Chapter 6
SIX
Mason didn’t know if he’d survive this. Touching Elin felt so right, so perfect. Like those two years apart never existed.
She shook against him until the worst of it burned out, leaving small tremors he recognized—the aftershocks that came when a warrior finally stopped bracing for impact.
He held on anyway because letting go too fast felt like dropping her. When her breathing evened out, he eased away enough to study her face.
Her lashes were clumped with the last of the tears she refused to let fall.
Stubborn, fierce, beautiful woman.
His arms didn’t want to give her up, but he forced them to loosen.
When he started to shift her from his lap, her hand came up to fasten around his shirt. The tight grip might as well be around his heart.
Fuck, if they started this, he wouldn’t be able to stop it.
Gently, he hooked his knuckle beneath her dainty chin and lifted her face to his. A force bigger than him made him dip his head. Before his lips could crash over hers, she slipped from his lap to the mattress.
He kept one palm at her nape like a claim or a promise—or both. “You’re right. Not like this.” If he was taking her to bed and showing her what two years away from her did to a man, she wouldn’t be crying tears. She’d be crying his name.
She didn’t respond, but she didn’t move away from his touch either.
“You slept what—two hours last night?” His voice pitched low.
She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I got enough.”
He angled her chin so she had to look at him. “You’re running on fumes and pride. Not a viable fuel mix.”
“I’ll manage.” The glimmer in the deep green pools of her eyes had his gut clenching with desire.
“Until you face-plant into your keyboard. Again.”
Her lips flattened. “That never happened.”
“I’m pretty sure it did, right after you claimed you were resting your eyes that day.”
A spark lit in her gaze, the first sign she was climbing out of the pit and back into herself.
Christ, he wanted to capture those sweet rose-pink lips and make her gasp.
He cast around for some distraction from the throb of his cock behind his fly. “You seemed really worried about the dog. Did you have a dog?”
She hunched her shoulders, and she shook her head. “I never thought I could have a dog with my lifestyle. I’m never in one city for long. Short leases, odd hours. Dogs need stability. But I always thought I’d like to have a dog someday…when I settle down.”
“What kind of dog?” He stretched his hand along her nape, stroking his fingertips over her soft skin.
“Something small. Cute. Fluffy.” The tears in her voice started to fade. “A girl dog.”
“Got it. Cute, fluffy, bossy.”
“Why would it be bossy?”
“Any dog you own will be bossy.”
Her eyes warmed and color crept back into her cheeks. He only planned to take her mind off what just happened in Canada, not paint a picture in his own head of Elin curled up on the sofa with her bare feet tucked under her and a puffball of attitude snoring on her knees.
Or of his hand resting on both of them. But once the image dropped into his mind, he couldn’t shake it.
He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. For a second, he just let himself look. The op of the last hour dimmed until all he could see was her mouth—soft and stubborn—and the green fire in her eyes that he could fall into and never surface from.
He let his fingertips drift lower along the elegant line of her throat. Her pulse jumped.
Long seconds ticked by. Neither spoke. Neither moved.
And the air pulsed with the kind of tension he knew ended with her naked beneath him.
“Sleep.” His voice came out rough.
“I’m not a child. I’m here to do a job. I may have found one bomb handler, but eleven are still out there.”
“You need rest to be on top of your game.”
“You’re not my boss. Con—”
He swooped in and slammed his mouth over hers.
The kiss wasn’t polite.
She swore at him, and he caught it with his mouth and unraveled it, pressing heat into her lips until her curse dissolved on his tongue. She stiffened for just a breath, then melted.
He felt the moment she chose to surrender—the line of her body softening into his, her fingers twisting into his shirt again as if her body wanted what her mind refused to admit.
When he lifted his head, her pupils were blown wide. A flush climbed her throat.
“We’re not doing this.” Her rasp was breathless.
“Definitely not.” He kissed her again—slower, deeper, until she made a sound low in her throat.
That noise jump-started his heart.
A growl rumbled in his chest, and her fingers curled tighter, either to drag him closer or shove him away. But he tasted her want, her salt, her need.
When he tore away the second time he let his mouth hover a whisper from hers.
The glare returned—god, he’d missed her glare—before she surged up and kissed him. The angle of her head and the sweep of her tongue against his were fierce with hunger.
His body got the memo loud and clear, and he guided her backward on the bed, their bodies never losing contact, as if they couldn’t bear to separate now that they’d found each other again.
He skidded a hand up her ribs, inches from her breasts. He already knew she wasn’t wearing a bra. That was Elin. Unrestricted in a carefree way that American women didn’t operate.
She didn’t wear makeup because her natural beauty was enough. Her dark blonde hair fell loose and waving around her face without the restriction of stiff hairspray.
He slid his hand down her torso and found the dip at her waist where his palm had always fit like a matched piece.
Then lower to the curve of her hip, where he felt the barest tremble.
“This is such a bad idea,” she murmured at the same time she tipped her chin to invite his mouth to explore along her jawline. That small movement made him forget how to slow down.
“Terrible.” He sucked on her throat, feeling the throb of her pulse under his tongue.
She arched, any words of protest replaced by a gasp. She was going to let him take her, and the extreme pleasure would mix with the sharp pain they both endured after he walked out of her life.
Still, his hands worked her hip bone, kneading, coaxing her to rock her hips in the sensual way that stripped all of his control.
He ripped his mouth free again, stroking his thumb over her fuller lower lip. She nipped at the pad, and he took her lips again with a growl.
The kiss grew from heated flames to a raging inferno. She hooked her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, kissing him like she needed to drown out the world.
And he answered with the hunger he kept buried deep for two years. Delving his tongue between her lips, he gave and gave until she was writhing into each caress. Each molten flip of her tongue against his came with a little moan that told him she was close to losing it too.
He found the hem of her top and skimmed his hand over her stomach, not flat but sexy in that way that made a man dream about more with a woman.
“Liam!” His name was only a quivering breath.
He drew back far enough to search her eyes. All trace of her tears had faded, leaving behind the steel of the woman that his leaving had somehow tempered instead of made brittle.
He cupped her breast, and her mouth opened on a silent cry. When he thumbed her nipple, it tightened for him. “Tell me to stop.” He pressed a line of tender kisses down her throat. “And I do.”
Her hands tightened on his shoulders. “Tell me to stop.”
He huffed a laugh that had no humor in it because he was looking into the fire of her eyes and seeing the anger banked there.
He shouldn’t taunt her, but the only way to the other side was through those flames.
“You should sleep.”
“Say that again and you really will wind up dead.” She hauled him back down and kissed him until the words burned away, until the only language was body language.
He rolled, taking her with him so she straddled his hips in a position that put power where she needed it right now. He’d learned the first time they ever crossed this line that Elin would only relinquish her power if he proved himself worthy.
She scrabbled at the hem of his shirt, and he twisted to let her pull it off him. The scrape of her nails over his flesh shook him to the core.
He didn’t take his eyes off her, then rucked up her top, slow enough that she could change her mind at any point and fast enough she wouldn’t.
She lifted her arms, and the fabric cleared her head. Her hair spilled wild around her face, and his breath stalled. The sight of her was a gut punch.
Brilliant. Battle-torn. Beautiful.
When he cradled her breasts, she rolled her hips enticingly, shredding him a little more. Then their mouths were fused again.
And suddenly, he wasn’t counting down the hours to disaster. He was counting the heartbeats until ecstasy.
* * * * *
Outside the bedroom, the world kept moving. Inside, it compressed to the heat of Elin’s thighs around Liam’s ribs and the sweet ache in her pussy.
He attacked her mouth, her throat. When the stubble on his jaw scraped over her sensitive breasts, she tossed her head on a cry.
He flipped her again, pressing her down into the mattress, sucking one nipple, then the other, until she quaked. She scraped her hands over him, tracing the old scar at his side and across the ridges of his abdomen.
His breath stuttered against her skin, damp from his tongue. When she glided her hands toward his waistband, he curled a hand over hers to still it.
“Not yet.” His voice was far from steady.
“You told me to go to bed. Now you’re telling me not to?”
He eased her hand up to his chest, pressing it over his heart. It thundered under her fingers, reminding him that he was alive. “I want to make sure your head’s clear. I don’t want you resenting me in the morning.”
Staring up at him for a long beat, she dragged her nails lightly over his pecs as both punishment and reward. “You’re infuriating.”
“Keep talking. I like your voice.” He dipped his head to her nipple and delivered a scorching lick that made her buck.
“You…like me…pissed off.”
“I like you, period.” He popped the button of her pants and closed his lips over her other nipple simultaneously.
Her skin rippled, her core starting to pulse with a dark desire only Liam had ever made her feel.
Her breath trapped in her throat as he slid down her zipper and teased the waist of her panties. The moment he smoothed his palm over her pussy, cupping her through the cloth like he owned that part of her as much as he’d once owned her heart, she stopped breathing.
Three heartbeats passed. Then he plunged his hand inside and found her soaking folds. He burrowed a fingertip deeper, stroking her folds until he nestled over her throbbing clit.
“Li-am!” His name broke on her cry.
The next second, he’d stripped her completely and gripped her by each inner thigh, staring down at her with an intensity that made her whole body burn.
In one smooth move, he spread her legs and lowered his mouth to her pussy.
Her thoughts scattered. The shock of the sensation stole her next breath, and she clutched at the bedding, then his hair as the world narrowed to the heat of his mouth.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. The war room, her reason for being here, the fear—all of it faded to nothing. All that remained was this man and the way he dismantled her walls brick by brick with slow, torturous strokes of his tongue.
Her insides clutched and released, a body surrendering to her lover she missed with all her heart and soul. “Liam!” Her voice was a shattered plea.
He looked up the length of her body, his eyes storm clouds filled with everything she thought she lost.
That ache in her chest threatened to spill over as he traced a path around her clit and left a trail of shivers in his wake.
When stars blasted across her vision, she squeezed her eyes shut as waves of bliss washed over her. She shook and cried out a name she never thought she’d speak again.
His groan of satisfaction rumbled through her—something she’d forgotten he did whenever he brought her to orgasm. The dark pulsations dragged a final gasp from her, and she sank her fingers into his thick hair.
He moved up her body slowly, dropping kisses on every inch of flesh. When he kissed her, it was deep, consuming…and it pulled her under.
She wrapped her legs around him, yanking him in to fumble with his fly. The instant her fingers touched that throbbing length, she felt desperate.
As he helped her strip him, she noticed how his hands tremored slightly. When he braced himself over her, she caught his face—his beloved face—between her palms and stared into his eyes that had haunted her dreams too many nights.
The rest came on instinct—he gripped his thick erection at the base and arrowed it toward her center. Every inch that sank inside her, she lost more of her mind. When he was rooted deeper than she ever remembered him being before, their gazes locked.
He began to move. The push and pull of bodies that remembered each other, and found a rhythm without a thought. All the words left unspoken flooded into her mind.
You’re still mine even if we never say it again.
He withdrew on a long, slow stroke and then slammed deep again. And again. Her heart crashed against his where their chests were locked together, seeming to match beats.
She rocked her hips, and he whispered a curse that grated through her senses that were already sparking in a million different directions.
“Christ, angel. I can’t—”
“So don’t.” She wrapped her legs around his hips, feeling him jerk as his control faltered.
The look he gave her then—like he had been consumed with pain from their separation the same way she had—rocked her world.
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Tell me this is real.”
Oh god. Was it?
“I think it’s real,” she whispered back.
That broke him. He moved with her in harsh jerks as they both chased the pinnacle. When her vision blacked, he found her lips and she clung to his taste, his scent, his feel.
The first jet of his hot cum flooded her inner walls, triggering another release. Their bodies moved in sync, as if they’d never stopped.
When the last of the pulsations ebbed, Liam held her tight enough that she knew this was real. Neither of them spoke for a long time. Words didn’t fit.
She reached up and traced the line of his jaw with unsteady fingers. “You still think I should go to sleep?”
He issued a rough laugh and buried his face against her neck. “Yeah. But now I’m staying to make sure you do.”
She smiled into the dark. The storm inside her head had quieted.
Not gone, but tamed for now.