Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
This is crazy. Who falls in love in a matter of hours?
My life isn’t a Hallmark movie. If anything, it’s the exact opposite.
I’ve been on the run. My crazy father is doing something terrible. I almost died multiple times, and a maniac is professing that I’m his.
“This feels serious,” I whisper.
“It is, my sweet.”
Oh, heavens. I love the pet names he uses. All of them. They hit me somewhere I’ve never been hit before.
It feels good. Like light shining in dark corners inside of me.
“It’s very serious,” he murmurs, sinking me even further.
Pulse flying, I look up at the former SEAL above me and realize it’s too late. The deal is sealed.
I thought about pushing him away, about keeping my space, about being real. We are who we are.
He’s some kind of rescue guy.
I’m an archeologist who lives for months at a time on historic digs.
Plus! My life is a mess, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.
I could spend the rest of my life running from my father. I mean, my not-father—the man who has controlled my entire life and now wants to use my research for something bad.
Those depressing thoughts grow into storm clouds, filling the hospital room.
But the heart wants what it wants.
So sappy.
Caution thrown to the wind, I grin and shake my head.
Is this my life? Surely not.
But my words have a smile laced within. “You’re not letting me go, are you?”
The look he gives me is straight up, HELL NO.
Distance be damned. Complications, go to hell.
When his calloused hands slide beneath my stretched out, tattered T-shirt, my muscles quiver. My heart sings, and I feel the first real flutterings of butterflies tattooed with the word love on their wings.
Filled with fragile hope, I dare ask, “When you called me yours, did you really mean that?”
“All of it.” His mouth is hot against my collarbone, the exact opposite of the cool, conditioned air blowing down on us.
This is a terrible time for a conversation, but now my cartwheeling mind will not shut off. “Why are you so sure?”
His large wrist hooks under my thigh, hitching my leg out to the side so he can settle between my spread legs.
The way he looks in my eyes makes me brace.
Incoming !
Can my heart take whatever he’s about to say?
“I feel it in places that I didn’t know I could feel things.”
I can only breathe for a few seconds.
His words echo over and over. Those butterflies spiral and spiral until there’s a whirlwind of them. Filling every space inside of me.
He makes this sound so simple.
I guess when you break it down to that, it really is. “I don’t understand how this is happening so fast, but I feel the same thing.”
“Good,” he rasps with a conclusive ring.
Like that’s it. Life is as simple as this.
He kisses my neck.
Maybe it is this simple.
He masterfully pulls my T-shirt completely off and starts to work on my sports bra. “I hate these fucking things.”
“So do I.”
We grin at each other until he presses his lips against my breastbone. Right over the pounding drum in there. “I’m wrapping this pretty little present up in some silk lingerie when we get back to the States.”
A little thrill races through me.
Something so simple as buying me lingerie feels like the man is giving me the world.
His mouth moves left, and when his tongue dances over the peak of my nipple, I sigh raggedly. “Okay.”
Okay because I’m totally onboard with his tongue doing that crazy good feeling thing he’s doing. And because I’ve never owned any silk lingerie and the idea of someone buying it for me makes me stupidly giddy. So light, I could float up into the clouds.
A loud creak startles me. The cot protests again and we’re not even moving.
Truck laughs against my neck as he nips me there. “Gonna break the fuck out of this thing.”
“Maybe we should move to the stretcher.”
Whoa, girl.
I can’t believe I said that. Even more, I can’t believe I’m about to have risqué sex in a hospital room with his friend standing guard outside the door.
Who am I right now?
But I don’t have time to espouse this because Truck picks me up like I’m a paper doll, strides across the room, and compresses the breath out of me when he climbs on the stretcher and lowers his body to mine.
“I could get some work done here.”
Oh my.
I’m surprised the sheets don’t catch on fire from the embarrassment at the thought of getting caught on the hospital bed.
But the minute he hooks a finger under the button of my work pants, I forget. All my brain is capable of is craving. The ache so strong it’s pulsing inside of me. A living thing that I have no control over.
He licks his lips, eyes scraping over me, causing a shiver to tighten my skin.
Something happens, though. A flash of something in his stormy ocean eyes, and he shakes his head.
“Fuck. What am I doing?”
I’m too shocked to move, so I just stare up at him as a play of emotions cross his face.
“The first time I’m going to be inside of you is not going to be in a fucking hospital bed. I want to take my time with you, tumble you in soft sheets, doze off afterwards in lazy afternoon sunlight. Not this.”
Oh.
Blinking, I find my bottom lip caught in my teeth.
My chest is full of the quivering rhythm of a heart that’s been revved up and is now sitting idle.
Truck’s fingers brush lightly over my face. “I promise it will be worth the wait.”
He leans down. The brush of his lips gentle and reassuring.
I’m lost immediately, tangled up in every exhale, in the way his hand cradles my face. In the warm simmering energy banked in my low belly that thrums and spreads, but this time instead of licking flames, it’s a calm eternal glow.
When he pulls back from the kiss, he nuzzles my ear. “Let me hold you.”
Yes. A thousand times, yes.
“I’d really like that.” As I reply, trailing my fingertips up his arms, I process that I’m not disappointed at all.
Truck wants the first time he’s inside of me to be special—that honorable desire holds a weighted appeal that calls to my soul.
If I was just a notch on his gun holster, he wouldn’t care. Nope. I’d be bent over the bed, and he’d fuck us both brainless.
Admittedly, that would be delicious in its own way.
But some hollowed out part of me wants…
God. What do I want?
“Your thoughts are loud as thunder.” His tone is intimate as he settles in next to me, pulling me into the cocoon of his enormous body. “I’d like to hear what’s in that sharp mind of yours right now.”
“I like being in your arms.”
He sighs, and the sound feels distinctively happy.
This is new.
I’ve seen Truck angry, fierce, protective, concerned, aroused… and now this.
It’s impossible not to wonder how long it’s been since he’s been happy.
“You fit perfectly. I like how tall you are… those legs… they kill me.” A soft moan rumbles through him.
“I was too tall in school.”
“Try being six-foot-five at age fourteen.”
Grinning, I kiss his chest. “I bet you were a sight.”
“Oh, right. I cut all my pants off into shorts because nothing fit.”
“Me too! Then I just realized I could wear skirts, but I looked like a stork.” I laugh through my embarrassment. “Needless to say, I was the brunt of a lot of jokes.”
Truck’s fingers tighten on me as he lets out a little growl. “Give me all their names. I have SEAL buddies all over the world.”
“Truthfully, I can’t even remember their names, I barely remember their faces. It feels like I erased that part of my life.”
I don’t tell him there are lots of other much worse things that fill up all the room in my memory.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” His hold tightens, the warmth of his arms more like a soothing balm than anything I’ve ever felt.
After a beat, he asks me, “What are you thinking now?”
“About what Justice must be thinking right now.”
“That he wishes he had a girl.”
This makes me giggle. “What? He can’t be single.”
“He’s holding out.” Truck’s laugh rumbles quietly between us.
“Oh, that laugh makes me wonder exactly what he’s holding out for.”
“Justice has a type…and he’s got all this figured out in his head. But I keep telling him, that’s not how it works.”
Certainly, being dragged off a cliff and swept away with a tall, reckless stranger wasn’t my idea of how it would work. Not that I’d allowed myself to dream about that.
Survival has a way of narrowing your focus to dodging the bad guys.
But I’m seriously intrigued by this conversation.
Trailing my fingers over the planes of his bare chest, I ask, “Do you have a type?”
“Tall, blonde archeologists who wear cargo pants and boots without panties.”
Props to him. “That was slick, hotshot.”
“I’m good like that.”
This teasing side of Truck is another delicious layer. He’s so yummy and irresistible, it’s no wonder I crave him like dark chocolate and sunshine and things I didn’t even know I could crave.
“So, what’s his type?”
“Curvy, blonde, sweet, and ready to stay home and bake cookies, or some craziness like that. I think he fell in love with some foodie influencer only to find out she was artificial intelligence. Now he’s on the hunt for a real woman like her.”
“Are you serious?” I balk. “An AI social media influencer is a real thing?”
It’s his turn to balk. But his chuckle is warm. “Where have you been hiding?”
“Under a rock?” I shrug. “I mean, I dig in the dirt for a living. Which reminds me, I need to check on a sample I sent to the lab.”
A chill settles in. My mood darkens until I’m cold inside and out even though I’m wrapped in his warmth.
Letting my worry lace my words, I say, “It’s not good. I’m really worried about it, actually. That sample could be the key to everything. The findings could be explosive. I don’t know what I’m going to do now that all of this has happened.”
“I know what you’re going to do.” He shifts his long leg, looping it around mine, with a rumble, he pulls me against him. “Now you let my team take care of everything. We’ll keep you safe and get to the root of whatever is going on.”
It’s too good to be true. But look where I am. Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed that I’d have a strong, recklessly protective former SEAL in bed next to me.
A little voice whispers, Let go, let the good in.
With a shiver, I close my eyes and listen to him breathe.
This is real. He’s real. I’m not alone.
We rest in silence for a while, his fingers drawing lazy, warm circles on my arm, my hand resting over his heart. It's a peaceful moment, a sanctuary from the world outside. But I’m smart enough to know it won't last. What goes up must come down.
A point proven when the phone on the stand beside the hospital bed rings. As if the universe was listening to my worried thoughts.
That shrill mechanical jangle can’t be good for hospital patients. It shoots adrenaline through me like a bullet.
Sitting up quickly, I reach for the handset as my breath catches. "That could be news about your brother."