Page 19 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

She shuddered. “Oh, yeah.” It had been lust at first sight. “I thought you weren’t interested.” Struggling to make sense of her failing marriage, building a new practice, and paying off monumental med school loans, Elizabeth had been broadsided by her visceral and blatantly sexual attraction to a stranger when her life was already in an upheaval. She’d put Sam away to think about late at night. And think about him she had. With the way her life was going at the time, she was almost relieved that he hadn’t felt the same immediate attraction that she had. If both them had felt the same way, she imagined that it would have been impossible not to act on it. By his apparent disinterest, Elizabeth had managed to stay true to her marriage vows, however tenuous they’d been.

Her brain was fogging. Sam flipped her over. It wasn’t easy; the tent was barely big enough for the two of them. He leaned over her, his fingers tangled in her hair, his gaze hot, his thumb making lazy circles at her temple. “That kiss I planted on you six months ago didn’t give you a heads-up?”

“It gave me pheromones and blood pressure up,” she assured him, tracing the curve of his smile. Even though her body pulsed and throbbed, and she was wet for him, their lazy, we-have-all-the-time-in-the-world conversation was drawing out the finish unbearably. “But that was the only indication that you even knew I existed.”

His fingers skimmed up to cup her breast where it plumped against his chest. Elizabeth shifted to grant him access to her nipple. He squeezed it this side of exquisite pain, then stroked his thumb over the erect peak. The sensation shot directly to every nerve center in her body.

“You didn’t notice I was practically stalking you?” he demanded, kneeing her thighs apart.

“I did notice that you were pretty much everywhere I was, yes. But you never came over and talked to me. Never asked me out. You kissed me once and then I didn’t hear from you again. You disappeared for a mon—”

He slipped inside her. Hot and hard. “Ah. You noticed.”

“Wait. Don’t move,” she begged, the sensation too strong, too sweet. She wanted him so much her heart ached with the need. Here he was, this man who had set her pulse racing for what seemed like forever. Here he was, Sam Pelton, with his hips spreading her thighs wide and his warrior eyes gleaming as he looked down into hers. YesYesYES!

“Of course I noticed.” She tried to speak around a pant as she started to rock her hips against his. “One minute everywhere I looked there—ah—there you were, then you kissed me like there was no tomorrow and disappeared for a month. It was enough to … give … a girl a freaking … complex.”

His penis flexed inside her, and Elizabeth moaned, then bit him on the shoulder. The pleasure he was giving her was indescribable, both sharp and sweet. Her body tightened unbearably around him as he threw back his head, the tendons in his neck showing in sharp relief.

“I was out of the country on an—op.” Sam pumped his hips and Elizabeth made a soft appreciative sound in the back of her throat, stroking her hand down his back, then digging her nails into his hard butt cheek as he hit his stride. “And I was waiting—I’m trying to draw this out, sweetheart. But I’m going to go off like Vesuvius in about a second if you don’t stop moving under me like that. Lie real still—I was waiting the year out.”

She couldn’t keep still, everything they did pushed her higher and higher, until Elizabeth didn’t know where she stopped and Sam began. Her internal muscles contracted around his penis buried deep inside her. His hands were gentle as he stroked her back and her behind in strokes t

hat he maybe thought were soothing, but were instead making her crazy with lust, love, and need all jumbled together.

Sam’s body was a furnace above hers, sweat gluing their skin together as Sam skimmed his hand down her side, then touched her intimately where they were joined. She shifted slightly to give him better access, and thought, We fit together perfectly, then said out loud, “Yes, God yes, I love when you touch me there. Just like that. Just. Like. That.” And—I love you.

Elizabeth loved the taste of his skin, loved the scrape of his jaw against her breast, loved the smell of him. Loved the satiny feel of his tanned skin and crisp hair beneath her marauding fingers.

“I figured after that—Hmm.” She bit his earlobe, and he groaned his pleasure, so she did it again. She felt his desire, and it doubled her own. “I figured that you weren’t following me at all. It was a string of co-coincidences. You took my dormant libido from stalled to overdrive, then—poof. You were gone. When you came back it was as if that kiss had never happened. I knew you weren’t shy, so I was convinced you just weren’t that into me.”

“Make no mistake,” he said, his voice raw with emotion as his thrusts became more aggressive, as if he couldn’t wait another second.

To hell with trying to postpone this. Elizabeth was just as eager. She needed it now. “Do it hard,” she told him, wrapping her legs around his narrow hips and locking her ankles in the small of his back. She wanted to devour him, and set her open mouth on the thundering pulse on his throat.

“I was into you. In every way a man can be into a woman I was in … to you.” He plunged deep, sending them both over the edge in a shower of sensation that lasted a long, long time.

SAM KISSED HER SHOULDER. “Our ride’s here.”

“Hmmm.” She stretched, then wrapped her arms around his neck. “I thought we had a late checkout.” She took a little nip on his lower lip. “How’d you manage to get dressed without waking me up?”

“Special ops training. Up and at ’em, sweetheart. We have a reservation at another hotel. One with a soft bed, and no roommates.”

“Woohoo.”

Her smile zinged through Sam’s bloodstream like liquid sunshine. Wanting to make love to her again wasn’t an option, unfortunately. He was looking forward to making love to her for hours on end with no interruption, and without being distracted by listening for the bad guys.

Their time would come to laze in bed all day. This wasn’t that day.

Looked like they were going to get out of here in one piece. If Thadiwe’s men weren’t smarter than the average chimp and had managed to elude him. If they got downriver unscathed. If the hidden chopper hadn’t been discovered and sold for parts. None of those things would have fazed Sam before. Having Beth with him changed everything.

“Here.” He handed her the DEET. “The mosquitoes are having a freaking convention out there.”

He slid toward the tent opening and yanked down the zipper. “I’ll wait outside to give you room.”

“Stay. I love being in tight quarters with you.”

Living in a one-man tent with Beth sounded damn good to him too, but he shook his head. “You’d never get dressed.” He had to kiss her one more time. Supposed to be quick, but she threaded her fingers through his hair, and held him for a kiss that turned him inside out. He’d never been much of a kisser, but Beth made him a convert. Reluctantly he brought the kiss to an end. “Don’t take long,” he told her, loving the way her eyes lost focus when he kissed her. “We have to make tracks.” He crawled out onto the limb to give her room to dress, but left the flap up so he could watch her.

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