Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(56)
Author: Catherine Mann

She tossed aside the towel and reached for the comb beside her bed.

A cold rush of air blasted over her. She straightened, her stomach lurching with fear. The air smelled of outside, of an open window.

She started to scream just as the patchwork curtains flapped and Flynn’s big head poked through. He pressed a finger to his lips. Just like all the times he’d climbed through her window during high school. She closed her mouth, her stomach flipping with a wholly different sensation that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with anticipation.

Flynn swung his legs through and stood in her room, his head almost touching the sloped ceiling. “I’m not here to push you. I just needed to see you, to reassure myself that you’re okay, and the stuffy old watchdogs downstairs insisted you need your sleep.”

Her skin tingled with heated awareness under her robe. Her naked skin. She should tell him to leave.

But she didn’t.

“Well, close the window before we both freeze to death.” She swung her legs off the bed, waiting to take her cue from whatever he said next.

He shut the window and draped his parka over a bentwood rocking chair, then turned away abruptly to toss another log in the wood-burning stove, seeming hesitant. How strange to see him unsure, when his body and presence filled her room so vibrantly.

Abruptly, he dropped to his knees in front of her so they were eye to eye. He searched her face, his throat moving with a slow swallow.

His eyes glazing with unshed tears?

“Flynn?”

His chest pumped, his breathing ragged. “Everything’s gone so crazy, all those people dead. And it could have been you. If that deputy hadn’t died, if Sunny hadn’t come back in time”—his eyes squeezed shut tight as if to hold the tears, the emotion, inside himself—“it could have been you.”

True to his word to keep his hands to himself, his fists stayed plastered against his sides. The pain on his face was so real, so intense, it took her breath away. She thumbed a lone tear escaping from the corner of one eye. His weather-toughened skin felt so familiar, so dear.

She cupped his cheek. “Why did you sleep with June four years ago?”

“I honest to God don’t know.”

“That’s bullshit.” Her hand fell away.

He opened his eyes, finally meeting her gaze dead on. “I was scared.”

“Bullshit.”

A wry smile tucked dimples into his cheeks. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.” Her pride still stung over his silence. Sure, he’d made an effort at first, but before that first year was out, he’d given up. People who loved each other never gave up, they never stopped fighting for the people they cared about, even going to the ends of the earth. Her parents had taught her that.

“I was an eighteen-year-old idiot. I heard you and your sister discussing what kind of wedding you would like to have, and I freaked out. I self-destructed. And I would do anything to change that day, anything. I knew it was a mistake the second after—”

She held up a hand. “I do not want to hear about your postcoital thoughts. Although it sounds to me like the sex sucked, and for that I am so, so glad.”

His mouth went wide with laughter and her heart ached all over again that she would never hear the sound. She placed her hand on his chest to feel the vibrations. He stopped.

“Please, don’t quit,” she said quickly. “I miss the sound of laughter more than anything. I miss your laughter.”

She signed, “I miss you.” The same words he’d used back at the bed-and-breakfast.

He signed back, “I am so very sorry. There is no one for me but you. If that means I live the rest of my life alone, then that’s the way it will be.”

This time, she believed him.

Her fingers crawled from his chest, up the strong column of his throat, and over his stubborn square jaw to his lips. She traced the chapped outline, remembered the feel of him nibbling along her bare skin. He’d been intent on learning what she liked, both of them so inexperienced.

So very hot for each other.

Carefully, hesitantly, he lowered his head and kissed her. He sealed his mouth to hers, fully. Her sigh slipped into him, his into her.

Without hesitation, she slid her arms around him, holding tight. His body was broader and harder than the teenage boy he’d been when they were together. The warmed flannel of his shirt was soft against her fingertips, the scent of him and the crisp air filling her senses. Muscles bulged beneath her touch in sleek definition from a combination of hours spent in the gym during the winter months and exertion outdoors.

Her need for him turned frantic until she could almost swear she heard it buzzing in her ears. She fumbled with the buttons, finally giving up on finesse and yanking his flannel shirt off his shoulders. Buttons popped and fell to the floor. She grasped for his jeans fly. He covered her hands and whispered something against her mouth.

She angled back, looking at him inquisitively.

“Are you sure?” he repeated.

“I have never been more certain of anything.” She tossed aside the flannel and stared at his bared chest.

The washboard lines of his stomach contracted from the caress of her eyes, his jeans open at the zipper and revealing a trail of hair. Her breath hitched in her throat, her limbs turning liquid with desire. She shrugged her robe from her shoulders, savoring the glide of the chenille along her skin, anticipating the feel of his touch.

His pupils widened with appreciation, never leaving her body as he tugged off his boots and shucked his jeans. Moonlight streaked across his body, casting shadows over every well-defined sinew. Her eyes dropped farther and her pulse quickened.

The length of him hard and standing upright against his stomach was so much more than she remembered. Before, she’d reveled in making him groan with the touch of her hand, her mouth. He’d returned the sensations to her tenfold. They’d fooled themselves into thinking they were holding back, but she’d shown him every inch of her body. Given him pleasure, taken pleasure, made herself vulnerable to him in sensual ways she’d never let any other man have.

Standing, she let the robe fall away from her body. His hands shook as he touched her, carefully, reverently, cupping her br**sts. He stepped closer, the rasp of hair along his legs a sweet abrasion against her thighs.

And then he lowered her to the bed, his hands moving over her with a familiarity that spoke of how deeply ingrained their time together still was in his mind. He knew just where to touch to make her knees go weak, exactly where to kiss, lick, nip to make her thrash restlessly against the sheets, aching for release.