Bound by Honor: Mercenary's Woman

She fought tears as she cuddled him close and kissed his sweaty forehead. “Good for you! You listen when Eb tells you something. He’s very good.”

“Stevie’s a natural,” Eb chuckled. “In fact, so is your niece.” He gave Sally a slow going-over with his eyes.

“She’s a quick learner,” Jessica said. “Like I was, once.”

“I have to get back,” Eb said. “There’s nothing to worry about right now,” he added, careful not to speak too bluntly in front of the child. “I have everything in hand. But I have told Sally to let me know if she plans to go out alone at night, for any reason.”

“I will,” Sally promised. She didn’t want to risk her aunt’s life, or Stevie’s, by being too independent.

Eb nodded. “We’ll keep the lessons up at least three times a week,” he told Sally. “I want to move you into self-defense pretty quickly.”

She understood why and felt uneasy. “Okay.”

“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “Everything’s going to be fine. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

She managed a smile for him. “I know that.”

“Walk me to the door,” he coaxed. “See you, Jess.”

“Take care, Eb,” Jessie replied, her goodbye echoed by her son’s.

On the front porch, Eb closed the door and looked down into Sally’s wide gray eyes with concern and something more elusive.

“I’ll have the house watched,” he promised. “But you have to be careful about even normal things like opening the door when someone comes. Always keep the chain lock on until you know who’s out there. Another thing, you have to keep your doors and windows locked, curtains drawn and an escape route always in mind.”

She bit her lip worriedly. “I’ve never had to deal with anything like this.”

His big, warm hands closed over her shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry that you and Stevie have been put in the line of fire along with Jess. But you can handle this,” he said confidently. “You’re strong. You can do whatever you have to do.”

She searched his hard, lean face, saw the deep lines and scars that the violence of his life had carved into it, and knew that he would never lie to her. Her frown dissolved. His confidence in her made her feel capable of anything. She smiled.

He smiled back and traced a lazy line from her cheek down to her soft mouth. “If Stevie wasn’t so unpredictable, I’d kiss you,” he said quietly. “I like your mouth under mine.”

Her caught breath was audible. There had never been anyone who could do to her with words what he could.

He traced her lips, entranced. “I used to dream about that afternoon with you,” he said in a sensuous tone. “I woke up sweating, swearing, hating myself for what I’d done.” He laughed hollowly. “Hating you for what I’d done, too,” he added. “I blamed us both. But I couldn’t forget how it was.”

She colored delicately and lowered her eyes to his broad chest under the shirt he wore. The memories were so close to the surface of her mind that it was impossible not to glimpse them from time to time. Now, they were blatant and embarrassing.

His lean hands moved up to frame her face and force her eyes to meet his. He wasn’t smiling.

“No other man will ever have the taste of you that I did, that day,” he said roughly. “You were so deliciously innocent.”

Her lips parted at the intensity of his tone, at the faint glitter of his green eyes. “That isn’t what you said at the time!” she accused.

“At the time,” he murmured huskily, watching her mouth, “I was hurting so much that I didn’t take time to choose my words. I just wanted you out of the damned truck before I started stripping you out of those tight little shorts you were wearing.”

The flush in her cheeks got worse. The image of it was unbelievably shocking. Somehow, it had never occurred to her that at some point he might undress her, to gain access…

“What an expression,” he said, chuckling in spite of himself. “Hadn’t you considered what might happen when you came on to me that hard?”

She shook her head.

His fingers slid into the blond hair at her temples where the long braid pulled it away from her face. “Someone should have had a long talk with you.”

“You did,” she recalled nervously.

“Long and explicit, the day afterward,” he said, nodding. “You didn’t want to hear it, but I made you. I liked to think that it might have saved you from an even worse experience.”

“It wasn’t exactly a bad experience,” she said, staring at his shirt button. “That was part of the problem.”

There was a long, static silence. “Sally,” he breathed, and his mouth moved down slowly to cover hers in the silence of the porch.

She stood on tiptoe to coax him closer, lost in the memory of that long-ago afternoon. She felt his hands on her arms, guiding them up around his neck before they fell back to her hips and lifted her into the suddenly swollen contours of his muscular body.

She gasped, giving him the opening he wanted, so that he could deepen the kiss. She felt the warm hardness of his mouth against hers, the soft nip of his teeth, the deep exploration of his tongue. A warm flood of sensation rushed into her lower abdomen and she felt her whole body go tense with it. It was as if her body had become perfectly attuned to this man’s years ago, and could never belong to anyone else.

He felt her headlong response and slowly let her back down, lifting his mouth away from hers. He studied her face, her swollen, soft mouth, her wide eyes, her dazed expression.

“Yes,” he said huskily.

“Yes?”

He bent and nipped her lower lip sensuously before he pushed her away.

She stared up at him helplessly, feeling as if she’d just been dropped from a great height.

His eyes went to her breasts and lingered on the sharp little points so noticeable at the front of her blouse, the fabric jumping with every hard, quick beat of her heart.

She met that searching gaze and felt the power of it all the way to her toes.

“You know as well as I do that it’s only a matter of time,” he said softly. “It always has been.”

She frowned. Her mind seemed to have shut down. She couldn’t quite focus, and her legs felt decidedly weak.

His eyes were back on her breasts, swerving to the closed door, and to both curtained windows before he stepped in close and cupped her blatantly in his warm, sensuous hands.

Sally’s mouth opened on a shocked gasp that became suddenly a moan of pleasure.

“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered, and his mouth covered hers hungrily.

It was the most passionate, adult kiss of her life, even eclipsing what had come before. His hands found their way under her sweatshirt and against lace-covered soft flesh. Her body responded instantly to the slow caresses. She curled into his body, eagerly submissive.

“Lord, what I wouldn’t give to unfasten this,” he groaned at her mouth as his fingers toyed with the closure at her back. “And sure as hell, Stevie would come outside the minute I did, and show and tell would take on a whole new meaning.”

The idea of it amused him and he lifted his head, smiling down into Sally’s equally laughing eyes.

“Ah, well,” he said, removing his hands with evident reluctance. “All things come to those who wait,” he added.