Page 8 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

Either way, the end result would mean her death.

Damn it. She didn’t have the luxury of time to debate the pros and cons of how quickly she was going to die.

Stay or go?

How were they going to find their way out of the jungle without help? Beth had no doubt that her captors knew every tree and leaf in this jungle. She and Sam wouldn’t get very far before they were caught and forcibly returned to the compound. How much better off was she now than she’d been five minutes ago? Two of them, against God only knew how many armed soldiers.

“Stop overanalyzing,” he said, his voice pitched so she could hear him. “Trust me.”

She did trust him—and his ability to lead her out of this mess. Teachers were leaders, weren’t they? A little. Maybe? Hopefully. Yes. He’d managed to track her to the middle of who-knows-where. Might as well go with his misguided but appreciated need to be a hero. Sam had no idea what he’d let himself in for. Knowing that squeezed her heart inside her chest.

Having him here, while it was terrific not being alone, was just going to get them both killed. “Go and find help,” she whispered. It made sense for Sam to go and get reinforcements. One of them had to be practical. “I’ll stall Thadiwe again in the morning.” Practicality had its dangers, and now that she knew rescue was at hand, she wanted to get away from here so badly she shook with it. But it made more sense to lull Thadiwe and his men into believing that she was getting ready to do what they wanted.

Sam just had to return fast.

“Get your pretty ass out here, Doctor. Now.”

She hesitated. Unlike her sister, Kess, who made split-second decisions, and was rash to the point of foolishness, Elizabeth spent a lot of time weighing her options. She was a Libra, after all.

“Do it, Beth.” It wasn’t a request.

Fatalistic, she threw her legs over the sill, then slid into Sam’s waiting arms. The footing was unsteady, and she realized s

he was standing on the barred window, frame and all.

His hands closed around her waist. “I’ve got you.”

Blindly reaching out, she grabbed onto Sam’s forearms to steady herself. He didn’t feel skinny, or flabby, at all, she thought, surprised when his rock-hard muscles flexed under her fingers as she teetered. She tried to picture those muscles beneath one of his gray suits, and couldn’t.

“Good girl,” he murmured, as he slid his arms around her waist. “There’s just one more thing before we go.”

Oh, God. “What?”

“This.”

He’d kissed her twice. Once a few moments ago, when she’d had no idea who the hell he was, and once, in broad daylight, in her office at the clinic. A mind-blowing, knocked-her-socks-off, fabulous kiss, and then—he left for a month with no word. Kess had told her to stop mooning over a schoolteacher and go find a cowboy. Or a bronco rider with great hip movement. Or an astronaut whose kisses would take her to the moon. Kess wouldn’t wait for a guy to make the first move. But Beth wasn’t her sister.

Sam spread his large hand across her lower back, bringing the other up to cup her face. As he brushed his mouth over hers, she eagerly parted her lips. He touched his tongue to hers, and Elizabeth’s heart thudded hard as he sucked it into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth. God. This is crazy … She stood on tiptoes to wrap her arms about his neck and draw his body flush against hers. The thin fabric of whatever they were wearing was almost no barrier at all. His abs pressed hard against her aching breasts, and the ridge of his erection nudged tantalizingly against her mons. Elizabeth’s breath hitched.

Blank. Her mind went completely blank. She couldn’t even think as she blocked out everything but Sam, and kissing him the way she’d imagined kissing him for months. A sigh of pure pleasure escaped, as Sam tasted the inside of her cheek, then ran his teeth along the edge of her teeth before sucking on her tongue and making her almost sob with the pleasure of it.

A bird screeched, and Elizabeth flinched out of the sensual spell. There were a dozen different kinds of birds perched in the trees surrounding them. There were snakes, and wild pigs, and other animals just waiting to have them for a midnight snack. And here they were—

His warm, wet tongue slid along the length of hers, bringing Elizabeth to heart-somersaulting attention again. He kissed her with slow, deliberate care. Hot and deep, taking her from zero to sixty between one heartbeat and the next. She tightened her arms around his neck and rose higher on her toes to bring their bodies flush at all the right places. Sam angled her head and kissed her like he’d die if he didn’t. Hotter than the kiss he’d planted on her six months ago. Of course after that one he’d hauled ass and disappeared for a month.

Her husband had preferred closed-mouth kisses, if he kissed her at all. The kiss Sam had given her at the clinic had revved her engines and made her want more. A lot more. But that kiss was tame compared to this. That had been banked. This was Sam unleashed.

The stubble on his jaw was rough against her smooth skin, and a surprise. She’d never seen him anything but immaculately smooth-shaven. She’d never seen him anything other than controlled. As he made love to her mouth, his hand slipped lower to stroke her behind through the thin material. Elizabeth felt surrounded by him, engulfed in his taste. A shudder of raw desire spiraled through her, bone deep and primitive. His tongue mimicked the sex act, making her throb and ache and pant, and crave the feel of his hands on her naked body.

She went hot all over as he dragged her hips back and forth against the solid ridge of his erection. Her brain short-circuited as his tongue raked across her teeth before plunging inside again.

Somehow she’d known it would be this way. That she would fall, all or nothing. She’d spent months protecting her heart. What a waste of time.

Nothing existed beyond the two of them. Not the danger, not the past. She wanted him to lay her down right there and then, unzip her from this climate-controlled suit, and take her right there on the muddy jungle floor.

Too soon Sam placed his hands gently on her arms and pulled them free from his neck. “Hold that thought. Gotta get going.”

Hold that thought? Her brain was filled with images of them rolling around on clean white sheets in a dimly lit room, and her heart battered at her rib cage like a wild beast trying to tear through. Hold that thought?!

---