Page 85 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

He wanted to make it hotter.

She’d already unzipped his coat, had her hands under his shirt, and though her fingers hadn’t ventured past his belt, he had a feeling that’s where she wanted to go. He untangled himself from her and when she made a sound of protest, he stripped off his coat.

He placed it behind her, hoping if they had enough layers around them, they could remain warm even naked. Then he fumbled in the dark to unzip and remove her coat as well.

She sat up and stripped off the heavy work coat he’d put on her a little while ago. “Don’t take this as I want you to stop,” she said, shrugging off the second coat she was wearing. “I just wish I could see you.”

And damn he wished he could see her. Because against his will, for more weeks than he cared to admit, he’d been driving himself crazy over that one, short moment that first morning when he’d seen her in her pajamas. All that skin, all that possibility.

Which was when lightbulb in his head went off. “Do you have a flashlight or something?”

She gestured toward the toolbox he’d shoved into the corner to make room for them. “I mean, I do, but I’m not sure how we can hold the flashlight and have sex at the same time. Unless there’s some magic way of doing things I don’t know about.”

He chuckled. “Oh, Becca.” He crawled over to the toolbox and pulled out what he would need to fashion a lamp of sorts out of the flashlight. It only took some fence wire, the gun rack already attached to the truck bed, and his knowledge of knots. He used the wire and tied one end around the end of the flashlight, then the other around the gun rack, so the flashlight hung down, creating a small circle of light on their pile of blankets.

“Wow, that’s very handy. Did you learn emergency sex lighting as a Navy SEAL?”

“I don’t know that I learned it as a SEAL, but I certainly learned how to make the best out of a complicated situation.”

She sat cross-legged in the pile of blankets, smiling up at him. If she was cold, she didn’t show it. So he reached out and undid the lone button keeping her sweater on over her dress. He let his fingers skim across her neck and collarbone and arms as he pushed the sweater off her shoulders.

It fell into the pile of blankets around them and he traced his fingers over the slopes of her shoulders. She shivered and he decided then and there that he wouldn’t worry about cold unless her teeth were chattering. He wanted her shivering and shuddering under him.

He wanted her everything.

She moved to her knees and reached out for his shirt, quickly if not deftly undoing the row of buttons and then pushing the shirt off his shoulders. She moved her palms across his chest and then down, her fingers splaying out and taking in as much of his chest as they could, all the while trailing down until she got to his belt.

She unbuckled it with enthusiasm, but he took her hands in his and gave them a little squeeze. He had to be…something. In control or slow or all those things he normally admonished himself to be. Because he wanted her hands on him, but first…

“Hold on. Twist around.” He motioned with his index finger for her to turn around so that he could undo the back of her dress. She turned and he found a tiny row of buttons that were nearly impossible to undo.

But he was a former Navy SEAL. He wouldn’t be foiled by buttons. Concentrating hard, he undid them. Then he pressed his mouth to the back of her neck. Lingered there when she made a little sighing sound. He kissed his way up her neck to her hairline and then back down, all the way to the center of her back, where the buttons ended. He could feel the way goose bumps broke out across her skin, he reveled in the little shiver that chased down her spine, and he lost himself in the taste of her skin.

If he had ever lost himself in such a way, he couldn’t remember it. Didn’t want to. He slid his hand under the fabric and pushed it apart and then off her shoulders. The glow from the flashlight wasn’t exactly romantic mood lighting, but it at least gave him a good view of the shape of her.

“Turn back around.” She did so and the dress pooled at her waist. The bra she was wearing was some no-nonsense thing, not an inch of frilly lace or bows or whatever. Which he supposed suited her to the bone. She was pretty in a completely unadorned kind of way. Simple—and in that was her beauty. And her poise. And the way she could make him laugh when it was the last thing he wanted to do.

So he pressed a kiss to her mouth and pulled her into the warmth of his body. She was warm herself, vibrating, and he feasted on her mouth and the bright, summer taste of her. She held on to him, all willing enthusiasm that nearly undid him completely.

But every time he was close to losing any thought of control or finesse, he simply moved forward the next step. He undid the clasp of her bra, still memorizing the shape and taste of her mouth as he did.

He didn’t immediately pull the fabric off her body. Instead, his hands tangled in her hair and he deepened the kiss, further and further until he didn’t know who was running the show anymore. Only that they were clinging to each other, desperate for each other, to see each other, to kiss each other deeper and deeper until his breath was just as shuddery as hers.

It was that realization, that he was as far gone as she was, that caused him to pull away. To pull the bra from her completely and give them enough space that they could see and that he could take in the beautiful view. Torture himself with looking and pausing.

Her breasts were small, but the rosy nipples were pulled tight into peaks from the cold or from excitement or from… It didn’t really matter at this point. He wanted his mouth on them. So he lowered himself to do exactly that.

She squeaked in surprise and he smiled against her skin. She smelled like fruit and flowers and everything feminine and summery. She was such a fantasy come to life. The softness, the gentle curves, the utter femininity she exuded. All of it something he’d forgotten existed in the years spent in navy barracks and bases and camped in the Middle East. Forgotten anything could feel this good when he’d been stuck in sterile and unfeeling hospitals—just another patient, just another wounded warrior visiting friends.

To come home to this, to her. The softness and beauty. He wasn’t going to let it go, and he wasn’t going to screw it up.

He sucked her breast deep into his mouth and she clutched his shoulders, clearly surprised and aroused. His cock throbbed, desperate to be inside of her, but he had to hold himself back. Give her everything first.

“Lay down,” he ordered, and if she had a problem with him ordering her around, she didn’t show it, and she certainly didn’t mount any argument. She did exactly what he’d told her to do. She lay down on their bed of makeshift blankets and coats. The harsh light of the flashlight gleamed over the perfect, beautiful woman she was.

He pulled her dress down over her hips and she lifted her butt to allow him to also pull her leggings off. She was lying in the cocoon they’d created in only her underwear.

“Why are you just staring at me?” she asked, a smile on her lips, so many questions in her eyes.

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