Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,157

But what she needed now was the warmth of the massive body wrapped around her. Like a great, big, impenetrable castle wall. A stronghold with hairy arms and legs and muscles that nothing could get past or through. Her private force field.

Tears. Damned, weak, silly, feminine tears flooded her eyes.

Walker rolled onto his side and took her with him. He tucked her under his arm.

She let him become everything. Her rock. Her fortress.

“I couldn’t get away,” she cried, out of control again. “I… tried. God, I tried!” Sob. Sob. Sob. “But I never stood a chance. One minute I was… I was me, damn it! I was strong and invincible! I could fight anything! But the next, he was there, and someone came up behind me, and I was… I was… weak!”

“You, Agent Persia Coltrane, are not weak,” Walker growled, his deep voice vibrating soft and low in her ear, “and you’re sure as hell not nothing.”

She closed her eyes, shocked she’d spoken those pitiful words out loud.

“You think you’re the only one who’s ever been shanghaied? Guess again, sugar. It was two against one. An ambush. By a fuckin’ Navy admiral, a United States officer, you should’ve been able to trust, for fuck’s sake.”

Wow. Two fucks in one sentence. Walker’s vehemence actually helped. The tension in her shoulders eased.

“And don’t forget you were the one who got my sorry ass out of ICC’s detention unit. Or that I was the one who got bushwhacked by a female Russian spy with a tranquilizer dart full of fuckin’ Special K, and I don’t mean the kind that goes snap, crackle, pop, either.”

He was trying hard to make her laugh. She almost did. Instead, Persia sucked up what was left of her shattered pride, still shaking like a leaf. She forced a swallow, determined to catch her balance. “But I really would like to make love with you.” Someday soon.

“And I’m dying to be inside you, but what you need most right now is this…” He dipped his head and swallowed her lips. “Just this,” he mumbled, licking his way inside her mouth, his slick, sweet tongue sweeping her regrets away, making soft, gentle love to her tonsils. Healing her heart and soul with his breath and his mouth. Somehow, even his love for America seemed wrapped up in this tender, wet kiss. Sex or not, he was still giving her everything he had to give.

Tears welled again, but Persia hung on, squeezed them away, and gave back as good as she was getting. Walker was right. Her cup truly was empty. But this was also making love, just on a more elemental level, where spirits joined and soared and danced and loved without end. Where miracles happened and stayed and happened again. Where a damaged heart could finally… heal.

This feeling of oneness between her and Walker was intimacy in its most spiritual dimension. It came without physical demands or expectations. Without grunts and groans and precautions. Like the waves on an eternal beach, it rolled over her, seduced her with its gentle power of peace and wellness, of being right with the world.

Peckering was dead. She was not. That simple truth spoke volumes.

At last, a full cleansing breath filled her lungs. She sniffed, feeling stronger. Her body didn’t have to orgasm to prove she was loved. Walker hadn’t made a sexual play yet, just held her, and kissed her, and let her acclimate to her new normal. Yes, she’d been taken down, but he had her back. He always would. This solid wall of male dominance and power was right now, blanketing her with his entire body, with every last piece of his genuine, loving heart, and his all-American soul.

Walker Judge loved her. He’d told her, and now he was showing her in the kindest, sweetest way possible. He was all she needed.

“I love you,” she murmured, her eyes closed, yet finally opened. She didn’t need to be a one-woman army anymore. Never again. She was part of something bigger now.

She was part of Walker.

Chapter Forty-Six

It’d take a couple days, maybe a good long sleep, but Walker knew Persia would be back on her feet and fighting the world before they made San Diego Harbor. There was no weakness to the lioness in his arms. Yes, she’d been beaten by a master jackass, but only because she’d been outnumbered. That was simply the law of the jungle. Even a pack of cowardly hyenas could take down a solitary king—or queen—of beasts.