“Yes,” she said. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
He inhaled. “Are you on birth control?”
She exhaled steadily. “Yeah. I am.”
He didn’t move for another beat. Then his mouth finally found hers, slow, firm, and devastating. There was no hesitation after that.
His kiss was a question he already knew the answer to. He didn’t rush. Didn’t crush her lips or grope blindly. He learned her, second by second, breath by breath.
Shannon pressed forward, rising onto her toes, fingers gripping the front of his soaked black T-shirt like it might keep her tethered to the ground. The cotton was drenched, hot and cold at once, sticking to the muscle underneath like a second skin.
When he pulled back, barely a centimeter, her lips chased his. “Dante,” she whispered, her voice cracked and low.
His hand slid down her side, reverent, with his palm flat against the curve of her waist.
“You still sure?” His breath brushed her cheek.
She nodded against his mouth. “Yes.”
“You say that like you’re not going to change your mind the second I?—”
“I’m not,” she said, firm this time. “I’ve wanted this… you… since the first time you told me I wasn’t broken.”
He lifted her with strong hands, gripping the backs of her thighs, and carried her toward the bed like she weighed nothing.Her breath hitched, but she didn’t flinch. She clung to him, arms looped around his shoulders, mouth at his neck, tasting salt and rain and something uniquely him.
The mattress caught them both in a soft, creaking exhale. She landed beneath him, legs open and arms above her head, still in sopping wet denim and a clinging T-shirt.
He knelt back just far enough to look down at her. “You’re soaked.”
“So are you.” Her eyes dared him to keep pretending he could hold back.
He hooked his fingers under the hem of her shirt and started to peel it upward. The wet fabric clung to her ribs, her chest, every inch of her like it didn’t want to let go.
She raised her arms. He pulled it off in one slow motion, baring her inch by inch.
Her bra was simple, black, lace-trimmed, soaked through and translucent. Her nipples were already hard and dark through the fabric. With a flick of his fingers, he undid the clasp and slid the straps down her arms.
She didn’t cover herself. He didn’t look away.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said, voice low like it cost him something.
She flushed. Not embarrassed, just unaccustomed to being seen that way. “Your turn.”
His shirt came off in one fluid pull. He tossed it to the floor. The lamplight caught on the scars that lined his ribs—old ones, thin, like ghost maps.
She reached up and touched one. “What’s this one from?”
“Training op. Shrapnel.”
“This?”
“Fallujah.”
“And this?”
“Something I needed to learn twice.”
She sat up on her knees and kissed the scar just below his collarbone. Then another near his sternum. His breath shuddered. His hands found her hips, still clothed in wet denim, and he began to undo the button.
