Jake (California Dreamy) Read online

  Damn, what it did for him, knowing how badly Ivy had wanted him. Now he just had to convince her they were more than what had transpired in this bed the night before. And again just an hour ago.

  Dawn was becoming more of a reality, the sun pushing stridently against the cloud cover.

  Jake hated to wake Ivy, but there was no way he was leaving without her knowing it. He glanced at his watch and knew he couldn’t spare anymore time staring at her.

  He slid down into the covers, moving his body against hers in a long, gentle stroke. His cock came to rest against her backside and stirred as she did. A smile bloomed on Ivy’s face and she stretched her arms above her head. It was only natural that Jake would reach around her and cradle her breasts in the palms of his hands. But it could go no further than this. He had to be on base in sixty minutes and there was no way he was going to start something he couldn’t finish. He couldn’t leave Ivy like that.

  He nuzzled her ear and spoke, “Morning sweetheart.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and she turned so she could peer at him. “Morning.”

  “It’s a work day for me,” he reminded her.

  She became more alert, her eyes flaring a little and her hand curling around his bicep. “You have to leave?”

  He nodded. “I should have left already.”

  She moved, a slim thigh tangling with his. Her breasts came flush against his chest and their peaks beaded on contact. He felt the slight tremble of her belly and that fast his shaft stiffened.

  “We have a growing problem here,” she observed.

  But he shook his head. “There isn’t time—“

  She tilted her hips, slid her leg over his thigh, and his erection became a throbbing need.

  The head rested against her wet folds.

  “Already?” He’d barely touched her.

  “I was dreaming about you,” she admitted. She moved against him and the tip of his cock sank into her core. She was as tight as a velvet fist. “What do you think of the withdrawal method?” she asked.

  “Foolish.”

  “Hmm, thought so. I am on the Pill,” she revealed, but he heard the hesitancy in her voice. She looked over his shoulder. There were still a few condom packets unopened. She urged him to get one.

  “No time,” he reminded her.

  “A quickie will do,” she promised.

  Not for him. Ivy was a woman to be savored. But he had only so much control. She flexed her hips, drew him deeper into her body, and Jake knew he had to do something.

  “When we see each other again,” she spoke in a throaty whisper. “I’m going to finish what I started in the truck.”

  Jake had to reach for the memory—but not very far. An image of her bent over his lap, her mouth covering his cock, exploded on his mental movie screen. He watched her pull on his shaft, her dark hair falling around his legs. He’d nearly lost control of the vehicle and of himself. Jake reached across the bed for a condom and pulled out of her.

  “You have a wicked way of winning a point.”

  She watched him sheath himself, a dazzling smile playing on her lips, and then he entered her. No preambles. No gentle build to the moment. He took her roughly, unable to deny her or himself. And she called out. A sharp scream that stunned him to stillness.

  “Ivy?”

  He was a big man. Too big to be taking her so crudely.

  “Don’t stop, Jake. Please don’t stop.”

  Her fingers bit into his hips and she pumped against him.

  He thrust again, watching emotions play across her face. He saw battle and bliss. No pain.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure. Definitely sure.” She increased the tempo, and Jake was lost.

  He swallowed her pleas for more in a deep kiss, pressed his thumb to that tight bud above her folds, and mated with her in a frenzy of time and need.

  Later, Jake sat at a mess table staring at his cell phone. It’d been seven hours since he’d made love to Ivy and he was still unsure about how they’d come together that last time. It was too fast . It reminded him of the emotions he dueled with between deployments, when time was limited and developing a relationship was nearly impossible. He didn’t like it.

  But Ivy had. She’d come apart in his arms in a matter of moments, drenching him with

  her satisfaction. Then she had gotten out of bed with him, stood naked before him as he shrugged into his clothes, and then kissed him in that sweet spot behind his ear.

  She was a tease, but she always came good on it. The thought made Jake smile. And she hadn’t scuttled behind her defenses as he’d feared she might in the light of morning, when sexual need was satisfied.

  Nor had she said good-bye to him, as he had feared would happen after she’d gotten what she’d wanted. He had asked her, “See you Saturday?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The dinner cruise?”

  “If we must.” She had put on a pout for him.

  “I insist.”

  “I’ll be wearing a dress that will make you wish you hadn’t.”

  He had laughed and drew her close, holding her for a moment with her head tucked under his chin and her body flush against his.

  He had promised to call her.

  But now he was hesitating. What if, as the day progressed along with the distance between them, she had begun a withdrawal to safer ground? He primed himself for the possibility, knowing he’d have to wait until the weekend to launch into damage control.

  A failed marriage had made her skittish. That, along with an upbringing that did not

  inspire happily ever after. He had his work cut out for him if—no when—she realized her heart was as involved with Jake as her body.

  And he didn’t doubt this. She had been generous with her attention and her permissions. But she had also stared into his eyes completely unguarded, vulnerable and trusting. Those moments were fleeting, and almost always when she was on the edge of orgasm and staring at the possibility of it. She had shied away from him emotionally when she’d regained control.

  He pressed his thumb to the icon of ivy she had programmed into his phone on Sunday. She answered on the second ring. Her voice was thin, breathy, and Jake’s body responded with an all-out assault.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. He heard and regretted the edge in his voice.

  Ivy laughed. “I’m a cowgirl without my steed,” she offered and Jake was slayed. He was stunned by his own laughter, which was low and intimate, but the throbbing in his cock became painful. He tripped back in memory and was crouched at the side of Ivy’s bed, her taste full on his tongue while she stroked her swollen nipples, drawing out the climax he’d just given her.

  He groaned and looked around the mess hall. There were a handful of men and women several tables away, lingering over a late lunch, talking amongst themselves, erupting in a laughter that covered Jake’s lowered voice.

  “You’re putting a hurt on me, Ivy.”

  “I can heal you, Jake,” she assured him.

  He didn’t doubt that. Jake had left her bed this morning with a sense of well-being he

  didn’t recognize, never having felt it before. It’d taken almost the entire drive to his place to figure it out. Ivy gave him balance, zing, rightness.

  “I’m sitting in mess right now with a hard-on my grandmother wouldn’t miss without her glasses.” He’d be staying put for awhile. “Tell me what you’re doing. And this time spare no details.” He’d have to remember to resume their vacation swimsuit talk on Saturday. Hell, he decided, he’d even ask her to model that barely-there black bikini. “Where are your hands, Ivy? Where are you?” He imagined her on her bed, the sheets still twisted from their love-making and smelling of their sex.

  “Ah, Jake—“

  He heard her breath hit the back of her throat, her voice thin to a whisper.

  “Are you close? Are you thinking of me while you’re touching yourself? Where’s my mouth? My hands?”

  “
Stop!” It was a plea and agitation was clearly building in her tone.

  “You’re close,” he said, his voice a husky whisper. He turned in his seat so that he was looking out the window, so that his face was not visible to anyone. “But not close enough. Let me help you, Ivy. My mouth is on your clit. I’m suckling it, teasing it with my teeth. I love the taste of you. I could live on that alone. I’m slipping my tongue between your folds now—you’re wet, so wet—dipping into your—“

  “I’m outside,” Ivy interrupted him. “Please stop. I’m outside. I was running. Now I’m, oh shit!”

  Jake swore quietly but with clarity.

  “Yeah,” Ivy agreed. The tension in her tone loosened, allowing room for words. “Only it’s not going to happen. Not for three days.”

  “Unbearable.”

  “You want to talk me through an orgasm, call me Friday night. I’ll be hurting for you by then. Right now, I’m—well, I was—completely satisfied.”

  “Sorry, babe.”

  “My fault. I shouldn’t have teased you.”

  “Yes, you should. Often.” And then he picked up on her words. “You’re completely satisfied?”

  “How could you doubt it?”

  “I don’t. It’s just good to know you know it.”

  “I now understand the term ‘mouth music.’”

  Jake thought again about being between her legs, his mouth playing her clit. The calls it pulled from Ivy’s sweet lips. Damn, his balls ached. He shifted in his seat, hoping to ease his erection. He looked down at his fatigues. They were loose enough he wasn’t straining against the zipper, but the bulge was prominent. Not something he could hide, unless he walked around with his hat over his fly and he’d be damned if he’d do that.

  “We need to talk about something else, sweetheart. What are you doing after your run?”

  “I’m going to the grocery store. You want me to read my list?”

  “Yes.”

  She chuckled but complied. “Strawberries, milk, half and half—I can’t drink coffee any other way. I suppose you take it black?”

  “Cream no sugar,” he corrected.

  “I need yogurt and I should pick up some cottage cheese. It’s very healthy for you, but I don’t like it a whole lot.”

  “Yogurt is just as good.”

  “My thought exactly. I need linguine, tomatoes and salsa,” she continued. “Is this working?”

  “Yeah,” he said. While he hadn’t exactly deflated, the ache was becoming more of a memory. “For you?”

  “A little. Maybe I should cook dinner Saturday? I’m not exactly Sandra Lee, but I have a few recipes down.”

  “No. A real date,” he said. “I want to take you out.”

  “Okay,” she complied easily this time. “I think after the grocery store I’ll go shoe shopping. Get a pair of sandals with a heel on them. And then I’ll have to get ready for work.”

  “Seven to seven tonight?”

  “Yes. It’s my favorite shift. I like the quiet and the pace is slower, so I can spend more time with each kid. It gives parents a chance to step out for a few minutes, too. Get some fresh

  air. Some kids are on the pod three weeks or more. The cardiac patients. It’s a long haul.”

  There was that compassion again. Ivy had a soft heart and every reason to protect it. The emotions that came from her were genuine. He hoped he could prove to her that he was a man she could trust.

  “You think any more about Montana? If you’re not into skiing we can grab a few snow mobiles.”

  “I’ve never tried skiing,” she admitted. “Not snow skiing. I’m really more a water sport type. Sun and sand and waves.”

  Great. Now he could have a few surfer girl fantasies to keep his dick occupied, when he wasn’t with Ivy.

  “I’ve never been to Montana. I hear it’s beautiful.” And he could tell that she was really considering it.

  “You should give snow equal opportunity,” he agreed.

  She laughed at his enthusiasm. “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Good.” He watched the group across the room gather their lunch trays and stand. He glanced at the clock. He was due back at Command in seven minutes, and it didn’t matter that he was the command—he needed to be on time. “I’ve gotta go, Ivy. My men are assembling. We’ll be on maneuvers beginning tonight.” He was reluctant to admit the rest, “I won’t be able to call you until Saturday morning.”

  “Okay.”

  She was slower to accept this than he’d have liked.

  “It’s not always like this,” he told her. “Just when we’re off communication.”

  “I’ll be thinking about you, Jake,” she promised.

  “Me, too.” And walking around with a club to prove it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ivy walked onto the floor twenty minutes prior to shift change. The pod was busy. A cafeteria worker was gathering the dinner trays that were stacked outside patient rooms, nurses were taking vitals and documenting them, TVs were a constant buzz of chatter and canned laughter. A new patient was brought in on a gurney, a little girl with toffee colored hair. Ivy paid particular attention to her as she was hooked up to a ventilator that was pushed alongside the bed. From the incision site, she knew the girl had had open heart surgery, and this late in the day, the surgery had either gone long and been complicated, or it had been unexpected. Ivy would keep vigil over her through her shift.

  She moved to the patient board and noted the children receiving respiratory therapy. She would have seven patients on ventilators tonight, another four with whom she would coach through breathing exercises to expand their lung capacity. The longer the human body relies on artificial respiration, the tighter the lungs when that apparatus was removed. Kids regained quickly, though. Unless there were complications, and Ivy noted one little boy who had developed pneumonia while intubated. He was listed in critical condition, as were all the children on this emergent pod. But the notations next to that indicated that he had arrested once the week before. Orders were to wean him from the ventilator through the night with the hope of extubation in the morning. The sooner he was breathing on his own, the sooner his lungs were working and gaining strength, the better his chances of a positive outcome.

  Pneumonia screwed up everything. It put prognosis in a tail-spin.

  “Fancy seeing you tonight.” Genny had come up behind her and now they stood elbow to elbow at the board. “I thought you’d be in Mexico sealing the deal with the Marine.”

  “Why Mexico?”

  “You can get married there in five minutes, no questions asked.”

  “Married? Been there done that,” and Ivy’s voice made it clear what she thought of the idea.

  “Oooh, really? The secrets come tumbling out of the closet.” She smiled to lighten her comment. “You must have been a child bride.”

  “We were both children,” she confirmed. And one of them never grew up.

  Genny tskked her feelings about that. “All you can do is learn from a mistake like that.”

  “And make sure you don’t repeat it.”

  “You’re a big girl now. You’ll know when you’ve got the real thing.”

  “How did you know?” Ivy wondered about Genny’s relationship. She’d met the woman’s husband on several occasions. He was laid back but attentive to Genny, and despite the woman’s woes about the loss of romance in her life, Ivy had witnessed her husband’s commitment to the small things—helping her on with her coat, consulting her for decisions; last week he’d arrived on the pod with her dinner.

  “It’s different for everyone,” Genny said. “But I can tell you I knew one week in but it took me almost a year to do anything about it. I was still in nursing school. My parents were paying my tuition and they would have skinned me alive if I even thought about marriage. Mel was managing at McD’s—this was before we bought into the franchise—and my parents had a difficult time with that. It was the kind of job a kid picked up in high school, they
said. They didn’t know he was on the fast-track to ownership. They wanted him to have a college degree. They settled down when Mel showed them his paycheck and the accrued credit towards a shop of his own.” She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her scrubs and regarded her thoughtfully. “Pay attention to the little things,” she advised. “The grand gestures are usually the first to fall away. And make sure you agree on a lot and can compromise on the rest.” Her smile grew and she arched a knowing eyebrow. “So, how was your run?”

  “Amazing.” Every moment with Jake had been so much more than Ivy could have dreamed. Bigger than life, that was the term she was looking for. When she was with him, only the two of them existed. And now that they were apart, and each submerged in their own lives, Ivy was having a hard time convincing herself that it had been real.

  “Amazing?” Genny repeated the word like it was an unknown language. Then said, with sudden understanding, “Ah, the afterglow.”

  Stan came up beside them. “It’s the endorphins,” he said. “No better opiate.”

  “You don’t have to be in a pair of running shoes to experience runner’s high,” Genny agreed.

  Ivy accepted their good-natured teasing and fell in beside them as the shift change began. She listened attentively to the round-up, jotting notes to herself about individual kids and needs, but at the back of her mind Genny’s comments surfaced and bobbed around awaiting attention—You’re a big girl now. You’ll know when you’ve got the real thing. The trouble was Ivy didn’t believe it. She’d failed at it miserably, once, and everything about Jake felt right. And that’s just not possible. No one’s perfect.

  The night progressed slowly and Ivy lingered with her patients, returning often to the side of Rafael, the two year old boy with pneumonia. He was not tolerating the withdrawal of oxygen and Ivy couldn’t get him below eighty percent O’s. That wasn’t good. X-ray came in and the images showed that both lungs were heavily scarred. The infection had cleared up enough that there was no fluid left in the tiny sacs, but it would be a lot longer before he would be removed from the respirator. The surgical repair—a Fontan procedure to improve the workings of his heart—looked good, the pneumonia was a complication. And a setback. Ivy knew his parents, a young couple who hovered over his bedside, would be scared and disappointed.