Granola bars. Pretzels. Roasted peanuts. Spanish peanuts. Chocolate-covered peanuts. Cashews. Pistachios.
"Ohmigod," she squealed, sifting snacks through her fingers. "You really did buy a little bit of everything."
"I can't take total credit. Something the guys did at the squadron gave me the idea. So do you like it?" He picked up three kinds of peanuts. "Nuts equal protein."
She scooped a bag of peanut-shaped orange candies. "Circus peanuts? And we can call this protein?"
"Hey, whatever works for you, babe."
She clasped the bag of circus peanuts to her chest. "Like I used to tell myself the gallons of peach ice cream meant healthy milk and fruit."
Positioning the brown sack below the edge of the seat, he 'raked the junk food off her lap, and hell but Rena's legs felt good even through layers of her crinkly skirt. He set the bag to the side. "What is it that you need now? Help me out here."
"So I won't hurl on your boots and mess up that nice shine?"
"I'm not talking about Coke and ice cream anymore, but I don't know how to say what you need to hear. We have to find more … neutral ground, and damn, but it was hard before and since I got back…" He shut his eyes, opened them again because the memories kept pushing through anyway. "It seems like we're more screwed up than ever."
She touched his hand. "We've never really talked about what happened to you over in Rubistan."
"There's not much to talk about." Thinking about it sucked enough. "It was scary as hell waiting for the diplomatic channels to clear, but they did. And we all came home."
She wanted more from him. Only a fool would miss that. So much for giving her words, dumb ass. But if those words would upset her? If those words scraped like a blade against his insides on the way up and out?
He would find other words for her instead. "But I made it through since I always knew I would come home again."
"How could you know that?"
"Because there wasn't a chance in hell I intended to die without making love to you at least one more time."
Her chin trembled just before she covered her mouth with a hand shaking twice as fast as that delicate pointy chin of hers. Strategy went out the open window on the marshy wind. He raised his hand, glided his knuckles along the waves of her hair.
All the want tamped down from their kiss earlier, from months, from the first time he laid eyes on her, powered to life. He held himself in check. Barely. Now his hands weren't much steadier than hers, so he let his fall to cup the sides of her neck. Her shaky fingers slid to rest on his chest.
And the next thing he knew, they were kissing again.
Not frenzied, like the out-of-control exchange in the parking lot earlier. But slow. Deliberate. No mistaking the mutual intent.
A growl rumbled low in his chest, the instinctual sound of primal possession he couldn't have stopped if he wanted to—and he didn't want to stop anything.
Apparently, neither did his wife.
She melted against him, her arms slung over his shoulders, her bracelets cool against the overheated skin along his neck. Her body flowed over his while she kissed him with all the sweet passion she'd poured over him twenty-two years ago the first time he'd persuaded her to join him in the back seat of her BMW.
Heaven help him, he would have more restraint now than he'd shown then. Even if her soft hands were crawling into the neck of his flight suit with hungry persistence.
Still in control. He could take this a little further. No problem.
Slanting his mouth over one corner of her lips, then the other, he lowered her back onto the seat, careful to keep his weight off her, for the baby, for her fragile frame. Although her hands felt anything but fragile in their strong grip on his back, his wildcat wife's fingernails digging tiny moons into his shoulders.
He deepened their kiss, explored the warm moistness of her, wanted to explore more, now, sooner, but damned if he would screw up this chance by rushing. She wriggled closer, soft body and softer br**sts driving him freaking nuts. He had to touch her. More of her.
Any of her.
He stroked up her side along the loose blouse. No objections from his wife. He skimmed his hand forward and palmed her breast. A groan of contentment rolled though him in sync with the sigh escaping from her lips into him.
She arched to fill his hand, rolled her shoulders so his touch became a firmer caress. Pregnancy plumped her br**sts and damned if he hadn't forgotten how it also increased her sensitivity, something they'd enjoyed to the fullest in those early days of marriage.
What a waste not to make the most of it now, and he was anything but wasteful.