by Unknown
He felt a flicker of panic. Easy. Tamping down the excess of emotion flashing through him, he scoured the area downstream with his gaze, picking up his feet and letting the water carry him as he waited for her to reappear. When too much time had ticked past and she hadn’t emerged, he drew a deep breath and plunged beneath the surface, but it was no use; there was so much dirt and debris clouding the stream that visibility was zero.
He shot up, dodged a mangled tree as it slowly wind-milled past his head and scanned the area around him again, searching, searching—for an arm, a foot, an inch of black T-shirt, a glimpse of sunny hair. Since failure was not an option, he took an iron grip on his emotions and looked again. And again.
And then he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. Whipping his head to the left, he saw her pop up some eight feet away like a cork escaping a bottle. Her eyes looked huge in her pale face as she coughed up a rush of water. Clearly panicked, she screamed his name as the current spun her around and she fought to keep her head above water.
“Hang on!” he shouted back, his own voice barely audible over the rush of the water.
She turned instantly in his direction, and even though her voice was all but drowned out, he clearly saw her lips form his name again and a fresh wave of relief rushed through him. If she could tread water and talk she couldn’t be in too bad shape, he tried to assure himself.
And then she lost her battle to stay afloat and went under a third time.
He didn’t think but simply reacted, shoving the tree out of his way as he instinctively calculated her most likely trajectory. In the next instant, he was under the water, slicing powerfully through the turbulent depths, thrusting aside anything unfortunate enough to impede him, relying on intuition tempered by years of experience to guide his path since he couldn’t see jack.
Fifteen seconds later, his hand hit what he recognized instantly as the soft curve of her hip. One more kick and he had her, hooking her around the waist with his arm and reeling her in. Once he was sure she wasn’t going anywhere, Dom didn’t waste any time. Driving upward, he propelled them into the life-sustaining air.
The second they surfaced, she clamped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, practically strangling him as she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. She held on to him for dear life, her body shivering as she hungrily sucked in air. “Thank God,” she whispered. “Thank God. I was so scared. But I knew you’d come. I knew. I knew.”
“Shh. It’s okay, baby,” he soothed, running his hand up her back and under her drenched hair to rub the nape of her neck. “It’s okay. You’re all right. I’ve got you.” He tried to give her a second to compose herself, but when a piece of debris punched him in the lower back, it added urgency to his already keen awareness of the danger still facing them. “Look, I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” she said shakily.
“We need to get out of the water. And to do that, you have to let go of me. You need to trust me to hold on to you so I can get us out of here. Can you do that?”
There was a second’s silence. “Yes,” she said finally. This time, her voice was steadier. Yet for several heartbeats, the death grip she had on him didn’t slacken.
And then, as she’d done so many times in the past twenty-four hours, she seemed to dip down into some hidden cache of composure and pull herself together. Letting out a long, shaky breath, she loosened her hold on him and eased back. He saw her throat work and something twisted a little inside him. “I’m all right.” A pale ghost of a smile materialized at the corners of her mouth. “So save me already. Please?”
Yeah. She was definitely going to be the death of him.
Just not right now. Not wasting another second, he got her into the right position for a rescue hold, wrapped his arm around her chest and struck out for the bank. Despite the power of his legs, the surging water and his waterlogged boots served to slow him down. Still, it wasn’t long before he was able to get his feet underneath him, scoop Lilah into his arms, shift his balance and trudge carefully out of the water. He quickly surveyed their surroundings. Without breaking stride, he headed for higher ground.
Lilah lifted her head, glanced around, then looked at him. “You can put me down,” she said softly. “I can walk.”
He glanced at her, struck by what a sea of contradictions she was. She looked as fine and fragile as the most delicate piece of crystal, but she possessed a core of steel that continued to amaze him.
With a start of surprise, it occurred to him that there was a hell of a lot he didn’t know about her. Sure, he knew all about the rich debutante stuff, and yeah, given that they’d been out of touch for so long, he could hardly expect to know how she’d spent the past decade.
But when he really thought about it, he realized that what they’d mostly talked about the summer they’d spent together—when they had talked—was him. His brothers, his bad relationship with his father, what it was like to grow up in a household of guys without a mother, his dream of getting the hell out of Denver.
Back then he’d had no intention of following the family tradition of going into the service. It was all right for the old man to be career army, for Gabe to risk his life being an unsung hero in the Green Berets, or Taggart to put in time in Somalia and Bosnia doing really spooky Ranger stuff he still wouldn’t talk about, but Dom had thought he was on a different track.
Then Lilah had dumped him and he’d just wanted to go somewhere, be someone, fast. The navy, and then the SEALs, had turned out to be the best answer to that.
But when it came to Lilah, what did he know? After a moment’s reflection, the answer came back—not much. He knew she’d lost her folks when she was still a baby, that she’d been raised by her strict, high-powered grandmother who’d had the good taste to be out of the country on an extended trip the summer they’d spent together, and that he’d been her first.
That was about it. Scour his memory as he might, he couldn’t remember having a single conversation about her hopes, her dreams, what she wanted out of life. Of course, looking back, that was most likely because in his youthful arrogance he’d just assumed that what she wanted was him.
“I’m serious, Dominic.” Expression intent, Lilah touched her hand to his face to get his attention. “You don’t need to carry me.”
“Yeah.” Even as he glanced at her, he didn’t slow. “You’re probably right. Or you would be if I was inclined to listen to you. Which I’m not.”
“But—”
“Shh. I’ll be laying you down soon enough, princess. You can count on it.”
His choice of words was deliberate. As was the way he held her gaze an instant before he let his own slide to her mouth. Briefly loosening the reins on his restraint, he let his eyes trace the soft fullness of the lower curve, the little bow that held court dead center in the middle of her upper lip. Slowly, his gaze climbed her face, rising from her mouth, to the delicate curve of her earlobe, brushing the elegant planes of cheek and temple before coming back to meet her eyes.
The hunger riding him must’ve been clear on his face because a slight flush bloomed at the tops of her cheeks. Oh.” The single word was just the merest hint of a whisper, the faintest exhalation of breath.
“Yeah.” He found the grace to dredge up a smile. “Oh.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe a maidenly retreat to go with the blush or a more pointed protest. He sure didn’t expect her to settle closer and murmur, “It’s about time.” Any more than he’d anticipated that she’d let her eyes drift shut and commence stringing a line of kisses along the sensitive flesh where his jaw met his throat.
God. Did she know how to light his fire or what?
He picked up his pace, his long legs devouring ground as he strode across a graveled wash. Spying a narrow trail that gently switchbacked up a long rise, he began to climb. Thanks no doubt to the adrenaline still pumping through him, he felt tireless, as if he coul
d walk forever.
Except that he had a different plan for burning off all this excess energy.
The trail leveled out, dropping down into a modest clearing with a surprising vista to the south. A grove of trees with wide, fan-shaped leaves formed a dense canopy overhead, while an elevated bank sporting a dense padding of moss spread across the most sheltered edge of the small overlook.
Dom recognized on a purely visceral level that this was the place. Another few strides and he was at the bank. Then he was sinking onto his knees, laying Lilah back against the moss, bracing his weight on his hand and following her down.
He felt a shiver go through her. Shifting beneath him, she once again did the unexpected and aligned her hips with his, greeting the heavy thrust of his lower body with a shallow bump and grind that nearly blew off the top of his head. “Ah, Nicky,” she murmured, her voice breaking just a little as she rubbed against him like a needy kitten. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Knowing that nothing short of a full-out nuclear attack could stop him now—and even that was doubtful—he bent his head and kissed her.
Lilah parted her lips and drank him in. He tasted the way a man should, she thought, like sex and heat and the sort of steady strength a woman could depend on. His mouth was hard and warm like the rest of his big muscular body, with a leashed power that made her feel both rock-solid safe and deliciously vulnerable all at the same time.
She savored the suggestive thrust of his tongue, meeting it with a softer probing of her own. He made a deep sound in his throat, and she pressed her advantage, shifting the slant of her mouth to bite down on the pad of his lower lip.
He groaned. Deepening the kiss, he pushed up on his palms and rocked his pelvis against the notch of her thighs. The long hard shape of him against her most intimate place sent her arching against him. Tangling her hands in his hair, she tried to tug him closer, wanting to feel his entire body against her, wanting him inside her.
It was like trying to move a rock. Blatantly taking advantage of his superior size, he refused to budge, limiting their contact to the hot joining of their mouths and the steady rock and grind of their clothing-cushioned pelvises.
He was slowly driving her mad, she thought as she strained beneath him. Her need for him inside her grew stronger and stronger. And yet for all her escalating impatience, a part of her enjoyed the anticipation building within her.
It had been a long, lonely stretch since she’d last felt this way, and it was gratifying to know her escalating hunger was in no way one-sided, which was obvious when Dominic finally came up for air and was panting just as hard as she was.
And that was good, Lilah thought. Because if the past weeks had made her see how much of her life she’d wasted by being afraid to go after what she wanted, the past day had shown her how quickly that very life could be snatched away.
“No more,” she said in a breathy voice that she barely recognized, reaching down to tug at his T-shirt and yank the hem out of his waistband. She thrust her hands under the damp cotton, unable to stop the murmured sound of satisfaction that tore from her throat as she ran her palms up the taut flesh of his abdomen. Stretched drum-tight over slabs of muscle, his skin was smooth and hot.
“No more what?” he grated out, dropping his chin as she pushed his T-shirt over his head and slid it along his arms.
“No more waiting.” The instant he raised his left hand to free himself of his T-shirt, she took advantage of his position, pushing aside the soft cotton to rub her cheek against his bare chest. “I want you. Now.” Shifting her head, she sucked hard on his nipple.
“Holy sh—” He snapped upright, his chest heaving as he stared down at her, a flicker of surprise in his glittering green eyes. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
For an endless second, he continued to regard her. And then something in his face changed just a fraction, making him look a little harder, a little edgier, a little more—as impossible as it seemed—male. “All right then,” he murmured.
In a lightning leap, he was suddenly on his feet, standing between her ankles. Taking a step back, he reached down, unlaced and removed his boots, then undid his pants, peeled them down and kicked them away.
Lilah was so stunned by the sheer beauty of his naked body towering before her that she forgot to breathe. The storm had passed as quickly as it had blown in, and the sun had returned. Its rays filtered through the steam-shrouded trees, shadowing his grass-green eyes and dappling his wide shoulders with gold.
He had a soldier’s physique; his long legs were roped with muscle, his thighs substantial. Her hands involuntarily fisted as her gaze followed the path she’d just touched, from the strong column of his throat, down the sculpted planes of his chest and across the muscled flatness of his stomach.
She looked in awe and sympathy at the marks of duty: a thin slashing scar that bisected the top of one arm; another, wider one that curled beneath his lowest right rib and disappeared around his side; a newer, still slightly pink, puckered mark high on his left side.
And then her gaze was caught by the thin trail of jet-black hair that started well below the flat indentation of his navel and arrowed down like a one-way road to the heavy thickness jutting up from his thighs.
With an ease that she was certain only existed in the male of the species, he stood his ground and let her take him all in. Finally, however, his voice sliced through her absorption. “Lilah?”
“Hmm?” Feeling more than a little light-headed, she lifted her eyes to his.
“Breathe, baby,” he said gently. “Before you pass out.”
Suddenly dizzy, she did just that, her heart pounding so hard that it hurt. “Right.” She shut her eyes, not realizing she’d pressed her thighs together in an instinctive effort to relieve the building ache until she felt his hand cup her there.
Her eyes jerked open and she found him kneeling beside her. “Easy,” he soothed, even as he slowly moved his fingers against her, making the world tilt even more.
Without warning, the delicious pressure vanished. Her eyes jolted open as he slid his arm under her back, propped her up and quickly stripped away her shirt and bra. “Soon,” he murmured, repeating what he’d said an hour—a lifetime—ago. His mouth slid like liquid heat along the arch of her throat as he made short work of her sandals, slacks and panties. “Soon,” he repeated. “Just. Not. Yet.” The words were interspersed with kisses as his head dropped lower until his mouth closed over one nipple.
“Dominic.” She wove her fingers through his still damp hair, loving its slippery, satiny texture. He lifted his head just long enough to cup her other breast in his hand and lower his mouth to suck her there, too.
She freed her hands of his hair and gripped his shoulders, her fingers barely denting those steel-sleek curves as she arched beneath him, moaning shamelessly.
Then his hand made its own journey, skating down, raking through her dark blond curls, his knuckles grazing her before his fingers parted her wetness. “Damn, but you feel like silk,” he said hoarsely as one long broad fingertip nudged inside her. As if he had X-ray hands, he zeroed in on her most sensitive spot, found it with his thumb and pressed just enough to make her jaw go slack.
“Dominic.” With strength born of desperation, she caught his chin in her hand and dragged his head up.
His mouth glistening from the feast he’d made of her breasts, he lifted his heavy-lidded eyes to look at her. “What?” The rasp in his husky voice sent a ripple of anticipation down her spine.
“Just…this,” she whispered, her voice trailing off entirely as she leaned close, boldly ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, then tilted her head to one side and followed up with a deep, openmouthed kiss.
She couldn’t have made her desires any clearer if she’d sent him an engraved invitation. But when she opened her eyes he was still braced above her, his expression impossible to decipher.
Oh, God, what if she’d j
ust made a total hash of things? What if he was put off by her demands, turned off by her desperation?
After all, she wasn’t the girl she’d been. She was ten years older, a woman. One who, for the first time in her life, wasn’t afraid to ask for what she wanted.
She wasn’t willing to hang back anymore and let someone else take the initiative. She had, after all, sworn just hours earlier that whatever it took, she was done being just a bystander who let life happen to her.
So? What now? Give up? Go back to what you were?
No. She forced herself to meet his gaze without flinching. “I need you inside me. I want you inside me. Please, Dominic—don’t make me beg.” Although she would, she realized a little wildly as she waited for his answer. She’d beg, cajole, bargain—bare her soul if she had to. She’d do whatever it took.
There was a breathless second when nothing happened and then it was as if she’d thrown a torch into summer-dry tinder. A shudder went through him and he caught fire.
“Damn it, Lilah,” he said between his teeth in the second before he took her mouth. In the next instant, he was wrapping his arms around her, pushing inside her, filling her and driving into her. Up, up, up.
And Lilah was with him every step of the way, wet, hungry, needy. “Oh, yes. Yes. Keep—like that—”
Clutching his broad shoulders, she dug her heels into the back of his thighs and tipped up her pelvis, trying to get closer, wanting him even deeper.
Everything about him excited her—the satiny heat of his skin beneath her fingertips, the curved muscles bulging in his arms and shoulders as he thrust into her, the rock-hard slap of his stomach against hers. It felt right, so right. As did this wild, rough, ferocious ride.
She needed his power, his fierceness, needed to feel his massive body pounding into her. She needed him to want her as much as she wanted him.
He did. “Easy,” he said against her lips as he gasped for breath. “Easy, baby, don’t—oh yeah. Do that. Don’t stop. Don’t. Stop.”