Page 30 of Brawler
She was going to be the death of him. “I tell you what,” he went on, voice dropping into a dangerous rumble. “You listen to me, move that tiny shapely ass where I tell you, and I’ll give you another shot at me.”
“I have something important?—”
“Move.”
Instead, she grabbed both sides of his vest and yanked him down, kissing him hard and short. Reckless. Determined.
When she broke just enough space to breathe, her eyes flicked to his, expecting maybe shock, maybe a grudging grin. What she found instead made her lips part in startled realization.
She thought she’d snapped him out of it. All she’d done was light his fuse.
His control shattered in a rush of heat and need, his hands slamming to her waist as he shoved her back against a tree. Her gaze widened, the color high in her cheeks, pupils blown wide. That flicker of second thoughts in her face. Too late. She’d poked the beast, and he was awake.
Hungry and unrestrained, he kissed her deeper, taking more. His need overrode his common sense when her small body arched into his, all stubborn fire and soft curves. Nothing had ever gutted him like this.
But Beast surged to his feet, ears snapping forward, body rigid.
Brawler tore his mouth from hers, hand snagging Emily’s arm, yanking her into motion, propelling her through the shadows. She stumbled but kept up, his grip firm, unrelenting.
“Brawler…dammit,” she hissed, jerking against his hold.
He ignored her, the memory of finding her gone already clawing at his chest like barbed wire.
She dug in her heels, eyes blazing. “Will you let me speak?—”
The sharp crack of a branch split the night. A savage, protective,killinginstinct overrode everything. Someone was going to die, and it wouldn’t be them. It sure ashellwouldn’t be her.
7
Brawler dropped low,dragging her with him, his body slamming down on top of hers, pinning her into the earth as the jungle came alive around them.
Emily almost couldn’t breathe. He was crushing her into the jungle floor, his weight solid as stone, every inch of him vibrating with tension.
And those words…fail you.They wouldn’t stop echoing. He’d said them with that low, raw agony, as if her death would haunt him, claw him open for the rest of his life. That thought alone had silenced her as surely as his hand.
Now he was protecting her with his body, shielding her from whatever prowled in the shadows. But it wasn’t the weight cutting off her air. It was him.
Everything about him. From the moment they’d been alone.
His chest heaved against her back, hot and relentless, but his awareness didn’t waver. She could feel it in him, a live current of vigilance, his senses stretched over the night like tripwires. Beast crouched beside them, every muscle taut, mirroring his handler.
“Brawler,” she whispered.
He didn’t respond. He was hyper-focusing, locked in that operator zone where nothing else existed but threat and survival. So she stopped trying to distract him and that left her pinned beneath six feet of lethal male.
Her pulse slammed. Every flex of him pressed into her, thick, hard muscle shifting like coiled steel each time he adjusted. His hips bracketed hers, a heavy, immovable cage. There it was again, blatant and undeniable.
That damn hard-on.
Assault-burn, her ass.
If she hadn’t been aware before, she sure as hell was now. He’d called her ass shapely.Shapely. That shouldn’t have the effect it was having, but the word rolled through her anyway, sparking low and hot. No amount of rational thought could stop the waves of sensation crashing through her.
His whole body suddenly went taut, iron hard, against hers. The air itself seemed to sharpen, jagged edges pressing in, and it had nothing to do with hostile men.
The growl rumbled low in his chest, sliding over her skin like a threat wrapped in gravel. His mouth was so close the words brushed her ear. “I’m begging you. Don’t move from this spot, or I swear…”
She squeaked softly when steel hissed free, the gleam of a huge-ass knife catching even through the dim canopy light.
