Wyatt shifts, his good hand sliding up to grip the nape of my neck, holding me perfectly still as he devours my mouth. The kiss deepens, turning darker, hungrier. The slow, rhythmic friction of his hips pressing up against mine sends a blinding jolt of electricity straight down my spine.
I whimper, arching my back, pressing myself closer to the hard, unmistakable ridge of his arousal.
Wyatt tears his mouth from mine, gasping for air. His pale eyes are completely blown, the irises swallowed by black.
He grabs the hem of my shirt.
"Lift," he orders, his voice a dark, gravelly rasp.
I raise my arms instantly. He pulls the shirt over my head and tosses it blindly across the room. The cool air of the medical suite hits my heated skin, but it doesn't last a second.
Wyatt's hands are everywhere. He traces the lace edge of my bra, his rough, calloused fingers dragging a path of fire across my skin. He finds the front clasp and flicks it open.
He pushes the cups aside.
A heavy, jagged breath tears out of his throat. He looks at me like I am a miracle he doesn't deserve.
"Beautiful," he whispers.
He leans forward, his hot mouth closing over my peak.
I cry out, my head falling back as the sharp, exquisite sensation pierces straight to my core. He draws the sensitive flesh deeply into his mouth, his tongue lashing in a fast, rhythmic circle that forces my hips to jerk against his lap.
My fingernails dig into his broad shoulders, completely ignoring the faded scars mapping his skin.
He shifts his attention to the other peak, biting down gently, pulling a desperate, helpless moan from my throat. His hand slides down my spine, tracing the curve of my waist before slipping under the waistband of my sweatpants.
He palms my heat through the thin cotton of my underwear.
I shatter instantly.
The climax rips through me with devastating force. My body arches like a bowstring, violent tremors racking my frame. I bury my face in the curve of his neck as the blinding waves of pleasure crash over me again and again.
Wyatt holds me tight, absorbing every shudder, his arms an immovable fortress around my body.
He doesn't let go. Not as my breathing evens out. Not as the tremors slowly fade into a heavy, intoxicating lethargy.
He rests his chin on my shoulder, his large hand gently stroking the line of my spine.
"I'm right here." His heartbeat a steady, heavy drum against my chest.
He isn't a ghost anymore.
He's a Guardian. And he's mine.
EPILOGUE — THE RIDGE
WYATT
The brutal Californian wind cuts aggressively across the ridge. It carries the scent of dry, cracked sagebrush and superheated granite. The temperature hovers just above one hundred degrees, radiating a punishing, suffocating heat directly from the red stone beneath me.
My muscles don't lock. I have trained my body to ignore the extreme elements, to deliberately slow my heart rate down to an absolute crawl so the crosshairs never drift. I don't sweat. I don't move.
My right eye stays welded to the glass of the heavy spotting scope.
Two thousand, six hundred and forty yards. A mile and a half.
At this extreme range, the sprawling desert reduces entirely to mathematics and windage, to the predictable spin drift of a heavy bullet and the subtle curvature of the earth. But the crosshairs aren't resting over the front door of a secluded timber-frame cabin. They are locked securely onto a heavily battered steel target situated directly across the jagged canyon.
