A Few Good Men

She remembered her mother-in-law holding the photo of Andy earlier and guilt settled around her shoulders like a heavy cloak.

Sara began to shut the laptop when the IM chimed and Eric’s response appeared.

“I can’t forget about the other night.”

The frank admission caught her off guard and her hand slowly dropped from the monitor as if of its own accord.

Although she was reluctant to admit it, her every other thought was about how nice it had been to be held by him.

The problem lay in that the other thoughts were about her betrayal of the memory of her husband.

“It seems like every time I takea breath, I smell you…”

Sara gave an eye roll.

“I swear I detect the scent of lavender and vanilla everywhere. Then I remember that it’s not around me now, but rather a memory of you.”

Her soap and bath oil.

Okay, so it would have been easy to dismiss his initial words as so much hype, but his specific mention of her fragrance told her he was being genuine.

Of course, if she overlooked the part of her brain that told her that any contact with Eric was a bad idea, she would have recognized his honesty. Would never have questioned his sincerity. It was those qualities that had captured her attention and had drawn her to him time and again when she needed to feel connected to someoe not her in-laws or work associates.

Someone who would be as honest with her as she was with him.

Her heart beat a steady, heady rhythm in her chest.

“You’re more beautiful than I ever dared to imagine Samantha might be,” he wrote. “More than just physical…although I loved touching you.”

She swallowed hard, captivated by his words.

“There’s a vulnerability about you, Sara. Yet you’re fearless when it comes to something that you want. The combination fascinates me. You fascinate me.”

She caressed the keyboard with her fingertips, but the words refused to come.

“Your skin…”

Her pulse hummed.

“You’re so soft. Softer than anything I’ve ever had the privilege to touch before…”

When they’d traded e-mails and IMs before his return, their sexy posts had been almost carnal in nature. Now there rang an emotional edge that reached out for her more powerfully than his hands.

“I loved making love to you…Hearing your quiet gasps…your low moans…You felt so good wrapped around me. Tight…Wet…Then there was your mouth…”

Sara found her lips were parched and she ran her tongue over them as if in preparation for his kiss. Only he wasn’t here. He was probably back at the base writing to her on his laptop.

“I want to touch myself right now just thinking about it, Sara. Just thinking about you…”

He might want to, but she was.

Sara found that her right hand had moved to rest against her neck. Right there, just below her ear, where he had kissed her, driving her insane with desire. She slowly trailed her fingers down over her opposite shoulder, feeling her bra strap under her T-shirt. She reached back and unfastened the confining material, letting it bow open, but not removing it.

“Your breasts…”

Yes…her breasts. She ran her palm over her right one, the nipple already drawn taut and achy.

“I could have kissed your breasts forever and never wanted for anything more…”

Sara wet her fingertips and lightly pinched her nipple, gasping as she imagined it was Eric’s hand against her rather than her own.

“Then there was the surprise waiting down below…”

Sara’s breath caught as she remembered him tugging her underpants down and gazing at her bare flesh. She’d started waxing when she was in her early twenties and had never really stopped, liking the feel of the clean skin against the sheets…against a man.

“I remember how ready you were for me…how engorged…”

She popped the button on her jeans and dipped her fingers inside the waistband, touching her swollen flesh through her panties first, then burrowing inside so that she caressed her hot, sensitive flesh.

“You were so wet…so ready…”

She was now, too. Oh, so ready.

“And you tasted like pure honey warmed by the summer sun…”

She dipped her index finger inside her sex and her own juices coated her skin. She pulled it out and fondled her clit, drawing small, wet circles even as she continued reading his posts through half-lidded eyes.

“But nothing compares to the moment I first entered you…”

Sweet Jesus…

“Feeling your body surrounding me, squeezing me…I’ve never felt for another woman what I felt in that one moment…”

Sara stiffened her first two fingers and slid them into her moist heat. But two wouldn’t do. Not when Eric had filled her so thickly. She added a finger and thrust them up into her wetness.

“Knowing you were so hot for me made me feel like I was burning up from the inside out…And then you moved your hips…I had to grab your bottom and hold on for dear life I was so afraid I was going to come right there and then…”

Sara shivered all over, running her tongue along her lips restlessly, longing to stretch out on the bed behind her but not daring to miss one word Eric was typing.

“I want you again, Sara…Now. Please let me in…Invite me over.”

“Come…please,” she wrote.

Chapter 5

ERIC COULDN’T BELIEVE he’d written what he had. But once it was out, there was no taking it back. Nor, he realized, did he want to.

On the front line, there was no room for hesitation or second-guessing. To do either was to risk being killed. And after two days of torturing himself over Sara’s odd behavior, he’d come to recognize that they were at a standoff of sorts. Not on a professional battlefield, but on a personal one. And he needed to pull out all the stops if he had any chance of winning this challenge.