Page 71 of Javier

“Both, I suppose.”

“You could try.” He looked so upset that I ran my hand up and down his arm. “You told someone to get away, and then you denied that someone else was dead. It sounded awful.”

“It was.” He looked away. “It always is.”

“Was it something that happened when you were on active duty?” I asked. “Did you lose someone dear?”

He nodded, but not a word made it through the straight line of his tightly pressed lips. His forearms bulged as he tightened his grip on the wooden rail.

“I’m a good listener,” I offered softly.

“You’re more than a good listener.” He gazed down on my hand. “You’re a good everything.”

“A compliment from you?” I smiled in an attempt to lift his mood. “How unexpected.”

“If I could, I would compliment you more often,” he rumbled.

“Why can’t you?”

“I told you.” He pressed his lips together again and said nothing more.

“Javi?”

“Don’t say my name like that.” He withdrew his hand from mine and wrapped his fingers around the banister instead.

“Like how?”

“So sweetly that no man in his right mind could resist it.”

“Huh.” A small flame of hope flickered in my core. I was curious, but I wasn’t sure. “Why can’t I say your name sweetly?”

“It makes me feel things I can’t feel.”

“Like what?”

He braced his feet apart and crossed his arms. “Not gonna talk about that.”

“Or your dreams.”

“Or my dreams,” he agreed, all too readily. “Go to sleep, Missy.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.”

He clasped his hands behind his back and faced off with the jungle’s darkness. I contemplated his profile for a moment. His eyes fixed ahead, and his nostrils, flaring with the controlled breaths that lifted his naked chest. I also spotted the doubt glimmering in his eyes, his hesitation, and his need. He looked so sad and kind of… spooked?

“Look at me.” Very gently, I cupped his chin and rubbed my fingertips over the bristled growth of his whiskers. “I know I’m your job and you don’t want to get personal with me, but if you need a friend, I can be that for you. You can trust me. With anything.”

Our eyes locked. An exchange of deep emotions filled my chest and lifted my heart before they slammed down to my core and pooled at the back of my sex, electrifying me from head to toe. If I had any restraint, it went out the window, along with my pride and dignity.

A kiss. Ineededa kiss. I had to kiss him.

I lifted on the tip of my toes, and bracing my hands on hisbare chest, brushed my lips softly against his.

A roar rumbled in his throat right before he seized my mouth, devoured my lips, and wiped all nightmares from my mind. It wasn’t me kissing him. It was the other way around. His hands caressed me with the same voracity that propelled his mouth. My knees, the whole of me, trembled in his arms. My need was so keen it was painful. The space between my legs felt as though it had turned into a sodden sponge.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered between desperate kisses. “Why do I want you so much?”

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