Page 28 of Reclaiming his Honor
“He’s okay,” she said. “He wasn’t hurt in the gunfire. He’s just worried about his old man. Refused to leave your side.”
Ellie smiled. “I’ll get the girls. They’ve been waiting all night for you to wake up.”
Mac reached down and stroked Lewis’s head, grateful to be alive, thinking there was hope for the two of them yet. Mac had his family back, they were safe from harm, and Godak and Turner were both dead. For the first time in more years than Mac cared to think about, the future was looking bright for the O’Bradys.
CHAPTER17
Mac knew Ellie had never liked surprises, but his enthusiasm for this one had proved contagious. She tugged at her blindfold. “Where are you taking me?”
“No peeking. Now, watch your step,” he said, guiding her over an outcropping of rocks and into the waist-high grasses. A tall bunch of daisies gently scratched his thigh.
He’d spotted this field from a distant roadway on his way home from the hospital yesterday, the stark blue sky and puffy white clouds both dead ringers for the vivid dream he’d experienced in the hospital after he was shot.
He’d spent three days there after his gunshot wound, feeling almost completely healed by the time they sprung him from that terrible place. But the time had been good for him, giving him a chance to talk to each of his children at length about the past, what had gone wrong, and what he wanted to happen now.
Ellie was the answer to two of those questions.
Callie was the most open to forgiving, but even Lewis had teared up and given his old man a hug, confiding that he was worried about his own drinking and wanted to learn how to stop. Mac was proud of him. Wanting to stop was three-fourths of the problem.
He’d woken early this morning and driven Callie to school, coming back to an empty house with just Ellie and himself for the first time since his discharge. And had talked her into taking a drive with him. And now here they were. Walking into the field that was as close as he could come to his dream setting.
“Macintyre O’Brady, you know I hate surprises,” she scolded.
He laughed. “And you know I hate being called Macintyre.”
He looked around, judged it good enough, and stopped walking. “Remember the dream I told you about in the hospital, where we were standing in a field full of wildflowers?”
“Yes.”
“Open your eyes.”
She pulled off her blindfold and gasped, “Oh, Mac. How beautiful. Is this what it looked like in your dream?”
“Yes, ma’am, and I knew it was heaven because you were there.”
Mac spread out a bright blue blanket he’d kept over his arm, and set down a basket full of fresh fruit, cheeses, and some sandwiches he’d packed before she got up that morning.
“When did you have time to do all this?”
Back when they’d lived together, he’d slept the days away in a hungover fog. “I don’t sleep much anymore. Can’t seem to make it past three or four AM.” He stood up and hauled her against him. “Though maybe if I had a pretty girl like you to keep me company at night, I might sleep much better.”
She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You think so?”
“I don’t know, missy, but it’s certainly worth trying.”
She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him, her lips opening beneath his in sweet invitation.
He deepened the kiss. How many times had he dreamed of this, of Ellie being back in his arms, soft and tender and begging to be loved by him? His hands skated down her back to caress the small of her back, then followed the flare of her hips around to the sweet, round cheeks of her ass, and pulled her tightly against him.
She moaned and fitted herself more snugly to him, the tips of her fingernails raking the back of his neck and into the hair at his nape, the tingling sensation shooting down his spine and straight to his groin. She tugged him toward the ground and he followed her invitation, pressing her back against the blanket and covering her with his eager body.
If he wasn’t careful, he wasn’t going to last long enough to say so. He needed this to be good for her, needed her to know how precious she was to him, how much he adored her and always had. He made a deliberate effort to hold himself in check while he concentrated on her pleasure.
He slipped the shoulder strap of her dress down, revealing the swell of her breast and the lacy edge of her pale pink bra. He had to see all of it, had to see all of her, every inch exposed to the sunlight and his desperate, seeking gaze. He rolled onto his back, taking her with him. He found the zipper that ran along her spine and slid it down, peeling the sides forward as she straddled him and sliding them down her arms.
God, she was gorgeous. “Let me see you, baby.”
She bit one side of her full lip as she unhooked her bra, his fingers clawing at her shoulders as he pulled it from her body. Then she was completely bare from the waist up, her dress bunched around her waist, the heat of her body palpable through her panties.
