Page 24 of Zorro

Zorro stirred, blinked, and opened his eyes to Everly Quinn. Leaning over him. Her hair loose in wild, sun-touched waves, falling around her shoulders like liquid gold. Her eyes, half-lidded, luminous, unreadable, burned into his like she already knew the answer to a question she hadn’t asked yet.

Before he could speak, before his brain caught up to the rush of waking and need and her, she leaned in.

She brushed her mouth over his and he looked up at her, into the depths of a blue as deep as the sky. “That all you got, chica? I promise you I can take more.”

In combat, “tunneling,” focusing on one thing and losing track of everything else that was going on around you, was a good way to get killed. Apparently, the same rule applied here, because he’d just taken a round right in the goddamned heart.

All he could do was look at her. She was so beautiful. She’d knocked him senseless the first time he’d seen her, and he’d never really recovered—the summer shade of her hair, the slope of her nose, the shape of her face, the clear, vast aching blue of her eyes. Her mouth. Fuck, what she could do to him with her mouth.

Then proved it. She didn’t kiss him; she gave him a full-body caress that started with his mouth, a slide of heat and heaven that just kept expanding and expanding. Her hand cupped his jaw, and he realized when she’d been stitching him up on that gurney, she had touched him not like a doctor, but like this. Like she couldn’t get enough of his skin.

“Why does everything you do…make me so crazy?” she whispered, pressing her mouth to his briefly, pulling back, changing the angle of her head, fucking making him ache even more. He went so hard, it was almost painful. “Just walking” Soft kiss. “…breathing.” Her tongue teased. Longer, stronger press with a soft, unraveling groan. His chest heaved, his hips shifted. “…being….” She bit his bottom lip, her tongue sweeping over him. “…just….” She slipped her hand between the opening in his linen shirt, her full palm sweeping over the swell of his pectoral, making him gasp when her fingertips circled his nipple, playing with the hard tip as his breathing went ragged with waves of hunger. “…you.

Her words cut down to the core of him where something painful lived, breathed, and tortured him relentlessly. Emotions flooded, jumbled and tangled.

“I—” he started, but he had no words to describe the need that coiled as tight as his dick, and he gave up.

Você não precisa aceitar, querida, eu vou entregar tudo para você. For some reason the words “You don’t have to take, sweetheart, I’ll give it all to you” came out in Portuguese. The heat between them ignited fast. He stood, lifting her with him in one motion, hands on her hips, pressing her body to his as his mouth claimed hers again. Their bodies moved like they had done this countless times, like they’d done this before in some fevered dream neither of them wanted to wake from.

There was nothing to say, not right now, not when all he wanted, all he needed was to touch her, to slide his tongue in her mouth and taste her, to fill himself up with her. Their lips met, hers parted, and a hundred emotions flooded through him. He’d expected the pleasure, electrifying pleasure, but he also got relief, soul deep. This was home, being with Everly, their bodies touching. She came up on tiptoe, her mouth on his, her arms going around his neck, and he slid his hand down her back.

She kissed him like she wanted to devour him. Like she was starving and he was the only thing on earth worth tasting.

Zorro let out a breath, then a groan as her mouth opened against his, her tongue brushing his, her fingers sliding into his hair with a quiet desperation that nearly undid him, the impact in the hall just kept colliding.

His body ached for her in a way he’d never felt before. Not the sharp, impulsive hunger that came with lust, but something deeper. A raw, bone-deep yearning. He didn’t just want her skin beneath his hands. He needed the press of her palm back against his chest to remind him he was still breathing. Needed the shape of her mouth on his to remind him he was solid, present, wanted.

“Zorro,” she whispered, like he was the answer to all her prayers.

It hadn’t been a dream.

She had kissed him.

Now…she was doing it again. Awake. Intentional. Hungry.

He turned, pressing her gently against the wall. Her body arched into him, hands everywhere, his chest, his shoulders, his face like she couldn’t get enough, and God help him, he didn’t want to stop.

Except…he had to.

This wasn’t just heat. It was armor cracking. It was desperation disguising itself as desire. It was a kiss that tasted like conflict.

He pulled back.

Only an inch.

His hands still cupped her face, his breath ragged. He kissed her again, once, soft, slow, and reverent.

“Let’s slow this down a bit, cariño,” he murmured, voice deep, eyes locked to hers. “I’m here all week.”

He’d been through jungle firefights, two-a-day BOPE training rotations, and whatever unholy chaos his teammates cooked up when they got bored in a new city, but nothing, nothing, prepared him for the moment Dr. Everly Quinn walked toward his family wrapped in white linen like some kind of celestial threat.

He caught her out of the corner of his eye first. Head high. Shoulders stiff. That telltale Everly armor locked into place, but her hips swayed beneath the gauzy cover-up like she didn’t know they were writing scripture with every step.

His mom spotted her instantly and smiled. Zorro stood, intercepting her as she reached the edge of the table. She hesitated, awkward, cautious. But, God, her eyes still burned with that kiss. That lightning bolt she’d dropped into his chest an hour ago.

So he teased her.

Gently. Freely. Like a man who knew exactly how to handle complicated things wrapped in beauty and brilliance.

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