Page 22 of Stealthy Seduction (SEAL Team Blackout Charlie #5)

He stepped through the doorway and stopped short, taking in the transformation to his stark military-issue space. The surprise on his face melted into a smile that tugged at her insides with a sensation she was beginning to crave.

“What do you think?” She couldn’t manage to keep the nervous dip from her voice.

Slowly, he closed the door…and twisted the lock.

Her insides seized.

“You nailed it. This looks like a scene from a classic movie.”

“I thought if we were going to have a rematch, we should do it properly.” She gestured toward the cigars lying beside the bowl of nuts. “Sinner said these are the good ones. Cubans.”

Hudson neared the table, his brows shooting upward. “You convinced Sinner to give up his cigars? I’m impressed. The man guards those things like they’re made of gold.”

“I can be very persuasive when I want to be.” She waved toward the opposite seat, and Hudson sank to it with the grace of an Olympian. Her hands itched to touch him. To run her palms all over those hardened muscles and lean in and press her lips to the steely warmth of his flesh.

The intimate setup charged the space between them with possibility. To stay on task, she picked up the cards and began to expertly shuffle them.

He looked into her eyes for so long that her head started to swirl as all the blood rushed to a place much, much lower in her body. He dipped his stare to her breasts and the blouse she’d unbuttoned to reveal more cleavage than she would ever show on the six o’clock news.

“And here I thought you were out to take more of my money.”

She smiled into his eyes. “Oh, I’m definitely going to take more of your money.” The cards made a riffling sound as she sent the cards arcing. “But I figure if I’m going to crush your dreams, I should do it in style.”

Hudson drew up straighter, his chest expanding as he inhaled deeply. “I’ve been thinking about that since the first night we played.”

She tilted her head, giving him a slow flash of her eyes. “Have you now? Thinking about how I outplayed you?” She dealt the cards and arranged her own, pleased to find a decent pair in her hand.

“Thinking about how I knew I was in trouble the minute you smiled at me from across the table.”

Her breath hitched. His admission had her pulse beating faster. “Trouble how?”

He concentrated on his cards when he said, “The kind of trouble that makes a man forget everything else he’s supposed to be doing.” Over the fan of cards, his gaze met hers. “The kind that makes him start planning ways to keep that smile around on a permanent basis.”

Ohhh… Did she really hear him correctly?

“That sounds like a dangerous game, Hudson Steele.”

“The most dangerous game I’ve ever played. And I’m finding I don’t much care about the risks anymore.”

Her stomach tingled in response. Somehow, she won that hand with her pair of queens, but victory felt secondary to the way he was looking at her—like she was something precious he’d been searching for without knowing it.

“You’re getting predictable,” she teased, gathering the chips. “I can tell when you’re bluffing now.”

“Can you?” He leaned back in his chair, a challenge in his voice. “What about now? Am I bluffing now when I tell you that I’ve been thinking about kissing you since the moment I walked into this room?”

Her breath caught. “I’d say that’s not a bluff.”

“You’d be right.”

The cards forgotten, they stared at each other across the small table. The air between them thrummed with innuendo and desire.

She gulped. “We should probably finish the game.” Her voice came out slightly strained.

“Probably.” He made no move to pick up the cards.

“Unless…” She let the word hang between them, a question and an invitation all at once.

“Unless what?”

“Unless you’re interested in raising the stakes.”

His eyes darkened with interest, glittering with the dark lust that made her stomach coil. “What did you have in mind?”

“Strip poker.” The words came out with more confidence than she felt, but the way his lungs seemed to stop made her glad she’d taken the risk.

For a moment, he just stared at her, and she worried she’d overplayed her hand. Then that slow, devastating smile spread across his face again.

“Izzy Cruz.” His tone rough with something that made her stomach flutter. “You don’t know the half of what you do to me.”

His claim sent a stab of heat between her thighs. “Is that a yes?”

“Deal the cards.”

The game took on an entirely different energy after that. Each hand became an exercise in calculated risk and barely controlled desire. When she lost the first round, she took her time working the line of buttons on her blouse.

It hit the floor with theatrical flair.

“Your poker face isn’t helping you now.” He ran his tongue over his hard bottom lip as he stared at her breasts in her pushup bra.

“How did you know I was bluffing?” She sounded as if she’d run up ten flights of stairs.

He directed a look at her thumb.

She quickly slid her hand under the table, but she couldn’t be annoyed that Hudson had picked up on her habit of tucking her thumb into her fist whenever she got anxious.

The game resumed with an even heavier rope of tension between them. When he lost the next, his shirt followed, revealing the sculpted chest she’d been trying not to think about all evening.

When she won again, his belt joined the growing pile of discarded clothing. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Damn right I am.” She couldn’t keep the satisfied smile from her face. “Though I have to say, your game isn’t nearly as good when the stakes are personal.”

“Personal, huh?” He dealt the next hand with deliberate slowness. “Is that what this is?”

“What do you think it is?”

He set his cards aside without looking at them to study her face instead. “I think,” he said, standing slowly and moving around the table toward her, “that I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you right now.”

Her heart hammered against her ribs as he approached, the intensity in his eyes making it hard to think. “Hudson…”

“I think,” he continued, his hands bracing on the arms of her chair as he leaned down, “that I’m tired of playing games.”

“Are you forfeiting?” she said on a sigh, tilting her head back to meet his gaze.

“I’m changing the rules.”

Before she could ask what he meant, his hands were on the edge of the table, and with one fluid motion, he sent the cards, chips, and untouched cigars scattering across the bedroom floor.

The crash was loud in the quiet room, but she barely heard it over the sound of her own pulse thundering in her ears.

“Hudson,” she whispered, but he was already pulling her to her feet, his hands framing her face with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the urgency in his movements.

“Tell me to stop.” His chest heaved as he rested his forehead against hers. “Tell me this isn’t what you want, and I’ll walk away right now.”

That statement was locked and loaded. In that moment, she knew he wasn’t only talking about taking her to bed.

Stopping was the last thing she wanted. After everything they’d been through, and with the growing certainty that he’d become essential to her in ways she was still discovering, being in his arms felt like coming home after a long journey through dangerous territory.

“Don’t you dare walk away.” She was already reaching for him. “Don’t you dare.”

Their lips met with a force that left her spinning. Passion raged between their lips and tongues, and she met him stroke for stroke.

Raking her fingers lightly down his back, she dragged him closer until skin heated skin. She gasped beneath his kiss, then suddenly, she was weightless, cradled in his arms as he carried her two steps to the bed and laid her down.

With his body braced over hers, she looked into his eyes. “You need to consider getting a bigger bed.”

“I’ve got everything I need. Right here.

” He claimed her mouth again in a kiss that spiraled into something stronger, deeper, leaving her with an ache that stole her breath and bound her to him, body and soul, until the rest of the world faded away and there was nothing left but the two of them, tangled in need and the promise of more.

His kiss was fire and hunger, and threaded through it was something gentler, something that made her heart squeeze—complete ownership wrapped in tenderness.

The heat of his chest burned through her skin, and she arched, wordlessly begging for more contact. His hands skimmed along her sides, mapping her, memorizing her curves as if he’d been starved for this. Starved for her.

“Hudson,” she whispered against his mouth, half plea, half declaration.

In the aesthetic glow of the room, his gaze was molten with desire but glimmered with something else—something she didn’t dare name yet.

He brushed his thumb over her swollen lower lip. And then his mouth was on hers again, and the world fell away. The kiss spiraled into a deeper ache, into an urgency that had her gripping his shoulders, nails biting into his skin.

His groan was raw and guttural, and it sent a fresh wave of heat racing through her veins.

His kisses trailed down her throat, lips lingering at the hollow there, then lower still, until her back bowed off the bed in offering. In hurried movements, they tore off each other’s clothes.

His mouth was back on her before she could blink, his tongue tracing lazy circles around her peaked nipples, teasing, then sucking hard enough to make her cry out.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, guiding him, unable to keep still. Her body was a live wire, every nerve ending sparking under his touch.

“Hudson, please! I need…” The words spilled out, breathless, shameless.

He knew exactly what she needed.

In a swift move, he stretched out between her legs, his eyes gleaming up at her as he guided her knees apart, pressing them back and holding her there…

Then buried his tongue inside her. The tight clench of need stole her every thought. She barely contained her cries of bliss as he dragged his tongue through her slippery folds and applied pressure to her clit.

She rocked. Bucked. Raked her fingers along his scalp, urging, urging. The explosion inside her came swift and boundless. With a hard jerk, she came apart, shaking and begging.

Begging for what? She hardly knew. All she wanted was right here in this room. The man making love to her was all she’d ever dreamed of finding.

Her body pulsed on the waves until he brought her down with a final shuddering sigh.

He lifted his head, his mouth slick and hungry, his chest rising and falling with restraint. “I want to take my time, Izzy. I want to remember every second with you.”

Her heart clenched at the raw honesty in his voice. But her body screamed for more. Now.

She pulled him down again, kissed him hard. “Then don’t hold back. Not with me.”

The last tether of his control snapped. He yanked open the drawer of the nightstand and ripped open a condom packet. She watched through hooded eyes as he pushed onto his knees and slid the condom over his long, stiff cock.

She surged upward to capture his lips in a wild kiss as he lifted her off the bed. The broad head of his cock slid against her folds, and she moaned, lifting her hips in demand.

In one slick shove, he filled her with his cock.

“Hudson!”

“Oh Christ, honey.”

The way he drawled that sweet endearment had changed since he first used it. He’d made himself her protector. Then her lover.

Now…he was so much more.

He pressed forward, slow at first, stretching her, filling her until she gasped, clutching at him like she might shatter apart.

“God, Izzy,” he groaned, his forehead dropping to hers. “You feel so good. So damn good.”

The stretch gave way to a delicious fullness, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, anchoring him to her. “Don’t stop,” she murmured against his mouth.

He didn’t. Each movement drove him deeper, harder, until the bed creaked beneath them.

But for every ounce of force, there was equal tenderness—his hand cradling her head, his lips scattering kisses along her cheek, her jaw, her mouth.

Her body clenched around him, pleasure mounting higher and higher until she thought she might break. He reached between them, thumb finding her swollen bud, pressing, circling in time with his thrusts.

She splintered again. The climax ripped through her, fierce and unstoppable, her cries muffled against his shoulder. Her body pulsed around him, drawing him deeper, dragging him over the edge with her, where he belonged.

Hudson growled her name, the sound raw and possessive, and thrust one last time before he spilled into her in hot, hard jerks. He held her tight, his body trembling with the force of it, his breath ragged against her ear.

For long moments, the room was nothing but the sound of their mingled breathing and the pounding of two hearts beating in sync.

Finally, he shifted just enough to look at her. His face was damp with sweat, his hair sticking to his temples, but his eyes—God, his eyes—were open and unguarded in a way she’d never seen before.

Izzy cupped his cheek, her thumb scraping over the stubble there. “That was…” She trailed off, searching for words that didn’t exist.

“Yeah,” he said, his lips quirking in a rare smile. “It was.”

She laughed softly, pressing her forehead to his. But even as her body basked in the afterglow, her mind twisted with questions. What did this mean? What were they now?

As if he could read the jumble in her head, he kissed her softly, tenderly.

“Izzy, I don’t know what tomorrow looks like.

Hell, I can’t promise I’ll even have a tomorrow.

But right now?” His voice roughened, his gaze locking with hers.

“Right now, I want you to know you’re important.

You’re…you’re something I didn’t know I needed. ”

Her chest tightened painfully, hope surging in her throat. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe this wasn’t just sex, wasn’t just adrenaline after danger.

That it could be more.

Her hand slid over his heart, feeling its steady rhythm beneath her palm. “Then maybe we figure it out. One day at a time.”

His lips curved, soft and sure. He pulled her close again, wrapping her in his arms. “One day at a time.”

Wrapped in his embrace, Izzy let her eyes drift shut. For the first time in years, she felt something she’d nearly forgotten how to feel—hope.

And maybe, just maybe, love.