Scott had left her to run an errand, something he said would only take him a minute but needed to be done now. He ordered a pizza and promised to be back before it got here. She melted into the bed and flicked through the limited channels on the television.

She wasn’t necessarily tired. She spent the majority of the day as a passenger in a car, going from watching the view pass them by to sleeping. But being seated for so long was bothersome. She would have liked to go for a walk, but after the incident in Denver, she was bound and determined to stay put and not open the door for anyone. She would not make the same mistake twice.

Jovana didn’t know what she would do if the pizza was delivered before Scott returned. She considered showering but decided that food was more important, even if it was fast food. She wasn’t sure how much pizza she could take if this was what her life was going to be like now. Already, the idea of it seemed to make her want to curl her lip in disgust.

The door jerked open, pulling her from her thoughts, and she sat up, fearful that it may be danger. Instead, it was just Scott. He held a phone in his hand and a six-pack of beer in the other.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to frighten you. I was in a rush to get back because I saw the pizza guy pulling in.” He set his finds on the little table and pulled out his wallet just as another man walked to the door. “Thanks.” He offered him the money before closing the door. “Let’s make this an uneventful night.”

“It has not necessarily been an uneventful day,” she commented lightly as she picked up a beer from the carton. She sighed lightly at the American label but popped it open nonetheless. “So, I am not sure how you will keep the night from being uneventful.”

“First the car, now my beer.” He opened up the pizza box for a slice. “You’re a hard woman to please.” It sounded like he was joking, but it also sounded loaded. What was he trying to suggest? She had the feeling earlier, before she had kissed him at the gas station, that he had been flirting with her. Was he still? She remembered the way he’d pressed against her then. Maybe he was.

She frowned at him as she took a sip. “No, I am not hard to please at all.” She plucked up a slice and sat on the bed as he took the only chair. “Quite easy to please.” She watched him. He didn’t comment, though she was sure whatever message he was trying to convey before had gotten its answer. She watched him empty one of the glass bottles in a few pulls and wondered what had him addled. “What is the plan from here?”

“I have a contact arranging us a flight to Brazil from a little airport outside El Paso. I’ll get visas for us, too,” he said as he concentrated on eating.

“Is Brazil where we will stay?”

“Probably not, but it’ll be a good place to stay while we hatch a better plan,” he said as he picked up another beer.

“And you will be going with me?”

He paused, looking at her as he considered her question. He put the pizza down and came to sit beside her on the bed. “I told you I would be,” he said lightly. “I’m not leaving you to the wolves.”

“What if they’re not on my trail anymore?” She asked, turning toward him. She hadn’t been hungry enough for a second slice. Instead, she nursed the beer slowly as they spoke. “Will you leave me then?”

“No.” There was a seriousness in his voice. “I never thought I would see you again. I thought you would just lurk there in my thoughts and haunt me forever.” He paused, leaning closer. “I said I wasn’t leaving you and I meant it.” His gaze dropped from hers, and she was reminded of the kiss he had given her at the gas station. “Just because things seem fine, doesn’t mean that they’ve stopped looking for you.”

She swallowed, wanting to kiss him, but she had to wait. She had to know. “Did they not believe your picture?”

He grimaced, his eyes connecting with hers again. “We’re both in trouble now,” he confided.

“The car that followed us before?”

He nodded. “So, keeping you safe is going to be keeping me safe, too.”

She glanced down at the hard line of his mouth. She didn’t want to resist anymore. “Is that all it is?” She decided not to give him the chance to answer. She kissed him, delicately at first, tracing her tongue along the serious line before he managed to grab control from her hands. His lips parted for her without hesitation and his tongue met hers—it felt as if he was hungry for her.

The looks and the sweet words came back to her as they made the drive here. Had they all been real? She wrapped her arms around his neck, her bottle of beer dropped to the floor and forgotten, one of her hands burying in his hair.

It was like a switch was thrown, because as soon as her fingernails skimmed over his scalp, the heated kiss turned fiery. He pressed her back into the bed, taking control and drifting from her lips to follow the line of her jaw until he found her neck. She gasped and he was over her, against her.

She had been looking for this the night before, something that would satisfy the burning need she had felt and distract her from the reality that she had created. But, after everything that happened, she hadn’t expected Scott to be the one to give it to her. Even after he kissed her.

He seemed driven though, one hand cupping her breast and rolling her nipple to a peak through the fabric of her tank and bra. He would give her what she wanted, what she needed. She wanted contact, to feel him against her skin.

More than just his lips. She shifted to pull her tank up, and he pulled away just long enough to see what she was doing. “Impatient?” he asked, though he took the hint and jerked his own shirt up and over his head. Her tank went the direction of his shirt, and she saw him. He was a battle-hardened soldier. A contracted killer. It was evident in every line and curve of muscle. Despite his questionable eating habits, he kept his body just as deadly as his gun. He was beautiful.

“Yes,” she answered, tracing her hands up the length of his stomach and over those impressive pectorals to his shoulders. “I want you,” she breathed, and he leaned back down onto her, kissing her lightly as if he hadn’t been aggressive before.

“I want you,” he echoed in return. “Is this right though?”

“How could it not be?” She arched up, pressing her breasts against his chest so that she could undo the hook of her bra. “We want each other. Let us have each other.” She didn’t give him a chance to argue or second-guess anything. She kissed him hard, swirling her tongue past his lips and causing him to groan.

She shifted her bra out of the way, wanting to feel his chest bare against her own. The contrast of hard muscle against soft curves was delicious, and she wrapped a leg around his hips, tugging them against her own and rolling her hips against the hardness she felt there.

“Good argument,” he murmured as he found his way to her neck, licking and sucking a line down to her breasts. “I find it hard to resist,” he murmured before capturing one stiff peak between his lips. He sucked on her until she was arching and moaning, thrusting their hips together.

He traded off just as she reached between them to cup his hardness, and she managed a few strokes before he pulled away. “Don’t get too impatient,” he murmured to her, tugging her shorts off. “We don’t have to be in a hurry.”

“I am not in a hurry.” She didn’t even give him the chance to savor looking at her nearly nude form. She wiggled out of her panties and gave him a full view. “You interrupted what I was after before.”

“You were looking for sex before?” he asked, brows raised.

“I was.” She sat up when he didn’t seem intent on re-joining her. “Does that bother you?” She didn’t wait for his answer, and instead began opening his jeans.

“Don’t really have room to be bothered,” he admitted as he watched her pull his cock from his jeans.

“Good.” She looked up at him as she began to stroke his hardened length. She let him watch as she closed her lips around the tip of him, swirling her tongue as her eyes stayed connected with his. She continued stroking him, swallowing more as she did. His hand tangled in her hair and his hips bucked as she kept teasing him with her tongue.

He groaned, letting her take his length at her pace but finding it hard to resist the occasional thrust. She was content to offer him pleasure, not at all paying mind to the throb of his cock or the tightness that he held her hair. He tugged her hair back, pulling his cock from her mouth. His voice was gravely and it made her insides quiver. “As much as I’m enjoying that, I want to be somewhere else when I bust.”

She didn’t protest. Instead, he pressed her back against the bed and caught her mouth. She wanted him, she decided, and not just for sex. There was something there that drove the hunger for him, that made her enjoy the feel of his cock in her mouth and not be mindful of getting her own pleasure. That didn’t mean she wasn’t damp from their actions. Excitement had coiled through her the moment he began to kiss her.

Scott didn’t linger at her mouth, though he seemed to enjoy it while he was there. He seemed to want to trail downward, enjoying pressing his face between her breasts as he alternated between suckling from each peak.

He didn’t stay there for long. He surprised her by drifting down from her breasts and kissing a path down her stomach until he no longer hovered above her. She looked down in slight apprehension as he parted her thighs and nudged a shoulder under each. His breath tickled her damp outer lips and her breath caught when he gave her the first tentative kiss.

He parted her with his fingertips, giving her a heated look before he traced his tongue along the length of her opening. He began to tease and tickle her until she was gasping for more. A finger nudged into her opening, and she widened her legs to accept, eager to feel him inside her. He worked her steadily with his hand, then closed his mouth around her clit and sucked at her hard. “Scott,” she moaned, curling her fingers into his hair.

She didn’t have the restraint that he did, nor the control. When he inserted another finger into her quivering sex, she clenched and accepted the invasion. “I want you,” she breathed, barely able to connect that she had voiced the thought. The fingers within her curled, and he ceased his sucking to lap at her sensitive clit. Her hips bucked in response, and it was nothing she could do before he forced her over the edge.

The orgasm had been intense enough that it felt as if her nerve endings were shooting off fireworks. She felt him scrape his teeth along the skin of her thigh before he released her. “Move up further onto the bed,” he growled against her ear. She managed to go along with him until he had her settled against the pillows.

She heard the rip of plastic and found herself opening her eyes to see him rolling a condom onto his cock. The act seemed to excite her more. She sat up, eager to touch and kiss him again. He met her with a fever that seemed to equal her own. She pulled him down to her. “I want you in me.”

“That’s where I want to be,” he breathed against her lips, gripping her hips with one hand as he held himself above her with the other. He was between her thighs, and she reached down to guide him to her entrance. “I want this,” he gasped out as he started to press his way into her. “I want you,” he assured her as he soon became fully sheathed in her heat.

He was thick, stretching her to a point that was just bearable. “Yes,” she hissed when he began to thrust into her. She arched to meet him, striving to keep up as the pressure from another orgasm rose like cresting waves. She wrapped her arms around his neck and found his mouth, distracting his concentration by licking and kissing him as he had done her.

She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, scraping her teeth along it before soothing it with her tongue. He grunted, and there was a fine tremble that quaked through him. His thrusts picked up as he seemed to be desperate to maintain some control. She didn’t make any effort to help him, using her hands to caress him until his control began to slip.

He put more force behind each thrust, the bed squeaking and the headboard slapping against the wall. Her mouth drifted down to his throat, and she licked along the cords of muscles in his neck. His grunts seemed to increase. “You feel so good,” she breathed against his skin.

“I can’t.” He bared his gritted teeth.

“Don’t,” she beckoned. “Give it to me.”

He shifted and tugged her leg up so that instead of being around his hip, it was pressed between them and her foot rested against his shoulder. He changed the angle of his thrusts, going in deeper. It made her quake and she gasped. She had been striving to bring him to orgasm, and here she was at the edge of another. “You make me feel so good,” she whimpered. “Don’t stop,” she gasped out.

His breath hitched. “I’m gonna come.”

“Don’t stop,” she said desperately.

He let out a pained groan and his thrusts stuttered, his hips jerking out of rhythm. He released the leg he had propped on his shoulder and he shifted closer to her, panting. His hand now free, he began flicking his thumb against her clit. It wasn’t long before he had her pushed over the edge, quaking and gasping out as she clung to him.

He shifted to lie next to her, draping an arm around her. “That was fucking fantastic.”

She was still putting herself back together. He kept her close, preventing her from drifting away to sleep just yet. He caught her eyes. “I’m going to keep you safe. Nothing—no one—will get you away from me.”

Her heart felt like it seized in her chest, and the seriousness in his eyes sent home the message that he meant every word. “We are in this together,” she said in return. He leaned forward to kiss her gently, all tenderness as he pulled them together.

Scott had come to kill her, but here he was setting her free from all the grief of her past mistakes. Jovana wrapped her arm around his middle and settled in to let fatigue take her away. She was determined to hold onto him. There would be no trying to escape like when they first met.