Leah carefully backed her car with the rented U-Haul trailer into an extra-long parking spot and wiped her hands on her jeans. She had no reason to be nervous, but there it was again. A tremor in her belly.

By the time she’d gotten the trailer loaded and hit the road, it had been mid-afternoon, and she’d made good time to Portland. It would be a long day tomorrow. The plan was to drive to San Francisco, but she hadn’t made a hotel reservation like she had today.

Tonight was the last night of her neatly planned life. Tomorrow was the first day of…whatever came next.

Okay, so she had some reason to be nervous.

She grabbed her backpack full of valuables, double-checked the padlocks on the trailer, and headed around the hotel to the front entrance.

“Do you need two room keys?” the clerk asked as he swiped her credit card.

“Just one, thanks.”

“Are you staying in Portland long?”

“Just for the night.”

He gave her a quick grin as he printed out her receipt. “Too bad. Sign at the bottom, initial that you understand the room is non-smoking…and here’s your card. You’re on the second floor, end of the hall. Breakfast starts at six tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” She grabbed the key card and headed down the hall. She skipped the elevator and curved past the indoor pool, heading for the stairs at the end of the hall.

It wasn’t that busy. There was a family herding their kids toward the pool, and a guy having a private conversation on a phone up ahead, his back to her. That reminded her that she forgot to ask the guy at the desk about who delivered food in around here, but she could call down from the room.

She pushed through the heavy door into the stairwell, then took the stairs two at a time. When she hit the second floor, she heard the door below push open again.

Footsteps on the stairs, heavy and slow, made her heart race.

She pulled the door to the second floor open and hurried toward her room. Card at the ready, she slid it into the lock.

Red light.

Second attempt, be smooth, Leah.

Green light. The lock mechanism whirred to life, releasing the handle, and she opened her door as the guy from downstairs stepped into the hallway.

She made eye contact with him.

No smile.

She stepped into her room and stashed her backpack in the closet as the door swung closed behind her—but the lock didn’t engage. With a glance over her shoulder, she reached to push the door the rest of the way shut, and met unexpected resistance instead. The door pushed against her, or rather, someone pushed the door inward, and she wasn’t strong enough to push it shut. And then the toe of a boot—big, black, heavy-soled—jammed in the doorway.

She whirled to the side, hoping for at least some element of surprise.

The guy pushed into the room and she grabbed his arm, prepared to twist him around. But he was ready for her and used her force against her, continuing the turn until she was in the circle of his arms and pressed face-first against the wall.

“I saw you in that pink t-shirt and I knew I just needed to have you,” he said in her ear, his voice familiar even as he grubbed it up. “Should have taken the chance then.”

Three months earlier in a bar off-base, if he’d done this then, he’d have been a stranger. Now he was just pretending, and oh, how she loved him for it. She smiled against the wall and pushed off with both hands, shoving her back into his broad, muscled chest. He grappled for her and she twisted out of reach, making him chase her to the bed. But her advantage didn’t last long, and she quickly found herself pinned to the mattress. His hands were everywhere. Her hips, her waist, her ass.

Too bad for him he left her hands free. She planted one hand beneath and swung her other arm wide and up, knocking him sideways. Fresh sweat slicked her skin, but not his. She was good at hand-to-hand combat but he was infinitely better.

So when she pinned him to the bed, it was because he let her.

She straddled his hips and rocked against the erection straining at his jeans. “You thought you could scare me?”

“Couldn’t help myself,” he whispered, his eyes bright.

“Now the tables are turned.” She squeezed her hips, and something hard in his front pocket pushed into her inner thigh. Planting one hand on his chest, she gave him a stern look. “What is this?”

She quickly rifled through his pockets.

Handcuffs.

Lube.

Chuckling under her breath, she leaned forward, brushing her breasts over his face as she snapped the cuffs on first one wrist, then the other.

The entire time, Quinn watched her through hooded eyes, his gaze hot and hungry.

“We’re going to have to work on your abduction skills,” she teased gently.

“I’ve detained drug lords and terrorists in foreign country. My skills are just fine.”

“And yet you got taken down by a little woman.”

Instead of answering, he licked at her nipple through her t-shirt. Then he shrugged. “I missed you. Hard to maintain a desire to assault you when…”

“You were packing lube and totally willing for me to violate you instead?”

He laughed. “Don’t use that word.”

“I’ll use whatever word I like,” she whispered, cupping his erection through his jeans. He throbbed against her touch. “Got a problem with that?”

“God, no.”

“Good boy.” She pushed his t-shirt up, because it had been too long since she touched him, and his muscles tightened and bunched under her touch. She stroked her fingertips over the ridges of his eight-pack, then down again to the waistband of his jeans. “I’m so lucky,” she murmured as she undid his belt. “To have such a beautiful man, with a beautiful heart, attached to a gorgeous, big cock like this.”

He groaned as she found his length, hard and solid and yes, very big. “I’m the lucky one.”

“Maybe I’ll just play with you. Maybe I’ll be mean.”

He bucked his hips. “Okay.”

“God, you like that, don’t you.” She wiggled down his body until her mouth was right over his thick crown, shiny with pre-come.

“I like everything you do to me.”

“You are so deliciously dirty,” she said, her heart close to bursting as she licked the evidence of just how much he liked it.

He groaned again, pushing his cock into her mouth, and she swallowed him in, hungry for his taste and scent. Eager to give him pleasure. They’d only had phone sex for a month, and she was desperate for this physical connection again. As she bobbed her head up and down, fucking him with her mouth, she kicked off her sandals and wriggled out of her own jeans.

She wouldn’t touch herself. No, she’d make herself wait until after she’d given him his first orgasm, and then he could lick her or finger her or both…

With a moan, she re-doubled her efforts and sucked harder.

“Oh, angel, I’m gonna come if you keep that up,” he panted, his entire body straining beneath her. She squeezed the inside of his thigh, urging him to lose control.

When he did, thrusting deep into her throat and coming hard in long, hot spurts, she swallowed every drop.

“Where are the keys to the cuffs?” she whispered once she’d licked him clean and rolled onto her back. She wanted him to have his hands back. She wanted to feel his touch again, everywhere and without restraint.

He huffed a satisfied but exhausted breath, then swung his wrists into the air above them. With a press of a finger, one hand was free. He dangled the cuffs over her torso. “Quick-release.”

She laughed and wiggled closer. “Seriously? You wouldn’t trust me with regular cuffs?”

“Of course I would.” He grinned down at her. “And your new bed has a headboard with slats.”

Her new bed. His bed, in his house. “Can’t wait,” she whispered, sliding her hands up and under his shirt, around his waist, so she could press against him and kiss his jaw, his neck, and lick that deliciously salty spot in the dip of his collarbone.

He tangled his fingers in her hair and tipped her head back. “You got everything packed up okay?”

He’d wanted to come and help her, but her last day of her lease had coincided with an important mission briefing he couldn’t miss this morning, so they’d compromised on meeting here at the end of the day—and having a little dirty playacting in the process.

“All my worldly possessions are in a trailer behind my car, ready to road-trip back to San Diego with you.”

“We could have hired movers.”

“Mmm.” One nice thing about the Army moving her, she’d never had to worry about it before. But this time, she didn’t have a new posting, and since San Diego hadn’t been her home of record or place of entry into the Army, she’d been shit out of luck for getting any reimbursement.

Now that she was unemployed and planning to be a poor college student for a few years, she needed to keep all her pennies. When she’d explained that to Quinn, he’d accepted it, but from their time on Miralinda together, she’d gleaned that he had family money.

Saving his pennies wasn’t something he’d ever had to do.

He nuzzled into her neck. “Ignore me,” he whispered. “Let me make you feel good, girl who’s been driving all day. Lifting heavy boxes and being ever-so-capable.”

She stretched like a cat against him. “That’s right. I think I deserve a little reward.”

“Little?” He growled and nipped at her skin.

“I meant your tongue. But it’s not little, either.” She giggled as he peeled up her t-shirt and licked down her flat belly. “Yes, keep going.”

He covered her thong with his hand, his fingers hot and heavy brands against her skin where they reached past the silk, spanning her entire pelvis.

She slid her fingers into his hair and pushed, urging his mouth to cover the silk instead. He didn’t need to be told twice. Beneath the silk, she was slick already, and when he peeled it aside he dove right in, lapping up her arousal until her legs pulled up around his head.

“Oh, that feels so good,” she praised him. “You drive me crazy.”

He swirled the tip of his tongue around her clit and laughed under his breath before latching on and sucking with his whole mouth. Yes, it was crazy. Also wonderful. He drove her straight to a leg-shaking, heart-stopping orgasm, then peeled her panties off, finally got them both all the way naked, and sank into her, skin-on-skin for the first time.

“I love you,” he whispered as he thrust into her. “I’m so glad you’re coming home with me.”

Her chest tightened and she buried her face in his neck as she wrapped her legs around his hips. When he was inside her, she was already home.