Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(24)
Author: Catherine Mann

Her shoulders stiffened, her eyes defensive. “I may have been caught up in the adrenaline of the moment.”

“Maybe. And yet here we are talking an awful lot about kissing.”

She jabbed an angry finger at him, stopping just shy of touching his chest. “I wasn’t propositioning you by asking to come to your place.”

“I didn’t think you were.” He was quite clear she had some agenda hidden inside that mysterious mind of hers. “Although you’re awful trusting, coming here.”

“If you planned to assault me, you had plenty of opportunities out there.” Her throat moved in a slow swallow as she shivered, rubbing her arms. “And plenty of chances to dispose of my body.”

He couldn’t resist touching her, comforting her. He cupped the back of her neck and massaged lightly, letting the mass of her silky hair engulf his hand as well as his senses. “There’s nothing we can do about that tonight. Put it out of your mind.”

“I wish I could.” She swayed toward him, her eyes open and sharing the hurt inside her for the first time.

The medic, the part of him trained to heal, was drawn to her, nudging aside other more primal wants for the moment. “Come on. Let’s see if I can find something more substantial than a sandwich.”

And in order to see to those needs, he should get his hands out of her hair and his eyes off the sweet curve of her br**sts. He angled past and away.

***

Sunny watched Wade walk away from her, his big, honorable, sexy body leaving her aching. No simple sandwich could satisfy the hunger inside her.

She truly hadn’t asked to stay at his place with the intent of seducing him. But come morning, she would have to leave here and she would never see him again. Her life would go back to the way it was, with her narrowly focused world, a life that had seemed infinitely satisfying before these past days with Wade.

That safety, security, comfort had been blown to hell with a simple glimpse of frozen faces through the ice and she needed something, she needed this man, this chance to escape from it all, before reality intruded tomorrow.

Tomorrow, when she would have to disappear on her own, without the military’s help that would undoubtedly be bureaucratically slow. Wade might well be grilled about where she’d gone on his watch, but she’d drawn the deputy and heaven only knew what other kind of trouble to Wade. The best she could do now was stay away from him. It was safer that way, especially when she was still so unsure about the reason for the attack on her, on Ted and Madison, in the first place.

But for now, for tonight, she would steal what moments she could with Wade before she undertook the biggest risk of her life to return to the village and warn her family and friends.

Sunny flattened her hands on either side of the bathroom doorway and called out as he sauntered toward the kitchen, “I realize that I kissed you back on the mountain. And I enjoyed it.”

She’d never seduced a man before. Her scant sexual history hadn’t given her much in the way of an education, practice, or even confidence. But the way Wade stopped in his tracks encouraged her.

Deep in the far corners of her brain, the part of her that never forgot to keep her barriers up, she knew this wasn’t wise. Being together wouldn’t come without repercussions to her life, perhaps even to her heart. She wasn’t being fair to him with all she held back. She wasn’t the sort to let things go so far, so fast, but these weren’t normal times and she didn’t have all that much experience to draw upon. There weren’t a lot of men to choose from where she lived. A couple of dates in high school, none that went too far, as she was still adjusting to the sudden shift in her life.

Then her rebellious years hit. The time when she couldn’t bring herself to leave her family, but kept hoping they would get so angry with her they would ask her to go.

She’d speed-dated a dozen guys in her community and slept with three of them, but the experiences hadn’t been particularly satisfying, more like an exercise regimen that exhausted her body, gave an outlet for frustration, but left her yearning for a shower afterward. She’d carried too much anger and resentment to be focused on the moment or the person, and was horribly unfair to the man on another level.

After that, there wasn’t anyone to date who wasn’t somehow connected to that time.

But that felt so far away right now as she stood with Wade in his studio apartment. Still, he kept his tensed back to her for five thumps of her heart, three slow rises and falls of his broad shoulders. Then he pivoted on his heels to face her.

His eyes crackled with a fire as hot as the flames in the hearth. “Believe me, I noticed you were kissing me back.”

“And it’s something I want to do again.”

One dark eyebrow arched in surprise. “I concur.”

Only he could make such a clipped, military-style response sound totally loaded with sexuality. Her whole body burned with the need to press against him, full-out, no barriers, skin to skin with nothing between them, not even the ghostly shadows of their two very different worlds.

She moved to him or he walked to her. She couldn’t remember who took the first step, and it didn’t seem to matter once her mouth met his. As her arms locked around his neck, his hands cupped her bottom and lifted her against him. Her br**sts flattened to his chest, her nerves flaming to life as she tasted him, aching to devour the moment. She’d lived so much of her life in control of her world, of her body. Right now she didn’t feel in control of a thing. It was all about feeling. Exploring the hard planes of his muscles. Savoring the scent of his freshly washed body. Luxuriating in the knowing caress of his lips shifting to her ear, to her neck, then nudging aside the collar of her shirt to taste her shoulder.

Without lifting his kiss from her body, he backed her away from the bathroom. But not toward the bed as she expected, was prepared for mentally, emotionally—physically. Instead, one step at a time he inched her toward the flickering fireplace, stopping at the bear rug in front of the stone hearth.

She scaled the expanse of his chest with her fingers, only pulling her hands aside long enough for him to peel her T-shirt up and off her body. As her clothes fell away, his sweatpants hit the floor, she couldn’t help but think how they were dancing through a strange echo of how they’d undressed in the cave. Except her hands were on him, his were on her. Intimately. Experiencing all the places they’d only eyed before.

A rustle from across the room pulled her attention briefly away as she glanced over to find… Chewie huffed and curled up in a corner of the kitchen by his water bowl, presenting his back firmly to them. Ignoring or pouting, she didn’t know, but since he seemed settled either way…