Holy God.

By the time she’d stripped to nothing but her panties, Sam didn’t know if he’d last much longer. The last ten days—hell, the last three days—had been eternities. At first, simply wantin’ her—but with every passing minute in her presence, startin’ to need her. To crave her. To feel the utter rightness of her laughter and light in a world that had, for him, grown so hopeless and grim.

She was his way back to the light.

Back to feelin’ in control of something again, for once.

And perhaps, after that, takin’ control of the rest of his life too.

As she tugged at the edges of the buff-colored lace at her hips, he tore at the fastening of his pants. He’d already shucked his jacket and shirt; they were tangled with her dress on the love seat next to the bed. Still, he held back on freein’ his cock all the way. Damn thing was already a rod of ragin’ heat, fed by the blood that pounded his veins like a firestorm of lust. And the mirror along the wall already showed him what he knew: he was an equally daunting sight, with veins standing out against his biceps and urgent air puffing up his tense chest.

“Oh my God.” Her breathy burst spiked his concern, despite how delectable she looked while complying with his exact instructions, positioning herself in the exact center of the bed.

“What is it, mouse?”

He stepped over, seeing nothing but her now. Forgettin’ even the throb in his tadger because the exquisite dawn of her arousal was too fuckin’ good to miss. He raked his stare across the gorgeous dew across her skin, shimmering even brighter between her slightly parted thighs…and then up to the sweet concave from her ribcage, especially because she was breathin’ like she’d just climbed Ben Nevis itself…and then admiring the pert peaks of her erect nipples and the dazzling gems of her eyes. Damnation, her eyes. They shined like peridots had collided with emeralds beneath the brilliance of a thousand candles.

“What is it?” He spoke it as a command this time. “If this is really goin’ to work for us, leannan, then you must answer a question when I issue it—especially if it’s about your health or well-bein’.”

“Of course. I mean, yes, Sir.” She nodded so fervently, it instantly pulled at his chest. And a lot of other parts that fed his Dominant’s desire. “I just…” She stopped to lick her lips but ended the move with a saucy smile, easing his worry by surprising degrees. Mostly because he had no idea he was that worried… “It’s just that…holy shit…”

“It’s all right, Jenny.” He leaned over, brushing a thick strand of her auburn waves off her face. No way in fuck was he goin’ to miss a moment of how this experience affected her…of how his authority took her mind and body to its greatest, grandest heights. “Take your time. Tell me what you’re feelin’.”

“My heartbeat’s turning my chest into a rave party.”

He lifted his brows and quirked half a smirk. “Sounds like fun.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Oh, I thoroughly intend to.” He said it while returning to a full stand, confirming she watched him through every inch of the movement—including the tiny tug he gave his pants zipper. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Her moan was guttural and delectable. “Oh, yes please.”

“You first.” He jabbed his chin her way. “Take ’em off, sweet Jenny. Bare your juicy beauty to me.”

More of that aroused moan, making the column of her neck all taut and gleaming, as she hooked her thumbs around the lace covering her core. With a slide of motion that maddened him—faster; fuck, faster!—but delighted him—that’s it, my sweet mouse; just like that—she got the garment down to her knees before Sam declared his composure a total loss, and he sank a knee to the bed, taking over for her.

As soon as he freed her of the lace, he wadded the panties up and lifted them to his nostrils. The nectar of her, tangy honey and delicious musk, took over his senses. He sucked in two more lungsful of her sweet scent before growling, “Oh, my gorgeous girl. You’re wet. Very wet.”

Jen’s pulse still visibly thudded at the base of her throat. “Is…is that good?”

“That’s very, very good.”

She attempted a smile, but besides bein’ soaked for him, she was also still nervous as a kitten in a rocker factory. And completely clueless about how stunning she was, propped against the mound of pillows, every lush line of her flawless nudity on display for him. Offering herself to him like one of those thousand-dollar fruits they sold over in Asia. Only difference was, she was a million times more beautiful than a bunch of golf ball-sized grapes or a rare apple embedded with diamonds. And he already knew—knew—she’d be a million times more succulent.

“Holy fuck.”

But clearly, his snarl did nothing to assuage her jumpy nerves. While it did have a gorgeous effect on her puckered nipples, she still started turnin’ her bottom lip into hamburger while twistin’ wrinkles into the pristine white coverlet. But that was just the beginnin’ of her beauty. With a short tilt of his head, Sam gave himself a perfect peek at what her trepidation did for other parts of her exposed body. Her pussy…fuck. Just this glimpse of those dark-pink lips, drenched in her shimmering, thick arousal, and he had to twist his balls through his pants, terrified he’d blow in them like a goddamned teenager.

“I—I know I’m not exactly the definition of ‘stacked and sleek,’ but—”

“Jenny.”

“I try to take care of myself, at least, and—”

“Jenny.”

“What?”

“You’re perfect, a leanbh.”

She answered his rough confession with an elegant blush that suffused her from head to toe. With equal charm, she murmured, “Thank you, Sir.”

“Now lie back,” he told her then. “All the way, with your legs open and your arms up over your head. I need to see you. All of you.”

His emphasis on the final three words brought on another gorgeous flush—though remarkably, her agitation mellowed a little as Sam leaned over and secured her wrists into the leather cuffs that were revealed in a sliding compartment built into the headboard.

“Well.” She smiled as he slid a finger between her right wrist and its cuff, double-checking he’d left enough room for her proper circulation. “Isn’t that convenient?”

He dipped a soft kiss onto her lips, using the excuse to admire her beneath him already. With her arms stretched, her breasts were high and taut and exposed, the bold red tips jutting from perfectly round areolas. “The whole place is booby-trapped,” he teased, waggling his brows. “Won’t it be a bit of fun to take a roam about?”

He expected her to pull a case of sassy mouse and glare at him. Instead, her face lit up and her eyes gleamed like a pair of jaunty high-step dancers. “Booby-trapped? You mean better than in the elevators?”

Sam almost laughed—and likely would have, if a resounding realization didn’t hit him so hard that very moment. And expose his every nerve. And make him giddily aware of every fuckin’ breath he took…and sensation he felt…and tremor he endured…

“Jennifer Josephine Thorne,” he murmured, dragging a knuckle down her sternum and savoring the soft keen she let out as he trailed lower and lower and lower.

“Yes, Captain Samuel Mackenna?”

“Where the fuck have you been my entire life?”

She curled an impish grin. “Is this a multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank answer?”

“Why do I think you’d prefer the fillin’-in kind better, mo luaidh?”

She answered with nothin’ but a louder purr as he descended his hand, turning it over to hold her abdomen down with the flat of his palm. “Oh,” she finally blurted. “Ohhhh, my goodness…”

“Easy, lass,” he directed. “Easy, now. I need you to stay right here for me, aye? I want to explore this sweet cunt before I fill every inch of it.”

His tease had her shudderin’ beneath him and then around him as he dipped his other hand between her thighs, breachin’ her swollen folds with a questing finger. Jesus God, she was so slick and soaked and ready—and from the second he slid inside, he was a hundred times harder and hotter.

At once, he added a second finger. The second her clenching channel welcomed him, he gritted and slurred the filthiest Gaelic oaths he could remember. Didn’t do the trick. He switched to English. “Fucking hell, you gorgeous woman. I’m lettin’ out precome like a geyser. What you do to me, sweet Jenny. What your beautiful, tight gash does to me…”

“Oh!” Her outcry was a damn aphrodisiac, as she flushed and flailed and began bucking her hips, all but begging him to plunge his digits deeper and faster. “Oh, shit! So good, Sam!”

He shifted his free hand down. Used those fingers to rub her labia, working those inflamed lips so they indirectly stimulated her clit.

“Want more, little mouse?”

“Y-Yes, please…”

“Another finger inside you?”

“God, yes!”

“Then ask for it nicely.” Though in truth, he was ready to bury his whole fuckin’ fist inside her if that’s what she needed.

“Please. Oh, p-p-please, give me another finger…Sir.”

As soon as he did, the extra pressure in her tunnel broke her clit free from its hood, and Sam watched the erotic nub get bigger with every invasion of his fingers. Jen groaned and gasped in time to his lunges, filling the air with a sharp but slippery rhythm, her voice pitching higher as her clit turned redder and he pumped away with more ruthless abandon.

Stretching her.

Testing her.

Celebrating her.

Spreading her.

Still, Sam dictated, “Farther. Open wider, sweet Jenny. Show me exactly what my cock is goin’ to conquer.”

“L-Like this?”

He lifted his stare. Captured her gaze with the undaunted intent of his. “Do you really think you’re getting a grade here, little leannan?” He extended his strokes, turning them into more contemplative caresses. “Listen to me. You don’t worry about any of that, Jenny. Not here. Never with me. There’s no right or wrong, or good or bad, or black and white when you’re with me.” When she suddenly looked like an inquisitive kitten, baffled but curious, some dark barrier inside him melted—perhaps forever. Not all the barriers, but it was a damn fine start. Oh aye, a very good one.

He leaned forward, taking her perfectly parted lips beneath his. “You are perfection, sweet beauty—so all you worry about is rejoicin’ in every sparklin’ drop of that.” He captured the gasp she gave as response with adorin’ brushes of his lips—while commencin’ the deep drive of his fingers inside her body once more. “Christ, my little one. Look at how you glisten for me. And feel how you tremble for me. Now I can smell how hot you are for me too. So soft and luscious…”

She looked up at him through her dark sable lashes. There was nothing coy about it. Desire was already a thick, potent force in her lush green eyes. “All of it’s for you. All of me is for you.”

The words spilled from her without hesitation, workin’ heady magic inside him in return. She gave every damn syllable to him without reserve, without hesitation, without expectation—and, most importantly, as her complete truth in the reality they forged with each other right now. A door they’d chosen to walk through together, without cares or concerns about the next portal to come—or even if there’d be another door. The next door didn’t matter. Tomorrow didn’t matter. The explosion of this and only this was the key to her freedom—and now, the heights to which he looked for his own desire.

“Those are wonderful words to hear, lass.” He tilted his head, fixated with the sight of his fingers driving into her…absorbed and consumed by her soft, glistening sex. “Since that’s exactly what I plan on taking.”

Jen bit her bottom lip as she bore down on him. Sam cocked a wicked grin, savoring the feel of her tangy juices gushing all over his fingers. So naturally, he plunged in harder. She jerked and trembled, releasing another long, worshipful moan—and spearing him with a bright, pleading stare.

“Then do it.” She squirmed and writhed and dug her heels into the bed, seeking traction to arch her core up at him. “Take it.” A new roll of her hips, a fresh gush of arousal from the center of her desire. “Take it now, Sam. I—I can’t hold on for much—ahhhh!”

The scream escaped her as he withdrew his fingers, though the erotic sluice on the air was hacked short by a sharp smack and her startled yelp—as he used his soaked fingers to land a couple of expert spanks across the top of her mound. Though Jen’s gaze burst into a stunned glare, Sam purposely ignored her look. He knew where he’d aimed his fingers and had purposely spared the slit where her sensitive nub still thrummed in swollen desperation.

“You’ll be holdin’ on as long as I tell you to.” As he anticipated, the undaunted order made her jaw drop—and her nipples as hard as arrowheads. “Is that clear?”

“Are you freaking kidding—” She yelped as he spanked her once more. Then quivered harder than before. “Okay, okay. We’re clear!”

He sent her a choir-boy smile. She shot him an angel’s avenging stare. And damn if that wasn’t the best comparison of this whole week, with the last of the day’s light spilling in across her perfect seraph’s body, makin’ her look just like one of heaven’s own creations, dropped here just to show him a new definition of paradise…

Especially as he rose up, unzipped his slacks, and freed his aching erection.

And her sigh washed over him like the most quality choir of angels in the most quality firmament in the universe.

“Sam.”

“Aye, darlin’ Jenny?”

“You’re…magnificent.”

He let a slow smile spread across his lips in correlation to how his shaft grew against his palm as he stroked the hardness to greater life. “Not half as magnificent as you, my bonnie mouse.”

No words were truer. He had to fight not to sink himself into her right away, with how she looked like an angel, whispered like an enchantress, and mesmerized him like a goddamned goddess. But after the speech he got from the check-in manager to the enforcements on the key packet and bed stand note, the Nyte was all about people doin’ lots of safe sinkin’—so he opened the nightstand drawer, found a packet emblazoned with the telltale Trojan’s head along with the Nyte’s starry logo, and efficiently tore it open with his teeth.

After he slid the latex from inside it, he quickly gloved up the shaft that had become practically a flagpole between their bodies. A groan took over as he got the condom to the end and had to squeeze his balls again. Another moan swept in as he pushed her knees out with his own, fitting his body into the apex of hers. But even as he nudged her entrance with the hard purple bulb of his sex, he paused for one more moment. Probably the most important one.

“S-Sam?”

Her query was guttural and rough. So was the long breath he pulled in.

“If we’re going to stop, you must tell me now.” He inhaled again, raking a hand up until his fingers bracketed the chain connecting her cuffs. “The torture’s been cruel enough, stayin’ away from you for ten damn days.”

He watched a maelstrom of emotions flow across her face, through her eyes. Deep furrows across her forehead gave way to a half smile of wonderment. Then a more sober look again before she lifted her face up toward him with conviction that came from clear, determined desire.

“I don’t want to stop, Sam.”

His answering growl was long and fierce. “Thank God.”

Without saying anything else, he entered her.

And reveled in her sharp, shivering outcry. “Hell! Ohhh, hell!”

“Fuck,” Sam grunted, lost to an instant dilemma. He was stretching her, probably more than she ever had been before, but the reason he knew it so clearly was because she squeezed him so tightly. Her pussy was unlike any heaven he’d known. Unlike any sheath he’d ever filled. Beyond any warmth that had ever welcomed his cock. But he wasn’t even all the way inside her yet. Would that even be possible?

It had to be.

It would be.

“Fuck,” he repeated, withdrawing far enough to give him some leverage for the next thrust. As he clenched his buttocks and rolled his hips forward, Jen shuddered and mewled beneath him. “Easy, little mouse,” he urged. “Easy. We’ll get there. You’re just so perfect. So fuckin’ tight… Easy…”

So much simpler said than done.

But she guided him there. Inch by fierce, blissful inch. He watched her every second, taking cues on how to move from the slightest twist of her lips, glints in her eyes, tension in her body. Her breaths were his brightest guides. In their squeaking sighs, he knew her arousal. In their sudden hitches, he felt her pain. Slowly, she got used to him. At last, she harbored all of him. By the time his balls knocked against her skin, he was panting in a combination of triumph and torment. Never had he had to be more attuned to a lover like this. But never had one made him feel more alive in the process.

“Fuck!” It wasn’t his most original word by this point—but God’s bloody tits, did it handle the job well—until he lost the ability to speak, only capable of a primal yell that blended flawlessly with Jen’s lusty scream. He reared up high enough to watch her for a moment, rejoicin’ in the gorgeous lights of her eyes and the hungry part of her lips, silently beggin’ him to copy the fusion of their bodies by fuckin’ her mouth with his tongue.

He was all too happy to oblige.

Fully. Ferociously. Damn near fanatically. Jenny returned all his passion ten, twenty, a hundredfold, blowing apart his senses with her open, unbridled heat. There was a not-so-latent beast inside him—he’d known that for too damn long now—but he’d never anticipated that his demure bookworm of a mouse was the disguise for an equally wild creature inside her. His gentle angel Jenny was actually a hot, heathen fire fairy…

His mouse was really a she-beast.

They sucked at each other’s mouths the same way they fucked each other. With hungry abandon, starving satiation, unhindered desire. But there was more to this than a physical coupling. Sam knew it in the depths of his spirit and the fiber of his being, while he saw its plain proof in the symbolism of the cuffs he’d placed on her. His she-beast wanted to be caught. Needed to be conquered. Craved to be opened for his evisceration and splayed for his desecration…

And he adored her for it.

Yearned to worship her all night because of it.

And fucked her harder in thanks for it.

As he kept pumpin’ in and out, he laved her breasts and nipples with new licks and bites. Explored her flesh with eager hands, strokin’ every perfect curve and crevice of her. And finally, oh God finally, he inserted a hand between her legs, seeking the bundle of nerves that pulsed strongest for him. Needing her to follow him. Coaxing her right over the precipice with him, into the blinding void they both stretched and gasped and yearned for…

“Sam!” She shuddered as he flicked her flesh, over and over and over.

“Yes, mo luaidh?”

“Oh…shit…that’s—that’s—”

“Just the kind of commentary I like.” He smiled against her lips and then her neck, his blood rocketin’ with arousal as she dropped her head back, her eyes closin’ and her breasts thrust up toward him.

“It’s—oh God.” She gasped. “It’s…oh, I can’t…”

“Of course you can.” He dug his teeth into the succulent dip at the base of her neck, continuin’ the path of his lips into the creamy valley between her sweet breasts. “Tell me, a leanbh. Tell me. All of it, sweet Jenny.”

“I just—oh my God, I’m seeing stars.”

The words alone had him lunging deeper and harder. “And that’s a bad thing?”

“Yes! I mean no. I—I just—” Her thighs trembled against his. Her gorgeous chebs now had nipples erect as red candies. “It’s…so much. It’s too much. I don’t know if I can—”

“Of course you can. And you will.” He doubled the tempo of his thrusts. Her sex shivered around him. God damn, she felt so fine. So tight. So wet. Engulfin’ every hot, demanding inch of him—and beyond. She didn’t just surround his cock anymore. She swallowed his senses. Transformed his reality. Engulfed him in a special kind of reality…

Called her submission.

And in doing so had given him a gift beyond what he dreamed.

A power he’d never thought to know in full again.

A part of himself he’d mourned a long time ago…

But it wasn’t dead. It had only been sleeping. And it was reawakened now. Holy Christ, was it awake.

“God, yes. Take it, sweet Jenny. Take all of me…and all of you too. Let it all in, darlin’. Let it take over.”

Through a fog of feeling he heard his voice, sounding like he’d swallowed a crate of glass. He was beyond caring. His resistance was fraying. Pressure pulled and growled at him, prowling the base of his spine until descending through his ass cheeks. He fought to give the beast room, but there was very little lead rope left for it. Once it ran the rein taut, he’d break.

Jen’s scream grabbed at the final inches of that tether.

A bellow, hoarse and harsh, exploded from his lips. Heat, wild and wonderful, pumped the length of his cock. He could think of nothing but the orgasm that tore him apart and the incredible, beautiful woman who’d given it to him. The sweet creature who’d stumbled into his path ten days ago but who’d been part of his imagination for so much longer than that.

Because he’d been asking fate for her.

No. Not asking. Taunting. Daring the universe to prove that someone like her could still exist. A woman—hell, a person—who could connect to him on every level there was. Even the dark ones.

Especially the dark ones.

The levels he showed her now, even as she locked her legs against his back, urging him to take her even harder, fixing him with a stare as clear and adoring as it was unaltered and unafraid.

Making him think…

Or possibly even hope…

She really was strong enough for the darkness.

All of it.

As if the bloody enchantress had read his mind, her eyes narrowed a little. Not a lot—certainly not enough that he held back on his lust—but enough to tell him that she saw. And she knew. Just enough to know that she didn’t know. That she didn’t have all of him. Not yet.

“Sam.” And though she panted it out, the dictum in her voice was also there. Just enough of a husk beneath her breath that he now knew…

She wasn’t going to relent until she saw it all.

“Sam. Damn it!”

“Ssshhh. I know, sweet one. I know.”

“I will not ‘ssshhh.’ And you don’t know, because if you did, then—oh!”

She finished that with a strangled choke.

He reared back, until his shaft was simply kissing her outer lips again—

And then fucked into her with everything he had.

Everything he was.

Every inch. Every force. All the brutality. All the darkness.

“Oh. My. Ahhhh!”

Her sex convulsed around him. Then again. And again.

And all over again, as soon as he reached beneath her and then searched deeper, finding the forbidden pucker with its ring of sensitive nerves…

“Sam! Oh, God!”

He breathed hard and heavily into her ear while working his two forefingers at her most illicit entrance. “Good girl,” he grated. “Naughty girl. You’ll let me in here too, won’t you? You’ll take it because I want you to. Because this is what you want from me.”

Her hips bucked. Her lungs pumped. A menagerie of sounds vibrated in her throat, whines and growls and mewls and hisses conveyin’ her new arousal so much better than words could. That was just dandy by him. If she needed words, he could supply them. If she needed anything, he would give it. The woman was all his now. Spread wide, soaking wet, and panting hard. His perfect little mouse. His darling little treasure.

“That’s my girl. Yes, sweet Jenny. That’s right. Let it happen.”

“D-Do I h-have a choice?”

He considered the question for all of two seconds—while pressing his fingers a little farther inside her perfect rectum.

“Not especially.”

Her response came just as fast.

In the form of a shocking, dazzling smile, stretching nearly from one of her gorgeous ears to the next. “Good.”

As soon as she blurted it, her orgasm hit.

And was easily one of the most dazzlin’ sights of his existence.

It moved through her like a tsunami, quiet but devastating, until she was well rocketed to a stratosphere of screams from it. Her composure was ripped away from what little moorings it had left, making her babble with more animalistic noises, along with I-don’t-give-a-damn-who-hears lust. Her fervor washed over him too, spurrin’ him to a pace that could barely be described as “fuckin’” anymore. This was definitely no longer a fuck. This was a pound. A blast. A cataclysm. A conquest.

Only who was conquerin’ whom?

And did the answer even matter?

The slaps of their bodies were like erotic gunshots on the walls, dueling with passion and power, straining through every muscle in his body…through every inch of his cock.

“Jenny. Fuck. Fuck.”

As the fire grew in his balls, he punched deeper into her. And as the blaze took over his cock, he gave in to it. Surrendered to the cosmic force that took hold from the inside out, turnin’ him into a star gone supernova, consumed by silver-white light as he stiffened and pulsed…

And then exploded.

Deep. So damn deep inside her.

And as he did, recognizin’ the strange part of himself that burst along with it. A wall, tumblin’ in…

A cavern, newly exposed…

Fuckin’ hell.

What had she done to him?

And did he even have the fortitude to sift through the rubble right now and figure it out? If he did, would it matter? Jenny lay beneath him, still limp and languid and possibly in just as many mental pieces as he was. A smile worthy of a spring meadow adorned her lips, leading him to think she was even baskin’ in those fiery fragments. At once, he recognized his own mind turnin’ the facts into somethin’ new too. Maybe that catastrophic explosion actually had been epic fireworks. Or maybe it had been both. Could there really be beauty in destruction sometimes? Was it possible to raze something to the ground—like a man’s damn soul—but have something left afterward to build on? To make better?

“Hey.”

Thank fuck for the return of his soft mouse and the single word strong enough to haul him out of his metaphysical brood.

“Hey.” He gave his head a solid but swift shake, getting his shit together before focusing fully on her again. “You awrite?” With a couple of deft twists, he freed her from the cuffs—though the longing look she flicked up at them was enough to melt away a few more fences inside him. Still he charged her, “Did I hurt you?” When she didn’t reply after an obligatory two seconds, he rolled to her side and took her head in his hands. “Shit. I did hurt you. Where? How? Why didn’t you say—”

He stopped as soon as she reached up too, yanking hard enough on his hair to bring his mouth slamming down on hers. “I would have said something, had there been anything to say.” Though she gentled her hold, she repeated the kiss with twice as much passion, working her tongue along the seam of his lips until he opened for her, letting her roll her tongue along his with devouring devotion. At last, while letting him go with a long and reluctant drag, she whispered, “I’m not hurt, Captain Mackenna.”

“So what is it?” Because it was something. He just couldn’t get a proper bead on exactly what. Even threading his voice with a deeper growl and jerking a commanding finger beneath her chin didn’t impel her to give up any feedback beyond her self-deprecating smile.

“Honestly, Sam…it’s nothing. I’m just being stupid. Indulging in too much Jane Austen lately.” She shrugged. “And Emily Brontë. And Diana Gabaldon…”

“I like Jane Austen.”

“Because you had to get more perfect than you already were?”

He speared her with a tighter gaze. No way was he buyin’ the sweet talk she was peddlin’, even with the sarcastic tone—but that decision meant he had to shuffle through at least a little of his mental rubble to reply. “I’m far from perfect, Jenny.” And then the disconcerting conclusion that brought him to. “You’ve seen enough of my file to know that.” Fuck, even the declassified parts of the thing were harrowing to read through. If she knew everything she wasn’t supposed to know…about the missions that officially never occurred, in places they weren’t supposed occur in, on targets that were never supposed to be authorized…well, she’d have probably thought differently about even mentionin’ the word “friends” to him, much less lettin’ him lock her down and have his kinky, filthy way with her…

Which said what about him now?

He couldn’t fuckin’ go there.

Because if he did, he already knew the conclusion he’d reach. The explosion he’d see, instead of the fireworks. The resolve he’d make to roll out of this bed this very second and get himself—and his secrets and his darkness and his violence—as far away from Jenny Thorne as he possibly could.

But he didn’t move a fuckin’ muscle.

Because he was a selfish wanker, and he was brilliant at math.

Three: the number of years the woman had been employed at Nellis Air Force Base.

Nineteen: The number of days left in his assignment here.

Which added up to the number of chances they had of workin’ this insane chemistry into any entity more than a solid case of animal attraction.

Zero.

So the selfish wanker was stayin’ right where he was. And did so with a clear-as-hell conscious and steady-as-fuck nerves.

With those odds, he was more than happy to be her fireworks and meadows for a little while longer. No. He needed to be.

That was why he had no trouble about dustin’ off his finest, cockiest smirk and wielding it along with his comeback to her. “So what do I get if I admit to reading Wuthering Heights and Outlander too?”

She narrowed her gaze. “All nine parts of Outlander?”

“There’s more than one part?”

She chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. Your guy card is already seriously in danger.”

“Which is why I may need to fuck a vow of silence into you.”

Her laughter quickly dissolved into a sigh. And then an appreciative moan as she slid a hand down to the center of his chest. “Why the hell did I fight this so hard?” she whispered. “Why did I fight you?”

He abandoned the smirk. He needed her to see and feel the sincerity behind his next words. “Because your principles don’t get just your lip service, Jenny.” He curled a hand atop hers, locking her fingers over his heart. “Which has been, and continues to be, one of the reasons you fascinate the hell out of me.” He dipped his head as he raised their joined hands, brushing an adoring kiss atop her middle knuckle. “I know it was no trivial choice for you to break your code for this, no matter how magnificent this sorcery seems.” He moved his mouth along her hand, purposely scraping the curves of her fingers with his stubble. Balls. He’d slipped out of her no more than fifteen minutes past, and his psyche already clamored at him to mark her in a new way. In any way. The stubble burn would have to do for now. “No,” he muttered after a long, silent pause. “Not sorcery.” Then delved his gaze back at her, selfishly drinking from the depths of her jade lagoon eyes, before committing to declaring, “This is a miracle. You, Jenny Thorne, are my pure, bright, bonnie miracle.”

Her breathing noticeably snagged. Her features widened as if the word he’d spoken had levitated them off the bed. “Miracle? Me?” But she interrupted herself with a sharp chuckle. “Riiight. And all the other girls on your base stops across the world, right? Do I get some kind of an engraved edition number and a certificate of authenticity?” But when he gave her the only response that would truly set in, a longer-than-comfortable silence and a colder-than-steel stare, she traded the saucy giggle for a hard gulp. Then another. “Sam. All right, come on. I’ve been pretty damn forthcoming with you. Don’t you think it’s time to return the favor? No bullshitting, buddy. What is my number in the lineup? You know it won’t piss me off. You trying to pull off coy and cagey, on the other hand? Now I’m getting pissed off.”

For another long moment, he didn’t say anything. Simply turned his head, released her hand, and then stretched out her fingers so he could fit his cheek against her palm. At last, he murmured, “You’re on the magic money, mouse.”

Her lips twisted. “Excuse me?”

“It’s time for me to return the favor,” he stated. “Which starts with askin’ you this, then.” But the words were harder to get out than he expected, even after forcing air down into every available crevice of both his lungs. “You do know…there was a specific reason why they sent me over for the cross-training here.”

“Besides the fact that you can turn a fighter jet into poetry?”

Her compliment could’ve been in Swahili for all its effect on him. “I wasn’t in a good place, Jenny,” he confessed. “I…haven’t been in a good place for a while now. The deployments have finally started taking their toll—or so everyone keeps telling me. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Afghanistan again…”

“I know,” she rasped. “And nearly all of them on top of each other.” And then screwed her lips together until the elegant ribbons were more like mashed-up twine. “Why the hell did they—”

“Stop.” Another intention gone awry, as the bite emerged more violently than he intended. But enduring her pity was like forcing him to swallow rat poison. “You also need to know…I wanted them, Jen. Every single one of those assignments”—along with the ones I signed agreements to never talk about—“was an honor. A statement of my country’s ultimate trust and belief in me. I would’ve gone again had they called. I wanted to go again.”

“Why?” She didn’t hide her confused scowl. “You’ve carried your fair share of torches for the cause. You know that, yeah?”

Sam rolled back against the pillows. Though he looped an arm around her shoulders to keep her close, he stabbed his scowl toward the ceiling. There was a seam up there he hadn’t noticed before—wasn’t as if he wanted the grand tour of the room when they first got here—which, he imagined, operated at the command of the zillion buttons in the headboard. He imagined the panels slid back to reveal a massive mirror, but then he imagined it no more. Forced it from his mind in order to do the hard shit here. Jen had trusted him with her very control. It was time to trust her with his truth.

“It was easier.” And that was a truth, though he didn’t like it. “The missions, the pace, the noise, the violence. When your world is consumed by all of that, it’s effortless to block out the rest. The rest of life just…freezes, I suppose. At least in your mind, yeah? You just think of it all like leaves caught in ice.”

“Until they’re thawed out.”

“Until they’re thawed out.”

“And you hope they’re still there.”

“And you hope they’re still there.”

“But they’re not.” She trailed the center of his sternum with her fingertips again. Though he stiffened beneath her touch this time, she didn’t relent with her gentle comfort—nor her quiet words of wisdom. “You find out that the ice turned into a river and carried them away.”

It was his turn for the harsh gulps. And then to grunt hard, throwing a hand across the backs of his eyes. “And you don’t even recognize the river anymore.”

“Sam…”

“Even the bridges over the fuckin’ thing are gone. And everyone who meant anything to you before…is standing on the other shore.”

Jen pushed up until her face hovered over his. “But I’m right here. On this shore.”

She shook a little as she proclaimed it. He dropped his hand in time to see that the words were huge for her. A gargantuan risk. But again, she’d never been so right. “I know,” he rasped, tucking her head down against his chest. “I know—which is why I’ll never stop thankin’ them for sendin’ me here.” His whole body rose and fell with his deep breath. “For sending me to you, Jenny Thorne.”

He said no more than that but knew the husk in his tone already gave away his thick emotion beneath the innocuous words. Even before tonight—but especially after tonight—he was convinced more than ever in some higher cosmic hand at work here, guidin’ the hundreds of operational gears that had to click to land him at Nellis for this program. And that was fine and dandy, but why did he have to go and confess as much to her right now? They really were working toward a solid base of friendship—and the Almighty already knew how much he probably needed a friend more than a lover right now. An arrangement much more than wall-rattlin’ sex.

But there was where his mind sixed-and-sevened with his soul once again.

She hadn’t just rattled the walls.

She’d spun his axis.

But that didn’t mean he’d just spun hers. That she didn’t want something now more than a little pillow chatter. That she wanted—or needed—him to go spillin’ about how deep he’d been flyin’ in the darkness before she fell down in front of him last week and drenched his world in light. About how bein’ inside her tonight had been like takin’ a long, incredible bath in that light. About how he just wanted to pin her down to this mattress, possibly even lock up her legs as well as her arms this time, and drench himself inside her all over again. And flood her with his essence, over and over and over again…

Wasn’t going to happen.

Couldn’t happen.

Not right now, when they both laughed from a telltale ding inside her purse. Trouble was, he had to feign his mirth. This whole pulling-away-with-fake-regret thing…he’d done it so many times, except right now, it felt as comfortable as getting a prostate exam. Fortunately, as she scooted away and padded over to where she’d dropped the little bag near the door, she gave him a great excuse to cut loose a groan that sounded just as tormented.

“Sorry, gorgeous,” she teased, adding a giggle as delectable as her backside. “But I think I’m needed in good little bridesmaid mode again.”

“But you’re so much more fascinatin’ in good little subbie mode.”

“And if I’m a bad little subbie?”

He narrowed his eyes. Not that she was noticin’, with a hip cocked and her attention riveted on her phone for a second. He didn’t care. Even with her gloriously in the raw, he could envision her in naughty schoolgirl knickers, a plaid miniskirt, and a wee bra just coverin’ her assets upstairs, ready to play naughty student for him.

“Bad subbie is even better.”

“Why did I know you were going to say that?”

“Why do you ken anythin’ about me already, Jenny?” And again, it was more than he should have revealed—but since he was already committed, he rolled up and then over until he was perched up on his knees, whippin’ off the condom with one hand and reachin’ for her with the other. When she placed hers back against it, his chest swelled with warmth. When she blushed and averted her eyes, he leaned over and claimed her lips in a solid, searing kiss.

And when he flipped her over, keepin’ their lips just a breath apart and their bodies together like bangers and mash, he curled a broad, knowing grin, sure that he now knew somethin’ certain about her, as well.

“Guess I can start by being a bad bridesmaid, hmmmm?”

Sam started his answer out by sliding his lips over hers again. Then stabbing his tongue between them, giving her own no mercy with his long, merciless swoops and rolls, making sure she knew exactly what her wicked words did to him. The hunch that she likely hadn’t uttered them to any other lover before was a headier turn-on too. He knew he wasn’t her first in the most obvious of ways, but bein’ the first to take her into new realms of sensuality made it much easier to accept that she was his first in some ways too. She was bringin’ him back to some old parts of himself…parts he’d written off as incinerated in the violence-filled skies over the Middle East. Because of that, the parts he had taken home were somehow easier to face…

To accept.

Maybe, one day, to appreciate.

For that, he had no words with which to thank this woman. Yes, this miracle.

No words. So thank fuck, at least for now, he could use actions.

And set about doing exactly that.