Because of You: A Loveswept Contemporary Military Romance Read online

  Everything exploded into sudden violent action all at once. Fists and elbows descended and sounds like meat being beaten thudded to the beat of Toby Keith’s latest song. Chairs skidded across the floor and Jen found herself mesmerized by the absolute chaos bursting around her. She searched for a path through the melee, and then found herself pinned between a pillar and the dance floor, which churned now with bodies. Worse yet, she’d lost Laura and Nicole in the fray.

  Everything turned to slow motion. She needed to get out of the way, but her feet suddenly felt like lead weights as Carponti and Randall grappled and stumbled toward her.

  Strong hands yanked her hard to the right so fast her neck popped.

  Shane. A ridiculous relief flooded through her, tingling over her skin.

  He braced his hands on the bar on either side of her shoulders to keep from being jammed into her again. “Sorry. It looked like you needed a hand. You okay?”

  The fight spun out of control around them, but at the moment, she was cocooned between his body and the solid wood of the bar pressing into her back.

  His voice was warm and smooth over the uproar. “I’m going to drag Carponti outside and beat him.”

  She almost laughed at the mixture of resignation and irritation in Shane’s voice. It sounded like he’d spent one too many nights saving Carponti from trouble.

  It might have been half an hour or five minutes, but the next thing Jen knew, the crowd had parted and she was outside. She wrapped her arms around her belly and walked around Randall and Trent, who were arguing loudly in front of the soldiers and spouses who’d trickled out into the parking lot. Shane was busy stuffing soldiers into cars or cabs, depending on their sobriety level. Laura leaned against the hood of her car, next to Nicole, who had an amused look on her face.

  “Is this how they always spend their last night in the States?” Jen asked.

  Laura looked more like a centerfold than a mother of two who’d just escaped a bar brawl. Her friend was either halfway to well lit or furious. Or maybe a little bit of both. Jen couldn’t really tell.

  Nicole laughed and brushed her hair from her face, sending a whiff of smoke and perfume floating through the thick Texas night air. “It is for me. Vic is constantly pulling stunts like this.” She shrugged. “I love him and I guess that doesn’t come with a ‘but,’ you know?”

  “Guess this is what I get for trying something different. The last few times Trent left, I was either pregnant or nursing, so no, bars weren’t really an option.” Laura’s voice cracked, and with it, Jen’s heart. She wasn’t really close to any of these men, and yet, a sudden sadness welled up inside of her that she could not understand.

  “If he’s peeing in the bushes, I’m thinking this is the end of the night,” Nicole said, as Carponti stumbled from behind a parked car, tugging at his zipper. Shane and Trent bullied Lieutenant Randall into a cab. “And hey, no one went to jail. That’s always a plus.”

  Laura cracked a wry grin. “Looks like he’s one of the last ones. Nicole, can you get Carponti out of here? I won’t be able to get Trent to leave until all his boys are home.”

  “Sure. See you tomorrow morning?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there.”

  Nicole snagged her husband and urged him toward their car in a backward waltz that was at once a drunken stumble and an erotic dance. The silence wrapped around them like the dark shadows at the edge of the parking lot.

  “Are you bringing the kids tomorrow to see Trent off?” Jen asked.

  “No.” Laura’s throat bobbed as she looked into the floodlit parking lot, her eyes settling on her husband. That single word nearly broke Jen’s heart. She wrapped her arm around Laura, who rested her head on her shoulder.

  “I should be used to this by now,” Laura whispered.

  “I don’t know how. It doesn’t get any easier no matter how many times you say good-bye.”

  Laura sniffed and straightened as Trent slammed the door of Randall’s cab closed. “I don’t say good-bye. I say see you soon.”

  Having shipped the last of the soldiers home, Shane and Trent finally approached them. Jen could see why Shane had stayed to mop up. He looked so different from Trent, whose black hair and wire-rimmed glasses made him look more like a warrior monk. Shane was pure fighter, all black ink and hard angles. There was no dichotomy to him, like there appeared to be with Trent.

  “Ready to head home?” Trent asked, wrapping his arms around Laura’s shoulders.

  “Absolutely. You okay to get home, Jen?” Laura lips curled in pure wickedness. It took Jen all of two seconds to realize what she had in mind.

  “Laura, don’t you dare,” Jen hissed as she scanned the parking lot, searching for a way out of her friend’s scheme. She wanted to entertain her curiosity from a distance, not up close and personal.

  Shane hooked his hands behind his back, looking more relaxed than he had at the beginning of the night. Jen frowned and for a brief moment, thought that he’d actually enjoyed himself during the fight. “Trent, take your wife home. And I better not see you at the gym before ten. I’ll take accountability until First Sergeant gets there.”

  “Thanks, man. See you in the morning.” Trent walked off, his wife’s arm wrapped around his waist. Laura leaned back, shooting Jen a half-drunken, enthusiastic thumbs-up.

  Jen felt a pang of sadness overshadowed by something else. A feeling both awkward and intense that sparked to life when she looked up at Shane. All at once, it struck her that she was alone with him in a dimly lit parking lot.

  And she wasn’t embarrassed or self-conscious or afraid.

  For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long, she felt a pang of desire that wasn’t overruled by the constant heat of the scar on her chest. She let the awareness of her femininity coast through her veins, and she savored the feeling along with the man.

  He was leaving for Iraq in the morning. She could hold on to this one moment.

  What’s the worst that could happen?

  * * *

  When the fight had broken out, Shane had seen her standing in the path of the two fighters. He’d mentally urged her to move aside, but everything she’d done had only brought her closer to harm’s way. Finally, he’d surrendered to instinct, and stepped in to move her to safety. Looking down at her now, at her hesitant smile mixed with a hint of expectation, he felt it again. The same emotion he’d felt earlier that night. The urge to protect. To shelter. It flickered to life inside of him, something long dormant unfurling inside warmth. The feeling staggered him with its simplicity and power. Had he not been leaving for Iraq in the morning, he might have taken that single step forward and closed the gap between them. She was temptation bundled with a nervous tension—a combination he found absolutely sweet.

  “I don’t bite,” he said, stuffing his hands into his back pockets.

  “I’m not worried. You’re supposed to be one of the good guys, right?”

  Shane chuckled quietly. “My men might disagree.”

  She narrowed her eyes and peered up at him thoughtfully. “That’s the second time you’ve said that tonight. Why do you have such a low opinion of yourself?”

  “I’m not nice. I’m effective. They’re mutually exclusive in my world.” Shane tried to keep the bitterness from his smile but gave up, surrendering to the truth with a sigh. She was easy to talk to. Something else he was out of practice with.

  “Really? Is your world really all that different?”

  “I’m a rifle platoon sergeant in a combined arms battalion. I was issued weapons, not baskets of flowers.”

  “Can you translate that to non-army?” she asked.

  “Infantry. I train my men to shoot things.” Shane felt like an awkward teen, unsure of what to say or do.

  “Ah. Much easier to understand.” She tipped her chin. “But it doesn’t explain why Laura has such a high opinion of you if you’re such a bad guy.”

  God but he needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere other than talk
ing to this particular beautiful woman. Laura would unman him over this if he so much as blinked wrong at Jen, let alone give in to the desire to move beyond small talk.

  “Can I, ah, make sure you get to your car okay?”

  Her mouth was curled in the sweetest half smile, like she couldn’t quite figure him out. “Not going to answer?”

  “Walking you to your car does not involve psychotherapy. At least, I didn’t think it did.”

  She laughed quietly, the noise of the bar fading a little as they rounded the corner of the parking lot.

  She paused and looked over her shoulder at him. A single beam of light slanted across her cheek and almost, he gave in to the urge to trace his thumb over her skin. When she froze, her lips parted just slightly, he stepped into her space. Not close enough to scare her, he hoped. He might regret this. But he wasn’t going to spend the next year wondering what it would have been like. “Shit, I’m not good at this.”

  “Good at what?” Her face was bathed in shadows now, and she rubbed her hands over her arms. He placed a hand on her shoulder, hesitating and unsure, but filled with a need he couldn’t explain.

  “I’d like very much to kiss you good night,” he whispered, and felt like an urgent seventeen-year-old for even asking. But the moment her lips parted and she lifted her chin, just a little, he was done.

  “I’d like that, too.”

  His breath caught in his throat as he lowered his mouth to hers. He hesitated, nudging her lips open before he curved his mouth over hers. It had been far too long since he’d kissed a woman simply for the sake of it. And now?

  Now he felt like he was drowning in her.

  A deep, hard ache rose within him. An ache that he would not, no matter how she might lean into him, satisfy tonight. Maybe in a year, if he came home, he might give her a call.

  But for tonight, all he had was this kiss. This soft, yearning kiss that tugged at a passion within him that he’d thought long dead. Her sensual gasp against his tongue, the soft stroke of hers against his twisted up inside of him and made him want more, so much more than he could ever hope to have in a single night. He lifted his hand, brushing his finger over her throat, and felt her heart hammering against her skin.

  * * *

  Jen sighed quietly as Shane kissed her, afraid this was just a dream. The taste of him flowed through her, singing through her blood. And then? Then she kissed him back. She slipped her tongue into his mouth, tasting beer and mint and everything sensual and arousing about kissing a man. She burned, a slow fire for this man lighting through her veins.

  For Shane.

  There was a delicious ache inside of her and she held on to it, clung to it. His arms were strong around her, his skin hot beneath her fingertips. He shifted and pulled her closer, until she was softness and heat pressed against steel.

  She sighed and leaned into him. He traced his fingertips down her spine, his hand warm and solid against her lower back.

  He was hard and rough, surrounding her with his kiss, his body. She tried telling herself this wasn’t what she thought it was. But she’d never lied to herself before; she wasn’t about to start now.

  This man was attracted to her. Her.

  She refused to argue with it, and instead gave herself over to the utterly arousing sensation of being desired. This was what she missed about her former life. That beautiful sensation of a first kiss, the delicious tug of first desire deep in her belly. She lost herself in his kiss, in the slide of his thumb over her back.

  Arousal sang through her blood the moment his fingers brushed against the soft skin of her belly. She gasped softly at the power in his hands. His scent wrapped around her like spice and silk and urged her closer to something she hadn’t allowed herself to crave.

  * * *

  He felt her soften a little more with each moment. Shane had never imagined this and he was completely unprepared for the strength of his own reaction. For once in his life, he surrendered. To the moment. To the taste and feel of Jen. Just Jen and the feeling of being wanted.

  He wanted to hear her gasp again, to hear the sweetness of that sound and to carry the memory of it into the darkness with him. He slipped his hand up over the arc of her ribs, swallowing each gasp, each sigh as she reacted to his touch.

  He was not prepared for her to stiffen.

  He froze immediately, stilling his hand at the edge of her ribs. Her fingers flexed against his forearms and she eased away. Shane rested his hands lightly on her shoulders, even as he brushed his lips over hers again, determined to ease the sudden awkwardness, if not erase it.

  “I’d hate for you to think I’m one of those easy girls,” he said, his lips twisted in a grin. “You’ll have to at least buy me dinner.”

  “I’ll still respect you in the morning.” She laughed, and just like that, the tension between them was gone. “It was really great seeing you tonight.”

  He cupped her cheek, her skin so incredibly soft beneath his rough hands. She was tender and beautiful, and for once he truly wished he had more time before he left. He’d never know if tonight could have led to something more. “You, too.”

  She blinked hard and Shane wondered at the sudden emotion he saw flicker in her eyes. “Be safe this year?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “You do that.”

  He kissed her then, sweetly this time, and he was intensely glad that she didn’t stiffen or pull away. He hadn’t ruined this precious moment after all. “Good-bye, Jen.”

  “Good-bye, Shane.”

  He swallowed the bite of hard emotion that lodged suddenly in his throat. She’d given him one hell of a memory to carry with him into the desert.

  He’d hold the memory of that kiss with him even as he walked—willing and able—into a war. He’d volunteered to serve, but tonight, for the first time, he was walking away from something precious. Because of Jen, he had a reason for coming home.

  Chapter 3

  Shane walked into the gym, taking in all the activity around him, trying to see how things were set up for this deployment. In the center of the gym, soldiers waited in line for medical approval in order to officially begin their season in the desert. Good times had by all. Reaching the bleachers, he dropped his assault pack on the bottom step, laid his M4 on the floor at his feet, and took a seat, resting his head on his forearms. For the first time in twenty-four hours he was able to close his eyes.

  He never slept the night before deployment. The first time he’d deployed, he’d been too nervous to sleep and had crashed hard on the plane, waking up somewhere over Turkey. Last night, though, he’d lain awake for different reasons. His stitches had been throbbing like a bastard, and there’d been blood on the bandage this morning. He was doing his best to ignore that, though, along with the pain. He just had to make it through today without a physical and he’d be fine.

  Shane sat fully upright, wincing as the sudden movement jarred his stitches. He looked around, hoping no one had noticed. To be deployed, a soldier had to be one hundred percent medically ready, and he did not want to give anyone a reason to suspect that he was not. No one knew that less than a week ago, while he was on vacation down in Corpus Christie, catching a few catfish, he’d had to make a quick side trip to the local civilian hospital. So far, he’d manage to keep anyone in the army from finding out, and had kept it out of his official medical records. The way he saw it, his lack of appendix wouldn’t be the problem getting out of here today. His recent lack of an appendix could, especially if Trent or Carponti found out, as they’d make damn sure he didn’t deploy. They wouldn’t do it out of spite, but rather worry. It was Shane’s job to worry about the guys, not the other way around. He realized that Trent had the authority to make him stay behind, and Carponti had a big mouth. If Carponti knew, everyone else would, too … and that was not going to happen. Shane just had to grin and bear the pain. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d stepped over the fine line between hooah and stupid.

  The medical
line was a final clearance that was damn sure going to stick it to him, and not in a good way. He overheard one of the nurses say “exam.” Shit. A couple of the guys didn’t come out from behind a white curtain looking too happy. He’d counted at least five that had been pulled off flights and they weren’t even halfway through the line. He had to find a way to get on that plane without seeing a doc.

  But more than just his stitches had kept him up last night. In truth, Jen St. James was the primary reason he’d had trouble sleeping. Even now, his body tightened at the memory of her kiss—Jen had given him a taste of what might have been if he hadn’t been going off to war. Deployments were filled with long bouts of boredom and loneliness, punctuated by bursts of pure terror and an overdose of adrenaline. He had no idea how the wives and girlfriends who were left behind managed while their soldiers unplugged and shipped out. Well, he had an idea, but most of them didn’t cheat like his ex had.

  But he was a soldier and duty called. Being a soldier meant leaving behind the soft kisses and warm beds. It meant toughing it out in the heat, dirt, and sand for the guy next to you. It took a special kind of woman to wait for the wars to be over.

  He might not have someone waiting when he came home, but that kiss was going to keep him company through the long nights of his deployment. It would give him something good to think about when the weight and responsibility he carried got a little too heavy.

  Shane shifted on the bleachers, tensing as his stomach clenched and pain burst through his gut. He should have been more careful last night while trying to keep the fight between Randall and Carponti from getting out of control. It was never a good thing when sergeants felt like they could take a swing at an officer, especially an officer in his company. And Randall was just petty enough to complain to Trent about Carponti’s insubordinate conduct. Never mind that Randall had hit on Carponti’s wife. That little fact would likely be left out of the report.

  Nearby, the gym’s main door slammed open, hushing the dull noise of the crowd as everyone turned toward the boom. Shane looked up as Carponti strolled in, his arm draped around his wife’s shoulders. Shane narrowed his eyes as they stumbled toward him. “He better not still be drunk,” he mumbled beneath his breath.