Zander kissed Erin’s mouth so softly, so gently, that her entire world seemed to balance on its edge, precariously wobbling, just begging to fall.
“Zander, I—”
“Shhh,” he murmured. “I’m a trained professional.”
She couldn’t help it. The tiniest giggle escaped from her, and she leaned in to him just a fraction of an inch. She’d override all her own better instincts for one hot second, she decided. She could allow herself that, surely. She sighed and tilted her head back, letting Zander deepen the kiss if he wanted, content for the moment to just be in the circle of his arms.
Zander didn’t need any further invitation.
Without moving his hands from hers, he pressed himself against her, branding her mouth, and it was as if all the questions between them evaporated, leaving nothing but heat and adrenaline and an endless, aching need. A need that suddenly seemed all encompassing. Zander had been gone for so long, saving everyone but her, and now, for just this moment, in the cocoon of the hotel room where everything was still possible and nothing had yet gone wrong, she just wanted to—
“You know, you’re thinking an awful lot for someone about to get laid,” Zander murmured.
And just like that, it was like they were teenagers again. Erin’s laughter slipped out, loud and unrestrained, and Zander picked her up so easily that it startled her. And then they were in the bed, both of them fighting for the top position, but Zander winning easily—even more easily than he had before. His body loomed large as he stretched out on top of her, staring for one second into her eyes. That’s all she got, that one second, because then he shifted his gaze away and his mouth was at her temple, his body curving into hers as her legs parted naturally and she hooked her heels behind his legs. Erin still was fully dressed, but she was fast losing her grip on reality as Zander trailed a row of kisses across her cheek and along the delicate ridge of her ear.
“You’re still so goddamned beautiful, you know that, Erin?”
She felt the heat flare across her cheek as she groaned, angling her head away as he sunk lower, his lips drifting down her neck to explore the curve as it dipped to her collarbone. It was like he’d memorized a map of her body, remembering every sensitive point, every bundle of nerves, and he drew his lips along her skin like he was planning on tasting every inch of her with excruciating precision.
Erin reached up, fumbling for her clothes, and Zander batted her hands away. He rose up until he was kneeling over her, and she blinked up at him, confused.
What she saw almost made her stop breathing.
Zander was staring at her as if she was something more than just a person, more than just an old girlfriend he was reconnecting with. No. This was like he was seeing a ghost, his face awash with such naked longing, such intensity, that Erin couldn’t even make a sound, let alone form words. He moved with an almost stealthy grace, his fingers at her T-shirt, pulling it way from her khakis to bare her stomach. Erin should have felt the cold wash of air-conditioning across her skin, but she didn’t, her skin seemed inflamed as he lightly skimmed his fingers over the soft swells of her breasts. He pressed her shirt all the way up, staring at her, and there was no way he could miss the way her nipples were pebbled up in urgency beneath the thin bra, silently begging for his touch.
Despite the fact that she was trying to lay absolutely still, Erin instinctively arched a little, and Zander’s expression changed, his smile deepening, going almost wolfish.
“Something you want, Erin?” he asked, and he leaned down close, his body shifting again to lay against hers, the heaviness of his erection hard and insistent in the vee of her thighs. “Because there’s something I want. Something I’ve been wanting for a really long time.”
Erin’s sigh drifted into a soft moan as Zander’s hand snaked around her to unclasp her bra. He half lifted her, yanking off her shirt and bra with almost one movement, before pressing her back to the bed, both hands on her breasts now, palming her as he bent down to take her mouth with his. He tasted of salt and heat and he flexed his fingers against her breasts, trapping her nipples between his long fingers in a move that caused such an exquisitely sharp ache that she gasped against him, and Zander’s kiss grew even harder, more demanding. Heat pooled in her abdomen even as Zander broke off the kiss and dragged his mouth down her neck, pausing to taste the throbbing hollow of her pulse, then sliding farther down, his lips replacing his left hand as he took her breast into his mouth and slid his tongue against the painfully tight nipple, teasing it even as his right hand toyed with her other breast, mimicking the movements beat for beat. When his tongue flicked over one nipple, his fingers would brush the other one. When his fingers squeezed, his lips would compress on her until she was writhing beneath him, exhaling in a series of moans and whimpers that grew more agitated the more he played.
“Don’t even think about coming yet, Erin,” he murmured, and his right hand dropped then, palming her through her khakis right at the juncture of her thighs, his fingers pressing harder as she jerked away from his touch. “And don’t even think about trying to squirm away. Unless you’re going to tell me you don’t like this?”
He suckled her breast hard as he flared his fingers out, and Erin felt a rush of damp heat flood through her system, culminating in a white-hot point where Zander’s fingers teased her. He had somehow unzipped her pants without her realizing it, and the pressure through the material was gone—he now had his fingers firmly against her, stroking the impossibly sensitive skin as she gasped, her gaze flying up to meet the hard, triumphant certainty in his.
“Zander, I can’t—”
“Oh, I think you can,” Zander murmured. He slid his body down hers, his hands shoving down her pants so quickly that she tried to scramble back, but his mouth was on her then, his face buried between her legs, and at the first flick of his tongue Erin arched off the bed, her body taut and quivering, her ass held captive in Zander’s hands, and he just let her fall again, his tongue darting forward, tasting her, teasing her, dancing around the most sensitive nub on her entire body as she writhed in his grasp, his soft chuckle reverberating against her clit.
“So goddamned beautiful,” he murmured again, and he turned his face then, pressing his mouth against the soft skin of her thighs, generating entirely new whorls of pleasure even as her core practically throbbed for him to move back, move back, to take her with his mouth, his fingers. “You like this Erin?” The words floated up to her and she blinked, realizing she’d shut her eyes, her own mouth sagging open, her back arched. “You wanna tell me how much you like it?”
She looked down at him, knowing that her eyes must look wild, desperate, as she struggled to form words. “I like it!” she gasped. “I…ah!” Her voice broke as Zander’s mouth connected with her clit again, sucking and teasing. He pulled away and she let fly a torrent of words. Anything to bring him back to her, anything to keep him there. “I like it, I want it, I have thought about this so many times, so many times you have no idea, just wanting to feel your body against mine again, your mouth, your lips…yesss.” Her words ended on a long hiss as Zander bent forward, knowing her body, what she wanted, what she needed. He ratcheted her up to the breaking point, then left her hovering there, teetering on the edge of oblivion.
“Come for me, Erin,” he whispered, then he touched her once more and her world blew apart.
Zander rocked back, riding Erin’s orgasm as her hands twisted against his temples and she cried out in a high, keening wail. He’d thought this would be enough, that just getting her off would be all he’d need for this little operation to be a success. But as she moaned against him, so impossibly hot—how had he forgotten how much of a furnace her body was, blazing so intensely that all he wanted to do was immerse himself inside her until his body turned to liquid sterno?—he was finding less and less of a reason to let her go, and more of a reason to climb on top of her.
“Zander,” Erin moaned, and that pretty much threw him over the edge. “Zander, please.” And nothing in her voice or actions was saying “Please stop,” that was for damn sure.
He angled off the bed, ignoring her desperate whimper, and raked off his own clothes on his way to his duffel. The condom he’d been damn sure to bring was out and sheathed around his cock in a nanosecond, and he was back before Erin could draw enough breath to protest.
Her deep sigh of contentment as he returned to her body just jacked him up further, her legs naturally parting as she lifted hazed eyes to meet his gaze. He was shaken again by the sight of her, how much like the laughing, happy girl he remembered, but different now, so different that it made his head spin and his chest tight, and—
He couldn’t wait anymore. With one long, smooth thrust, he sank his body into hers and it was his turn to groan.
“Zander.” Erin’s voice was throaty and soft, and sounded like his every fantasy come true. And he’d built up a pile of those fantasies—in the heat of the desert, in the middle of a raging downpour, in the darkness of a night where the tiniest noise could bring everything crashing down. It sounded like Erin had stored up her share of fantasies, too, and that realization shook him to the bone. But none of that compared to how she felt in his arms right now beneath him, her eyes wide and heated, her mouth almost bruised from his, her smile unconsciously knowing as her body remembered the rhythm of them moving together. Zander’s eyes almost crossed as she pressed her soft hands against his abs, her gaze shifting down to watch the play of her fingers over his body. Sensations rocketed through him now from every direction, and he gritted his teeth, trying to keep his shit together. What was it about this woman that made him want to explode the second that he touched her?
“Ahh,” Erin sighed, and she angled her head back, sinking into the bed as her grip on his waist firmed. And then…Jesus God, then she was guiding him, pulling him down onto her body and pushing him up again, as she squirmed below him, her eyes drifting shut, her lips parting, just giving herself over to the experience as if the two of them were some sort of performance-art piece and she was lost in the moment of it all. It had always been like that with Erin, he realized, and this is what he missed, missed so badly he shuddered now to see it happening again. He fucking loved to see her get so deep into her pleasure that she was in an entirely different world, a million miles away from all her neurotic worrying and nervousness, the one time she wasn’t thinking about anything other than how good he made her feel. He loved knowing that he was the one to push her there, that he was the one who could set her free.
“Erin,” he rasped, and he felt the pressure build inside him as she moaned in response, her smile deeper, her grip harder as she pulled him into her. “Shit,” and that was it, he was over the top and experiencing the explosive kind of release he hadn’t had since the last time Erin Connelly had wrapped her slender legs around him and taken him over the edge. He groaned so deeply it seemed ripped out of his bones, then allowed himself thirty precious seconds of collapse.
Only thirty seconds, though. He couldn’t afford to let his increasingly complex feelings for Erin fuck with his head, and if he stayed here, nestled in her embrace, that was absolutely going to happen. Yet another thing the army had taught him: Operational Readiness.
So, by the time Erin was finally coming back to her senses, he was ready to move. She reached for him and Zander pulled back, his brows lifted, his grin easy.
“And now, I do think we’re good, sweetheart. At least as far as I’m concerned.” He reveled in how she looked—naked, gorgeous, and as hot for him as he was for her. Which was more than enough to keep him happy for now. “I’m going to grab a shower.”
“You’re leaving?” she asked, her words slow, confused.
“What, you mean you still haven’t gotten me out of your system?” Zander peeled himself off the bed, chuckling as Erin’s brain finally reconnected with her body, her eyes now narrowing at his laughter. “Well, you’re welcome to join me in the shower, then, but we may not ever make it to dinner if you do.”
He turned on his heel and grinned, not even bothering to duck when she slung the backpack full of money at him. Erin never could throw worth a damn.