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But then you start being aware of your breathing, and then breathing doesn’t come so effortlessly anymore?
That was the way I spent my entire trip to the airport.
Counting my breaths and forcing myself to breathe, wishing that the involuntary breathing would come back already so I didn’t hyperventilate.
When the Humvee pulled up next to a couple of other Humvees, Riel bailed out of the vehicle, then opened my door for me.
I got out, too, reaching inside for my bags.
Only, Riel gently pressed up against my backside and said, “I got it.”
I licked my lips and tried to tell myself not to press myself back against him.
But I didn’t manage it.
In fact, I failed so spectacularly that both of us froze with the movement.
His body, right there pressed to mine, stayed that way for far longer than either of us should’ve allowed.
Yet, neither one of us moved.
And I remembered a time far in the past, when Luca had first done it.
“Here, let me help you get those out of…” He leaned over me and reached over my shoulder for the bags of groceries that I’d just gone to the store with him to get.
The move plastered him up against my back, and my entire body froze as my heartbeat began to race erratically.
I’d never had a man like him pressed up against me like he was.
Never felt what it felt like to have someone plastered against me from thighs to chest.
It surprised me that it felt good.
I would’ve thought it would feel suffocating, but it wasn’t. Not at all.
Not even a little bit.
Almost inadvertently—at least at first—I pressed against him and felt what I thought was his phone pressed up against my backside.
When the phone shifted and jerked, I realized that it was for sure not his phone.
It was his penis.
Luca’s penis was pressed up against me.
And I couldn’t stop myself from shifting my hips.
He hissed into my ear and caught me by the hip, his mouth coming down to nuzzle my neck.
“You’re hell on my control,” he rasped.
“You’re hell on my control.”
The raspy voice was darker now, manlier.
But no less the same.
My heart rate was pounding so hard in my chest that my iWatch started to vibrate at me, indicating that I might be suffering from a heart attack.
I looked down at the readout and saw that it said, ‘tachycardia rhythm detected.’
I began to laugh.
“What?” he growled, pressing in farther to get the other suitcase of mine.
I showed him my watch.
“My watch thinks I’m having a heart attack,” I told him.
He blinked.
Then his eyes met mine.
“That makes two of us.”
***
A pair of unsettling eyes landed on me.
They were full of authority, unapologetic, and quite frankly terrifying.
Honestly, the man wasn’t all that ‘scary’ looking at first glance.
He was a man in his late fifties, with graying brown hair, a weathered face, and an intense, clean-shaven jaw.
But his eyes were where things changed.
“Who are you?” the man asked.
He was in full uniform. He was so put together that it literally took everything I had not to reach forward and push the medals on his chest slightly to the side. Just to see how he’d react.
“This is Francesca Solomon. The fiancée,” Tim said. “One of our deceased SEAL team members. You remember Gabriel Luca Maldonado, III. Right, Commander Mooney?”
Recognition flared in Commander Mooney’s eyes.
Then sadness and worry.
I frowned, wondering what had put those two emotions there.
“And this is…”
“Riel,” I said his name, not wanting him to be introduced as Malachi since he hated it so much.
“I thought your name was Malachi?” the man asked.
“It’s supposed to be, sir,” Riel grumbled. “I just don’t like going by it. It doesn’t feel… right.”
Sergeant Mooney’s eyes were sharp as they focused all on the man that I was starting to have feelings for.
“Is that so?” he asked, his eyes turning to Tim. “Have a seat.”
Everyone did, me taking up the spot closest to the wall at our back.
Riel sat beside me, looking for all he was worth as if he was comfortable being in the room when he and I both knew he was not.
He didn’t like being in closed spaces.
And we were in the ultimate closed space.
Five floors up, the room we were led to had been in the middle of the building. There were no windows in the room we were in, and I could tell that Riel was starting to feel trapped.
He didn’t show his discomfort, though.
Not to mention the lights were so bright and harsh that there wasn’t a single shadow to be had in the entire room.
Meaning his scars were on full display for all to see.
I felt my belly clench when I looked down at his hands that were under the table to find them fisted so hard that his skin was turning a pale, sickly white.
I pressed my knee against him, and he softened.
