Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

Nash didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her words echoed in his ears like a shot across the bow, complex and unrelenting.

Come for me if you want what’s real.

He braced both hands on the frame, forehead pressed to the cool wood. His breath came fast and shallow, like he’d just sprinted miles and wasn’t sure he’d stopped. She’d left the door open. Not just unlocked. Open. Goddamn her. No. Not her. Goddamn him.

She’d stood her ground, fierce, certain, and it hadn’t been for him. It had been because of him. She’d delivered an ultimatum with quiet fire, and the regret would gut him if he let her walk away without answering it. The door wasn’t closed unless he closed it.

That sliver of space, that fragile, defiant slice of hope, beckoned .

He dropped his fists to his sides and backed away slowly. Turned toward the gym bag like it was the only thing keeping him sane. But sanity felt slippery now. His pulse thundered, blood too hot, thoughts a blur of too much. Her voice. Her body. Her truth.

He hit the bag once. Twice. Again. Harder. Every strike shook his shoulders, echoed in his bones. Maybe, maybe, his fear had never really been about overwhelming her .

Maybe it was about losing himself.

If he gave in, if he stepped through that door, there was no going back to who he was before her. No more coasting on autopilot. No more keeping his demons at bay with sweat and silence and strangers whose names he never learned.

She was asking for him, not the warrior, not the shield, not the mask. Him. The man beneath it all.

That meant he’d have to slow down. Stop running. Start feeling.

To let her in, he’d have to sit still with what he’d buried. All the chaos, the ache, the ghosts of the brothers he’d lost and the ones he hadn’t. The rhythm of loss that had become his fucked-up world.

Stillness had always felt like surrender. But what if it was the only way to heal?

What if slowing down wasn’t weakness? What if slowing down meant honoring what they’d died for? He exhaled hard and sagged against the mirror. The reflection that stared back at him wasn’t calm or steady. It wasn’t even whole. It was human. Raw. Broken. Wanting.

Maybe pain didn’t have to be his purpose.

He wiped the sweat from his face, pushed a trembling hand through his damp hair.

His body throbbed with want, every muscle still humming with the heat of her. His cock had been hard since she touched him, since she whispered that dare, since she laid him bare without laying a hand on his soul. He could still smell her, faint jasmine and steel, and it pulsed through him like voltage. Pure biology. Raw libido. A need that coiled deep and dark and so brutally honest he couldn’t breathe around it.

But it wasn’t just sex. It was his heart on the line now, and he knew it.

He’d prayed, once, for relief. For the ache to pass. For control. Today, he prayed for courage. How could he mourn them fully, when some part of him still believed they were dead because of him ?

Grieving meant believing he had the right to, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe stillness wasn’t just terrifying because it forced him to feel. Maybe it was because feeling would mean facing it. All of it. He wasn’t sure he could survive that.

But maybe that was the choice. Not surviving it, facing it. Letting the truth break him open, if that’s what it took to finally stop bleeding in silence.

At the shatter point, she was there, steady, unflinching, offering him not escape, but entry. Into something deeper. Something real. If he was going to fall, let it be into her. Let it be with her. She’d delivered her ultimatum, and every part of him, heart, body, soul, wanted to answer it, needed to answer it.

He didn’t just want to take her.He wanted to drive so deep into her he wouldn’t be in pieces anymore.He wanted to come apart only to rebuild. To become. A man who didn’t fear breaking. Maybe everything falling apart wasn’t failure.Maybe it was the only way forward. She was waiting. Running wasn’t an option anymore. He was choosing …her.

He didn’t remember walking upstairs.

One minute, he was panting in the gym, fists still curled from pummeling the bag like it owed him something; the next, he was outside his room, sweat cooling across his spine and the hollow ache in his gut spreading like fire.

He opened his door, stepped inside, and swallowed hard. She'd left the connecting door fully open. Just like she’d said. No more almost. No more cracks. All in, or not at all.

Half-shaking, he stopped dead. There on the floor, his prayer mat. Aligned perfectly. Pointed toward Mecca. His knees nearly gave out. It wasn’t the neatness. It wasn’t the orientation. It was the care. The reverence . She had touched his most sacred possession and honored it.

His throat closed up, emotion burning through him like acid. He turned slowly, gaze catching on the connecting door. Still open. A soft golden light bled through the space. He took the first step…trusting Grace was all he could do now.

She waited. He crossed the threshold with a force that felt like destiny unspooling.

Grace.

Lit from within, black lace clinging to every curve like it had been crafted for worship. Her hair tumbled like flame, her green eyes wide, shining, devouring him. Her breath caught at the sight of him, bare-chested, soaked in sweat, fists still wrapped in crimson and trembling with restraint.

He didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

She came to him.

Grace reached out and gently took one of his hands in hers. Her fingers trembled slightly, but she worked the edge of the soaked red wrap loose, unspooling him one coil at a time.

The unraveling began. First the warrior, the man who knew war. Then the survivor, the one who’d paid its cost. Each tug of the fabric made him shake a little more.

When the first wrap fell away, she lifted his bare knuckles to her mouth.

Kissed them. Soft. Precise. Devastating.

He groaned, barely audible, his eyes closing under the weight of her touch. She moved to the other hand. Undid him the same way. The guilt released first, like a shadow. Then the pain dulled, just enough for breath to return.

When her lips brushed the bruised bone of his second hand, the kiss didn’t soothe. It shattered everything else.

"Unravel me, Nash, " she whispered.

He couldn’t speak. Only move.

His hands reached for the belt at her waist. His fingers fumbled, he was aching , but he untied the knot. The silk fell open. The lace beneath stole his breath. Barely there. Shadowed curves. Her full breasts were exposed but for the black lace crossing over the tight peaks of her nipples, hard and begging.

He reached out with both hands, slid them over her shoulders, slow and possessive. Her skin was warm, satin-smooth. She moaned when he touched her, and it lit him from the inside.

His hands tightened in the lace. He yanked her forward, crushing her against his chest. Her body molded to his like they were born from the same spark. He arched her back, his mouth hungry as he took her nipple and sucked, deep, wet, his.

With a ravaging cry, her hands curled into his hair, holding him there. He kept at it, groaning around her, needing her in his mouth, needing her sounds, her breath, her everything.

“Take it off,” she gasped. He didn’t hesitate. He ripped the lace from her body. It came apart in his hands like cobwebs.

She pressed her palm to his chest, eyes wide, mouth open, her body flushed with arousal and ragged breath, holy fucking courage. She was so beautiful, he couldn't breathe. Couldn’t think . But then she moved behind him.

“Stay still for me,” she whispered. He did. Ya Allah help him, he did.

For the first time since that op, the one that never left him, the one that chewed up his team and spat him back out, he went completely still. Inside and out. No fight. No noise. Just motionless .

Her mouth landed soft on his shoulder. Then lower. She kissed his spine, breath warm, lips tracing him like a blessing. Her hands followed, firm, hungry. She mapped his body with her palms, down the flex of his lats, across the carved ridges of his back. She squeezed his ass, full-handed, groaning softly.

Hooking her fingers into the waistband of his shorts she slowly dragged them down. Over his hips. Down his thighs. Until they hit the floor.

Her breath ghosted over his skin, and he closed his eyes, a ragged moan leaving his throat. She kissed his shoulder again. Then his back. Her hands were relentless, bold and awed and hungry all at once.

Then she reached his waist.

He knew the moment she realized.

“Oh, God. What is this?” she breathed.

He tensed.

She circled around to the front, her eyes wide and wicked, raking down his body until they landed on the black jockstrap stretched across his hips.

Fuck. Her breathing deepened, lifting her breasts in a steady rise and fall, flush sweeping across her body.

He was confused. It was underwear. It was the basic kind, nothing fancy, but under Grace’s gaze, it felt like something else entirely. The elastic hugged his waist in a thick, cross-backed X pattern, dipping low over his hips and cradling the full weight of him in black mesh.

The pouch was tight. Supportive. But the second her eyes darkened and her tongue grazed the corner of her lip, it became the most erotic thing he’d ever worn.

She circled him slowly, her hand brushing the band.

“Oh my God, Nash.” Her voice was thick, sultry. “It’s sinful. That is one sexy, indecent rig.”

He swallowed, his throat dry. “It’s not indecent, Grace. I don’t, Ya Allah , I don’t run around in public with it. It’s for support. For exercise.”

She bit her lip and looked up at him with something wild in her eyes. “It’s doing a great job,” she whispered. Then she slipped her hand beneath the band, and he stopped breathing .

Her finger trailed slowly, teasingly, under the elastic, across his lower back, down toward the curve of his ass, and then she snapped it lightly against his skin.

He grunted , hips jerking forward. “Grace…”

She laughed softly, circling back behind him. “I need to see the back again…yeah, hotter .”

Her hands were back over the globes of his butt, and they slipped around his hips, pulling him flush against her body. Then her mouth returned to his shoulder, her kisses warm and open and wet .

His fists clenched. Her touch jacked him up, sensual and sweet, worshipful and rough. She wasn’t just touching him. She was learning him, and it didn’t have anything to do with research.

Her hands slid forward again, over the edge of the jockstrap. Across the planes of his stomach. Up over the center of his chest. He flexed, every inch of muscle tightening as she traced him, like a queen taking stock of her protective knight.

She made a soft sound in her throat. The kind of sound that said you’re mine now. Nash had never wanted to be anyone’s before. But with her? He was already lost.

Her flat palms brushed his nipples, and he groaned, his head dropping back. One hand trailed against his jaw, her mouth teasing him with a tantalizing brush. Pinching one aching nub, the jolt of sensation fired straight to his groin. His cock surged, straining against the mesh pouch, already wet at the tip. The fabric couldn’t contain him. He was too hard. Too full .

She moved back in front of him. He closed his eyes, trying to hold the line, but with the way she looked at him, touched him, he was barely keeping it together.

She placed her hand on his chest, her gaze molten and direct. “I want to know everything about you, Nash,” she said softly. Then she looked down, slow and deliberate, and dragged her fingers down the length of him, stopping at the top of the pouch.

His breath hitched. His hips flexed. Her hand slid lower and cupped him, slow, firm, exploring.

“Even this,” she whispered.

He groaned. A harsh, broken sound, his body bowing toward her hot touch.

“Grace…” he whispered. “Please?—”

She stepped closer. Pressed her face to his throat. Her hand stayed between his legs, palm heavy and sure, squeezing him through the mesh, making his balls ache .

She fondled him, gently, then greedily. Exploring his size, his weight, his vulnerability . Her fingers dipped lower, running under the strap again, teasing the edges of him, rolling his sack in her palm.

He was panting now. Her breath hit his neck as she kissed him there, warm and firm.

“You like this?” she murmured.

He gave a strained nod. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “Too much.”

She smiled against his skin, then whispered, “Good.” She dropped to her knees, pulling the jockstrap down, inch by inch, with torturous precision.

Her breath caught when he sprang free. Hard, thick, open, helpless to anything she chose to do to him. Her mouth parted. He swore, one trembling hand fisting at his side. She looked up at him, and then, smiling like sin, she blew on him.

Just once. Just enough to make him jerk .

“Grace,” he gritted out. “Please,” his voice was rough and raw, gravel soaked in longing. “I can’t…”

“Oh, you can,” she demanded. He groaned, head dropping forward, teeth clenched as she began to stroke him, slow, steady, deliberate. Her touch was silk over steel. Her grip was just tight enough to drive him wild. “I can feel your control,” she whispered, so close to his head her hot breath sent an ache through his dick into his taut nuts. “Still holding on. Even now. Let go. You came to me. You want this as much as I do.” She licked him, a slow slide of her tongue, curled her lips around the head and sucked him taking him into the softest, most erotic stroke of his life. He groaned again, instinctively thrusting against that irresistible tongue, and then her tongue swirled slow and decadent as she took him deeper, inch by inch, until her lips brushed the base, taking all of him.

One deep, slow pull of her mouth down his shaft, and Nash Rahim, warrior, strategist, survivor, forgot every commandment he’d ever lived by.

He nearly came on the spot.

“Fuck, Grace?—”

Her nails bit into the backs of his thighs as she pulled back, only to sink deeper again, her throat working, her mouth loving every inch of him. He was shaking, trembling, panting, hands fisting in her hair.

But she didn’t let up. She devoured him, not just with her mouth but with her eyes. Every look said, I need you. I want you. I’m not afraid of what’s inside you.

His legs almost buckled when she moaned around him.

He pulled back, just far enough to stop himself from shattering.Sheer torture when his body was urging him to move harder, deeper, faster, giving into his need to bury himself into her, to take what she was offering because he wanted her as fiercely as he wanted answers. His breath was a roar in his ears.

“Grace, stop, I’m going to?—”

She rose to her feet, her mouth swollen, her eyes molten. He gathered her against him, picked her up off her feet, walked to her bed, and set her down like she was something precious. Then covered her like she was his last breath.

His body pressed into hers, bare, hot, all strength and brutal longing. He wanted to pump into her, the savageness of his longing taking his breath. But that’s the man he had been with blurred faces and empty thrusts. He couldn’t rush. He lingered . His mouth found hers again, not hungry this time but avid. Slow. Like he needed to relearn every shape of her lips, memorize every flick of her tongue.

Her legs wrapped around his hips, heels digging into the backs of his thighs. He groaned against her mouth.

“You feel so fucking good,” he whispered, his voice shredded. “I’ve wanted this, you , so long, Grace. I dreamed this. I bled for this.”

She touched his face, thumb brushing the line of his jaw. “Then take it. Take me. ”

He kissed her again, deeper, slower, and his hand slid down, across her breast, over the soft slope of her stomach, until he found the slick heat between her thighs.

She was soaked .

He groaned low, a filthy, reverent sound. “You’re ready for me.”

“I’ve been ready,” she gasped.

He circled her clit with the pad of his thumb, watching her fall apart beneath him, her head tipping back, her hips lifting, her hands clenching the sheets. He kissed her neck. Her collarbone. The swell of her breast. Then he took her nipple in his mouth and sucked deep. She cried out, clutching him harder, her thighs tightening around his hips. He didn’t stop. Didn’t hurry.

He moved over her like a man finally allowed to feel . His fingers worked her slowly, steadily, until her legs trembled and she gasped his name, hips jerking beneath him.

He moved down her body, knowing what she wanted, what she needed. When he reached the heart of her, her sex soft and swollen, he parted her and caressed her with his tongue. She arched her hips against his mouth, seeking and silently begging for release.

He closed his eyes and groaned, doubling his efforts to give her what she was craving. He drew her core into his mouth, used his tongue to stroke her and increase her pleasure. Her fingers knotted tighter in his hair, and a soft moan escaped her. With heat and intent, he continued his erotic assault.

She inhaled sharply, jolted against him in response, then succumbed as her orgasm crested and she moaned, surrendering to the powerful rush of sensation rippling through her and against his tongue.

He nudged her legs wide apart, slid up over her delectable body, settling between her toned thighs. She splayed her palms on his chest, glided them up and over his biceps several times, then to his shoulders and around his neck, arching against him, and hooked her calves against the back of his thighs, urging him inside.

He pulled back just enough to look down between them, guiding his cock to her entrance, dragging the thick head through her slickness, coating himself in her arousal.

“I’m going slow,” he said, voice breaking. “I’m gonna feel every fucking inch of you.”

Then he pushed in.

Sweet God ? —

He drove into her in a seemingly endless stroke and growled deep in his throat as she took every hard, solid inch of him. Her body took him like it was made to. Tight, hot, perfect . Her head flew back, mouth parting in a gasp that wrecked him.

The pleasure of having her was so intense, so surreal, that he shuddered and tried to absorb the moment, how agonizingly perfect, how incredibly right, she felt beneath him. Bracing his forearms on either side of her head, he inhaled sharply when she rolled her hips with purpose against his. Then she closed her eyes and whispered his name, pushing on his chest, rolling him to his back with a groan that made him wild.

Those wicked hips settled over him, pumped against his dick and the pleasure rushed over him in a full, devastating body wave. She didn’t just take him in. She took him on , her eyes locked to his, body working with him, for him, her moans rising in harmony with the stuttering thrusts of his final drive toward release.

The sunflower around her neck brushed his face as she bent over him, straddling him with silk and slow, tactile hunger. It was warm from her skin, sliding along his cheek, down the hollow of his throat, settling where his heart hammered frantically, for her, for this moment, for the wild, aching promise of more nights like this.

Redemption. Freedom from the blank prison he had sealed himself into.

Grace was all of it, burgeoning hope catching in his chest with every slow, devastating sway of her hips.

She seduced him into believing that maybe, just maybe, he could slow down.

That he could find a place of peace inside himself.

The quiet of her need made him think that anything, with Grace, might be possible.

She whispered his name like it was a prayer and a dare, like she knew exactly what it meant to give herself to a man who gave nothing half-measured.

He was so lost to her as he withdrew and surged back into her, over and over, long, hard strokes that increased in power and strength and depth. He was so close it hurt. His body strained, taut with the tension of too many hours of denial, his jaw clenched, breath ragged, thighs locked as he heaved into her with everything he’d held back. Her name broke against his teeth in a shattered groan, but it was her hands on him, her sweet glove, gripping his engorged, aching dick, guiding his rhythm, that undid him.

“Come for me,” she whispered, low and fierce, placing open-mouthed kisses on his jaw, his lips. “You’ve been hard for so long,” she murmured, her groan low and lush. “You prayed instead of taking what you wanted. That made me want you even more.” She rode him hard, relentlessly, and his face contorted at the agony of pleasure. “You don’t have to hold back, hebbiti . Not anymore. Neither of us has to withhold anything.”

He came on those words, his release ripping through him, not in a single wave, but in a flood that overwhelmed thought, breath, control. He came with a groan that vibrated through his chest, shaking under her hands, the pulse of it drawn out by the rhythm she never let falter. His hands gripped her like she was the only thing anchoring him to the world.

The aftershock hit like detonation, sharp, shattering, drawn from a place so deep it wasn’t even pleasure anymore, just pure, unfiltered need finally finding release. His body arched, muscles locked, a sound caught in his throat, half-curse, half-benediction, as he poured into her, pulse after pulse wracking him so hard he saw stars behind his eyes.

He didn’t speak. Just lay there, still sheathed inside her, the last tremor of his climax echoing through his chest. But his cock went hard, thick, aching with something more than release.

She made a soft sound, then her voice rasped out, “Oh, God, Nash?”

“This is your fault, Grace. I seem to have a perpetual hard-on for you. Can you do something about that?” His body coiled again, not with urgency this time, but with wonder. With awe. With the unbearable knowledge that she’d touched something in him that no one else ever had.

She looked at him, burst into soft laughter. “Blame this on me. That’s not very heroic.” She moved her hips, and he grunted and closed his eyes at the heavy pleasure. “But damn if you are the cutest, most charismatic gunslinger I have ever met.”

He shifted slightly, “ Gunslinger . Are you saying there’s a weapon between my legs?”

“Oh, yes, a very dangerous one. You know we do have a job to do. How many mags are you toting?”

“I think I might need a moment after this to reload.”

She moaned softly, “Oh, God, Nash. I want you so much again. Burning me down? I’m cinders, and with a breath, you’re bringing me to flame again, beautiful wildfire.” She slid her fingers over his scalp, gently anchoring him to her chest, and he stilled again.

He pressed his mouth against her throat, his lips moving to her collarbone, the tip of her breast. He wasn’t just hard. He was open .

She kissed the top of his head, her voice low, raw. “I’ve got you, Nash.”

His throat worked. His arm tightened around her waist. He was lost, drowning, his pool training failing him. The words came from somewhere raw and aching inside him, somewhere he had walled off, and in the light of Grace’s grace, he whispered the most dangerous words he’d ever given another human being.

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t, you beautiful, sexy bastard.”

He huffed out a puff of laughter, then shifted again, slowly, gently, and looked up at her. What he saw in her eyes made him ache in places he didn’t know could feel, trust . Fear . Need . The kind of need that didn’t burn, it clung . The kind that said you broke me, and I wanted you to .

She trailed her fingers down his spine, and his eyes fluttered closed under the weight of her touch.

“You’re—” she began, her voice shaking.

“Hard,” he finished, his voice hoarse, lips brushing her skin. “I’m not done with you.”

Something warm and dangerous coiled low in his belly. “I thought you just gave me everything.”

He looked up at her again, her green eyes caressing his face. “I did,” he whispered. “But you didn’t take all of it yet.” Joining with Grace… it wasn’t about release. It was about claiming her and reclaiming himself . In her body. In her arms. Leading him back to a wholeness he hadn’t believed was possible.

She blinked, a flush sweeping her chest, his heart skipping. Her hand slid down over the flexing of muscle of his abs, until her palm settled over his swollen, throbbing sack. She squeezed gently, rubbed them, and he buried his face in her throat, groaning, everything about her made him off-the-charts-fucking-crazy. “Then don’t hold back.”

His breath left him in a rush. He pulled back just enough to look down between them, the way their bodies were still joined. The way she cupped him so tenderly, it aroused him even more. So close. Still fused.

“I want to go slow,” he rasped.

All she could give him was a soft gasp of heated breath as she guided him gently onto his back, straddling him again, her movements slow, deliberate, full of grace and intent. His hands roamed her thighs, his touch steadier now, anchored in the storm instead of fighting it.

He watched her like she was the only light he’d ever seen.

Her hips shifted, the slick heat of her surrounding him again, and he growled as she took him back inside, inch by aching inch. The sensation was somehow sharper, deeper, purer . Like his body had been reset, like every nerve ending had recalibrated to worship her .

“You feel it?” she whispered.

He nodded, unable to speak. It wasn’t just her body. It was everything she gave him. Her trust. Her fire. Her stillness. Her damn courage . Somehow, impossibly, she made him feel worthy of it.

She rocked her hips, slow and devastating, drawing long moans from his throat, each one quieter than the last. Not because the pleasure dulled, but because the silence between them was sacred now. Her nipples touched his chest, dragging over his skin like hard silk nubs.

She was watching him too. Eyes wide. Luminous. A slow smile curved her mouth, not seductive. Knowing.

Like she could see the man he didn’t believe still existed.

He thrust up into her gently, hands sliding to her hips, his thumbs pressing into the soft dip where skin met bone. Her body met his with perfect rhythm, a slow, erotic grind that made the world vanish.

“Don’t rush,” she whispered. “I want to feel every hard, gorgeous inch of you, every sweet, aching thrust of you taking me. We have time.”

He let out a strangled sound, half-broken, half-grateful.

That was the truth he never let himself believe.That maybe, after everything… he still had time . To feel. To live. To love .

Her hand slid to the side of his face, fingers brushing the edge of his jaw. “Let it be good this time,” she whispered. “Not punishing. Just good.”

His breath caught.

Then the rhythm changed.

Her body tightened around him, hips rolling, the pleasure turning sharp again, pulling him toward the edge not with force but with permission .

She rode him slowly, squeezing him deep, milking him with every pass. His breath fractured.

“Grace,” he gasped. “I’m gonna?—”

She leaned down, kissed his mouth, soft and sure.

“I know,” she whispered. “Give it to me. I want it. I want you.”

The orgasm hit him like a wave, rolling through his spine, his legs, his hands, deeper this time, sweeter. A different kind of surrender. He held her through it, groaning into her neck as his body arched, spilled, offered . She took it all. Stayed right there with him. Her body still moving, slowly, gently, coaxing every last pulse of pleasure from his soul.

He didn’t collapse this time.

He breathed .

For the first time in longer than he could remember…he just. Breathed.