Duty At What Cost?

‘Not yet, baby. I want to be inside you when you come.’

‘I can’t help it,’ she moaned. ‘You’ve pushed me too far.’

‘Not yet, I haven’t.’ He urged her legs wider and positioned himself at the apex of her body. ‘But I intend to.’

On a single powerful thrust he surged deep, pausing just long enough to let her expand around him before moving again. She whimpered desperately and dragged his face down to hers.

A primal sense of satisfaction rushed through him as he established a steady rhythm, rolling his hips against hers and causing a string of sensual spasms throughout her body that sucked him in even deeper.

Driving into her, Wolfe didn’t stop until he felt her go still, poised on the edge of her release. He held her there as long as he could, but she moved against him, sobbing as her climax consumed her, her inner contractions forcing his own body to speed towards a release that burned hotter than the West Australian sun.

* * *

Wolfe woke and knew instantly that he’d overslept—something he hadn’t done since before his army days. And in his arms was a woman who twisted his insides into knots Houdini would struggle to break out of. He thought about his inflexible rules: short, sweet and simple. Only one of them had been upheld last night, and it wasn’t short or simple.

He lifted a strand of her hair and closed his eyes as he breathed in the soft floral fragrance, ignoring the screaming pain in his back from muscles still stiff from lack of use.

He’d ignored them the night before, too, when they’d been screaming from overuse. He’d lost track of the amount of times they’d made love, each time eclipsing the last in a way he would have said was impossible. And it wasn’t just the sex he’d wanted, he realised uneasily. He liked her. He liked spending time with her. Watching her. Listening to her. Being challenged by her. Somehow, in a short space of time, she had come to mean more to him than any other woman ever had. More than he wanted her to. More than he was willing to think about.

She gave a small moan and snuggled deeper into his shoulder. Irresistible.

‘What time is it?’

He glanced down and smiled as her eyes remained scrunched closed. ‘I take it you’re not a morning person?’

She rolled onto her back and shifted her head onto the pillow. ‘Not really. You?’

‘Always.’ He propped up on his side. ‘In fact I’m never up late, even after spending most of the night awake. I think you’re making me soft.’

She glanced briefly down his body. ‘I hope not.’

Wolfe gave a chuckle. ‘Witch,’ he said against her mouth, and her lips opened under his in a way that made him think about taking her again.

Remember the rules, a timely voice reminded him forcefully.

Yeah, the rules. The ones he was breaking faster than a politician broke election promises.

He jumped out of bed and reached for the jeans he’d discarded on the floor the night before. ‘How about you take a minute to wake up while I fix something to eat?’

‘Oh, Wolfe, your back looks terrible.’

He glanced over his shoulder. ‘It’ll heal.’ He yanked a T-shirt over his head and his belly clenched as he saw Ava staring in that region. ‘How are your hands?’

‘Quoi?’

He couldn’t prevent a crooked smile from curling one side of his mouth when she looked at him with dazed eyes. ‘Your hands? How are they?’

She made a great show of looking at them, but he suspected she was trying to hide her blush from him. She never blushed, as far as he knew, and the sight was pleasing on a purely male level.

‘Sore.’

‘I’ll take a look at them after breakfast,’ he promised, grasping her wrists lightly and dropping a kiss against each bandage before he thought better of it.

* * *

Ava paused in the doorway of the kitchen and watched Wolfe flip something in the frying pan. His lithe, narrow-hipped frame drew her eye like a flame drew a moth.

He turned as if sensing her and gave her a lazy grin. ‘The clothes fit, then?’

Ava glanced down at the oversized T-shirt and board shorts she’d had to roll twice at the waist to keep them up. ‘I think that might be a grave exaggeration, but they’re not falling off.’

His gaze lingered on her legs. ‘Eggs, bacon.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Tomatoes in two minutes. It’s not nouvelle cuisine.’

‘I don’t need anything fancy,’ she assured him.