Page 48 of Royal Guard
My mind was screaming at the wrongness of it. I knew I was doing the right thing, knew I wasn’t the sort of guy who could be with her. Knew I was just a big lunk with dirt under his fingernails, a jarhead and a damaged one at that. I’ve never been ashamed of what I am. But dammit, in that moment I would have given anything to be some duke or prince. I tried to force my voice to be level, but it shook a little. “America’s going to miss you, Your Highness.”
She pressed her lips tight together and nodded. Then she stepped down off the parapet and we started towards the stairs.
I held her hand to guide her and just that tiny contact sent energy pulsing up my arm, right to my chest. There was something about the feel of her delicate hand in my much bigger one.What if this is the very last time I ever touch her?
We reached the stairwell door. I released her hand but my fingers didn’t want to let go: they tangled and caught at hers. She looked up at me, eyes huge, breath coming quick. I quickly looked away.Don’t be a damn fool, Garrett.
I hauled open the door. Looked down the cold stairs that led to a polite goodnight, an early start, then her getting on Barney’s plane. I caught her eye again and saw the tears there. Looked away and nodded to myself firmly. This was the right decision. Theonlydecision.
I stepped forward.
Onlyshestepped forward, too. My hip brushed her hip: soft terry robe and hot flesh just beneath; damp chestnut hair flicking against my neck as she gaspedand turned in surprise, the scent of her warm skin—
Every man has a goddamn breaking point.
I slammed her up against an air conditioning duct and kissed her as hard as I could.
35
KRISTINA
I’d been dreamingabout this kiss for so long. At least since that moment in the FBI office when he’d stared down at me and I’d silently prayed that he’d ask to kiss me. Maybe since the first moment I’d seen him on the plane.
It was everything I’d dreamed it would be.
His lips came down on mine, hard and possessive. Not just wanting me butneedingme as I needed him. I could feel days of lust stacked up behind the kiss like an invading army. He pressed, twisted, brutal against my softness. He tasted me and his growl of satisfaction rumbled right through me.
I was panting, lips together but nostrils flaring. My whole body was quaking against him. God, the feel of him, the hardness of his body, made me go weak. He was all around me: his denim-clad leg, thick as a tree trunk as it pressed against my bare thigh. His broad, curving chest, mashing against my breasts. Those big hands, cradling my back and tugging me even harderinto him. His lips were rhythmic, now, each press slow and deliberate but sending an earthquake of raw pleasure down through me. My legs trembled and I went limp in his arms, the pleasure turning hot and scarlet-black as it reverberated up and struck my groin. The kiss was the drumbeat of a conqueror’s army, a thunderous hammering on my gates.
I opened and his tongue traced the soft ‘O’ of my lips, teasing me, luxuriating in my submission. Then he plunged inside and I moaned: nothing mattered except the kiss. Every press of his lips sent another wave of pleasure shuddering down my body, so strong it might break me apart. I felt as if I was riding him, my whole body moving with his as we twisted and pushed and entwined together. My hands found the muscles of his back and I clung to him.
He grabbed my ass through the robe and crushed me close. My breasts pillowed against his chest, nipples rubbing against the hard muscle but the sensation tamed by the soft fabric between us. My whole body had suddenly gone burning hot: I was a writhing, twisting, naked mass beneath the robe, desperate to shed it and be naked against him. He was forceful, almost brutal, in the way he pinned me in place. But what overwhelmed me was my own reaction. Everything I’d been feeling for him, these last few days, was rising up inside me in a hot, dark gusher, filling my muscles and stealing control. If I hadn’t been so firmly held, I would have been tearing at our clothes.
His lips parted from mine and for the first time I could hear my own urgent panting. His hands roved up my back, then down my front. Down to the belt of the robe.Does he realize I’m naked underneath?
He hooked his fingers under the ends and jerked the knot open. The robe fell apart a little way but that wasn’t enough for him. He grabbed both sides and rammed it apart, so wide that it folded back on itself at the shoulders, trapping my arms. I was bare all the way down my front, the warm night air whipping across my skin.
His eyes tracked down my body and then came back up more slowly. I squirmed, turned on but shy.What if he doesn’t like me?
But when his eyes met mine again, the furnace heat there told me everything I needed to know. His face was glowing with unrestrained, lustful joy that sent a hot wave of pride through me: I’d never been so simply, gloriouslyappreciatedbefore.
His hands slowly lifted my breasts, thumbs working to squeeze the pale flesh just a little. Then he brushed the nipples, his huge hands more gentle than I’d have thought possible. He was almost reverent in the way he touched me...but I could see that powerful chest rising and falling as he panted. I was being worshipped...but by a man who any second was going to—I flushed—fuckme andpoundme andrideme and all those other things a princess was not supposed to think about.
He moved closer, so close his big body blocked the wind that was starting to gust across the rooftop. So close that I could feel the hard bulge at his groin kiss my inner thigh, the warm denim rasping over my soft skin and then—I caught my breath—brushing across my soft curls of hair.
He stared straight into my eyes. His hands came up to cradle my cheeks, thumbs brushing over my lips. When he spoke, I felt it through the vibration ofhis chest against my breasts as much as I heard it.“Beautiful,”he rumbled, his accent pure Texas gold.
His hands slid down my neck, over my shoulders and traced the shape of me as if sculpting me from clay, his eyes on my breasts. “Beautiful.”
He crouched, his eyes locked on my groin, his mouth so close to me that I felt the word on my folds. “Beautiful.”
I drew in a shaky breath. My eyes were half-closed, hooded with lust. I was only distantly aware of the lights of the city and the storm clouds overhead, didn’t care that I was naked on a rooftop, or that someone might see. All I cared about was him.
He put his hands on my hips, then used his elbows to nudge my legs apart. That’s when I realized what he was going to do and the thought of it, of those hard lipsthere,sent a ripple of heat straight down to my groin. I spread my legs, the concrete warm against the soles of my feet. He moved closer and then, as if he couldn’t resist, he stood for a second, towering over me, reminding me of his size, and laid a trail of kisses. He started at my lips and moved in anSdown my body, snaking from breast to breast, over my stomach, my pubis, my thighs. Then, when I was gasping, he knelt between my open legs and—
Ah!I instinctively closed my legs at the first brush of his tongue against my lips, only to find them blocked by his hulking shoulders. He went slowly at first, teasing me, caressing each millimeter of sensitive skin with the tip of his tongue. I closed my eyes and for long seconds there was just my panting and the feel of him licking along my lips, following them up and inward to the hidden nub at their apex, running his tongue around and around andacross—
I sunk my hands deep into his hair as thunder rolled overhead. He wentbackandacrossand then in anX.My hips were following him, now, dancing and swaying, urging him on. I could feel my lips growing heavy and soft, could feel myself opening to him as I got wetter and wetter. But he held back, teasing with just the tip of his tongue. The pleasure was strumming through me, my whole body writhing with it. I was soaking, aching...but still he teased, prolonging it, savoring me. Only when the pleasure climbed all the way up inside me to my throat and I begged, “Please!”did he give me what I needed.