And now it was a fully aroused state. Fantastic. This was so not a conversation he wanted to have in the first place, let alone with a hard-on. “My leg. The bone was shattered. I had a lot of surgeries and they put most of it back together. But it still hurts, especially in the morning when I haven’t stretched it.”
Sympathy poured from her gaze as she sat up and pulled the sheet back, gathering it up in her hand as she sought the scar. When she found it along the far side of his calf, she touched the skin just above it lightly with her fingers. “You hid this last night. With the low light and striking that weird pose. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s...”
How to explain the horror of being wounded in the line of duty? It wasn’t just the pain and the fact that he wasn’t ever going to be the same again, but he’d been unable to protect the rest of his team. He’d been unable to do his job because his leg didn’t work all at once. A SEAL got back up when he was knocked down. Every time. Only Kyle hadn’t.
Maybe he’d fail at being a parent, too, because of it. That was his worst fear.
“I don’t like being weak,” he finally said, which was true, if not the whole truth. “I don’t like giving you ammunition to take away Maddie and Maggie. Like I might not be a good daddy because my leg doesn’t work right.”
“Oh, Kyle.” She laid her lips on the scar for a moment, and the light touch seared his heart. “I would never take away your daughters because of an injury. That’s ridiculous.”
He shrugged, unable to meet her gaze. “You were going to take them away because I didn’t come home for two months. But I was in the hospital.”
“Well, you could have said that!” Exasperation spurted out with the phrase and she shook her head. “For crying out loud. Am I supposed to be a mind reader?”
Yes. Then he wouldn’t have to figure out how to say things that were too hard.
“Now you know,” he mumbled instead. “That’s why I had to stop earlier. Not because I wasn’t on board. I just needed a minute.”
“Okay.” But then she smiled and ran a hand up his thigh, dangerously close to his erection. “It’s been a minute. How about we try this instead, now that I know?”
The protest got caught in his throat as she rolled him onto his back and crawled over him, careful not to touch his leg, but deliberately letting her breasts and long curls brush his skin from thigh to chest. She captured his wrists and encircled them with her fingers, drawing his arms above his head, holding them in place as her hips undulated.
“What are you doing?” His voice scraped the lower register as she ignited his flesh with her sexy movements.
She arched a brow. “Really? I should hope it would be fairly obvious. Since it’s not, shut up and I’ll make it clearer for you.”
He did as advised because his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth anyway. And then she leaned forward, still holding his wrists hostage, and kissed him. Hot. Openmouthed. The kind of kiss laden with dark promise and he eagerly lapped it up. He could break free of her finger shackles easily, but why the hell would he do that?
She had him right where she wanted him, apparently, and since he could find no complaint with it, he let her have the floor. She experimented with different angles of her head as she kissed him, looking for something unknown and he went along for the ride, groaning with the effort it took to hold back.
Then she trailed her mouth down his throat, nipped at his earlobe and writhed against his erection all at once, slicing a long, hot knife of need through his groin. His hips strained toward hers, rocking involuntarily as he sought relief, and he started to pull his arms loose so he could roll her under him to get this show on the road. But she shook her head and tightened her grip on his wrists.
“No, sir,” she admonished with a wicked smile. “You’re not permitted to do anything but lie there.”
This was going to kill him. Flat out stop his heart.
He got what she was doing. She wanted him to keep his leg still, while she did all the dirty work. Something tender hooked his heart as he stared up at her, poised over him with an all-business look on her face that was somehow endearing.
But he wasn’t an invalid.
“I hate to break it to you, darling, but that’s not happening.” He flexed his hips again, sliding his erection against her bare, damp sex, watching as her eyes unfocused with pleasure. “I suggest you think about how you’re going to get a condom on me with your hands occupied because I’m going to be inside you in about point two seconds.”