“Makes you feel what?”
“Safe. You make me feel so safe, Buck.”
Safe.
Damn. She said the one thing that makes me want her even more. All these years, I’ve berated myself. I’ve hated myself for taking risks instead of keeping my teammates safe like I should have.
Sure, I did some amazing heroic things for my country. But my friends—my blood brothers—died. If I’d been paying better attention to them, perhaps I could have saved them.
But here’s this woman—this strong woman who’s been through so much—telling me that I make her feel safe.
It guts me. It totally guts me.
I plunder her mouth once more. I kiss her in a way I’ve never kissed a woman. It’s not just a kiss. It’s a taking—a taking of what she’s offering.
And I know it’s not going to end with a kiss.
All she’s wearing is my T-shirt and a pair of panties. I’m wearing workout shorts. That’s all that stands between her body and mine.
Her beautiful, scarred body.
Even if it were perfection—with no scars—it couldn’t be more beautiful to me.
In a way, we probably get each other more than anyone else would.
I want to protect her. I want to protect her the way I couldn’t protect my buddies.
I want to take all my guilt and resentment and feeling of powerlessness, hide it away in my head, and shove myself into her body. Take from her what I need and give to her what she desires.
She deserves better than me, but she wants me, and I want her.
Such a powerful kiss. I enjoy kissing, I always have, but never did I imagine it could be like this.
This kiss is almost like a fuck.
It’s so intense.
She opens for me so completely. She knows she’s not ready. I know I’m not ready. And maybe that makes it even better. Maybe that makes it even more necessary.
It’s unreal how much I want her and how I feel the same from her.
Her fingers are inside my shorts again, around my cock again. I can barely take it. I don’t want a hand job from her, but if I don’t stop this now, lead her where I want her, I’m going to explode just from her stimulation.
Manual stimulation.
I break the kiss, and I’m struck with a feeling of pure loss when her lips leave mine.
“Aspen…”
“Please,” is all she says.
She’s wet. I already know this. I slide my hand beneath the waistband of her panties, and she wriggles out of them.
Then her shirt—
“No,” she says. “It’s your shirt. I like it. It makes me feel…safe.”
“Please. You’re so beautiful.”
“I’m not. Not anymore.”
“You are to me.”
I leave her shirt though. I want her to feel comfortable. Safe. I slide out of my boxers, and though I want to kiss her whole body, what she needs—and what I need—is a coupling. A joining.
So I slide inside her, and God, she’s slick and wet and so fucking ready.
Fulfillment. Fulfillment like I’ve never felt before. A groan leaves my throat just as a soft sigh escapes Aspen’s lips.
“Yes,” she sighs. “God, yes.”
“Good?”
“So good.” She bites her bottom lip. “Never imagined I could feel this again.”
I understand what she means. I want to say so, but the words don’t come. My entire world has become my cock, and all I want to do is stay here, balls deep, enjoying the suction of her pussy around me.
A moment later, though, my body rebels. I pull out and push back in, letting her friction glove me, milk me.
Even I’m surprised at how ready I am, as my balls scrunch close to my body, ready to shoot into her.
Will she come? I don’t know, but I want her to. I want to make her feel as good as she’s making me feel.
I lean down and kiss her lips softly. I trail over her pretty face to her earlobe where I nibble gently and then shove my tongue into her ear.
She moans beneath me, wrapping her long legs around my waist.
And then I can’t go slowly anymore. I plunge into her and explode.
She moans beneath me. Clearly she’s enjoying herself, even though I know she hasn’t had an orgasm. How could she? I haven’t touched her clit. I haven’t kissed her body.
All I’ve done is focus on my own selfish pleasure.
I stay embedded inside her for a few precious seconds, but then I roll off her and lie on my back.
“Thank you,” she says.
Thanking me? Really? “You deserved better than that,” I say.
“That was exactly what I needed. I just needed to feel you inside me. I needed to feel safe.”
“But you didn’t—”
“I don’t care. That’s not what I was after, Buck.”
“But—”
“Women are different. Surely you know that.”
“Of course I do. But still… A climax feels damned good.”
“It does. But I don’t care about that, at least not tonight. I needed to feel you inside me. I needed to feel safe, comforted. And that’s what you gave me.”