“That’s what I thought,” Noah said, a rock lodging in his gut. He’d really gone and done it now, hadn’t he? Opened his mouth and spewed his poison at one of the most important people in his life. And tonight was supposed to be all about making amends.

Goddamnit, the minute he came out of that flashback he should’ve gotten the hell away from her. He’d just been so shell-shocked by how realistic it had seemed. The anti-aircraft fire. The crashing Blackhawk. The screaming chaos.

He’d been even more stunned that Kristina had kissed him to pull him back—and that it had worked.

He shook his head, ignoring the fuck out of the wave of dizziness that threatened, and grabbed the doorknob. “I’ll go.”

“No,” she said, her voice stern. Frowning, he dragged his gaze to her to see her fingers working at the knot in her dress’s belt. She pulled it apart and let the fabric fall. The dress swung open, baring her all down the front. “You need me. Have me.”

He blinked, once, twice, and his jaw fell open.

Jesus. She was beautiful, gorgeous, a fucking fantasy of soft, feminine curves. His pulse beat so hard he could feel it beneath his skin. Everywhere.

Noah gripped the doorknob harder, anchoring him in the moment. Keeping him from taking something that wasn’t his to take. No matter how much he might want it. “Kris—”

“Have me, Noah.” She shrugged the dress off her shoulders. It fell to the floor in a soft rush, leaving Kristina standing there in a pair of strappy silver sandals and a matching pale blue and white satin bra-and-panty set.

He couldn’t do this. Not to her, not to them.

But his brain seemed to be the only part of him riding the do-the-right-thing train. Because his heart wanted. And his cock fucking needed. He licked his lips and shook his head, feeling solid ground slide out from beneath his feet with every breath. “I’m a fucking wreck, Kristina.”

“Then be my fucking wreck.” She shrugged and shifted her feet, and Noah studied these small movements, trying to decipher what they meant. “Just for tonight.”

“Just for tonight?” He tried out the words—and their meaning. Could he really let himself have her…just this once?

The idea that he could escape all the bullshit in his head—just for one night, the idea that he could work out this crazy desire for her…and maybe get it out of his system. It was all so damn tempting. She was so damn tempting. When had that happened? Why was he seeing her so differently? And did any of that even matter?

“I don’t want to use you,” he said, his thoughts flying and tearing him in two.

She stepped closer. Heat flashed over Noah’s skin. God, she was brave. So much braver than him.

“You wouldn’t,” Kristina said. “Because I…I want you to fuck me, Noah. You think you’re the only one dreaming of that? Imagining it? Fantasizing about it? I wake up from those dreams and you’re not there…and it hurts. It feels like there’s a fire inside me that only you can cool. So maybe, maybe if we do this, if we give in, just this once…”

Her words resonated inside him, so deep it was like she was speaking his mind. “What?” he asked, his heart a runaway train in his chest.

“Maybe it will get rid of this tension between us.” She hugged herself, plumping those beautiful breasts and making waves of soft blond fall around her shoulders.

He let go of the doorknob, but forced his feet to remain planted right where they were. Because if he got any closer to her, his brain was going to be off the hook for the rest of the night. “So this would be…just sex?” he asked, his chest rising and falling heavily.

Nodding, she looked him right in the eye. “Just sex. Just this one night.”

He swallowed. Hard. He was so damn hungry for her, and that made him hesitate when all he wanted to do was give in. “I’m strung so tight right now, Kristina. I don’t know if I can be gentle.” He shook his head and forced his fists to unclench, but aggression was a living beast within him. “That wouldn’t be right. That wouldn’t be—”

“I don’t want gentle, Noah.” The smile she gave him was so confident, so sexy. When had she become so goddamned amazing? Or had she always been? “I just want you, however you are.”

One second he was standing at the door, the next he was all over her. Hands in her hair, forcing her head back and her mouth open to him. Lips sliding over hers, claiming, sucking, tongue penetrating. Body fused to hers, pushing her back, one stumbling step after another, and trying to get closer. And closer. And closer.

“Oh God,” Kristina moaned, her hands clutching at his neck, his shoulders, his hair.

“One night,” he said, lifting her and wrapping her thighs around his hips. Her ass felt so lush in his hands he couldn’t help squeezing.

“One night. I need you. Now. Here. Anywhere.”

Sucking and licking at her throat, he stalked down the hall toward her bedroom. “No. I want you under me.” In her room, he went right for her big bed with all its pretty blue and yellow covers and pillows. Standing beside the bed, he laid her out, the weight of his upper body coming down on top of her and making him grind right against the delicious heat between her legs.

“Oh, yes,” Kristina said, her hips thrusting against his.

Nearly frantic, he fumbled at the buttons to his jeans. “Need in you.”

“Yeah.”

“Promise I’ll take care of you.” He shoved his jeans down around his thighs, freeing his cock against the satin of her panties.

Kristina moaned. “I know you will.”

“Fuck, need you. Need you so much.” He tugged her panties off, then took himself in hand. Standing between her spread thighs, he rubbed his head against her entrance, feeling her wetness, spreading it around. He wished he could go slower, savor, linger. She braced her feet against the edge of the bed and pushed, trying to impale herself on him. “Shit. Condom,” he said. Resisting the urge to plunge forward was almost painful.

“On birth control. Now, Noah.”

On a groan, he was inside her, sinking deep, finding home. Fucking hot and tight and perfect. And then he was all the way there, buried deep, as deep as he could go. Just like he’d been yearning for. Only the reality was worlds better than anything his imagination had been able to conjure. It was so good it sent him flying.

He came down over her as much as the position allowed, his hands curling around her shoulders.

She cried out, her hands clawing at his back. “Holy shit, you’re big.”

“You okay?” he asked, the comment making his balls heavy and sending an urgent demand to move down his spine.

“So much more than okay,” Kristina said in a breathy, awed voice.

“Then hold on,” he said, hips moving as he anchored himself to her. Slower at first, but quickly faster, deeper, harder. He could’ve roared out at the goodness of it. But it wasn’t enough.

Going upright again, he tore off his shirt, then braced his fists snug against her sides, holding her hips as he gave her everything he had. She grasped his wrists and held tight, arching her back on each sharp thrust, making his mouth water for her breasts. The room filled with the sounds of sex—the slap of skin on skin, rasping breaths, needful moans.

“So fucking pretty,” he rasped. And God, she was. So beautiful beneath him, open to him, accepting him into her heat.

“Noah,” she cried, her hands squeezing his wrists tighter.

Hips flying, grinding, surging against her, he swallowed hard, loving the sound of his name on her lips. “What, baby?”

“Need you.” Her head thrashed, blond hair sprawled out all around her. Like a fucking angel of mercy.

“What do you need?” He pulled a hand free from hers and circled his fingers between her legs. “This?”

Kristina almost came up off the bed. “Yes.”

Hips flying, he moved his fingers harder, flicking them over her sensitive nub until he found just the thing that made her cry out the loudest, that made her stomach muscles clench the hardest. “Yeah,” he said. Except watching her chase her pleasure squeezed at his balls. It had been too long. And he needed her too much. And she felt too goddamned good. “Fuck, Kristina. Not gonna be able to hold back.”

“Don’t,” she whispered. Heavy-lidded and heated, her blues eyes looked straight inside him. “Don’t hold back with me.”

Her words were what did it. Heat lanced through him and then his orgasm was kicking him in the back, driving him into her even harder. He gripped her hips, lifted them off the bed, and brought their bodies together once, twice, three times.

Noah came inside her on a deep-throated groan. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said as his release rocked through him. His body stilled as the squeezing pulses ended, and he held himself all the way inside her.

“God, that was so good,” Kristina said, a flush on her cheeks.

Pulse rushing behind his ears and under his skin, Noah stroked his fingers from her knees to her core, and from there up to her breasts. And back again.

“It was, but it was only the beginning, Kristina. From here on out, it’s gonna be all about you.”

Kristina swallowed hard. She was breathless, boneless, and overwhelmed by the reality of what was happening. She might’ve suggested it—pushed for it, even—but that didn’t make it any less mind-blowing.

She just had sex with Noah Cortez.

And it was freaking amazing. He was freaking amazing. The way he moved. The way he filled her. That incredible expression on his face when he came, like he was shattered and put back together again all at the same time.

“All about me?” she asked.

Nodding, Noah withdrew from her, and she missed his presence inside her immediately. “If I only get one night, I want to learn everything I can about you. What makes you moan. What makes you writhe. What makes you come the hardest.”

His words rushed heat over her body. It pooled between her legs, where arousal still had her wet and needy.

“This time, I want to start at the beginning,” he said, pulling her into a sitting position at the edge of the bed and taking her face in his hands. Noah kissed her, softer this time, but every bit as deep, and maybe even more intense for the slow intimacy of it.

His tongue probed and explored, twining with hers. His hands wandered over her warm skin, stripping off her bra and lingering over her breasts, her nipples. He shifted closer, and she stroked her hands down the outside of his thighs, making her realize his jeans still hung around his legs. Feeling the roughness of the denim was when it really hit Kristina that neither of them had gotten all the way undressed before he’d gotten inside her. And for some reason she found that so freaking hot.

Noah ran worshipful kisses and playful nips along her jaw to the soft spot behind her ear, the spot that always made her melt and moan.

“Mmm, I’ll have to remember this,” he said, his breath caressing her ear and making goosebumps spring up all down her neck. He nipped along her neck to the tendon that sloped down her shoulder, his fingers plucking at her nipples, making her gasp and squirm. “This, too.”

Kristina shivered at the sensual promise of his words. But a part of her ached, too, because he wouldn’t need to remember the list of things that made her hot and wet if they weren’t going to do this again, would he?

No. No thinking. If this is all there will be, live in the moment and memorize every second of it.

Yes. Live in the moment. That’s exactly what she’d do.

“Want to feel all of you,” he whispered against her throat. “Want to taste all of you.”

How would she ever unhear him saying things like that? His lips chased the question away as they found her nipple and sucked it into his mouth. He held her there with his teeth and drove her mad with a series of hard, fast flicks of his tongue that had her gasping and whimpering. “God, Noah.”

“Say it again,” he said.

She stroked at his hair, and then gave in to the urge to press kisses there. “Noah.” Kiss. “Noah.” Kiss. “Noah.” His hair was soft against her mouth and smelled like soap and sunshine.

“Fuck, yeah,” he groaned, kissing down her belly. He stepped out of his jeans and lowered himself to his knees, then ran his hands roughly from her breasts down her belly to her thighs.

All the pain she’d seen in his dark eyes earlier was gone now, replaced by a sexy determination that had her stomach flipping and her heart panging in her chest. He pressed on her stomach, and she reclined a little.

Noah pushed her knees apart and stroked soft, teasing fingertips down the insides of her thighs, and Kristina was one hundred percent sure she’d never seen anything sexier than Noah on his knees between her legs. His gaze dragged down her body like a physical caress. His hands ran upward again and skated over her core, his thumbs dragging lazily over her clit where they met in the middle.

Kristina gasped at the too-brief contact. “Oh, God,” she whispered.

“I want my mouth on you. You good with that?” The look he gave her was so damn sexy. Hungry. Daring her to say no.

Of which there was absolutely no chance. She’d only had one boyfriend who seemed to enjoy giving oral sex enough to allow her to enjoy it, too, so her heart was a freight train in her chest just imagining Noah’s mouth. On her. She nodded. “I dreamed of you doing it.”

“Did you now?” He scooted closer, a smug smirk played around his lips. “And how was it?”

“I woke up before you—”

Noah licked her, just one swipe of the flatness of his tongue over the top of her sex.

“Oh, Jesus,” she said, her breath exploding out of her.

“Tell me what you like,” he whispered, running hard flicks of his tongue all around her lips, making her flinch and thrust her hips. His arm clamped down around her lower belly, and his fingers opened her to him further.

“Anything,” she rasped. “Because it’s you.” The words were out of her mouth before she really thought about how they might sound.

It’s just sex. Just sex. Just sex.

But Noah only made a small sound of satisfaction in the back of his throat, and then ran more of those firm, flat licks over her clit. Kristina’s eyelids wanted to fall shut to let her bask in the riot of sensations his mouth was causing, but seeing him between her thighs, his mouth on her pussy, was too erotic to look away from for even a single second.

And Noah gave her no reason to question whether he enjoyed doing this. He absolutely feasted on her. Sucking. Flicking. Licking. The wet sounds of his mouth combined with these crazy sexy little moans of pleasure he made to form a soundtrack she would no doubt hear in her dreams for a long, long time to come.

“Oh, God, Noah. Oh, God.” Kristina couldn’t control the little whimpers spilling out of her throat, the increasing volume of her breathing, the strain of her leg and hip muscles trying to push herself against his mouth.

In a sudden movement, Noah lifted her thighs over his shoulders and hiked her hips off the edge of the bed, and then he clasped his hands around her lower belly, making her core a prisoner to his mouth. He sucked her clit into his mouth and then flicked his tongue against it in a relentless demand that she come. His dark eyes stared up her body and bored into hers, the silent command so freaking loud that her head was spinning and her heart was hammering and sensation was whirling lower and lower in her body, collecting, building, until—

Kristina cried out as her orgasm crashed into her in wave after wave of pulsing, bone-melting pleasure unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She fisted her hands in the blanket beneath her and arched her back, her body utterly at the mercy of Noah’s mouth.

“Stop, stop, I’m gonna die,” she rasped. Absolutely sure of it. But not at all unhappy that this was the way she’d go. Receiving pleasure from the man she—from Noah.

He released her, and even that made her whimper and writhe. “I’m gonna hear you do that again and again before this night is over,” he said, his voice full of gravel.

She wasn’t sure she’d survive it. Body or heart.