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She
rubbed his back and ran her legs slowly down his.
    Petting him. Bringing him back to earth. He was drained,
wiped out, and he could barely move to relieve her of his weight. All he could
think about was how much he wanted to do this again.
    “Be right back.” Jim gave her a kiss as he left the bed. He
hated this part—having to get the damn condom off.
    Red nodded, offered him a lazy smile, and cuddled into one
of the pillows. By the time he got back from the bathroom, she was sound
asleep.
    In my bed. All mine.
    God, how he wished that was so. Jim thought about waking her
up to tell her this wasn’t a drive-by fuck. That he wanted more. He wanted her.
But he was scared to death waking her meant her leaving. No way was he taking
that chance.
    Jim walked through the house, turning off lights. That’s
when he spied her purse on the table in front of the sofa. One peek and he’d
have her name, address and cell phone number. As much as he wanted all that, he
refused to violate her privacy.
    After a final double-check on the locks, Jim crawled into
bed next to her. Red rolled into him, snuggled close. There went that funny
heartbeat again. The one that said he was hooked. He couldn’t wait until
morning. He prayed she’d still be there.

Chapter Three
     
    Oh, God, what have I done?
    Julia Hunicutt stared at the ceiling fan overhead, counting
the lazy sweep of revolutions as she soaked in Jim’s deep, rhythmic breathing.
She’d sunk low this time, trolling bars for a quick, hard fuck. She’d had to
scramble for an excuse to explain why she was there to Jim. All she’d been
looking for was one last fling before the Marine Corps sent her back to that
godforsaken place. She’d never imagined finding someone like him.
    Fear choked her. The scream bottled up in her core
threatened to explode. She peeled the tangled bedsheet from her legs and crept
from Jim’s bed. Better that than to let him see her fall apart. Better that
than to curl against him and cling to life.
    God, what had she been thinking? Picking up a strange man in
a bar? She could be dead right now. As opposed to when? Overseas?
    She’d lived in this town most of her life—what if someone
she knew walked into the bar? Or, God forbid, one of her brothers? Julia’s
mother hadn’t stopped crying since Julia learned she was being deployed for a
third time. Hearing her daughter was engaging in lewd and lascivious acts in a
bar would put her over the edge.
    Julia pressed her fingers against her temples to stop the
madness swirling in her head. It and the fear were driving her slowly insane.
She snagged her dress from its little green puddle and pulled it over her head.
Catching her reflection in the dresser mirror, she finger-combed her short hair
in place, hoping it had effectively covered her scar. Then her gaze also fell
to the gorgeous man lying in bed behind her. No doubt about it. She’d been damn
lucky tonight. In more ways than one.
    Damn, he was fine. When the buzz faded from great sex, what
would he think of her then?
    Julia looked away. What did it matter? She was leaving.
Chances of her coming back were…
    She shook the thought out of her head, then hurried from the
room. It was the wrong time to start any relationship. Her brain had no right
wandering down that road. Her unit had one week max before they deployed, maybe
less.
    She snatched her panties from her purse and hauled them on.
Leaving now was her best hope of saving face, her only hope of salvaging what
little dignity remained. Despair punched her in the gut. She sank into the
corner of Jim’s sofa and curled her feet under her. Leave and go where? Back to
her tomb of a house. The girls were gone, farmed out to her brothers—another
fact she’d glossed over with Jim. Pantry and refrigerator were close to bare in
anticipation of her departure. The garden she’d worked so hard to have, the one
that helped her survive her last injuries… All her hopes and dreams gone with
the stroke