Page 74

Story: Special Ops Seduction

He kissed her until she was trembling. Until he thought he might start shaking, too. And somehow, somewhere in there, they were both laughing. Breathless and beautiful, there against the door, with only that kiss between them.

“Are you trying to kill me?” she asked, her voice in a whisper.

“Not necessarily,” he said.

Then he got his hands on her. The pajamas she was wearing were so soft it made him shudder, but her skin waseven better. And he couldn’t get enough of her, flushed and hot andhis.

He knew better than to let that word take root, but he didn’t have it in him—not tonight—to fight it off.

This time, when he took her mouth, it was harder. Deeper. Wilder. He got a hand in her hair. He had the other one down the back of those distractingly soft bottoms, and she responded in kind. She surged into him, pressing herself against him so that all he could feel was the temptation of her breasts against the T-shirt he wore.

And she was as hungry as he was, finding her way beneath his T-shirt, her hands against his abdomen and then, better still, at the waistband of his trousers.

“No,” he told her, and found himself laughing again. Like a normal person—but he wasn’t going there, either. Not tonight. “We’re taking it slow.”

“I did not sign up for slow.”

“Tough,” he said against her mouth, like a different sort of kiss.

And then he bent down and picked her up, enjoying the weight of her in his arms. She was far more solid and dense than she looked, because she was made of lean muscle. And those sweet curves. He never wanted to put her down, especially because she looked at him that way, a little bit starry-eyed, like no one else had ever bothered to try to lift her.

Idiots.

He carried her over to the couch that waited across the room, deep and soft and unquestionably girlie in all the ways he would have sworn were part of that mask she’d worn in California. Something cracked in him at the notion that she was always both versions of herself—it was just a question of what she chose to show.

Jonas settled her on the couch and then knelt down before her, taking in every last detail about this woman who was his torment. His temptation. His treat. Her eyes weregleaming now, with the same lust and longing that flared so hot in him.

He’d messed up her hair so it was tousled, still begging for his hands. Those pajama bottoms were a little too low and falling off one hip, which matched the way her top drooped down her arm, showing him the better part of one breast.

Jonas thought he might explode.

She was the one thing on the planet that threatened his control, and here, with his hands on her body and that look on her face, was the only place that it didn’t bother him.

He smoothed his hands down the soft fabric that covered her thighs, then pulled it along with him, grinning when she greedily lifted her hips to help him along. Underneath, she was naked.

That went to his head like a bullet.

“Sometimes,” he told her, though he shouldn’t, “you’re so beautiful it distracts me. Out on a job.”

She blinked. And then, while he watched, a smile spread over her face. Until it seemed to him that even her freckles were glowing.

“Careful, Jonas,” she murmured. “All these hearts and flowers might go to my head.”

He didn’t answer her with words. Instead, he slid down to his knees at the side of the couch. He slid his hands beneath her, hauling her forward to the edge of the cushion, and then he buried his face between her legs.

Because he had to know if she tasted the way she looked.

A moment later, he knew. She was much, much sweeter.

Unimaginably hotter.

And he was a goner.

But if this was the way he was finally going to go, he was more than happy with it. He licked his way into her, determined to drown.

It was almost easy to ignore the clamoring in his own body as Bethan softened and shook beneath his mouth, hishands. The noises she made, greedy and sweet, went straight to the place he was hardest and only spurred him on.

And only when he’d made her call out his name a few times did he move on, peeling off her soft cloud of a top so he could finally see all of her in the warm, buttery light.