Free Fall (Elite Force #4)(42)
Author: Catherine Mann

“Call me silly, but I always just enjoyed—enjoy—the way it feels when we’re bare skin to skin.” Biting her lip, she toed her shoes off. “So if you’re going to undress me, my jeans come next.”

His laugh rumbled low in his chest, vibrating against her br**sts. But hallelujah, his hands moved to the snap of her jeans.

“Remember when we rented that safari cabin for a weekend and at our picnic lunch I painted most of that bare skin of yours with guava jam, then I licked you clean?” He peeled her pants down, underwear, socks, and all. “I was searching for freckles.”

His face nuzzled her stomach, his deeply tanned face contrasting with her paler skin in a yin and yang way that made such sense when they were together. She liked it when life made sense and wrestled to find the reason in why she’d been this undeniably drawn to Jose from the start.

She grabbed his shoulders for support. Her legs went wobbly. “We had to swim in the Shebelle River to get clean enough to put our clothes back on. I was certain we would get discovered by someone—or stampeded by a herd of goats.”

“The rhinos ignored us, and the place was every bit as secluded as I promised.” He pitched her pants to the side. “We had fun together.”

“We did.” She cupped his face, her heart squeezing tight in her chest, which made it even tougher to recapture the beautiful flow of energy between them when even their breaths were one. “If I had it all to do over again, I would still want to know you, to be with you, even though I understand why it had to end.”

Standing, he hooked his arms under her bottom and lifted her against him. “Don’t talk about endings, not tonight.”

The kiss.

Yes.

Now.

She slanted her lips over his, her damp hair falling around their faces as if to further insulate them from the world. He carried her toward the bed, the tips of her toes just skimming the carpet. Her flesh pressed to his, her mouth open and hungry, savoring the minty sweep of his tongue.

Turning, he backed toward the bed and she read his intent without hesitation. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he eased onto the mattress, leaning against the headboard. Still face to face, she straddled his lap, his hard-on still between them. She lost track of how long they touched each other, stroked and stoked, taking their time with each other. The lovemaking a process rather than a goal.

Being with Jose had been fun and exciting, and always one hundred percent in the moment. The man was about marathons, not sprints. Why couldn’t he see that part of his nature was so ingrained he was meant for the long term? He deserved it.

“Stella,” he said against her lips, “stay with me.”

That easily he drew her focus back into the moment, back to the two of them together. How he read her, sensed that her thoughts had been stealing her from this moment together… that scared her. And hurt her. He knew her so damn well.

His hands cupped her waist and he lifted her with ease, positioning her over and lowering her onto his erection. Muscles in his arms bulged with restraint as he took his time bringing them together again, filling her.

Totally.

Tonight wasn’t about reinventing the Kama Sutra. No games or gimmicks. Just the two of them, bodies, breath, thoughts connected, not just tantric, but tantra. Sublime.

He moved inside her as she rolled her hips, sweat slicking their skin. She laved along his shoulder to his ear, tasting the salty mingling of them. She took the lobe of his ear between her teeth and tugged, nipped. He thrust deeper again and again, so fully inside her he touched her womb. Desire gathered in her belly, spreading, and she bit back a groan, fiercely, fighting the urge to come and come hard now.

Her head flung back and she stared up at the ceiling with its swirled mosaics, trying to hold on by distracting herself with tiny tiles depicting… what? She couldn’t think.

He cupped her face and brought her to him. Looking directly in her eyes. Connecting with her in a way that was far beyond sex. Just like the first time she saw him.

Pleasure slammed through her, pulsing outward with a force so strong she cried out. In a smooth sweep he shifted her onto her back and loomed over her, staying inside her, pumping, drawing out her orgasm until her spine arched off the mattress. Her fingers twisted in the sheets to keep from clawing at him as wave after wave crashed through her.

But she forced her eyes to stay open, to watch him, to bring him with her, not to lose any of their time together. And seeing the intensity of his release, the pulse throbbing in his temple, the flush heating his skin only drew out her release.

The power of it all was so strangely energizing and depleting. She’d given up trying to understand why it was this way between them. His arms gave out and he collapsed on top of her. His breath was hot against her neck, their skin sealed together with sweat.

So in tune with him right now, she could feel him drifting off to sleep, truly asleep, not some micronap on a plane. One of the very rare times, Jose was completely out of it, not simply dozing with an ear fine-tuned to stay on watch.

Her fingers trailed along his back as she turned her head to look out their fourth story window at the harbor leading to the Indian Ocean. For tonight, she would watch over Jose because tomorrow was completely out of her control.

***

Jose dreamed of guava jam and Stella. Of their bodies tangled up together months ago on a picnic blanket in a private cove by the Shebelle River in one of the most fertile places in all of Somalia. He’d planned the safari-esque escape, minus the hunting, because hell, they got more than enough time with guns on the job. Their time together, eating lunch off of each other’s bodies, had nothing to do with work and everything to do with playful sex.

The lush landscape along the Shebelle offered a stark contrast to the scrub brush and cracked dry places of desperation elsewhere in the country. Their jobs were tough enough, brutal even at times. Their mutual time off was rare and finding places to be alone, to shed undercover personas to be themselves? Even rarer. He wanted to show her life at its best when he could.

Except he couldn’t escape the feeling that they were transitioning into something… intense. Being with Stella was different. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that their connection was different. Unique. And that had his heart pounding heavier in his chest with a sense that what little time they had together could be racing full-out toward a gut-wrenching crash.

Shit.

He pulled his focus back onto the indomitable woman at his side and thumbed a droplet of perspiration from her forehead. Lime and banana tree leaves rustled overhead but offered minimal shade against the harsh African sun. Her freckled skin started to redden, matching the pink-backed pelican wading along the bank. He tugged a generous edge of the picnic blanket over her body. The handwoven cloth swept around in bright splashes of green and red.