He closed his eyes, the breath hitching in his throat.
It was more sensitive than his nipples, which had already drawn tight in the cool air and the heat of her touch. But that scar? That was where she branded him…again.
Then her hand dipped lower, to the waistband of his shorts.
He caught her wrist gently, fingers curling around her like a tether. A slow grin tugged at the edge of his mouth.
“I thought you wanted me to undress you,” he murmured. “Did I get that wrong?”
She laughed, soft and sultry, the sound wrapping around him like warm silk. His dick jumped against the cotton of his briefs when her lips brushed across his pectoral, trailing fire in their wake.
“You’re coming in with me, aren’t you?”
She didn’t wait for an answer.
Her mouth found his nipple. She sucked, slow, then firm, and the sensation lanced straight through his spine, lighting him up from the inside.
He arched, a rough cry breaking free. “That’s an invitation I can’t refuse,” he rasped, voice hoarse with need. “Stop distracting me. I’m here for you.”
“Then you should do what I want,” she said, brushing her mouth against his skin again, as if she couldn’t help herself.
“How about we get you clean,” he breathed, “and then we negotiate the rest.”
Her eyes snapped up, hot obsidian, molten with challenge.
“Are you bargaining with me?”
“I think that’s all I’ve got going here right now, hellion.” His voice dropped. “You know you have me.”
She did.
Every heartbeat. Every breath. Every aching, wrecked, willing piece of him.
“You’ve had me,” she whispered, her voice unsteady, pouring from a place deeper than thought, “since the moment I laid eyes on you in the Philippines.”
Her words tumbled out, unfiltered. A rush. A reckoning.
“Eighteen months of torture, every deployment. Every mission. Wanting you. Not just your body, Dakota…” Her smile ghosted. “Though I’ve had dreams…damn, I’ve had dreams. But it wasn’t just that. It was you. All that stillness. All that grounding. You know who you are, and I craved it. Like I was airless without you.”
Her hand trembled as it flattened against his chest.
“I fought it. Professionalism. Fear. Stupid ideas that you’d judge me. That I couldn’t want you and do my job. All excuses. All lies I told myself to keep from falling.”
Her voice cracked.
“For what? To almost lose you in Rio? After you killed for me? After you bled all over my hands and still found the strength to save me?” Her face was soft and tender, a look he’d craved forever. “You’ve been saving me since before I even knew you could.” She set her hand firmly over his heart. “More than life, Dakota. I want this.” Her palm pressed harder. Heat to heat. Soul to soul. “What you have here.”
Then she rose, mouth brushing up the long line of his throat, to the stubble along his jaw, to the edge of his lips, but she paused, her gaze meeting his with something ancient and fragile and unshakably strong.
“May I touch your hair?” she whispered.
He couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t move.
Her words had burned through every defense, every barrier, until there was nothing left but truth.
His chest was so tight that breath felt like a memory.
