Chapter 9 #3
She had no idea how she was supposed to walk back up to the cave mouth and pretend she hadn’t seen any of this… felt all of this.
Not likely.
He turned his head, his back flexing with the rigid set of his shoulders. “Emily,” he whispered, lighting her up like fireflies in the dark. “You can’t seem to stay put or heed my warnings.”
She took a breath. “Yeah, I have a mind of my own, and most of the time I can overcome most things, but when it comes to you…you get under my skin, and something in me just wants to…rebel. Besides, they say redheads can be unpredictable, complicated, and?—”
“Beautiful disasters?”
“That’s like the second time you’ve called me beautiful.”
“For a moment he didn’t answer. His jaw worked, a muscle ticking in his cheek as though he were wrestling with something too heavy to name. Then his voice came low, rough, a confession dragged up anyway.
“You are. I don’t mean the kind of beauty I’ve had before—shiny, easy, forgettable. But you…” His gaze cut to hers, sharp and unflinching. “…you make me feel like a man, not just the muscle, not just the uniform. Like maybe there’s more to me than holding everything together for everyone else.”
“I don’t need a man to hold anything together for me,” she said softly. “I just want to be there for him when he unravels, and for him to hold me when I do.”
For a second he froze, every line of his body rigid, as if her words had struck something deep.
“Goddammit,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“You get under my skin. I don’t even know how to handle you.
” He turned his head, giving her the arresting sight of his profile again.
Her eyes went over that jaw, her hands itching to cup it, feel the stubble, take her time exploring such a face, such a body, such a man.
Raw, unguarded, more beautiful now than he’d ever been in armor. She couldn’t stop herself.
“You need a crash course in Emily 101?” she asked, kicking off her boots and peeling away the damp socks.
Her fingers went to her shirt, tugging it over her head, the humid air kissing bare skin as she let it drop.
Cargo pants slid down her hips in one swift motion, leaving her in nothing but a sports bra and serviceable panties.
Practical. Plain. Yet under his gaze she felt stripped in a way that had nothing to do with fabric.
She stepped into the water, each stride deliberate, the pool swallowing her up until she reached him.
When she laid her hand flat against his back, he sucked in a breath, a twisting, aching sound breaking from his throat.
He turned around and faced her, his chest heaving. “I’ve already been crashed into, and you pack a punch, Shortcake.”
Moonlight traced every hard line of him, wet muscle, taut jaw, eyes the color of a gathering storm, caught somewhere between fury and hunger.
Emily’s hand stayed on his back, sliding just slightly around his side, tentative but steady. She didn’t try to fill the silence. Didn’t chatter or demand. He was raw, and she could feel it vibrating off him.
So she gave him presence.
Brawler’s gaze raked over her, lingering on her bare shoulders, the rise and fall of her chest, water lapping at her waist. His throat worked, and then he moved.
His thumb stilled when it caught on the darkening marks across her waist and hip, the rope-burned skin stark against her pale flesh. His face tightened, his gaze fixed on the bruises like they were his to bear. The rough pad of his thumb brushed one, softer than she’d ever thought he could be.
“I don’t regret a thing,” she whispered, catching his gaze before guilt could swallow him whole. “Bruises will heal. Losing you would have killed me.”
He closed his eyes, his jaw flexing. “Christ, Emily,” he muttered, rough and low. “What you do to me.”
Big hands, rough and careful, dipped into the water and came up cupping a handful. He lifted it to her shoulder, letting the cool stream run down her skin, washing away streaks of dirt and sweat, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
But when he reached the faint smear of blood on her collarbone, something inside him cracked.
His thumb rubbed hard, frantic, as if he could erase it by force, as if sheer will might undo what had touched her.
His face contorted, remorse twisting every line.
A low sound broke from his chest, half-growl, half-grief.
The motion slowed then, shifting to reverence. A warrior’s hands that killed without hesitation were touching her like she was something precious.
His thumb ground harder over the faint smear of blood, as if he could scour it from existence, as though he had to clean away more than dirt, as though he had to prove to himself she was here, alive, safe.
His face twisted, jaw locking, a low sound ripping from him like it cost him air.
Emily caught his wrist, her voice quiet but steady. “It’s not my blood. You and your wonderful Beast kept me safe, didn’t you? You killed, you shielded me, you reconned, you prodded and yelled at me, and you kept me safe.”
He froze, water dripping from his hand, eyes snapping to hers.
For a beat he looked like a man caught between fury and breaking.
Then the words landed. His chest rose on a sharp inhale, his mouth parting like she’d struck him with something harder than a bullet.
The storm in his eyes shifted, the violence easing under the weight of her certainty.
A tremor went through him, not battle-readiness but release, like her words had threaded steel back into his spine. His hand flexed against her skin, no longer frantic, now reverent, as if she had just handed him something he hadn’t known he’d been starving for.
He slipped his big hands under her arms, lifted her from the water.
“Emily…fuck…please…” he whispered. She wrapped her legs around him, needing an anchor, all that velvet skin sliding along hers.
She gave in to her need, not for his body, but for this…
this open, pleading response from one of the toughest, strongest men she’d ever met, and every other man in her memory just vanished.
She took his face between her hands, leaned in and kissed him, softly, not to arouse, not to inflame, but to show him the kind of response he deserved for all that vulnerability.
His arms folded her against his chest, his mouth just as soft, just as responsive.
What began as a whisper of lips deepened, stretching out into something slower, longer, lingering.
His breath mingled with hers, each pull and exhale catching like they were sharing the same fragile air.
He cupped the back of her head, fingers splaying in her wet hair, holding her as though the kiss itself might slip away if he didn’t anchor her.
Emily tilted into him, letting her mouth shape to his, her hands sliding to his jaw, brushing over stubble that rasped under her palms. She could feel the tremor in him, the way his body was a live wire straining not to surge forward, not to overwhelm, but to match her pace.
His lips parted just slightly, a tentative brush of tongue against hers, hesitant, reverent, so different from the desperate, consuming kiss in the cave.
This one told her more. This one spoke of need beyond desire, of a man testing the edges of a world where gentleness wasn’t weakness but salvation.
The water lapped around them, cool and steady, but she was burning from the inside out, every nerve alive to the simple wonder of his mouth moving with hers.
When she finally drew back a fraction, breathless, she rested her forehead against his, her lips still brushing his as she whispered, “That’s what you deserve, Christian. ”
“The way you say my name…,” he rasped, shaking his head, water dripping from his hair.
She brushed her lips over his mouth again, and something changed in him. He set her down, her legs sliding free of his waist. “I need to…check the perimeter,” he muttered, voice rough.
She blinked up at him. “ Now ?”
He backed up, the water flowing around all that hard, thick temptation beneath the surface. “Yes, now. We’ve been through a lot tonight. It’s best if we move slower.”
Hunger. That was what he’d awoken in her. Not for sex, not for safety, but for the man beneath the armor. Now that she’d tasted it, she could never go back.