Page 9 of Covert Temptation (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #4)

T he second she stepped on the floor, Dante was wide awake.

Light and tentative. But not quiet enough to get past him.

Years of training had taught him to wake without flinching, to keep his breathing even and his body still while every sense went razor-sharp. In the dark quiet of the Hudson Valley hideaway, the sound of Kennedy’s footstep was as loud as a gunshot.

He didn’t move. Didn’t twitch. Just listened.

Another step. Then two more.

The woman was up to something.

His first thought was that a desperate person would go for his sidearm. But Kennedy was only desperate to leave—he didn’t get any vibes that she wanted to hurt anybody.

Maybe she going for the keys to the SUV.

He could hear the soft scrape of her bare feet on the old wood floor, a sharp contrast to those little high-heeled boots she had on before. He stayed perfectly still, waiting to hear the glide of a drawer opening, or the metallic clink of keys.

But there was nothing but three more footsteps. Great—now she had him counting too.

The silence stretched for another heartbeat before his covers tugged tight across his body and the mattress dipped beside him.

What the hell?

She was crawling into his bed.

Jesus Christ.

His jaw tensed as her body slid in next to his, warm and real and unbelievably close. She fit against his side like she belonged there, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

He turned his head slowly, voice low and rough. “What are you doing?”

“I was cold,” she murmured, already tucking into the crook of his shoulder.

“You feel pretty warm to me.”

“Shh.” Her breath was a soft puff against his skin. “Don’t ruin the moment.”

Then she tilted her face up. Her lips were close—close enough he could taste her breath, warm and minty and unbearably tempting. Her hand brushed across his stomach, fingers grazing bare skin just above the waistband of his sweatpants.

His gut clenched.

Heat poured through him, unyielding .

He’d been holding this in—his reaction to her. Keeping a wall between them, reminding himself of the job, the mission, the consequences.

But her lips were right there.

And her skin was soft where it pressed to his side.

And her scent—coconut shampoo, vanilla lotion—was unraveling the last of his resistance.

“Kennedy.”

“Dante.” His name fell off her lips with the faintest shiver.

“We shouldn’t,” he rasped.

“But we’re going to.” Her voice was whisper-soft, threaded with daring.

Then she kissed him.

He didn’t stand a fucking chance.

Her mouth met his with heat and hunger and zero hesitation. The instant their lips touched, everything inside him snapped. The tight coil of restraint, of control, of pretending he hadn’t wanted her since the very first time he set eyes on her, traitor or not—it all shattered.

He rolled into her, pushing her gently onto her back, his weight braced on one arm beside her head as his other hand slid down the curve of her waist. She gasped into his mouth, arching against him, and the sound undid him.

He’d tried to convince himself that she’d be cold and unresponsive, but he’d been lying to himself.

He deepened the kiss, claiming her tongue in an intertwining dance. She tasted like sweetness and sin, and that soft moan she made when he pressed his hips into hers had him instantly hard and already aching for her.

“Dante,” she breathed, nails grazing the bare planes of his back and raising a rumble in his chest.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he growled against her throat, kissing a path down to the hollow beneath her ear.

“Tell me.”

He tripped over her request, most of his brain cells settled in his throbbing cock. Staring down at her face, he drank in the desire glistening in her deep brown eyes.

“I’ve been trying not to want this.” His throat worked on the forbidden words.

“Stop trying.”

She touched him reverently, palms gliding over muscle and scars and skin burning with the fever of want.

“You’re so big,” she whispered.

Unable to hold back a groan or slow things down—or hell, stop—he took her mouth again. Her plump lips gave way to probing tongues.

She hitched her thigh around his hip, letting him feel every inch of her smooth leg from enticing hip to slender ankle. The nightshirt she wore bunched up to expose the heat of her.

His tongue thickened, along with every inch of his cock.

He stilled.

She wasn’t wearing anything under the shirt. Her pussy was completely bare.

With a moan, she rocked into his already stiff, throbbing length. Christ, he wasn’t going to withstand the torture of Kennedy Bloom, not after his long dry spell and the sparks between them that he spent so much time pretending didn’t exist.

He wished he’d gone to bed in his jeans, but never in a million years could he have guessed she would come to him like this, hot and sweet and wanting.

He skated a hand down her side, fingers twitching on the wadded fabric. When he looked down into her eyes, the depths urged him to do exactly what he was thinking.

Biting off a growl, he leaned away to yank her nightshirt up, over her hipbone, the flat of her stomach and ribs. When his fingers grazed the side of her small breast, her body jerked against his and a soft cry escaped her lips.

Fuck. She was burning for him just as bad as he was her.

He told himself to stop, but the look in her eyes egged him on. Then her nightshirt came off, and he saw her—every inch of her—bathed in the moonlight streaming across the bed.

He forgot every reason why this was a mistake.

She was stunning.

Bare beneath him, her hair fanned across his pillow. Her sensitive lips were already kiss-swollen, her eyes dark with need.

Dipping his head, he kissed her again, slower now. His hands mapped her like he needed to memorize every inch—his palm over her breast, learning the curve and size and the way her small nipple puckered at a single strum of his fingertip.

Neck arched to expose the pulse fluttering there, she issued a shaky rasp.

He continued to explore her body, trailing his fingers down her ribs and across her hip. She bucked into every touch, restless, needy, her fingertips anchored in his spine.

The kiss turned hungrier, the caresses more filled with need.

When he slipped his fingers between her thighs, she gasped.

Soaked.

“Jesus, Kennedy…”

She opened her legs wider for him, her breath ragged now, hips moving in a slow grind against his hand. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t.

He slid a finger into her, then two, curling just right, watching the way her mouth parted, how she reached for him like she needed to feel him everywhere. She was dripping, trembling, whispering his name between clenched teeth.

And it wasn’t enough.

He shimmied his boxer briefs off, positioning himself above her. She reached between them, wrapped her hand around him…and he nearly lost it then and there.

“Condom’s in my bag,” he grated out, cursing himself for not having them within reach.

“I’m on birth control. And I’m clean.”

Fuck.

He would only last two pumps if he slipped inside her bareback, but he heard himself respond. “I’m clean too.”

“Dante…” She rolled her hips, pressing her slick heat against the length of him. One shift and he’d be buried inside her tight walls.

“You sure?” His voice came out hoarse, as if he’d bellowed through an all-night raid.

“Stop talking and do it,” she whispered, pulling him to her.

He almost laughed at the Kennedy he knew, the one who gave him mouthiness instead of her lips to kiss.

He didn’t wait another second.

In one long, aching stroke, he slid into her, groaning against her shoulder at how tight, how perfect she felt wrapped around him. She gasped and clung to him, nails biting into his back now, legs locking around his hips.

He moved slowly at first, savoring every inch. Every soft cry she gave. But soon, the rhythm built between them, faster, harder. Their bodies tangled. Her breath in his ear and his name on her lips spurring him on until all he could think was more .

She matched him for every thrust, every grind, meeting him with heat and fire and need. The sound of their bodies moving, the soft creak of the bed, the wet, slick heat between them—it drove him wild.

Her climax hit fast and hard, pulling a moan from her throat as she arched beneath him, shaking apart.

He followed right after, burying himself deep and spilling into her with a groan that felt torn from his chest.

When it was over, he stayed inside her, chest heaving, their bodies slick and intertwined.

Neither of them said a word for a long moment.

Then, softly, she whispered against his shoulder, “Still think we shouldn’t?”

His hand slid to her hip, holding her tight against him.

“We shouldn’t,” he said again, but his voice had none of its earlier conviction.

“And yet…” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his jaw.

And yet.

He didn’t pull away.

Didn’t move.

Because she was still warm in his arms.

And there was no part of him ready to let her go.

* * * * *

Every single inch of Kennedy’s body pulsed like a live wire. She guessed at the passion locked up behind Dante’s steel doors, and she’d been right.

He was a fantastic lover. Amazing. The best she’d had.

Of course, she wouldn’t tell him that. No need to make the man’s ego grow even bigger than it already was.

Her head rested on his muscled shoulder, his warm skin the perfect pillow for her cheek. Neither of them spoke or moved, though a restlessness was already growing in her core just from being tangled up with him.

Their mingled release dampened her inner thighs, the sensation totally new and unusual. Never in her life had she allowed a man to take her without protection, and she didn’t know what madness took over her now. But she didn’t have regrets.

It sort of…turned her on again.

She rubbed her thighs together, feeling the slip of his cum there.

Dante groaned and planted a hand on her waist to still her movement. “If you keep doing that, you’re going to end up in trouble.”

“I like trouble…at least this kind of trouble.”