Page 53 of Delta Force Defender

“I don’t like it slow,” Caradine murmured, her mouth a scant inch from his.

Isaac’s smile was darkly male, and if she bent her head, she could taste it. “Tough.”

“You don’t like it slow, either,” she reminded him. “You never have.”

His smile only got darker, if that was possible. Edgier.

“Wrong again. You don’t like it slow, Caradine, because you want to get off without any pesky feelings getting in the way.” His smile didn’t take the sting of his words away. Instead, it spread into something a whole lot more, like a low, dull ache. Then again, maybe that was her heart. “My bed, my rules.”

“You’re suddenly a lot more interested in rules.”

“It’s not sudden.” He shifted, his hand moving along her back, and she couldn’t help but arch into it. “And it’s not a surprise. You’ve met me.”

“Yes, but—”

“Caradine.” Her name was an order. His gaze was a command. “Shut up.”

Then he kissed her, nice and slow.

And he did it for a good, long while.

She had always enjoyed the way Isaac took control. But she realized, some lifetime or two later, when they still had all their clothes on and she wasdying, that she’d had no idea how much control he’d been displaying all this time.

It didn’t matter what she did. When she tried to entice him. When she tried to hurry him. No matter how she tried to get her hands on him, he would laugh and then switch it up.

Every time.

Eventually, he got around to peeling off her clothes,but that wasn’t better. Or it wasn’tquicker, because he decided to taste her.

Everywhere. Every inch.

Until she was writhing and panting and so outside herself she wasn’t sure she’d ever find her way back in.

Ages and ages later, Isaac got around to removing his own clothes.

And then, Caradine thought he would break. Rush for the finish.

But instead, though it shouldn’t have been humanly possible, he slowed down even more.

There was no part of her that he didn’t taste, again. That he didn’t touch, wringing out every last bit of sensation that he could find. Over and over and over again, while the light shone in on them from the Alaskan summer night outside.

And at a certain point, she stopped fighting it. Because it wasn’t a fight she wanted to win. Because there was no pretending that things were the same now as they’d been over the past five years. Not with all that light cascading over them both, making it impossible to hide.

There was no forgetting here.

He knew her name now. He knew her story. He knew who she was.

She wasn’t hiding anything anymore, and that made everything new.

Every touch. Every breath.

Every glorious shattering.

When he finally rolled over to his back and brought her above him, he handled the condom with his usual efficiency and then lowered her onto him at last.

And that was different, too.

Not the fit of him, big and hard and stretching her almost to the point of a wince, but not quite. Caradine loved that, every time. She loved having to adjust to him. She loved having to take a breath before moving.

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