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  “Jesus Christ, Prue.” His hands stroked up her arms.

  “And all the normal stuff, too. Any and all of the stuff, I want to do it. With you.”

  A painful sob sounded in his throat when he pressed his forehead to hers.

  She trailed her fingertips down the side of his face. “Are you okay?”

  “Just tell me one thing,” he said. “How am I supposed to help you with your hang-ups if I don’t even know what they are?”

  “You being you is all the help I need.”

  His grip tightened around her arms. “I don’t understand you.”

  “No one does.” A tiny pang struck her heart with that truth. “It isn’t necessary for a nonrelationship, is it?”

  “No. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, the blood left my head hours ago.” Then he set her away from him. “Can you explain one more time what it is you want from me?”

  Nervously, she licked her lips. “I want to have sex. Sex that is… that isn’t….” She ducked her chin. “I want to be with someone I know isn’t going to try to hurt me afterward.”

  “Hurt you?” He angled his body closer, as though to protect her from some immediate threat. “Who? How?”

  “It’s nothing. Really.” Her stomach in knots, she pressed her fist to her abdomen. “I only mean that… I want to enjoy sex. That’s it. Just pure physical pleasure.”

  “You don’t enjoy sex?” At the tenderness in his voice, her heart lurched.

  “I….” Her mouth moved but no words came out.

  Gently, he brushed that wayward strand of hair off her face.

  She lifted her shoulders and then dropped them heavily. “I don’t know if I enjoy it. It’s been six years and I don’t… remember… much that was good about it.”

  His expression twisted with pain.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds.” She was making a mess of this, she knew, and frustration tinted her words. “Everyone else seems to like it a lot, you know? I mean, it’s, like, a really big deal, and I want to know what they know. I want to know what it’s like when it’s good. At the hotel, I think I started to understand, but it was over so quickly that I’m not sure, and I want to do it again. A lot. With you.”

  He fell quiet, and the moment stretched out. The crippling insecurity had begun to take hold when he leaned closer. With his nearness, her heart tripped over in her chest.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said thickly.

  “You can’t.” A smile found its way to her lips. “But if it makes you feel better, we’ll use a safe word.”

  His brows slammed together. “What now?”

  “You know, like they do in the sex clubs. A safe word, like banana or Oklahoma.”

  His rusty laugh carried on the night air. “Holy shit, this is the most fucked-up conversation I’ve ever had sober.”

  Her laughter mingled with his. “Have I managed to convince you yet?”

  “I don’t know what’s happening. I just keep hearing the word ‘sex’ and everything else is a drone.”

  “Okay, then hear this: Leo, I want you. For sex, not marriage. Maybe friendship, but that’s probably a slippery slope. When this is over, we’ll go our separate ways, as if we never met. What do you think?”

  He snagged the zipper of her sweatshirt and tugged her across the last whisper of distance between them. “I think I’m in trouble.”

  Shock crashed into her with the force of a tidal wave. “Really?”

  One hand slipped around her waist while the other stole beneath her hair to grasp her nape. “I want you, too, Prue. More than I’ve wanted anything in a very long time.”

  His words, words she’d fantasized about hearing but never believed this man might actually utter to her, made her head spin.

  He took one small, tender nip at her mouth, then another. “I can’t wait to finally feel you naked under me. Tomorrow can’t get here soon enough.”

  The sensual haze his kisses stirred up evaporated. “Tomorrow?”

  “I don’t have any condoms. The island’s only store is closed for the night by now. The gas station, too.” He removed his hand from the tangle of her hair.

  She snagged his wrist to stop his retreat.

  He stilled, but he didn’t return his mouth to hers.

  While she adored him for his thoughtfulness, now that she knew his sexual history, and he hers, were such precautions necessary?

  A sudden stab of awkwardness struck her. “Neither one of us have been with anyone else in years.”

  “I know, and I’m not worried about that,” he said softly. “But there are other reasons we need to be careful.”

  “I’m on the pill.” At his confused scowl, she rushed to explain. “I’ve been on it for years. Not for birth control, but for medical reasons.”

  His warm palm cupped the side of her face. “Are you okay?”

  When his thumb stroked across her cheek, she turned into his touch. She nodded.

  A long, slow breath rattled through him, and then he pressed two fingers to her throat, stroking the rapid throb of her pulse. Her heart slung itself painfully against her breastbone, and as he brought his head down, her chest rose and fell with her rapid breathing.

  His lips brushed over hers with feathery strokes before deepening into soothing nibbles. She mimicked his movements, and a dizzying rush swooped through her with the first tentative taste of him. She took another nip, and another, and even took a tiny lick inside his mouth.

  With a growl of surrender, he consumed her. His mouth and hands were everywhere all at once, shoving her tank top up and over her breasts and tugging on her bra. One breast popped free and he sucked the sensitive bud into his hot mouth. She arched into his touch.

  Beneath the wildness, he caressed her with gentle hands and kissed her with a tenderness that clogged the back of her throat even as it stoked the arousal building between her legs.

  He backed her to the patio door and fumbled with the latch until it gave way. They tripped into her bedroom as they clawed at each other’s clothing with breathless urgency. They were both naked when they tumbled onto the bed.

  His body covered hers, and every one of her nerve endings relished the weight and feel of him on top of her, skin to skin from their shoulders to their toes. His mouth dragged down the side of her neck. His hard thigh nudged between her legs, brushing against her, and suddenly she realized she had no idea what to do.

  Uncertainty swamped her.

  Sensing it, he lifted his head and peered down into her face.

  Propped on his elbows, his fingers lightly traced her features. “You’re worried. Why?”

  “I don’t know what to do.” With the confession, heat rushed over her chest and face.

  His mouth curved into a soft smile. “You don’t have to do anything except enjoy yourself. That’s our deal.”

  His fingertips trailed lightly over one of her breasts, and a wave of erotic tingles rippled through her.

  “Will you tell me if I do something w-wrong?” she asked.

  Then she gasped with pleasure when his fingers danced across her stomach and pushed through her curls.

  “Believe me when I say that isn’t possible. Everything you do makes me hard.”

  His inquisitive fingers slipped to the spot of her most aroused flesh. With the first stroke, a moan vibrated in the back of her throat. As he did in the hotel, he fondled her until her body made his fingers slick with moisture. He rubbed in slow, erotic circles, occasionally dipping his fingertips into her entrance. A wild, reckless arousal built inside her and just as the sensations threatened to overcome her, he pulled his hand away.

  Rising to his knees, he raked his bold gaze over her naked body. At the unmistakable appreciation on his face, a thrill chased through her. His hard shaft pressed against the flat plane of his abdomen, and she marveled at it. At him. All of him. He was beautiful. Long and lean, with rounded pecs and a ripple of muscle visible over his stomach. Her lips parted as
her eyes explored him. Even his hips were sexy, the bones forming a V.

  Then her gaze landed on the angry welt on his left hip.

  Her heart snagged. In the bed, she pushed upright and tucked her heels under her. As she traced the path of the old wound with her fingers, she looked up at him.

  His eyes blazed in his shadowed face.

  Slowly, she leaned close and touched her lips to the scar.

  He sucked in a hiss of air and his hard shaft jerked, brushing against her hair.

  “What happened?” Sorrow softened her voice.

  His throat moved with his hard swallow. “Shark bite.”

  She wasn’t sure if he joked, but saw no hints of humor in his expression. Only a stormy hunger.

  His hands slipped into her hair and he tilted her face up for his kiss. Then he lifted her bottom and pressed her back to the mattress with his body. She parted her legs for him, and he settled between her thighs. His hardness nudged at her core, but he didn’t plunge or force his way inside.

  Poised at her entrance, he stopped.

  “Prue.” His husky whisper was thick with want and need. “It’s been so long, I can’t go slow. I’m sorry.”

  The head of his shaft pushed a fraction inside her. Despite his warning, he didn’t shove deep and instead waited for her to accommodate him. When her body opened for him, he slid a little deeper.

  With excruciating gentleness, he worked his way inside her inch by inch. The delicious tension between her legs shot directly to her heart. It was happening. It was really happening. Leo Nolan was going to make love to her. Leo Nolan was making love to her.

  Her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest.

  “Prue, sweetheart, are you okay?”

  Unable to speak, she nodded.

  “If you need me to stop, you just say so. The last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

  Emotions filled her chest and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Lifting her knees, she took him deep, and a wave of fire engulfed her.

  A sob built in her throat. “I won’t ask you to stop, Leo. Not ever.”

  With a fierce groan, he wedged deeper and her body relented until she swallowed all of him. When he retreated, she cried out, and he slid home again.

  Sensation swelled and expanded with every slow thrust. She raised her arms above her head and gave her body over to him. She wanted more of him. Everything he could give her. His teeth scraped along the side of her neck as he pumped into her. His pace increased and one hand clutched her nape while the other gripped her hip as he moved inside her with fierce urgency.

  He fucked her with deep plunges and lazy slides that might as well have been earthquakes. She should’ve grown self-conscious, her breasts bouncing with his thrusts and her body fully exposed to his questing gaze, but she was too far gone to care. Helpless to the pleasure he was giving her. A slave to the sensations coursing through her body.

  She gasped his name again and again, unable to stop the desperate sounds pouring out of her. He pulled everything from her. From the deepest depths of her soul, he extracted all the hot, carnal hunger she possessed, and she gleefully gave it to him.

  It was a frenzied race to fulfillment. With each next thrust, exquisite sensation rolled through her and the shackles of the past began to break away. She wasn’t an inexperienced and awkward girl, but a sexual woman unafraid to claim her pleasure. Joy swamped her, filling her heart and healing that wounded corner of her soul that had grown warped by self-doubt and fear.

  When her orgasm crashed over her, she rode the sensation higher and higher, until she reclaimed her womanhood, and as the sweet, relentless pleasure shuddered through her, she knew she would love him forever.

  His mouth a whisper from hers, he continued pumping his hips. When his hand slipped between their bodies and his fingers danced over her swollen flesh, a gasp rasped from her. Soon, her arousal was building again.

  With each deep plunge, she rose to meet him, rushing toward another release, desperate for it. Then he pulled taut and high, and a guttural groan rumbled in his chest when he crested. His head fell to her shoulder and she pushed her hands through his hair, holding him to her as a second climax swept over her in delicious, drugging waves.

  Their breathing slowed and soon the only sounds in the room came from the lake outside her bedroom doors.

  He pressed a quick kiss to her bare shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Then he rolled away and shoved to his feet.

  He dragged his shorts over his slender hips and bent to pluck his shirt off the floor. When he wouldn’t meet her gaze, a cold hurt slithered through her. She scooted to a sitting position in the bed as he shoved his hands through the shirt’s armholes.

  Then he dropped a kiss on the crown of her head and crossed to the bedroom door. Without a word, he slipped through the door and closed it behind him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Four years earlier

  He fell in love with her that first day. She, however, took more convincing, and it wasn’t until that first assignment ended and they’d returned home to Boston that she gave in to his needling.

  Fourteen days. That’s how long it took her to admit she was in love with him, too.

  Three months later, when the network sent her back to the region, Leo demanded he be assigned to her security detail. Going forward, he would always demand it. After all, he couldn’t sit back and let her, his heart, walk into a war zone alone and unprotected by him.

  But the situation in the country had changed drastically in those months, spiraling into a full-fledged civil war. She struggled with the realities of combat.

  At the end of their first few days in Damascus, the conditions worsened and had Leo on the phone with his supervisor in Arlington.

  “We need more men.”

  “How many?”

  “Two, at least,” Leo said. “Four would be better.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  But when, the next day, Jim called with the decision, Leo exploded. “What the hell do you mean the request is denied? This isn’t up for debate. We can’t keep these people safe without the extra men.”

  The day before, a crackdown on protesters by the authoritarian regime had erupted in chaos and now, outside their hotel’s security gates, bodies littered the streets.

  “Then you’ll need to come home,” Jim said. “Mr. King was clear—the priority right now is not civilian security. With the new contract in Afghanistan—”

  The stream of expletives coming from Leo drowned out the bullshit Jim was shoveling, and it marked the beginning of the end of Leo’s employment with Blackstone.

  After the call, he returned to the hotel room he shared with Lauren.

  Her eyes glassy and her cheeks flushed with her emotion, she stared blankly ahead.

  He set a tumbler of whiskey in front of her.

  She drank, and though she rarely consumed liquor, she didn’t flinch or show any reaction when the fiery liquid slid down her throat.

  Her voice when she spoke sounded strained and hoarse. “No one ever talks about the smell.”

  “I was warned about the smell,” Leo admitted. “But the dogs surprised me.”

  Her eyes moved to his face. “Where do they all come from?”

  He didn’t know if they were wild animals or pets that lost their civility right along with the humans, but they always seemed to appear to scavenge when the body count started to rise.

  For a week, up until that day, she’d reported the chaos and despair of the escalating war dutifully and professionally before the TV cameras. But back in their hotel room that night, she’d reached her breaking point. He’d never seen her so upset. So heartbroken. It was the boy. Seeing his small body discarded along with the others had sent her to a dark, terrifying place.

  “I’m so sick of war,” she whispered. “I’m so sick of reporting about that horrible man and everything he’s doing. No one is going to stop him. They don’t care that he’s killing
his own people.”

  “They care.”

  “Not enough to do anything about it.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “It’s not.” A sob broke from her. “People are dying. Children are dying. Why aren’t people angry? Or horrified? Why won’t they do something?”

  Leo struggled to keep himself from unraveling along with her. “I don’t know the answers, but I believe if they understood what was really happening, and what needed to be done to stop it, they’d do it. That’s why what you’re doing here is so important.”

  She collapsed into him. “I hate it.”

  “You’re making a difference.”

  “Really? You’re not lying to me, are you?”

  “I never lie.” It was a new truth for him. He no longer had the stomach for deception, and he had nothing to hide from her anyway. “Not to you.”

  She tilted her chin to gaze up at him with huge brown eyes. “I know.”

  The certainty in her words uncurled a ribbon of calm inside him.

  “But it’s only because you don’t care what anyone thinks,” she added, her tone teasing but affectionate.

  “I care what you think.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I love you.”

  Leo woke to a room full of bright daylight. His head didn’t ache, and his stomach wasn’t churning with nausea. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d truly slept, or woke feeling rested. Kicking off the sheets, he climbed from the bed and pulled a pair of shorts on over his boxer briefs.

  In the living room, Prue’s bedroom door remained closed.

  His mind pounced on the memory of last night. Her naked body beneath him. Her soft heat and vulnerable eyes. The exquisite slide of his cock through her wet heat.

  The pained expression on her face when he’d coldly left her bed.

  That look had gutted him, and he’d wanted to apologize to her, but she’d made him promise not to say he was sorry for something he couldn’t prevent.

  So he’d kept right on walking. If this nonrelationship was going to work, he needed to set some boundaries, and after what had transpired between them, it was essential that he do it. Indeed, going forward, he would need to defend the borders of their familiarity with one another, or he risked a swift and resounding downfall.