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Couldn’t imagine its end.
Daniel breezed his fingers down a shivery path over her neck, leaving her aching for more when his hand fell away. Nipping her bottom lip, tracing her ear with growled words about how much he wanted her, he shucked his vest, hooked it over a chair.
Placed his gun by the bed.
She mentally shoved away that stark image and listened, savored. So what if he was being practical and safe? He was also filling her mind with incredible promises of what he planned to do to her. He dropped the condoms beside the gun, her Daniel never losing sight of his protector role.
She tugged his zipper, yanked his flight suit over his shoulders and down. “Take it easy, ’Lise. Slow.”
Featherlight strokes traveled up and down her back in tantalizing whispers at odds with the bold hands delivering them. She wanted this and more and everything, after so long of nothing. So long wanting just this man.
And if he shoved her away?
“Not a chance,” he answered her unspoken thoughts with an ease recaptured from the past.
Relief weakened her knees. Having Danny now meant so much to her, almost too much. Something she hadn’t realized until she faced his possible rejection.
For a moment she faltered. This was supposed to be about uncomplicated sex, taking charge of what she wanted from life.
Sex with Danny had never been uncomplicated.
Of its own volition and without her permission, the moment became about more, much more. It became about broad hands shaking from restraint. A familiar lock of hair falling over a brow furrowed deep with concentration. On her. The past and the present blended into a combustible need that surpassed simple attraction.
Stepping into his arms, she heard a small voice in the back of her head whisper…Welcome home.
* * *
Daniel sprawled in the hammock, scanning the expanse of ocean in the fading light, his booted foot on the dirt nudging a lulling sway. Mary Elise lounged with her head at the opposite end, keeping watch over the other stretch of ocean. He drew lazy circles along her ankles and wondered when he’d developed a foot fetish. Of course, the woman did have pretty toes in those sandals.
Toes? He was in big trouble here.
As much as he’d enjoyed being around Mary Elise when they’d been younger, this woman flattened him. There was an intensity about her now that demanded more from him than before.
And he didn’t just mean in bed.
“I asked you a question, Daniel.”
Man she had that schoolteacher tone down pat, and he couldn’t even remember the question because he’d been busy drooling over her feet.
“Danny?” She scooped up a pinecone and pelted him on the chest, dead center on his survival vest. “I’m tired of talking about me. What have you been doing with your life since finishing the Academy?”
Talk would be good, keep his mind on task rather than on thoughts of taking her back into the cabin. But once the sun set… He cleared his throat and mind.
Talk.“I started out in a regular flying squadron—then became a test pilot with C-17s. Flew with all the newest cutting-edge gizmos on the planes. Figured out which ones worked, which ones didn’t and why.”
“You enjoyed that.” Her soft affirmation blended with the rustling branches and gushing waves.
“Oh, yeah.” Almost as much as he would enjoy peeling those copper-colored shorts from her body in another hour.
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Sometimes.” His thoughts skidded over to less tempting terrain. Would she run screaming from stories of his more-than-one emergency landing? Even a crash landing in the middle of the Nevada desert?
“So you have connections.”
Her question yanked him back to the present. “So you’re a dog with a bone you’re not letting go of.”
She toed him in the side. “You’re calling me a dog? First washed-out hag and now dog?”
