He swallowed a laugh. “All you’re doing is turning me on.” He loved waking up to this woman. Loved holding her. Loved comforting her as she comforted him. He just flat-out loved her.
Totally, madly, deeply. Weren’t those the words she’d used?
Somehow, she had become his everything.
Challenges rocked. He’d always preferred the missions and games he’d had to work hard to win. And Evie had certainly made him work for every milestone. But, oh, when she surrendered a few yards, there was nothing sweeter.
“I believe I’ve noted the fact that everything turns you on,” she said.
“When you’re involved, yes.”
She chuckled—but the humor soon morphed into gut-wrenching sobs.
Reeling, he held her close. He had never seen her break down like this, and it tore him apart. “Pooh bear?” he asked the moment she calmed enough to hear him. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling, wiping her tears away with a shaky hand. “I’ve been running on adrenaline, and now you’re awake, and, well, it’s crashed, and my emotions are getting the better of me.”
He kissed her temple, relieved. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
She nodded, her cheek rubbing against his chest, the friction sending a lance of pleasure straight to his groin. “I would do it again in a heartbeat,” she said, “I really would, it’s just . . . I’m coming to need you too much. If you had died . . . I wasn’t sure what I would have done without you.”
The words . . . yeah. He wasn’t going to let himself get emotional about her declaration, but . . . yeah. This woman.
My woman.
She loved him, too, totally, madly, deeply, whether she realized it or not.
“What I feel for you scares me, too,” he admitted. “I’ve never felt it before. Obsession and addiction, as if my identity is now forever tangled up in yours.”
“You don’t mind?”
“No. You are such a self-contained woman, it’s difficult to get past your barriers. But I made it, and I want you to need me the way I need you. I don’t want to be alone in this thing.”
A pause. Then: “You’re really right there with me?”
“I am.” And he wouldn’t change a thing.
“Blue,” she whispered, kissing his chest just above his beating heart.
“I want you, baby. So much.”
“We can’t.”
“We aren’t. You are.”
“Well, well. I like the thought of that. Finally, I’ll be the one to do all the hard work.” She gently pulled at his pants, stripping him. Then she sat up in the bed and discarded her own garments.
As golden moonlight spilled over her, she straddled his waist.
The contact electrified him, wet heat pressing against his length.
“I love seeing you like this,” he said. “You are the most beautiful creature ever created, Evangeline Black.”
“No. That would be you.” She cupped her br**sts and leaned down to him, offering him a taste.
He licked one, then the other, then blew on both, watching the ni**les pearl. “Love these little darlings.”
“Mmm,” she moaned. “Love them more.”
“With pleasure.” He flicked his tongue over a beaded tip, then sucked, then licked again, always savoring. She gave another moan and ground against the long, wide length of his shaft. “So perfect, baby, so perfect.” He reached back and curled his fingers around the bars of the headboard. “I will never get enough of you.”
She turned her attention to his mouth, kissing him, feeding him passion and pleasure, nipping at his lips while sliding up and down along his erection—so warm and wet—her hands all over him, learning him, driving him insane, her hunger feeding his own, already an undeniable force, and peeling away all sense of self.
There was no Blue without Evie.
“You ready for me, baby?”
“So ready.”
“Then take me.”
She rose to her knees and placed him at her entrance, then, slowly, she sank down. He had to fight the urge to surge up, going deeper, all the way.
“Feels so good,” she groaned.
“Someone needs a vocab lesson. It feels amazing.”
A smile lifted the corners of her lips, a powerful smile, feminine. “Oh, yeah?”
He practically vibrated with a hunger only this woman could induce. “Yeah.”
“Tell me if I hurt you.” She lifted before she’d worked herself all the way down, only to slam back with all of her strength; his hips arched automatically.
Yeah. Yeah, like that.
“Again,” he rasped. “Please. I can take it.”
She did, harder and faster, and she didn’t stop. She found a rhythm and rode him, lost, wild, taking all that she wanted, all that she needed, and he loved every moment, always rising up to meet her, uncaring about any momentary pain, giving her all that he was, all that he had; and when she screamed with the force of her release, his own poured forth, the pleasure too much to bear.
She collapsed on his chest, out of breath and damp with perspiration, and, hopefully, too exhausted for dreams. She drifted off to sleep and he rolled her over, cleaned them both, then curled into her side.
For the first time in his adult life, he felt as though he’d found a home.
Twenty-five
THE NEXT DAY BLUE sat at Evie’s desk with Evie in his lap. “There she is,” he said, tapping a red dot on the screen. “Tiffany Star.”
Evie frowned. “The dot tells me nothing.”
“She’s in a remote part of Vermont.”
“Then to Vermont we go.”
If they were lucky, the Star boys would be there as well. If not, they would deal.
During Blue’s recovery, Solo had gone after the son on his own; but, like his father, Tyson had already gone into hiding.
“How soon can you be ready to go?” he asked.
“Thirty seconds. I just need to grab my purse.” She hopped off his lap—he wanted to pout like a child—but returned in only ten seconds, her bag in hand.
He checked the contents, smiling when he found a small bottle of ranch dressing, duct tape, dice, a pair of panties, a man’s bow tie, and other things he couldn’t identify.
“No weapon?” he asked.
“Please.” She snorted. “Everything in there is a weapon.”
Love. This. Woman.
“We’ll take Michael’s jet,” she said, and he noticed she gave a little shudder. “It’s got, like, warp speed, so we can be there in an hour.”