High Octane (Texas Hotzone 2)

He reached to a drawer behind him and tossed a row of condom packages to the bed. “Never had sex without one. The women in my life haven’t exactly stayed around long.”

She snatched the six-pack of condoms from the bed. “Glad you’re prepared.” Was she one of the here-today, gone-tomorrow women of his life? Another conquest. Another goodbye.

“Don’t go reading into that,” he said, as if he was the one reading her mind. “I’m not bed-hopping. I haven’t, not for a good long while. I was on a mission for six months right before I got out of the Army. You?”

The last man in her bed had been a corporate attorney she’d thought wanted her, wining and dining her, sending her flowers. But in bed, he’d been hard and fast, and insensitive to her needs. Satisfaction for him. None for her. She’d given him three tries, all of which had left her feeling used and abused. When she’d broken up with him, he’d told her she was boring in bed, and that he’d tolerated her for her father’s business.

“A year,” she said, a bit more somber now. Was she boring in bed? Had she been the problem?

“I bought them the night I met you,” Ryan said, drawing her into the moment, the look in his eyes, the understanding that seemed to reach beyond words. He made her feel sexy, made her feel confident.

She shoved away the past and reveled in the moment, in Ryan. “A bit presumptuous, don’t you think?” she asked, casting him in a haunting look.

“A soldier is both prepared and thorough,” he amended, hungrily inspecting her body, his gaze lingering on her nipples. “Damn, you’re beautiful, woman.” The words seemed to set off an urgency within him.

In one swift move, his jeans and boxers were gone. A wave of overwhelming, almost primal need washed over her as she found the answer to where that trail of hair ended. He was all sinewy muscle, defined, powerful. Aroused. His erection impressively long and hard.

Before she knew his intention, his knees hit the mattress, and he turned her to her stomach. He spread her legs and slipped between, his body warm over hers, his lips near her ear.

“Thorough, remember,” he whispered. “I want to know all of you, Sabrina. Every last inch.”

It was complete submission. It was handing him control. And it was having control. Because it was her decision. One so much more meaningful than that one moment at the edge of a plane when the decision to jump took place. It was intimate. It was personal. It was trust.

He brushed her hair from her neck and nibbled. Spread her arms out and covered them with his own, and pressed his lips between her shoulder blades. His cock settled between her legs, slid into the wet heat, taunting her with how easily it would be for him to slip inside her.

His hands caressed a path down her arms until they slipped around her, cupping her breasts. She moaned and bit her lip. He tugged gently on her nipples, pressed his hips more fully between her thighs. Her backside lifted, as desperation tore through her.

“Ryan,” she whispered. “Oh…” She lost the words as he moved, leaving her thighs aching. His mouth traveled down her spine, hands down her ribcage, over her hips, her backside. Kissing a path that was rapidly becoming more tempting, more intimate. Sabrina could feel herself losing touch with reality, her body quivering with every touch, every taste.

By the time his fingers slid between her legs, she cried out, gasping on a plea. “Ryan. Please.”

He slid up her body, hard muscle encasing her everywhere, the thick ridge of his shaft teasing her thighs. Yes. That’s what she wanted. “Please what?” he asked, his cheek next to hers.

“You know what I want,” she whispered. “You.”

“Me how?”

For only a flash of a second, she hesitated, not used to being uninhibited with a man. But it was a second and gone. “Inside me. I want to feel you inside me.”

“And you will,” he promised. “Soon.”

He lifted his body off hers, rolled to his side, and Sabrina took advantage, not giving him the chance to claim control again. She’d given it. Now she wanted to take it. It was her turn to drive him crazy.

Sabrina straddled Ryan, positioning the hard length of his erection behind her, pressing temptingly against her backside. “My turn,” she declared, driven by how much this man turned her on—everything about him, including the wicked gleam in his eye right now.

“And if I say no?” he challenged.

She leaned down, the crisp hair of his chest teasing her nipples. “Don’t you want to please me?”

His hands ran up her back, the air crackling with instant heat. “You know I do.”

She did; she knew. That was what made it so easy to be free with him. “Then do what I say.”