Chapter 6

He had decided there had been enough talk. When you’re not used to it, intimate conversation can wear a body out, and she needed time to think. He did too, for that matter.

She’d said he’d turned her world upside down. What she didn’t know was that she’d had a similar effect on him. He’d spent a lifetime avoiding serious relationships, because he didn’t have the time and freedom necessary to nourish one. Moreover, it was always possible he wouldn’t come back from a mission. He’d been to funerals of his brothers in arms, and seen the wreckage of the young wives and children they sometimes left behind, alone. He didn’t want to do that to a woman.

He’d had sex. That was always available. Sometimes it was for a price, and sometimes for fun. It had satisfied his baser urges, as Lacey might have put it. But it hadn’t really meant anything. It was more fun than masturbating, but he knew there could be much, much more. He just hadn’t felt like there was room for much, much more in his life. At least not during his career.

But now he wasn’t going off at a moment’s notice to travel to exotic places, meet interesting people, and kill them anymore. Lacey had been interesting. That was partly because she was possibly the most intelligent woman he’d ever spent much time with. And he saw the potential in her to be even more interesting, not only to him, but many others as well.

It wasn’t until the previous night, as he held her in his arms, that he got the tiniest taste of what “much, much more” might be like. As he had slid his hands all over her back, and then her soft bottom, it had been fun for him. But his primary focus had been on her needs. That was something rare, in his personal history. She’d felt good against him, especially after she warmed up. And he’d been stiff ... ready to rock and roll. But he had known that would be counterproductive. He really didn’t want her disgusted with him.

His reward had been to be presented with a gift no other man had ever received. True, it was a small gift, but he knew how much it meant to her. And because it was so precious to her, it was precious to him too.

In high school they called a girl like Lacey, “Ripe for the plucking.” All that meant was that a confused girl, full of hormones, could be manipulated to give something up that, if she were clear-headed, she might not. And a lot of guys had gone in for plucking that low hanging fruit.

Bob wasn’t one of them. And he wasn’t about to start being one, now.

That’s why he had left her with her thoughts. He knew if he’d said he wanted to kiss her, she’d probably have let him. If he’d asked to see her breasts again, she’d have most likely shown them to him again.

But if anything was going to happen between them, he wanted it to be her choice, not because he pushed the right buttons.

And ... he did, quite literally, have all the time in the world.

She came out of her room dressed in a pair of her new jeans, and the sweat shirt she’d bought. It was plain, but teal colored, and it set off her hair, wonderfully. She had brushed it to a sheen. She had also not bound her breasts.

He was frying a hamburger in a pan on the stove. She came up next to him and her shoulder touched his.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She looked past him to where Jenkins was sitting by the door.

“Naked,” she whispered.

He looked over at her, up and down her body.

“Trust me. You’re not naked,” he said.

“I’m not wearing my bindings,” she whispered.

“You don’t wear your bindings under your nightgown,” he observed.

“I never thought you noticed that,” she said.

“I’m a man,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Would you make me one, too?” she asked, indicating the hamburger.

“Your request is my command,” he said.

“I can’t remember wearing street clothing without my bindings,” she said.

“Well you look good,” he said.

“I put on one of my T shirts, but ... um ... it becomes obvious I don’t have on my bindings.”

“Put on a bra,” he suggested.

“I don’t own any,” she said.

“Well, that’s easy,” he said. “I’d be happy to take you bra shopping.”

“And watch me try them on?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, smiling.

“How many women have you had sex with?” she asked.

He was taken aback by the abrupt change in subject. He didn’t know how to answer her.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“How can that be?” she asked, shocked.

“I’ve been to twenty-seven countries,” he said. “I’ve been on at least a hundred missions. There were women in the Army, both in CONUS and overseas, and there were local national women. I didn’t keep count, Lacey.”

“Maybe my mother was right after all,” she said, but she didn’t move away from him.

“I never had a girlfriend,” he said. “I was footloose and fancy free.”

“How many of them did you get pregnant?” she asked.

“That I can tell you. Zero. I never went anywhere without a condom.” He looked over at her. “Why are you asking these kinds of questions?”

“I’m curious,” she said. “I’ve never been allowed to be curious before. Now I feel like I can be. I have hundreds of questions.”

“Hundreds?”

“Okay, dozens.”

“I see.”

“Does it bother you when I ask them?”

“I’m just flabbergasted that you would,” he said.

“I feel safe with you,” she said.

“Good. That’s my job.”

“I don’t mean that way. Well, I feel that kind of safe, too, but I meant in other ways.”

“Intimate ways,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure a woman has ever said that to me,” he said, flipping his hamburger. It spat and sizzled.

“Can I ask you more?”

“Okay.”

“How hard was it for you not to ... um ... ravish me ... last night?”

“Ravish?” he grinned, despite himself.

“I read a romance novel one time,” she said. “It was in college. I was horrified. I was sure everybody I knew would know what I’d been reading. I couldn’t finish it.”

“That’s fiction,” he said. “Hyperbole. Real life is much more mundane than that.”

“It didn’t feel mundane to me last night,” she said, with fervor in her voice.

“Okay. We’ll go with ravish, then,” he said. “If I get too graphic, let me know and I’ll moderate my answers.”

“I don’t want you to moderate them,” she said. “I’m discovering something about life that’s all new to me.”

“I was erect all night,” he said.

“Erect.” Her voice had a faint tremulous quality to it, but again, she didn’t break contact with his shoulder and upper arm.

“Yes. My body was all for ravishing you. But, like I said, I knew that would hurt you. I was thinking about that a little bit ago. With most of the women I’ve been with, my primary interest was getting off. I know that makes me sound like the kind of man your mother was talking about, but there it is. At other times, if I liked the woman, I cared about how she felt, too. Last night, what was good for you was more important than what my body wanted. In that sense, it was easy to control myself. I just went to sleep.”

“You were so warm,” she sighed. “And your hands felt so good, touching my back.”

“I touched some other places too,” he confessed.

“I felt that. But my bottom was cold too, and your hands were warm there as well.”

“I’m glad it didn’t scare you.”

“I was too cold to be scared.”

“The hardest part was not touching those breasts,” he said.

“You wanted to?”

“When I dried them off, my mouth watered.”

“You’re lying!” She did break contact then, and moved a foot away.

“Nope,” he said, using the spatula to move his burger from the pan to the bun on a plate nearby. “You can have that one. I’ll make another one for me.”

“In a minute,” she said. “Why would your mouth water? Or was that some of that hyperbole you were talking about?”

“Not hyperbole.”

“But why would your mouth water? I thought that was only associated with being hungry.”

“I suppose you could say that,” he said.

“You wanted to eat them?” She sounded horrified, and moved another step further away.

“You really haven’t had any experience with sex, have you,” he observed.

“I already told you that,” she said.

“Men like to taste a woman’s breasts. Especially the nipples. I love to suck nipples, and yours are fat and tasty looking.”

“I need to sit down,” she said, wobbling backwards.

He caught up and steadied her by gripping her elbow.

“What do you want on your burger?” he asked, seating her at the tiny table nearby.

“Lettuce, mayo. Do we have any tomato?”

“We do.”

“That too.”

“Coming right up.”

She had apparently recovered, because she got up and poured herself a glass of Diet Coke. He had her burger ready when she sat back down.

“I forgot the ketchup,” she said.

He got it for her and then made another patty to put in the pan. He knew that the two marshals had called out for pizza already.

When his burger was ready, and he sat down, hers was gone. She was still sipping her Diet Coke.

“Do women like it when you do that?”

“Pay attention to their breasts?”

She nodded.

“Some more than others. I knew one girl in the Army who could have an orgasm just from having her nipples sucked the right way.”

“There’s a right and wrong way?”

“There are all different ways,” he said. She looked a little pale, so he didn’t go into detail about the different ways. “And, of course, every woman is different. If you want to please her, you have to find out what she likes.”

“I can’t imagine that happening,” she said.

“Maybe some day you can experiment with that,” he said.

She looked at him sharply.

“I’m not suggesting anything,” he said.

“You’re not? I’m a prosecutor, Bob. I hear people speak between the lines every day.”

“You’re not ready for that, yet,” he said.

“And just when do you think I will be ready, mister know-everything-about-me?” she asked, archly.

“I have no idea,” he said, grinning. “I just hope I’m around when you are.”

She looked shocked, and then ... intrigued.

“I had a case one time where a man said things like that to a girl. A fourteen-year-old girl. He seduced her. I prosecuted him for it.”

“First, in my defense, I’d like to point out that you’re not fourteen. Second, I’m not trying to seduce you. And that brings us to third. I already decided that anything that happens between us is going to have to be initiated by you.”

“You decided, did you?” Her voice was carefully neutral. Too neutral.

“Calm down. All I’m saying is that, based on what happened this morning, I felt like it was possible that something else might happen. And, admit it, you’re very inexperienced. In some ways you are like that fourteen-year-old. That makes you vulnerable. I don’t want to seduce you ... manipulate you. So the best thing for you is that you control what happens as you get answers to all these questions you have. Okay?”

“That sounds so reasonable,” she said.

“It is reasonable.”

“I just can’t get over the fact that you want to have sex with me.”

“If other men knew you like I do, lots of them would want to have sex with you.”

“I’m not interested in that,” she said. “I find the whole concept a little nauseating.”

“And that is why I don’t want to try to seduce you,” he said.

“I meant all the others,” she said. “You don’t nauseate me.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“How would you feel if I asked you to keep me warm again tonight?” she asked.

He tried not to hit her with the sip of juice that he’d been trying to swallow as she said that, and which burst forth from his mouth and nose in astonishment.

“Oh, pooh,” she said, looking down at the wet spots all over her new sweatshirt. “Now I have to go change.”

Casually, she got up and walked away from the table, leaving Bob still coughing.

If you remember the first time you ever got tipsy from drinking alcohol, or maybe your first high off of a joint, then you know how seductive that feeling can be. The chemical the brain produces during sex is a very potent drug as well, especially when it is first being experienced.