Page 22 of Zorro

No hesitation. No fumbling. Just turned, muscle coiling around her as he carried her down the hall like she was some kind of royal chaos-wrapped burrito.

She was pressed against his chest, her heartbeat synced to his, her nose tucked against his neck where he smelled like soap and man and skin that had been kissed by some divine sunlight.

She didn’t know whether to cry or combust.

When they reached her door, he shifted her like she was nothing, one arm tightening as the other pulled her keycard from the side of her conference bag, which he’d miraculously snagged from the floor without dropping her. Of course he had.

The lock clicked green.

He slipped his arms around her waist and started to lower her.

But he didn’t just set her down. Oh no.

He let her slide.

Her body grazed his all the way down—slow, full contact, her chest against his ribs, her stomach skimming those infuriating abs, her thighs brushing the edge of that vee, and she tried, really tried, not to whimper.

Her feet hit the carpet. Too fast. Too soft. She stumbled. Naturally. Zorro’s hand caught her elbow. Her curse hit the air before she could swallow it. “Shit.”

He grinned. That grin. Molasses and heat and a thousand bad decisions.

Right then, right there, something broke loose inside her.

What if I kissed him for real? What if he kissed me back?

Not because he was vulnerable. Not because she was grieving. But because she wanted to, because she could.

Her three brain cells tried to stage a rebellion. They whispered that she was seconds from meltdown. A full, no-holds-barred, lost-her-fucking-mind freefall. That if she kissed him now, he would take even more of her as effortlessly as he had already absorbed pieces of her since the moment she’d met him.

But then Zorro’s voice cut in, low and warm. “I’m headed to the pool. My family’s down there.”

She blinked. Family? Wasn’t he more than enough?

He smiled again, slower this time. “Want to join us? I’d love for you to meet them. They’ve heard all about you.”

She stared. “What? You told them how we fight all the time? About my terrible bedside manner. What a shrew I am?”

He leaned in. One palm hit the wall beside her head, then the other. Arms caging her in like a personal bicep fortress, muscles flexed, scent curling around her like comfort and danger made a baby.

“No, Everly,” he murmured. “I told them all about this amazing doc in Niamey. The one who stitched us up with a sassy bedside manner and scared half my team into drinking their water like good little boys.”

She wanted to crawl into a hole. A dark, quiet, sanity-saving hole.

Instead, she stood there, barely upright, her body still recovering from vertical foreplay, her heart punching her ribs, her brain begging for oxygen to save her from herself.

How was she supposed to hold on to her sanity, her estrogen, and her heart with just two hands around this man?

She was trembling slightly, every cell in her body warring with what she thought she knew was true and what she was pretending was true.

Zorro’s arms were still braced around her, the heat of him cupping around her ribcage like a living gauntlet. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, eyes darting everywhere except his mouth, which only made her think about his mouth.

What that mouth had done to her, and what it might do again.

She blinked rapidly. He could almost see her scrambling for a reason, an out, any flimsy excuse to shut the door on this moment.

But nothing came.

No brilliant deflection. No sarcasm. No retreat.