Guardian Ranger (Shadow Agents #2)(27)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Men and women wanted each other every day. They made love every day. Why were she and Jasper so different from everyone else?

We aren’t.

Just a man. And a woman.

Her fingers slid over his chest. Over the scars that crisscrossed his flesh. So much pain. So many battles. When she thought of all he’d endured, it made her heart ache.

His muscles were rock-hard beneath her touch. His flesh was so hot that her fingers almost felt singed. And, of course, she was drawn to the fire.

She rose and pressed a kiss to the slanting scar on his shoulder. He stiffened. She pressed another kiss to the jagged scar too close to his heart. One to the long scar that sliced across his stomach. With every kiss, he seemed to become even more tense.

“Why do you risk your life so much?” she asked quietly as she feathered another kiss over a scar that whispered of his pain. What are you trying to prove? But she wouldn’t ask that question. She’d already asked him enough questions that hurt.

His fingers curled around her arms. “Don’t.”

Was he telling her to stop kissing him? Or stop trying to know the man he was, beneath the scars and that sexy grin?

“You deserved better,” he gritted.

She shook her head and said what she knew to be true. “There isn’t anyone better than you.”

In a flash, she found herself on her back, crushed into the soft covers, with a very fierce Jasper over her. “You break through my control.”

Her heart raced as she held his gaze. “You don’t need control with me.”

“Yes.” Ragged. “I need it more with you than with anyone else.”

The words didn’t frighten her, but they did turn her on.

“Can you take me again?” he asked, desire darkening his eyes.

“Try to stop me,” she whispered. Yes, she’d been a virgin, but she wasn’t about to pretend shyness with him. When she’d been growing up, most guys hadn’t looked at her twice. She truly had been the stuttering girl in the corner, the girl with no confidence and old clothes. Then when she’d gotten older, she just hadn’t been interested in playing games with lovers who didn’t care about her.

She hadn’t been interested, until Jasper. He was different. He cared. She trusted him.

He is different.

Maybe he was just the guy she’d always been looking for. Someone to hold her in a storm. To laugh with her in the sunlight. To even love her?

He took care of the protection—he must have been a Boy Scout—then he was pushing into her with a long, slow surge of his hips. Her body quickened beneath him, her heart racing, br**sts tightening, sex aching. Pleasure still pulsed through her, and every move of his hips had her already sensitive body yearning more for him.

It wasn’t a slow rise to release this time. His thrusts came harder. Wilder. Deeper.

She felt him along every inch of her flesh, as if he were trying to imprint himself on her body.

The bed shook beneath them. He drove into her, pushing with a leashed ferocity. She met that ferocity, took everything that he had and demanded more.

Because she wasn’t going to settle for less than taking everything that he had to give.

When the climax hit, it seemed to explode over them both at the same time. She held tightly to him, curling her arms around him, and he held just as tightly to her. She could feel the frantic race of his heart—or was that hers? Then she realized it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered in that moment….

Just pleasure.

Just him.

* * *

GUNNER ORTEZ SWORE when the lightning hit the tree beside him, coming far too close for his peace of mind.

“Hurry inside!” Sydney yelled from the entrance of the small shack they’d stumbled across moments before.

The ground was soaked, gutted, and their SUV had gotten stuck in the sludge. With the sky opening up above them and the deluge battering down upon them, they’d been lucky to find this dry spot.

He brushed by her, heading inside the small area.

The wind howled behind him, and he turned, shoving the door closed.

Sydney’s footsteps shuffled softly by him in the dark. Then he heard the scratch of a match. Light flared, too brief, too small, but then Sydney was lifting a lantern and the light grew stronger.

There were blankets on the floor of the shack. A few more lanterns.

“Looks like we aren’t the only ones who found this place,” Sydney murmured as her gaze swept around the room, lingering in the corners—in the dark shadows.

He tensed and automatically reached for his weapon, but the other visitor—whoever it had been—was gone.

For now.

“We’ll stay alert,” Gunner said with a nod, “just in case he comes back.” Because while Gunner knew he was one of the best trackers working for Uncle Sam, even he wasn’t much good in a storm like this. All footprints and broken branches that would normally mark a person’s passage would be gone, thanks to the rain and the wind.

The storm would provide the perfect cover for Cale Lane.

But you won’t catch me unaware.

Because Gunner had one motto…never let down your guard.

Sydney walked closer to him.

Why couldn’t he seem to apply his motto to her?

Her hair was wet—they’d both gotten soaked before finding this place—and she shivered. Immediately, he grabbed for one of the blankets and wrapped it around her shoulders.

Her fingers brushed against his. “Thank you.”

He jumped back, moving faster than if she’d shot him. And he’d been shot plenty of times.

Sydney frowned. “Gunner?”

He cleared his throat. “The storm isn’t going to be letting up anytime soon.” Which meant he and Sydney might have to bunk down for the night.

A night with Sydney. Hell. More torture for him.

“Why do you always pull away?”

The quiet question shocked him, so he lied. But, in one way or another, it seemed as if he’d been lying to her for years. “I don’t know what you mean, Syd.”

She growled. An angry little sound that shouldn’t have been sexy. Unfortunately, everything she did seemed sexy to him. That was a big part of his problem.

Hands off. But his hands wanted to be…on.

He put as much distance between them as he could. Since the shack was about nine feet long, that wasn’t a whole lot of space.

“You know exactly what I mean.” Then she started to stalk toward him. “I want a real answer.”

She’d put the lantern down, but the light spilled just enough for him to clearly see that her delicate face was set in determination. She closed in on him.