"Boone."
"Ireland."
"I'm going to tell you what I want, and then you're going to tell me if you want the same thing, and then we're going to stop having this conversation from opposite sides of a kitchen."
I don't answer. I set my mug on the counter and cross the distance between us in two strides, and my hand is on the back of her neck before she finishes drawing her next breath.
Her eyes widen, not with fear but recognition, the sharp, electric awareness of a woman who just watched a SEAL stop waiting.
"I know what you want," I tell her. My voice is low and rough and closer to the voice I use to give orders than the one I use in her rehab center. "I've known since the first week. I've been watching you want it across treatment rooms and parking lots and text messages that stopped being professional around week three."
Her chin comes up. The defiance in that gesture, even with my hand on her neck and my body crowding hers and every inch of space between us gone, is so completely Ireland that it makes my blood run hotter. "Then what took you so long?"
"Discipline."
"And now?"
"Now I'm done being disciplined about you."
I kiss her with moment of restraint behind it and no intention of holding any of it back. My mouth takes hers and my hand tightens on the back of her neck and the sharp, broken exhale she lets out against my lips, equal parts relief and greed, is the best thing I've ever heard.
She fists the front of my shirt and pulls, and I let her pull because the friction of her fighting for control while I'm already holding it is exactly the dynamic I want.
Her mouth opens under mine and the kiss goes deep and filthy, tongues and teeth and the taste of coffee and underneath it the taste of her. My free hand grips her hip hard enough to feel the bone and hauls her flush against me.
She gasps when she feels how hard I am, the full length of me pressed against her belly through two layers of fabric, and the gasp turns into a low, hungry moan that vibrates against my mouth.
"Upstairs," I say against her mouth. It's not a question.
"Are you giving me orders, Senior Chief?"
"Yes."
She bites my lower lip, a sharp nip that sends heat straight down my spine. "Good."
I don't let her lead. I bend, catch her around the thighs, and pull her over my shoulder in one motion. She lets out a sharp breath of surprise, and her hands flatten against my back for balance.
"Did you just throw me over your shoulder like a duffel bag?"
"Move faster next time." I take the stairs with her weight settled and her fists already beating a half-hearted protest against my lower back, and the laugh she's trying to suppress vibrates through my shoulder blade. Her nails drag down my back, deliberate and stinging, and the provocation in it is designed to test exactly how much of my control she can strip before I snap.
Her bedroom is warm and light, the early sun coming through windows that face the water. I set her on the edge of the bed and she looks up at me with flushed cheeks and swollen lips and an expression that is equal parts dare and demand.
"Take this off," I tell her, catching the hem of her t-shirt.
"Take it off yourself."
I do. One hand, one motion, and the shirt is on the floor and the morning light catches the freckles scattered across her chest and her shoulders, more of them than I'd imagined, spilling down her collarbone and across the swell of her breasts. She's not wearing a bra. My hands find her ribs, thumbs tracing upward, and she arches into the touch with a sharpness that tells me she's been thinking about my hands on her skin for as long as I've been thinking about putting them there.
I push her back onto the mattress and drop my mouth to her collarbone, tracing a path between the freckles with my tongue. She digs her fingers into my shoulders and her breath catches.
I close my mouth around her nipple, sucking hard enough to make her hips buck off the bed.
"Boone." My name in her mouth goes lower and rougher, and the clinical precision is gone.
"I'm busy."
"You're taking your time."
