But unless they were going to put on a show for the rest of the bar, which they kind of were already, it was time to make a decision. She wasn’t romantic enough to call it fate, but whatever the sexual equivalent was, this was it. It was something that she might never have a chance to experience again. An opportunity to put what had happened with Mick behind her for good.
Mick had stolen her life from her, but she wasn’t going to let him take this from her. She felt normal. Free to do what she wanted. She wanted this for herself.
She’d like to have said it was a moment of recklessness that made her pull back and say, “Yes. Let’s get out of here.”
But it wasn’t. She knew exactly what she was doing.
It took his eyes a moment to clear the haze and focus. “I have a room at a hotel nearby.”
He gave her the name of a well-known, upscale hotel a few blocks away.
Her brows lifted. “The navy must pay you well.”
He looked mildly embarrassed. “Not really. I used points.”
She nodded and let him lead her out of the bar, but not before saying good-bye to Hannah and making sure she knew exactly where she was going and with whom.
Natalie wasn’t oblivious to the danger of leaving a bar with a guy, but neither was she going to let it stop her. She was going to trust her instincts—something else she wasn’t going to let Mick take from her. And every bone in her body was screaming that Scott Taylor was a good guy. Safe. A man worthy of her trust.
Even if she wasn’t of his.
Her friend couldn’t contain her glee. “Did I call it or what?” she whispered. “You naughty girl.”
Natalie blushed, not disagreeing. She did feel naughty—but in a good way. In an exciting way.
In a way that was rewarded a few minutes after he opened the door to his hotel room. She barely even glanced at the fancy suite before he pulled her into his arms and started up right where the kiss at the bar had left off.
From there it went fast—very fast—as in up-against-the-door fast. One minute she was melting into his erotic kiss, and the next she was melting into him.
The door behind her had become her support as her body turned to molten lava. Boneless. Fluid. Hot.
She didn’t know how to describe it other than their bodies just came together. First their mouths, then their tongues, then her breasts to his steely hard chest, and then her hips to his even harder erection.
She was grabbing at his shoulders, sliding her hands under the shirt that she’d tugged from his waist to spread her hands over the fevered skin of his stomach and chest, needing all the contact she could get. Her fingers were clenching, trying to dig into the hard slabs of muscle as she fought to hold on.
Faster.
He had one hand under a leg that she’d somehow looped around his waist and the other on her breast. Cupping... squeezing... kneading as their hips bumped and grinded to the ever-increasing frenzy of pleasure.
And that’s what it was. A wild, wicked frenzy of pleasure that washed over her and transported her into a different world. A mindless world. A world where the only thing that mattered was him being inside her.
A stroke of his hand between her legs, the hurried biting off the top of a condom wrapper, the lifting of her skirt, the unfastening of his pants, and her prayers were answered with a hard, body-jarring, heart-stopping thrust.
She cried out at the possession. At the relief. At the feel of him deep and hard inside her—filling her.
Good God, was he filling her. The size of the erection she’d felt was no joke.
Their eyes met for one brief instant and something equally as fierce and possessive passed between them.
“You okay?” he asked through gritted teeth. His handsome face was taut with the effort that it was taking to stop—to hold back at the freight train of need that was barreling down on them both. It wasn’t going to stop, and she didn’t want it to.
She was better than okay. She was fantastic. She was free. The black cloud was gone. If only for this brief moment.
It had to be a dream.
She met the concern in his gaze with a smile that reached from somewhere deep inside her. Somewhere that hadn’t been touched in a long time. “I’m perfect.”
At least she thought she was until a few minutes later when he showed her exactly what perfection was. What it felt like to reach the highest peak of pleasure while looking into the eyes of the man who had possessed her so completely.
