Midnight Promises (Midnight series) Read online

  He could feel her cheeks move as she smiled. “This new therapy of yours. How does it work?”

  “Touch.” The hand cupping her neck moved down, shifted the gaping neck of his T-shirt to one side uncovering delicate collarbones. “Dermotherapy. Just invented it. Healing by touching the skin.” His hand shifted again and the T-shirt fell off one shoulder. Looking down at that pale perfect skin, he saw the beginning of the swell of her breast.

  Her eyes were half-closed. “Dermotherapy, huh?”

  “That’s right.” Metal curved his hand over one smooth shoulder. It was like touching warm satin, only better. “I’m going to trademark it. Make a million dollars.”

  “Not in Russia you won’t. Do you know what dermo means in Russian?”

  Metal pulled back and shook his head, keeping his eyes on hers. Such a brilliant blue, like pieces of the summer sky. “No idea.”

  Felicity huffed out a laugh. “It means shit. So that won’t go over so well, will it? Shit therapy.”

  “Nope. Not good. Public relations nightmare. Okay, let’s rename it kiss therapy.” He planted little kisses all along her long, pale neck, along her delicate jawline, back down along her shoulder. He bit her, just a little, right where the neck met the shoulder and felt her jolt. “How do you say kiss in Russian?

  “Potseluy.”

  Weird word. He gave an internal shrug. Now he could say it in Russian. He’d say it in Martian if that would help. “Potseluy me.”

  She laughed, touched his neck, then opened her hands like a little blossom, stroking him. She leaned forward and put her mouth on his.

  Jesus. Sensory overload. Touching her, her mouth open under his, tongue stroking his...it was more exciting than fucking other women. Under his fingers on her neck he could feel the blood pumping hard through her veins. His was too. He was already so excited he couldn’t breathe. Good thing fucking was off the table because he’d have a freaking stroke. Die right here, in his bed, at the ripe old age of thirty-three, brain simply blasted from lust.

  Metal couldn’t reach her breast from the T-shirt’s collar. But! He was a good strategist and forward thinker. His hand bunched the bottom of the T-shirt and slowly pulled it over her head. She lifted her arms for him, which was good. Showed she was in the game. He wanted her so badly he wondered whether he was generating thought waves that could be messing with her head.

  He wasn’t. Or maybe he was but she wasn’t picking up on them. She was okay with being naked for him.

  Naked. God.

  Metal nearly forgot to breathe as he lifted his head and looked down at her. The rest of her was just as beautiful as her face. Pale and smooth and absolutely perfect. As if someone had reached into his head and pulled out his ideal woman.

  Even the long strip of gauze along her side didn’t detract from her beauty. It simply reminded him that she was vulnerable. It was a hard world and wasn’t too forgiving to the soft and gentle, however smart they were. Well, whatever happened between them, no one would ever hurt her again.

  There were images of naked women more or less everywhere these days. Pneumatic, pumped, sometimes even rubbery-looking. Silicone and plastic and spray tans.

  Felicity looked like a woman, slender, delicate, utterly real. Her heart was pounding and he could see and count the beats of her heart in her left breast. Automatically, without thinking, he counted them. Eighty beats per minute. She was excited.

  Her breasts were small and incredibly perfect with pale pink nipples and yes, thank you God, the nipples were hard. Growing harder and pinker by the second as he stared avidly. He wasn’t necessarily a breast guy. He particularly hated implants because he knew he was feeling sacs of saline solution under his hands. As a combat medic, he’d held plenty of sacs of saline solution and they reminded him of death not life.

  But these breasts—ah, these were a miracle of nature. Soft and round and complete turn-ons.

  It wasn’t easy because her breasts were eye magnets, but he lifted his gaze to her face. Which was eye candy too. “You like touch therapy?”

  She nodded, smiled. “Kiss therapy too.”

  His dick gave a kick in his pants. That’s what it felt like, anyway. A surge of blood so intense his dick jerked. He leaned forward then stopped when she put a hand on his chest.

  They both looked down. Her hand was slim and lovely but not strong. If he wanted to move forward her hand sure as shit was not going to stop him. But that hand stopped him as suddenly as a grenade. He wasn’t moving if she didn’t want him to.

  “You too,” she whispered.

  Yeah? He had no idea what she wanted. “Me too, what?” Whatever it was she wanted, he was going to give it to her.

  Felicity curled her fingers around the bottom of his own T-shirt and pulled up. “Take this off.”

  Shit, yeah. The shirt was off and flung to the corner of the room in an instant and Metal moved forward to kiss her. God, the feel of her naked breasts against his chest was just heaven. He was careful not to put weight on her, especially not on the wound. But he could rub against her, feel all that heat and softness right against his skin.

  Felicity was naked under the covers that bunched around her waist. He was really glad he still had his jeans on because shit, he wouldn’t be able to resist climbing on her top of her otherwise. Her pale, slender, naked torso stopped where his blue comforter started and that was good.

  Think of her as a mermaid. Sexless from the waist down. Hard to do when what he could see was so sexy she glowed.

  Except, of course, for the bandaged side, which kept him just this side of red-hot. Because he knew that his weight would be heavy for her, certainly uncomfortable, maybe even painful and he didn’t want the tiniest shred of pain with them in this bed.

  It had been bad enough two nights ago when she had fallen through Lauren’s door. This beautiful young woman some fuckhead had slashed.

  Now that he knew her, now that he’d kissed her, now that he felt a tug as strong as the tides toward her, he wanted to kiss her, pamper her and he could do that.

  He just couldn’t fuck her.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Metal pulled a little away, reached out with his forefinger and traced a straight line down the center of her body, from her chin to her belly button. Tracing a line over that soft pale skin that felt like a little slice of paradise.

  His gaze followed his finger down, then he placed his palm over the center of her chest, right between her soft breasts. He met her eyes. “You’re so beautiful.” The words were the right ones, exactly what a guy should say to a beautiful woman. But he got the rhythm and the tone wrong. His voice was rough, hoarse. Instead of a compliment it sounded like a painful confession.

  She blushed. Without his T-shirt on her, he saw that her blush extended all the way down to her breasts. The tops of them turned rosy too. Her breasts were already perfect but they became even more of an eye magnet now that they were pink.

  His mouth watered. He wanted to kiss her breasts, lick and tug her nipples until they turned even harder. He felt as if he could taste her already.

  But something in her expression...

  “I can’t be the first guy to tell you you’re beautiful.” He refused to believe that. Men were assholes but any man with gonads would be attracted to Felicity. He bent to give her a quick kiss. “Felicity?”

  “No, of course not.” She blushed even more fiercely. “It’s just that—”

  “What?”

  “Um, I guess the guys I’ve...dated, they aren’t big on compliments. And I think they were more impressed with my IT skills and video game scores than with my looks.”

  Metal put on his poker face. “I’m impressed by your IT skills and game scores too. Does that give me points?”

  She laughed. “Totally.”

  “So can
I do this?” He bent down, licked her right nipple and saw her shudder. In a good way. He lifted his head and stared down at her. “You okay with that?”

  “Oh yeah.” She was bright pink, flushed and flustered and absolutely irresistible. He’d lied. He was impressed that she was so smart and he was sure she was good at video games but right now? Right now none of that made any difference to him. What was turning him on was the way she looked at him, huge blue eyes fixed on him. How she reacted to his every touch, how she moved into his touch. “Again,” she said breathlessly.

  Hell yeah.

  Metal bent again and this time he took her nipple fully in his mouth, holding her sides between his hands. Like holding an ice cream cone that was salty-sweet. He pulled with his mouth and she reacted strongly. She shuddered and he saw goose bumps rise along her forearms.

  Good. He wasn’t alone in this. Because he was about as turned on as he’d ever been in his life. As a matter of fact he needed a new word for what what he felt. Turned on sounded bland. You got turned on by a song or a new gun. This was unexplored territory and it needed a new word. He’d think of one later. Right now he had trouble remembering his own name.

  He bent to kiss her again, short nips, lifting and readjusting his mouth over hers. He was almost scared of a proper kiss—long, with lots of tongue. Entering her mouth with his with tongue was scarily close to entering her with his dick and that wasn’t something he could do. Yet.

  The thought of that, the thought of finally entering her whenever it could happen, caused him to jerk a little. She pulled back in surprise.

  He was trying to think of something that would explain why he jerked without making him sound like a moron but sorry about that, I flashed on fucking you and my system went haywire didn’t cut it.

  Then he couldn’t think of anything at all because she did what he’d done. She placed her palm flat on his chest. They both looked down. Her hand was slender, long-fingered like the hand of a musician’s. Ivory skin against his tanned chest. The contrast between her hand and his chest was amazingly erotic.

  Metal usually thought that erotic things had to be connected to fucking. Man, he was so wrong. Just looking at her was erotic. Yeah, she was naked, but he’d wanted her just as fiercely when she’d been covered up by his T-shirt. Everything about her was erotic and turned him on enormously. Her coloring—sunny-blond hair, sky-blue eyes, ivory skin. Her shape—slender but totally female, a tiny waist between breasts that were perfect for his hands and hips made to be gripped.

  She was so enticing. Not jumping her right now, not sliding into her, was costing him years off his life.

  Felicity patted him then her fingers curled into his muscle. She had short fingernails but even if she had those claws some women had she wouldn’t hurt him.

  “You feel wonderful,” she said. Her gaze switched from his chest to his eyes and back. When she moved her eyes it was like lightning flashing. He was mesmerized.

  Her lashes were light brown tipped with gold and he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her as she looked up and back down again, the thick gold-tipped lashes like little fans. Her eyebrows, too, were fascinating, gold and ash brown hairs, the gold glinting in the dim light. And her hair. Purely her own color too. There were a thousand colors in there, though mainly gold. Tiny almost invisible pale gold hairs fluffed around her face. If any hairdresser could replicate that color, he’d be rich.

  “What?” she said, as he continued scrutinizing her.

  “You’re so beautiful you melt my eyeballs. Everything about you is so perfect.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “I’ve got defects.”

  “Name one.”

  “A mole right above my left buttock.”

  A mole right above her left buttock. He closed his eyes, imagining it. Oh God. His dick wanted to punch its way out of his jeans.

  “Let me see,” he said urgently. “I want to see it.”

  She smiled slowly. “You want to see it? My mole?”

  He huffed out a breath that she would have to take on faith was ‘Yeah’.

  “All right,” she said quietly, that half smile on her face driving him crazy.

  Slowly, she pushed down the bedclothes and turned over.

  Metal felt his eyes widen, his jaw drop. How could she be as beautiful on side B as she was on side A? Yet she was. That long elegant back narrowing to a small waist, dimples just above her ass which was pale and round and perfect. Like a peeled apple.

  He wanted to bite it.

  Sure enough, right above the left buttock, next to the adorable dimple, was a small mole. He bent down slowly and kissed it, one hand smoothing over her right buttock.

  “Not a defect,” he said, voice rough. “More like a decoration. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  He lifted his head and she turned back over, searching his face with a slight smile.

  “Okay. I can’t cook,” she warned. “I mainly eat takeout and frozen pizza.”

  “That’s fine. I cook.” Metal was touching her breasts, rubbing his thumb over the smooth satiny skin. He didn’t give a fuck about takeout and frozen pizza.

  She was doing the same to him, feeling his pecs. When she scraped a fingernail over a nipple it shot straight to his dick. He made a strangled sound deep in his throat.

  “You feel so very good,” she sighed. “Just amazing.”

  He saw her mouth move but couldn’t make out the words because his head was about to explode. “What?”

  Her eyes were half-closed. The skin was so fine he could see tiny blue veins in her eyelids. “You. Feel. Good.”

  “God. Can barely understand English.” Now the words penetrated. “See what you reduce me to?”

  She blinked blankly, not having made the connection of him unable to understand words and her own allure. He placed his hand over hers and man, double whammy. Her palm over his chest, his palm over her hand.

  He really was going to stroke out when they had sex if this tiny amount of stimulation got him going like this.

  Gently, he eased her down in the bed until she was lying flat on her back. Her breasts were so soft. The last woman he’d had sex with had had breasts that looked like basketballs perched on her chest when she was lying on her back. That was when he’d sworn off implants.

  Had been sometime ago too.

  Months, in fact, come to think of it. Was that why he was so worked up? Because it was a long time since the last time he’d had sex?

  Nah.

  He hadn’t been having sex because he’d sort of lost interest in it. He was interested now. Oh man, was he interested. A bomb could go off in the next room and he’d still be staring at Felicity’s breasts.

  He bent his head and kissed her there, where his hand had been. He nibbled his way around her left breast, relishing the hard beat of her heart under his lips.

  She was alive and well and that was a miracle. She could have died the other day. The fucker could have slashed an artery and she would have bled out there alone on the airport concourse and he would never have known her. Never held this miracle woman in his arms.

  “Metal?” She’d clued into his sudden change, probably to the air molecules shifting around him. Because all of a sudden he needed to claim her, claim this woman he’d almost lost before knowing her.

  He looked up at her slightly breathless tone. Did he hear a touch of fear?

  No way. No way was he going to hurt her.

  “Not going to hurt you,” he said in a guttural tone. “But I gotta do this.”

  As a declaration of intent it wasn’t much but somehow it reassured her. Her head had lifted a little from the pillow to look at him, but now she plopped her head back.

  He consciously made his hands gentle. When the image of a dead Felicity lying in a pool of her ow
n blood coursed through him he’d stopped himself just in time from gripping her hard.

  His hands were strong and if he gripped her hard he’d hurt her. Nope. Not going to happen. So he opened his hands and used only his outstretched palms to touch her, running them over her breasts, down her narrow torso, down over her smooth flat belly.

  Down.

  Before he had to ask, her legs slid apart. Oh yeah. Smart Felicity.

  Metal watched his hand as it smoothed his way down her body. Had he ever seen a woman more gorgeous than this?

  Back in the Sandbox, porn magazines had been everywhere. Sex and alcohol had always been stress relievers for soldiers. Alcohol was out because it was a dry country. They doled out maybe one miserable bottle of beer a day, if that. The supplies were kept under lock and key.

  Sex—well there were women on base though not out on missions. But the women on base were mostly officers and untouchable. And, well, for him at least, a fellow soldier just didn’t inspire sex. Loyalty and respect yes, but sex? After about a month the women were just as sexless as the men. Covered in dust and sand, eating bad food, shitting infrequently because they were so gummed up from the crap food and smelling kinda ripe because the showers were clogged up and disgusting, even for the guys.

  No one ever showered barefoot because you could pick up nasty fungi and yeah, everyone stank.

  So no sex and the guys just looked at porn magazines. God knows what the women did. But for a couple of years, the barracks were awash in pictures of naked women with tiny hips, humongous boobs, pouty lips and empty eyes. Caricatures of women. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they were CGI.

  Jesus, this woman was so different she could have been another species.

  Soft yet strong. Escaping a killer twice while wounded—well not many soldiers could have managed that. Razor sharp. Amazingly beautiful, and the real deal too.

  Amazing.

  Between her legs was an ash brown cloud tipped with gold and farther down gleaming pink lips. She was so beautiful here too.