Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,104

to admit… Walker Judge needed the woman in his arms.

Chapter Thirty

Stretching, Persia ground her nose into the warm pillow beneath her. Took a few seconds before awareness seeped into her weary brain and told her this pillow smelled like a certain man…

Oh, no! But yes, Hotrod was in her bed. Cracking an eye open, she peered up at the scruffy underside of his chin. He was on his back with one arm curled possessively around her and snoring quietly. This wasn’t good. If he was here… had she screamed or done something equally embarrassing? Her entire body cringed. Had she had another nightmare?

Please, no. Not now when I’m finally on a real mission.

Oh, my God, had Izza heard? Did she know?

Persia closed her eyes as a wave of fiery heat infused her body. How utterly embarrassing! This paranoia had to stop. As stealthily as she could, she lifted up on her knees just enough to ease away from under his arm and—

“Stay,” he murmured, his voice deep and thick with sleep, and that arm around her now clamped tighter. “My turn.”

Her heart jackhammered up high in her throat as Hotrod pressed her closer. Man, he looked good early morning with his hair mussed and all that scruff. “Your turn?” For what?

“Mmphmmph,” he breathed huskily, his eyes still sealed tight, but his fingers rubbing small, warm circles on her arm. “Yeah. My turn.”

“But I… I have to fix breakfast.” Or something. “Now. Let me up.” Before Izza bangs on my door and wants to know where you are and what we’ve been doing.

Hotrod rolled over, caging her beneath his entire, wonderfully heavy body. Man, he felt good. He hadn’t showered while he’d been sick, but who cared? The pleasant weight of him pressing her flat to the mattress made her eyes roll back in her head.

If only he was in better shape…

If only they had more privacy, more time, and…

One of his big hands smoothed over her shoulder and down her arm, then shoved her tank top up to her neck, baring her breasts, at the same time, lighting a spark at her core.

Automatically, she slipped her fingers into his hair, the other hand under his t-shirt and over the smooth warm planes of his back. Then down his spine and beneath his boxers to his firm, muscular backside. There wasn’t one part of this guy not padded with muscle over large, sturdy bones and heavy sinews. Everything about him was bigger and stronger and harder. And pleasantly warm.

His heady scent incited every last feminine hormone. Persia’s body filled with streams of dancing flames that licked up her legs and pooled at her core. She gripped that fine ass, ready if he was.

She was on fire. Just the sight and scent and feel of Hotrod did this to her. With one touch, one glance, he’d turned her body into liquid heat, like the icy blue flames from lighted cans of Sterno. Persia forgot breakfast. She already had the sustenance she craved.

“Hotrod,” she whispered, licking the curl of his ear. Breathing a soft sigh over it. Into him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied as if her command was his ardent wish, as if she’d ordered him for breakfast, and he meant to comply. When goose bumps popped over his shoulders, his hips jutted forward. He easily pulled her shorts down, baring her ass, which only made her need him more.

Pressing a hand between their bodies, Persia smoothed her fingertips up that rigid wall of muscle. Touching him. Breathing him. Loving the crisp hairs over his pecs. His flat manly nipples. Needing him inside her.

Like a pair of dancing fireflies, their bodies vibrated together. Moving in sync, as if they’d done this a lifetime before. Their breathing joined into one single breath. Their hearts, a single beat. They became sunlight and stardust.

Out of breath, she parted her legs and let him slide between. He cupped her sex. Nothing more. Nothing else. The power he held in that hand, and all those callused fingers stood for—his country, his honor, his team—stole Persia’s breath. He’d kissed America, for heaven’s sake. He’d fought and been prepared to die for her ungrateful masses. That made him a one-of-a-kind hero.

Hotrod wasn’t a lightweight by any definition of the word. Neither was he white-collar office material or GQ airbrushed. He was blue-collar all the way, from his hair roughened legs to the magnificent steel licking at her core, to the rasp of his fingertips. This man was a worker and a