Page 63 of Every Last Breath

“Why are you here?” Her voice was barely audible. “What do you want?”

He inched closer, his proximity a dangerous tease. “You’ve got my gear.”

Her gaze fell to his backpack on the floor near the passenger’s door, but he hadn’t glanced at his bag once. He was staring at her.

The scorching look burning in his eyes threatened to incinerate her resolve.

“We survived today. Makes me appreciate what’s right in front of me.” He dragged his knuckles down her bare arm.

Awareness tickled every pore of her body.

His face dipped, drawing near, unhurried. Testing the boundaries between them. Pushing the primal button, driving her toward one of the four evolutionary f’s.

Fight, flight, feed, or fuck.

He brushed his lips across the corner of her mouth, along her jaw, his stubble scratching her cheek. He pressed a searing kiss to her pulse point.

Her heart stumbled a beat, then knocked like crazy. So loud and hard, she swore he’d not only feel it but hear it—a rap against a door she longed for him to open, letting her into that bittersweet place where sensation flowed like milk and warm honey in the promised land. Where she’d do anything for another taste of him. Where only he could make her come undone.

He cupped the back of her head, his fingers curling in her hair. Licked the tender spot on her neck below her ear. His breath rough on her throat. The quiver in her chest spiraled, and if she hadn’t been sitting, her knees would’ve buckled.

His mouth glided over her cheek to her parted lips, and he kissed her. He tugged her onto his lap, pulling her hips to straddle him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, caressing his tongue with hers.

Need unfurled in her belly, a warm, silken thread loosed from its spool.

No question she wanted him.

He kissed her hard, almost brutally. Desperately. Deep and long, he drew the breath from her body, filling her with his.

Years of loneliness and yearning flared, making a pulse thud between her legs like a heavy heartbeat. She squeezed her legs against his hips, longing to be closer.

His mouth didn’t give a second for retreat. His lips so hot on hers, she melted. He stroked her inner thigh, his fingers inching higher and higher. Until he slid his hand into her baggy shorts and tugged her thong aside.

Her craving for him gathered in a painful knot in her core. She throbbed for release, growing wet at the nearness of his fingertips. Anticipation shivered over her skin.

“Want me to stop?” The low words were rough as sandstone.

“No,” she breathed. Starved.

Pure male satisfaction splashed across his face.

His callused thumb rubbed the sensitive button of nerves between her legs, featherlight, and a finger slipped inside her.

She arched against him, softening, yielding in ways she’d forgotten. Cole had been her first, not her only, but the one who’d made her tremble with want and beg for more.

He nipped her bottom lip, playful, eliciting a sigh, and plunged a second finger in her slick wetness. She clenched helplessly around him, rocking against his hand.

Blood rushed through her ears. Everything inside her wound tighter, swelling, contracting. She was so aroused and ready, she feared stroking his ego by coming from two minutes of foreplay.

She lifted her hips away from his hand, pulled down her shorts and underwear, working them off her legs in a frenzy. Unzipping his jeans with trembling fingers, she freed the beautiful, heavy length of him. He made a deep sound of approval in his throat. His flesh nudged against her, hot, hard, and seeking. She ached with a gnawing emptiness.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t go wherever it is I plan to sleep?” A ghost of a smile on his lips as he threw her words back. “It’s so late.”

“Smug doesn’t look good on you.”

“Sure does feel pretty damn good.”

He was under her skin, stamped on her soul, branded on her heart. To her shame, she needed him, needed the sweet friction that would leave her a sweaty, sated mess.