her hands linked behind his neck, her hips moving with him on every thrust.
The girl was a rock star, the rhythm of her lovemaking running through her, matching his own, her hands still in his hair. The temperature in the hall rose by degrees, and he felt every one of them on his skin and in the sheen of sweat limning them both.
“I cried for you,” she whispered against his mouth, then dragged her tongue across his lower lip and bit him so very softly—and he didn’t know what tore him up more, the gentle bite or her confession. Both went straight through him on a wave of desperate need to fuck her so sweetly, to dry her long-gone tears, and somehow to love her until she was his.
Wild Thing. He’d known the first time he’d seen her, known there was something between them, some connection making her impossible to ignore. He’d seen her so many times, and every time, she’d made an indelible impression on his heart.
Now they were here, wrapped around each other, drenched in desire and need, and all he wanted to do was thrust into her harder and faster, more and more and more, to find his pleasure in her body, to let the sweet, slick heat of her consume him and take everything he had.
One deep slide after another, he pumped himself into her, again and again, reaching and striving for the moment of inevitable release. When it came, it came on him slow and hard, pulsing through him and damn near dragging him to his knees.
Geezus.
He pushed deeper, burying himself to the hilt inside her, and she tightened around him. He groaned with the pleasure and pushed into her again, loving the hot, wet feel of her around his cock. This was life. Her breath was warm on his neck, coming in short gasps. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, and one of her legs was half wrapped around him with the heel of her black suede ankle boot pressing into his ass. He could feel her heart racing, feel the heat of her satisfaction. Whatever else he was, he was safely, surely, wildly, intensely alive deep inside her.
She turned her head and opened her mouth on his shoulder, her teeth closing on him not so gently this time, and he felt half a smile curve the corner of his mouth.
Sweet woman. For this moment in time, she was all his.
He carried her into the closest bedroom and followed her down onto the bed, onto the luxury of a soft cotton patchwork quilt, still inside her. With their arms around each other and her leg coming around him again, her head still nestled into the crook of his shoulder, they were cocooned, one entity—and so they breathed, warm and safe, so very safe.
Off in the distance, he could see the lightning flash, the rain moving west, toward the heart of the city.
He held her close and felt her relax in his arms, her body softening against his, her hand coming up between them. Slowly she ran her fingers down the long, torturous path of the scar tracking the length of his chest.
A sigh escaped her, and he tightened his hold on her. He should have died from such a wound. Sometimes he wondered if he had and then been the recipient of a miracle—like tonight. She felt like a miracle to him.
He could protect her. He could protect her without fail, no matter what she’d seen, no matter what or who came after her. He was the rock against which all others were broken. Until his last breath, he was the Guardian down to the marrow of his bones, and, somehow, she was tied up in all of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Scott Church, went by the call sign Monk, yeah, I got it,” Hawkins said into his radio. “A Navy SEAL?” Un-fucking-believable. “It took more than a Navy SEAL to do what we saw at Mama’s back door.”
“Skeeter’s searching the LeedTech files at light speed,” Dylan’s voice came back at him. “Three years ago, Lancaster started selling our boys to a doc named Greg Patterson. He took up where Souk left off and tweaked the whole system … hold on …”
The line went silent. After a moment, Dylan came back on the radio.
“This mission just hit the fan again.”
Hawkins swore under his breath.
“Skeeter ran a search,” Dylan continued, “and came across a news story out of Bangkok dated two weeks ago. Greg Patterson is dead.