Hard as It Gets (27 page)

She stroked his cheek with soft fingertips. “No. It’s not too bad. But thank you for thinking to ask.”

Relief flowed through him, drawing him to taste her. He leaned into her slowly and kissed her. And, damn, he could still taste himself in her mouth. It was a fucking rush, knowing she’d pleasured him so freely, so selflessly. His hand skimmed up her belly, tugging at the cotton and caressing her breasts. She arched into his touch, allowing him to pull her shirt to her throat. “Lift,” he whispered, and then he removed it altogether. A flick of his hand behind her back bared her completely to his gaze.

Jesus, she was beautiful, soft perfection. Natural and real. With lots of curves and peaks and valleys and hidden places for him to explore. Her hands fisted in his shirt and dragged it up his stomach. With one hand, he reached over his shoulder and hauled it over his head.

And then he was on her. Kissing her mouth in urgent, aggressive twists of lips and tongue. Sucking and nipping down her neck and collarbones to her breasts. Teasing and tormenting her nipples. Becca writhed under him, her fingers plowing into his hair and trying to grip the short length. He’d actually worn it longer in Afghanistan to blend in with the locals, so he wasn’t opposed to growing it out again just so she could really pull it. The biting tugs against his scalp fucking turned him on because each one reflected her pleasure, her desire, her slow slide into abandon.

Easing onto his knees, he kissed her stomach, her hip bones, the inside of one soft thigh. “Put some pillows under your head, sunshine, because I want to watch your face.” He waited for her to comply, a small, sexy smile curving her lips, and then he slid his hands under her thighs, guided her knees onto his shoulders, and stroked his tongue through her wetness. Her sweet taste and her ecstatic cry rocketed down his body, turning his cock to steel and making him yearn to get in her. But not before he drank in her pleasure.

Alternating flicks and circles with flat sweeps of his tongue, he explored and tormented her. He penetrated her with one finger, then two, remembering what she’d seemed to like this morning and drawing out her arousal until her hips bucked and thrashed and her hands fisted in the sheets. He strapped her down with his forearm and sucked her clit into his mouth.

He’d thought her beautiful before, but her face was a total stunner when she wore that mask of pleasure—eyes hooded, almost like she was drowsy, mouth open, and lips wet.

“Nick,” she rasped. “Don’t stop.”

He smiled against her, stopping the furthest thing from his mind, and redoubled his efforts, licking, sucking, fucking her with his fingers. A long, low whine ripped from her throat as her muscles tightened around him, and then she was holding her breath, shaking, coming on his hand and mouth. The moment her body stilled, he withdrew, shoved down his jeans, and then cursed a blue storm at the laces on his boots.

She laughed, and he pretended to scowl at her as he finally got his feet free.

“Think that’s funny, do ya?”

Grinning, she nodded. “I like you eager.”

He threw the jeans and boxers somewhere behind him. “Eager’s my middle fucking name when I’m around you.” Nick retrieved a condom from the box he’d opened only this morning. Standing between her spread thighs, he rolled it on. “You are going to feel so good,” he said, looking her over and loving every damn thing he saw. The tousled blond hair, the flush on her face, and the beautiful feminine curves all called to him, but it was the adoration in her eyes that most got to him. It sent him flying to the heavens with a feeling of completion, and it threatened to splinter him to pieces because he’d never fully deserve it.

A moment of doubt flickered through him, stilling his hand on his cock and rooting his feet to the floor.
Goddamnit
.

Becca shoved the pillows further up the bed and scooted backward, her hands reaching out to him. “Come be with me,” she said.

Like she knew. She knew he’d gotten stuck there at the edge of the bed.

Her words drew him forward until his knees were between her thighs and his hands were braced on either side of her head. “Are you sure about this?”

She combed her fingers through the sides of his hair. “Completely.”

Thank God. “Good, because I want you so damn much.” He kissed her, took his cock in hand, and guided himself to her entrance. “Aw, damn,” he groaned as he pushed inside. Hot. Tight. Wet. He pulled out and sank back in, gaze on her face, watching her struggle to keep her eyes open as he rocked in and out of her core.

Her short nails bit at his neck and shoulders, and then he settled his weight fully upon her. Skin on skin. The connection wasn’t just physical. Not for him. And the emotion in her eyes told him not for her, either.

Nick buried his face in her neck and grasped the top of her head with one hand. God, he needed to get closer, deeper, as far inside as she could take him. His hips withdrew and plunged forward, rolling to drag pressure against her clit. She grasped his back and moaned in time with his thrusts and rocked her hips to meet his. Even as his lower back started to ache, she was still the best fucking thing he’d ever felt. He’d pushed through it this morning, so he could do it again. He flipped a mental bird at his injuries, because no way was he missing out on a moment of this experience, nor shorting Becca even an ounce of pleasure.

“You okay?” he rasped against her ear before kissing the delicate shell of skin.

Her chuckle was deep and throaty, and drew his gaze to her face. She leaned up and kissed him. “I’ve never been more okay in my life.”

He grinned, identifying with the sentiment and feeling it slip into the dark places in his soul and light them up.

A sharp twist of muscle in his back made him suck in a breath and clench his jaw. He gritted through. Leftover soreness from his fight. He was going to kick Beckett’s ass for making him think of the guy during sex.

“Hey.” Her hand smoothed over his forehead and cheek.

Opening his eyes, he found concern mixing with arousal in her expression.
Damnit
. He kissed her, hating the thought of anything ruining their moment.

“What’s the matter?” she whispered against his lips.

“Not a damn thing.”

She pushed on his chest, and he frowned. But she was smiling, a bit of mischievousness in her eyes. “Turn over,” she said. “And sit against the headboard.”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

Rixey pushed the pillows upright and settled against them, relief flowing into his back at the change in position. He couldn’t think on that long, though, because she straddled him and sank down onto his cock in one torturously good slide.

One hand on the headboard and one on his shoulder, she rode him, her core sucking him in, her clit rubbing against his stomach, her nipples dragging against his chest. He skimmed his hands up and down her back, grabbing her hips and thrusting deeper when he couldn’t stand the nearly nonexistent distance between them.

“God, Nick, I’m going to come again.”

The words shoved him a giant step toward his own release. “Good. I want to feel it.” He latched on a nipple, sucking and tugging and teasing with his teeth. She moaned and tossed her head back, her body arching against him and the tips of her hair tickling his hands on her hips.

Her muscles squeezed, a slow, sure clamping down on his cock that had him growling low in his throat. “Yes, sunshine. Come all over me.”

She sank all the way down on him, taking him in to the balls, and ground her hips hard and fast against him. Fingers digging into her sweet ass, he rocked her hips forward and backward on his dick, grinding her clit against his stomach.

And then she was coming, groaning, milking his body with her release. Her arousal flowed over him, hot and slick, and he lifted her hips and slammed her down, once, twice, three times. His orgasm was an out-of-control freight train tearing down his spine.

“Fuck, Becca,” he gritted out as his cock erupted inside her. He thrust deep, rocking his hips as his mind and body went to pieces. And then he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her chest.

B
ECCA’S HEART BEAT
so fast she was almost dizzy. And it wasn’t just because of the incredible sex or the multiple orgasms, though those had been bone-meltingly good. It was because everything about Nick—his touch, his smile, the intense emotion in his eyes—all insisted she wasn’t alone in this crazy, whirlwind connection. Which was really, really good. Since it was really freaking likely she was in love with him.

She might’ve questioned how she could feel something so deeply for someone she’d known for only a couple of days, but Nick had been with her every step of the way through the worst moments of her life. She felt a bond with him she’d never felt with anyone else.

The loneliness, the emptiness, the sense of dislocation she’d felt as, one by one, she’d lost nearly every member of her family? They were mostly gone. When they found Charlie—because they
would
—she’d be totally whole again.

And it was all because of Nick.

She wrapped her arms around him, one around his back and the other around his head, and held him tight. Words sat on the tip of her tongue, and she had to press her lips to his soft hair to keep them from spilling out. She didn’t want to come off like a lovestruck teenager. Even though inside she kinda felt like one.

He kissed the skin above her heart and pulled back, and then he kissed her. Soft, sweet, worshipful kisses that sent a sheltering cocoon of warmth over her skin. She loved him all affectionate like this.

Slipping his hand between them, he said, “Better deal with this. Be right back.”

She rose off his lap, hating to let him go. He gave her one last kiss as he removed the condom and walked across the room. The dragon on his back seemed almost alive as it moved over his muscles.

Her gaze lit on the full mass of scar tissue on his left hip and upper butt cheek. She’d have to find a way to broach how much pain he’d been in a few moments before. No way she was asking in the middle of sex and risk making him feel bad, but for a moment distress had been clear on his expression.

Her gaze dragged downward. More tattoos adorned his legs, but she could only make out the line of black and blue nautical stars on the outside of his right calf.

Man, he was a fine sight, scars and ink and all. “Nice ass,” she said, her mouth running away with her thoughts.

The laughter he unleashed was the sweetest thing.

Grinning to herself, she settled against the pillows, still warm from his body. He reappeared from the hallway a few moments later, hint of a grin on his lips. Back in bed, he crawled in over her and came to rest with his head on her stomach, his arms wrapping underneath her back.

She ran her fingers through his hair, and his expression was pure contentment.

“What’s the tattoo on your left leg? I could make out the stars, but not the words.”

“It’s says, ‘All Gave Some, Some Gave All.’ ”

Her fingers kept moving, as if his words and the sentiment behind them didn’t lodge a knot in her throat.

A few moments later, he shifted his hips like he was trying to get comfortable. Then again, he was lying on his stomach, which he’d told her bothered his back. “Hey, Nick?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

His eyes flew open, the lashes tickling her stomach. “Always.”

“How much did your back hurt?”

He released a long breath, his eyebrows making his displeasure at the topic clear. “You could tell?”

She gave him a little smile. “Only because you made a face. Not because of anything you did, which was all amazing, by the way.”

The corner of his lip quirked up. “I didn’t even think . . .” He shrugged his big shoulder. “Being with you today was the first time since . . .” He pressed his face into her stomach with a groan. “It was probably just because of the fight with Beckett.”

Wait. Was he really saying she was the first person he’d had sex with in over a year? “The first time you had sex since you were shot,” she finished for him.

He rested his chin on her stomach, and his eyes were a shade less confident than usual. “Yeah.”

Inside, she was jumping up and down at the news, but she didn’t want him to feel any more awkward about it. “Could be the fight. The counter dug into you pretty hard. But, if it’s not, next time we’ll just find the position that feels the best. Kama Sutra says there’s over sixty of them, so I bet we can find a few.”

“Next time, huh?” he said, his expression filling with humor and promise.

She smiled. “Mmhmm.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Me, too.” She dragged her fingers over his shoulder for a moment, then she met his gaze. “But you gotta tell me if something hurts. Okay? The last thing I want is to hurt you.”

He nodded his head, digging his chin into her belly and tickling her. She flinched and laughed, but then his expression went serious. “I want to apologize for this morning,” he said.

Becca traced a design against his skin. “What happened this morning? Did I do some—”

“No. It wasn’t you at all. There’s shit that happened in Afghanistan that I can’t tell you about, and I haven’t made peace with it. It blindsided me this morning and sent me to a dark place.”

Her heart squeezed. “I can’t imagine everything you dealt with over there. Just know you can talk to me. Okay? Even if it’s to tell me you need some space.”

He kissed her stomach and nodded, his eyes ablaze with emotion.

“Can I tell you something else?” Nerves had her stomach doing a loop-the-loop, but she couldn’t let this go unsaid.

Nick arched an eyebrow. “Okay.”

“What you said to Jeremy earlier . . . I just wanted to tell you it would matter to me, too. If something happened to you. It would matter to me a lot.” A sting pricked at the back of her eyes, and she blinked it away.

He rolled onto his side and stroked his fingers over her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. Light, teasing touches meant to explore and comfort rather than to arouse, although just being in his presence accomplished that. He kissed the valley between her breasts and whispered, “So beautiful.” And then he was quiet, seemingly preoccupied with her skin.