Her breathing snagged, picked up pace, pressing her generous br**sts against him, faster, harder with fuller breaths. With her free arm, her hand fluttered over him in restless patterns that lacked control. Her hands fisting in his hair. Clutching his shoulders. Skimming around to his buttocks before sliding up again to his back.
He parted her, slid two fingers into moist, tight heat. Her hands stopped moving altogether.
Deeper he dipped, crooked his fingers with a beckoning twitch until he found—
"Oh, yes," she whispered. "Right there. Don't stop."
The roaring storm outside echoed the adrenaline storm in his head, rushing with a pounding need to feel this woman come apart in his arms. Elemental forces raged outside and in. Nature at its most basic.
He accepted that his feelings right now weren't pretty or even civilized. Combat did that to him. Her, too, apparently.
Driven, hungry, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, swept, searched, mimicking the motions with his fingers. He needed Monica to unravel for him. Needed to mark her as his, to claim her and to prove that at least on some level they connected.
While he guided her with his fingers inside, his thumb worked gentle torment outside, coaxed until he felt her muscles tighten, pulse around him. So damned responsive, fast and ready. Now. He captured her sighs of completion with another kiss until finally she relaxed against him.
If only things could always be this simple between them. In the past he would have said something funny right about now, make her laugh, his gift to her. She might be sarcastic, but rarely light-hearted.
Great. He gave her knock-knock jokes and orgasms. What piss-poor offerings for this incredible woman.
I-love-you stuck in his throat again.
"Jack?" She snuggled closer now that his hand was no longer between them and nestled her face against his chest with a sated purr of contentment he recognized well.
"Yeah, Mon?"
Her fingers played with the short hair along the nape of his neck. "Why is it you always need to be in control of things, here, like this, between us in bed?"
In control? He would have laughed his ass off if it wouldn't hurt and pitch her onto the floor. He wasn't in control of squat these days. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"You're such an easygoing guy day by day. I've never understood why you're so emphatic about owning the bedroom. Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. You're a generous lover. Actually, I feel a little selfish sometimes. Like what have I given you back?"
If she didn't realize his shortcomings, he sure as hell didn't feel much like cluing her in. "Do you hear me complaining?"
"Well, no. But I don't think you would." Her doctor hands roved his body, his arm, back, soothing him in the only way she could at the moment.
"What do you give me? Christ, Monica, you're smart. You challenge the hell out of me. I could get off watching the way your brain wraps around things. You're loyal to your family, and that means a lot to me because family is important." Dangerous territory, pal. Kids and family and forever. "And you drive me crazy in bed. You always have. Does that answer your question?"
"I drive you crazy?" Her soft snort of disbelief gusted through his clothes and to his chest. "So damn crazy you're always in control."
No way could she not know how much he wanted her. No damn way. Or not? Dig deep for the right thing to say, Korba. He was running out of chances to get his head out of his ass when it came to this woman. Monica melted over...the truth.
Guess he'd have to dig with a scalpel to pry that out. "Remember how I said Tina died?"
"In childbirth."
"Right." He bled a little more inside with each word picked free like bits of shrapnel from his leg. "Except she never should have been pregnant. She should have been thinking about choosing her classes for the next semester."
"Did you two have to get married?"
"No." Flashes of their wedding poured alcohol over his wounds, their big church ceremony packed with family, flowers and smiles. "We'd been married over a year before she got pregnant even though we'd both agreed to wait until after graduation to start a family. I got slack with birth control. And, well, there we were..."
"Oh, Jack," she sighed over him, rubbing more soothing circles across his back. "It's horribly unfair that anyone should die that young, and especially during what should be a time of celebration. But you can't really blame yourself for making love to your wife."
"I can't?"
"There were two of you in that bed. Birth control is the responsibility of both partners."
His ever-practical Monica.