Page 54 of Delta Force Defender

For a long time, that little moment had felt like a simple truth in the middle of too many lies.

Tonight that deep, glorious slide that lodged him deep inside her, still with that same initial hitch, felt like a sacrament.

And she knew why he’d put her on top, because it was another kind of challenge. And this was Isaac, who never backed down.

He knew she wanted to go fast, set a blistering pace, and hurtle them into a wild finish.

Butsheknew he thought she would do exactly that, so she didn’t.

Or maybe he knew what she’d do all along, but Caradine couldn’t care about that. Not the way she normally would.

Not when his hands were wrapped around her hips, letting her know that if he wanted to, he could control this, too.

And maybe he was controlling it, with that steady gray gaze locked on to hers. As if he expected the best from her, and only the best. As if he expected her to do as he asked, simply because he’d asked.

The Caradine of years past would have defied him. She’d taken a great pleasure in that, always, because no one else dared.

But tonight she was someone else, someone new. Not Julia, who might as well have died in that house fire and had, really. And not the Caradine she’d been all these years, crafted from years of terror, running, and hiding.

Tonight she was a new version of herself. She wasn’t hiding. She wasn’t running. And she was with the only man alive—the onlypersonalive—who knew her. All of her.

Intimately.

This, then, was intimacy. This taking that felt like giving. This celebration as she moved against him,rocking them both toward something far better than forgetting.

Caradine broke first, and she didn’t try to hold herself back the way she usually did. She let herself cry out, her head falling back while wave after wave of the most intense sensation she’d ever felt gripped her.

She was still going when he flipped her over, brought her beneath him, and then, at last, let go of his own control.

Heat and driving need. Sheer male power.

He pounded into her. Caradine had barely finished shaking before she started again, falling over a cliff she hadn’t known was there into something brighter, hotter, wilder.

Only then did Isaac join her.

They fell together like heat and light, wrapped around each other as if they’d been made that way. Their hearts pounding so hard she couldn’t tell whether she felt his or hers. Tangled up together as if they could never possibly be torn apart.

A long time passed before either one of them moved. Isaac shifted the dense, heavy weight of his body off hers, but he still held her close. And surrounded by his warmth and strength, Caradine felt herself drifting off to sleep.

That, too, was a surrender, though she didn’t fight it. She didn’t force herself to leap up anddosomething, hoping that could break this spell between them. She just drifted off.

It was only when she woke up some indefinable time later to find herself with Isaac’s arms around her, that gray gaze of his regarding her steadily, that the reality of what had happened hit her.

“Don’t worry,” Isaac said lazily, and she could feel his voice rumble in his chest. Something that struck her as so astonishinglyintimatethat she felt herself flush allover. It almost washed away the panic. “I told you. My bed, my rules. You can sleep here. I want you to sleep here. Notice I didn’t throw you out while you were still gasping for breath, the way some people in this bed like to do.”

Deep inside, Caradine could feel her usual prickliness surge at that, ready to do battle—

But she didn’t have it in her. She was cuddled up next to this man she’d worked so terribly hard to keep at arm’s length. And for once in her life, she felt... soft.

Not weak. Just not... weaponized.

She refused to analyze it. “I guess you’re a much better person than me.”

But even that came out wrong. Because she’d tried to sound arch and amused and, yes, a little bit prickly, but instead her voice sounded... sincere.

Isaac ran a hand down her back, and then held her even closer, his big, heavy arm making her feel cocooned against him. She loved the heat of him. It was why she’d never allowed herself to experience this before. She’d known that if she dipped her toe in this pool, she would dive straight in, then drown.

Because all she wanted to do was bury her face in his chest, let down her guard, and let him handle whatever happened next.

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