“I love it! Thank you, Pat.” She turned her back to me and I unhooked the fake necklace I’d given her.

“Wait. Stop. I want to wear that one also.”

“Why? It’s fake. Cost me fifty cents.”

She clutched the old necklace to her chest and the sight caused me to feel oddly protective. “But it’s worth fifty thousand dollars to me. It gave me hope. Hope that you would return and save me.”

I hooked it back on and just placed the other one around her neck. “I’ve never met anyone like you. You never gave up hope.”

“I told you. I believed you were sent to me.”

I took her hand. “I leave again in three weeks. For three weeks. After that, I’m not sure how long I’ll be back here until our next mission.”

“I don’t care, Pat. I waited for five years for someone to save me. I’d wait for you for another five years to come back home to me. I’d never cheat on you—”

“Wait, hold on. What are you saying?” I didn’t want to hear this wrong. I didn’t want my fucked-up brain to hear something she wasn’t saying.

“I’m saying I can’t connect with anyone back home. My parents, my friends, Chris. It’s so crazy. Everyone expects me to be this pathetic, shattered girl. But I’m not. I’m a woman. I want to fall in love. I want to take control over my body. I want to feel pleasure. Those men took five years of my life and I won’t allow them to take a second more. Being kidnapped is something horrible that happened to me, but I refuse to make it define me. I hate to be a bitch, but I hear my friends whining about stupid stuff, like not having enough money for new clothes, or their boyfriends spending too much time with their friends. Who gives a fuck? I mean, I was raped every day for five years. I’m a heroin addict. I’ll always be an addict even though I’m clean.”

I shook my head, trying to process this. “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t get what that has to do with waiting for me…”

“I’m trying to tell you that with you, I don’t have to explain myself, apologize for what happened, lie about the past. You know what I’ve been through, and you’re still here. You don’t see me as a victim. You see my strength. I want to be the woman you think I am.”

Now that I understood.

"I don't want you to be anything other than what feels right to you, Annie. You're perfect just the way that you are and no one or nothing can change that, apparently not even the atrocities you've had to overcome."

She was angled in my lap with her legs thrown over mine, her head resting against my chest and in that moment I realized that I didn't want whatever it was between us to end. I wasn't ready to call it more than lust or an attraction born out of our circumstances. All I knew was that I wasn't ready to let her go.

"That means a lot to me. I haven't really been able to connect with my friends and my parents just act all awkward whenever I'm around. You're the only one that seems to treat me like a person."

The breeze coming off of the water surrounded us with the salty sea air, effectively surrounding us in a warm cocoon. With the lock of her gaze on mine the rest of the world seemed to fade away and it was just us, wrapped in each other. "Stay with me tonight."

She pulled out of my arms and her brows creased. "What?"

It had just slipped out, but the more that I thought about it, the more I was growing to like the idea. The time without her those first few weeks had been hell and the more I was around her, the more I wanted to throw caution to the wind.

"I'm serious." I pushed a lock of hair off of her forehead, tucked it behind her ear. "I know I said that I didn't want for us to take this any father than the embassy, but apparently nothing stops you, which I admire more than anything. I do enjoy spending time with you and although I can't promise anything more than the time I have in between assignments, I want you." I moved my lips just a hairsbreadth from hers and I could feel her deep inhalation at my declaration. "Be with me, Annie."

She smiled and her delicate hand drew up to press against my cheek in a soft caress. "I couldn't imagine being with anyone else. I don't know how or where this is going to go, but I haven't been able to stop thinking of you. You're the only one I feel comfortable with."

I relinquished what small hold I had on my control and pressed my lips to hers. I poured every ounce of pent up lust and frustration into the kiss. My hand on her waist crushed her to me, the other tilting her head to the side to take the kiss deeper. I was thankful for the seclusion because it had been over a year since the last time I'd had sex and I didn't think I could wait any longer. Especially when she shifted in my lap and straddled my legs to press herself directly on top of my cock.

Her hand shifted into my hair to hold me against her and the kiss turned feral and more demanding. She whimpered and the sound reverberated in my mind, echoes of the cries she made the first time I made her come. Her hips retraced the memory, riding slowly up and down the length of me with careful precision, only breaking rhythm to torture us both.

The fabric of the dress she wore billowed out around us, concealing the motion though the beach was pretty much deserted. I shifted, sliding my hands down the slope and dip of her hips and wrapped around to grab her tight ass. I clenched and gripped to guide her movements, pressing her more firmly against me with each slide. The increased pressure made small, cat-like sounds come from her throat and I eased back a bit to watch her face.

It was that feature of my time with her that I clung to the most in the space since we'd been apart. Her face when she came was a memory that haunted my dreams. I had never been one to induce intimate moments with the women that I fucked, but with Annie, I couldn't help but watch her response. Partly because I was worried about tripping a trigger and partly because the women I had been with had never been as responsive or expressive when I fucked them. I couldn't get of it out of my mind. I'll be damned if I miss a moment of it now that she's giving me a second chance.

I gripped her neck with my left hand and settled on the blanket so that I had more balance, shoving her legs open above mine and stilling her above me. She watched me with heavy eyes, her lipped trapped between her teeth and her hands now buried in my hair so tight that it was almost painful. I slid my right hand down her thigh until I reached the hem, then back up until I felt her shiver at my touch.

She pressed her face into my neck and placed a kiss just below my ear. We were pressed hip to hip, chest to chest and I'd never felt closer to another human being in my entire life.

I pulled back, suddenly overwhelmed. "Wait. I just need you to understand that this isn't a commitment. This isn't a relationship. I want to be with you, but it's hard with my job. I can promise you that when I'm in town it'll be you and only you, but I can't lie to you and tell you that it'll ever be more than that. I just can't. It wouldn't be fair to either of us. If that's not something that you think you can handle, just let me know and I'll back off."

"Patrick, I'm not an idiot. I've seen firsthand what your life is like. I just want to be with you. I don't know how long or what's in store for me, but right now the only thing that I want is you. If anyone knows that the future isn't guaranteed it's me. No one can say for certain what is going to happen. So we only have this moment. And in this moment, there's nothing that I want more than to be with you. So please. Shut up and kiss me."

But she didn't give me the chance to do as she ordered, instead, she used her hands to pull me closer and the need to make her mine spread throughout my chest again, obliterating all of my doubts.

I slid my hand farther up her thigh to the swatch of lace that covered her and brushed the backs of my fingers back and forth until her breath returned to pants at my ear. I didn't want to rush the moment, no matter how much my dick wanted me to. I drew  the line of her panties from the top of her stomach and along the line between her legs. Within minutes she was wet and breathless, her hips straining for me.

In order to not move her from my lap, I gripped the sides of her panties in between my fingers and tore, rending them to useless bits of fabric and baring her more completely. I used one hand to play with her bare pussy, remembering exactly how she liked to be touch and the right spots that made her gasp in my ear. Her breath hitched when my free hand rose through the fabric of her dress against the skin of her waist to flick at the catch of her bra.

As my fingers reacquainted themselves with the delicate expanse of skin on her chest, my mouth slid across the curve of her neck, licking and sucking my way to her ear. The little moans she was making were driving me absolutely insane and it was all I could do not to fuck the foreplay and give my cock what it wanted. Instead, I slid a finger deep inside her.

"God, Annie. You feel so good." Her pussy clenched around my finger as I added my thumb brushing against her clit.

"It feels so good," she panted. "I've never felt anything like this."

It made me ridiculously proud to be the one giving her this. I was damn sure her boyfriend had never fumbled her to an orgasm and I couldn't even comprehend the last five years for her. She would never have to go through that again, I promised myself. I would get off, something I was most looking forward to, but more than that I wanted to give her more pleasure than she'd ever known.

As I continued to pleasure her with one hand and tease her nipples with the other, she moved a hand to the zipper of my pants. I felt her draw the zipper down, pop the button from its clasp and then my pants released around my hips. I groaned into her neck at the touch of her hands on my ridiculously hard cock. She expertly worked her hands over me, squeezing, teasing and milking me.

I sat up a little to pull my jeans down the rest of the way and wrapped her legs back around me. I positioned her above me, holding my hands at her hips and keeping her eye locked with mine. Slowly, achingly, I eased her down inch by wet, tight inch. At the feel of me her eyes began to close and her head dropped back on a long moan of pleasure.

I hadn't had sex in so long and even it was a one-night stand before I left for deployment. I didn’t even remember her name. Jamie? Janie? But I had a feeling that a year from now, ten years from now, I would remember this moment, just as I could recall that one night on the boat. There was something about this girl, the way she focused on me, saw right through me.

I cupped her chin and urged her to look at me. "No," I stilled her hips, though the effort cost me. I wanted to see her respond to me. "Don't close your eyes. I want to watch you come this time."

With slow, measured movements I urged her hips to glide back and forth along the length of my cock. On her knees, spread for me her clit would rub at just the angle so that each slide made her moan. She took over the pace surging back and forth over me with an urgency that stole my breath.

I lifted myself higher on my knees and draped her over my arms so that my angle was deeper. The change drug my cock across a spot inside her that made her grasp at my shirt and her gasp with each thrust.

"Ohmygod," she moaned.

"Does that feel good, baby?" I nibbled and sucked the curve of her neck. "Are you gonna come for me?"

She squirmed, tightening her arms and legs around me, pressing so close that our movements were strangled and frantic. My thrusts quickened in response and there was something about the restricted space, the urgency that drove her wild. Her breathing was labored and harsh as she shuddered around me, pressing into me until I couldn't tell where she ended and I began. Her face was pressed to my chest as her pussy clamped around me.

I held her tight to me as her release began to calm. She took my face into her hands and kissed me. It was tender and sweet, like she was giving me a part of herself. She moved around me, quick little jerks of her hips that sent shocks all over my body. I lost myself in the wet glide of her pussy and came with a long groan that was stifled by the press of her mouth.

I settled back on the blanket, her dress surrounding us as sweat cooled on our skin. As the orgasm retreated the fear that I was getting in too deep with this girl niggled in the back of my mind. She was the first person I'd ever connected to on such a level, and it wasn't just the sex amazing. I was beginning to worry that no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise she wasn't just a fling.