harder.
Luke adjusted his hold so that she was lying against him. A chill had come over her as if there’d been a sudden blast of Arctic air, but now warmth seeped in, even across her back, because his arms seemed to cover her. A cold tension had held her in its iron grip. Then the grip loosened. Warmth and calm penetrated through her clothes and through her skin. She never wanted to move, just stay like this forever.
Time passed. She had no idea how long. Didn’t make any difference because she didn’t want to move from where she was. It was like being … on a beach vacation, floating in the water only it was the beat of a strong heart she was riding instead of the ebb and flow of the waves.
Under her cheek, Luke shifted, pulled her gently back by the shoulders.
Oh no! He was pulling her away! It was so great leaning against him. But — he was right. Much as she’d like to, she couldn’t simply spend the rest of her life leaning against his chest. Magnificent as that chest was. There was, like, a time limit on that kind of thing, otherwise she’d do it forever.
He was holding her away from him. Yeah. This was much too nice to last. She didn’t want to open her eyes, because she knew what she’d see. A nice man, really handsome, trying to hide his exasperation at having to be nursemaid to a grown woman. Trying to ease her back gently, to be polite, but wanting to put distance between them.
Sheepish but firm.
She sighed and opened her eyes and saw — heat. And fire and flame and red-hot desire. Face taut, eyes closed to slits as he leaned down to her and kissed her.
And kissed her.
And dear sweet Jesus kissed her.
Hope had been kissed before but not like this. This was deep and hot and she felt it down to her toes. He kissed her mouth but it felt like he was kissing her all over. Even — even between her thighs. A bit of a shocker, that her vagina contracted sharply when he licked inside her mouth. The back of her head was held in his big hand, as if trying to keep her from running away. When running away was the absolute last thing on her mind. If anything, she wanted to be closer. She reached and wound her arms around his neck and opened her mouth more deeply. Her nose was right against his cheek and she couldn’t breathe through her nose but that was ok. She’d breathe through him.
Luke lifted his mouth, just for a second, not enough for her to panic at him leaving her, then his mouth settled down at a slightly different angle, a better angle to taste her.
There was some kind of weird noise in the background that penetrated the fog. She heard it over the heavy beating of her heart that pounded in her ears.
There was a massive jolt that separated them and she looked up. His face was flushed a deep red over his cheekbones. His mouth was wet and slightly swollen. From her mouth! Had that ever happened before?
Why were they separated?
“What happened?” she asked, appalled at her voice. It sounded sexy, almost sultry. Deep and throaty. She almost looked around to see whose voice it could be.
Luke cleared his throat and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “We’ve landed,” he said.
Sacramento, California
The SUV was waiting at the bottom of the steps. It was a Black Inc vehicle and they were going to a Black Inc safe house. It was all good.
What wasn’t so good was his breach of protocol. What the fuck? Kissing Hope was not a good idea. He knew that, he knew the rules. The rules were imprinted on his DNA, rules so strong they didn’t even have to be stated. You do not kiss your protectee.
Normally that wasn’t a problem. Luke had been on a protection detail four times and his protectees had been male, mainly over sixty and overweight and kissing them hadn’t been a temptation.
But damn it, Hope was temptation itself. He hadn’t known he was going to kiss her until he was kissing her and it was too late to stop it. And, well, once he started kissing her, stopping was impossible. Insane, even. Who would want to stop kissing that soft mouth, stop holding that luscious, small body?
All the danger signals in his body were switched