirt, and spread your legs so I can see.”
Tara paused. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she did. “How is this getting us any closer to whatever truth you want to tell me?”
Logan raised a brow. “Remember trust?”
With a sigh, she complied, rocking onto her backside, easing the sheer skirt up her thighs, and parting her legs. Logan zeroed in on her pussy, and instantly she felt her folds go wet. As he crouched between her legs, her sheath tightened, spasmed.
Slowly, he glided his finger up her thigh to her birthmark. “I never forgot this little round reddish mark of yours. That day in my bedroom that I touched it, tongued it, I decided it reminded me of a little cherry. After I’d broken things off, that sweet spot was burned onto my brain. It killed me that I couldn’t touch yours, so . . . See what I got.”
Logan stood and lifted his left foot onto the chair. At first, she couldn’t look past all the inches of his swollen, hungry cock and the swing of his heavy testicles. Then he pressed his finger to the inside of his left thigh. In the same spot in which she had her own birthmark, he’d had something tattooed into his skin. She knelt, leaning in to peer closer, then realized exactly what it was.
Shock pinging through her system, she bounced her gaze up to his. “A cherry?”
“Got it the day I turned eighteen. I still loved you. I was drunk and alone and miserable, and the only thing I wanted was to brand myself with you.”
Oh. Dear. God
.
Shock reverberated down her system, jarring open the floodgates she’d been hiding her emotions behind. They poured out in a warm gush that inundated her chest.
All these years between them, lost. She’d been trying to muddle her way though and had been doing a lousy job. She’d thrown herself into school, then into a career, all the while wearing her anger at him like armor. She’d dated some, never quite sure why no one ever suited her, why she always felt restless and uncomfortable when other men touched her.
Now she knew. She’d been fooling herself for over a decade. Finally, the truth was crystal clear.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she touched one finger to the little shiny red cherry on his muscular thigh, transfixed by the slightly paler skin here, the dark dusting of hair around it. “I didn’t know.”
“So I’m telling you now. These are the last of my secrets, and I want you to know them.”
Their gazes met again, and she felt the solid warmth and never ending flow of his love reaching out to her heart, thawing that terrible numbness she’d shoved on herself in the hopes that she’d never hurt again. His blue stare lasered in on her, gently but firmly letting her know that he wouldn’t accept her hiding from him anymore. That suited Tara. She didn’t want to.
She braced one trembling hand on his thigh, then reached up to finger the tattoo running from his hips, up his ribs, ending under his arm. “And this?”
He swallowed, unblinking as he met her gaze. “Japanese for ‘Tara forever.’”
Her eyes slid closed. Xander had told her days ago to find these on his body and ask him what they meant. She’d been distracted. And if she was honest, a little afraid. Now . . .
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She didn’t have to ask why he’d done it, nor could she claim that she didn’t understand. He loved her. He’d said it. He’d come here to help and protect her, instead of spending his leave with family and friends. He’d imprinted that fact on his body, creating his own temple where he could worship her. In his own way, he’d been largely faithful to her, especially over the last five years. During that time, she’d deceived herself into believing that she’d moved on with life and that she was okay. Logan had remained steadfast to his pain, not trying to deny the festering hurt, but rather incorporating it into his life, honoring what they meant to one another.
When he brushed the tears from her cheeks, his tender caress wrenched her heart.
She blinked up at him, touched down to her soul. “I d-didn’t know.”
“You weren’t supposed to.” He kicked his jeans aside, leaving himself naked, and helped her to her feet. “I’ve been on some of the most dangerous missions the navy has doled out in the last ten years. Iraq, Afghanistan, tons of third world shitholes. I never worried. I knew my role, knew I was good at my job. I went in, did what I needed to do, and got out. I even woke up in the desert once with a viper’s fangs about six inches from my face. My heart may have raced a little then. But I was never truly afraid of anything until you came back into my life and I realized how much I still loved you. Knowing that you could utter one Shakespearian character’s name and walk out forever scared me more than anything, ever.”
She bit her lip to hold in a sob, clutched his shoulders, and looked right into his eyes. “I love you.”
Logan stepped close, eliminating her personal space and pressing his body against hers. His hands trembled as he grabbed her face. With his jaw clenched, his stare delved deep, past her eyes, right into her soul. “Say it again.”
The tears took over again, blurring her vision of Logan, but Tara felt him all around her, somehow inside her. She might not have any visible tattoos to remind herself of him, but he was indelibly imprinted on her heart. “I love you. I don’t think I ever stopped. I tried everything I could think of to cut you out of my heart.” She shook her head. “But you were always there.”
Pain tore across his face. “That night I came to your house a few years ago?”
God,
that
night. “And I slammed the door in your face. I’m sorry. It was like you had a sixth sense. I was just getting together with Brad, thinking that maybe he’d be different and that I could love him. We’d planned to . . . spend that night together for the first time.”
She swallowed, wishing she didn’t have to give him such a truth, but if he wanted it, Tara wouldn’t hide.
“Did you?”
“No. Seeing you, even for two seconds, flipped some sort of switch in me. As soon as I saw you, I finally felt the excitement, yearning, and need I’d been trying to manufacture with someone else for years. It only took me a second to realize that you gave me everything I’d been searching for, and you didn’t even have to speak a word. I got angry. Then I panicked. I knew Brad would see it all over my face. So I slammed the door, told him that I wasn’t feeling well, and sent him home.”
He pulled her face closer, whispering against her lips. “I wish to fuck I’d had the courage to knock on your door each day of every single leave home.”
Fresh tears scalded her cheeks. “You would have worn me down.”
“No, Cherry. I would have loved you. Christ . . .”
Logan pulled her tightly against him, wrapping his arms around her, burying his head in her neck. Tara felt him everywhere, his heat all over her, his love running through her, his need simmering in her veins.
Gently, she pulled away, then took his hand and led him to the bed. “Love me now?”
He yanked the dress from her body, then tumbled her down onto the mattress, covering her body with his. “Every day for the rest of your life, if you’ll let me, Cherry. Marry me?”
Tara thought her heart would explode. After everything they’d been through, all the years and distance, life experiences and heartbreak, they were going to be together—where they belonged.
Tears spilled over again as she nodded. “I would love that more than anything.”
Logan’s smile dazzled her, and the genuine warmth and happiness in his eyes was infectious. In that moment, Tara felt deep down that they’d finally overcome everything. As soon as they finished this mission, they could plan a wonderful, perfect life together.
With one hand anchored on her hip and the other wrapped around her nape, Logan began sliding into her body, feeding her wet pussy one slow, hard inch at a time. The friction of his cock sinking into her clasping sheath charged a whirl of tingles through her, lighting up something that went heart deep.
“I’ll take good care of you, baby. And I’ll always love you,” he whispered against her mouth. “It may not have been the most romantic proposal you’ve ever received, but it’s the most sincere.”
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, then covered his lips with her own, tangling his tongue with hers as if she could drink in every part of him and keep him with her forever.
As he pressed deeper, Tara’s need to have all of him surged. She lifted and wriggled, head tossed back. Logan kissed her exposed throat and ground his hips to her, detonating a new flurry of sensation through her.
They weren’t just joining bodies, and she knew it. Felt the tendrils of the fragile love they’d both clung to over the years thicken and grow, curling around them with every sweet, slow glide deep inside her. With every thrust, she panted out her pleasure, then held her breath as he withdrew, waiting for more of the sweet ache to ramp up to the explosion she needed to feel all the way down to her soul.
“Will you trust me, Cherry?” His gaze pleaded with her, saying what he wouldn’t.
She didn’t know exactly what he sought, but in that moment, it didn’t matter. Whatever he did—whatever he wanted—would give her pleasure.
“Yes. Always.”
His smile of joy was almost blinding as he slowly kissed her, their lips and breaths entwined reverently. Then withdrew from her.
With a gentle nudge, he rolled her to her stomach, disappeared for a moment, then returned to the bed.
“We’re going to take this slow and gentle, baby. I only want to make you feel good. If you don’t like anything, just tell me.”
Tara had a pretty good idea what he wanted, and her heart skipped. “Hmm. You don’t sound much like the badass Dom now.”
He laughed and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Now that I’ve got a lifetime to unleash that side of myself on you, I can afford to take it slow. Trust me, you’ll see the badass again. But right now, there’s nothing more important than simply sharing this moment with you.”
Joy welled up in her at his words. He wanted to connect them together in body now. In heart. They’d soon do it legally, in the eyes of God and man. And someday, if they hadn’t already, they’d create life together. And live all their days side by side.
The fact that happiness—that Logan himself—was finally in her grasp made her urgent to have him now that he was finally, truly her man. “Hurry.”
His warm palm glided down her back, over the curve of her waist to cling to her hip. “I want you to belong to me in every way. Will you let me try?”
Before she could answer, she felt a cool drizzle of liquid slide in the crevice of her backside. Then he penetrated her there with one finger, silently telling her exactly what he sought.
Tara gasped as her body swallowed him up, clamped down, and sent jolts of sensation pinging all through her body. “Yes.”
“You like that?”
The plug he’d used on her previously had been sexy, awakened nerves she hadn’t realized she possessed. But his fingers, with their warm skin and gliding movements, were something else altogether.
She nodded. “More. Please.”
Logan leaned across her back to whisper in her ear, “Like this?”
Then he withdrew completely, only to enter her ass again with two fingers, scissoring them apart, stretching her. This time, her body clenched, her skin burning. The utter intimacy of the act, as if he found every part of her worthy of attention, as if he loved and accepted every part of her and wanted to claim her wholly, encouraged her to take a deep breath, relax, and give him everything he wanted.
“Yes!” she cried out.
His fingers dug into her hip. “Even now I can see your fair skin flushing, baby. There’s nothing more beautiful than your acceptance. Can you take more?”
For him, she could take anything. If it pleased him, if it brought them closer together, she’d endure anything.
But this electric touch lighting up her whole body told her this wouldn’t be something she’d have to bear through, but a sizzling pleasure she could only hope to survive.