Embattled Minds (Military Romance) (Lost And Found Series) Read online

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. Shielding the illumination with his jacket to maintain cover, he pulled up the screen.

  Wish we’d had more time.

  His heart rate sped up and heat raced into his groin.

  Me too.

  He dragged in a deep breath, debating what to write. The darkness gave him false courage. Maybe next time we’ll have longer.

  Definitely! ;-)~

  Oorah! That sounded like a promise. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he leaned back against the seat. She was tying him in knots. And he loved it.

  Chapter Seven

  Ember was a bit tender the next day, but she relished it. Not only had she made love with an awesome guy, he’d kind of promised to see her again. She glanced at the neon clock on the grill wall, and realized she’d been polishing the same brass rail for the better part of ten minutes. There weren’t many customers right now, but she still felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment.

  Zeke consumed her thoughts. Even though she had so many other things she needed to think about and work on, he was always center stage. She wondered if he was sleeping, or working out. Sweat glistening across his chest.

  She looked down at the hand clenched on the rag. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to hurt herself.

  The little crush she’d had on him had definitely grown, exponentially it seemed like. When he walked into a room, he made her feel alive. Her heart rate picked up, nervousness invaded her system. It was as if she were in high school again. Although most high-schoolers had more experience than she did with the opposite sex.

  Men hit on her all the time when she worked, but the attention turned into the buzz of bees after a while; irritating but no immediate danger. She’d never been tempted by any of the smooth talking men that came in.

  Maybe the fact that Zeke wasn’t a smooth-talker at all was the pull.

  The front door opened and the man of her dreams walked through. She grinned when she met his gaze, and he returned her smile, sending her heart into palpitations. She glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’re up early.”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  His head tipped forward and she followed his line of sight to the front of his jeans. And the blatant erection straining the fabric.

  Ember’s mouth watered and she cleared her throat. She crossed her arms over her suddenly hard-nippled breasts. “So, you thought you’d, uh, come for a booty call?”

  The look he gave her was playful and shamefaced all at the same time, and it was the cutest expression she’d ever seen on his face. Without a second thought, she stepped into his space and leaned up for a kiss.

  Zeke seemed shocked at first, then thrilled, and he threw himself into it. His heavy hand gripped her hip to pull her into his hardness and Ember pushed against him. It wasn’t until somebody cleared their throat beside them that they realized where they were and what they were doing.

  Katy, one of the waitresses, stood to their side, blocking the view from some customers. “We have a couple kids here,” she whispered.

  Ember felt embarrassment ruddy her skin and pulled away. She glanced over Katy’s shoulder and sure enough, two parents were glaring at her and trying to distract their kids with crayons.

  For a wild moment, Ember didn’t care. She wanted to kiss Zeke until forever, right here.

  But right here was not the right place.

  “Sorry, Katy. I’m going to take my lunch break. Think you can handle the rabid crowd?”

  Katy gave her a ‘you’re crazy’ look and glanced around the deserted restaurant. “I think I’ll be able to handle it.”

  Zeke was just as embarrassed and happy to follow along behind as she pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen. The cook was at a counter in the corner, prepping vegetables for the evening service, and didn’t even glance up when they walked in, down the aisle and into her office. Ember dragged Zeke inside then locked the door behind him.

  He didn’t let her turn around.

  His bearded face nestled into the hollow of her neck, and she shuddered as chills raced across her skin from the contact. The elastic band holding the braid down the middle of her back fell to her feet, and her hair unraveled. Zeke buried his nose in it, breathing her in, and pressed his groin into her ass. “You’ve d-d-drugged me. I couldn’t think of anything but you last night and this morning.”

  Ember gasped at the move and instinctively pushed back against him. Arousal burned through her body, exciting her beyond coherence. She gasped, her forehead pressed to the door and arched her back against him.

  Zeke shifted, running his hands up her ribcage beneath her shirt to her breasts. Plumping them together, he scraped his thumbnails over the tips until she moaned out his name. He peppered kisses all over the unhurt side of her face. Ember twisted her head around enough to meet his lips, more thankful than she’d ever been that she had her own office, away from prying eyes. What she was doing was bad. Definitely not how a business owner should behave.

  There was no way she was going to stop.

  His massive hands left her breasts and cupped her hips, guiding her movements against his cock. Ember cried out and flexed her legs, trying to get closer. “I need you in me.”

  She shoved her black pants down her legs, and she heard Zeke unzip his jeans. As she kicked her pants and shoes away, she realized she dripped with arousal. Her clit throbbed, ached to be touched and fondled. But her sheath needed filled, desperately. That’s what she really wanted. She felt empty without him.

  Again, she tried to turn around, but he stopped her. “This way.” One broad hand pushed against her back and she lowered her head. She would have felt embarrassed if he hadn’t immediately slipped the head of his cock inside her body. She groaned, and tried to take him deeper, but he gripped her hips in his hands to hold her still. Then he began to play.

  Stroking only about an inch inside her body, he angled to provide her the most pleasure. With shallow plunges, he played her body with his own as if he’d been doing it forever. Nerve endings exploded in her womb, and her knees almost gave out as the sudden climax washed over her. Ember gripped the door handle and tried not to make so much noise that the cook could hear.

  While she was still riding that crest, he pushed through her folds and seated himself as deeply as he could. Ember moaned and shifted. At this angle, with his size, it was more than bordering on uncomfortable. Even as wet as she was, accommodating him took everything she had.

  Then he started to move. The initial discomfort faded away, and she found herself bracing against the door to force him into even sharper contact. Breasts swaying, legs quivering, she met him stroke for stroke. Her body reached for another release, relishing in the pounding that had started to send shudders through her limbs. She moaned as another, deeper orgasm crashed into her, and her legs finally did give out.

  Zeke wrapped his arms around her and held her through the aftershocks. Once she’d calmed, he lifted her upright, disengaging them only for as long as it took him to cross to the couch. Positioning himself in the center of the cushions, he guided her to sit onto his lap. He tried to keep her facing away, but Ember resisted. “No, I want to turn.”

  She straddled his hips with her knees, reaching down to guide his heavy cock into her as she sank down. They both gasped as she hit bottom, then squeezed down tighter. Ember leaned forward to wrap her arms around Zeke’s neck as she pressed kisses to his bearded jaw line. Zeke cupped her head and brought their mouths together, arching up beneath her at the same time. Crying out, she adjusted her rhythm over top of him, moving quickly from light, shallow bouncing to deep, full-length plunges. She glided her tongue inside his mouth, trying to get as close as she physically could.

  Zeke began to lose his reciprocating rhythm, and she knew he was close. His hands held her hips as he sped her movements even faster, using his strength to make tiny adjustments. Ember pulled away from his mouth, unable to contain a high keen as he br
ought her to pleasure yet again.

  As if her release brought on his own, Zeke’s intensity stalled as pleasure overwhelmed him. His head dropped to the back of the couch and the veins strained in his neck as he cried out, slamming into her sharply a few more times before melting into the cushions of the couch.

  Ember collapsed against his sweaty T-shirted chest to catch her breath, more satisfied than she could ever remember being. Tremors rippled through her muscles and she knew her thighs would be killing her the next day, but she wouldn’t have changed anything. She opened her eyes to the file cabinet in her office. Okay, maybe she would have changed the location.

  Even that was a lie, though, because knowing that anybody could walk by and hear them had been exhilarating. A restaurant was not the best place to have sex, but she was sure they weren’t the only ones to ever do it.

  Muscles shifted beneath her as Zeke laid them full out on the couch. She disengaged from his body and found herself laying mostly on his chest. He was too broad to leave her any space on the cushions. But he was surprisingly comfortable, and she felt herself sinking into him.

  “I, uh,” he cleared his throat, “ap-p-preciate you having s-s-sex. With me.”

  Ember snorted and rolled her head enough to look up at him. “What do you mean? Here at the grill?”

  He shook his head, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else right now. He tipped his chin up, once, to bring her attention to his face. “Because of this. I’m not what you normally see working here.”

  The pain in his voice broke her heart, but his words made her mad. “No, you’re not. If you were, we certainly wouldn’t be here.”

  When his jaw clamped shut and he levered them both up, she realized he’d taken her words completely wrong again. She scrambled to hold him still, but it was like trying to hold a freight train. “Stop, damn it! Zeke, you’ve got to stop taking everything I say as an insult to your looks.”

  He hesitated, but avoided her eyes.

  “If you were like every other guy that came through here, I would have been completely turned off. None of them do a thing for me, because after meeting you they all seem exceedingly shallow.” She leaned into his line of sight. “Again, I like the way you look. No, I fucking love the way you look. Nothing about these scars turn me off in the slightest.” She ran her hand over the deepest one cutting across his forehead, and down his cheek. His beard tickled her fingers as she brushed them over his lips. “They are a tiny part of the man you are.”

  He stared at her, as if trying to right the reality as he thought he knew it. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips, and his arms slowly came around her. Ember almost cried in relief.

  “I have more surgeries coming up, so I won’t always look like this.”

  She shook her head at his stubbornness. Pulling back, she glared at him. “If you need the surgeries for a medical reason, that’s fine, but it would kind of break my heart, because I’ve fa-, uh, gotten used to you this way.”

  Panic raced through her as she realized she’d almost told him she’d fallen for him.

  She had.

  The thought didn’t scare the crap out of her like she expected. It was a solid, burning glow in her chest, unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She’d felt a version of it for her son and her dad, but this was different. Vital and needed, it almost felt, dare she say it, fated. She didn’t have good luck with the opposite sex, but she knew in her gut she was supposed to be with this man.

  He shifted beneath her and she realized they were still sitting half naked on her office couch. She glanced at the clock on the wall and groaned. “I was supposed to be back from lunch ten minutes ago. It’s Katy’s turn.”

  She scrambled from his lap, but had to stop and stare as he removed the condom with a paper towel, his glorious cock glistening. Zeke’s body was the stuff of wet dreams, from the biceps the size of her calves to the cobbled contours of his stomach. There were other scars across his body, but his head and face had obviously taken the brunt of the wall coming down on him.

  It broke her heart that the big former Marine was so defensive about his looks.

  Ember cleaned up as well as she could and redressed. “We need to work on our timing. Seems like we keep doing this right before one of us has to work. Maybe we can be really crazy someday and have an actual date.”

  Zeke snorted and stood to pull his jeans up his hips. Ember sighed as he tucked himself away. Once he was dressed, he moved in front of her and lowered his head for a kiss. She let him push responsibility away for a few more minutes, then reluctantly let him go.

  “I’m going to go work out.”

  She nodded. “Yes, you need to. You’re looking scrawny.”

  He grinned at her and wrapped an arm around her ribcage, swinging her high off her feet. Ember squealed in spite of herself and laughed out loud.

  “Put me down, damn it!”

  Zeke dropped her to her feet and planted a smacking kiss on her lips before letting her go.

  “You want to come over for dinner, tonight?”

  He paused, eyebrows raised in surprise. “I’d love to.”

  “Why don’t you come over about six, then?”

  He smiled at her fully, and she had to catch her breath at the pure happiness she saw shining there. It made her happy the she could make him that happy.

  The rest of the day dragged slowly. She wanted to rush home and get ready, but she still had several hours of work yet. Once her shift ended and she handed it over to Deena, she turned for the grocery store. She had no idea what to make him, but she had a feeling anything beef would be good. London broil. With a baked potato and sides.

  Drew was ecstatic that Zeke was coming for dinner. The little boy had already developed a significant crush on the big man, and as the time crept closer to six they were both watching the clock.

  She picked at the fabric of the blue dress she’d put on. Overkill, probably, but the color reminded her of Zeke’s eyes. And she’d taken the time to curl her long hair. It bounced as she walked, and made her feel extra feminine.

  When the doorbell finally rang, Drew raced for the door and flung it open. Snow blew into the entryway and Zeke stepped inside quickly, sealing it closed behind himself. He started to brush himself off when he glanced up at her and froze.

  Ember shifted as he surveyed her from the top of her curled bangs to the tip of her shoes without saying a word. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. Definitely overkill.

  Then he started to walk toward her, emotion filling his gaze.

  “You dressed up for me?”

  Ember blinked at the deep whisper, as if he didn’t want Drew to hear. She nodded and pushed some of her hair behind her ear. “I know it’s just us, but I thought we could make it feel like a date.”

  His lips tipped up in a smile. “I’m…f-f-fl….” He stopped, closing his eyes and taking a breath. “Thank you. If I had known I would have d-d-dressed up as well.”

  She grinned and leaned up for his kiss. “I don’t think they make dresses your size,” she whispered.

  He tipped back his head and laughed out loud. Drew squeezed in between them to see what they were laughing at. Ember told him and his eyes widened dramatically, then he dissolved into knee-slapping giggles.

  They had a wonderful dinner together, and she could see Drew falling in love with Zeke. At one point she sat back and tried to survey the situation from a protective mother’s standpoint, rather than a woman falling in love. Was she creating a dynamic that would or could hurt her child? Was she looking at the relationship between she and Zeke responsibly?

  Unfortunately, the answer to both questions was unequivocally yes.

  She would never intentionally hurt Drew, but she couldn’t make herself consider shutting Zeke out. It would feel like trying to cut off her own arm.

  Interestingly, Zeke seemed just as fascinated with Drew. When they disappeared after dinner, she wandered through the apartment looking for them and f
ollowed the rumble of voices to her son’s room.

  They were both sprawled on their bellies playing Legos, dark head tucked trustingly in next to the dirty blond.

  Zeke shifted his booted feet as Drew patted him on the shoulder for something, and she was struck by how involved they were. She stepped into the room to draw their attention and motioned to the clock on his dresser. “You need to get ready for bed, buddy.”

  His little face puckered up to argue but Zeke bumped him in the shoulder with his fist. “Good playing with you, buddy.”

  Drew’s dark head nodded and he trudged into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

  Ember smiled as Zeke gathered Legos by the handful to drop into the blue container. “Thank you for playing with him. My dad is usually the one doing this stuff with him. Drew’s kind of at loose ends right now.”

  Zeke shifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “I-I-I had fun, too.”

  His blue eyes tracked up her legs, up her thighs and settled on her breasts, put on display by the fitted bodice of the dress. “Do you want to play?”

  Ember looked at the devilment dancing in his eyes and doubted she could deny this man anything. “Perhaps.”

  The seed was sown, though, because as she looked at him sitting cross-legged on the floor, the thought chased through her mind that she could straddle him right there and ride him into oblivion. Awareness crept across her skin, and she took a step forward.

  Drew jumped in front of her and peeled his lips back to show her he’d scrubbed his teeth. Ember laughed, leaning down to wrap her son in her arms. How could she have forgotten where she was? “Looks good, buddy.”

  Her eyes flicked to Zeke as he pushed to his feet, power in every movement. A shiver coursed through her body as she remembered all that intensity lunging up beneath her, satisfying them both. She urged Drew to climb into bed and tucked him in, with a kiss on his forehead.

  Zeke moved to the door.

  “Wait. I liked having you here. Will you come over again?”