muscle beneath her palms and fingers.
“Okay, Marine. You’re in charge.”
His lazy, sensual, arrogant laugh reverberated against her mouth. “There can only be one squad leader.”
That wouldn’t work for her long-term, but long-term wasn’t what this was about. All that mattered was here and now.
“All right, already. Just shut up and kiss me.” She slid her hand up to cup his neck.
He splayed his fingers against her scalp. “Gross insubordination,” he said, even as his mouth finally captured hers.
It was as if her senses had been starved for this...for him. The firm command of his lips on hers, the demand, the taking. Sweet and hot, his tongue delved into the recesses of her mouth and she welcomed him.
Satisfaction coursed through her, catching her breath up in her pounding heartbeat.
They broke apart and he leaned his forehead against hers. The seconds dragged out as they remained, forehead to forehead, their ragged breathing the only sound as heat swirled around them. Delphi kept her eyes closed, savoring the moment.
She opened them when Lars lifted his head. He withdrew his hold on her and paused for a second, as if to caress her cheek, but didn’t.
“Want to walk down and check out the lake?” he said.
“Absolutely.”
The air between them seemed to echo the throb inside her. As wonderful as the kiss had been, it hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough. But there was more to come between them physically, much more.
That kiss was merely the prelude.
9
“YOU HEADING BACK to Atlanta when your stint is up here?” he asked as she shrugged into her light daypack. His was already on his back.
“It’s nice to reconnect with Skye and this seems like a great place, but yeah. I’ll be heading back to Atlanta in September. I understand myself well enough to know that I won’t be able to take the winters or the isolation.” Packs in place, they set off down the gentle slope leading to the tranquil green-tinted water.
“I hear you on the winters.”
She nodded, the waning sun highlighting a smattering of freckles across her nose and the fine hairs along her jaw.
“But all of that aside, I won’t let my former employer get away with this. I’ll regain my life in Atlanta, which includes a solid career. I’m not going to be run out of town with my tail between my legs. The dust will settle. I’ll have a new reference and I’ll have my life back. He and his wife can kiss my grits.”
Her Southern drawl became more pronounced on the last bit. It was cute. He admired her spunk. “Atta girl. That’s the spirit.”
She slanted a sideways glance his way. “Most everyone back in Atlanta said I was crazy.”
She was bringing out protective instincts in him he didn’t even know he had. Maybe it was her independence, her need to handle her own problems. Or because she’d tapped into his situation and therefore he felt equally tapped into hers. It was more likely good old-fashioned testosterone because Lars was itching to put a beat-down on that jerk of a doctor.
“Maybe it’s time for you to find a new set of friends.”
She smiled. “Maybe it is.”
“So, there’s no boyfriend to kick that doctor’s ass? You didn’t leave a brokenhearted man behind in Atlanta?”
It shouldn’t matter what she’d left behind. He was out of here at the end of the week. He didn’t want to think too hard about why he needed to know so badly.
“No. It’s hard to talk about dating when my career was swirling down the toilet. But I left a fish with my sister.”
A fish? Lars cracked up.
They’d reached the lake’s edge and stopped. Delphi looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “What’s so funny about a fish?”
“It was the lack of transition. I asked about a man—” he was incredibly glad there wasn’t one “—and you told me about a fish.”
She laughed, her eyes sparkling. “I guess that came a little off the cuff. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life isn’t predictable. I certainly never saw myself in this situation.”
Lars wasn’t sure whether he was just lucky or behind the curve, because he was precisely where he’d planned to be. They began walking along the shoreline, accompanied by the water’s rhythmic lapping. “That’s the same thing Liam said. He was madder than hell at the time, but he swears it’s all worked out for the best. Something about one door closing and another one opening.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that, too. It’s kind of hard to