“Ah, Christ,” he hissed, driving into her.
Her muscles clenched and ecstasy tickled her senses. She let out a deep moan as Dallas’s thrusts hurtled her through the stars. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him as if he were an anchor in a tumultuous sea. A fierce release gushed from her loins, making her insides pulse.
Dallas grunted and tapped into her. Taking what was his. She cried out as he buried himself inside her, making the final ripples of bliss that much more satisfying.
As her heart rate slowed, so did Dallas’s motion. She smoothed her hand over the back of his hair, down his neck, and over his shoulder blades. He held her in his arms, their bodies meshed into one and sweat layering their skin.
He kissed her cheek. “How the fuck am I ever going to let you go?” he asked softly, with a hint of amusement.
Little did he know that tomorrow he’d have to.
* * *
Dallas stared at the ceiling.
He should be tired. No, he should be fucking exhausted. Or at least passed out like the little minx cozied up against him right now. Gemma’s leg twitched beneath the blanket, and she drew her knee higher on his thigh. Her bare skin rubbing against his leg hair sent a shockwave through his system.
He needed to get a grip on whatever the fuck was happening to his common sense. But no. All he could think about were more ways to make Gemma scream.
He rested his elbow over his head and rubbed the pad of his thumb over his fingertips to stop himself from searching for her pussy underneath the blankets. His brain hadn’t gotten the message that sleep was needed, but hers sure had.
That wasn’t what was eating him, though.
Something was different about Gemma and he couldn’t put his finger on it. She was more . . . connected to him. As if she knew they’d die tomorrow and she wanted to be closer to him. There was also a desperation in her sexuality. A primal need, but it was more than that. Almost nostalgic.
The events of the day—several days—had surely shaken her. Now that they were so close to safety, it made sense that she’d be on the cusp of breaking. She’d been in adrenaline mode, fight or flight, and that came at the cost of one’s mental state.
With any luck, they’d be out of the woods tomorrow. Dare and Cole wouldn’t let him rot here. Forcing his eyelids closed, he inhaled the scent of Gemma’s hair and the faint aroma of sex that still hung in the air then drifted off to sleep.
The buzzing of a phone pulled Dallas awake. Before he could lift his head, Gemma rolled over and snagged her device from the nightstand.
He wiped his hand over his face. Who the hell would be calling her? Through eyelids heavy with fatigue, he watched Gemma slip into the bathroom. So as not to wake him?
He groaned and grabbed his phone from next to the bed. It was barely 9:00 a.m. Which meant it was 6:00 a.m. where his brothers were. Not that that meant much. All his brothers were early risers, and so was he.
But being stranded in the Amazon jungle for nearly two days and walking for just as many had drained all his reserves. He powered on his device and waited a beat. No messages rolled in. Fuck.
He shot off a text to Cole asking him for an update on their escape.
Gemma’s soft voice carried through the paper-thin walls. “Do I have your word he’ll have a passport waiting?” Her tone was sharp, untrusting.
What the fuck?
He threw off the covers and padded across the floor, trying to ignore the faint stickiness on the nasty carpet. He rapped his knuckles on the flimsy wood. “Gemma?”
Silence.
He reached for the handle, but the door whisked open. Gemma stood in only her panties, no T-shirt.
If it weren’t for the tidbit of conversation he’d picked up, he would have carried her ass back to bed. “What was that about?”
She slid her arms in front of her abdomen, and he spotted the encrypted phone she’d had back in Cali. As she knotted her wrists in front of her belly, her breasts pushed forward. He forced his gaze to stay glued to her face. “Well?” he prompted.
She shimmied past him. Her ass swayed in the little black bikini panties. Warning bells fired through his psyche.
This was the Gemma from the past.
The perfect posture. Her shoulders in one straight line, chin held high, ass wiggling with enough spite to send him into fucking cardiac arrest.