Thunder slammed through the room, covering the sound of his groan. He toed his way out of his thick-soled shoes while Roxy wrangled his cock from his boxers. Gripping him, she scooted to the edge of the counter. “Let me down,” she murmured against his lips and tried to slide off. “I want to kiss you everywhere.”
He pushed her back up and kicked free of his pants. “Uh-uh.” One quick pull of a drawstring was all it took to have her shorts hanging open. He slipped his hand inside and cupped her, let her rock her hips and dampen his palm, let her broken cry slide down his throat. “My dick has enjoyed lavish attention from your mouth. This time when you come, you’re coming with your lips on mine, so I swallow the sound of you saying my name.”
She whimpered something—maybe “West” maybe “yes”—but he was too busy hauling her ass up and her shorts down to ask for clarification. They would talk. They absolutely would. Later. When he wasn’t about to come apart, he would put her under him and fuck the truth out of her by whatever means necessary. For now, he captured one of her wrists and pinned it against the upper cabinet. He hitched a leg up in the crook of his arm and held there. She twined her other leg around him. They both watched, chests heaving, as she slowly guided the head of his cock to her center. When she shifted her hips a fraction of a degree to receive him at exactly the angle she wanted him, something inside him snapped. He reclaimed her mouth at the same time he thrust deep. Thunder crashed, rain pummeled, and Roxy’s cry of triumph vibrated down his throat. He thrust again, and again, his pace wild and out of control. But she rocked and writhed and did her level best to match it. Somewhere through the storm raging outside and the storm raging in him, he registered the sound of her head clunking against the cabinet.
Lifting her from her perch on the counter, but never breaking the points of connection between them, he carried her to the bedroom. With arms and legs wound tight around him, Roxy held on, rocking herself against him frantically even as he lowered them to the bed. He braced himself on his arms and went back to work, rolling into her, buffeting her, inundating her with everything he had. The words he wanted to give her wouldn’t form property in his mind, but as she stared up at him, with her pupils blown wide and her lips silently forming his name, he let the words that did come spill out of him. “Let me be your addiction, Roxy. Let me. I swear to God, I’ll never hurt you. I’ll be good for you, I promise. I’ll always give you exactly what you need.”
With a cry of surrender, she levered up and kissed him. He felt her breath stall, felt her long, involuntary shiver. “West,” she whispered, just before inner muscles hugged tight and pulled him, groaning, into a blinding orgasm.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Roxy feigned sleep as she listened to West move around the bedroom, trying not to trip over Lucky while getting dressed for work. It took quite a bit of effort for her not to risk a look at him. Watching his transformation from sleepy-eyed, stubbly-jawed bedmate to groomed and pressed Officer Donovan had become one of her favorite morning rituals. And knowing this was her last opportunity to commit to memory the sight of him buttoning his uniform shirt or threading his belt through his pants made it doubly hard to lie still and breathe normally. Her throat kept trying to close. Her breath kept wanting to hitch. Hot tears kept threatening to escape out the corners of her closed eyes. He wanted to talk. She knew he did. But he wouldn’t deliberately wake her, no matter how badly he burned to ask his questions. He was too well-acquainted with her insomnia to deprive her of rest if he thought she needed it, and after devouring him like a last meal for the better part of the night, his protective instincts would have fully kicked in. Turned out hers had, too. And protecting West meant making a clean, quiet getaway. So she pressed her cheek to the pillow and breathed in the lingering scent of him as deeply as she dared.
Her breath really did back up in her throat when the soft jingle of Lucky’s tag ceased, and then the pillow gave under the weight of West bracing himself inches above her. Something warm and heartrendingly gentle grazed her deliberately slack mouth, and the words, “I love you, Roxy,” whispered over her lips.
She willed herself still as stone while his footsteps retreated from the room, through the muted sounds of him retrieving his gun and duty belt from the console in the
