She stared back at him with an unmistakable craving her eyes. “I say yes.”
Restraining the urge to pump the air with his fist, Sebastian palmed her back and eyed the nearest exit. To hell with tossing around niceties on their way out, she seemed as determined as he was. Would they even make it to the house, or would they be pulling off the road again?
Five interminable minutes later, the valet had unearthed her car from the rows of guest vehicles. Sebastian snagged the keys and had the engine in Drive.
He eyed a convenient side road along the way but decided he wanted to take his time with her in the privacy of their house—in his bed. He could almost convince himself things were normal between them. Again?
Had they ever been normal? Their life together had started off at such a frenetic pace. They married three months after meeting. Marianna lost the baby on that hellish night in the mountains.
Then it was a breakneck pace through college and law school. The ups and downs of failed fertility treatments, and the adoption…He cut off thoughts that solved nothing. The past had no bearing on the present. He needed to forge ahead, build on what they had—the baby.
And a smoking-hot passion for each other that had ironically grown stronger during their divorce.
Sliding the car into Park outside their house, he lifted a stray lock of hair gracing her shoulder. “Have I told you how beautiful you look?”
“You mentioned it.”
“Just checking.”
“Sebastian.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Urgency built with a need to roll free. He nibbled along her soft hand, vulnerable wrist, making short order of the trek up her arm to claim her mouth, hot, hard and fast. The familiar grip of desire that always simmered below the surface around Marianna roared to life.
He tangled a hand in her hair, combing through until her curls fell free, pins pinging along the gearshift. His other arm locked low around her waist and lifted her flush against him. Her soft curves fit against him, her h*ps rocking a promise he fully intended to accept.
“Inside,” he whispered against her lips. “We’ve already done the sex-in-a-car deal. Let’s take this to a bed.”
“Yes,” she gasped, her fingernails pressing through his jacket and into his shoulders with urgency, “but soon, please.”
He reached to open his door while she held on to their kiss until the very…last…second. Sprinting around the hood of the car, he made it to her side just as she stepped out and back into his arms. Her feet tangled with his as they stumbled along the pavers.
She lost a shoe. He started to retrieve it, and she gripped his wrist, bringing his hand back to her waist as she kicked off the other high heel. “I’ll get them later.”
If Marianna didn’t care about her precious shoes, she must mean business.
He scooped her off her bare feet and carried her up to the porch. Her fingers tunneled under his collar to tease his neck, her lips following suit while he fumbled with the keys.
Finally, the door swung open and he angled her into the cool hall. She slid down his body in a sensuous glide until she stood flush against him again. He booted the door closed and dodged Buddy zigzagging around them before curling up beside the door.
Sebastian backed her toward the stairs, his coat somehow falling off and landing on a Persian rug as he hit the first step. Damn, he adored her quick and efficient hands. And her eager mouth moving under his. Her soft br**sts brushing against his chest.
Right now, he liked just about everything about her. She arched deeper into the kiss, her fingers making quick work of his tie, sending the strip of silk fluttering through the air.
Halfway up, he pinned her against the wall, needing to touch a lot more than they could with most of their clothes still on. His hands tunneled under her dress and up her legs while he kissed his way down her neck. Her head fell back against the wall with a thud as loud as her gasps of pleasure.
Sebastian caressed higher, along her h*ps then around to find she wore a skimpy thong. A possessive growl rumbled up and out as he thought about her dressed this way all evening long. He gripped her soft bare flesh and pressed her closer against him. Still not near enough to ease the throbbing in his pants—and not near enough for her either, if her urgent wriggles and breathy whimpers were anything to judge by.
Who the hell needed a bed anyway?
He slid a hand around front again, teasing along the edge of her thong, back and forth, just grazing her moist heat. The feel of her desire alone was almost enough to send him over the edge, but he held back. Wanting, aching to see her come apart before he gave in to his own driving need to be inside her.
“Sebastian,” she gasped, hooking a long leg over his hip, “you’re not playing fair. You promised we would hurry.”
“Be patient.” He blew lightly along her shoulder, some of her body glitter taking flight. “We’ll get there.”
He slid two fingers inside her panties for a firmer stroke followed by a slow dip inside her. Then out. Repeating again and again while imagining just how good the sweet moist clamp of her would feel around more than just his fingers.
Her other knee buckled, and he anchored her against the wall. She gasped as fast as his heart pounded inside his chest, each breath faster as he could see her nearing completion. She rocked against his touch while slipping her hand to his belt buckle and damn but she already had him buzzing…
Except wait—that was his cell phone, clipped to his waistband, set on vibrate.
“Ignore it.” He circled his passion-slicked fingers around her tight bud of nerves.
“Probably just work trying to intrude on our love life for the four hundredth time.”
“Work can go to hell tonight,” he grumbled between tight teeth.
His BlackBerry buzzed. He pitched it to the floor and kissed her quiet, his tongue stroking the inside of her mouth as thoroughly as his fingers playing lower. The cell phone buzzed again.
Marianna nipped along his lower lip. “Maybe we should just check the caller ID.”
“Not so inclined right now.”
She reached to tip the phone’s LCD screen upward and instantly stilled in his arms, her foot sliding back to the stairway. “Sebastian, it’s the General. What if it’s a family emergency?”
As much as he wanted to think she was over-reacting, he couldn’t ignore the fact that the General never called late. Ever.
Sebastian grabbed the phone just as it stopped ringing, then hit Redial. He picked up after one ring.
“General? Sebastian here. What’s up?” Besides him.
“You know I wouldn’t bother you this late if it wasn’t important, but your mother needs you. Kyle’s plane has been shot down in Afghanistan.” The nightmarish words feared by every family with a military relative echoed through the airwaves. “They don’t know if he survived the crash.”
Marianna pressed a hand to the dashboard, her brain struggling to change gears as quickly as Sebastian shifting into fourth on her car as he raced back to the Landis compound. There’d been no discussion of leaving her at home. Kyle had been a part of her family for nine years. Just thinking of Sebastian’s lighthearted brother possibly lying out there somewhere dead…She wanted to be with the family. She needed to be there, could only imagine how terrified his mother must be. Her own heart ached so deeply over losing Sophie, yet she had the reassurance that her daughter was still alive. What kind of hell it would be to fear for your child’s life?
And Sebastian…Yes, she had to be there for him, even though he would never ask, much less acknowledge he had needs. What must be churning inside him right now? His jaw flexed in what had to be a teeth-grinding clench as he powered down the four-lane road. His fist stayed tight around the gearshift. In spite of the muscles bulging beneath his shirtsleeves, he held steady at the speed limit.
Just barely.
Maybe if she could get him to talk. “What else did the General have to say?”
“Only that Kyle was working some kind of covert operation with the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations. The transport plane that was carrying him went off radar. Radio transmissions indicate they were shot down. They’re searching for the wreckage now.”
“God, Sebastian, I’m so sorry. Your mother must be frantic.”
“I’m not borrowing trouble. Kyle’s tough. He’s a survivor.”
He was also just the reckless, selfless kind to die saving everyone else. But that didn’t need to be said. Sebastian knew his own brother well enough.
“Anything else?” she asked, more to keep him talking than out of any expectation to discover more.
He shook his head. “The media hasn’t gotten hold of the story yet. The Air Force is trying to keep Kyle’s name out of the news in case he’s evading.”
She shuddered at the possibility of him in the hands of enemies. If they realized they had the son of a politically influential family in their grasp…The horrendous possibilities were unthinkable.
Sebastian stopped for a red light, revving the engine as if willing the miles between them and the compound to go by all the faster. The light turned green and he accelerated.
Headlights blinded her through her window. Brakes squealed. Her muscles tensed in anticipation of the likely crash. She braced her hand more firmly against the dash, her other arm hugging her waist, her baby, with a fierce maternal drive to protect—
Cursing, Sebastian twisted the steering wheel, jolting the car. Her body flung to the right, rapping her head against the passenger window with a painful snap.
Then everything went dark.
Eight
S ebastian paced in the emergency room waiting area, still not certain if Marianna and their baby were all right.
Damn it, why had he let himself become distracted while driving? Sure he managed to avoid the other vehicle—barely. The drunk driver had embedded his car in a telephone pole, then staggered around without so much as a scratch. Marianna, however, had been knocked unconscious.The present resembled the past too closely for him to shrug it off. Again, he was in an E.R. waiting to hear if Marianna and their baby were all right. Even thoughts of the ride itself made him break out in a cold sweat. As with nine years ago, he’d driven like a bat out of hell with Marianna in the car. He was lucky he hadn’t killed her then. But what about now?
He still didn’t know because the doctor had banished him from the room out into this damn small space where he kept knocking his legs on metal furniture every time he turned around. And the noises, God, they jangled in his ears. The older lady two gurneys down the hall who kept up a steady stream of complaints whenever a nurse walked by. A teenager crying quietly as she spoke into a cell phone. The occasional drum of the EMTs’ feet as they raced in with a new patient.
How much longer would he have to cool his heels? He kicked an end table aside, which drew his attention to his shoes, the ones Marianna had given him for Christmas. Shoes that would have been beside her bed if this night had gone differently.
He couldn’t even wrap his brain around what might be going on with his brother. Somebody needed to cough up good news. Soon.