Page 81 of Iron Willed Warrior

“What are you thinking about?” Cole asked behind me. He was drying off with a towel.

I rinsed my mouth and set aside the toothbrush. “You.” It was true.

He smiled, expression softening. “It just so happens I was thinking about you. I seem to do that a lot.”

My heart squeezed.

In the bedroom, I pulled on a pair of underwear. Cole’s shirt was on the floor, one he’d been wearing around the resort earlier, so I grabbed it and put it on too. I slid beneath the covers next to him.

“You’re wearing my shirt.”

“It was handy.” But more than that, I liked having his scent on me.

Cole lifted up the blankets so I could scoot closer to him. He wore only a pair of boxer briefs. All the lights were out, curtains drawn. The blue glow of an automatic nightlight came from the bathroom.

I rested my cheek against his bare chest, my hand on his stomach, enjoying the brush of his happy trail beneath my palm.

We were supposed to be going to sleep. But my brain was wired, knowing I shouldn’t let tonight end without telling Cole what I’d been hiding. How pissed off would he be? He’d kept things back from me as well.

And I had cut off all communications with Stanford yesterday. That had to count for something.

Tell him.Just say it.

I lifted my head. His eyes were open, watching me in the faint blue-tinged light.

“Cole—”

“We should sleep,” he said huskily. “But I’d much rather kiss you. Can I?”

My confession was right there on my tongue. “I think we’re past the part where you need to ask.”

“Good.“ He shifted his body. I fell onto my back with Cole above me, propped on his elbow. His mouth sought out mine. Soft but also hungry. His free hand cupped my cheek.

“We need to talk,” I said between kisses.

“We’ve talked for hours, B. My mind is shot. It’s either sleep, or this, and I think we need this more.” He pushed up the shirt to caress my stomach. “Unless you tell me no.”

The last thing I wanted was to tell him no.

Desire pushed away thoughts of my confession. Of anything but how much I wanted to feel Cole, skin to skin. As if I hadn’t killed a man tonight. As if we weren’t in the middle of a life-or-death battle against Garon Westwick and all the ugly things Stillwater had done. As if nothing mattered but the two of us. Not even my lingering, blurry ties to the FBI.

We did need this.Idid.

With Cole’s next kiss, his tongue glided into my mouth. He tasted like minty toothpaste and kindness and comfort. Exactly what I needed in this moment. For a man roughened by his past, with so many scars, there was something sweet and open about the way he kissed. Like he was always reading my reactions, wanting to share this experience with me instead of just taking.

Cole’s hands roved, exploring like this was our first time instead of the third or fourth that he’d had me spread out for him just today.

But when he touched me between the legs, finding thedampness at the crotch of my panties, our kisses turned more intense. I felt the length of him swelling against my thigh. Growing harder and hotter by the second.

My legs wrapped around his waist. Drawing him closer. Cole pushed up the shirt until it was over my head, and I tossed it to the side, not caring where it landed. His cock nudged against my clit through the thin layers of our underwear. His beard tickled my neck, my upper chest, my breasts as he kissed and licked all over my skin.

He worked his boxer briefs down over his hips, his movements unhurried. Sensuous. “We didn’t use a condom before,” he said. “That still all right with you?”

“I’d speak up if it wasn’t.” I hooked my thumbs in my panties and shoved them down. Nowhere near as graceful as he had just been.

Maybe I should’ve second-guessed sharing my body with him this way, but it seemed that my instincts had been urging me to trust Cole all along, even when it took my brain slightly longer to get the message. From the first time Cole had touched me, kissed me, even when it was supposed to be fake, all I had wanted was to pull him closer.

Closer. That was what I needed. To get him as close as possible.

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