Defender (Seattle Sharks 9)

“Yes. Maybe a dozen times.”

“I love you, Nathan.” She rose, her thighs tensing on my waist, then lowered, taking me back inside the perfection of her body.

“God, we’re fools,” I muttered. “So foolish for it to take this long for me to admit.”

“So foolish of us both for letting it happen,” she agreed, rising again.

I groaned, the friction the sweetest torture I could ever imagine.

“So be foolish with me a little...harder, Nathan,” she begged, lowering herself until we were joined fully again.

Of course she wouldn’t want it all slow and tender after making that kind of admission. She tended to do the opposite of what I thought she would. She needed it as deep and primal as I did.

I answered her with my mouth and tongue, kissing her with abandon and utter need. Taking her ass in my hands, I stepped away from the counter and immediately put her back against the solid expanse of the wall.

Then I made love to her with hard, powerful thrusts, using her weight to sink deeper inside her. Our mouths fed off each other ravenously as we strained and groaned, using our bodies to communicate the need we couldn’t deny.

“Yes!” she shouted, bracing her head against the wall as I filled her again and again.

I felt the orgasm well within me, gathering in a storm I was powerless to stop. Shifting her weight, I slipped my thumb between us and stroked her clit in quick, hard pets.

She came undone, tensing and clenching, her pussy rippling around me. I let go, my orgasm barreling through me with the finesse of a tornado, altering everything I had been before.

“I love you,” I promised as I sagged against her, feeling our chests rise and fall against each other.

“I love you,” she echoed. “I didn’t want to, but I do. I think I always have, even from that moment you pulled me out of the street in Sweden.”

A bittersweet feeling swept over me, both for the memory of how we’d gotten here, and all the time we could have had.

“I’ve loved you since that first kiss.” I found the strength to lock my knees and then kissed her again. “We’d better get some clothes on, or I’ll be eating you as a snack. I’m suddenly famished.”

“I brought cookies,” she offered with a grin.

“Chocolate chip?” I guessed.

“You bet.”

“Lead the way.”

A few minutes later, we were dressed in pajamas, tangled up on the couch with her head on my chest and a box of cookies within reach.

“I think I might lose the lab for a year,” she admitted, staring up at the skylight in the living room.

“Want to tell me about it?” I brushed her hair back, letting the silk run through my fingers. Did that mean I’d get another year with her? The possibility stole my breath.

“The helmet would be for a major product reveal in the fall, then a merchandising launch in the spring and well, the helmet isn’t ready. I mean, it is, but I have to get proof for my investor. That means putting it through tests, of course, which I have, but…” She sighed.

My hand stilled at the back of her head. “You need a trial.”

“No, not really. I mean, I almost have enough data from the crash test dummies to warrant the human testing, but I don’t know if I can get it all together by May, and that’s my deadline. If I can’t, the lab will still be mine, but in name only. The other product developer will get his made first.”

“They can’t push back the helmet reveal?” I moved my other hand in soothing motions along her back.

She tensed anyway. “No. It’s very date specific. If mine isn’t ready, they have to roll with the other one.”

Now it was my mind working overtime. If she could get it out this year, and merchandised by spring, that would mean I could make a push and donate thousands of her helmets to colleges all around the country. I’d seen the data and the models. That foam absorbed impact better than anything we had and cushioned the blows enough to reduce concussion rates by crazy amounts.

That helmet might have saved Nicholas if he’d had it.

A year was a long time. It was the difference between Nicholas’s senior year in high school and his funeral.

“Did you show him the prototype? Your investor?”

“Of course. He was thrilled. He loved that the insert could be customized professionally, but also at the amateur level. He was really into the different models, of course, but the hockey one…” She swallowed. “Well, that one kept his attention.”

The one that was fitted to me. No wonder it was hard for her to tell me what was going on.

If I did this, she had a chance of getting it out within the year.

If I did this, she’d be gone in a little over two months.