Page 39

“I… I have to tell you something,” I mumbled.

Beneath the cuts on his face, Devyn’s expression remained wholly unchanged. I got the impression he was staring through my eyes and past my soul. Maybe even into that small, secret place I’d let very few people.

“I just got back to New York yesterday,” I admitted. “I spent the whole week out in the desert… with Gage and Maverick.”

There was no shock, no surprise. No anger or disappointment, either.

“I know.”

My mouth dropped open. “Youdo?”

“Of course,” he sniffed casually. “They tell me everything.”

I hesitated, but only for a second. “Everything?”

Slowly, definitively, Devyn nodded.

For a brief moment my stomach dropped away, like an elevator taking off abruptly. The longer I stared at him however, the more I realized it didn’t matter. At least not to him.

“I was hoping you’d be back,” I said truthfully. “Although the guys said you probably wouldn’t. At least not for a month or more.”

“That’s generally the case, yeah.”

“And there was this raging desert storm,” I told him. “A really bad one. We got stuck inside, but that was the first night,” I admitted, “and then the storm passed. And after that, well, I don’t know. I just… stayed.”

He was still staring, still looking back at me impassively, and thankfully without judgment. But was that the hint of asmileI saw now, at the corners of his mouth?

“I needed the time away,” I said, as if that explained things. “I didn’t realize it until I’d left, but getting out of the city really… well it really—”

Devyn’s hands slipped to my waist, pulling me in. Engulfing my body with his two strong arms, as he pinned me against his chest.

And then suddenly he waskissingme.

It happened fast but I responded even faster, inhaling his sweet tongue into my mouth and swirling it with my own. I’d dreamt of this moment so many times. I’d brought pleasure to myself just imagining what kissing this perfect specimen of a man might be like, and now it was actually happening, in the middle of Central Park with the whole world looking on.

I let my fingers roam hungrily through his long dark hair, being careful not to brush the tips against the sides of his shrapnel-scratched face. But I wanted to kiss those wounds, too. I wanted very badly to make them better for him, and to take whatever suffering he went through on myself, if for no other reason than to ease his discomfort.

But it was only the kissing that mattered now. The crushing of Devyn’s lips against mine, as our bodies continued undulating warmly against each other. Yet as much pent-up passion and emotion was coming from my end, I could sense the same feelings from him as well. The dark-haired SEAL had certainly thought about this. In fact he’d probably even waited patiently for it, while dutifully completing whatever mission had taken him so quickly and rudely away.

We kissed like lovers for a full minute before breaking away. When we finally did, I must’ve looked like a deer caught in a pair of headlights.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since the day you showed up at my door,” Devyn murmured.

We were still standing face to face, heads together. Shyly I looked up at him, and returned his now obvious smile.

“I’ve wanted to do that for even longer,” I admitted to him. “So much longer.”

I was dying for him to kiss me again. I could think of nothing else but the fullness of his lips, the enormous strength of his arms. The slow, steady rhythm of his heart beating against mine.

He didn’t kiss me though. Instead, he tilted his head.

“Do you still want a baby by me?”

I swallowed hard, then nodded fervently. My whole body felt like it was on fire. “More than anything.”

Devyn slipped something into my hand. Something thin and familiar.

When I looked down, I could see it was a hotel key.