Page 13 of Shielding his Legacy (Shattered SEALs #7)

Gavin was on his feet in an instant, his hand on her elbow to stop her from leaving. “I wasn’t horrified when you showed up at the office, Eva. I was devastated.”

She yanked her arm away. “Oh, that’s much better.”

He was fucking this up like he’d fucked up that weekend, only this time it was his words that were screwing him over and not his raging mind. “No. I was devastated because of what I did to you. You got pregnant because of what I did.”

“I got pregnant because I chose to have sex with you.”

His own self-loathing mixed with his desperate desire to fix a mistake he could never unmake. He took a step closer, needing her to understand. “You got pregnant because I… I…” He roughly ran a hand through his hair. “I forced myself on you in the middle of the night without a condom.”

She tried to say something, but he couldn’t stop now that he’d started speaking the words that needed to be said.

He jabbed his finger toward the kitchen where Abby slept.

“That’s why that little girl exists. Because I did something terrible, unimaginable.

I didn’t mean to, but I did, and I ruined your life.

I hate myself for it, Evie. Worst of all, I can’t trust myself tonight with you under the same roof, and it disgusts me that I’m a bigger threat to you than anybody out there. ”

He wasn’t saying anything she didn’t already know, but there was some relief to be had in saying the words that so desperately needed to be said. “And I’m so goddamn sorry, sweetheart. I am so fucking sorry.”

Her hand touched his face, startling him with her tenderness. “No, Gavin. That’s not what happened at all.”

He pulled away. “That’s exactly what happened. You weren’t even awake when I entered you.” Self-hatred crackled inside his rib cage as the memory circled in his mind like a caged animal.

Redness had filled her cheeks, making her looked flushed and inviting, his desire to drag her to the ground and bury himself inside her only illustrating his point in living color.

“I wanted you inside me,” she said. “Waking up to you entering me was the most erotic sensation I’ve ever felt.”

Her voice was husky, and his body responded viscerally even as his nervous system steeped in self-hatred. She was exonerating him, and he couldn’t let her do that. They were not her sins to forgive. “I had my hand on your throat.”

The quick rise and fall of her chest stole his attention as she sidled up to him, nearly touching his body with her own. “You held me down so I couldn’t move, but you didn’t force yourself on me. I wanted you so badly. I loved how you made me be still—”

“Stop it.” He bit off the words as memories assailed him.

It had been all he could do not to kill her, barely restraining the dragon that had clawed at him and resisted his attempts to tame it.

He’d grappled with his desires in the dark, desperate to save her from his efforts to overtake her body with his own.

Why the hell was she doing this? Why was she acting as if she wanted everything that happened in that room, wanted him to come inside her, the selfish pumping of his straining cock chaining her forever to his child?

He was rock hard, barely able to hold himself in check as the images awoke the desperate need inside him, and he felt the dragon stir once more.

Her irises dilated, her pupils taking over that stunning blue gaze and turning her eyes nearly black. “I wanted you, Gavin. I wanted your hand on my neck, holding me down.” Reaching for his hand, she brought it to her throat. “Can’t you feel it? I still want you, now.”

“God fucking help me,” he said under his breath, his head swooping down to capture her mouth, his fingers tracing the tendons of her neck as he used his other hand to haul her against his body.

She fit so perfectly there, so rightly, her hips eagerly pressing into his and rocking against his ready shaft as he plundered her mouth with his own.

The dragon breathed fire into his bloodstream. He was bigger than her, stronger, a solid wall of muscle to the softness of her supple frame. “No, no,” he muttered, determined to keep the beast away as Eva lifted one leg and curled it around his hip.

“It’s okay,” she said, mimicking the way he’d soothed her tears.

He broke his mouth away from hers. “Don’t you understand? I can’t control it. I don’t know what I’ll do to you.”

She ground herself against him and tightened her bended leg. Wrapping her hands around the back of his neck to support her weight, she lifted her other leg around him. “Hold me.”

He couldn’t have stopped the movement of his hands if he’d tried, his greedy grip coming beneath her to support her ass as she fitted herself intimately against him. She kissed his mouth, her lips and tongue hot and wet as a growl of pleasure rose up from his throat.

“Goddamn it, I don’t want to hurt you,” he ground out between kisses.

Moving across his jawline, she kissed her way up to his ear. “What if I said please?”

The dragon reared up, inspired and desperate to mate, and something inside Gavin gave way. He lost control, pressing her against the wall and pinning her with his hips as his right hand moved to one sweet, full breast.

His mouth was on a desperate search for skin as he lifted her higher and worked his way down, inhaling the scent of her body.

He sought out her nipple, lifting her shirt and pulling down the cup of her bra to expose the rosy brown peak.

A tiny drop of milk appeared on the tip, and he bent his head to taste it with a groan.

The sweet liquid dribbled into his mouth as he latched onto her, suckling with an animalistic need.

She whimpered desperately and his arm moved up of its own accord, holding her head flat against the drywall by pinning her neck with his forearm.

There was no mistaking her heavy panting breaths, or the hot flush that covered her chest.

Eva could breathe despite the pressure—he could hear her rhythmic gasps. She was crazy with sexual need, and he knew with stone cold certainty that neither of them had moved beyond that weekend in the hotel. They were both stuck there, together, unable to let go of each other and move on.

There were condoms in his nightstand, and he moved back to her mouth for more kisses before lifting her off the wall and solely in his arms for the trek upstairs, just as Abby’s lonely cry echoed through the cabin.

“Shit,” whispered Eva as Gavin straightened, the haze of sexual urgency clearing in the wake of the baby’s wails.

She pulled his head to hers as he carefully released her weight, her forehead pressed against his as her legs slipped down his body and her feet touched the floor.

She cursed again and let out a single frustrated sob. “I want you so much.”

The mere idea that his goals could be thwarted by a tiny human was completely new territory for Gavin, and it struck him that more had changed in his world in the past twenty-four hours than in the past twenty-four years. “There’ll be time. After.”

Abby escalated her efforts to a piercing wail and Eva straightened, stepping back from him.

Her breast was still exposed, a drop of milk slipping down the curved surface like a tear down a cheek.

Gavin swallowed hard. Her lactating breasts added an entirely new dimension to lovemaking—one he was eager to explore.

From this first experience, it was obvious she did find his mouth on her to be sexually stimulating, but he had many more experiments to conduct.

He’d always had a passion for science.

Watching as Eva jogged into the kitchen, he followed her to the doorway and leaned back against the frame. What a picture they made, this woman and child—his woman and child.

The blood in his veins turned to ice water in an instant.

Twenty minutes ago, he considered himself a fundamental threat to Eva’s health and happiness. Now after a few gentle words and a little heavy petting, he was calling her his woman? Abby was his flesh and blood—his responsibility—and he’d always take care of her. But Eva was a different story.

Maybe she was right, and he hadn’t crossed the line the night Abby was conceived. He sincerely hoped that was true. But that didn’t mean he was safe for her to be around, that he suddenly made decent relationship material, or that he was capable of being there for her and sharing her life.

It wasn’t fair to saddle Eva with a man like him, a broken man incapable of all the tenderness and depth of feeling she deserved.

He scratched his jaw just as Eva looked up and grinned at him, the baby squeezing little fistfuls of boob as Abby drank her fill. Gavin grinned back, knowing full well the gesture didn’t reach his eyes.

A single kiss wasn’t powerful enough to kill a dragon.

Eva was off-limits for her own good. Because when the bad guys were gone, she would go back to her world with their baby in tow, and he couldn’t lie to her in the meantime or pretend they’d be better off with him there.

The rumble of an engine in the distance snagged his attention. A vehicle was driving near the house, and his senses instantly went on high alert. He crossed to a kitchen cupboard in three long strides, his mind already playing out scenarios.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He considered downplaying his concerns, but in the end found no reason to do so. Eva was strong. She’d proven that time and again. He pulled out his Sig Sauer and loaded the magazine with a satisfying click. “You hear that car?”

“Yes. What are you doing?”

“Cars don’t come by here.”

“Ever?”

“No. It’s all private property, one single landlocked parcel, and you’re sitting in the only house on it.”

She shrugged. “They must be lost.”

“Maybe. Or maybe they aren’t.” He grabbed a knife, a second magazine for his gun, and a taser, the last of which was in a simple holster he strapped to his thigh.

Glancing at her face, he saw intense anxiety clearly registering in their depths.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said, wanting to believe it but not believing it at all.

“It’s not like there’s any way they could connect you to me, or this address. I’m just being cautious.”

He turned on his heel and headed for the backdoor, not seeing the fear that transformed Eva’s features.

Because beyond the baby, there was one thing connecting them both.

One single piece of paper she had wrestled with before completing in a determined flourish, one that had been filed in more government databases than she cared to count.

Government databases to which police had access, just like the location of her compromised safehouse. She suddenly realized she and Abby weren’t safe here at all, and the odds of that vehicle being a mere lost driver were even slimmer than Gavin believed.

“Sweet Jesus,” she whispered. She hurriedly got to her feet and ran for cover, all semblance of safety wiped from her understanding in the space of a single heartbeat.

“Gavin!” she snapped, and he turned toward her, one hand on the doorknob.

“The birth certificate. Your name’s on Abby’s birth certificate. ”

He cursed under his breath, then nodded once before stepping into the unknown. Their Safe Haven wasn’t safe at all, and the enemy was closing in fast.