Power (Special Tactical Units Division 1)

Because I’ve never known a woman like you. Because I don’t want us, whatever ‘us’ is, to end once we leave this hellhole.

But he couldn’t tell her that. There was enough pressure on her already. Besides, the way things were going, she was headed for home. He was—why lie to himself? —he was headed for another fucking stay in another fucking hospital, and each time he came out of one of those places, he was less the man he’d been before going in…

“Hey!” She gave an uncomfortable little laugh. “Do I really look that bad?”

“Sorry,” he said briskly. “I, ah, I was thinking… See that boulder up ahead? Why don’t we turn it into a couch? You know. Sit down. Get our feet out of the water for a couple of minutes. Take out the canteens. Eat a couple of power bars.”

“Sounds perfect.”

He clambered onto the boulder, then helped her climb up beside him. He checked the knife cut. It was fine, but he felt a rush of fury when he thought back to what could have happened.

“What?” she asked.

He bent his head and kissed the cut.

“Nothing,” he said softly.

He dug into his pack, took out two canteens and two power bars.

“Yum,” she said, when she opened a bar and bit into it.

He smiled.

“Gourmet dining,” she said, smiling in turn as she licked her fingers.

He grunted out an answer.

It was hard to speak in coherent sentences when all he could think was how much he wanted to be the one sucking each of her fingers into the heat of his mouth.

Damn good thing she wasn’t a mind reader.

He gave it another couple of minutes. Then he jumped down from the rock and held up his arms. “Okay, Bellini. No more goofing off. Time to get back to work.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Aye aye, Lieutenant.”

She stepped into his upraised arms.

He didn’t intend to kiss her.

But he did.

And when she all but melted into him, only a saint or a monk wouldn’t have drawn her even closer and deepened the kiss, and he was neither.

She tasted of the coolness of the water, the sweetness of the power bar, the heat of the sun, but most of all she tasted of herself.

It was a taste that was dizzying.

He felt himself harden against her. She felt it too. He knew it because she whispered his name, rose on her toes and got even closer.

Everything stilled.

And then a howler monkey screamed from a nearby tree and they sprang apart.

Dammit.

Tanner clenched his jaw.