we’d sleep together,” he said, his body already tautening just at the thought of this beautiful little blonde in his arms all night. But he gritted his teeth. “It won’t bother you?” he added roughly. “I mean, I only have one arm . . .”
“That’s okay,” she said softly, lifting her face. “I have two. I’d give you one of mine, if I could . . . !”
She stopped because his mouth covered hers, fierce and hungry and tender, all at once.
“I think I dreamed you,” he said gruffly, and he kissed her again.
She loved being in his arms. She loved the feel of his hard, hungry mouth on her lips. She loved it that he wanted her. She wasn’t so naïve that she couldn’t feel that. But he might think she was experienced, and she had to tell him.
She pulled back just a little, her mouth swollen, her body singing as she looked up into turbulent dark eyes. “Butch,” she began shyly, “you know that I’ve never . . . I mean, I don’t know how . . .” She groaned.
“You’ve never had sex?” he asked, and despite his earlier suspicions that she was innocent, he was shocked. She was so beautiful!
She shook her head. “Seeing Mama with all those men,” she replied. “It soured things for me. I mean, it was like just animals, she went from one man to the next, constantly. Some of them wanted me.” She shook her head. “I was afraid of most of them, especially Darrin.” She looked up. “But I’m not at all afraid of you,” she confessed, studying his hard face. “I love being with you, talking to you, going places with you. I love kissing you . . .”
She stopped as he bent and kissed her again, but this time with exquisite tenderness, holding her against him from head to toe, letting her feel his own hunger.
She started to jerk away, but he held her, without pressure, and smiled down at her. “This is something you’ll have to get used to,” he explained gently. “Men get aroused when they kiss women. Doesn’t mean I’m going to jump on you all at once. Okay?”
She laughed away the embarrassment. “Okay.”
He drew in a long, slow breath. “Well, our first time is going to be an experience,” he commented.
“Because I don’t know anything?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Because I haven’t been with a woman since I lost my arm. I guess I’ll wobble all over the place and make a mess of the whole business.”
“No, you won’t,” she said gently and nuzzled her face into his throat. “We’ll manage. People come home from wars in all sorts of conditions,” she added quietly. “I don’t think most women care what condition that is, when they love their husbands.”
His hand smoothed over her soft, fine hair, almost to her waist in back when she let it loose, as she had earlier. “I was so busy thinking about my men that it never occurred to me that I’d end up half dead. If it hadn’t been for Parker, I wouldn’t be here. He’s got several wounds that he sustained because he carried me off the battlefield. He’s a hell of a guy. My best friend.”
“He likes you, too. It shows.”
“Men form bonds in war,” he said solemnly, nuzzling the top of her head with his cheek. “You go through so much horror. It makes for lasting friendships, especially when you get out and have to deal with the aftermath. I was in the hospital for a while, and then they started trying to talk me into a prosthesis. I tried one or two, but the things just don’t have what they need to have, to replace an arm. I mean, you can’t lift with them. You can’t feel through them. They’re only good to pick up stuff, and I can even do that with my teeth if I have to.”
She smiled. “I knew a man in college who had an artificial arm. He was one of the adjunct instructors. He’d been in the Middle East, too. His prosthesis was high-tech. He actually had sensation in it, and it was linked to his muscles and even his brain so that he could control it.”
“Must be nice,” he sighed. “On my paycheck, I might afford one if I could save up for about thirty years.” He laughed. “By then, I’d be so old, I wouldn’t care, you know?”
She grinned. But inside she was thinking that she’d have all the