Page 89 of Sniper's Pride

Mariah didn’t wait for an invitation. She pushed him until he rolled, and then she sat astride him, reaching down to the hem of the dress she’d borrowed from her sister. She pulled it up and over her head, then dropped it beside them.

He muttered a curse. His big, hard hands slid around to her back, pressing her until she arched toward him and he could take her nipple in his mouth.

It was better than she remembered. It was better than anything.

Her hands were clumsy and her mouth fell open, because she couldn’t keep all those greedy noises inside. She reached between them, struggling with his fly.

He lifted his hips and she pulled his jeans down, then lifted him free, panting as if she were running again.

She was wild with greed, pure and simple.

And for a moment, slick and hot and breathless, she caressed his hard satiny strength, like a kind of prayer.

But she wanted more. She wanted everything.

Mariah flowed over him in the dark, the stars washing over her like a benediction. She leaned forward, found his mouth with hers, and settled the core of her against the hardest part of him.

Then twisted her hips and took him deep inside her.

She exploded instantly, shaking and shuddering. And she heard him mutter yet another curse—or maybe it was a prayer—there against her mouth.

But he didn’t wait for her to come down. Instead, he started to move.

She shook and she shook, and the way he stroked in and out of her threw her from one fire deep into the next.

Mariah was sure she would die if he made her wait the way he had before. If he played those games.

But this was too intense. Too wild. Neither one of them was playing.

Griffin wrapped his arms around her, holding her as close as he possibly could, and then everything went white hot.

There was no finesse. There were no games.

Just the sheer, glorious madness of the endless fire between them.

And Mariah knew then.

She finally knew what he looked like when he was as out of control as she was, as lost and as wrecked.

Griffin pounded into her and she met him, thrust for thrust, until they were both hurtling over that edge together.

This was love. Mariah knew that with every fiber of her being.

But as they lay there together afterward, wrapped so tightly around each other that it was like they were one, she also knew that she deserved better than another fight she couldn’t win.

She was the one who disengaged, then felt around until she found her dress. She stood and pulled it on. And when she tugged her head through, he’d stood, too, and was already finished buttoning himself up.

And maybe she’d had too much of that dangerous hope in her heart. Maybe she’d imagined that this would make a difference.

But she could already see the way he went still as he faced her. The way his face changed into armor.

And all the distance he put between them without having to move away.

“I love you, Griffin,” she told him, and she didn’t care if she sounded husky. If her voice shook. Or even if she did. “It’s not going to fade away when the adrenaline wears off. But I’m not going to spend one more second of my life begging a man to love me. Wondering if I’m worthy of it. Tying myself into knots in the hopes that if I work hard enough, I’ll deserve him someday. I won’t do it.” She swallowed. “Not even for you.”

And the crack in her voice on that last word was louder than the shot he’d taken to save her.

When he spoke, he sounded as wrecked as she did, and all she could wonder was what it cost him. “I never asked you to do anything for me.”

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