Guardian of the Heart Read online

  “A what?”

  “Late birth. Unexpected.”

  “Seems to make you all the more special in their eyes.”

  Noreen decided that Xavier was a pretty astute observer.

  “I’m guessing they can tell I’m thinking pretty much the same thing about you. Probably the only reason they didn’t haul out the rifles, yet.”

  “What are you doing to me, Xavier?” Noreen rested her head against his shoulder.

  He was silent for a long time. She was content to just stand by him and watch the night.

  The house lights blinked off one by one. Mama hadn’t even suggested moving the kids around to make a guest room. She and Xavier had never slept together and now her family just assumed they would be.

  In Balad it would have been much…simpler. Meet at the shuttered USO. Get some glorious sexual relief and have a shared secret that would cheer them both up until the next time. With Xavier she had no doubt about the sex being good enough that there’d be a next time.

  Now it was all confused. She’d never had a boy in her bedroom. She’d been caught in more than one neighbor’s hayloft, but never in her own home. They were going to sleep together, but now it meant so much more that…

  “Maybe we could just stand out here all night.”

  Xavier soft chuckle made her relax a little. “Sudden case of nerves?”

  “Not about you,” and it was true. “But about you in my family home with my family knowing…yeah. That’s being a bit of a stretch.”

  “We’re on a farm. In the movies that means a hayloft.”

  “No cattle or horses, so no hayloft.” Had he been reading her mind?

  “There goes my James Bond fantasy moment.”

  “Well, you’re just going to have to replace it with something else, I guess.” No real surprise that Xavier would be thinking about Mr. Smooth tumbling the sexy, busty Honor Blackman in a pile of hay in Goldfinger.

  “How about this for an even better fantasy?” And he pulled her through a half turn until her chest was pressed up against his arm in the sling and bent down to kiss her.

  It wasn’t with the fiery need like at the USO, or the stolen moment while stocking the helo. Oh, the need was there. She could feel it vibrating through her fingertips where they’d landed on his chest. An electrical conduction between their nervous systems that hit like a full milligram jolt of adrenaline—enough to restart her heart even though it was already racing.

  But Xavier was right about one thing, his kiss was straight out of a fantasy.

  More caress than kiss.

  Nobody kissed her that way, nor did she them. Kisses were the prelude to sex—or at least to teasing about sex. Or about teasing period, when there wasn’t a chance there was going to be sex.

  Xavier wrapped one big arm around her and held her close. Her instincts and her past experience were in a rush, but her body was content to do little more than relax like a sigh as his lips trailed down her neck.

  Xavier wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure. Noreen, that he really did understand where her nerves were coming from—this being her family home and all. Or himself, that he couldn’t want a woman this much and it wasn’t somehow wrong.

  He tried to lift his other arm around her because he wanted, he needed to hold her close. Somehow this fantasy moment might slip away and he wanted to hold on as hard as possible.

  But the strap on his sling caught Noreen under the chin and elicited a “Gurk!” of harsh reality.

  “Sorry.”

  “Talk about breaking the mood, Xavier.”

  He started to remove the sling and she slapped at his hand.

  “Do not do that. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Shit, woman. Are you telling me we aren’t going to do this until my shoulder heals? Don’t like the sound of that none.”

  “No. I’m telling you that you keep your goddamned arm in the sling.”

  Reaching for her in the dark, this time he caught a handful of breast. Not what he was aiming for, but on Noreen, that was a very good thing and he wasn’t about to let go. Palm to her breast, he curled his fingers under her arm and this time she ended up with her back pressed against his front.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. He could feel himself nestling right into the curve of her lower back and the heat shot through him.

  “Umm…” she eased away.

  “Shit!” It was all getting awkward as hell and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  Noreen took his hand from her breast, but she didn’t let go. Instead, she led him through the darkness, up the porch steps, and into the now silent house.

  The stairs creaked loudly as they snuck up them, still holding hands. At the far end of a short hall, she opened a door and warned him to duck.

  It was a good thing she did. When she turned on the light, it revealed a low bedroom tucked under the eaves. She could stand up in most of it without a problem, his head kept brushing the ceiling. Half-height closets were built into the lowest part of the room and the rest was dominated by a big bed. Not a king size, but plenty big for them to do what he wanted to do—if he wasn’t injured.

  The paint was a warm yellow, the rug worn, and a big quilt covered the bed in crazy patches of color. Into each patch—with edges that were anything but straight—were sewn diagrams that must be farm life. Ears of corn, a tractor, a bundle of wheat, and a hundred other images that all looked…farmy. The pieces were held together by crazy stitching, the same color yellow as the walls, but that looked different in every seam.

  This was…a cozy bedroom.

  Cozy.

  His bedroom at Fort Benning had been a barracks. In Prichard, he slept in a car as often as on someone’s ratted out sofa. And his childhood bedroom had been snipped right out of Architectural Digest—no mess allowed. Ever. A sock on his own floor could get him grounded. His very first memory was being told not to mess up his room.

  “I—” even whispering, his voice sounded strange here and it forced him to silence.

  Then he remembered that Larry had said his little sister never brought home a boyfriend.

  He forgot how to breathe.

  She started to undo his sling. Her hands, dancing so close to his arm—he shifted back a step and bumped up against a low dresser. That had him startling forward like some damned pinball and he knocked his head against the ceiling lamp. He turned for the door and snagged a foot in the heavy throw rug, a giant oval spiral in grays, reds, and browns.

  Everything spoke of her cozy refuge. Her belonging.

  But not him.

  Noreen’s hand on his arm stopped him from floundering into the wall and waking the whole house.

  Women were easy. If they were willing, a good feel, some hot kissing, and a hard bang at the end.

  Women were easy… Noreen was not. Here everything meant something.

  First boyfriend she’s ever brought home.

  The little white chick—uh, Connie—warning him with those serious eyes.

  Noreen needs an anchor. So be that.

  He turned back to face her surroundings. This room filled with family history and a childhood. An aged, and much loved red-and-white bunny rabbit perched in the place of honor on the tiny nightstand. Pictures of birds on the walls.

  The homey quilt.

  Xavier managed to open his mouth, but couldn’t think of what do with it once he had.

  He finally turned back toward Noreen. He’d apologize, make some excuse, and go sleep in the barn even if there wasn’t any hay.

  But she—

  “Holy crap!”

  “Keep your voice down,” she whispered as she tossed aside her t-shirt and bra.

  Xavier just stared. It sent a flush of heat to her cheeks, but Noreen ignored that. His eyes wide, he stared like he wanted to devour her.

  “I can’t take your weight if I’m on my back—I’m still too sore. And you can’t hold yourself up with your bad arm. So I hope you don’t mind if I’m on top.” E
ven after she’d shed her sneakers and socks, he only stared.

  Occasionally his eyes traveled down her body, but for the most part he was just watching her all at once, from head to toes.

  “Are you planning to get undressed?”

  “I…dunno,” Xavier kept his voice down this time, but it was so deep that it still seemed to vibrate through her and echo about the room.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this room is being exposed to perfection at the moment. Me getting naked is gonna be a major downgrade.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” she eased off his sling, then pushed him to sit on the bed so that she could pull off his t-shirt without hurting him. Most guys just stared at her breasts and said how great they were. But though Xavier certainly looked at them, he spent more time looking at her face.

  It was strange undressing him. He was as passive as an unconscious patient, letting her do what was needed. But she wasn’t exposing a wound for treatment. Without his t-shirt, Xavier’s powerful chest and arms were on full display. He looked like he could move mountains. And he was vibrantly conscious, his big muscles rippling beneath that luscious skin with every motion.

  “Uh,” the impact of his half-naked presence was so strong she wasn’t so sure of herself.

  She’d yanked off her own t-shirt and bra in an attempt to make this just about sex. But Xavier hadn’t gone there.

  So she’d try again. Stripping off his pants would definitely change the focus to the physical. But before she could even undo his belt, he snagged her around the waist with his good arm and hauled them together. Forcing her to straddle his lap. Hard enough to knock half the air out of her lungs.

  The other half went away at the sensation of her bare chest against his.

  Even using only one arm, he held her so tightly that she could barely breathe.

  “You sure about this, Noreen?” he whispered in her ear. “Really sure? This is your home, your family, your bedroom. I’ve slept on plenty of couches before.”

  “Since when did you turn out to be such a decent guy?”

  “Alien abduction? Maybe they reprogrammed my brain while neither of us was watching. Those docs in Balad? Maybe they did some shit to me, ’cause it sure doesn’t sound like me to be holding the most beautiful woman to ever come my way and then offer her a way out.”

  “It doesn’t sound like me to bring a man into my family’s home. But if you keep running your hand up and down my back like that, you’re going to convince me it was a good idea.”

  He did it again, from the base of her spine, all the way up in one long stroke, over her shoulders, up into her hair, and back down. His hand was so big that it seemed to cover the whole width of her back.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, lay her head on his shoulder, and gave in to the sensation as he eased still-sore muscles with his gentle caress. When he scooped his hand over her jeans, he was gentle enough that her injured behind didn’t even twinge.

  The entire rest of their first time making love felt just like that.

  Xavier didn’t treat her as if she was fragile, but he never forgot about her humiliating tailbone injury, instead using his hands around her waist to pull them together.

  She’d been right that sex with Xavier would be well worth repeating. What she hadn’t been right about was how incredible it would actually be.

  Rough, fun, filled with friendly wrestling and powerful urges. Like Parkour in a bed: athletic, unpredictable, halfway to flying.

  It was none of those.

  Instead it was gentle, without being soft. It was potent, without being forceful.

  And when she finally sheathed him and they came together, it was completely overwhelming.

  Taking all of Xavier’s length into her body wasn’t merely about the physical sensation of an arousal greater than any she’d ever felt. It was about a body-spanning sensation of being filled: as if the rest of her became complete in that moment.

  Noreen could only look down at him in wonder as her nervous system flashed overload warnings all up and down her body. Splendid, pounding, glorious sensations fired through every corner of her autonomic and somatic nervous systems until they peaked in a series of jumbled noise. A flash brighter than the explosion that had blown her through the air. So bright, she had to close her eyes or be made blind.

  She floated as nerve endings fired in random clusters, unable to communicate so much pleasure coherently.

  Some infinite time later, she returned to her body enough to realize they were far from done.

  Another section of her nervous system—she couldn’t remember which part—that base level of instinctive animal, rocked her hips to coax more from the man so deep within her. That in turn sent more happy endorphins shooting up her body.

  Never, in all of the med classes necessary to be a CSAR medic, had she so clearly understood what her body was capable of doing.

  Of feeling.

  Of wanting.

  Because, oh god, did she ever want in this moment.

  Xavier’s release did not free her from this awareness, it freed her from all awareness until she merely floated on the waves coursing through her body. Through their body—they were clearly one. Never had she felt so connected to anyone or anything, not even herself, as she was to the oneness that was them.

  Xavier wasn’t sure if aliens really had gotten to him.

  Women were for sex. It was that simple. He’d proven it time and again. Sometimes it was really good sex and they’d stick around each other as long as it stayed that way…days, weeks, a couple of times for months. There was one that lasted almost a year—he might have married her if she hadn’t demanded he leave the Army as part of it. The sex with Feleysa had been good, but it wasn’t that kind of good.

  It was all just sex.

  Until now.

  Noreen Wallace, in her childhood bedroom, didn’t have a single thing to do with sex—at least not how he’d ever understood it.

  His body had released into her so hard that it would have been painful if it hadn’t felt so good. She’d done something, he’d be damned if he knew what, that was way outside his experience—and he’d thought he’d had a world of experience. This Oklahoma farm girl had just showed him how he was an idiot.

  There was some other level of shit going on though, even if he couldn’t pin it down.

  Being with Noreen wasn’t merely more powerful than anything in his past. It was more…important. Lame-ass word, but it was the best he had.

  When he finally could focus, he looked up at her. Arched over him like she was the maiden on the bow of some old ship, her breasts stood out prominently, bold and ready to go. Her long neck, which he was starting to think just might be the best feature of her spectacular body, rose in a slender arch. And her face was frozen in a conflict of emotions that looked much like the pain-and-pleasure that had wracked through him moments ago.

  She wasn’t breathing, just holding the pose in a fiercely tight clench that went all the way down to where he was buried in her.

  A short, hard gasp shook her body. Then another. Each sent a shockwave down to where she kept her hips pressed tightly against his.

  Then between one moment and the next, she collapsed down onto his chest and groaned softly.

  “What did you just do to me, Xavier?”

  He kissed the top of her head, “Dunno. But I sure hope that we can figure out how to do that again.”

  “Maybe,” her voice was shaky as she raised her head enough to plant a kiss in the middle of his chest before dropping her head back down. “But maybe I’ll never recover from that. If so, then we’ll just have to remember how you overloaded my nervous system one day and I could never fix it.”

  Xavier had learned it was a good idea—especially if he wanted future sex—to confirm that it had been good sex for her as well. He liked that Noreen didn’t make him ask the question which sometimes got awkward or false answers that he could never figure out what to
do with.

  Except this had nothing to do with sex.

  It was like all that physical pleasure was just the sidewalk. He was on some main road, in a carjacked Porsche, headed full speed to… He had no idea where.

  What had he done to her?

  Shit, woman!

  What had she done to him?

  He seriously didn’t know, but whatever it was, one thing was clear.

  No way in hell was Xavier Jones ever letting go of this woman.

  He wrapped his good arm around her, hugged her just hard enough to elicit a happy squeak, then let the very long day, the great sex, and all of the emotions he didn’t understand pound him into sleep.

  Chapter 8

  Wake-up sex had never been a priority for Noreen, that was more of a guy thing. But slowly climbing to consciousness all wrapped up in a big, powerful lover, it shot straight to the top of her list.

  Teasing him awake had been fun. His arousal was most of the way to full before he’d become conscious enough to be aware of it.

  “Shit! Thought I was dreaming.”

  She’d then done her best to show him that he was.

  Now Noreen sat on her doughnut-shaped pillow and smiled down into her oatmeal at the breakfast table. Dreamy ran through her body like it was never going away. Being back in the family kitchen only added to it. The old fake brick linoleum had been replaced with new fake brick linoleum. The cupboards were worn with age and clean with care. It was dominated by the big table that saw every meal, a thousand childhood projects, and far more laughter than tears.

  “Morning,” Connie sat down next to her with her own oatmeal.

  “You make it the same way Grumps did,” and Noreen felt the pain of her grandfather’s death all over again. Grumps’ last night had been the day Noreen graduated ROTC and was made an officer in the Army. Five years that had passed too quickly.

  Connie nodded. “I only knew him for those last few days, but I always do it this way so that I remember him.” Finely diced apple cooked in, a drizzle of maple syrup on top, and three dried apricots slivered and sprinkled in for “zing”.

  “Did you tell them your news last night?” Noreen needed a subject change.