Page 88 of Iron Shield
The only thing he needed was Stina—naked, underneath him, on top of him, hell, pinned against this door.
Moving down her body, he closed his mouth around her nipple through the fabric of her bra. When he bit down gently, her chest heaved on a gasp and she thrust her fingers into his hair. He worked his way to her other nipple, nipping and sucking as he found the clasp at her back.
The hooks gave, and he pulled the straps down her arms and let it drop too.
Then he took his time.
Cupping her breasts, he studied her for an aching heartbeat. The dim light caught her curves, her chest rising and falling too fast. Her eyes were fixed on his face with an expression that made his heart tumble end over end into a bottomless reality of what this could become.
He lowered his head and took one nipple between his lips and suckled lightly in a slow, deliberate swirl of his tongue while tracing circles around the other. She arched her back off the door, bowing into his touch.
As he switched to her other nipple, he groaned at how easily it puckered for him. She issued a rasp and she tightened her hands in his hair, tugging with insistence.
He smiled around her flesh and took more time to unravel her. Kissing the curve of her breast first, he tuned into the noises she made. He dragged his teeth light across her ribs and her stomach caved inward on a sharp inhale.
“Rome.” His name came out as a plea.
With his lips paused on her skin, he looked up at her. Her hair spread across the door behind her, her lips parted and her eyes dark. Want glimmered in the depths.
He worked his way back up, taking his time. When he closed his mouth around her nipple, he stripped her pants down her curvy hips. After he untied her boots, he helped her step out of the rest of her clothing, leaving her gloriously naked in front of him.
He shot to his feet and claimed her mouth at the same moment he delved his hand between her thighs. She was soaking wet for him, her clit swollen with want.
Gasping, she dragged her fingers over his shoulders to anchor in his back as he coaxed her folds apart to slide two fingers inside her.
“Rome!”
She rocked into his hand, her moans turning him as hard as steel. She tensed around his fingers each time he plunged them inside her and shuddered as he withdrew.
She moved her hands to his hair, then shoulders, then fisted them on the door behind her, but he didn’t let up until she was coming apart on his fingers and he muffled her cry with his kiss.
“That’s it, baby. You’re so fucking beautiful.”
She shook in his arms until he felt her knees sag.
Slipping one hand under her ass, he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.
With their mouths fused in a never-ending kiss, he carried her to the bed and laid her down.
For years, he’d been telling himself he made the sacrifice for his country, that he was only built for the next command, the next op, the brotherhood. He’d made peace with not having more and stopped grieving it so long ago he couldn’t remember the last time it hurt.
But he looked at Stina in his bed and understood, with the stark clarity of a man who’d finally stopped lying to himself, that he was no longer willing to make the sacrifice.
* * * * *
Stina had wanted men before. She knew what attraction felt like and how chemistry could cloud her brain and make that moment more important than anything else.
This time, even though Rome had her body revving with desire, her body was no longer calling the shots.
It was a spot much higher in her chest.
She battled the tightness in her throat that had everything to do with falling for this man.
She’d been falling since their first argument. She’d tried to convince herself that what she felt was the intensity of the situation.
She was done lying to herself.
She cared for him. More than cared. But the word for what she felt was far too small for what was happening in her chest right now.
