Chapter 9 #2
Emily came up behind, boots scuffing on stone, and while he cataloged lines of fire and fallback options, she tipped her head back.
Her sharp inhale caught his attention. “Wow, look how the walls glisten faintly with mineral sheen, water veining down like silver threads.” A shaft of fading sunlight speared through the gaping opening above them, catching quartz embedded in the rock.
“It shines like starlight trapped underground.” She swallowed hard.
“Is that a—” She moved past him, slipped behind a wall, and with a curse, he followed her.
The narrow throat opened unexpectedly, the ceiling rising, the sound of dripping water gathering strength until it filled the air like a steady heartbeat. The ground sloped again, and then the chamber widened into a hollow where the jungle had carved out something secret.
A pool lay nestled at the heart of the cavern, fed by a narrow fall spilling from a cleft high in the stone.
Water slid silver down the moss-draped rock, scattering into a thousand droplets before vanishing into the dark glass below.
Mist hung in the air, cool against the sweat on his skin.
The scent of wet earth and green moss rose thick, alive.
His eyes went first to the edges, to where shadows might conceal a threat, to the walls slick with moisture that could hamper escape. He saw terrain. Chokepoints. Cover. Survival.
Emily was ahead of him, her hand brushing the stone as though she were touching something holy. She tipped her face toward the falls, light from a hole in the cavern’s ceiling catching in her damp red hair, eyes wide with that reckless, unguarded wonder that made his chest ache.
“Look at this,” she whispered. “A hidden world.” She crouched near the water, moss lush under her boots, glowing almost emerald where droplets beaded and slid down.
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The picture burned itself into his head with too much clarity, her small body pressed to that moss, skin damp with mist, the thunder of the waterfall drowning out every sound but her breath against his throat.
Brawler dragged in air, forcing his focus back to the perimeter, to the mission. Beauty was her territory. Safety was his. Yet standing here, with silver water spilling behind her and that light in her eyes, he couldn’t shake the thought that this place wasn’t just defensible.
It was his crucible. His fucking downfall.
Her face rocked him, the appreciation reflecting in her eyes, the warmth in her voice, the awe at nature. All of it hit him so hard, he expected to stagger. “God,” she whispered. “It’s beautiful.”
He was wrong. She was his crucible. She was his fucking downfall. Something in him snapped, and he knew he had to get away from all of this, reset, decompress, and find a way to deal with all the tangled emotions this woman had stirred in him before he exploded from the pressure.
He turned on his heel and walked away, then picked up speed.
But, of course, Emily couldn’t let him just go.
“Christian? What’s wrong?”
He stopped, his back rigid. “It’s not beautiful! It’s defensible, shelter, practical!”
Fuck this ability to feel what others felt. Fuck it ten ways to hell. Concern, warmth, sadness, her aching attraction, and a pain that never seemed to go away. It all washed over him. His name on her lips, her voice, all the things he wanted seethed inside him.
He whirled. “Don’t.” His voice was rough, teeth gritted. “This isn’t a goddamn field trip?—"
“It was my field trip.”
“It’s not now. We have tangos on our ass and no quick way back to the jungle.
This jaunt will add days to our trek back to the team.
” His body tensed when she moved. He stared at her.
She stopped in her tracks. “Goddammit. What a clusterfuck.” His jaw flexed so hard, it hurt.
He huffed out a scoffing laugh. “You in the damn middle of it.” She opened her mouth, but he cut her off.
“No. You don’t get to argue this one.” His voice rose, hard, ragged, shaking with something he couldn’t cage.
“Christ, you think I want to tell Tex I lost you? You think I can handle finding you broken, or bleeding, or?—”
He cut himself off, running a hand over his face, pacing like a caged animal, his chest heaving. “You don’t get it. You don’t get how close, how goddamn close I came to—” He bit it off, snarling. “You can’t do that to me again.”
“How close you came to…what? When?”
“Losing it. Back there when you were journaling that damn paw print, and I told you to stay put.”
Emily just watched him, and he wanted to howl as more sensory stuff bombarded him, her throat tightening, her eyes flicking over his pacing, that pulse in her neck syncing with his fury. He didn’t understand what this was, only that it was so devastating, his senses overloaded.
He didn’t mean to; his mind was working on so many other points of entry that he must have lost his ability to reason, but once a round was chambered, it was bound to fire.
He should have kept her at bay. Should have told her this wasn’t the time, wasn’t the place. Instead, every muscle locked onto her. Finally, inevitably, he lost his ever-loving mind. His mouth crashed into hers, and when she kissed him back, it wasn’t like anything he’d ever known.
His body lit up, not with the usual demand to burn off steam, but with something he couldn’t control, couldn’t contain.
True desire. Nothing like the hurried, backroom tangles he knew.
This wasn’t friction, wasn’t control, wasn’t a body under his just to bleed off pressure.
This was a goddamn detonation of sensation.
Her lips were soft but insistent, moving against his with a hunger that shot through his chest and into his bones.
Gone was the need to spill, the mechanical urge to release, and all that was left was the primal, desperate need to get something back . From her. God, from her.
Brawler groaned, the sound ripped raw from his throat, and the second he did, the kiss shifted.
Slowed. Deepened. Her mouth opened under his, her tongue brushing his in a teasing stroke that undid him.
He leaned in harder, savoring it, devouring her in long, unhurried pulls that made the world fall away.
His dick swelled, hard enough to ache, but it wasn’t just his body.
It was the want to feel her small, writhing form beneath him, yes, but threaded with something deeper, sharper, the image of her stripped bare against that springy moss, not just open to him, but choosing him.
Wanting him so much she couldn’t stop herself.
The thought stole his air, made his chest seize.
He didn’t just want to be inside her. He wanted her to see him .
Not the uniform, not the SEAL, not the brawler who held everything together.
Him. Every nerve ending on fire, every secret, every fear.
His wants, his dreams, his failures, his shame.
He wanted her to touch all of it and still lean in.
He didn’t even know if he could survive that.
Christ , the taste of her. Citrus and heat and something uniquely Emily, burning into his senses.
His hands cradled her face, callused thumbs dragging across her jaw, down to the delicate hinge of her throat, mapping her like she was the only terrain that mattered.
Every nerve fired, not with lust but with something scarier…
want. Not to take, but to keep. To have her pressed against him like this until the world ended.
His cock ached for her, for that springy moss beneath her back, but even that was secondary to the flood in his chest. He wanted her wanting him back.
Not pity. Not adrenaline. Not a kiss to soothe him or ground him.
He wanted her to need him the way he suddenly, impossibly, devastatingly needed her.
He lingered in it, lost in her, savoring each slow press of lips, each stroke of her breath against his cheek. For the first time in his life he wasn’t trying to end a kiss, he was trying to memorize it. To live in it. To let it brand him from the inside out.
He cried out her name with an uncontrollable sob, “Emily.”
And then, fuck him, he had to break away.
Brawler tore back, chest heaving, mouth parted like he couldn’t catch enough air. Her face swam before him, lips swollen, eyes wide with heat, and it damn near broke him in half. His voice came out a ragged rasp. “I’m going to need…time.”
Emily stood frozen. Her lips tingled. Her pulse thundered through her. Her body still thrummed with the weight of him, the taste of him, the impossibility of what just happened. Beast gave a soft huff beside her, like he understood too much.
She waited five minutes. That was all she could handle. Then followed.
She should have stopped when she reached the spot where he’d left his vest and weapons, neatly placed beside the path. Should’ve turned back, respected his need for space.
But she didn’t, couldn’t.
When the path ended at that oasis beneath the waterfall, her breath caught.
He was waist-deep in the water.
Naked.
The fading light turned the surface into quicksilver, that wide expanse of his back was a potent invitation to touch all those thick, powerful muscles cut with flawless lines, traced in gray shadow that lingered most on the hard rise of his backside, shameless in its perfection.
His shoulders were broad enough to bear the weight of the world, his arms flexing with the slow movement of water.
She went instantly wet, heat spilling through her as if the kiss had set her body ablaze. Her nipples ached into hard peaks against her bra, thighs trembling, her core aching with the sudden, savage force of wanting him. All of him a giant in her pixie world.
The fantasy of being overtaken by such a brute, those hips between her legs, his sheer weight pinning her down, the promise of all that unyielding, intense brawn brought to bear, nothing short of a dark, consuming thrill.