Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The water thundered down on them. Delaney’s legs were still wrapped around Nash’s waist. Her hands clung to his shoulders even as her nails bit into his skin.
She should probably move.
She would move, as soon as the aftershocks of pleasure stopped careening through her body. Until then, her sex squeezed around him. Around his very much hardening cock. Because his cock was getting bigger, already. Again.
Her eyes opened. She stared up at Nash. His face appeared brutally handsome as he gazed back at her. Blazing eyes. Locked jaw. Sharp cheekbones.
“I need you again,” he told her. “Can you handle me?”
Deliberately, she squeezed him once more, holding him fiercely with her inner muscles.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
Yes, wasn’t that what they were doing? Fucking in the shower? As the water poured around them and steam settled into the air?
He pulled his dick back. Not out completely. Leaving the head inside of her. The broad, thick head, and then he drove back inside.
She sucked in a breath.
He kept watching her.
He pulled his dick back. Again, just leaving that broad head inside of her. She was so sensitive, her body on edge, and when he drove deep inside of her again…
A moan tore from her. Her nails sank into the muscles of his arms.
His eyes never left her face. He watched her as if memorizing every feature.
His cock withdrew. Pushed deep.
Back. In.
Her hips arched toward him. She gripped him as fiercely as she could. He’d been fast and frantic before. She’d been the same way. As if the lust had taken over and the only thing that mattered had been feeling the maelstrom of their release. But this time…
He withdrew.
Eyes on her, he thrust deep.
This time, it was slow. Deliberate. She didn’t speak. He didn’t, either. Too intense for words. Need pulsed in the air, but it was different. Silent but savage. Just as consuming as before, but still, different.
A slow withdrawal of his dick.
Then that thick, hard thrust.
Her thighs trembled around him. Her entire body trembled. She was so close to coming again. So close, and he was going to watch her. Going to see every single moment.
One of his hands still wedged between their bodies. His fingers raked over her clit.
Her head tipped back against the wall. Her eyes began to drift closed as the climax reached out to take her.
“I need to see, Delaney.” Growled. “I need to see every moment of your pleasure. Look at me.”
She did. The orgasm hit her even as her eyes locked with his. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Could only feel as the release seemed to ravage every cell in her body. Pleasure didn’t pulse. It consumed. It claimed. It owned.
“So fucking beautiful,” he rasped. He’d gone still as she climaxed. That hard dick was lodged fully inside of her, and he had to feel her squeezing him. Greedy. Hungry. Squeezing and taking and taking.
“Fuck.” A muscle jerked along his jaw.
He poured inside of her. Locked together, her eyes on him, she watched the pleasure sweep over him. The release had her holding him ever tighter, and the way his eyes seemed to go blind, the way his features sharpened even more…
Yes, fucking beautiful.
The water pounded down on them.
“Guess if the ceremony had been real, we would have just consummated the marriage, huh?” Delaney had no idea why she said those words. Maybe to break the heavy silence that had followed the amazing sex in the shower.
He’d carried her from the shower, dried her off, and carefully checked her wound. He’d assured her that she was healing well, and he’d put a fresh bandage on her cut. Then…
Silence.
She wore a white, fluffy robe. Nash had jerked on a pair of jeans. They were in the bedroom, the windows were covered, the classical music kept playing, and it should have been an incredibly romantic scene, but something was just off now. That off made her worry.
“Fuck,” Nash said.
He said that a lot.
She peered at him and saw that he’d just squeezed his eyes closed. Delaney frowned. “Is something wrong?” She knew it was.
A jerky nod.
“You…you regret what we did?” Her fingers pressed to her heart. Catching the movement, she immediately dropped her hand.
His eyes opened. His face was still way too hard. A fierce mask. “I will never regret fucking you. That is just not humanly possible for me to do.”
“That’s good to know.” She wet her lips. “I, um, certainly don’t regret being with you, either. You’re the best lover I’ve ever had.”
He stalked toward her.
Her stomach did a little flip. Her thighs were still trembling. She wondered if he was coming across the room to grab her, to passionately sweep her into his arms. Maybe he’d toss her onto the bed, and they’d slam their bodies together again in a wild frenzy of lust. Maybe that would happen.
Or maybe not.
His hands slapped against the wall behind her. “I don’t like to think of you fucking anyone else.”
Not like she loved the thought of him with anyone else, either.
“I wasn’t in cold storage after our breakup.
” An important point. “You chose the breakup.” She’d just tried to learn how to live without him.
Tried so hard that she’d been forcing herself to marry a man she didn’t even love.
A man who wanted her dead. So, obviously, that had worked out well.
Nash’s eyes narrowed. “You are the only person I ever want.”
“Look, don’t pretend that you weren’t with other people in the last eight years!” Because she would not buy that story.
“When I closed my eyes, they were all you.”
She did not have a comeback for those words.
“But when I opened them, they weren’t. You weren’t there, and I was fucking disappointed every time. Disappointed, and I hated myself because they weren’t you.”
Enough of this. Enough, enough, enough! “Why did you do this to us?”
“I thought you were over the why questions.”
She had been. She was. She… “Damn you.” Real anger. Anger that had been inside of her for a long time. “Are you just playing a game with me?”
“Never.” His nostrils flared as he kept caging her between him and the wall.
“Then don’t lie to me. Don’t ever lie to me again.
” She hated lies. “Kurt was nothing but a liar. I don’t want to be kept in the dark about anything.
You have a secret? Tell me. Share it with me.
No holding back. No worrying about hurting me.
Just tell me. I can handle anything that you throw at me.
” She wasn’t some delicate flower that would get battered by too much rain. Couldn’t he see that?
He leaned in closer.
She thought he was going to kiss her.
“We’re married,” Nash said.
Her breath huffed out. “I know, Nash. I was there for the ceremony, remember?” She put her hands on his chest. His bare chest.
Such a bad idea because sensual awareness immediately surged through her body. Delaney’s gaze dropped to his chest, and she frowned because there were so many marks on his skin. On him.
In the heat of the moment, in the steamy shower, she’d been focused on pleasure.
Hers. His. And she hadn’t stopped to notice the changes that had occurred to his body in the years that they’d been apart.
“Oh, no.” Sadness. Horror. Her hands began to fly over him.
“You have so many scars.” Her fingers slid over a slash on his stomach.
A rough ridge on his side. A trio of cuts across his abdomen. “Nash.”
His hands caught hers.
Her head lifted. She blinked away tears. “How did this all happen? You were supposed to be a doctor. What changed?”
“I changed.” Deep. Dark.
“Nash—”
The ringing of a phone cut through her words. A shrill, fast cry. She jerked at the sound.
He pulled in a deep breath, and he stepped back. One step, then another. He grabbed for the phone that was on the nightstand, and she had zero recollection of him putting that phone on the nightstand. When had he even done that?
“Have to take the call. Could be about Ryan. Could be about the mission.” His finger swiped over the screen. He pressed down with his thumb to put the call on speaker. “Hello?”
“You’re supposed to be attracting attention.” Jezebel’s voice.
Nash’s gaze never left Delaney’s face. “Figured we had his attention, seeing as how Ryan took a bullet not too long ago.”
A quick inhale. “You blame me for that, don’t you?”
“Someone in the CIA leaked the location of the chapel. Or maybe someone deliberately fed that intel to Kurt in order to attract attention. Tell me, Jez, will it be easier to convict Wellington if he’s tied to the murder of two agents? Me and Ryan?”
“I didn’t do that.” Sharp. “I did not give up your location at the chapel. I would not put you straight in the crosshairs. Yes, yes, dammit, I believe there is a leak. Which is another reason why I want Wellington stopped. But I am not selling you out. I’m doing my best to protect you—you and Delaney. That’s why I’ve called in new backup.”
His brow furrowed. “Just who is this backup?”
Delaney’s hands twisted in front of her.
“A Fed you know. Grayson Stone. Seeing as how he’s tight with your brother, I thought he’d be good to step in since Ryan has been temporarily sidelined.”
Grayson Stone. The name meant nothing to Delaney, but she saw Nash’s shoulders relax so she took that as an extremely good sign.
But Nash said, “You’re territorial, Jez. Why are you just inviting a Fed to step into your case?”
“Because I’m not sure who I can trust in my own ranks,” she retorted, voice lowering. “And I need to know that you have someone good at your back.”
Okay, so, this Grayson Stone was someone good. Someone Nash trusted. Two points for him.
“He’ll stay in the shadows,” Jezebel assured Nash. “You won’t see him, but just know he’s there in a pinch.”
“Does Gray understand that Delaney’s safety is priority?”
“He understands that Kurt Wellington has to be taken down. That we are gathering enough evidence to put Wellington away forever.”