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“Fine,” Jonas snapped. “I’ll shut you up.”

And then he did.

With his mouth.

Ten

It was that freaking dress.

Jonas could have ignored the provocation. He’d been ignoring it for years.

But the Bethan he’d learned how to ignore was always dressed like a soldier. Even when she was off duty in Fool’s Cove, she tended toward the same kind of basic, essentially unisex clothing they all wore. Cargo pants. Tactical gear. Cold-weather staples. If he had to think about it—something he’d obviously avoided like the plague—he would probably conclude that she dressed the way she did deliberately, because she was a woman stuck deep in a job and a life otherwise populated by men. Bethan liked to outrun, outfight, and outshoot men, but she never seemed remotely interested in otherwise courting their attention.

Jonas had only ever seen her in a dress once before, at Blue and Everly’s wedding, but it had been September in Alaska. The dress she’d worn had been long and billowy and she’d worn a long sweater on top of it, so all he’d reallyhad to contend with was the sight of her hair down around her shoulders, too glossy by far.

This was different.

He could see her strong, beautifully shaped legs. And so muchskin. And he was only a man, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise.

Kissing her was like running toward a cliff, then hurling himself off it at top speed.

He knew that the impact was going to hurt. That it might even crush him.

But the falling part was almost too good to bear.

He took her face in his hands and he angled his head, and it was already a disaster in the making, so he thought he might as well make it good.

And maybe, finally, give in to the voices inside him that had been clamoring for something like this for longer than he cared to admit.

She tasted like hope and heat. Her mouth fused to his, slick and hot, and it was almost like getting kicked in the gut.

If there was a way to get kicked in the gut in a good way, that was.

She flowed into him, and that made everything worse. Or better. Because the dress she was wearing was no reasonable barrier at all, and that meant he could feel her.

Everywhere.

Her breasts crushed against his chest. The sweet slope of an abdomen he’d always known was toned but had had the opportunity to study over the past few days, thanks to her running gear. Looking at her had been torture.Feelingher was worse.

Feeling anything at all was a disaster. Ruinous by any metric.

But he didn’t stop.

Because there wasn’t a single thing about kissing Bethan that Jonas didn’t love.

The way she kissed him back. How strong and supple she was, telling him without words that she could take anything he brought her way. Take it, give it back, and together, make this fire burn even higher.

His hands didn’t stay where he put them. He ran them down the length of her back, growling his approval when she arched into him. Then, finally, he got his hands on her bottom, another object of study over the course of years. He didn’t know if she jumped or he hauled her closer, but then she was high in his arms, wrapping her legs tight around his waist.

He kissed her harder, deeper.

And somehow they staggered across the room, and he was tipping her back against the wall so he could hold her there with his chest and devour her.

Because there was nothing breakable about Bethan. He didn’t have to hold himself back. He didn’t have to be careful—and when he tried, because it was his instinct, she bit him.

“Ouch,” he growled against her mouth.

“I’m not fragile,” she replied, and yanked his mouth back to hers.