Read Online Embrace the Night by Caridad Pineiro - Free Book Online Page B

away.  I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
    He didn’t wait for her reply to hurry away, his strong body graceful as he trudged through the sand and up to an old Volkswagen van parked on the street.  He popped open the back, slipped in his surfboard, and climbed in after it.
    She closed her eyes and pictured him stripping out of the wetsuit, baring all those lean muscles for her to see.  Drawing the suit down past his abs and . . . .
    She sucked in a breath and stopped right there as her nipples tightened against her bikini top and damp heat built between her legs.
    It had obviously been way too long since she’d done anything about satisfying her physical needs. She didn’t want to be vulnerable because of that and drove away the all too pleasant fantasies of Zack in the buff.
    She jumped to her feet, brushed the sand off her hands, and walked over to where Mark, her friend and former Navy colleague, was setting up the volleyball court.
    Mark who knew some of her secrets and kept them where they belonged.
    In the past.
     

Chapter 3
    Zack gritted his teeth and fought back the massive hard on pushing against the tight wetsuit fabric.
    Damn, but she was beautiful and smart.  She’d known not to push him when he’d answered about the surfing. He understood that she was asking him not to press about her secrets.
    He opened the back of the old Volkswagen van and slid the board onto the padding he kept there.  He hopped onto the running board his dad had helped him put in place so it was easier for him to climb inside.  Now that his dad was retired and had settled nearby with his mom, they’d been restoring the old classic van together during Zack’s free time.
    After he closed the back doors, he sat and leaned against the side, legs stretched out before him.  His erection even more obvious and insistent, but he didn’t want to be a sad old man, whacking off in the back of his van like some perv.
    He grabbed the zipper pull and yanked hard to open the wetsuit.  Peeling the neoprene off his shoulders and down his arms, he snagged a dry towel from the pile next to the clothes he’d brought to wear.  He toweled down and after, finished dragging the wetsuit off his legs.
    He sat back again and stared hard at his body, wondering as he had earlier, what Samantha would think.
    A line of stitching like railroad tracks ran up from near the bottom of his hip to just below his rib cage.  A network of less noticeable lines and scars traveled down from the middle of his chest to intersect with those tracks.  All were the results of the damage created from the shrapnel and pieces of mortar that had claimed the lower part of his left leg.
    The leg now sporting the durable prosthetic he used for surfing and the beach.  The more sophisticated one he used for everyday was sitting – or should he say standing – at home, recharging for his weekday use.  The electronics in that prosthetic couldn’t withstand the water and sand.
    She’d seen the scars on his upper body before and hadn’t flinched.
    He’d expect that from a fellow warrior, especially one who had wounds of her own.  Internal ones that he was certain were behind the darkness in her gaze.
    Maybe she wouldn’t flinch when he showed her his leg, but he wasn’t sure now was the time for such a big reveal.
    Patience , he reminded himself even though that seemed in limited supply whenever he was around Samantha.
    He dried off his legs and his now limp cock.  Nothing worked better to kill desire than a look at his ruined body.
    He leaned over and grabbed a t-shirt from his clothing pile.  Jerked it on.  Grabbed a pair of track pants and pulled them on.  He finished it all off by slipping on a pair of comfortable Sanuks that looked almost normal on his artificial foot.
    Eagerness and hesitation twisted together in his gut as he thought about returning to the beach, but he’d never been a coward.  By the end of the night he intended to muster the courage to