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He kissed me softly that time. An until-next-time kiss embedded with a promise there’d be another time. I opted to convince myself of that, at least.
“Okay, then,” I whispered once he finished making me dizzy, and did my best to remember what we’d been talking about before he mentioned putting his could-win-trophies-sized dick into my ass. Talk about defying physics. “What’s the news?”
“First, cover up. Not only for my benefit, but so I don’t kill my teammates for seeing your nipples when we leave this room.”
My eyes landed back on his belt, and I forgot all about his request, my mind once again entertaining those dark and dirty thoughts about the leather wrapped around his waist.
“I won’t use this on your ass, angel. Not opposed to tying you up with it or having you bite down on the leather while I make you come, though.”
“I feel like that’ll wind up being a death-by-orgasm kind of experience regardless of how you use your belt on me. But, if I’m going to die, at least I’ll be happy and satisfied.” I blinked, trying to recall yet again what in God’s name we were supposed to be discussing. The theory of relativity, perhaps?
At the sight of him walking back a step, tearing a hand through his hair, I realized my poor choice of words.
Rebecca. Her name was a whisper on my lips as I looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry.” I lifted my face and held my hand up. “That was so inconsiderate of me . . .”
He grimaced. “The thought of you dying in any way, shape, or form is something I can’t ever allow myself to picture happening. I wasn’t thinking about her. Just you.”
His solemn tone punctured through me, and I might’ve fallen to my knees from the meaning packed into his words had he not banded his arm around me, keeping me steady.
“When the President told me the lab in Amsterdam was hit, and I knew you’d been there, and I thought I lost you, my world stopped. It stopped spinning. What I’d planned to tell you on the jet earlier . . .” He closed his eyes, and I waited for him to go on, my nerves eating at me in anticipation of what he seemed scared to reveal.
“It’s okay,” I promised. “I’m not going anywhere. You can tell me.”
He dropped his forehead to mine. “I’ve been watching you, Diana. Before the lab was hit, I didn’t just check in on the site to make sure the new owners were . . .”
My hands slipped between us to rest on his chest, and his heart beat furiously beneath my palms. “I don’t understand.”
He lifted his head and peered at me. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you once I saw you on camera. I kept checking on you to the point it became unhealthy.” His brows snapped together as he waited for me to process what he was trying to tell me.
Obsessed with me? Watching me? Goose bumps flew over my arms as I kept trying to add up the sum of the parts to get the whole. To get the truth he was trying to lay out for me. An error message kept flashing in my mind, and I couldn’t make sense of what he was telling me.
“Since I saw you in New York, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I was the one who loaded the music because I knew what you listened to while working. I know more about you than I should. I’ve been stroking my cock to thoughts of you since that day in the office, unable to want anyone else but you.”
Oh. My. God. My knees buckled, and he pinned me even closer to him as if worried I’d collapse.
“I stopped checking in on you five days before the lab was hit. I was trying to get over you, and that’s why I didn’t know what happened until POTUS told me.”
Trying to get over me? “You’ve wanted me for that long?” My trembling hands remained fixed to his chest, and he gave me a firm nod. I lifted my eyes to the ceiling, still trying to understand. “The tattoo because of me was recent, then?”
“No, that was years ago. The angel wings on my back.”
“Angel . . .”
He let go of me, the fear I was about to reject him vividly clear in his haunted expression. When he turned away, I couldn’t help but push up his shirt to study the wings on his back.
“You’ve been carrying me around with you for all that time.” I traced the arch of one beautiful wing. “Literally, so it would seem.”
His back muscles flexed, making it appear like the wings were moving inward, meeting in the middle. So stunning, and because of me.
“I’m sorry.” I dropped his shirt at his pained apology, urging him to face me.
Tears pricked my eyes at what this all meant. “So, we’re both obsessed with each other.” My heart was still in overdrive knowing he’d been thinking about me all summer and fall. “That explains a lot.” I pointed back and forth between us. “It’s why we’ve spent less than forty-eight hours together, but we already feel the way we do.”
“I don’t understand. You’re not mad?” He appeared genuinely confused. Had he really expected I’d be upset?
I hooked his belt buckle with my finger. “Only upset we didn’t reach out to one another sooner. But everything happens for a reason, and the wait was worth it.” Cue the tears. What I felt for this man was just . . . “For you, Carter, it’s all worth it.”
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