his weight braced on one arm as she felt his fingers ease from her gripping pussy.
She shivered at the additional pleasure, shocked that there was enough energy in her body to do that much.
His lips brushed against her shoulder.
His chest heaved at her back at he fought for breath with the same desperation she felt.
She could feel him.
Inside her.
Not just inside her body, not just buried in her rear, his cock still throbbing and hard. But inside her. As though he had found a way to penetrate her very spirit, to steal it, to possess it in ways she knew it could never be possessed again.
“Sweet Tehya,” he whispered, moving slowly away from her and pulling a cry from her as she felt him withdraw until his body was no longer locked to hers.
She was glad her face was buried in the blanket, glad he couldn’t see her expression, or he would have seen the tears she had to blink back.
Oh God, she loved him.
No, she had always loved him. From the moment her eyes had met his in Aruba, years before she was inducted into the Elite Ops, she had loved him.
No other man had touched her since that night. No other man had possessed so much as a dream or a fantasy in all those years.
She belonged to Jordan Malone, a man she knew didn’t want or need the heart she had given to him. A man who believed love was no more than an illusion.
“Sweet Tehya.” He brushed her hair aside as his lips pressed to the back of her neck in a lingering kiss before shifting from her.
She lost his possession of her. She lost the warmth of his body even though he moved no further than to lie beside her.
“What am I going to do with you?” he whispered, his voice so low she almost missed what he had said.
She certainly had a few ideas there.
Her head turned slowly as she forced her eyes to open.
“What did you say?” She had heard him, she just wanted to be certain he had said what she thought he had.
He stared back at her, his eyes such a brilliant sapphire blue she was instantly lost in them.
If she could just live here forever. Just like this.
His lips quirked slowly. “I hope I didn’t hurt you,” he said then.
Tehya frowned. She could have sworn she had heard something more, something akin to regret in his voice. And she was damned certain that was not what he had said.
He brushed her hair from her face, the heavy curls trailing around her as she laid her head on her arms and stared up at him. He reclined beside her, using the palm of his hand to hold his head up, a grin almost quirking his lips.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, though she knew better.
She would only be fine until the day he walked away from her once again. After that, God only knew if she could survive intact. Walking away, or watching him walk away, would be the second hardest thing she had ever done in her life. The first was walking away the first time.
His fingertip eased over the curve of her face.
“You burn me alive, Tehya,” he said, his voice low, as he stared back at her.
She remained silent, her heart leaping in her throat, hope digging sharp claws into her tender heart.
He breathed out slowly, heavily.
“You do the same to me, Jordan,” she whispered back, her need to hear more almost a physical hunger.
His gaze flickered and darkened.
“It starts tomorrow,” he said his expression growing, not exactly distant, but no longer as soft as it had been. “The senator’s first party to introduce his son-in-law to his backers will be held at the Stanton estate.”
Her throat tightened. She didn’t want to discuss this right now.
“I’d prefer to glow just a little longer,” she told him with false amusement. “Let’s talk about this later, okay?”
When her heart wasn’t breaking because the sweet nothings hadn’t lasted long enough after the most incredible orgasm of her life.
“Tehya, we don’t have time to wait.” His fingers tightened on her face as she moved to turn away from him. “I have to know now, can you handle facing the Taites? Can you endure an introduction and pretend you don’t know them? Can you bear to walk away from your family without…”
“They’re not my family.” She had no idea if they were even likeable. She couldn’t miss what she had never had.
It was that