In that moment, I realized for the first time on a visceral level that he was really, really here to protect me. That if an intruder came through the door, Riggs would step in front of me. That if I’d slid down that ravine, Riggs would have rappelled down and rescued me.
And yeah, he was motivated by his devotion to his job and his desire to please my grandfather, but it didn’t matter. It was a heady notion and a fucking hot one, and despite the danger in the air, I felt myself getting hard… or, more accurately, harder.
I felt around on the floor for anything I could use as a weapon and came up with a little round tin of antibiotic salve that I pressed against Riggs’s hand. “Here, take this. Your aim is probably better than mine. If they storm the room, you can hit them. I trust you, Riggs.”
Riggs exhaled a warm breath of air. I wanted to think he was overcome by my compliment but knew he was more likely stifling laughter because I was an idiot who thought we’d take down robbers by throwing something at them, a la David and Goliath, when he had a gun somewhere around here. His hand closed around the tin anyway.
Thirty seconds later, the metal door clanged again, but this time it was followed by a disembodied female voice singing Selena Gomez’s “Baila Conmigo” at the top of her lungs.
“¡Te quiero, Dr. Carter! Ven aquí! Eres tan sexy!” another woman’s voice slurred, followed by lots of high-pitched laughter that moved off down the street along with the drunken singing.
I did not require a translation app to know what that last word meant or to understand that the “intruder” was a group of village women who’d probably had too much aguardiente.
I stared up at Riggs for half a beat through the shadows, and he stared back, and then I started laughing—a deep belly laugh that felt like it had been trapped inside me for days.
“Hush,” Riggs said softly, his palm still against my lips. “We don’t know if they might—”
I grabbed his wrist in both of mine and yanked it away. “But we do, though!” I crowed. “They’re not here for medicine—they’re here for me. Because the only threat in this village is my sexiness!”
Riggs snorted. “You’re such an idiot.”
“All this time, you’ve only had to protect me from myself!” I said giddily.
Riggs laughed too, a deep rumble that came out of his chest, and I got the feeling that he was mostly laughing at my laughter, but I felt so free, so relieved I didn’t care.
And then he moved, just the slightest bit, and it rubbed his hard, naked chest against my tank top–covered chest in a way that made my nipples go hard. I stopped laughing altogether and sucked in a gasp instead.
We both went quiet, staring at each other in the almost-darkness, eyes wide, and the tension between us spun out and crystallized.
I was painfully hard, and the heat and strength of Riggs was mere inches away, tantalizing me. I tried to compel him with the power of my mind to move, to want this, to make it happen.
And miracle of miracles… it worked.
Slow as a glacier, telegraphing every micro movement of his body like I was a rabbit who might get scared off, he dipped his pelvis to rub against mine.
It was the lightest of touches. The barest friction. But I’d been storing up arousal like gunpowder for days, and that tiny movement was like a lit match.
“Fuck, yes,” I breathed. “More.”
Riggs blinked down at me helplessly. “Carter,” he began—not Duchess, not Dr. Rogers—“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Hurt me? How the hell could he hurt me except by leaving me wanting again? I lifted my hips off the floor to rub my aching shaft against his. “This hurts, Riggs. This hurts.”
“Fuck,” Riggs groaned, and I realized a second later that was the sound of a very controlled man slipping his leash.
In the next moment, his lips were on mine and we were kissing—hard, sucking, biting kisses, like he’d been ravenous for this as long as I had. When his tongue delved into my mouth, I could taste the tangy mint of his toothpaste, which seemed almost unbearably intimate. The grapefruit scent of my own bodywash rising off his sweat-damp skin amped my arousal so high, I could feel the precum soaking my shorts.
He rutted on top of me, the hard ridge of his cock perfectly aligned with mine, and it was glorious.
“You’re… fuck, you’re so hot. Get these off,” he whispered, tugging at the waistband of my shorts. “I want skin.”
“Oh yeah.” I twisted my body to help him yank them down, then stripped off my tank top and threw it somewhere on the bed while he got rid of his own boxers.