A Few Good Men. Tori Carrington

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СКАЧАТЬ fed him, which could or could not have been the truth. He’d look at female marines and wonder, when any of them bore the same physical traits. Take in women who passed during shore leave and contemplate any possible similarities. So sitting there in his car now, he didn’t experience disappointment. If anything, seeing her in person, despite the truth of her identity, merely made him want her more.

      He started to pull the handle to get out of the car, unsure of what he might say or do when he came face-to-face with her, but sure that he had to do something.

      Instead, he watched as Sara exited the house again, this time wearing sneakers and a USMC sweatshirt, patting a panting golden retriever before jogging down the block in the opposite direction.

      Eric waited until she was out of sight and then scrubbed his hands against his face. What in the hell was he doing?

      He didn’t have clue. But what ever it was, he had to do it now. Fast. Before he was faced with another sleepless, endless night that was worse than anything he’d experienced except during a lull on the battlefield…

      THE BEACH WAS ALMOST empty, a person here and there apparently out for the same reason Sara was, to enjoy the unseasonably warm evening and take in the sun setting in the west. She tossed a piece of driftwood and Truman took off after it, leaving her to stare out into the dark horizon of the Atlantic. Waves crashed against the shore, the roar drowning out most of her own thoughts and spraying the hem of her jeans with salt water. Truman brought the stick back and she bent to pet him, talking to the only male who had shared her bed in the past eighteen months.

      “Good boy.” She scratched him under the chin and then raised the wood above her head. He barked, ran a couple of feet, and then turned back and barked again, ready for the next round.

      It was getting dark fast, the sun already having sunk below the fence of stout buildings lining the beach. The instant it did, the air seemed ten degrees cooler. She threw the wood and then pulled the sleeves of her sweat-shirt down to cover her hands and crossed her arms.

      She’d long ago forced herself not to think about how many times she and Andy had walked this same stretch of beach, in the beginning alone and arm in arm as a couple, then later with Truman. She’d come to under-stand that if she stopped doing everything that they used to do together, then she would stay locked up in the house and do nothing at all.

      She squinted into the growing dusk, trying to make out Truman in the distance. She hadn’t thrown the stick that far, had she?

      There. There he was. Standing by the dunes some hundred feet up, his tail wagging a million miles a minute. She moved closer, thinking he might have found a bird’s nest or a crab or other small animal.

      Then she saw him.

      The man in fatigues who was crouched down petting the retriever.

      Sara’s heart hiccupped in her chest.

      Andy…

      How many times had she dreamed scenes like this? Of Andy popping back up into her life as if he’d never been gone? As if he’d never shipped out to serve first in Afghanistan and then later in Iraq? Too many to count. But none of them had ever been this vivid. This real.

      The man spotted her and gave Truman a final pat before rising to his feet. The heart that had hiccupped now surged up into her throat, threatening to choke her. She wasn’t losing her mind. There was a man there. A man in fatigues. But it wasn’t Andy. On closer inspection, he looked nothing like her late husband.

      Where Andy had been short and stocky, this man was tall and lean, although no less powerful. Where Andy had had blond hair, this man’s close-cropped cut was dark. Where Andy had always been ready with a smile, this man had frown lines etched deep into his striking face.

      Sara’s footsteps slowed and then stopped altogether three feet from him, shimmering need pooling low in her stomach.

      “Hi, Sara,” Eric Armstrong said, the greeting nearly lost in the sound of the surf. “Or should I say Samantha?”

      Chapter 3

      ERIC STOOD STOCK-STILL, staring into Sara’s confused face, watching emotions slide like clouds across the setting sun. When she hadn’t immediately returned to her house, he’d shadowed her footsteps, following her to the beach. There, he’d found her hugging her arms around her slender body, looking so small against the endless sea that he wanted to encircle her with his own arms.

      Now, her lips popped open, as if needing to say something, but without the words to say it.

      God, he’d never really realized how tantalizing her mouth was before. How downright naughty. Her lips were provocatively full, the upper larger than the lower. He couldn’t seem to drag his gaze from them, wanting to trace the lines with his tongue.

      The minute he’d come face-to-face with Sara, she’d stopped being merely “Samantha” or Andy’s widow…she’d become a woman to whom he felt an irresistible attachment. With whom he’d joined virtual hands when he’d most desperately needed human touch.

      The waves crashing against the beach mimicked the need surging within him.

      “Eric…”

      The wind snatched the softly said name from her even as he leaned forward to claim what it seemed he’d been waiting his entire life to have.

      Her lips were moist and cool, the tang of seawater only adding to their appeal. Eric groaned and curved his hand around to the back of her neck, pulling her closer, demanding a deeper meeting. Sara complied, parting her lips to allow him to plunder the depths of her mouth with his tongue.

      It was both the greatest pleasure he’d ever known and the greatest torture. He wanted to follow the desire in him to its natural conclusion, to fulfill all that he’d dreamed about over the past six months, the thoughts of which had kept him alive, and claim Sara body and soul right there on the beach. But he couldn’t. Not because it was a public place and the act would be behavior unbecoming, but because while he tasted the sea on her lips, he became aware of the tang of salt from another source: her tears.

      Eric groaned and broke contact, drawing her into his arms instead. She snaked her hands so that they grasped his shoulders from behind, her face tucked into his chest.

      “God, oh, God, Eric…I’m so, so sorry. This…you and me…” She drew back.

      He marveled at the dampness in her eyes glistening like the stars beginning to emerge on the eastern horizon. “I should never have contacted you. Should never have let things get out of hand…”

      “Shh. We don’t have to talk about that now.” Eric found it impossible to swallow past the dryness of his throat. “I just want…need to hold you right now. Please. Just for a little while.”

      Her response was instant and complete. She burrowed further into his chest, her hip resting against his arousal. Eric closed his eyes and rested his chin on the top of her sweet-smelling head. In that one moment, he knew that if the option were offered him, he’d sell his soul to the devil in order to remain like this with Sara forever.

      AN HOUR LATER BACK at her house, Sara felt as if she was violating some sort of unwritten code. Against her better judgment, she’d invited Eric in. He now sat in the old wood rocker next to the cold fireplace, holding a beer in his hands, the chair looking СКАЧАТЬ