Page 52 of Stolen Hearts

“Dangerously good.” Rhae brought a bite to her lips.

He caught her eye. Under the table, her fingers brushed his. The touch and the look in her eyes were a subtle thank-you he felt down to his bones.

At the head of the table, Carson raised a bottle of beer toward him. “Good to have you back from the dead, man.”

“Good tobehere.” Denver lifted his bottle too.

For the first time in a long time, he had something to fight for that wasn’t just about honor or duty. It was about a woman who’d carried herself through hell. About a baby who giggled in her high chair like nothing bad could touch them here.

He was going to make damn sure that was true.

Robert Ravencroft had no idea the kind of war he’d just walked into.

Chapter Eleven

Rhae lay on her side, her head resting on Denver’s muscled arm. He lay on his side behind her, emitting a furnace’s worth of heat. The moonlight sliced through the bedroom curtains in silvery ribbons, painting the room in a silver glow.

Navy had been asleep for hours. The space was quiet.

She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so much peace.

Denver shifted slightly, and his lips grazed her nape. The scrape of his rough beard against her sent a shiver dancing over her skin. “You still awake?” His voice was heavy with meaning.

“Mmm.” She arched not-so-slyly, pressing back against the thickening steel pressed against her backside. “Barely.”

“Barely, hm?” He slid a hand up her thigh, beneath the sleep shirt she wore. His shirt. The one she stole on a whim during one of their encounters and stuffed into her own bag to take home as a souvenir of their time together.

That shirt might just be faded gray cotton with a Navy logo across the front…but to her it was a testimony that when they were together, they weresomething. Something good, warm and beautiful.

She’d never held out hope that their encounters would lead to something permanent. Now her view had shifted.

Her mind hit pause as his fingers spread over her belly, splayed like he was claiming every inch of her.

“You wore this on purpose.” His voice was low, rough. “You knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you.”

She twisted to face him, gaze roaming over his rugged features, sharp and handsome. She cupped his jaw. “I was hoping,” she whispered.

“You know, I’m going to be conditioned to get an erection every time I hear a whisper.”

She burst into silent laughter, shoulders shaking.

He flipped her onto her back, hovering over her, his gray eyes deep pools of want…and something else.

Her breath hitched at the sight. God, it stole the air from her lungs.

He looked at her like she was his from top to bottom, left to right, and beginning to end. Like everything in his life had led him here to her and Navy.

To athem.

“You’re so damn beautiful, Rhae,” he murmured, so much reverence in his tone.

He kissed her, deep and slow, taking all the time in the world. He slipped his hands under her shirt, pushing it upward, skimming his fingertips over her bare nipples. Then he dipped his head to taste them.

She gasped at the liquid heat of his tongue stroking around her hardening bud. Arching into him, she threaded her fingers in his hair. “Denver.” There was urgency in her whisper.

“Shh. Let me take my time with you tonight.”

Just like that, she was gone, swallowed by sensation and the love pulsing inside her.

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