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Flipped him on his ass. Twisted him into a pretzel. Sent joy screaming through him like lightning shot straight into his chest.

Fuck .

His lungs stuttered. His throat closed. His heart was a goddamn fist in his chest.

He wanted to cry. He wanted to fuck her. At the same time.

He didn’t know what she’d think of that, this big, mouthy Navy SEAL losing it all over her skin while he sank so deep into her body he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.

But God, he wanted it. Wanted her . She saw him . She said yes .

That was all he’d ever really wanted.

God, she was beautiful. Soft eyes and a guarded heart and a body that moved like wildfire and medicine at once.

She had just given him everything .

She was asking him if he could give her something real in return.

He swallowed.

“Mateo?” she asked, her voice hushed, aching with her feelings for him, more proof of how serious she was.

“I…need a…moment. Please, don’t talk…don’t move.” His voice broke on the last word. His heart was in a goddamned vice. He didn’t dare look at her face, not sure how much longer he could hang on to the rising pressure in his chest.

“Mateo,” she whispered.

“Don’t say my name…like that…goddammit…woman. Call me fuckhead, asshole, hey you, anything but my first name.”

“What the—” she whispered, tender laughter slipping out, then her body softened, and she moved when he’d told her not to. She swarmed over him, right onto him, full length, grunting as she settled on his aching junk.

There were those eyes again…warm, sparkling, devastating him even more. “Don’t fucking look at me,” he growled, turning his head, struggling with the tightness in his throat at her dawning realization and the full emotions there.

Her fingers slipped between the mattress and his face. He couldn’t stop them. Moisture had built up behind his lids.

“Fuckhead,” she said softly, and laughter burst out of him as she forced his face toward hers.

She kissed his closed lids. Her tongue tasted his tears as they slid down his face.

“Listen to me, asshole, I haven’t been able to see straight since you exploded into my life…

the eight of you filling up my hallway with your wounds and your laughter, and your shoulders still heavy from the heroic shit you’d just done.

But for you all it was just another damn day.

” Her breath hitched, and he gasped with gratitude. “Look at me.”

He opened his eyes, the flood of his salty tears a cascade.

She let them fall like they were a benediction to her.

Her eyes glowed, glassy with her own reaction to him losing it.

He reached up and captured the back of her head, brought her mouth down on his with a soft sniffle.

“Your bedside manner has improved considerably, Doc Sunshine,” he rasped, breaking the kiss, her breath puffing over him in a soft laugh, but her smile disappearing when he went back for more.

She melted into him, and her own sniffle made his heart contract hard.

She lifted her head. “I’ll have to mark this day on my calendar. I made the amazing Martinez…speechless.” She pushed up on his chest, her eyes now filled with a warmth that melted him. “So, do you have any ideas?”

He cupped her face gently, brushing his thumb along her cheek.

“You tell me everything. I’m fucking nosy. I have to know what you think, how you breathe, how your heart works. I need to know who you were, and who you’re becoming in my arms, because I feel that, Everly. You’re changing. I want to catch up.”

His voice dropped further, quieter now.

“Not to judge you. Not to offer advice. Not even to get what I need. I just want to support you. To do that, I need to understand you.”

She looked down at him, wide-eyed. Vulnerable. Real.

That scared the hell out of him, because beneath the calm, he couldn’t help wondering. I didn’t fix this. Does that mean I didn’t earn it? Am I still worthy even if I didn’t save the day?

His heart labored with those thoughts, working overtime to assemble some kind of plan.

“Everything?” she whispered

His breath released, slow and heavy from the tone of her voice. Open…and scorching at the same time. She shifted, a slow, seductive awareness gradually gripping him like her eyes had the power to restrain him. Her legs dropped down, her core now wet and pulsing beneath his throbbing dick.

She bent to his ear, her hot, erect nipples sliding against his chest. She started whispering, “I had this dream about you…you were fire….”

Her words made him arch, his breath to hitch.

“You said I ache for you in a place where my armor can’t hold you back.

You were right.” Her flattened palms slid down his ribcage.

He watched as she licked her bottom lip, and his dick thickened in response to the desire darkening her eyes.

His cock throbbed and ached, her wet center a liquid, velvet tease.

He groaned softly at the way she dropped her armor, so beautiful in her exposure.

“The flames whispered your name… Mateo . You told me you were going down on me,” her breath hitched.

“My hips lifted against my will, hands fisting in the sheets of fire. My moan fractured my shame.” She brushed her lips against his jaw.

“I arched into your mouth, into that heat, the wet scorch of your tongue doing all the wicked things I so desperately dreamed about. My hips begged, my soul burned.”

“Goddamn…your shame? Fucking tell me about that,” he rasped out, his chest heaving, his face contorting at the pleasure of her words, her body, the heart of her his for the taking.

“Tell me,” he urged as he rolled with her, surging down her body, needing the taste of her desire on his tongue.

She cried out as his mouth clamped down, his tongue swirling and his lips suctioning.

She gasped, the sounds she made spurring him on.

“I was mortified by how I’d treated you.

” He sucked her again, her breath compressed when he used his tongue.

“Oh, fuck , Mateo…Crushed by how much I wanted you.” She rose up, her hips begging him the way she’d said they had in her dream.

He slipped two fingers into her and her hips jerked.

“Shattered by the memory of a man…” Her moan was deep, at the double assault on her senses, and she panted, “…who had become both my desire and my torment.” Her hand buried in his hair, tightening painfully, her hips helplessly undulating against his mouth.

“Every beat of my heart… Mateo …oh, please , fuck …that beautiful mouth…was a reminder of the disdain I’d carried for men like you, men who took my husband’s life.

” Her breath caught on a sob. “I need you inside me now.”

He couldn’t deny himself her tight heat.

He rose, spreading her legs wide to accommodate the fit of his hips while Everly locked her knees against his waist to give him better leverage.

The head of his dick slid along her sex, meeting nothing but slick velvet bliss.

He drove into her, hard and deep, the force of his penetrating thrust met with her equal force.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she arched her lower body and moaned softly as he surged infinitely deeper. She caught her breath as he reared back, onto his knees, dragging her pelvis against him so he could watch his body take hers, a sexy as hell position.

“Is this what I did in the dream?” he said, fierce and gravel rough.

She groaned, clenching her inner muscles around him.

“Yes, your thrusts were so hard, a penetrating need that burned from your exquisite erection to the heart within me, drowning me in black fire and glittering darkness.” He almost came at the feel of the softest, tightest, hottest sheath, groaning and instinctively thrusting into her…

over and over and over again. Not enough as his body urged him to move harder, deeper, faster, and take them both over the edge.

His hips bucking at her words, she arched her back, her exposed breasts jutting forward. His thumb grazed her clit, and his mouth wanted to taste those velvet tips.

He leaned forward and captured her taut nipple, working her sweet nub over. He sucked her and grazed her with his teeth, doing the same with the other breast.

“Mateo, querido .” Her breathing quickened, escalated, and so did the long, smooth pumping of his hips, and the friction and the pressure of his thumb against her clit.

Her orgasm built, climbed as he lifted his head from her breasts so he could watch the slow, dazzling way she came apart only for him.

He slowed his thrusts, but not his thumb. “Come for me, Everly…you fucking beauty,” His Spanish was guttural. “Mine,” he whispered. “All mine.”

Her lips parted, but before she could let loose a cry of pleasure, he covered her mouth, kissing her as hard and deep as their bodies were fused, and groaned right along with her as they both crashed over the edge of a stunning, spine-tingling orgasm.

Long minutes later, her warm sigh drifted along the side of his neck while her hands caressed up and down his damp back. “You are so addicting,” she murmured huskily.

The emotion that swelled in his chest at that moment was raw and possessive, and incredibly real. He could pass out from this overload.

The sheets were still twisted around their legs. Her breath had finally evened, but her eyes hadn’t closed. She lay half on her side, one hand near her face, the other on his chest as if she couldn’t bear to be separated from him, like it might keep her tethered to something real.

Zorro didn’t move.

He watched her for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose, quietly. The tension hadn’t gone. It had just shifted. From desperate hunger to something heavier. Realer.

“I need you to tell me everything,” he said, voice low, raw around the edges. “Just pour it out, babe. No edits. No professional tone. No goddamn apology.”