Page 17 of My Protective Biker

"Yeah."

We're close on his bathroom floor, me kneeling between his knees with supplies scattered around us, him shirtless with fresh bandaging stark against his skin. The adrenaline that's been running through me since Tate called is still sharp and immediate, but underneath it is relief so intense it makes my hands shake now that the work is done.

He could have died tonight.

He didn't.

He's here.

He reaches out and catches my wrist, fingers warm.

"Thank you for coming."

"I wasn't going to not come."

His grip tightens. "You didn't hesitate."

"No." I look at him directly. "I didn't."

The air shifts between us. The bathroom feels smaller, the space charged with everything unspoken.

He was shot getting his daughter back and I treated the wound at four in the morning and my hands stayed steady and I'm still here and none of this feels like too much.

He pulls me closer and I go, moving forward until I'm pressed against him between his knees, my hands bracing on his bare chest around the bandaging.

"I'm going to kiss you," he says, voice rough. "Tell me if you don't want me to."

I don't tell him not to.

His mouth comes down on mine desperate and hungry. This is raw, fueled by adrenaline and fear and relief. His hand slides into my hair and grips hard enough to sting and I gasp into his mouth.

I kiss him back with everything I have, hands sliding up his chest to his shoulders, needing to touch him and confirm he's real and whole and here.

He tastes like copper and something medicinal and I don't care.

I just need more.

He pulls me closer and I shift forward, end up straddling his lap on the tile floor with my knees on either side of his hips.

The position puts us level and I take it, kissing him harder, hands in his hair now while his hand grips my hip tight enough to bruise.

I can feel him hard against me through our clothes and heat floods straight through my body.

I rock against him without thinking and he groans into my mouth, his hand sliding from my hip to grip my ass and pull me tighter.

"Carina—"

I kiss him again, grinding down deliberately this time. His hand tightens in my hair and he shifts under me trying to get leverage and then I feel it. The slight hitch in his breathing, the tension in his left shoulder.

I pull back. "Your shoulder."

"It's fine."

"It's not. I just treated a gunshot wound, you can't—"

He tries to pull me back and winces when the movement pulls the injury. I see it even though he tries to hide it.

"We need to stop." Even though everything in me wants to keep going.