Command Control

“Don’t move. I’m going to grab a condom.”

She heard the shower door open and felt the rush of cool air. Seconds later he was back, condom on and ready for action.

“Good girl, you didn’t move.”

“I can be obedient.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. “When it suits me.”

He let out a low laugh, and then she felt him, hard and demanding at her entrance. He thrust against her, filling her as the water rushed down her back. Right now he was 100 percent in control, taking what he wanted, what he needed from her. And she was ready to give him everything she had.

The night before every action had linked back to his emotional needs. But tonight? She knew he’d locked his feelings away for later. But she felt hers rising to the surface. Maybe it was the orgasm or the way he’d taken charge, either way she knew deep down that walking away from this man would not be easy.

Her core tightened around him as Logan’s body smacked against hers. The orgasm built inside her. She was so close, she just needed—

“Touch yourself,” he said, his voice rough and raw. “I need you with me. And I’m ready to explode, Sadie.”

Moving one hand to the center of the tile wall over her head, she dropped the other down, reaching between her legs.

“Logan. Wow,” she gasped. Her back arched and she squeezed her eyes shut, lifting her head back, feeling the water spray her face. Warmth, pleasure, it was all there, washing over her body.

“Logan!” For the second night, her orgasm began and ended with that one word—his name.

15

“YOU’RE GOOD IN the water. Maybe you should ditch the army and join the navy.”

Logan swallowed his bourbon, doing his damnedest not to laugh. After what was hands down the best shower of his life, he felt too good to send the fiery liquid shooting out of his nose. Safely out of the laughing-while-drinking zone, he said, “What the navy does in the water? A little different.”

Sitting cross-legged on the bed she’d tied him to the night before, wearing bright pink underwear and her marines T-shirt, Sadie nodded and refilled her glass with another healthy serving of bourbon. He’d pulled on a pair of boxers and claimed the other side of the mattress as if this—drinking in bed after shower-sex—was the routine. But it wasn’t for him, not by a long shot.

Logan glanced out the window. The middle of the night was slowly giving way to early morning. “We might want to think about calling it a night.”

She nodded. “Do you feel like you can sleep now? When you arrived you seemed on edge.”

“Yeah. I was.”

“This favor,” she said, turning the glass around in her hands. “It was bigger than walking a friend’s dog or helping him move.”

He nodded and drained the rest of his bourbon, debating whether he should tell her. Holding back felt wrong after what she’d given him earlier. Pleasure, comfort and, most important, the feeling that he’d moved on. After spending the day revisiting the past, he’d needed to know he could push forward with his life.

“I met with the woman writing a book about our last mission,” he said.

Her brow furrowed. “I thought your teammate was handling the reporter.”

“He fell in love with her.” He turned the empty glass around in his hands. Little Miss Maggie, as Hunter referred to her, was head over heels for him. Logan had seen it in her eyes when he’d sat down to talk to her. Part of him had relaxed once he knew that what Maggie felt for Hunter was real. A woman in love was a lot less likely to screw over his team with bad press. Still, talking to her, letting her print anything about his mistakes, was a risk.

“He’s putting it all on the line—this mission, his career—to be with her.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. So I drove to New York and answered her questions. I told her the truth about my last mission. I told her about how I was still grieving when we deployed,” he said. “It had only been a few months since Jane’s death. I thought I was prepared to lose her. She’d been sick for so long. The pain and sadness—it took me by surprise.”

“And you’re generally prepared for everything that comes your way,” she said.

Except Sadie, he thought. He hadn’t expected her. “I am,” he said. “It’s my job to be prepared to handle any situation.”

“Like showing up in Afghanistan expecting vehicles and getting handed a horse.”

“Like that.” He offered a faint smile. “I explained what happened during that mission, how I saw Hunter emerge with the blonde woman, the aid worker, in his arms, and I froze. I should have been scanning the area, waiting to take out the bad guys. But I wasn’t.”