Book of the Month: CARRY ME HOME
#bookofthemonth #carrymehome #jessicascott #cominghomeseries
CHAPTER SIX
They walked back to the lodge, the heat between them chilling the closer they got to warmth, to reality. They stepped into a puddle of artificial light from the overhead lights. Claire looked up at Evan, seeing him, the man, not the officer. “Did you really try to change Danvers’ mind?”
“I was leading up to it,” he admitted quietly.
It was such a simple declaration, but there was so much more running beneath it. Something Claire had never seen before: a crack in the cold steel façade of Captain America.
A slithering thing traced down her spine, a fierce whisper that she did not know this man at all. The man she thought she knew? She did not like that man. The polished army brass who was never faced with the choices that those at the bottom of the heap had to make every single day. But this man, standing before her? This man who admitted that he’d tried to help her change a commander’s mind? This man was complicated and conflicted. He disagreed with her but he’d gone to Colonel Danvers to try and change his plan. It was an act of faith.
Of trust.
And it spoke of something new between them: a revelation and a declaration not of war but of dark and sensual promise.
Tempting her to break the one rule she’d relied upon since learning a brutal lesson about trusting the wrong people.
They walked in silence through the foyer and down the hallway, Claire’s thoughts racing about the choice she was about to make. She wanted to turn away, to shield herself from the dark emotions he inspired in her but instead, she opened the door to her room, terrified of what she was about to do. He followed her in and the quiet sound of the door closing behind them might as well have been the clang of a vault.
She smiled as a warmth slid through her as they both stripped off their wet jackets. He stood a little too close, the heat from his body penetrating her workout clothing. She shivered and his eyes swept down her body, then back up to collide with hers. A hot bolt of desire sparked through her blood, chasing away the chill.
Evan moved in front of her, his chest skimming against hers. It was the expectation in his eyes that destroyed the last of her barriers. “What is this, Claire? Between us?”
“A mistake?” she said honestly, looking up into his eyes. “I don’t know.” She pressed her lips together, struggling not to say the wrong thing.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, then caressed its way back up to her eyes. He lifted his hands, gently resting them at the base of her throat. A light touch. Hesitant. “I want . . .”
His eyes went from brown to black in an instant, his big body stilling. His throat moved as he swallowed roughly. He cupped her cheek with one hand. His palm was solid and strong, the thumb he stroked over her bottom lip was callused and rough. She flicked her tongue out, tracing the lines of his fingerprint, and she heard his quick hiss of breath.
“What?” she whispered. “What do you want?”
She licked her bottom lip, wondering just how far she could push him. Wondering if she herself dared to step off the edge of sanity and into the depths of pleasure that his gaze promised.
“You.” His fingers twitched against her throat, caressing the line of her neck. “I—”
She smiled then, her fingers resting on his sides. Lightly. Unsure whether to tease or tempt. She brushed her lips over his. “Say the words, Evan. Say ‘I want you.’”
Neither of them moved for the longest moment. They stood, Evan’s palm cupping her cheek, his thumb stroking her lip and a slow burn building in the seat of her soul. His nostrils flared and she felt rather than heard his breathing grow rough.
“Do you always have to be in control?” she whispered. Her breath failed to fill her starved lungs. Anticipation bloomed inside of her.
“Claire—” Her name, a barely restrained desire.
It was enough.
She closed the space between them. His thumb caressed her lips as she opened herself to him, her tongue slipping inside his mouth. All the tastes and textures were him and she didn’t realize until this moment just how much she’d wanted this.
How much she’d wanted him. His arms wrapped around her, his palm stroking the space between her shoulder blades as she kissed him. Here was power and strength. Desire and sensual heat all mixed together with the lingering pain of old wounds.
She slipped her hands beneath his shirt, her palms flat against the smooth muscles of his back. He stiffened beneath her touch and in that moment, realization dawned on her.
He didn’t have nearly as much control as he wanted her to think.
She lifted the hem of his shirt, just a little, dragging one nail along the edge of his pants. Across the small of his back. He shivered but didn’t move. His hands clenched at his sides, a fierce restraint, his breath shallow and quick. She flattened her palms against his back, sliding them up against the raw silk of his skin, dragging his shirt higher and leaning back to take in the pure masculine beauty of his body.
She froze at what she had revealed. Holding her breath, she pushed the shirt over his shoulders until he finally reached down and tugged it the final distance over his head.
He stood stiff and straight for her inspection. His eyes were closed, his shoulders rigid, his head bowed, his breath harsh and ragged.
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Captain America?” she murmured.
Tentatively, she reached out, tracing the gnarled roots of an old oak tree, tattooed in black at the base of his rib cage. It curled and twisted over his left deltoid, the black, gothic branches spreading over his shoulder and halfway down his bicep and the left side of his chest.
This was not a tattoo that someone did for fun. This was a memorial. This was pain. A wicked, vicious inscription carved into his flesh.
In the middle of the tree, a faded pink scar ripped through indecipherable writing. “What is this?” she whispered, tracing the lines over his back with the tip of her index finger.
“My sister. It’s a tribute to my sister.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard.
“What about the scar?” she whispered.
“When the TOC got blown up, a ricochet from the mortar blast tore off her name. I’ve been waiting for it to heal enough to get it fixed.”
Claire couldn’t speak past the block in her throat. This was more than just a flesh wound.
She’d never dreamed that Captain America—that Evan—had experienced such a loss. The depth of his pain was written all over his body. She stood near his shoulder and met his gaze, looking past the constrained façade to the torment beneath. Then slowly, slowly, she traced the black branch twisting over his biceps with the tip of her tongue.
His lips parted, the only visible reaction to the intense sensation of her mouth on him. He held his breath as she tasted the black branches covering his shoulder.
A tribute. She pressed her lips to the scar at the center of his shoulder. She wanted to ask about his sister, wanted to know more about a man who would mark his body permanently for someone else. It was the kind of thing she would have done when she was young and stupid. She pressed her lips to his shoulder, felt his muscles jump beneath her kiss. For a brief moment, she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, pressing her cheek to the black lines covering his back, wondering at the boy he had been. At the pain that carved that boy into the man before her.
For once, the silence between them was empty of blame and hurt. Claire was moored to the spot, filled with a warmth that nearly overwhelmed her. Desire burned low and deep in her belly, but now there was more—the connection of shared loss.
He’d shared at least part of the loss that had shaped him into the man she held in her arms. But would he accept the losses that had shaped her?
She didn’t know. And her inability to trust in this fragile connection between them nearly broke her heart.
* * *
There was no reason for him to be standing in the middle of her room. He could have turned out the lights, hiding the tattoo. There was no reason for him to have shown her the ragged memory he’d carved into his body as both penance and tribute.
He wrapped his hands around hers, which were folded against his abdomen. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t see the questions or the judgment there. Would she look at him and know he was a killer long before the army had pinned a rank on his chest and placed a weapon in his hand?
She called him Captain America. Claire looked at him and saw the man he’d forced himself to become after a single reckless night had driven him away from the home he’d once loved.
It terrified him how easily he’d handed her the power to crush him. A hundred thousand things tumbled through him, twisting and writhing, refusing to be locked down again. Never had a lover taken the time to do something so incredibly erotic and so touching all at once.
Claire shifted until she stood in front of him. She pressed her lips to his collarbone, at the edge of a single, twisted black branch. “How did she die?” Claire’s whispered question pierced the silence. The thin veil of Evan’s control vibrated like a wall of heat rising from the pavement in August.
He shifted then, lifting one arm over her shoulder to cradle the back of her neck, struggling to find the words that were not a lie. “Car accident.” He released a shuddering breath. In the thirteen years since his sister had died, he’d never told anyone the full truth of what had happened. “She was sixteen.”
Her palm flattened over the scar where his sister’s name had been, her arms a warm and comforting embrace. Even thinking about it caused the ache in his soul to pound against his veins. “How old were you?” she whispered.
He tipped her head back until he could look into her eyes. They stood, their bodies separated by clothing and heat, the scar on his back a brand. He’d never had a lover ask about him. About his tattoo? Yes. About his little sister? That too.
Maybe it said something about the partners he’d chosen. But before this moment, he’d never wanted to explain about the sister he’d killed, the parents he’d let drift away because it was easier to ignore his pain than face it every time he looked into their eyes, eyes that reminded him so much of Casey. It was easier to turn away from their crushing blame.
“Seventeen.” His breath shuddered from his body. Her fingers curled against the scar, her nails a light pressure on his skin.
Claire said nothing, but Evan met her searching gaze. He stood beneath her scrutiny, his soul open and bared, and he waited. For pity. For some pithy comment. For anything to shatter the moment, giving him a reason to leave. Claire was not the only one running from what she’d been, he thought ruefully.
Instead, she simply leaned into him and kissed him. Her tongue slid against his, a warm, welcome caress, saying so much without words. He surrendered to her touch, to the sweet taste of her mouth, and for the first time in his life, he dared to want something without the overwhelming need to control it.
She pulled away for a moment and looked him in the eyes. Her palms gently cupped his face. “I’m sorry that you lost her,” she whispered.
He lowered his face to her neck and said nothing. He couldn’t speak. His throat closed off, his voice crushed beneath a wave of grief that was so strong it threatened to cut off his air supply. “Me, too.”
It was all he could manage.
Somehow, it was enough.
* * *
Evan’s arms were tight and strong around her. Claire simply stood in his embrace, resting her cheek against the solid muscle of his chest, the lines of his tattoo burning into her skin.
She had not felt a man’s arms around her in . . . forever. The simplicity of the embrace unnerved her and unlocked a craving for so much more than she’d ever allowed herself to feel. It terrified her, the depth of the want inside her.
An eternity passed, but the weight of the silence between them felt warm for once, a comfort instead of a frigid chill.
Their breathing was the only sound, pulsing with the solid, steady beating of Evan’s heart beneath her cheek. The tenderness, the quiet connection with a man who held so much loss inside him. She knew loss. She’d simply never thought that someone as polished and rigid as Evan had lived through something so soul-crushingly sad.
In the silence, a quiet beeping interrupted their requiem. He shifted then and lifted his head as she pulled her wrist around to glance at her watch. “We’ve got to go soon,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” He stepped away from her then and she watched his body twist and flex as he pulled his shirt back on. He tucked it into his belt, his eyes dark and watchful. “Claire?”
“Hmm?” She could find no other words.
He stepped close, tracing his fingers over her cheek. “This would have been a mistake.”
She flinched, pulling away from his touch, the unexpected bite of his words. His fingers snapped to the back of her neck, halting her retreat. “It would have been mistake I would have enjoyed making,” he finished.
Her mouth went dry, her heart beating in time with the echo of his words as they penetrated the shields around her soul. She let him go, because anything else would have shattered the remnants of self-preservation to which she was so valiantly clinging. The door closed softly behind him. Too late for him to hear her whispered response.
“Me, too.”
ONE CLICK CARRY ME HOME TODAY…
APPLE BOOKS | BARNES & NOBLE | AMAZON | KOBO | GOOGLE PLAY | JESS’S BOOKSTORE
