Page 15 of Beauty and the Bounty Hunter

A lump of coal settled in my gut.

What would I do then? Make Katrina come back to Philadelphia with me? She would offer, because she would feel indebted. I knew plenty about debt, more than enough to know I didn’t want her to be indebted to me.

I wanted her to love me, as sad a sack as that made me. I wanted her to love me the way I loved her.

She yawned and stretched across my chest, and a rush of pleasure washed over me. Katrina Valdez. Artist, landscaper, lover of mochas. She was too pretty and too perfect to fit into my life. If I were a US Marshal, maybe, but that had a snowball’s chance in hell of happening.

Wanting things that could never be wasn’t healthy. It dug up all the memories I wanted to stay buried.

“Are you awake?” Katrina whispered against my bare chest. I tucked the covers more closely around her and kissed the top of her head again.

“Yes. Are you cold? Hungry?”

“No.” Her lips curved into a smile that burned like a lip print against my skin. Her fingers danced over my body, like she liked it. Like she wanted to know it.

Maybe I just wanted her to feel that way.

“Will you tell me about your scars?” she asked, shifting her body to rest her leg over mine. My cock, which had already been at a morning half-stand, woke up further.

“My scars?”

“Yes.” She lifted her leg higher, brushing my cock and stroking it with her knee.

I groaned. “I’ll tell you anything if you keep doing that.”

“What about this?” She rocked onto her knees, straddling my hips and cradling me in a cocoon of that gorgeous hair.

“You’re going to get cold.” I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her flush against my chest, her nipples tight pinpricks against my skin that sent all sorts of warning signals through my brain.

She kissed along the scar running from my neck down my chest. “Then warm me up.”

I skimmed my hands along her body, massaging into the soft parts of her that had tightened overnight. “Some of them are classified. That scar on my neck was from a pipe bomb in Afghanistan.” I found the hot, wet seam of her, and slipped a finger inside. She clenched around me as I anchored my thumb on her clit and drew tiny circles on it. “The one on my flank was a sniper. But the pipe bomb was the one that got me my discharge.”

“Mmm.” She ground herself against my hand, and I slid another finger into her, stretching her wider. My cock throbbed between us, but watching her come undone was my new favorite hobby. “What did you do after you were discharged?”

“Got a few jobs,” I said. She yelped as I changed the angle of my fingers, scraping lightly against her front wall.

“Just like that,” she moaned. Though it was an odd angle for my wrist, I kept stroking her, circling her clit, letting her momentum guide me. “What kind of jobs?”

“You really want to ask that?” With my other hand, I propped her up onto my stomach so I could change the angle inside her and also get her gorgeous tits in my mouth. I clasped around one of her brown nipples, suckling until I felt her clench around me. She tasted like summer and cream.

“Harbor. Yes.”

I loved the way she said my name. Like I meant something to her. Like I was someone worth loving this way. “Yes, Trina? You want more of this?”

“Yes!” She ground against me, thrusting her tits into my mouth and riding my hand like it was her lifeline. Hell, I’d be her protector, her lifeline, her charge point, for as long as she would let me. “Yes!” She clenched again around me as she climaxed, her hair thrown back in messy waves, her body hot and wet. I held her through it all, grateful for this time, this moment, even if I wanted inside her so badly I could taste it. I loved this woman, more than I’d ever loved anyone, and one day I hoped she would get there, too.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and then leaned over me, claiming my mouth in a soft, sensual kiss that lasted eons. “Tell me what kind of jobs while you fuck me, handsome.”

I wasn’t about to turn that one down. I flipped her onto her back, grabbed a condom from the pack on the dresser, and did exactly what my lady asked.

CHAPTER 14

Katrina

We puttered around the cabin like an old married couple. At some point, Harbor suited up in his coat and winter boots, and went to see if there was a shovel or snow blower around to clear the path around the cabin. Part of me wanted to stop him doing it. If we plowed the driveway, people would see that someone was living here. Someone might find us.

Lucky for me all he found was a semi-rusted shovel, and it was easy enough to distract him after he cleared a path down the front porch steps.

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