Free Baby, It's You (Uncharted SEALs Book 5) by Delilah Devlin Page B

a blur. But I remember every moment up to the explosion. If I close my eyes, I’m there again, waking up in a strange bed in their house in the diplomats’ sector. Going down to breakfast and catching Daniel kissing my sister. I remember the dress she wore, how pretty she looked. She didn’t kiss Emmy’s cheek because she was afraid she’d mess up her clothes. Cassie kissed her fingertips.”
    He could hear the hint of tears in her voice, and slipped an arm beneath her, so that she could nestle her head against his shoulder.
    “I was taking the baby to the window to wave goodbye. If I’d made it there, if we’d been standing closer…”
    He kissed her shoulder and glided his hand up and down her side to comfort her. Not something he was accustomed to doing, but he must have been doing it right. She sniffed and settled. Minutes later, she slept.
    Which left him alone with his thoughts. He could imagine what the blast had done. Knew there couldn’t have been much left of his brother or his pretty wife to send home. And he was thankful both Emmy and Melanie had been spared. Sure, she bore a scar, but it could have been so much worse. Emmy needed Melanie in her life. He needed her, too.
    But did he need her for the right reasons? Since he’d left rehab, he’d felt restless, without a purpose. Useless.
    He’d always been sure of himself, of his body. Knew how to use it, exactly how much punishment it could take. Now he felt as though his knee was a stranger. And he felt guilty for feeling sorry for himself over the fact he wasn’t going to be able to remain on the team, at least not in his former capacity, which meant he wouldn’t stay. Not and watch others he’d trained with ship out to parts unknown time and again, while he was grounded.
    Hell, he was alive and well enough to gripe about it, when so many others never got a second chance at life, however changed.
    Eventually, his erection relaxed. Melanie’s peach scent surrounded him; her warmth soothed him. She was willing, she’d said. To enter a relationship based on mutual gratification. Funny that he wasn’t. Hell, Mac would have bust a gut over this turn of events.
    *
    Five mornings later, Carter awoke just after dawn. Melanie was draped across his chest. Her knee nudged his cock. Which wasn’t the only reason he was hard. He slipped from the bed then turned to glance one last time at the woman snoring softly on his pillow.
    She wore a T-shirt. One of his. Something that had begun naturally the night after he’d refused to take her. As was becoming habit, after putting Emmy to bed, Melanie would slip into his room, rummage through his drawers, and find one of his meager stock of tees to replace the clothing she left in a puddle on the floor. Then she’d slide into bed beside him, and they’d talk about their days.
    He’d found a therapist in town, one who was a friend of Wayne’s, and so he told her about his progress, about his visits with his dad, about what funny things Emmy had said that day.
    Then conversations would turn sexier. Melanie was endlessly curious about his body and his reactions to her. She’d lightly trace the hills and hollows of his abdomen, circle a puckered scar and ask how he’d “earned” it, then she’d inevitably head south to tease around his cock.
    Last night, he’d taken all he could. She’d asked what it felt like to masturbate with a hand wrapped around his shaft. He’d shown her, gritting his teeth when she leaned over to turn on the light on the nightstand because she wanted to see “everything.” She’d further frustrated him by asking questions all along the way, prolonging his session, and making it nearly impossible for him to resist flipping her to her belly and raising her hips…
    That image had sent come burbling over the crown in thick spurts. Afterward, her nipples had been hard spikes against his tee. Her cheeks had been red. But she’d reached across to dip a finger into the cream glazing his