Chapter Nineteen

At last. Dev launched herself, crashing into Seth’s powerful chest, and not willing to settle for less this time around. He wrapped her legs around his hips, while his hands mapped the feel of her skin from the crook of her knees to the curve of her ass. His fingers kneaded her derrière when they finally settled, while she clung to his neck and took extra special care of his mouth.

Fire burned between them. Red-hot flames that licked up her spine and her belly, then nipped at her breasts, hardening both tips into diamonds against his chest muscles. So, so good. She arched, pushing for more of that incredible, out of control sensation he’d started, the lust building between them like a flash fire she relished with every wild beat of her pulse.

A groan lifted up his throat, filling her mouth as her tongue tangled with his, stroking and dancing, tasting and craving. Seth. All she wanted was Seth in her mouth and in her body. In her soul.

“Bed,” he mumbled, returning lick for lick and groan for groan.

“Yes,” she hissed, her core weeping for the hardening length now grinding against the inseam of her rain-drenched shorts.

She had no idea where Gru was at the moment, but Seth must have known. He was thoughtful and careful like that. When he released her to stand on her own two feet, she stood at his bedside. But the look on his face…

There was heat in those whiskey brown eyes, a scorching ferocity that snapped between them. It was lust. It was fire. It was flame. His. Hers. Electricity lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. Was he primed to attack—or was she?

Careful not to break eye contact, she let the towels drop to the floor. He stretched one arm over his back and his shirt landed with them. His eyes had gone dark and bright at the same time, like a panther on the prowl, gauging her every move. But the sight of that muscled wall… The tension in those very athletic shoulders… The sheer size and width of this guy… Focus!

Dev hadn’t dressed for the storm. Floridians spent most of their lives in shorts and swimming attire. It took mere seconds to lose the tiny t-shirt and shorts she’d put on earlier. By then, he stood before her in only boxers with one magnificent hard-on.

An unexpected groan rumbled up from her belly. This guy was all man, a real man, plain and simple. A massively gentle man with muscles to spare and every last one of them was primed for action, one in particular.

Like the palm trees in the wind, she bent with the hurricane called Seth, brushing the rigid tips of her breasts to his pecs and moaning when those tender buds tightened even more. Her entire body ached with a desire so intense, there was only one remedy. Him. Now.

Because he hadn’t yet moved, she lifted a knee to the edge of the bed and ran her hand over the mussed sheets, clearing them out of her way. “Want to talk?” she asked coyly.

A hungry man’s gaze stared back at her, but Seth shook his head. He wanted her, that was very obvious, yet he stood at the foot of the bed, flexing his fingers.

She patted the mattress beside her in case he was undecided. “Sit with me?”

Another headshake, and “Why are you here?” he asked, his voice still thick with lust and his chest heaving. “I need to know.”

Oh, that.

Damn. Why was she here, and nearly naked at that? Just to use Seth again? Just to rely on his inherent honor and goodness for her own purpose? To take and take and take? Sure seemed like it.

Dev tugged the sheet up to her chin, needing the cover. No matter what she said or did next, her reasons for being here had not always been pure. Initially, she’d come because Cord needed Seth’s help, and like a fool, she’d put Cord’s need above everything and everyone else. Again.

But somewhere between Key West and Drunken Sailor Island, somewhere between the ‘more’ that Cord always demanded of her, and what Trish advised, Dev’s heart had stood up to be heard. Until these last days, her life had been all about Scottie and making a decent life for him. She’d been Cord’s willing baby sister after he’d appeared on her doorstep with his latest need to serve America. Man, she loved the guy, and she’d jumped into his mission with both eyes open to save what women and children they could. She thought she’d known what she was getting into. Helping women and girls escape human trafficking was a noble cause, but somewhere between that noble need to serve and the reality of holding onto a minimum wage job, mothering Scottie, and striving to be all she could be, Dev had lost—Dev.

Cord had no idea how much he asked of her and Scottie, or how much it took out of her, financially and emotionally. Yes, she was strapped for cash and walking a fine line with her boss, but every person Cord had rescued had also taken a thread from the fabric of her soul. Knowing precisely what they’d suffered at the hands of human traffickers tore at Dev, but knowing that there were so many more out there in the world whom she hadn’t been able to help, made sleep a hard commodity to come by. Not to mention she worried day and night for Scottie’s safety. Sly thought he’d killed Gru. What would he do next time, break and enter? Threaten Scottie? Worse?

It had to change, and for the first time in years, Dev realized she had needs too, needs that didn’t just tend towards childcare and brotherly love. This was about filling her cup for a change, grabbing that damned gold ring with her name engraved on it, just hers. She’d been running on empty for years, and she was hungry. Her candle wasn’t just burning at both ends. Hell no. It had long since melted into a wickless, worthless puddle of wax.

Did she love her brother? Absolutely. Was she an undercover operative like his buddies? Never and neither did she want to be. Did she adore Scottie? Undeniably. And Seth? Was she ready to climb into bed with him because of Cord’s imminent return to Cuba, or because she truly cared about Seth?

“I, ah, I…” Her lashes fell. There was no taking anything back. Cord did need Seth’s help, but Cord had nothing to do with why she’d tossed her clothes to the floor. “I’ll be honest,” she said, meeting Seth’s unwavering stare. “Yes, I came here to ask you to help my brother.”

Seth blinked once. His gaze shifted from passionate to indifferent to somewhere over her left shoulder.

Dev tugged the sheet tighter under her chin, wishing she weren’t such a spontaneous idiot. “But that’s only because I knew I could depend on you even if you were, umm, are—angry with me. You’re a good man, Seth. You’re strong and you’re noble. You’re courageous and you’re true.” And I’m still Chatty Cathy. “But I had time to think on the way out here.” She swallowed her pride. “I’m… I’m tired of what I’ve become. I’m tired of giving everything I own away every time Cord shows up with another boatload of desperate women and girls. I love what I do, but I want more than empty cupboards in my house and in my heart at the end of the day.” She dashed the blur of unwanted tears off her lashes. “There has to be something besides work in this crazy life of mine, and I…” Big sigh. “I want that something to be you.”

His head canted ever so slightly as his gaze reconnected. Trembling with the audacity of her words, Dev only lifted her chin higher. Somewhere out there on the ocean, in the gale between Key West and Drunken Sailor Island, she’d found her heart’s desire, and he’d better stop standing there and looking at her like she was crazy, or… or… had she read this all wrong?

Embarrassment enflamed her cheeks. Maybe that was precisely what he was thinking, that she was just some crazy chick with a kid and an iguana and a death wish.

“Never mind,” she bit out. “I know what this must look like, so think what you want. Yeah, I’m easy and I’m fast. And I’m stupid. Don’t forget stupid.” Shit, I am so stoo-pid!

She shoved his covers away, not caring that she was half-naked and making a fool of herself. Stupid people did that! It was past time to go and he needed to get out of her way. “Listen, I had no right to come here, not after what I said last night, and—”

And Seth was in her face, his mouth a heady suction on her lips. He ravaged her mouth, biting the bottom lip gently, tugging at it for her to let him in. Opening her mouth for him, she eased onto the pillow, breathing hard and ready to give him whatever he wanted.

His fingers moved greedily from her neck to her shoulders, then one hand slipped down to cup her breast. Palming the weight of it, he kissed a moist, hot trail to the valley between her satin encased breasts.

Breathing hard, Seth buried his face there, his breath scalding her sensitive skin. Dev pressed her nose into his short hair, breathing in the salt and rain they’d run through. He hadn’t moved, and she couldn’t make him, his wide shoulders expanding and contracting with every breath as he lay there. Just breathing. Just holding. Urgently on fire for the timid warrior in her arms, she lifted her hips in case he had any second thoughts.

While she waited, she used her time wisely, smoothing her fingers over his shoulder blades and up the back of his neck, rubbing her fingertips into his scalp and over his ears. Memorizing the jut of his jaw and the press of his thighs between her knees. Mapping warm male flesh that quivered at her touch like the withers of a giant draft horse in the sun. Kissing what she could reach of his forehead.

“I’m not into casual sex,” he growled to her breasts, the rumble a delicious vibration against her naked skin. “I don’t cut and run. If we do this…” Another rumbly growl. “It means I’m staying.”

“Yes, yes, stay,” she agreed, her eyes closed as she absorbed the heat coming off this man.

That seemed to do the trick. With expert slowness, Seth tugged her bra straps off her shoulders and eased the cups down to her belly. He tipped his upper body just enough for the heated lust in those whiskey browns to scorch a path over her bare skin. Never well-endowed, Dev thrilled at the male satisfaction simmering as his hooded gaze licked at each nipple, then down her centerline to her navel. And below.

“Wait, damn it,” he growled as if she’d pushed him too far, when she’d barely started pushing him at all. Stretching that glorious male body, Seth opened his nightstand drawer and produced a foil-encased condom.

“You don’t need that,” she informed him. “I’m covered.”

Still fingering the condom, he canted his head. “By?”

And wasn’t that intent light in Seth’s eyes just too sweet for words? He cared. He honestly cared! He knew what he was doing with her—to her—and he cared enough to act responsibly beforehand, something What’s-His-Name had never considered, not before or after their one hook up. Wow. The difference that one little word made.

“The three-month shot,” she breathed. “Depo-Provera. I made that mistake once, not making it again.”

“You didn’t want Scottie?” he asked, his voice filled with incredulity.

“I didn’t then, but I do now,” she explained. “That ended up being the best mistake of my life, but next time, I want to do things right with the right guy.”

One sexy brow spiked. “Am I doing things” —the hottest gaze stroked over her bare flesh on its way to the scrap of lace between her legs— “right?”

“Yes,” she squeaked, her heart climbing up her throat, squeezing her voice box. And you are so much the right guy.

“Well, okay then.” Bending over her, Seth drew her nipple into the hot cavern of his mouth and suckled, drawing the bowstring between her breasts and her core so damned tight that she arched into his hips as if he’d pulled her there. If he kept this up, she’d be finished before they started. She’d come like she had on her front porch step, in his hand.

While he devoured her breasts, his fingers slipped down her belly to her panties, easing them out of his way and spreading fire everywhere they touched. She bucked against his fingers, needing him to burn with her. Moaning his name and mewling for more. The calluses of a working man’s fingers and thumb scraped over her tenderest flesh, while his mouth laved her nipples with tender precision.

“Seth,” she hissed into the top of his head. She’d wanted him to come with her, but that wasn’t happening, not as fast as this slingshot into the stars was taking her. If he didn’t hurry…

“Yes,” she growled, grinding into his hands, wanting more of him. All of him.

Seth obliged, stripping her bare, even as his body joined hers with one firm thrust of his hips.

The heated connection burned as they flew. Soared. Rocketed. All that and more, this joining so fierce that it brought tears to Dev’s eyes. Thrumming with the exquisite pleasure this man’s body had brought hers, she swallowed hard, wondering at the sudden tsunami of tender emotions cresting in her heart. Why him? Why now?

She’d known Seth McCray less than a day, which didn’t equate to knowing him at all. She had no idea of his likes or dislikes, when his birthday was or how long he planned to stay when he’d said he was staying. What did that mean to a man in the throes of passion and lust? Probably not what she’d thought it meant. Which meant… trouble.

Staying power was a hard commodity amongst men. They came and they went, and in between coming and going, they told just enough lies to shatter a girl’s heart when they’d finally had enough of her and left. Even Cord, whom she’d adored her entire life, had never stayed with one woman long enough to bring her around, much less introduce her to Dev. Yet here Seth was, another man. A very different man, giving her his passion and what surely felt like a piece of his heart.

Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she stifled a sob, holding onto him, so he wouldn’t see the hot mess she’d turned into.

Seth pressed a steamy kiss to her eyebrow, then another onto her sweaty forehead, his lips so damned tender and impossibly sweet. “What’s wrong, Devereaux?”

She couldn’t speak, didn’t dare. There was nothing wrong, just very, very right—if she’d interpreted his words correctly. For the first time in years, Dev felt as if someone might truly have her back. It was just possible she didn’t have to fight the world alone anymore.