Page 18 of Twister

The kiss was slow, soft, and so unbelievably gentle that it left her absolutely breathless, and her whole body turned to jelly. Regardless of the fact that he was a stranger or that they were here to do a job, she wanted more from him.

Trembling and weak, and feeling as if every bone in her body had been liquefied, she folded around him, aware of how tightly he was holding her, aware of how badly he was trembling.

She couldn’t explain how this had all happened. That hard man on the plane wouldn’t have gotten the time of day from her, but the guy that had unraveled in front of her, that vulnerable, besieged man who had no option but to expose his weakness to her, latched onto her heart and wouldn’t let go.

She sensed that he needed her, not only her body, but her comfort, her understanding, and her compassion. He was breaking down, and he was denying it. She wasn’t sure if he even realized how much he needed her.

As he broke the kiss with a soft moan, he turned his face against her neck, his beard silky against her skin, his hand tight around her nape. Then, as if too spent to move, he gently shook her a little. His voice muffled, he said, his tone very gruff. “I like the way you communicate, babe. I can be such an aggressive bastard.”

“I like everything about you,” she whispered, overcome with the need to comfort him. She pressed her mouth against his temple, slipped under his untucked T-shirt and ran her hand up that gorgeous, muscled back, his skin like satin over steel. Her own voice was very uneven. “Especially braving the scary Bondo to see me.”

He let out a hard laugh. “You have no idea,” he whispered.

“I could make it quick,” she said breathlessly, sliding her hand over his very impressive, hot, and hard erection. He shuddered, bucking against her hand. His nostrils flared, and stark male desire heated his eyes.

He dragged in a ragged breath on a rumbling groan. “Fuck the Navy and Bondo,” he bit out, grabbing her wrist away, then lacing his fingers through hers, bringing their joined fists to his chest, right over his heart. He chuckled with such a cute sheepish look on his face.

“Goddamn woman, I’d rather have an aching dick and these tight blue balls tonight then give into some quick jacking off that won’t be satisfying at all.” He thrust his hips into hers. “I’m going to settle for thoughts and dreams about fucking you hard and deep, until I make you come.” His head turned sharply toward the door when he heard Bondo’s distant voice getting louder. “Fuck, I’ve got to go,” he said with true regret.

Then he was gone, all except the promise of his lips against hers and his reaction to her kiss.

6

Twister movedfrom his side onto his back. He couldn’t get comfortable, but this position was even worse. His dick was so hard that the covers against it were almost unbearable, not to mention how sensitive his skin was. He thrummed with more energy than he knew what to do with regardless of how tired he was.

He closed his eyes. The memory of her mouth was burned into his brain, the way she had soothed him with her voice, then her hands, then that delectable mouth… He was in a state of turmoil from not only the fact that she saw him, really saw him, panic attack and everything, and she still kissed him with the kind of passion that was now keeping him up in more ways than one.

Everything inside him, and everything outside, throbbed with an incessant need, and he recognized it as an aching kind of loneliness that he hadn’t ever acknowledged. Sure, he was surrounded by seven of the best men he had ever met, and they fulfilled every masculine need for companionship, camaraderie, and brotherhood he could ever want.

But a man needed more than just his brothers. They were hard, tough, incessantly sarcastic, but what he wanted, what he needed, was…her…in his space, taming this aching frustration, releasing all this pent-up energy, all this loudness. She could ramp it up, and she could quiet it, and he hungered to press his body against hers. He’d always been tactile, and he loved sex, but with Sadie, it was something else he couldn’t quite define. She was just more.

It was humbling to realize that he was just fucking human after all, and all of them needed that female connection. He felt so much more grounded with her than he ever did on his own, in his own skin. She had gotten under it, and he wasn’t sure he could ever get her out.

He turned again, sighing, and groaning softly as his dick rubbed against the material of his briefs.

“Goddammit, Twist, fucking go to sleep. We’ve been up more hours than I can count, and you’re usually mister-fall-asleep-at-the-drop-of-a-hat,” Dagger grumbled, his sleepy voice in a low whisper.

He closed his eyes, working at containing his thoughts and protecting his secrets, but if he couldn’t trust Dagger or the guys, then they weren’t as close as he knew they were. “She kissed me.”

The energy between them just ramped up. He could feel Dagger’s immediate interest. “She fucking what?”

“Kissed me,” Twister said, his body tightening at the memory of her weight against him, all those freaking curves, all that feminine energy.

“When?” Dagger asked, his tone puzzled at how he’d missed that.

“When we were trapped.” Twister smiled at his teammate’s confusion. Yeah, it was hard to wrap his head around the fact that he’d saved her life, then she’d saved his sanity.

“On the fucking mouth?”

“Yeah, on the mouth,” Twister scoffed. “Fuck where do you think she would have kissed me?”

“I don’t know,” Dagger responded in a fierce whisper. “On the cheek in gratitude.”

“Believe me, this wasn’t about gratitude. I’m not sure if she really wanted to kiss me or if the circumstances forced her into it.” He couldn’t help wondering if she was feeling grateful or sorry for him.

“What?” Dagger chuckled. “Are you kidding me? A woman, especially a woman like that, knows her own mind, and believe me. If she kissed you, she wanted to kiss you.” Twister was prepared for Dagger’s next question. He could almost hear the guy’s intelligent brain working overtime, the fatigue gone from his voice momentarily. “What circumstances?”

Twister might have thought he was getting one over on Dagger, Bondo, Tex, and the team, but they all knew when a guy wasn’t one hundred percent. If he chose to ignore his problem, he was choosing to fail. They had all proven to him that when he needed help, they would be there for him. They had carried him across a devastated city to reach the airport, fraught with aftershocks, hostile Haitians, and adversity while he was slowly bleeding to death.

---