Josh bent and kissed her, lingered and deepened the kiss before he turned and strode back toward his house.
He was still jacked up from the fight. In a different way, so was she. Seeing him in action was an amazing turn-on, the way he handled himself, the confidence, the beauty of his movements, the way his muscles flexed and tightened.
Josh would come over and she would be waiting. Knowing what would happen when he got there shot a curl of heat low into her belly.
It wasn’t until she started undressing that her thoughts returned to the bikers and what they had done. Why had the ranch been singled out? What was the cause of the men’s animosity?
But as Tory lay in the darkness waiting for Josh, no answer came.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Standing on the front porch of her little white-shuttered gray house, Brittany unlocked the front door and led Cole inside. They hadn’t talked much on the ride over, but Britt could feel his eyes on her, sense his hungry need.
She knew he wanted her. She wondered if he understood how much she wanted him. She’d been attracted to Cole Wyman since the day she had first seen him at City College, a blond god the girls all fantasized about. He’d had a serious girlfriend back then, gotten engaged before he’d joined the marines and gone off to war.
He’d been wounded in action, lost both his legs, and finally come home. He was single now and her attraction to him hadn’t lessened.
Britt flipped on the light switch as he closed the door behind them and a lamp went on next to the sofa. She felt his hands settle at her waist, big, strong hands turning her around to face him. Lowering his head, he kissed her, softly at first, then deeper, pulling her close, letting her feel his desire.
Hot need moved through her. She hadn’t been with a man since her fiancé had dumped her for her neighbor’s wife. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed being touched, held, kissed, until tonight.
Sliding her arms around Cole’s neck, she leaned into him and he deepened the kiss, taking it to a whole new level. She swayed, trembled, moaned into his mouth. Warm kisses traveled along her neck down to her shoulders.
“I want you,” he said. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the night I saw you at Jubal’s.”
“I want you, too,” she said, but didn’t admit she had lusted after him for years.
He unbuttoned the front of her blouse and stripped it away, unhooked her bra and eased it off her shoulders. One of his big hands cupped her breast and she felt almost dizzy. As he bent toward her, she laced her fingers in his thick blond hair and arched her back, giving him better access, letting him work his magic. He kissed her again, then lifted her up and carried her down the hall to the bedroom.
She could feel the uneven hitch in his steps as he moved, thought for the first time of the prostheses strapped to what remained of his legs. The thought slid away as desire burned through her, the desperate need that seemed to expand with each passing moment.
Cole kissed her as she unbuttoned his short-sleeved western shirt, pulled it free, and stripped it away. A dusting of golden blond hair fanned over his hard-muscled chest, arrowed out of sight below the waistband of his jeans.
She pressed her mouth against his skin and felt his muscles bunch, but when she reached to unfasten his belt, Cole drew away.
“I haven’t been with a woman since I came back from the war. I don’t want to repulse you.”
Her heart twisted. “I want you, Cole. I don’t care about your legs. It’s not your legs that make you a man. It’s your heart and your soul.”
Cole looked down at her and something glistened in his eyes. He blinked and it was gone. He took a shaky breath. “I’m not ready,” he said with a shake of his head. “Maybe another night.”
Britt caught his arm before he could turn away. “Cole, please. Nothing about you could ever repulse me. We don’t have to make love. We can just sleep together. Please . . . stay with me tonight.”
Uncertainty moved over his features. He wanted to stay; she could see it. He reached out and gently touched her cheek. “Next time.” Bending down, he very softly kissed her. Grabbing his shirt off the floor, he turned and walked out of the bedroom.
At the sound of the front door closing, tears spilled onto Brittany’s cheeks. And the ache she felt for Cole would not go away.
* * *
The echo of rifle shots rang in the distance, the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire kicking up dirt in the streets of the village. A group of marines had been caught out in the open. They hunkered down in a depression in the sand, pinned by sniper fire from a makeshift bunker at the top of a distant hill. With no way for the men to reach cover in the vacant mud structures that had once been a town, the sniper was picking them off one by one.
On the rooftop of an empty building eight hundred meters away, Josh lay flat on his belly, the crosshairs of the M40A5 on the tripod in front of him sited on the distant hill. He was settled in, waiting. Waiting.
When the sniper popped up to take out his next target, Josh pulled the trigger. The suppressed rifle shot made a faint thumping sound and seconds later, the top of the man’s head disappeared.
Josh breathed a sigh of relief. His men were safe, at least for the moment.
He had just risen from his position when he heard a scream and a man armed with a heavy steel knife rushed out of nowhere, slashing with his long, gleaming blade. Josh snagged the man’s wrist, gripped hard, spun, and sent the knife sailing off the roof.
