Page 30 of The SEAL's Duchess
“Deployments?”
This felt like safer ground, one she could navigate.
“Navy SEAL. Before the Coast Guard.” His fingers found hers, warm and strong. “Sometimes you need a reminder thatthe world doesn’t rest on your shoulders. Even when it feels like it does.”
The words landed like an anchor. Rydersawher and the weight she carried. And he wasn’t afraid of it.
Heat pricked the back of her eyes. If she blinked too fast, she’d fall apart.
Ryder stood, tugging her gently to her feet. “Come here. There’s something else I want to show you.”
He led her along the slick path that hugged the base of the falls, spray soaking their clothes and hair. The roar grew until it swallowed everything—then suddenly softened as Ryder slipped sideways into shadow. What she’d thought was solid rock gave way to a narrow passage.
The space behind the falls was small, hidden, alive with fractured light. Water sheeted past the opening, casting rainbows that shimmered across wet stone.
The air thrummed with the falls’ deep heartbeat, vibrating in her chest.
“Ryder.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but still it filled the cavern.
He turned, and in his face she didn’t just see her own wonder reflected back, but hunger—held in check by a thread, droplets caught in his lashes.
She stepped closer.
His breath hitched.
Her fingers curled into his jacket, meaning to steady herself—except the moment she touched him, the ground seemed to drop away.
This time, he closed the distance.
His lips brushed hers like a cautious question. She thought she might have room to breathe—until Ryder made a sound low in his chest and everything shifted.
One moment, restraint. The next, the dam broke.
His arms crushed her against him as he deepened the kiss—like a man who’d run out of second chances. His mouth possessed, coaxed, claimed. Fire raced down her spine, her pulse booming in her ears.
Oh God.
She should stop this. She shouldn’t want this.
But her hands betrayed her, sliding up into his hair, tugging him closer, desperate to keep him there. She opened to him on instinct, on need, tasting coffee and winter air and everything she was afraid to want.
His touch gentled even as his hunger consumed her, his big hands splayed across her back, holding her like she was precious even while his mouth made her burn.
The rasp of stubble beneath her palms, the unyielding wall of his chest, the heat of his mouth—everything else blurred until there was only Ryder and the shuddering relief of surrender.
Her phone shrilled, sharp and brutal in the small cavern, the sound slicing between them.
Ivy tore her mouth from his, gasping, lips swollen, breath ragged. His arms stayed locked around her, his heartbeat pounding against her palms as if he could hold the moment together by force alone.
“You can take it.” Ryder’s voice was hoarse, though he didn’t let her go.
The glow of the screen cut through the dim light as she checked.
George.
Her chest seized, breath locking hard, the burn of Ryder’s kiss extinguished.
She silenced the call with a trembling thumb, but the spell was already broken. Reality crashed back. Ryder Meyer had no place in her world.
