Forty-eight hours. That’s how long he’d been married. He glanced at Ella. His wife.

She was reading again. A romance novel this time. He could tell because of the shirtless guy on the cover and the provocative title. Ella read whatever she could get her hands on. Fortunately, this house they’d ended up at had books. If it hadn’t, he wondered what she would do then.

They’d left HOT HQ and driven south to a small house located on five acres. One of Hawk’s safe houses. Camel and Blade were with them for now, though the composition of the team would change over the next few days. If nothing happened in the outside world that was deemed a threat to Ella, then the guys would pull out and Cash would take her back to his place and start to help her figure out what she was going to do with her life.

There was no set date for a divorce, but the colonel had said probably a month or so if nothing happened to change it.

One month. Cash turned that over in his mind, expecting relief to flood him at finally having an end date to this ruse. Instead, he felt nothing but a strange kind of disquiet. Like hearing the low hum of something you couldn’t quite identify and therefore couldn’t make go away.

The bad part about having his guys here was that Ella had her own room. She might technically be his wife, but this mission was designed with her as the object being guarded. Pretending to a be a couple wasn’t necessary in front of the team.

And yet Cash wanted to touch her. Wanted to take her in his arms and explore her passion the way he had last night. There was so much she didn’t know yet. So much he wanted to show her.

But maybe it was better this way. He’d worried she would grow attached to him, hadn’t he? She couldn’t do that if they didn’t get personal anymore. If he was one bodyguard among many.

They’d been here for hours now. When they’d first arrived, Ella had gone to bed and taken a nap for a few hours before rising and dressing in a pair of jeans and a tank top with a light sweater to keep from getting a chill. Cash had napped too, but in a different room and not for long before rising again to help the other guys.

He stood and strode over to the window, gazing out at the cloudy sky that threatened rain. Camel was out there, checking the perimeter again, and Blade was on the mission computer. It was a normal, boring day on guard duty. The job they had was challenging and explosive, but much of it was also mundane. The exciting parts were tremendously exciting, but most of it was preparation and waiting for shit to go down.

Blade sat back and ran his hands through his hair.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Blade said. “Nothing at all.”

Cash took his meaning. There was nothing going on, and no apparent reason for three operators to be stuck out here with a princess. But they all knew it was necessary, at least for now.

Blade stood and stretched, then went over to turn on the television. He sank down on the couch. “Anybody care if I watch Overhaulin’?”

“Nope,” Cash said.

Ella looked up, blinking like a startled rabbit. “I don’t mind.”

Cash was pretty sure she didn’t even know what Overhaulin’ was. She met his gaze for a long moment as Blade flipped to the station he wanted. Cash felt a hard sizzle begin in his groin and work its way up the length of his penis until he was as hard as a rock.

What the hell was happening to him? Since when had he just looked at a woman and ached for her?

Ella closed the book and set it on the side table. Then she rose, her eyes on his—her eyes hot—before she walked into the hall and disappeared.

Cash watched her for a long moment. When he looked back at Blade, the man hadn’t moved. So he followed Ella. When he reached her bedroom door, it was slightly ajar. He hesitated only a moment before pushing it inward.

She was standing by the bed, hands clasped in front of her body as she faced the door. As if she’d been waiting for him.

“What’s going on, Ella?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged. “Everything.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he said, shaking his head.

“I don’t either. I’m scared, Cash.”

It pierced him to the bone. “You don’t have to be. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know you will try. That’s all I can hope for.”

It killed him that she was worried. That she didn’t believe he was going to protect her. “I’ll do more than try,” he growled.

She dropped her gaze. “I know.”

Frustration hammered him. “What more do you want from me?” His voice was only slightly rough.

“I-I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Ella—” He raked a hand through his hair and forced himself to stay where he was. Not to go over and take her in his arms or lose himself in her.

Her head lifted, her eyes shining. “I want you inside me again,” she said on a rush, as if she had to say it fast or not at all. “I want to come with my body wrapped around yours. That is what I want.”

Cash closed his eyes. It wasn’t just his penis that was hard now. It was all of him. Hard as fucking stone. That wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. And yet it was exactly what he wanted to hear if he was honest with himself.

“You’ve been reading a romance novel.”

“Yes. And the hero did wonderful things to the heroine. Things I want too. But I know you aren’t a romance hero, Cash. I know this is temporary.”

“Do you? Because you don’t act like a woman who knows she needs to be careful.”

“Careful of what? Of you? I think that horse has left the barn, don’t you?”

Cash wanted to laugh. And snarl with rage at the same time. “You aren’t a virgin anymore, Princess. We don’t have to do anything a second time. The damage is done.”

“Damage?” Her eyebrows climbed her forehead. “I don’t think of it as damage. I think of it as…” She seemed to be thinking about something.

He prompted her. “As?”

Her dark eyes met his. “A revelation,” she said simply.

His gut—his heart—melted with heat and need in a way it never had before. He clicked the door shut behind him and closed the distance between them, taking her in his arms. She didn’t hesitate as she wrapped her arms around him.

“You play with fire, Princess,” he growled before taking her mouth in a hot kiss.

There was something about kissing Ella. Something about her sweetness and fire that inflamed him beyond measure. He wanted her. Needed her. He didn’t understand it—didn’t much care to at the moment.

He just wanted to bury himself inside her. He was operating on autopilot and unable to disengage the mechanism.

The kiss was scorching hot, tongues tangling, lips pressing tightly together, teeth scraping. Cash filled his hands with Ella’s breasts, kneading them before ripping her tank top off and unsnapping her bra.

When his lips closed over one tight little nipple, she cried out, her fingers curling into his shoulders. He licked and sucked both nipples, making them hard and wet and tight beneath his tongue.

Ella wasn’t passive though. She tugged his shirt up and off and then ran her hands over his chest, squeezing the muscle, exploring. Cash went for the fly of her jeans, peeling them down her legs and dropping them before he picked her up and pushed her back on the bed.

It didn’t take much for him to push her legs open, and then he was falling to his knees between them.

“Cash,” she said brokenly. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he told her. And then he opened her with his fingers and slipped his tongue into her sweetness. Her back bowed off the bed and her breath sucked in, her legs shaking as he licked her again and again.

He showed her no mercy, licking and sucking her sweet flesh until she uttered a sharp cry, her entire body shaking as her orgasm exploded. The whole time, all he could think about was the fact he was the first. The only. She was his. His alone.

It was an insane thought for a man who didn’t believe in lasting relationships. Who didn’t believe in soul mates or finding that one person who completed you. It was all bullshit, perpetuated by those silly books she read and by greeting card companies who wanted to frighten men to death on Valentine’s Day. Buy this shit for your sweetheart or else!

And yet there was something supremely special about knowing this woman trusted him enough to share her body with him. That he’d been the first one to show her what sex could be like.

She went limp beneath him and he stood to unbuckle his belt and drop his jeans. But he hesitated as he gazed down at her, her skin flushed a pale pink, her eyes heavy, her lips begging for his kiss.

His dick jutted out from his body, hard and ready. Ella pushed up on her elbows, her eyes widening with some effort. Then she sat up until her face was at a level with his dick, and his heart squeezed tight.

“I want to do to you what you did to me,” she said, and his every dream came true.

“Ella,” he breathed. And then, “No, you don’t have to.”

She scooted up and wrapped a hand around him as his entire body stiffened. “I want to. Teach me, Cash. Teach me how to make it good for you.”

---

He stood above her, his muscles tight and quivering. Ella squeezed him, her heart hammering. His cock was soft and hot and hard all at once. She didn’t wait for him to answer her before she stuck her tongue out and licked around the tip of him.

He groaned, and triumph shot through her. She licked again. He tasted salty at first, but that quickly went away. His hand came up to the back of her head as she opened her mouth and took the tip of him inside.

She’d never done this, but she’d watched the video. She knew what was supposed to happen. She just didn’t know how it felt to do it.

Except that now she did, because she opened her mouth wider and took Cash in. He groaned again, his other hand coming up to grasp her hair. He had both hands on either side of her head as he began to slowly move, pushing his way into her mouth and then pulling out again.

It was the most natural thing to put her hands on his hips, to circle them around to his ass and grip him as he pumped in and out of her mouth.

“Ella,” he said on a low moan at one point. “Jesus fuck, what the hell are you doing to me?”

She couldn’t answer. How could she? Her mouth was full of him.

And her pussy ached with need for him. She dropped a hand to her center, circled her clit with quick fingers as Cash fucked her mouth. His movements grew a little faster, a little harder. Her jaw ached, but she didn’t want him to stop. She cupped his balls, kneaded them.

Suddenly he jerked away from her, cussing. A jet of hot semen shot onto her breasts. Cash kept pumping his cock with his fist, spending himself on her skin. She reached up to touch the thick, warm liquid, dragged a finger through it, traced it around her nipple.

Cash was staring at her, his chest rising and falling as if he’d run a couple of miles before engaging in sex. His hot gaze followed her finger as it rounded first one nipple and then the other.

“How in the hell—?” He swallowed. “I don’t know whether to hate your aunt or thank her for showing you porn.”

Ella leaned back on the bed and grinned. “You should thank her. It’s probably the one thing she did right.”

Because she wasn’t afraid of sex. Not really. She’d been worried about how much it would hurt the first time, but really that hadn’t been so bad. And now? Now she wanted to try everything with this man. She craved him like a drug. She didn’t fear him.

She wanted everything he could give her—and more. Ella pushed that last thought aside. She didn’t want to think of the more, or what it meant. She couldn’t. Because that way lay heartbreak. Cash didn’t feel the same and never would. He’d told her so more than once.

“I wanted to be inside you,” he growled. “But you fucking ruined that.”

Ella blinked. “Did I? Is it ruined? I thought you enjoyed it.”

“I enjoyed it, Princess. I wanted to enjoy it longer.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “The last time I came that fast, I was probably sixteen.”

She looked down at his cock. It was still erect. “Can’t you go again?”

“Soon, baby.” He went into the adjoining bathroom and came back with a towel that he used to wipe the semen off her chest. Then he dropped it and sank down on top of her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth and taking her that way for long moments.

Ella sighed into his mouth. She loved the feel of his body on hers, the simple act of kissing him. How much her life had changed over the past few days. How much she wanted it to continue with him as a part of it.

“Damn, you are hot,” he said after they’d been kissing for a while. “So fucking hot.”

“You’re kinda hot too, Cash.”

“You sure you’re up to this?”

She still ached from the first time, but there was no way she was saying no to this man. Not when her body burned so hot it hurt. She nodded.

He rolled over and took her with him until she was on top. “You control it this time,” he told her. “Do what feels good.”

He reached for the bedside table. He’d laid a condom there when he’d returned from the bathroom. He handed it to her, and she tore it open as she lifted herself to sit upright, straddling him. It wasn’t hard to roll on, and when she was finished she climbed up and sank slowly down. Her body stretched, sore tissues burning with the intrusion.

As if he sensed her discomfort, he slipped his fingers between them and began to stroke her clit in slow, teasing circles. Her body relaxed as sparks zipped along her nerve endings, sharpening the pleasurable sensations and dulling the painful ones.

Cash slid his other hand around and teased her back entrance, and the sparks zipping through her turned into comets. She moved faster, rising and falling, her heart beating harder, her breath catching in her throat as the pleasure grew nearly unbearable.

“Cash,” she cried out as the world exploded into a million stars.

“Yeah, Ella. Like that. Honey, you are so beautiful when you come. You make me ache with need.”

“I love—” Ella swallowed, her belly clenching with the weight of what she’d nearly said to him. The words that would have changed everything. Her, him, the way they were together. “I love the way you make me feel,” she choked out. “The things we do together.”

“I love it too,” he said, his voice husky. And then he rolled her beneath him and began to move, seeking his own climax. When it hit him, when his body stiffened and his hips jerked, Ella buried her face against his neck and bit his salty skin as first one tear and then another slid down her cheeks.

She’d been trying to avoid disaster when she’d escaped her wedding to Sheikh Fahd. Instead, she’d run headlong into it. Her heart was never going to be the same.