Page 34 of K-9 Prime Target

“Yes.” He knew she did, but she liked that he asked. Such a gentleman. Except when he wasn’t. She grinned.

“What are you grinning about?”

“I was remembering that time in Kitzbühel. In the hotel elevator.”

“The old hotel. The elevator at the end of the hall that almost never got used. You could stop it at the top if you knew the right buttons to push.”

“You stopped it and pushed me up against the wall.” She was a little breathless at the memory—that and the way his fingers were moving in and out of her.

“You were wearing that very…short…skirt.” He kissed her after each word. “And no underwear.” He unhooked her leg from around his and rolled her onto her back. Then he was kneeling between her legs, tearing open a condom package. She watched as he sheathed himself, then lifted her hips and invited him inside.

Oh, she had needed this. Needed to lose herself in the feel of him, in the sensation of this erotic dance, taking turns at the lead, the pleasure almost beyond bearing. She gripped his shoulders and urged him onto his back, rolling with him until she was on top, staring down into his beautiful face. One hand on her hip and the other on her breast, he teased and caressed, even as she experimented with different rhythms, enjoying the glazed look that came into his eyes as she deepened her thrusts or increased the pace.

And then he moved his hand from her breast to her center, and stroked her until her vision blurred, and brought her to a release that made her cry out with the joy of it, and not a care who heard.

* * *

Liam lay beside her, his body turned toward her, one hand on her breast. Slumber had almost pulled him under, but he had fought against it. He wanted to look at her, to watch her at peace, and marvel at finding again what he thought he had lost.

He wouldn’t tell her this, but there had been other women since they had parted. A fellow photographer in Argentina. A pretty widow in Ukraine. But at some point in his bed they had always become her. He had been making love to her, at least in his mind, because she was the one he really wanted.

“Who is Nina?” the pretty widow had asked one morning as they dressed to go out.

He had looked at her, stricken. She had smiled sadly, then patted his cheek. “It is all right,” she said. “Sometimes, when I am with you, I am thinking of Vasyl.” Vasyl, her husband, who had been killed in the early days of the war with Russia.

He reminded himself that Nina hadn’t promised to stay with him. So many things might tear them apart, not the least of which was her fear. He knew about fear. He had never thought of himself as a particularly brave man, but he knew how to fight when the situation called for it. And he would fight for her.

Chapter Ten

Nina woke to the strident beeping of the alarm on her phone. She reached out and groped until she found it on the bedside table and shut it off, then shoved into a sitting position before she could fall back to sleep. Still groggy, she surveyed the scene in front of her. At some point in the night, both dogs had crawled into the bed with her and Liam. She had a vague memory of him pulling on jeans and a fleece and taking them out before he returned to bed and pressed his naked, cold body against her. They had made love again, and she had fallen into a deeper sleep, not even noticing when Angel and Sky wormed their way between them.

“What time is it?” Liam, his head buried under the covers, moaned the words.

“Five a.m. You don’t have to get up.” She slid out of bed.

He uncovered his head. “You have to go to work at five?”

“Five thirty. Avalanche mitigation this morning. We have to have it all done before the lifts start at nine. Or at least, the front side has to be done. I’m going to have a quick shower.” She’d have to redress in the clothes she had worn the day before, but she could change at patrol headquarters. She kept a second uniform there, ever since two years ago when a young girl with a broken arm had thrown up all over her one morning and she had had to leave work to go home and change.

When she emerged from the shower, Liam was sitting up on the side of the bed. Sky was asleep on her back in the middle of the bed, all four legs in the air.

Liam followed Nina’s gaze to the dog. “I was rubbing her belly and she fell asleep like that.”

“She is not a morning dog.” Nina pulled on her boots and looked around for her pack.

“I’m going to take those photos to Doug today,” Liam said.

“All right.”

“I’ll have some printed and bring them to patrol headquarters, too. Probably midmorning.”

“Text me and I’ll meet you there, if I’m able.”

“I’d like that.”

“Sky, come.”

Reluctantly the dog flipped over, stretched, then hopped off the bed and trotted to her. Nina put on the dog’s harness, collected her pack, then bent to kiss Liam. He was warm and sexy, and she deserved another medal for not crawling right back into bed with him. “I’ll see you later,” she said.