Hot Zone (Elite Force 2)

Growling, he kissed the curve of her neck, up, up, until he took the lobe of her ear between his teeth the way she’d done to him, guessing she’d done something to him she liked for herself. Her purr of pleasure rewarded him, and damn, making her feel good made him feel even better. She rocked against him and clawed at his back as the table inched backward, ramming the wall, rattling the bottles on the shelves with each thrust. She buried her face into his shoulder, muffling her cries of pleasure from anyone who might pass by their closet.

A closet, for God’s sake.

He wanted to take her again in a bed, in a shower, anywhere more civilized than a f**king broom closet in an earthquake zone. He wanted to stretch her out naked and taste every inch of her again and again until she came apart. And damn, damn, damn, he was the one coming apart as he pounded inside her.

Still, every time he tried to go slower, easier, she demanded more. She writhed against him, faster, breathing in his ear how close, so close, she was.

Her orgasm squeezed around him, harder and harder in a velvet vise. He thrust harder and faster, finally free to give in to his own release. The tension uncoiled, expanding, pulsing through him as he came and came again inside her. The force of it convulsed his arms around her, damn near buckled his knees like the demolished world around them.

And before the haze of pleasure faded, he felt her pulsing again. Her teeth sank into his shoulder and he reveled in the pain brought on by the satisfaction he gave her.

A light sheen of sweat slicked his torso, sealing their bodies together. He stayed inside her, knew he should pull out, clean up, say something… nice?

Damn, he was the king of postcoital platitudes after his dead-end relationships of the past five years. He knew dozens of ways to reassure a woman she was sexy and rocked his world, but he understood she needed someone different.

Then he could walk away with a clear conscience to hang out with his memories. His grief.

Yeah, that was a screwed-up cycle, but he didn’t know any other way to live without becoming a monk. Not an option.

Right now, really not an option.

So he scrounged for those words to give her, to somehow make sense of what they’d done.

She placed two fingers along his mouth. “Don’t talk.” She pressed her lips to his tenderly, briefly. “Don’t mess this up with words or half-meant promises that will feel awkward when we’re both clearheaded. This is what it is—an incredible culmination—and I thank you for that. It’s something I suspect we both needed and now it’s done.”

Before he could pick his jaw up off the floor, she’d gathered her clothes and dressed. She rested her cheek against his back for a heartbeat… and left.

The door closed softly behind her.

The silence echoed around him, the scent of her, of them, and sex mixing up with the disinfectant in the air. She’d actually walked out on him. She hadn’t even given him a chance to roll out some face-saving words for both of them.>She yanked his T-shirt free of his pants.

Any rational thoughts made a double-time retreat. Air whispered over his back, followed by her touch. He traced the hem of her surgical top, hesitating, his conscience kicking him in the ass.

Her cool fingers slid up his spine, her clipped short nails digging into his back. “Stop thinking. I know what I’m doing. I want this. I need to be with you, to forget about all of those horrors that I’m helpless to fix.”

How she’d read his mind, his doubts, his own howling frustration, he didn’t know. Still, he had to be sure, to protect her, even if only from herself.

He smoothed back her hair with a hand that shook harder than a newbie on his first mission. “You’re mixed up because I rescued you.”

“What about you?” Her fingers crawled up his chest to caress his neck, her body melding with his in an unmistakable invitation. “Are you mixed up? Should I be protecting you?”

Blood supply to his brain was seriously compromised, since it was all surging south. His erection throbbed against his fly as he tried to sift through her words. Had she somehow found out about—God, he couldn’t even think of their names right now. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Do you sleep with the people you save very often? Enough that you can be so sure of what I’m feeling?”

Her words flicked cold water on his libido, not totally dousing it but definitely giving him enough of a wake-up call to clear this up. To make sure she understood how she affected him in a way even he wasn’t sure he understood yet. “I’ve never slept with anyone even remotely tied to one of my military rescues, and if you don’t believe me on that, then we need to stop this right now.”

“If you’re sane”—she traced his ears lightly, intimately—“then why are you trying to push me away, unless you think I’m a needy nutcase who doesn’t know what she’s doing?”

The surety in her voice fed the hunger searing his insides. “I’m only asking you to be certain. I don’t want you to have regrets or add to the fallout from what you’ve been through.”

“I am thirty-one years old, and I know my own mind.” Her feathery touch skimmed over his temples, down his cheeks to circle his mouth. “I want to have sex with you, no strings, just now. Together. To affirm the fact that we both came out of this alive. To find some closure. To feel good again.”

She sounded clearheaded and decisive to him. Fair enough. And the way she’d started nipping his bottom lip…

He swallowed hard. “So you trust I have the ability to make you feel good?”

“Very much so,” she said with an intensity echoed in her sky blue eyes, “and I can’t wait for you to prove me right.”