B00NRQWAJI Read Free Page A

might never want to look at me again.”
    “That’s not gonna happen,” he said.

    And I smiled in spite of myself.
    “Mrs. Montgomery’s headed home,” I told him, “but she left us mountains of lasagna. We could get you out of here. Move you into the dining room for a dinner party. Or have a picnic on the living room floor.”
    Barrett nodded acceptance. But it wasn’t enthusiasm. Belatedly, I realized why.
    To get to a picnic on the floor, Barrett would need my help.
    For any soldier, accepting help is a challenge. I knew this as well as I knew my own name. After all, I’d been raised by a soldier/father who’d demanded the best from himself—and from everyone else around him. His high standards propelled him to the rank of major general and beyond. Now my father was a United States senator. And the values he’d drilled into me made me the success I was today. So I knew that in the field and at home, our men- and women-in-arms are expected to be self-sufficient.
    And they are.
    But for Barrett, accepting help was even more difficult. Because he wasn’t just a soldier who took orders. He was a capable military police commander who gave them.
    “Forget what I said,” I urged him. Because I never wanted Barrett to feel like less than he was. Not when he meant so much to me.
    And it was this that propelled me across the room.
    Determined to perk him up, I drew alongside his bed, stepped out of my elegant shoes. Careful of his cast, I sank a knee into the mattress beside his thigh. And, swinging a leg across his lap, I straddled him in one smooth move.

    With a fingertip, I traced the letters stamped on the old gray sweatshirt he wore—A-R-M-Y—and I smiled. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
    The television remote dropped from Barrett’s grasp.
    And his hands gripped my hips.
    “Whatever it is,” he replied, “I’m going to say yes.”
    Truth be told, in the seven months since we’d met, Barrett and I hadn’t had the opportunity to say yes to much of anything. And that went double for sex. But I’d been okay with that. Because sex is a game changer. And anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
    In recent days, however, Barrett and I had booked a weekend getaway to celebrate his return to health. When Friday rolled around, we’d be headed to Virginia’s wine country, where we’d spend our days walking the vineyards. And our nights? Well, neither of us had suggested definitive plans. But I thought we both had a pretty good idea how we’d finally be spending those.
    “Tonight,” I said, smoothing my hands along Barrett’s broad boxer’s chest. “Don’t worry about dinner in the dining room. We can stay right here.”
    “Sure. This bed’s the ideal place,” Barrett replied, “to have lasagna.”
    “Absolutely,” I agreed. “And Mrs. Montgomery probably left a salad in the fridge.”
    “But she’s gone for the day?”
    “She is.”
    “So we’re alone?”

    “We are.”
    “Hmm,” Barrett said. “I do like lasagna.”
    But lasagna was the last thing on my mind when he bent his good leg, changed the angle of his lap. The move tipped me into him. And his mouth met mine.
    Anytime Barrett kissed me— every time he kissed me—was like wading barefoot into a rushing river. The shock of him always left me breathless. And the swift slipstream of his intensity always threatened to sweep me away.
    But what a way to go.
    As one kiss led to another, I wrapped my arms around Barrett’s neck. His left hand traveled the line of my thigh. It flexed behind my right knee—and the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back. With Barrett on top of me. His bodyweight pinned me to the comforter in a combat move made playful by passion.
    “Your leg—” I breathed.
    “—is fine.”
    “I’ll feel better when I hear the doctor saying that tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow,” Barrett said, “is a long way away.”
    He was so right.
    Barrett’s deft fingers found the first pearl button on my blouse. It