Page 69 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

She opened her eyes. To a moon riding high and bright over a broad, bare shoulder and the jutting, jagged peaks of the canyon walls. To the strength of his big body sheltering her in the night.

Delicious heat.

Substantial weight.

Exquisite pressure.

She moved her hand. Across warm skin covering sinew and muscle and bone.

She turned her head … and realized he was awake and watching her.

“Hey,” he whispered, a gentle query, a concerned hello.

“Hey,” she whispered back, that single word telling him much more. I’m okay. I’m … aware. And yeah, I’m probably going to regret this in the morning.

“Did you get warmed up?” he murmured with a gruffness in his voice that forewarned her of the erection growing long and thick against her belly.

“Um,” she murmured and rocked her hips against him, “yeah. But not warm enough.”

He smiled. “I’m giving it all I’ve got, darlin’.”

She smiled, too. “Well … no. I don’t think you are,” she said with meaning.

He searched her face in the moonlight. And saw exactly what she wanted him to see. He saw the welcome, the wanting and the urgency there. Recognized the need in her to be something other than frightened and vulnerable and raw. The desire to stall the truth of their situation. They’d almost died. They could still die and she needed validation that right now, this moment, she was alive and vital and desperate for something other than fear to get her through the rest of this night.

With exquisite sensitivity, he forked his fingers through her still damp hair. “You sure about this?

She held his dark gaze. Nodded. “Very sure.”

He lowered his head tentatively. Touched her lips with a tenderness that almost made her weep. Moved against her with an intimacy that damn near made her beg.

Elena didn’t sleep around. No time. No proclivities to muck up her life. No illusions about love and romance and sex having anything to do with each other.

But there was something … something about Seth that dared her to forget about her own rules, toss caution to the wind and take anything and everything this man could offer her.

When she moved closer into him, he gave up any pretense of hesitance, too. He rolled her to her back in the soft, green grass, caged in her shoulders with his elbows, cupped her face in his hands and claimed her mouth. Claimed and tormented and tantalized. Long, deep strokes of his tongue. Quick, biting nips of his teeth. On her jaw. On her chin. Back to her mouth again where he bit her lower lip until she gasped, then soothed the tender hurt with his tongue.

She loved the way he kissed her. With hunger and greed and a studied self-indulgence that made her feel savored and desired and outrageously sexual. With a total dedication to both his pleasure and hers that overshadowed anything but the moment.

For now, the moment was just fine.

His big hand made quick work of the clasp of her bra, shoved it out of the way and made room for his mouth to cover her nipple. He wasn’t rough, but neither was he gentle. What he was was absorbed. Wholly. Exclusively. He sucked and laved and tugged, triggering her flash points, making her writhe with impatience beneath him.

Cupping his head in her hands, she held his marauding mouth against her breast, arching her back, rocking her hips and inviting him to take, pleading with him to give as she spread her legs to make room for him there.

He growled low in his throat—a primitive sound of pleasure that transitioned to throbbing frustration.

“What? What’s wrong?”

He lifted his head, searched her face as she gripped his shoulders. “I wasn’t prepared for this.” He buried his face in the hollow of her neck. “I can’t protect you.”

Oh, God. Protection.

“I’m on the pill,” she said quickly. “And I’m … it’s been, well, months since I’ve been in a relationship. If you … if you’re worried about STDs, don’t.”

He raised his head again, eyes narrowed. “And you’re not worried about me?”

She swallowed, let her hands slip down to his lean waist. “Should I be?”

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