“I don’t,” Shane admitted. “But I appreciate it anyway. I’m glad Hal didn’t leave me. And now that you’re safe, I’m glad you didn’t, either.”
“I’m glad, too.” Catalina stroked his hair until he would have purred if he could. Then she said, “None of what you told me makes me feel differently about you. You did your best. If it had been me, I probably would have done basically the same things. Except that I might not have run the second time. I don’t mind risking my life, but I don’t know if I could bring myself to do something that I knew would kill me.”
“I didn’t know that about myself, either,” Shane replied. “I don’t think you can know until you actually have to make that choice.”
“I hope I never do.”
With all his heart, Shane said, “I hope so, too.”
Her hand moved downward, from his hair to his shoulder. She slipped her hand under his collar and squeezed the muscle, her strong fingers digging in until it softened under her touch. Then she moved on
to his other shoulder. He relaxed into her massage, his tension slipping away. He felt as if a weight he’d been carrying for years, like a rucksack so heavy that the straps had worn grooves into his shoulders, had been lifted off his back.
I should tell Hal the whole story, he thought. I should tell Fiona.
I should tell all of them. They’re my brothers and sisters. They’ll understand.
Catalina pressed a kiss into the nape of his neck. He could still feel it after she lifted her head, hot as the desert sun. Heat ran down his spine and through his veins, but in a slow burn rather than the searing, desperate passion of the night before.
He turned to kiss Catalina, running his fingers through her silky hair. It flowed against his skin like water, cool and smooth and scented like her. She put her hands under his shirt, tracing his ribs and then sliding up his back. It was everything he could ever want, and not nearly enough. That sweet caress reminded him of how long it had been since he’d touched anyone, except for fighting or sparring or brief necessity. He used to love touching and being touched, the simple pleasure of skin on skin.
“Last night was the first time I’d had sex in nearly three years,” Shane said.
Catalina’s hands paused briefly, then she resumed caressing him. “Really?”
“First most-of-a-year, I didn’t have a girlfriend and I was overseas a lot. Second year, I was with Apex. Third year...” He broke off, feeling himself tensing up, and concentrated on the warmth of her body against his. “I didn’t want to get close to anyone. Not even for a night. Especially not for a night. I didn’t want anyone to say, ‘Shane, what were you dreaming about?’”
Catalina kissed him, then said seriously, “Next time, would you rather I didn’t ask?”
He shook his head. “You can ask. I’ve spent too long hiding in the shadows. Feel free to drag me out.”
“Like a cat lurking under a bed,” she said with a smile. “I don’t need to drag you out— I’ll just open a can, and you’ll come running.”
Shane smiled, relaxing again. “Or open an MRE.”
“I’ve got something even more tempting for you.” Catalina settled down in his lap, rocking her hips into his.
He was already hard as a rock, but that made him ache with desire. All he wanted was to bury himself in her wet heat, and feel her tight walls gripping him until he exploded inside her. But he didn’t recklessly give in to impulses. He controlled them. They didn’t control him. First, he had to remember if there was anything else he should do, anything he should check, any chance—
“Lie down.” Catalina put her palm on his chest and pushed him down until he lay on his back and she was perched atop him. She pulled off his shirt, then ran her hands over his shoulders. Her fingers barely dented his taut muscles. “You’re so tense. What are you thinking?”
“I’m trying to figure out if this is going to distract me so much that I won’t hear if someone sneaks up on us,” he admitted.
“Shane, you’d hear someone even if you were asleep, right? I assume you wouldn’t have slept, otherwise.”
She knew him so well. He liked the intimacy of it, but it felt risky, too. “You sitting on my cock is way more distracting than being asleep.”
Catalina grinned and adjusted her seat. That was even more distracting. “Do you really think there’s any chance whatsoever that you wouldn’t hear footsteps? That you wouldn’t hear someone shoving through all those bushes to get to the cave? Or that I wouldn’t, even if someone managed to sneak up while you were busy having a three-minute orgasm?”
Shane couldn’t help chuckling. “No.”
“Then relax.” Her voice lowered to a purr. She took off her shirt and bra, exposing her plump breasts and luscious brown nipples. “Lie back and let me do the work.”
He reached up, caressing that soft flesh. Her scent, her warmth, the pressure of her mound against his cock, her throaty tones as she said, “let me do the work”— all of it made his mind reel. He stopped trying to think, let go of even the smallest part of his mind that consciously kept watch, and abandoned himself to pure sensation.
She pulled off his jeans, then wriggled out of her own. Every movement made her breasts quiver, and her hair fell across her face like black satin. Her scent was even stronger with her jeans off, tangy and sweet and womanly.
When she raised herself over him, a drop of liquid fell on to his cock, tracing a warm line down his exquisitely sensitive skin. He groaned and thrust up to meet her.