romantic-thriller

His head jerked up. For another moment he was motionless. Her lips were parted slightly, trembling. Her eyes looked heavy. Her nipples were hard little circles plainly visible though the wet dress, her arms limp at her sides as she let him look. He shuddered, and his control snapped. She couldn't move. He walked toward her without taking his gaze from her, without seeing or hearing anything else, a primal male animal intent on mating. He was breathing hard and deep, his nostrils flaring. Water dripped off him as he moved. She waited, shaking with need and fear, because he was out of control and she knew it. It was an exhilarating terror, freezing her but at the same filling her with an anticipation so acute she was almost in pain. Then his hands were on her, and she moaned aloud from the sudden release of tension. She didn't have time to respond. She had expected to be swept up in his arms and carried to bed, but he had gone far beyond paying attention to niceties. Nothing mattered to him but to have her, right then.

His voice still had the rasp of desire as he asked, "If I disappear, will you come and find me?

If we were in a spreadsheet, we'd be in different columns." She'd be under uptight/nerdy/homely girls, and he'd be under badass men with bodies of..um..Navy SEALS. He grunted. "Just so you know, I hate spreadsheets with a hot, burning passion.

Looking at Athena now, he couldn't believe he'd been dumb enough to walk away from her. When he'd realized how innocent she was it had freaked him out, to put it mildly. Had made him feel guilty for the dirty things he'd said to her, wanted to do to her. With her ---

She wasn't entirely sure if she was being rescued or kidnapped.

Kane..." she hesitated. "I lied to you last night." His green eyes searched her face. "What did you lie about?" "When I said... when I said I didn't want to kiss you again." Her breath came out in an unsteady puff. "I lied.

Everything is falling into place perfectly. We have four dirty DEA agents working with a terrorist group and killing Americans on American soil. The headlines are going to write themselves and we're going to get our candidate into the White House. When that happens, we'll get the war we want. The war we can win.

He didn't want to take advantage of her? Fine, she'd take advantage of him.

Sudden, hell. I've been hard for two months.

She glanced at her watch. He'd been massaging his legs for half an hour. "I think that's enough," she said firmly. "Don't you want to go back to bed?" He straightened up in the wheelchair and his teeth flashed in a grin. "Baby, I'm so tired of that bed, the only way you could get me back in it would be if you crawled in there with me.

I don't want you to think about anyone in your past. No now, not ever again. You deserved a hell of a lot more than any of those bastards gave you." "If it helps," she said with a faint smile, "I killed most of them.

If you try to sleep on the floor I'll just get down there with you. Which will make you feel guilty and then you'll end up in the bed anyway. So just give in now and save yourself -- and me -- a headache.

She shook her head and said," If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that shitty things happen. You can't always stop them. They just happen. And yeah, you can let them destroy you, but what's the point? Might as well learn to deal with all those shitty things and move on." "Is that what you did?" "Yes." She paused. "And you will too. You just have to accept your loss and try your best to live out the rest of your life without letting the loss destroy you." "Easier said than done," he muttered. She laughed. "Who said life was easy?

Oh my God, you're such a guy!" "I'm glad you noticed." The glint in his dark eyes was purely wicked.

There's only one woman I want.

She whimpered softly into his mouth. "We can't," she cried, desperation and desire tearing her apart. "The hell we can't," he rasped, taking her hand and moving it down his body to where his flesh strained at the fabric of his pants. Her fingers jerked at the contact: then a spasm of pain crossed her pale face, and her hand lingered involuntarily, exploring the dimensions of his arousal. He caught his breath. "Jay, baby, don't' stop me now!

I hope we'll be friends." His grin was pure sin.... She stuck with the truth. "I hope we won't be enemies.

Her grandmother used to say there were men the devil put on earth to test good women. Clara was tempted to ask the guy whether he'd just zip-lined in from hell. "Go away," she said instead. His smile was worth a thousand words, most of them dirty. His voice dipped. "How can I, when your eyes begged me to come over?