CHAPTER 13 #2
She was close, so close. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her head rolling back and forth, her dark hair lying in thick tangles across her pillow.
Her breath came in pants, each exhalation a ragged moan, the sound of a woman lost in the ache and ecstasy of sex.
Her nails dug deeper, her entire body tense, her inner muscles drawing tighter.
Then her breath broke, and she came, bliss bright on her face, her back arching, her vagina contracting tightly around his fingers.
He caught her cry with his mouth, riding through the orgasm with her, keeping his rhythm steady until the quaking inside her subsided. And then he could hold back no longer.
He reached down to unzip his jeans, but her hands were already there, impatiently tugging at his fly. He freed his cock, guided himself to her cleft. Then with a single, slow thrust, he slid inside her, her moan mingling with his.
Tight. Hot. Slick.
She felt so . . . damned . . . good.
For a moment, he held himself still inside her, letting her get used to the feel of him.
Then his gaze locked with hers, and he began to move, pushing himself into her again and again, the hot, slippery friction already driving him toward the breaking point.
He willed himself to relax, shifted his position so that he was riding her high, his cock rubbing over her clit with each deep thrust.
Her response was instantaneous. Her eyes went wide, and she arched beneath him. “Ooh! I never . . . I never . . . Again?”
And through a haze of pheromone he realized she’d never come twice in a row before. “As much as you can take, angel.”
And he meant it. He hadn’t been a SEAL for nothing. He’d learned to control his body in extreme situations so that he could use it as a weapon. Now he was going to use it to please her—to please Natalie.
Guided by her response, he sharpened the angle, thrust into her faster, harder, fighting to keep his own climax at bay. Then he propped himself up on one arm and used his free hand to play with those exquisitely sensitive nipples of hers.
She whimpered, every exhalation a moan, her nails digging like talons into his hips, as if to draw him deeper inside her, her head going back as a second orgasm claimed her, her body shuddering beneath him, clenching around him.
He was on fire now, burning . . . burning for Natalie . . . His hips a piston, driving into her . . . Her slick vagina gripping him like a fist . . . He wanted, needed her . . . Her mouth on his skin . . . Her hips rising to meet his . . . “You’re so . . . damned . . . beautiful!”
With his last ounce of control, he pulled out of her, his entire body screaming in protest. His wet cock hovered above her for just a second before erupting into spasms, white ribbons of cum shooting onto her belly, a frustrated climax stuttering through him.
That’s what you get for not having a condom handy, McBride.
With that thought, he sank onto her, sweaty and spent.
HAPPILY EXHAUSTED, NATALIE watched Zach wipe semen off her belly with a hot, wet washcloth, his lips trailing little kisses across her clean, wet skin.
She let her fingers wander through his hair and along his stubble-rough jaw, trying to ignore a growing sense of guilt, desperate to hold on to this feeling—the languid afterglow of great sex.
But the guilt was there, niggling at her, refusing to go away.
She didn’t feel bad that she’d had sex with Zach. And she certainly didn’t feel guilty for enjoying it. And she had enjoyed it, every unbelievable minute of it.
But what she’d realized—and what had begun to gnaw at her—was the fact that not once during the time she and Zach were making love had she thought of Beau.
ZACH HELD NATALIE, watched her sleep, his own eyelids heavy, a warm knot of emotion in his chest. He knew he should kick his own ass, but he wasn’t going to.
He’d broken his own rules—and he didn’t give a damn.
There was no way to undo what he’d done tonight, and he wouldn’t undo it even if he could.
He’d broken down in front of her, let the weakness inside of him show. But she hadn’t turned away from him. She hadn’t judged him. Instead, she’d accepted him, comforted him, given herself to him.
He’d never known a woman like Natalie.
But he didn’t want to hurt her. He was going to have to be honest so she’d understand.
Just because they’d had sex didn’t mean they had a future.
He hadn’t been joking when he’d said his life wasn’t the kind of life a man shared with a woman.
He was rarely home. He spent most of his time on assignment.
And unless he was very careful, he’d wind up in a body bag.
He didn’t want to put any woman through that.
But it wasn’t just the dangerous and demanding job.
It was him.
He’d spent a good nine months trying to get back in the swing of everyday civilian life after his discharge from the navy, but it hadn’t worked.
His nightmares had gotten so bad that he’d eventually come to dread sleeping.
He’d taken up drinking, hoping to knock himself out, to drown his demons in scotch.
But that hadn’t worked. As for gainful employment, he hadn’t been able to find, much less keep, a decent job.
How was a man supposed to go from fighting in a war to sitting at a damned desk all day?
It hadn’t been long after that that he’d seen a recruitment ad for the U.S.
Marshal Service. And he’d known that was the answer—going back to war.
Granted, the war the Marshal Service fought was very different than the one he’d fought while in the navy.
But it was the same basic principle—find the bad guys and deal with them.
Zach had embraced that mission and never looked back.
But the bottom line was that he didn’t know how to live a civilian life any longer. He could never be the family man with the house in the suburbs, the wife, the two kids, and the dog. The only way he knew how to go on was to keep fighting.
Natalie deserved a full and happy life with a man who wasn’t fucked up or in the line of fire, and he aimed to see she got her chance at it.
He would get her safely home even if it cost him every last drop of his blood.
But then they would go their separate ways.
It sucked for him, really, because if ever he’d met a woman who made him feel . . .
No, he couldn’t let himself go there.
He glanced over to make sure the Glock was on the nightstand, then closed his eyes, held her closer, and let sleep take him. This time, he didn’t dream.