“Maybe it’s not supposed to,” he mused. “Maybe those memories are still there because we’re never supposed to forget.”
“Just learn to live with them?” she questioned. “Is that what you’re saying?”
He shrugged, keeping his hand in place and his eyes locked tightly with hers. “Every part of our past has shaped who we are today. Good and bad, alike. And…” Slade swallowed hard, uncertain about saying this very next part. But before he could talk himself out of it, he finished with, “I like you just the way you are.”
A soft rush of air escaped her gaping lips. Shadow blinked several times, the moisture there glistening in the light of the moon.
“I like you, too,” she whispered with a ghost of a smile. “Even when you get all growly like a bear.”
“I don’t growl,” he argued, his brows dipping in the center with a frown.
The soft snort that followed did wonders to ease the tension in his neck.
“Um…okay, sure.” Her tone was filled with sarcasm as she patted a palm against his bare chest. “We can go with that, if it makes you feel better.”
“Idon’t.” He held on to the claim as if it were law. But his insistence only added fuel to the fire.
Shadow laughed, her entire body shaking within his loose hold, but rather than piss him off, as even he would have expected, Slade found himself chuckling, too.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t growl so much if you weren’t such a stubborn, frustrating?—”
“Watch it, buster.” She gave his chest a playful slap.
But as she did, he grabbed her wrist in a gentle hold and lifted her arm in the air. “Pretty sure you’re the one who needs to watch it,” he warned.
A second later, his hand was beneath her arm, and then…he started to tickle.
“Slade, stop!” she screeched loudly, her voice becoming high pitched and filled with boisterous laughter.
Her body twisted and turned as she worked to free herself from his grasp, her luscious mouth opened wide as she giggled and pleaded for his mercy.
“Admit that I’m right, and I’ll quit,” he teased, not fully aware of just how wide his own smile had spread.
“Okay!” Shadow relented as he continued with the playful torture. “You’re right, okay? I’m stubborn, and frustrating, and sarcastic, and?—”
His mouth slammed against hers to keep her from saying another word, his hands moving from torment to something much better. Because she may be all those things and more, but this woman was also absolutely…
Perfect.
Slade felt her entire body freeze beneath his touch half a second before Shadow melted into his arms. Her tongue met his in an explosion of pleasure, their lips matching in a dance that he never wanted to end.
He grunted, and she moaned, the sound wistful and matching the same need as his own. Her nails dug into the skin at his back, and his hips reflexively pressed against hers.
His lips moved from her mouth to her jaw, and below in a trail of hungry kisses. Shadow arched her back below him as if her body was begging him for more, so he slid a hand beneath the white tank-top she’d changed into before crawling into bed.
The soft, plump flesh of her breast fit perfectly against his palm. Shadow gasped when his fingertips found the taut nipple he toyed with while giving the side of her neck a gentle nibble.
“Slade…” She panted his name like a prayer.
He’d grant every single wish she had if he could.
But since he wasn’t a genie, he did the next best thing and shoved her shirt up to expose both of her perfectly proportioned breasts. He took but a second to appreciate her natural beauty before leaning down and taking one of the hardened peaks between his lips.
Shadow cried out, her body bucking beneath his before spreading her legs wider to accommodate his muscular thighs. Slade took his fill, first one plump globe and then the other. And while he was giving the other breast the same ravenous attention, he slid his hand lower until his fingertips dipped beneath the elastic waist of her cotton panties.
Her pelvis lifted from the mattress in search of the pleasure he was more than willing to give. Slade filled his hand with her sex, loving that it was silky smooth and bare. His fingers began to explore, tracing her feminine curves and dips. He moved lower to the entrance of her hot, wet core, and then?—
The sound of a light banging from outside reached his ears. Half a beat later, the cabin’s high-end security system’s alarm blared to life.
