Page 35

His eyes burned, molasses-thick, molten with heat, and when he smiled, that grin, slow and ruinous, it was laced with such devastating promise she nearly came on the spot.

“I never quit, querida . Never.” His voice was gravel and smoke. “But give in?” He paused, his gaze dragging over every inch of her like a brand. “Maybe after you do your worst…”The grin deepened. “…it’ll be my turn to do mine .”

“That seems only fair.”

Settling between his legs, she leaned forward and captured one of his rigid nipples between her lips.

She laved the erect nub of flesh with her tongue and grazed the tip with the edge of her teeth.

A groan rumbled up from his chest as she traversed her way lower, spreading hot, wet kisses on his taut, flat belly.

The scars just below his ribs caught her attention.

She’d stitched both of them, one in Niamey, and one so recently in the Philippines.

She kicked herself for grieving a man who never saw her and resisting a man who only ever saw her.

She kissed the raised skin, caressing him with her tongue and heard him suck in a surprised breath in response to her tender ministration.

Finally, she came to his thick, straining erection, and even that part of him was as gorgeous and magnificent as the man himself.

She wrapped her fingers around the hard, velvet-textured length of him and felt him pulse in her tight grip.

A drop of pre-come appeared, and she smeared the silky moisture over the big, plum-shaped head of his cock.

This man was hers, now.

She took him in her wet mouth, his skin hot and salty against the stroke of her tongue.

He shuddered and tangled his hands in her damp hair, and she sucked him, taking him as deep as she could.

She pleasured him with her mouth, teased him with her tongue, and aroused him to a fever pitch of need that made his entire body shake with the restraint of trying to hold back.

“Oh, Christ,” he breathed and frantically tried to tug her back up.

“If you don’t stop now, I’m gonna come.”

Reluctant to stop, she wanted them to experience this together for the first time. Sliding her hand across his naked chest, she pressed him back, and he caught her head, his mouth hot and needy, holding her lips to his as he yielded to the light pressure. She straddled his hips.

His breath caught, his voice so gruff it was barely audible as he whispered against her mouth. “Yes, please, babe.”

“All of you,” she murmured softly, then, rising, she guided him into her.

His whole body tensed as she slowly settled her weight on him, and on a ragged intake of air, he tightened his arms around her, molding her against him.

Aware of every breath, every heartbeat, every movement he made, Everly began to slowly slide down onto his hard cock, wanting to immerse him in a pleasure so intense it would swamp his senses, to experience the full measure of his need, to be engulfed with his response whether wild or gentle.

Bracketing his face with her hands, she held his head immobile as she moved against him, her mouth brushing against his with provoking lightness, locking her hips against his as he chased her mouth over and over again.

When she transitioned to a slow, tormenting rhythm, he grasped her hips as her mouth continued to tease that full, tantalizing mouth.

“ Fuck , fuck, fuuccck , Everly,” he whispered.

A low growl vibrated in his throat, lost in what she was doing to that hard, penetrating cock, and the tease of her mouth always just a breath away.

His breathing fragmented as she moved over him, controlling the rhythm, giving him fast or slow, deep or deeper, all with unplanned twists of her hips.

Hauling in a ragged breath, he dragged his hands up her back, and she launched an assault on his senses as she settled deeper on him.

A tremor coursed through him, and she felt him struggle against the need she was creating in him.

“You don’t need control here with me. I’ve got you…

and everything you are is so beautiful, what a man should be, you are that and so much more. ”

His breath stuttered, and his eyes went moist, shining with a stunned quality that made her jerk against him.

His released breath hissed out in surrender, and Everly experienced a rush of emotion so overwhelming that it left her unsteady, but she forced her body to respond, moving against him, pushing him deeper and deeper into sensations.

“Give me your mouth, mujer diablo ,” he whispered. She brushed his lips, and he groaned, “ Provocar dolor. ”

“Come and get it, pícaro tentador, ” she whispered.

“ Diablo guapo .” Rising, she drew him with her, and all that softness in his eyes coalesced into a hard umber flint.

He cried out, his eyes closing as his body bowed, then drifted back open, his darkened gaze locked with hers.

His Spanish was so fast, she couldn’t understand.

Capturing the back of her head, he ground his mouth against hers, his other arm banded across her lower back, holding her in place as he thrust those powerful hips, driving his cock rapidly and deeply into her until she was almost mindless. “You’re madness,” he whispered raggedly.

Then rolled her onto her back.

“Losing control already,” she asked as she ran her hands down that hard, taut back, all the way to his fine ass. Then back up to the nape of his neck. “Kiss me,” she whispered, loving the texture, his words making her even weaker. “Or I’m going to combust, and we’ll never make it to the good part.”

He stilled for just a moment, chest rising over hers, the breath between them gone too fast to catch. Then, like something inside him snapped loose, he moved with a kind of hunger that had waited so goddamned long it had turned desperate.

His lips claimed hers in a kiss that didn’t start soft. It started real .

Hot. Bruising. Hungry.

Her gasp caught between them as he sank into her mouth, his hand fisting in her hair like he needed to anchor himself to her or risk floating into the void. He tasted of heat and salt and everything she’d been starving for. His mouth was firm , coaxing, coaxing, coaxing, then demanding .

Her hands moved greedily up his back, over his shoulders, around to his chest. She could feel the muscle shift under her palms, the coiled strength of a body honed by combat, softened only by the moan he gave into her mouth when she bit his bottom lip.

He jerked, barely restrained, and pulled back just enough to breathe but only barely.

“Jesus Christ, Everly,” he rasped, his forehead against hers, his voice trembling. “You kiss like you’re trying to brand me.”

“I am,” she whispered, pulling him back down. “You’re mine.”

He groaned, a full-body groan, deep and rough and devastating, and then kissed her again, harder this time, deeper. His hand slid down to her waist, then her hip, then around to her ass, gripping her to feel the things he’d only been aching to.

She pressed against him, slick and flushed and fierce , her legs slipping around his hips, her body begging his without shame, without apology.

His smooth, velvet cock throbbed against her wet center, caught between them, thick and flushed, still hard as hell.

He kissed her until her back arched and her fingers clawed through his hair.

Until her mouth broke from his on a whimper.

Until her body said yes, a hundred different ways.

He kissed her like he was remembering her, rewriting everything they’d been until now.

He kissed her until she moaned into his mouth, and then his hands moved, slow at first, like he was rediscovering something he already knew by heart.

His palm swept up her ribcage, skimming the curve of her breast with the barest graze, his thumb brushing just beneath it, teasing, tantalizing. When she arched into him, wordless and open, he groaned like that small invitation had gutted him.

He cupped her breast in his hand like he was holding something precious, his thumb circling her nipple once…then again…until she gasped and shuddered.

“ Fuck, ” he breathed. “You feel like everything I’ve ever wanted to protect.”

His mouth dropped to her throat, kissing a line from her jaw to her collarbone, nipping the hollow before soothing it with his tongue. His hand moved to her other breast, learning her with his fingers, gentle and commanding all at once, his hips grinding softly into hers.

Everly’s hands roamed his body, greedy and sure now, unable to get enough of the swell of his shoulders, the hard slope of his back, the shifting planes of muscle along his waist. She ran her palms down his chest, her fingers brushing the scars just beneath his ribs.

“You were shot here,” she whispered.

He nodded against her skin. “Twice.”

Her fingers traced it. “You let it bleed the second time while you saved lives. Your dedication is so a part of you. I want to ravage you all over again.”

He lifted his head, eyes wild and dark. “I’m taking my turn. Locked and loaded, babe.”

Then he dipped his head, and his mouth closed over her nipple, hot and wet and slow. She arched with a cry, one hand fisting in his hair as the other clawed down his back, her thighs tightening around his hips.

Zorro moaned into her breast, sucking harder, teeth grazing as he tugged. “You’re shaking,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to look at her.

“I want you,” she breathed. “Everywhere. Inside me again. Around me. Like I’m yours.”

He grinned, that grin, crooked and fierce, rasping, “You already are, querida .”

One hand slipped between them, tracing the soft skin of her belly, then lower. His fingers parted her folds, dragging slowly through the slick heat of her, and his groan was so guttural it vibrated through her chest.

“ So wet, ” he said, awed. “ So ready. For all of me. I want you to take all of me.”

She met his eyes—no fear left, only fire. “Please. Yes.”