The words bit at me, making my brain scream to pull away while my body was still screaming with need. I should have been angry enough to slug him and get out of his bed, but I couldn’t, because he was already proving the truth of his words with the feathering of his hands on my skin.
He flipped me back over, and I closed my eyes as he leaned in to kiss me on the lips. A tender kiss, as if he was somehow speaking to me in a different language I had yet to learn. And then he began his trail of fingers and lips and tongue all over again as if punishing me for having interrupted his path so he had to start over. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Nash was a man who knew every inch on a woman that would make her keen like a wild animal. He’d been equal parts womanizer and SEAL before he’d lost Darren and devoted his life to his friend’s family. I closed my mind to any of those thoughts, concentrating instead on his lips tracing their path slowly down to where I was aching for his tongue to land.
Quietly, he said, “Open your eyes, Athena. Watch me. Trust me. Let me give you everything you crave.”
God, did I want that? Him knowing what I needed? Knowing every place to touch me that would make me pant and call his name? My body quivered a response long before my eyes opened to meet his. I gave in, letting him take control in a place I’d never let go before.
When he finally reached for a condom from the drawer in the table next to the bed, the scent of lemon filled the air from the flowers in the vase there, and I knew I’d forever associate that scent with him instead of an island a world away.
I’d forever associate the perfume with a man who’d worshipped my body, making it vibrate with pleasure I’d never known a man could bring. As he proved he was right, that he knew a woman’s body just like he knew his guns. He knew how to take them apart, oil them with gentle hands, and put them back together. I just hoped he’d do that with me. Put me back together and not leave me in pieces as he moved on.
Nash
I DON’T WANT TO MISS A THING
“I could spend my life in this sweet surrender,
I could stay lost in this moment forever.”
Performed by Aerosmith
Written by Diane Warren
I spent the night trying to prove to Dani I could be what she needed. That she didn’t have to show me, as she’d had to show others, what pleased her―what made her moan. And every time she gasped and her body trembled, I felt the same way I had the day I’d finally gotten my Trident. Proud. Fulfilled. Like having reached the summit of the mountain.
I made her body shake with longing and release over and over with my hands and my tongue and, finally, all of me. Until she was saying my name like a chant. Until she fell asleep, curled with her back up against my chest. Her body quiet and at peace. Like the night I’d watched her sleep in the hotel.
I breathed in the scent of her. Her own lemon and honey fragrance that had once brought back memories of this place, of my childhood, before we’d ever stepped foot on the estate. I buried my face in her neck and her dark tangle of hair, silky and soft, trying to keep my heart from leaping away as a new fear seized me. Fear of losing her like I’d lost my parents. Fear of losing her like I’d lost my brothers in arms.
As my eyes started to drift closed, I realized I had to teach her to defend herself. To defend herself better than anything she’d been taught before, because I couldn’t afford to lose someone else I loved.
That jolted me awake.
The word love circled in the air like an owl hunting its prey.
The clarity that had hit me at the cemetery filled me again. I wanted a reason to come home. Even more, I wanted that reason to be her. And yet, the possibility of embedding my life with this stunning woman’s was still problematic. It was more than the idea of Mac beating me to a pulp that held me back. It was the thought of her feeling what Tristan had each time Darren had left on a mission―as if she couldn’t breathe. How could I do that to her? To anyone? The only reason I wanted her breathless was because of what we’d just done. Because my body was demanding a response from hers.
I didn’t know what that meant for me, or us, or the future I’d always seen as a SEAL. But I wanted her more than I’d wanted anything else in my life. That meant I had to look at the entirety of my world and, perhaps, reimagine it. Adjust the strategy mid-game. Find the path through the rock-strewn hillside.
Those were my last thoughts before sleep finally took me.
When I woke, she’d turned in my arms to face me. Her hand was on my hip and slowly swirling, almost absentmindedly, as if she didn’t even know she was doing it. But my body certainly did, and I came alive, pushing against her stomach. Her clear blue eyes turned up to my face, leaving behind my tattoos and my scars, the parts of me which were so torn that they’d bled together.
“Good morning.” I kissed her forehead, tightening my arms around her.
She smiled a smile I’d never seen on her before. Slow, lazy, full of mischief and desire all at the same time. “A very good morning, indeed,” she said softly.
I couldn’t help
