clear off. Another few inches, and it would’ve hit her in the back, near her heart, and she’d be dead.
Those motherfuckers had been shooting to kill.
The realization of how lucky she was—how lucky he was—and just how close he’d come to losing her, was dizzying.
And that, combined with all of the miles he’d just run at his full, top speed caught up to him in a rush. Now he was experiencing the dead opposite of cool, calm, and collected Navy-SEAL-firefight mode.
Yeah, he’d for sure slipped into pure caveman-brain meltdown, with tears literally rushing to his eyes. His hands shook and his heart pounded as he struggled to fill his lungs with air. He had to get her downstairs, get her cleaned up, but his legs were so weak, he wasn’t sure he could stand.
“Thomas?” Tash looked at him over her shoulder, then turned slightly to face him, still holding her jacket to her body, her eyes wide with concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’m just... um... Relief can be... hard to manage.” Embarrassed, he turned away from her, but then realized that was worse—that when he looked into her eyes, she gave him a lifeline to hold onto. “If you were dying, I’d be fine.”
Her eyes widened and she laughed a little, and okay, that was not what he meant.
“Not fine, no, that came out wrong,” he told her, his voice suddenly hoarse because those tears that were threatening to escape from his eyes were now filling up his throat, too. “I mean, I know what to do to save your life. I’ve trained to overcome the fear and the overwhelm—the panic. I push it aside. I control it so I can do what needs to be done.”
As he spoke the words, Thomas realized that he knew exactly what needed to be done in this very moment, if he could just push away the last of his lingering fear...
“Natasha Francisco, you are not my sister,” he whispered to this woman he loved more than life itself.
And he kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Thomas kissed her.
Thomas kissed her!
His lips were soft, his mouth tentative, almost questioning. Tasha was surprised by all of it—the taste of him, the unexpected intimacy, his hesitation created by some completely insane doubt that she somehow wouldn’t happily welcome his kiss.
So she laughed.
He pulled back to look at her, a very solid oh shit taking root and growing, along with the sweetest, laid-heartbreakingly-bare vulnerability that she’d ever seen in his dark brown eyes.
And Tasha realized just how impossibly hard this was for him—and that now was not the time for overthinking or analysis for either of them, so she leaned in to kiss him back.
No hesitation. No doubt. Just pure conviction that her mouth against his was absolutely, unquestionably right.
She used her sore arm to hold her jacket up against her bare chest, looping her right arm around his neck to pull him even closer. She may have been scared and uncertain about a lot of things right now, but kissing him wasn’t one of them, and she wanted him to know it.
It was as if she’d opened a floodgate, because now he was kissing her with the hunger of a starving man as he pulled her even closer, too.
This was the fairytale first kiss she’d dreamed of for years, but real life was better than any fantasy she’d ever imagined. His mouth was warm and sweet, his hands hot against her bare, chilled back as he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her onto his lap, and engulfed her with his body heat.
She wasn’t astride him, but she wanted to be. The flannel pants he was wearing were ridiculously thin, and she could feel his arousal against her thigh, and oh, God, she wanted him inside of her so badly.
She started to shift, her scraped knees be damned, except there was still a small part of her that hadn’t transformed into pure, liquid, sexual need, and that tiny, still-clear-thinking part whispered for her to slow down. This was Thomas, and yes he was kissing her like he was trying to sear together their very souls, but this was still fresh and new for him.
He hadn’t spent his entire life desperately wanting her the way she’d spent her life desperately wanting him, so maybe going from first kiss to full penetration in under two minutes wasn’t something she should push for.
Also? There were boxes of condoms downstairs.
And a shower would be nice.
She pulled back. Just a little. And of course, because