Aimpoint, Candace Irving [best love novels of all time TXT] 📗

staring at it as though mesmerized by the amber swirling within.

She reached down and retrieved the empty glass. "It's okay if you have another."

She hated herself for making the suggestion, especially having read the horrors in that BI of his. But if the man had more of that whiskey, she just might get more information. Enough to obtain a warrant to access that room down the hall and end this damned thing. Before LaCroix hit the town unguarded.

"No." John retrieved the tumbler from her hand and set it and the bottle on the table—firmly. "I was serious earlier; I have the one. Just the one. And only when I lose someone."

"Why?" But she knew. Though it hadn't been spelled out in that BI, it was in there. And it was right here. In that strained, distant stare. Along with all the things she was not supposed to know about this man—much less feel for him.

She almost wished he wouldn't answer.

But he did. "My dad." The ghosts haunting those dark gray eyes strengthened. Multiplied. Crowded out the hope. "I didn't tell you everything last night. Didn't want to scare you off. Hell, I've probably done that anyway."

"You haven't."

"Yeah?" He didn't even try to hide his doubt, much less the gnawing pain and anger. "Let's just say I watched the man crawl into too damned many bottles while I was growing up. And each time he'd beat the shit out of me before he crawled back out. It's why my mom took Beth when she split—and left me with the bastard. She was afraid I'd turn out just like him. Maybe I will. Could be I just haven't hit the right trigger. Yet."

He fell silent, waiting.

Accusing.

He expected her to leave him too. If not now, or later tonight—soon. That betraying pulse of his bellowed it. Dared her to just go. Like his mom and his sister. The friend he'd lost today. And all the other friends and fellow soldiers he'd lost as that bottle—and countless previous ones—had been drained, inch by agonizing inch. He was all but begging her to leave. Before it was too late.

For him.

She wasn't going anywhere.

She reached up and cupped his jaw, directly over that trio of shrapnel scars. She could feel his pulse thundering beneath her palm. He was livid.

But he didn't push her away.

"You're nothing like your dad."

"How would you know?"

"I just do." And not because she'd read his BI. Her hand slipped down to his shoulder. "My grandfather wasn't exactly gentle when he disciplined. He had this worn leather strap he liked to use when I failed to live up to his particular interpretation of the scriptures. My Sunday school teacher saw the welts and bruises once and called him out. But that just…made it worse." Not that the man had really needed a reason to whale on her, though she hadn't understood that at the time. Her failings had simply been his excuse. A way to deal with the humiliation of his son-in-law's betrayal. And his daughter's subsequent suicide.

John's jaw shifted beneath her palm as he swallowed—hard. "Where the hell was your mother?"

"She…died a couple months after my dad." It was true. Mostly. That was what mattered—right?

"So, you grew up with a bastard too."

She shook her head.

"Don't tell me he died as well."

"Heart attack. I was nine." It was almost a relief by then. "I was too old for adoption." Too standoffish and stubborn. Too much baggage. Hers, her mom's. Her dad's. Hell, even her grandfather's. "I went in the system."

"Foster care?"

"Yeah."

"How many homes?"

"I don't know. I didn't keep track."

Liar.

He knew it too, because his fingers came up to soothe her cheek. To soothe her. Given the man's size, it was amazing how gentle he could be. But that ragged pulse was not. Her fingertips took on a life of their own, reaching up to mirror his touch as she traced a path through the evening stubble on his cheek.

The pulse picked up, thumping into her palm once more. This time for an entirely different reason.

He turned his face into her hand and kissed it. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, he'd pulled her close and was kissing her.

He didn't need to coax desire from her tonight. It was there, searing in with that first touch of his lips.

She felt those familiar, proprietary hands of his sliding in as well, then down to engulf her lower back and ass as he pulled her closer still. His tongue swept deep, fanning the flames between them for several long, increasingly torrid kisses—until the flames were raging. Part of her knew they were being fueled by the raw emotions they'd just shared; the rest of her didn't care.

Nor did he.

Because the fire was consuming them both.

Her clothes seemed to disintegrate from her body, along with his. Or maybe the fabric had been singed off. She couldn't be sure. All she knew for certain was that both of them were finally, blissfully, down to scarred, bunching muscle and sleek, sinuous flesh. His callused hands and hot, seeking mouth were everywhere now. It wasn't enough. She wanted more. Needed it.

She needed him.

She didn't protest as John lifted her up by her waist and encouraged her to wrap her legs around him as he moved to press her naked back into the wall, because his breathtakingly naked front was pressing firmly into her.

She did protest, however, when he broke his string of fiery kisses to rasp, "Condom."

"I'm safe."

She could feel the relief blistering through his massive form—and then he was suddenly, mercifully, blistering into her. Filling her.

Good Lord, everything about the man was huge.

He swallowed her gasp and groaned right back into her as he drove deeper, pushing the both of them higher, hotter, and harder—again and again—until their private scorching world imploded on a series of glorious, mind and body-racking shudders. His harsh breaths mingled with hers, filling the still-smoldering air as they drifted back down together.

Before she realized his intent, John had swung