Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,105

doer, and he was doing things to her body she’d never known were possible. He hadn’t even kissed her yet, yet she was close to detonating in his hands.

How did he do that?

Automatically, instinctively, her back arched at the mere thought of coming without more foreplay, and… “Damn, damn, damn,” she cried.

It was happening. Just like in Florida. So fast. So good. She bucked against his hand and… “Yes!” Persia shattered into a thousand brilliant bits of suns and moons and stars.

Hotrod covered her mouth with his, swallowing her scream and her tears. She clung to him, her body wrung out with a release without end, a chain reaction rippling through her. The fiery pleasure ended with her gradually settling back to earth, even as aftershocks sparked tiny fireworks.

“I need you inside,” she whined, ready for more. Wanting all of him. “Hurry, Hotrod. Now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he purred like a sexy, obedient beast.

Only then did she realize he was still dressed and her bare heels were dug into the small of his back. She’d officially lost her mind. Who had trapped who?

As if he’d read her mind, he peeled out of his boxers, then knelt over her while she relieved him of his t-shirt. Persia couldn’t get him naked fast enough. Finally skin to skin, and oh, so damned warm under her palms, he hovered over her. Breathing heavy. His gaze powerful and hazy and harsh and kind, all at the same time. His hair was just long enough that short lazy bangs tipped over his forehead. Not into his eyes, just enough she could thread her fingers through those locks and pull.

Leaning over her on one arm, he breathed on her, his eyes sinfully, wickedly dark. Like a warrior of old, total male domination glittered in those deep blues. His gaze fixed on her mouth. He meant to conquer her and she meant to let him. Theirs was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of romance. And if this was all she would ever have of this man, this one sweet, breathtaking moment, she meant to savor every last second and heartbeat of it.

The Agency had taught her that, and her time spent with Domingo Zapata had literally pounded the lesson into her. Grab what you could, when you could, because life wasn’t promised to anyone. Just time, and even that was finite. What you did with those few minutes, hours, days, and years you were given, was on you.

“Persia,” he whispered, his voice a silky baritone balm that melted into the tiny cracks and wide-open fissures of her never-to-be-healed-again heart.

“Hotrod,” she breathed up at him, lost in the ocean of his eyes, yet begging for rescue. To be saved, once. Just once. Could he be the one? Did he see what she saw? The futility of living just to kill and die?

Time stood still, like it did at pivotal moments in a person’s life. Like death. Like that first step into Hell. Like surrender and anguish and too many memories to ever forget. Persia noticed that the pivot points in her career had all been beginnings or endings associated with her hardest fought battle in Brazil. Even dead, Domingo Zapata still had a stranglehold on her, and she needed that to end.

“I need this,” she told Hotrod truthfully. She should’ve said you, not this. Because just sex she could have and she’d had, with others. But this brand-new thing between her and Hotrod was something rare and bright and—promising. It was also something she didn’t deserve, hadn’t earned, and wasn’t sure she knew what to do with, if or when she claimed it for her own.

That was why Hotrod had walked away from her before. Karma’s one and only rule: A woman couldn’t reap what she hadn’t sown. All Persia had sown in her life so far had been death and destruction, with a hefty dose of vengeance splashed over all of it. Like water poured onto the desert sand, her need for revenge against Zapata had sucked the life out of her.

Hotrod pressed his warm, moist lips to her forehead. “And I need you, sugar,” he whispered, her breasts mashed like pillows against his magnificent chest. “I think I’ve always needed this bright, intelligent woman and the light she’s brought into my life.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. Her throat tightened. He obviously didn’t know her very well, because Persia was more of darkness than of light. Which was why she was still an aunt, not a mom. She’d seen too much