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“Yes,” he said solemnly, “you are.”

She blushed. He loved that blush, especially while her hand was moving over his chest. Down over his abs….

“I never imagined it would be like this,” she whispered. “Being with you… I never thought…”

“No. Neither did I.” Gently, he brushed his lips over hers. “I always knew it would be incredible, but this—this was…” He cleared his throat. “Honey. I didn’t use a condom. I just—I should have, but I didn’t think.”

Just for a second, her eyes seemed to darken. Then she smiled and traced the outline of his mouth with the tip of her finger.

“It’s alright.”

“Yeah. But…” He cleared his throat again. “I’m clean. You need to know that. And just in case… I’m here for you, princess. I’ll always be here.”

There it was again. That swift darkening of her eyes. He knew what she was thinking, because he had the same thought.

They had created their own world, but it wouldn’t last. Reality was out there, searching for them. And it would find them; they both understood that.

But not yet.

Not just yet.

And he wanted her again.

There was only one solution. He had to get up, move away from her. There were things he could do to keep busy. Get the thermal blanket from his pack. Check the horse again even though it didn’t need checking. Prepare the MREs. Say the alphabet twenty times, count backwards from one hundred…

“Declan?” Annie rose up on her elbow. She leaned over him and her long, dark hair made a silken curtain around his face and hers. “Please. Stop thinking.”

He reached up, took a strand of her hair and let it drift through his fingers.

“Am I that easy to read?”

“What we have now… It’s more than I’d dared hope for. And I know—I know we’re in danger, that what lies ahead is—is unpredictable.” She smiled, and he saw the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. “But for now, we’re together. We have each other. I don’t want to think about anything else even if it’s just for a little while.”

He cupped the back of her head and brought her mouth to his for a long, deep kiss.

“We’re going to get through this, sweetheart. I swear it to you.”

She nodded. “I know you’ll do everything you can,” she said softly. “For now, though…for now, I just want you to make love to me.”

His body’s response was swift and unmistakable. Annie laughed. Her laugh was sexy, husky, purely female, and he loved the sound of it.

He caressed her breasts, licked and sucked her nipples, kissed his way down the length of her body.

She sighed. Moaned. Experimented with touching him, with trailing light kisses down his belly until she reached his engorged dick and he was crazy with the need for release.

Take her, everything in him said, take her now, hard and fast…

But he held back.

It was worth it just so he could whisper, “My turn,” and roll her on her back.

So he could watch her eyes blur when he tongued her nipples, when he slid his hand between her thighs and stroked her clit, when he moved over her and entered her inch by slow inch, filling her, stretching her until she sobbed his name and he knew he was making her world come apart.

She arched towards him, her cries soft and sweet on the night air as her orgasm begin to claim her.

She was coming because of him.

Because she loved him.