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BECAUSE OF YOU CHAPTER 2
Shane sighed and looked out over the crowd, checking on each of his soldiers. He felt the little blonde shift against him and he leaned down so she wouldn’t have to shout.
There was something hot about the way she tried to keep her distance, like she thought he might bite.
‘You’ve known Trent a long time?’
Shane nodded, inhaling the clean scent of her hair as he leaned toward her again. ‘We were privates together in Germany.’ He looked into his beer. ‘Man, it’s been almost twelve years. He’s my commander now.’
He enjoyed leaning close to her ear. She had adorable earlobes and man, he was pathetic. He wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, let alone talking to a beautiful woman, and he was going to blow it by being melodramatic and staring at her earlobes like a psycho.
Laura and Trent embraced in the center of the dance floor, slow dancing to Lonestar, and a pang of longing stabbed him in the heart. He had never had that kind of closeness with his wife. Laura and Trent looked like they’d been made for each other, they always had. What did that kind of trust and comfort feel like?
‘Isn’t that weird with him being your boss now?’
Shane shook his head. ‘Not really. I don’t put him in a position to make it awkward.’
She raised her beer to her mouth, and his body tightened as her lips circled the green tip of the bottle. A bolt of clean, pure desire shot through him. He was no warrior monk by any stretch of the imagination, but watching her struck something different inside of him. Something he thought he’d shut down and buried long ago.
She smiled up at him. ‘That’s nice of you.’
‘Nice is not exactly how most of my men would describe me.’ He snorted, taking a sip of his beer. So far, he’d managed to nurse his one beer quite well as the party went on around him. He didn’t need to get distracted, no matter how sexy the distraction.
She leaned in and her breath brushed against his ear, stroking the skin of his neck. ‘Why would you say you’re not nice?’
‘I’m an infantry platoon sergeant. I say jump, my guys jump; they don’t even ask where or how high. That doesn’t equal nice.’ He sucked in a deep breath and found himself wishing he’d had more practice being, well, nice.
‘I think you’re being too hard on yourself.’ She turned and set her now empty beer bottle on the bar. ‘I’m going to run to the bathroom. Can you tell Laura if she comes back before I do?’
‘Don’t females usually travel in packs to do that?’
‘I’m a big girl.’
He watched her go, his blood singing with curiosity and something else. Just then, an elbow jabbed into his ribs, slamming right into the stitches he was doing his best to ignore. He didn’t have to guess who the elbow was attached to.
‘Will you cut that out?’
‘Who is that and why are you mooning over her?’ Carponti’s speech was a little too smooth to be considered sober.
‘I’m not mooning over anyone.’
Carponti snapped to the position of parade rest, slapping his hands together at the small of his back and spreading his feet. He swayed a little from the force of the movement. ‘Roger, Sergeant. My mistake.’
‘Knock it off, asshole. I thought you were trying to have a good time tonight?’
‘I am. I’m screwing with you, my number one pastime, Sarn’t G.’
Shane narrowed his eyes and studied Carponti, trying to decide if he was hammered. Anyone who’d been in the army for a hot second used the shortened sarn’t instead of fully pronouncing sergeant. He’d said it the right way, and without slurring, but that didn’t mean Shane’s suspicions about his level of intoxication were laid to rest.
Shane looked skyward, praying for a small dose of patience. Regardless of Carponti’s smart-ass ways, he was a damn fine infantryman. If he could ever get him to stop screwing off, he’d be one hell of a master gunner. But passing that course required studying and Carponti adamantly insisted he’d joined the army to avoid anything remotely associated with school.
‘Where’s Nikki?’ Shane asked, turning the conversation away from himself.
‘The little girls’ room.’ Carponti gestured toward the end of the bar, the same direction in which Jen had just disappeared.
Shane glanced over and his stomach tightened when he saw the one person who was more of a pain in the ass than Carponti could ever dream of being. Lieutenant Jason Randall a thick-necked full bird colonel’s son looked like he was lecturing one of Carponti’s boys near the latrine. Seeing it, too, Carponti stiffened. ‘Looks like Randall has his fan club with him,’ he said.
Shane shifted to get a better look at Randall’s companions. ‘Isn’t that the female clerk we’ve got in the motor pool now?’
‘Yep.’
‘Wonderful. She’s one of the few women serving in a maneuver unit and Randall is already leading her down the path of self-destruction. He should know better than to hang out with enlisted.’
‘Pot meet kettle.’
‘I’m not a private and I knew Trent before he ever became an officer.’
‘Whatever. I don’t care what he does or who he does it with.’ Carponti took a pull from his beer, then set it roughly on the bar. ‘Things are getting a little rough in here. I’m going to go over there to grab Nikki.’
‘I’ll go with you.’ Shane finished his beer, following Carponti into the crowd, not so much to watch his back, but to keep his sergeant from starting any fights. Lieutenant Randall had a small group of soldiers including the new clerk who treated him like a god. Shane suspected it was because Randall’s father was a brigade commander up at Fort Carson. No one in Shane’s platoon was in Randall’s fan club, but that didn’t mean Shane could give Carponti a pass if he hit him. Lieutenant Randall frequently assumed that Daddy’s rank translated into Randall’s authority. Add in the fact that he didn’t listen to anyone, and that made him not only a dickhead, but a dangerous one. Officers like Randall got people killed.
Literally.
And the soldier Randall was currently chewing out belonged to Carponti, which meant he belonged to Shane.
Shane was determined that Randall was not going to ruin his boys’ last night in the States, whatever it took. He just hoped Carponti wasn’t as drunk as he appeared to be, because otherwise tonight just might turn into the fiasco Shane had feared one he would
have to explain the following morning. He waded into the crowd and started coming up with a good story for the sergeant major.
Well, Sarn’t Major, what happened was . . .
* * *
Jen stood in front of the mirror, studying her profile. She tugged at her blouse, and then squared her shoulders, seeing a full, equal-shaped silhouette. Why couldn’t she get used to it? She reached behind her to adjust the band around her ribs.
‘Will you stop?’ Laura said, stepping out of a bathroom stall. She moved to the sink to wash her hands. So much for going to the bathroom alone. And damn it, she’d gotten busted adjusting the form. Again. ‘You look great and the only one who doesn’t seem to know that is you.’
‘I can tell.’
‘Knock it off and have another beer, will you?’ Laura reached for her, like she was going to plump her breasts together. Jen dodged with a horrified laugh, but ended up stumbling into someone else. Someone else turned out to be a beautiful strawberry blonde with brown mascara smeared beneath her eyes.
‘Sorry!’
‘Nicole,’ Laura said at the same time. ‘Honey, what’s wrong? Carponti hasn’t been arrested again, has he?’
‘Not if I have anything to say about it. If he costs me my job interview at CID, I’ll kill him.’ Nicole offered a watery smile. ‘I just hate that he’s leaving again.’
Jen bit her lip, unsure of what to say or how to act. Surrounded by army wives, she was seeing a sadness that was usually hidden behind smiling masks. She felt like she’d been granted access to a secret world, a special world filled with women like Laura, who spent as much time as single parents and deployment widows as they did with their soldiers. There was a deep discomfort in her as she watched Laura help Nicole repair her makeup, complete with emergency concealer and mascara.
‘He’ll never know you’ve been crying,’ Laura said, dropping the small cosmetics bag back into her purse. ‘We’ll get together with the rest of the family readiness group. Just like last time. Make sure everyone’s holding up okay.’
‘Okay. Let me go round up my husband before he does do something stupid.’ Nicole breathed deeply. ‘Sorry,’ she said, turning toward Jen. ‘I’m Nicole and I promise I’m not usually this melodramatic.’
‘It’s kind of understandable,’ Jen said, but Nicole waved her comment off.
‘Doesn’t matter. Put it away and smile. I’ll cry once he’s gone.’ And with that, she dashed her fingers beneath her eyes once more and pushed through the door.
Laura leaned over the sink and checked her own makeup.
‘How do you do it?’ Jen asked her suddenly.
‘Do what?’
‘Act like Trent leaving is no big deal.’
Laura shrugged, but her smile wavered, just a little just enough for Jen to see through the facade. ‘It sucks. And I won’t lie and say I’m not tired and frustrated and irritated, either. But I’ve got to hold it together back here so he can go do what he has to do to come home to me and the kids.’
Jen didn’t know what to say. Laura’s strength and resolve awed her. Laura filled the silence with a smile.
‘Come on. Let’s go find Shane and Trent.’
‘Um, how about just your husband? Don’t pawn me off on Shane. The last thing he needs right now is to have to babysit the resident basket case.’
‘How about you take care of him so he doesn’t spend the entire night worrying about his soldiers. That man never relaxes. He needs a distraction more than you do.’
Jen rolled her eyes and wished the thought of seeing Shane again tonight didn’t send a tiny thrill through her. It didn’t matter, anyway. Even if she was interested which she wasn’t he wasn’t available and neither was she.
He was leaving for Iraq. Tomorrow.
And she was damaged goods.
‘Don’t pawn me off on him,’ she said again.
‘I thought I was pawning Shane off on you.’
Jen backed through the door and for the second time that night, plowed straight into Nicole Carponti . . . and into in the middle of a tense, awkward conversation.
‘ . . . Nice to me, considering . . .’ The guy running his mouth was dark and good-looking, but that didn’t prevent his drunken sneer from ruining his looks. Nicole was braced, feet apart like she was ready to fight. Or run. Jen wasn’t sure.
Laura’s smile was tight as she stepped up next to Nicole. ‘Lieutenant Randall, I’m sure you must have Nicole confused with someone else. Someone who isn’t married to a soldier in your company.’
Jen’s stomach pitched as her heart slammed against her ribs. It didn’t matter that Laura knew the drunk. The smell of beer on the man’s breath sent adrenaline pumping through her veins. Jen did not do confrontations. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
Carponti melted from the crowd and grabbed at Randall, shoving him toward the dance floor. ‘Get away from my wife, dickhead.’
Everything exploded into sudden violent action all at once. Fists and elbows descended and sounds like meat being beaten thudded to the beat of Toby Keith’s latest song. Chairs skidded across the floor and Jen found herself mesmerized by the absolute chaos bursting around her. She searched for a path through the melee, and then found herself pinned between a pillar and the dance floor, which churned now with bodies. Worse yet, she’d lost Laura and Nicole in the fray.
Everything turned to slow motion. She needed to get out of the way, but her feet suddenly felt like lead weights as Carponti and Randall grappled and stumbled toward her.
Strong hands yanked her hard to the right so fast her neck popped.
Shane. And ridiculous relief flooded through her, tingling over her skin.
He braced his hands on the bar on either side of her shoulders to keep from being jammed into her again. ‘Sorry. It looked like you needed a hand. You okay?’
The fight spun out of control around them, but at the moment, she was cocooned between his body and the solid wood of the bar pressing into her back.
His voice was warm and smooth over the uproar. ‘I’m going to drag Carponti outside and beat him.’
She almost laughed at the mixture of resignation and irritation in Shane’s voice. It sounded like he’d spent one too many nights saving Carponti from trouble.
It might have been half an hour or five minutes, but the next thing Jen knew, the crowd had parted and she was outside. She wrapped her arms around her belly and walked around Randall and Trent, who were arguing loudly in front of the soldiers and spouses who’d trickled out into the parking lot. Shane was busy stuffing soldiers into cars or cabs, depending on their sobriety level. Laura leaned against the hood of her car, next to Nicole, who had an amused look on her face.
‘Is this how they always spend their last night in the States?’ Jen asked.
Laura looked more like a centerfold than a mother of two who’d just escaped a bar brawl. Her friend was either halfway to well lit or furious. Or maybe a little bit of both. Jen couldn’t really tell.
Nicole laughed and brushed her hair from her face, sending a whiff of smoke and perfume floating through the thick Texas night air. ‘It is for me. Vic is constantly pulling stunts like this.’ She shrugged. ‘I love him and I guess that doesn’t come with a ’91but,’ you know?’
‘Guess this is what I get for trying something different. The last few times Trent left, I was either pregnant or nursing, so no, bars weren’t really an option.’ Laura’s voice cracked, and with it, Jen’s heart. She wasn’t really close to any of these men, and yet, a sudden sadness welled up inside of her that she could not understand.
‘If he’s peeing in the bushes, I’m thinking this is the end of the night,’ Nicole said, as Carponti stumbled from behind a parked car, tugging at his zipper. Shane and Trent bullied Lieutenant Randall into a cab. ‘And hey, no one went to jail. That’s always a plus.’
Laura cracked a wry grin. ‘Looks like he’s one of the last ones. Nicole, can you get Carponti out of here? I won’t be able to get Trent to leave until all his boys are home.’
‘Sure. See you tomorrow morning?’
‘Yeah. I’ll be there.’
Nicole snagged her husband and urged him toward their car in a backward waltz that was at once a drunken stumble and an erotic dance. The silence wrapped around them like the dark shadows at the edge of the parking lot.
‘Are you bringing the kids tomorrow to see Trent off?’ Jen asked.
‘No.’ Laura’s throat bobbed as she looked into the floodlit parking lot, her eyes settling on her husband. That single word nearly broke Jen’s heart. She wrapped her arm around Laura, who rested her head on her shoulder.
‘I should be used to this by now,’ Laura whispered.
‘I don’t know how. It doesn’t get any easier no matter how many times you say good-bye.’
Laura sniffed and straightened as Trent slammed the door of Randall’s cab closed. ‘I don’t say good-bye. I say see you soon.’
Having shipped the last of the soldiers home, Shane and Trent finally approached them. Jen could see why Shane had stayed to mop up. He looked so different from Trent, whose black hair and wire-rimmed glasses made him look more like a warrior monk. Shane was pure fighter, all black ink and hard angles. There was no dichotomy to him, like there appeared to be with Trent.
‘Ready to head home?’ Trent asked, wrapping his arms around Laura’s shoulders.
‘Absolutely. You okay to get home, Jen?’ Laura lips curled in pure wickedness. It took Jen all of two seconds to realize what she had in mind.
‘Laura, don’t you dare,’ Jen hissed as she scanned the parking lot, searching for a way out of her friend’s scheme. She wanted to entertain her curiosity from a distance, not up close and personal.
Shane hooked his hands behind his back, looking more relaxed than he had at the beginning of the night. Jen frowned and for a brief moment, thought that he’d actually enjoyed himself during the fight. ‘Trent, take your wife home. And I better not see you at the gym before ten. I’ll take accountability until First Sergeant gets there.’
‘Thanks, man. See you in the morning.’ Trent walked off, his wife’s arm wrapped around his waist. Laura leaned back, shooting Jen a half-drunken, enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Jen felt a pang of sadness overshadowed by something else. A feeling both awkward and intense that sparked to life when she looked up at Shane. All at once, it struck her that she was alone with him in a dimly lit parking lot.
And she wasn’t embarrassed or self-conscious or afraid.
For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, she felt a pang of desire that wasn’t overruled by the constant heat of the scar on her chest. She let the awareness of her femininity coast through her veins, and she savored the feeling along with the man.
He was leaving for Iraq in the morning. She could hold on to this one moment.
What’s the worst that could happen?
* * *
When the fight had broken out, Shane had seen her standing in the path of the two fighters. He’d mentally urged her to move aside, but everything she’d done had only brought her closer to harm’s way. Finally, he’d surrendered to instinct, and stepped in to move her to safety. Looking down at her now, at her hesitant smile mixed with a hint of expectation, he felt it again. The same emotion he’d felt earlier that night. The urge to protect. To shelter. It flickered to life inside of him, something long dormant unfurling inside warmth. The feeling staggered him with its simplicity and power. Had he not been leaving for Iraq in the morning, he might have taken that single step forward and closed the gap between them. She was temptation bundled with a nervous tension a combination he found absolutely sweet.
‘I don’t bite,’ he said, stuffing his hands into his back pockets.
‘I’m not worried. You’re supposed to be one of the good guys, right?’
Shane chuckled quietly. ‘My men might disagree.’
She narrowed her eyes and peered up at him thoughtfully. ‘That’s the second time you’ve said that tonight. Why do you have such a low opinion of yourself?’
‘I’m not nice. I’m effective. They’re mutually exclusive in my world.’ Shane tried to keep the bitterness from his smile but gave up, surrendering to the truth with a sigh. She was easy to talk to. Something else he was out of practice with.
‘Really? Is your world really all that different?’
‘I’m a rifle platoon sergeant in a combined arms battalion. I was issued weapons, not baskets of flowers.’
‘Can you translate that to non-army?’ she asked.
‘Infantry. I train my men to shoot things.’ Shane felt like an awkward teen, unsure of what to say or do.
‘Ah. Much easier to understand.’ She tipped her chin. ‘But it doesn’t explain why Laura has such a high opinion of you if you’re such a bad guy.’
God but he needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere other than talking to this particular beautiful woman. Laura would unman him over this if he so much as blinked wrong at Jen, let alone give in to the desire to move beyond small talk.
‘Can I, ah, make sure you get to your car okay?’
Her mouth was curled in the sweetest half smile, like she couldn’t quite figure him out. ‘Not going to answer?’
‘Walking you to your car does not involve psychotherapy. At least, I didn’t think it did.’
She laughed quietly, the noise of the bar fading a little as they rounded the corner of the parking lot.
She paused and looked over her shoulder at him. A single beam of light slanted across her cheek and almost, he gave in to the urge to trace his thumb over her skin. When she froze, her lips parted just slightly, he stepped into her space. Not close enough to scare her, he hoped. He might regret this. But he wasn’t going to spend the next year wondering what it would have been like. ‘Shit, I’m not good at this.’
‘Good at what?’ Her face was bathed in shadows now, and she rubbed her hands over her arms. He placed a hand on her shoulder, hesitating and unsure, but filled with a need he couldn’t explain.
‘I’d like very much to kiss you good night,’ he whispered, and felt like an urgent seventeen-year-old for even asking. But the moment her lips parted and she lifted her chin, just a little, he was done.
‘I’d like that, too.’
His breath caught in his throat as he lowered his mouth to hers. He hesitated, nudging her lips open before he curved his mouth over hers. It had been far too long since he’d kissed a woman simply for the sake of it. And now?
Now he felt like he was drowning in her.
A deep, hard ache rose within him. An ache that he would not, no matter how she might lean into him, satisfy tonight. Maybe in a year, if he came home, he might give her a call.
But for tonight, all he had was this kiss. This soft, yearning kiss that tugged at a passion within him that he’d thought long dead. Her sensual gasp against his tongue, the soft stroke of hers against his twisted up inside of him and made him want more, so much more than he could ever hope to have in a single night. He lifted his hand, brushing his finger over her throat, and felt her heart hammering against her skin.
* * *
Jen sighed quietly as Shane kissed her, afraid this was just a dream. The taste of him flowed through her, singing through her blood. And then? Then she kissed him back. She slipped her tongue into his mouth, tasting beer and mint and everything sensual and arousing about kissing a man. She burned, a slow fire for this man lighting through her veins.
For Shane.
There was a delicious ache inside of her and she held on to it, clung to it. His arms were strong around her, his skin hot beneath her fingertips. He shifted and pulled her closer, until she was softness and heat pressed against steel.
She sighed and leaned into him. He traced his fingertips down her spine, his hand warm and solid against her lower back.
He was hard and rough, surrounding her with his kiss, his body. She tried telling herself this wasn’t what she thought it was. But she’d never lied to herself before; she wasn’t about to start now.
This man was attracted to her. Her.
She refused to argue with it, and instead gave herself over to the utterly arousing sensation of being desired. This was what she missed about her former life. That beautiful sensation of a first kiss, the delicious tug of first desire deep in her belly. She lost herself in his kiss, in the slide of his thumb over her back.
Arousal sang through her blood the moment his fingers brushed against the soft skin of her belly. She gasped softly at the power in his hands. His scent wrapped around her like spice and silk and urged her closer to something she hadn’t allowed herself to crave.
* * *
He felt her soften a little more with each moment. Shane had never imagined this and he was completely unprepared for the strength of his own reaction. For once in his life, he surrendered. To the moment. To the taste and feel of Jen. Just Jen and the feeling of being wanted.
He wanted to hear her gasp again, to hear the sweetness of that sound and to carry the memory of it into the darkness with him. He slipped his hand up over the arc of her ribs, swallowing each gasp, each sigh as she reacted to his touch.
He was not prepared for her to stiffen.
He froze immediately, stilling his hand at the edge of her ribs. Her fingers flexed against his forearms and she eased away. Shane rested his hands lightly on her shoulders, even as he brushed his lips over hers again, determined to ease the sudden awkwardness, if not erase it.
‘I’d hate for you to think I’m one of those easy girls,’ he said, his lips twisted in a grin. ‘You’ll have to at least buy me dinner.’
‘I’ll still respect you in the morning.’ She laughed, and just like that, the tension between them was gone. ‘It was really great seeing you tonight.’
He cupped her cheek, her skin so incredibly soft beneath his rough hands. She was tender and beautiful, and for once he truly wished he had more time before he left. He’d never know if tonight could have led to something more. ‘You, too.’
She blinked hard and Shane wondered at the sudden emotion he saw flicker in her eyes. ‘Be safe this year?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘You do that.’
He kissed her then, sweetly this time, and he was intensely glad that she didn’t stiffen or pull away. He hadn’t ruined this precious moment after all. ‘Good-bye, Jen.’
‘Good-bye, Shane.’
He swallowed the bite of hard emotion that lodged suddenly in his throat. She’d given him one hell of a memory to carry with him into the desert.
He’d hold the memory of that kiss with him even as he walked willing and able into a war. He’d volunteered to serve, but tonight, for the first time, he was walking away from something precious. Because of Jen, he had a reason for coming home.
ONE CLICK BECAUSE OF YOU
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