Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Kev’s eyes grew wild, hunted, and Lucky’s heart hammered. She was feeling braver than she’d thought possible. Was it the beer talking? Maybe it was, though she’d only had two and she didn’t feel tipsy.
Or maybe it wasn’t the beer at all, but the gravity of this mission. She’d watched Georgie Hayes with Sam, and she’d envied them. They were so clearly in love, so clearly hot for each other. She didn’t know what that felt like, not really, but she wanted it.
She’d told Kev she wanted him, and saying the words was a relief. She hadn’t been brave enough to tell him before—before Al Ahmad, before her capture and rescue, before that first kiss. Before she’d married Marco.
If she had, what would have happened? Maybe they’d have had sex, and maybe she’d have still married Marco. Or maybe she wouldn’t because she would have known she was the wrong woman for him. Maybe Marco would have figured it out sooner if she’d been honest with herself about her feelings for Kev.
No matter what Kev said, she had to be honest with herself now. This mission might go sour. She might not return. It was reality, nothing more.
And reality demanded she not deny her feelings right now. For the first time in forever, she wanted a man. She wasn’t afraid of Kev touching her. She knew instinctively that he was the only one who could.
“Lucky… Jesus.”
“No one has to know.”
“I’ll know.” He put his head on the steering wheel.
She could hear him breathing. And then he sat up and shoved the truck into gear.
She turned and laid her forehead against the cool window, embarrassment and fury twining together in her belly as he drove in silence toward home.
Why had she said anything? Why had she put herself out there like that?
They reached his townhouse and walked toward the door.
She stood behind him while he shoved the key in the lock and twisted.
And then they were inside the hall, and she shut the door behind her, feeling awkward and embarrassed and wondering what to say before she excused herself and went to her lonely bed.
But Kev turned to her in the dimly lit hallway, his eyes ablaze with anger.
“Why me? Why not Flash or Iceman—or, hell, anyone else?”
Lucky’s heart twisted. “I don’t know. I just know you’re the only one who can touch me. The only one who won’t make me shudder in horror or feel sick.”
His throat moved. “Marco never said… he said you had difficulties with intimacy.”
She’d already figured out that Marco had told Kev about her issues with being touched. Yet it was still embarrassing. And maybe it was a relief too, because what if he’d taken her up on her offer and then she freaked out?
“It was too soon after…” She dropped her gaze from his. “He tried. I tried. It worked, but not the way it should have.”
There’d been no fire between them, but she’d felt safe enough with Marco.
“And you think it’ll be different with me.” He wasn’t asking a question.
“Maybe it won’t,” she said, her head bowed. “But I want to find out. I need to find out—” She swallowed hard. “I want to know if I’ll ever be normal again. If I can be with a man without fear, or if I’m doomed to always fear the power he has over me.”
“You said Al Ahmad didn’t…” His eyes were wide.
“He didn’t. But he used his power. He took mine away, and he used his to hurt me.”
After a long moment, Kev reached out and started to unbutton her coat.
He slipped it from her shoulders and hung it on the coat rack behind him.
Then he unbuttoned his own and did the same.
He was so big and powerful standing there, broad-shouldered with lean, hard muscles and piercing blue eyes.
But she wasn’t afraid of him, and she didn’t think she could be.
But she really didn’t know what would happen.
“Marco asked me to take care of you. I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”
She tilted her head back to look up at him. “This isn’t Marco’s call. It’s mine. And yours. He’s gone, Kev. We can’t bring him back, and we can’t hurt him.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment. “I feel like I’m betraying him.”
“How?” Her voice grew thick with emotion. “He’s gone and we’re alive. We didn’t die with him. And I don’t think he’d want us to act like we did.”
She took a step closer to him, lifted a hand and palmed his cheek. Electricity flooded her system. And his, if the way his head jerked up was any indication. He put his hand over hers, held it against his cheek as warmth spread through her belly.
And then he spoke. “You’ll tell me if you want to stop. You won’t endure something just because you think you should. Those are the rules, Lucky.”
She was beginning to tremble deep inside. “I understand.”
He took her hand and led her up the stairs to his room. He switched on the lamp on the bedside table and then turned to look at her. They stood a foot apart and just stared. Her breathing grew shallower, her belly tightening—
Then he tugged her into his arms and kissed her.
His tongue slipped into her mouth, tangled with her own, gently at first and then a bit wilder, and she clung to him as her body melted, dissolving into a million little sparks of flame.
This was Kevin MacDonald she was kissing, the man she’d once wanted so desperately, the man she still wanted even when she shouldn’t.
She knew why this was illicit, forbidden. They would be judged on more than one level if anyone knew. First, there was Marco. And then there was the idea they were on the same team and sex clouded thinking.
But, dammit, Mendez had ordered them to stay together. To pretend to be newlyweds. What did he expect would happen?
Lucky slid her palms over his chest, down the soft cotton of his T-shirt and the hard corrugated abs beneath until she reached the swelling of his cock. She rubbed it beneath his jeans and he made a noise of approval in his throat.
Then he reached for the hem of her shirt and tugged it up and over her head.
The room wasn’t cold exactly, but it was cooler than she’d been in her warm sweatshirt.
Her nipples beaded beneath the silk of her bra, though it wasn’t all due to the cold.
She pressed her chest against Kev’s—and then she yanked his shirt from his jeans and pushed it up so she could feel her skin against his.
Things began to happen fast after that. Kev unsnapped her bra and tore it off her shoulders, dropping it on the growing pile of clothing.
Then he dropped to his knees and took one of her taut nipples in his mouth while she clutched his shoulders and let her head fall back as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.
It felt good. So good. And she wasn’t afraid, though her heart raced and adrenaline tripped through her veins. Kev sucked her nipple hard and soft, then licked around the areola before doing it again. Every tug of his mouth on her breast created an answering spike of slick pleasure in her pussy.
As if he knew what she was feeling, he unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her hips along with her lacy panties until she stood before him in nothing, her body bared to his eyes.
For the first time, a tendril of unease uncoiled in her belly and knocked around.
Not because she was afraid of him, but because she was afraid of his reaction to what he would see.
Her belly was criss-crossed with fine silvery pink scars, like her arms and her back, and Kev sat back for a moment, just staring at her.
She crossed her arms self-consciously, her brain beating with the refrain that she’d been stupid, so stupid, that he wouldn’t want her, that he would find her horribly ugly now.
He took her arms and pulled them apart. And then he pressed his mouth to her belly and her eyes flooded with tears. He licked his way over her scars, his hands on her ass as he pulled her in closer. What he did next nearly undid her.
He turned his head and pressed his cheek between her breasts and just held her close.
Lucky put her hands in his hair and clutched him to her with trembling fingers. She wanted to sob. Her entire body shook from head to toe, but not out of fear.
“You’re perfect, Lucky. Perfect.”
“You don’t have to say that.” Her voice sounded choked, and she was beginning to think she’d made a mistake, that this would be far too emotional and she wasn’t prepared for it after all.
She’d thought she could divorce herself from the process in such a way that it was only about the physical, but she should have known better. When had it ever been just about the physical with this man?
“Why wouldn’t I? It’s the truth.”
Kev got to his feet then and swept her up like she weighed nothing. Then he carried her the few steps to his bed and laid her down on the cool sheets.
“You still want to do this?” he asked. His voice was tender, sweet, and she knew if she said no, he’d understand.
Her pussy chose that moment to throb, as if to remind her that her body was still very much in this game.
Lucky nodded at the man standing over her.
He gave her a grin as he unzipped his jeans and shoved them down his hips. Her mouth went utterly dry as all that skin and muscle was revealed. She thought she should do something—kiss his ridged abdomen, lick his cock—but all she could do was watch.
“You’re the perfect one,” she said hoarsely. And he was. Like something carved out of marble and made flesh. Even with the ink that scrolled across his chest and arms punctuated by battle scars, he was perfect.