He lifted his head, his eyes dark with desire, slumberous with need. “Then open your mouth”—his voice was so low and gravelly, she had a hard time understanding him—“and take me.”
When she did as instructed, his shaft twitched. It was all the encouragement she needed to pull him deep. Again and again. In and out in a slow, slippery glide that partnered with the stroke of her hand as she jerked him in an easy rhythm.
“Fuck,” he grunted. His hips pumping. His bootheels digging into the floor. “Just like that, Samantha. Oh God! Just like that!”
She hummed her agreement, her pleasure. Her whole body buzzed with desire, with the need for ecstasy. But it was his ecstasy she was most interested in, and the power she felt knowing she could give it to him.
He made gasping, pained sounds as he thrust between her lips. His movements were restrained. He was holding himself back. Drawing it out. Torturing himself with the pleasure. And the sight of him stretched beneath her, all those flexing muscles, so much…man, made her hotter still. She closed her eyes, pulled him deeper.
“Samantha!” He yelled her name, the hand in her hair fisting tighter, the strands pinching with tension. It was a warning. If she was going to stop, now was the time.
She had no intention of stopping.
She let him know by working him faster, deeper, harder. He fought it for a while longer, but it was no use. Within seconds, his big body bowed up, and she tasted the first drop of his release.
* * *
“What did you do the year after you left the navy?”
It was a good thing Ozzie was already flat on his back, or else her bolt-from-the-clear-blue-sky question would have knocked him on his ass. “What do you mean?”
“I mean”—she pushed up on her elbow, cupping her cheek in her hand—“you finished your contract with the navy, but for thirteen months, there’s no record of you. What’d you do? Take a supersecret mission to Mars before deciding to join the BKI group and open the custom chopper shop?”
She was stretched out next to him on the floor. He’d pulled off his boots, kicked out of his jeans, and spread the blanket to create a pallet on the cold concrete. Her smooth thigh was over his leg. Her free hand absently traced the clutch of violets tattooed over his heart. And her mouth—that mouth that had just given him so much pleasure, he was still shaking with it—was twisted with curiosity.
He knew if he pulled her down and kissed her, he could make her forget this entire line of questioning. Make her moan and gasp and climb back atop him. Because, as the Borg would say, “resistance was futile.” And he considered doing it. For a second. But there was already so much left unsaid between them, so much that must remain hidden.
“You realize that a secret mission to Mars would take longer than a year, right? I mean, it would be six months getting there and six months getting back, but you have to take into account that you’d have to stay on Mars for sixteen to twenty months until the planets realigned before you could—”
She pinched his nipple.
He usually wasn’t one for mixing pain with his pleasure. But when it came to Samantha, he was up for anything. Which was probably why his spent dick thickened. “Hey! What gives?”
The teasing gleam in her eyes made him grin. He’d had plenty of women. But none had ever made him feel the way Samantha made him feel. Like they were two pieces of a puzzle clicking together. Milk and cookies. The stars and the moon. Hipsters and ironic T-shirts. Separate, they were good. Together, they were abso-fucking-lutely awesome. It was terrifying.
“Stop being so literal,” she harrumphed.
“When you’re talking about space travel,” he assured her, “the only way I know how to be is literal. I would have thought my vast collection of T-shirts made that obvious.”
“Ozzie…” There was a warning in her tone. It said, Stop dicking around and answer the damned question.
“Samantha…” He made sure his tone held nothing but innuendo. It said, Why are we talking when we could be screwing each other’s brains out? And just in case she wasn’t picking up what he was laying down, he trailed a finger over her satiny cheek—man, she’s soft—and waggled his eyebrows.
She caught his finger between her teeth and gave the tip a teasing nip. And yep, right on cue, his hips flexed, and his heels dug into the floor. It was some kind of crazy, this effect she had on him.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to distract me?” she asked.
“Distract you?” He donned his most innocent expression. “I would never. But…did I mention that Boss keeps a box of condoms in his locker?” Hooking a thumb over his head, he indicated the row of small gray lockers lining one wall. “I mean, I’m just saying…”
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” she said matter-of-factly. A zing of anticipation shot through him. “After”—she stressed the word—“you answer my question.”
“I was in BUD/S training.” Man, it felt good to admit that. To give her an unvarnished truth.
Her eyebrows arrowed toward her nose. “Say again?”
“BUD/S training,” he repeated. “Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL. I was working to become a Navy SEAL.”
She blinked once. Twice. Then a look he recognized spread over her pretty face. He’d named it her hard-nosed journalist expression. She smelled a story.
