Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

Loosening her hold, he curved his powerful back in order to cup her breasts together again, making her arch into his mouth as he nursed on them, his tongue flicking, at first with gentle playfulness, but then a more insistent lashing. She thought about what he said about having them pierced, and thought she would like that, knowing he would adorn them as he wished, and tease her into mindless arousal like this.

He was putting more thrust into his strokes, and her body was responding, arching up like an opposing wave to meet that impact.

“Oh, God . . .” She clasped his broad shoulders, the sensations becoming too much. She loved his mouth, his beautiful cock, all of him. Everything about him. All hers, hers, hers

. . .

She clutched him with her muscles, wanting him to come, wanting to feel it, and realized he hadn’t put a condom on. That bareback sensation she’d wanted was there now, and while she knew the risk was minimal this time of the month, it was all right. She just knew it was.

“I needed to feel you, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely against her ear. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, tears springing to her eyes again. When it’s the right one, you heareach other’s thoughts, know his mind like your own. . . . Gram, talking about Granddad, her eyes full of distant, misty love and memory.

In answer, she held him tighter, inside and out. He increased the power of his thrusts and she met him, the sensations inundating her such that she thought she’d probably never experienced the act as deeply or intensely, physically or emotionally.

“Peter . . . Master . . . I’m so close. Please . . .”

“Come for me.”

She shattered in his arms, like plunging into waves of warm tropical waters, churned in a wild direction as the surf caught her up, headed toward shore, toward home. She cried out, and that cry intensified as his joined her, his seed releasing in a hot, searing rush that drove her higher, gave her climax an extra jolt of intensity that kept her clinging to him, working her hips up against his, her legs clamped tight around him.

As he came down, she realized he was breathing hard, harder than a fit man should, even after a climax. When she reached up to his face, he caught her fingers, but she lifted the other hand, refusing to be dissuaded. “Peter, you promised. All of you, too, remember?”

He made a noise of protest, but he couldn’t grab both her hands because his other arm was holding his full weight off her. When her fingers rested lightly on his cheeks, felt the dampness of something that wasn’t sweat, her brow furrowed. “Peter.”

“You’re beautiful, Dana. You’re everything I want. And I almost lost you before I found you. It’s tearing me up inside, not letting you see how crazy it’s made me. I love you. I’m sorry if you can’t handle hearing that, or you don’t believe it. But I do.”

Raw, quiet words, uttered in a rough voice that tore into her worse than shrapnel. But it was the missing piece. She’d been right to ask for all of it, to find the bravery to face it.

With their emotions twining around them, binding them even closer, she was finally ready to hear anything he needed to share. Closing her eyes, she held tighter to him.

She’d needed to hear the voice of his soul, as raw and fragile as her own. For months he’d written her letters, without her writing back. He’d come to her, brought her here, bullied and cajoled.

Loved her. There was nothing else to call it, no matter what skeptics said, those who relied on some irrational formula between emotion and the passage of time. In truth, those letters had been her lifeline, helping her to hold on until he got to her. Which meant she very likely loved him as much, right back.

When she’d stood at his bed, and told him she wanted him to make love to her, that she would stay, she hadn’t really understood why she would stay. She’d still feared it might be lack of options, or something else equally destructive. But that moment had been too overwhelming, his body too close behind her, his powerful need, and she’d gone forward on faith or mindless instinct. Now she knew it wasn’t anything destructive. No matter what had happened in Iraq, he was right. This would have happened between them,

because something stronger than sex had forged their bond that night at The Zone.

Freeing both her hands, she brought them to his face, cupped his jaw. He was so

powerful, so strong. Yet the heart was both the strongest and most fragile part of any person. Her gram had told her that, too. She’d said, “If you find someone strong enough to love you through thick and thin, you don’t never take that for granted, girl. Because if he loves you that much, that means you’re the person who can break his heart.”

“I’m so, so sorry, Peter,” she said. More tears slid along her cheeks, found his fingers.

“I’m sorry I didn’t write you back. I’m sorry I made you be so strong, while I’ve been so lost. I want to be the type of person deserving of your love.”

“Damn it, you already are.”

“We both know there’s a ways to go. I’m going to trust you to help me get there.” She swallowed, took a deep breath and gave him a ghost of a smile. “But when I do, I’m going to learn to take care of you right back, Captain Winston. So you’d better watch out.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. She heard the expulsion of his breath, and ran her hands up and down the broad back, slow, kneading, the strength of a river, the constancy of a woman’s love, the promise of it in a touch. In some ways, it was the most intimate moment