by Paige Tyler
Rachel didn’t bother pondering it too long because thinking at this point was wasting time they could use doing something better. So, instead, she clasped his shoulders and dragged herself up his body like it was a Slip ‘N Slide. Then she covered his mouth with hers and kissed him hard.
Knox groaned, sliding his hands down her back until they cupped her butt through the thin material of her T-shirt. Dang, she knew he had really big hands, but they felt even larger as they squeezed and massaged her ass. The sounds of appreciation she made were probably ridiculous, but she didn’t care.
“I think I just found one of your happy places,” he murmured against her lips as he slowly worked her T-shirt up to expose her butt.
She swore she heard sizzling when his warm hands came into contact with her bare skin. Okay, she really didn’t. But man, did it feel good. The sensation had her writhing all over him, right up to the point that his underwear-covered hard-on became wedged in the cleft between her legs. Then she started doing some serious wiggling.
“Mmm, I think you’ve found another one,” she breathed, forced to break their kiss so she could sit up a little and grind against him more firmly.
Rachel was so caught up in the moment she didn’t realize Knox had gotten a grip on the hem of her T-shirt until he’d lifted the material up to take it off. She raised her arms, leaning forward a little to make it easier. And just that fast, she found herself completely naked while Knox was still half-clothed. But when he gazed up at her with an expression of utter adoration on his face, she decided she could get used to the disparity. It turned out she liked being regarded as if she were a goddess.
When Knox had gotten his fill from that vantage point, he rolled her over on the bed until she was on her back with his hands positioned possessively to either side of her shoulders, legs straddling her hips.
“Let’s see if we can find a few more of your happy places,” he murmured as his mouth came down on her neck and he began to kiss, lick, and nibble his way along her jawline from earlobe to chin, then down to her collarbone, fire following his path.
She arched like a bow as his warm lips found their way down to her breasts, teasing and nipping at first one nipple, then the other. Rachel reached down to thread her fingers into his silky hair, scraping her nails along his scalp in encouragement as his tongue traced little circles around her nipples, then the curved undersides of her breasts, and finally, the valley between them. She about lost her mind as he took his time exploring every part, finding erogenous zones she’d never known existed.
But then she felt Knox tense, his mouth hovering above the upper slope of her left breast. She looked down and saw him gazing intently at the two-inch-long and quarter-inch-wide scar there. It was a shade lighter than the rest of the skin around it and barely discernible. There were several tiny lines branching away from the main scar where the doctors had to cut her open to deal with the internal injuries. The way Knox was studying them, it was almost like he was thinking about the pain she’d endured.
“Yes,” she said without him asking. “That’s where Horace Watkins stabbed me. The blade missed my heart but got the top of my lung and nicked a vein. I have another scar on my right shoulder in back.”
Knox lifted his gaze to hers, and she was stunned to see that his normally brown eyes were swirling with gold. Why, she couldn’t say. Without a word, he lowered his head again and ever so gently kissed the scar, murmuring something even her werewolf ears couldn’t make out. A moment later, he continued his way down her body, nipping along her ribs and down her abs, spending a few extra seconds making love to her belly button.
“I think you’ve found a new happy place,” she sighed, wanting to let him know she’d appreciate it if he hung around that area a while longer.
He didn’t disappoint her.
Knox’s amazingly careful inspection of her body led him to her right hip, where he slowed again with a soft chuckle. “A tattoo of a wolf’s head with the word SWAT above it? Is that an inside joke or something?”
Rachel let out a throaty laugh as his lips and tongue traced the outline of the wolf’s head. “It’s a pack thing. Each member gets one as soon as they’re accepted onto the team.”
“So, you have to be part of the team then, huh?” He snorted. “I guess that means no wolf’s head tat for me.”
She opened her mouth to tell him it wasn’t like that, but the words got lost as he continued his exploration, following the crease of her thigh as he slowly spread her legs. Then his lips found that sensitive place in between them, and any meaningful thoughts she’d been having completely evaporated.
Knox definitely knew what he was doing down there, sliding his tongue up and down the folds of her pussy, occasionally moving upward to trace slow, methodical circles around her clit. It felt absolutely incredible, and she was sure she’d orgasm if he kept doing what he was doing. But every time she got close, he’d pull away and lick her folds again. She grabbed his hair, trying to guide him to her clit, but he stubbornly refused to follow her helpful suggestions.
Just when Rachel thought she might actually have to resort to force to get him to stop teasing her, Knox slid two fingers inside her wetness, finding that perfect spot like he had a GPS tracker telling him where to go. At the same time, his mouth came down over her clit and he began flicking his tongue in perfect rhythm.
It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before her entire body clenched up and she was hit with an orgasm that made her whole field of vision go bright white, like a sun had exploded into a supernova right above her. Knox rode with her through it, his fingers and tongue making waves of pleasure wash over her.
By the time she’d collapsed back onto the bed in a sweaty, loose-limbed pile of melted goo, she was sure Knox—or at least his tongue—had ruined her forever.
Rachel suddenly felt a tickling sensation along her body, and she looked down to see her hero-turned-lover kissing his way up her tummy until his face was directly above hers.
He grinned. “Sorry to bother you in your moment of orgasmic bliss, but do you happen to have a condom somewhere? If not, I guess I could do with some duct tape and a rubber band. Though I’m not too sure of the reliability of that particular method.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Top drawer of the nightstand. You might have to dig around a bit to find them. It’s been a while.”
He leaned across her body, opening the drawer and rummaging around, finally coming up with a foil-wrapped packet. The molten expression in his eyes as he stepped off the bed to get undressed was enough to make her tingle all over again. She hadn’t really been thinking about round two, since round one had turned her head to mush, but now that it was about to happen, she had to admit she was excited at the prospect of having him inside her.
Knox reached over his shoulder to grab the back of his shirt, pulling it over his head. Rachel sighed contentedly. As fetishes went, this one was mild, but she’d always loved watching a guy get undressed, especially when they yanked their shirts off that way. Most women got undressed pretty much the same way they got dressed. It was all about smooth, careful moves so they never tore a stitch or stretched a seam out of line.
Guys, on the other hand, ripped off their clothes like they didn’t care if the shirt survived the event. They were so rough about it…sexy. Maybe she spent too much time noticing things most people didn’t, but in this case, she definitely appreciated what she noticed.
Long before Knox’s clothes had started coming off, she’d figured out that he was built. But seeing his bare chest and broad shoulders and—oh my goodness—those rock-hard abs made her realize she’d been selling him short. The man wasn’t simply amazing—he was sublime.
Rachel gawked without shame, taking in the thick muscles of his smooth chest, the sexy slope of his traps from neck to shoulders, the ripples of his stomach as he worked his underwear down and off. The happy
trail of dark hair that led from his belly button to a shaft that was absolutely perfect in every way. He was the complete package and looked so yummy she felt her fangs aching to come out so she could take a bite.
Knox reached for the condom packet, but she grabbed it first, scooting her butt to the edge of the bed.
“Let me,” she said softly.
Smiling as he moved to stand between her legs, Rachel reached out and wrapped her fingers around him, caressing up and down along the long length a few times. She told herself it was to make sure he was hard enough to put the condom on him. But she knew he was already hard enough to hammer nails. She simply wanted to get her hands on him before she put the big guy under wraps.
Knox groaned when she dipped her head forward and swiped her tongue across the head of his hard cock. She let out her own sound of appreciation. He tasted delicious, making her assume it must be another one of those werewolf things because he was more scrumptious than any man she’d ever been with.
Rachel was tempted to keep going—sure Knox wasn’t going to complain—but she was hungry to see what came next, so she pulled back with a promise to herself to definitely do this again later, then got to work getting the condom on before she changed her mind.
She scooted back on the bed as Knox climbed on, spreading her legs and inviting him in. Giving her a smoldering look, he dipped down to take a nibble of her inner thigh as he moved up her body. She laughed at the electric sensation, stunned she was so comfortable with a man she barely knew, a man she’d been more than ready to hate only a short time ago.
No matter how ready for this they both might have been, neither of them seemed to want to rush. Instead, Knox took his time teasing her opening with his hardness before finally gently sliding in. Rachel gasped when he pushed in deep, reveling in the sensation of his thickness spreading her wide, filling her completely.
His forearms came down on either side of her body, his mouth finding hers as he slowly made love to her. He slid all the way out until only the tip was inside her, then plunged back in with a firm thrust, bottoming out hard enough to let her feel the impact of his hips against her inner thighs. She kissed him back, wrapping her arms and legs around him, holding him tightly and locking her ankles together behind his back, content to let him set the pace. While it wasn’t fast, the force of his movements shook her body until she was trembling all over. Something told her this orgasm was going to be even better than the first one, but if he wasn’t going to rush it, neither would she.
Knox nibbled on her lips, her earlobes, her neck, even her collarbones. And the whole time he teased her with his mouth, he never slowed his pace, making tingles start in her middle, then gradually spread outward until her whole body was vibrating. She gave herself over to the sensation, her perception of everything else around her blurring at the edges. She knew for sure she would have already orgasmed if Knox hadn’t been holding back.
“Harder,” she urged breathlessly in his ear. At the same time, she squeezed him tighter with her legs and scraped her nails down his back, making sure he understood how much she wanted this.
Knox pulled back a little to gaze down at her, his eyes an iridescent gold now. The way he looked at her was awe-inspiring, as if she was the most important thing in the world to him. She nodded, trying to convey without words that she felt the same. She hoped that would do because, right then, she’d have had a hard time expressing everything going on in her head.
His mouth closed on hers, and if the kiss hadn’t taken her breath away, his sudden hard thrusts would have. He plunged into her over and over, touching her in places she hadn’t known she had, his pelvic bone doing a delicious number on her clit every time he thrust.
The tingle deep in her tummy became a lightning bolt faster than she would have thought possible, and her teeth found their way to one of those perfect shoulder muscles of his as she bit down on him to hold back the torrent of screams that fought to burst out of her.
The rush of pleasure was almost too much as she tumbled off a cliff and kept right on falling. Then Knox followed her off the precipice, half groaning, half growling as he orgasmed.
Rachel wasn’t sure what happened after that because the details were kind of fuzzy, but the next thing she knew, she was lying on top of Knox instead of under him. It was seriously comfortable and she didn’t plan on going anywhere. So, she stayed glued to his awesome chest, listening to his heartbeat return to normal and enjoying the tremors of pleasure that continued to rock her body every few seconds.
It must have been a good fifteen minutes before she had enough energy to think, much less move. But when she finally did, she pushed herself up on Knox’s chest to smile at him.
“On a scale of one to ten, that was probably a hundred,” she told him.
He reached up to cup her face, his touch a caress, his dark eyes soulful. “Yeah, it was.”
She bent to press a tender kiss to his lips, prepared to go into detail about how much she loved what they’d just done when a thought occurred to her.
“Not to change the subject, but I’m almost certain I locked my door last night. How did you get in?”
He ran a finger up and down her arm, mouth edging up. He had a gorgeous smile. “It was locked, but when I heard you scream, I kicked it in. Don’t worry, though. I slipped out of bed after you fell asleep and wedged a chair from the kitchen table under the door handle so no one could get in without some serious force.”
That answer led to about a dozen others, such as why he’d shown up at her door in the first place and how he’d been able to get her to calm down when she couldn’t figure out how to do it herself. But then a bigger question came to mind and everything else suddenly took a back seat.
“When you offered to help me find someone I could talk to about my nightmares, you said you’d be willing to come to the sessions with me.” She hesitated, praying he really had said that and she hadn’t dreamed it. “Did you truly mean that? You’d come see a shrink with me? Hold my hand and crap like that.”
Knox nodded, his expression suddenly sincere. “Yeah, I was serious. I know how hard it can be to open up about stuff like this. If it will help, I’ll be there for you.”
Rachel once again wondered how the hell she’d stumbled across someone like him right when she needed him the most. But at the same time, she also realized Knox seemed to have some personal experience when it came to dealing with stuff like this. What else explained his ability to calm her down last night or his confession about knowing how hard it was to open up about things?
“I’m not trying to dig into your personal life or your past, but something tells me you’ve been through the same thing I’m going through now,” she said. “Did you?”
* * *
“Wait, what just happened?” Knox sputtered, gazing at the beautiful, sexy woman lying on his chest, baffled by the sudden turn in the conversation. “One second we’re talking about me going to therapy with you, and the next, we’ve somehow jumped to the topic of my traumatic experiences.”
Rachel folded her hands on his chest, resting her chin on them and regarding him with a genuinely hurt expression. “Sorry. I was only asking. If you’d rather not talk about whatever happened that gave you so much experience with stuff like this, you don’t have to. Really. I honestly wasn’t trying to pry.”
Ah, hell. Now, he felt like a jerk. Last night, Rachel had opened up her personal suitcase of issues and dumped them all out for him to see, yet here he was acting like his secrets were too special for her to know about.
“I know you weren’t prying,” he said, gently running a finger down her cheek. “You caught me a little off guard, that’s all.”
Rachel regarded him silently for a moment, then slipped off his chest to pull the blankets up over the both of them. When she had the covers the way she wanted them, she didn’t climb on top of him again, but instead put her head
on the pillow beside him. While they were technically still close enough to almost touch, it felt like a tremendous space had opened up between them.
That feeling bothered the crap out of him.
“I was with a four-man SEAL team in Nairobi,” Knox said softly, turning to stare up at the ceiling. “It’s not something that makes the evening news very often, but the extremist Islamic activity there can be as bad as anything you’d see in Iraq. We were there to do some low-level surveillance work and start a dialogue with members of the Kenyan Ministry of Defense and National Police about future joint operations. We didn’t expect to directly engage with hostile forces, which was why I had two newbies fresh out of BUDs with me.”
Knox didn’t mean to stop there, but thinking about that day was enough to start the scenes replaying in his head—memories he’d tried like hell to forget.
“But?” she prompted.
Knox jumped a little at the softly spoken word. How long had he been lying there trapped in his head, alone with his dark thoughts?
“But there was a terrorist attack at an office complex near where we were meeting.” He remembered every second of the fight like it was yesterday, instead of more than a year ago. “It had nothing to do with us, but we became involved anyway. The ministry officials we were with were high-level officers and were armed. Fortunately, the officers from the National Police were, too. Even with them, we were heavily outnumbered. One of the new guys on my team, Lawrence Vasquez, was hit in the chest and went down before he even had a chance to fire his weapon.”
He swallowed hard. He’d never forget the expression on Lawrence’s face as he stared at the blood pumping out of his own chest. Knox had slapped a self-sealing combat bandage over the wound, but it hadn’t helped. Those bandages were amazing, but there wasn’t much you could do on the battlefield with an injury that severe.
