“I can take care of myself, Bray.”
“Clearly, but still.Ouch.” He winced again when I softly dabbed the cloth at his cut lip.
“Sorry. How did you know what room I was in?”
“They told me at the desk. When I went to check in, they told me my wife was already here. I think they were happy to get rid of me quickly, given the face situation.”
I huffed a little laugh and felt my own face warm. “So, Ramesh booked us one room?”
“Seems that way.”
“Did you tell him to do that?”
“No, but I can’t say I’m sorry he did.” He reached up and gently wrapped his hand around my wrist where I was still dabbing his face. His thumb circled over my pulse and sent it leaping into overdrive.
I clocked the hungry look in his eyes and gave him a half smile. “I thought you weren’t going to cross any more lines.”
He watched my lips through hooded lids while I spoke, and then looked up to meet my gaze. “I lied.” He said it with complete surrender. It was an admission that he couldn’t fight whatever he was feeling anymore.
I had stopped fighting ages ago.
I let him pull me onto his lap so I was straddling him. I kissed him softly at first, testing out his pain tolerance and tasting a hint of blood on his lip. He squeezed me against himself, deepening the kiss, and telling me all I needed to know. I could feel his heart pounding. Mine echoed its call as adrenaline sped through both of us. We’d just escaped death, and I was feeling profoundly alive.
His wide palms swept over my back, and he pushed my coat from my shoulders. It fell to the floor behind me as I kicked off my shoes. They landed with athunk thunk. With his hands andmouth on me, I was suddenly on fire. I went to peel my shirt off over my head, but Bray stopped me.
“Wait,” he gasped and reached around to my lower back. “Let’s get rid of this first.” He pulled my gun from my waistband and gently tossed it to the floor.
I grinned against his next kiss. “Good idea.” I took advantage of sliding my hands down his chest to his abdomen and making a show of unbuckling the belt holding his holster. “Don’t want any accidents.” I removed the leather with the gun inside it and noticed it was hot. I paused with it in my hands. “Did you shoot him?”
“Athim,” Bray said before he kissed me again. “Unfortunately, I missed.” He slipped his hand under my shirt and started pushing it up.
“Unfortunate,” I said, lost in the haze of his touch and ignoring the fact that I was holding a recently fired weapon. I dropped the gun and holster to the floor and leaned into him, letting him drag my shirt up over my arms and head. My hair spilled around my shoulders, and he tangled his hands in it, hungrily pulling my mouth back to his. He held me like something precious. Like something that could shatter if he used too much force. At the same time, the power in his grip, his hands, the cage of his arms, felt like an impenetrable force-field. Nothing could touch me when he was touching me. I was completely safe.
I rocked my hips forward, feeling the bulge in his pants, and moaned at the same time he did. The sounds mingled in perfect harmony, one layered on top of the other, and set my blood aflame.
“I’m probably going to get fired for this, but I can’t stop,” he growled in the hot air between us.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I panted as he found the clasp for my bra and undid it. I kissed a trail from his jaw to his shoulder and back.
“Youarea professional secret keeper.”
“I’m a vault,” I said and pretended to twist a key in front of my lips while he slid my bra straps down my arms. Once I was freed of it, he hungrily looked at my bare chest. Then in a swift move worthy of a cage fight, he gripped my thigh and shoulder and flipped us over so he was on top. “You’ll have to teach me that one,” I said as I caught my breath.
He grinned down at me like the devil and then worked his mouth from mine all the way to the top of my jeans. I quivered beneath his hot touch, his tongue tracing the skin below my belly button. When he paused to take his shirt off by grabbing the collar at the back of his neck, I couldn’t help but stare. It was a move that specifically showed off his arms. And then his abs. And then he was half naked, standing over me like some sort of Italian Renaissance marble statue.
“Um, how do you look like that if you just spent six months at a desk?” I said, my mouth hanging open.
He softly chuckled. “Getting back in the field was my biggest motivator, and I had to be in shape.”
“Shapeis one word for it,” I muttered as he crawled back over me. The dim lamplight glinted off the scars on his shoulder. I met his chest with my palms and greedily spread them over the firm muscle and dusting of dark hair. His heart thundered inside. He pressed his mouth to mine and brought back the memory of when he held me against the wall. The longing, the need, the gentle dominance.Fuck.I wanted to drown in it. His tongue possessively dipped into my mouth, and I wondered where he learned to kiss so well. Or maybe I’d just never been kissed by anyone like him. He moved his hands to my throat and my chest, brushing his thumbs over my hardened nipples, touching me in all the ways I’d wanted him to that night. Except for one.
I ground my hips into his and coaxed a groan out of him.The hard bulge pressing into the hot space between my legs told me he wanted more as much as I did.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a condom, would you?” I breathily asked.
He paused kissing the hollow below my ear and gave me a sad pout. “No. Do you?”
“Fresh out,” I said and combed my hand through his tousled hair. He dropped his head in dismay.
