“Lie down for me,” Danny urged between kisses, leaning her back into the sofa so that he came down on top of her.
The weight of him was gone in an instant as he edged off the couch and onto the floor, never breaking the kiss. She lay sprawled on the cushions while he knelt beside her, his hand splayed over her waist where her T-shirts rode up from the shorts.
She yanked her eyes open, sad at the loss of his body against hers. But the intensity in his forest-green eyes told her she needn’t have worried. He didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping yet.
Reassured, she watched him hook a finger in the hem of her shirt and lift it higher. His dark head bent over her pale skin, tracing the path of the shirt with kisses. Then, as he neared the undercurve of her breasts, his tongue took over the task. She squirmed beneath him, her breath coming fast. She was so tense. So ready for more.
Yet it touched her that he took his time and showed such care with her. Unable to hold back, she took the hem of the shirts she wore and lifted them all the way up. Off. She lay on the discarded white cotton like a pillow, her hair still tangled in the neckline while her bare breasts rested mere inches from his mouth.
Danny studied her. Assessed for all of five seconds before he turned his full attention to what she’d unveiled. He closed his mouth over one taut nipple, swirling his tongue around the ache until she arched into the kiss. She lifted herself up enough to yank at the fabric of his T-shirt, wanting to feel his naked chest against hers. Heck, she just wanted to see him. Feast her eyes on all that maleness.
“Stephanie.” He broke away, his eyes passion-fogged and his hair tousled. “If any more clothes come off, I’m not going to be able to think. That’s why you’re up on the couch and I’m on the floor. That position promotes blood flow to the gray matter instead of...yeah.” He tipped his head forward in defeat, not finishing his sentence.
“But I’ve been imagining what it would be like to find you again for almost a whole year. I didn’t just decide to show up and see you last week. I’ve wanted this for a long time. It’ll be okay if we don’t think for a little while.” She dipped a hand beneath his shirt, smoothing her fingers up the side of his chest and running them down his back.
His muscles danced beneath the caress, responding to her touch in a way that made her want to feel more of him.
“But I haven’t had that much time.” He reached beneath her and tugged out the white T-shirts she’d been wearing, untwining them from her hair. When he freed the cotton, he laid the fabric over her sensitive breasts.
“I thought you were on board with this idea?” She let go of him to clutch the material to her chest.
“I am.” He rested his elbows on the couch beside her. “You have no idea how much I’m on board. But I don’t want to mess things up.”
“It seemed to me like things were going really well.” Her skin still burned where he’d touched her, her lips swollen from his kiss.
He stroked her hair where it lay tangled on one shoulder.
“But you’re in a better position to judge than me. You came here talking about healing and lost mojo, so I know some things have gone wrong for you. But it’s been a long time since we’ve been together, so I’m not sure what that means.”
The fire inside her cooled in a hurry. She edged back on the sofa, scrambling to sit up straighter, one arm still clinging to that shirt in front of her.
“The whole world knows things have gone wrong for me, Danny. I didn’t think I needed to spell it out.” The abduction and the aftermath were the last things she wanted to talk about now. Hadn’t she just got done thinking her past wasn’t going to rob her of another minute? “If you want the full story, I poured my heart into an account of my experiences in Iraq. Too bad the media decided I was ‘selling out,’ using my captivity experience to make a buck, and panned it before half of them even read it.”
“I’ve always wondered if you held anything back in the book. If they hurt you—if you were sexually assaulted—I need to know.” His voice hitched when he asked, the small slice of emotion touching her more deeply than anything they’d done together so far.
He tugged a blanket off the back of the couch and covered her with it, gently tucking the edges around her.
“No.” She shook her head. “I was honest in my written account of the experience. The people who held me were too emotionally devastated to abuse me like that. Actually, they weren’t bad people in the first place. They were just...grieving. As helpless as me in a lot of ways. They didn’t even know they’d have to keep Christina and I in their home all that time. The family thought that after they kidnapped us, the rebel forces would come and take us away, but they never did. Later, some military officials told us they guessed the rebels’ numbers were just too thin to come back for us, which I thank God for.”