The SEAL's Secret Lover (Alpha Ops #1)

Her hands lifted, then came to rest on his hip crests, visible above his waistband. Her fingers tightened, trying to pull him closer. He stopped her by the simple expedient of not letting her move him. Although he was damn near desperate to feel her skin against his, he wanted to stretch this out, make it last.

Twin lines appeared between her fine, arched eyebrows. Up close he could see how tight the muscles in her face were. This was as good a way as any to start this. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the furrowed spot and stayed there a moment, until the muscles relaxed. She gave a soft, hitching little sigh, and her fingers tightened on his hip again, but he still didn’t close the distance between them. Slowly, he tilted his head and kissed the soft skin by her left eye, remaining there until the delicate muscles quivered and gave way. Next was the hinge of her jaw, the muscle there as tight as if she were clenching her teeth, fighting him. Knees bent, a susurrus of sound as skin rasped against cargo pants. Then he opened his mouth and closed his teeth ever so gently around muscle and bone.

A softer, deeper sound, and the muscle went lax, her breath leaving her in the first deep exhale he’d heard her make. Encouraging further surrender he brushed his lips along her jaw to the corner of her lips. The temptation to kiss her was strong, growing stronger when her mouth opened and she turned to bring their mouths together.

One hand on her hip, the other forearm braced against the wall, he took advantage of her slight weight and momentum to turn her to face the wall. The sound she made when he did, a soft, helpless hitching breath, went straight to his cock. He swept her hair to the side and bent to put his mouth to the knotted muscle joining neck and shoulder. Ruthlessly he used teeth and tongue and lips until the knots gave and her head dropped to the side.

Rose gave way like a bridge over a gorge. What was it going to be like when he had her under him, clinging with all her might as he drove inside her, watching the flush spread in her cheeks and throat until she let go?

One hand crept up to cup the nape of his neck while the other slid alongside his forearm. Then she turned her face to his, seeking his mouth. He gave it to her, the contact maddeningly incomplete with her face twisted over her shoulder. She turned another hundred and eighty degrees, back to where she started, except this time her hands cupped his face to keep him close.

This time he went, pressing them together from thighs to chest as if full body contact flowed from the kiss. Her lips opened under his, her tongue flickering against the roof of his mouth, his tongue. She tasted of red wine and desire, and for a moment he was immobilized by the electric contact of her hands on his jaw, her lips against his. His heart jumped and stuttered as she smoothed her palms down his shoulders and chest, to the button of his pants.

Smiling during sex was new to him, but smile he did, the configuration of lips and teeth against her open, ravenous mouth breaking the tension a little. “Wait,” he murmured. “Wait for it.”

She gave a little growl. “Why?”

Heat radiated from her skin through the soft cotton of her T-shirt, but he kept the barrier between them, cupping her breast through shirt and bra, brushing his thumb back and forth until her nipple peaked, then kept on until she arched against him. He leaned, unsubtly rubbing his erection against her soft belly until she raised one leg and hooked it around the back of his knee. When they had a fucking fabulous shimmy going, when he could feel the heat of her sex against his thigh, when her body was undulating against his as he pinched her nipple through T-shirt and bra, when she fucking whimpered, he put his mouth to her ear, slid his hand under her shirt to ruck up her bra and gather the soft, hot flesh of her breast in her palm. Then he pinched her nipple again, rough fingertips to tender flesh.

Her head hit the wall with a thump and her fingernails dug into his bare shoulder hard enough to sting.

“That’s why,” he said.

She gave a high-pitched, startled little laugh that eddied into a series of soft moans as he set about discovering exactly what she liked. Her skin heated, dampened under his touch until the friction made her bite her lip hard enough to leave a dent. Then she looked at him through her lashes, holding his gaze as her fingernails left fire in their wake. She didn’t go for his button, or zipper. Instead she turned her hand and cupped his balls, pressing the heel of her hand against the base of his shaft.

“Can I do this?”