Page 55 of Brawler
“Emily…” His voice broke, wrecked, pleading. “I can’t…Jesus, I can’t hold back.”
Her smile was wicked, luminous in the glow of the cave. She licked his lower lip, then nipped it before whispering, “Then don’t. Give me everything.”
She rode him harder, slamming down, taking him deeper, her nails scoring his chest, his shoulders, her mouth branding him with kiss after kiss. Every movement was possession, every sigh and cry a benediction, and Brawler knew with brutal clarity he’d never get free of her. Not in this life. Not in any other.
The waterfall thundered behind them, echoing the rhythm of her body, relentless and eternal. She was liquid fire, wild joy, raw hunger, and she was his. As her inner muscles tightened, squeezing, pulsing, dragging him to the edge, he gave himself over with no hesitation, no fear.
But even as his body shook, the deeper wave hit harder, his chest cracked open, soul pouring out through his eyes locked on hers, a surrender not just of flesh, but of everything he was. It was more than climax. It was consecration, raw and unguarded, his warrior’s spirit unshackled, flooding into her as if the two of them were bound by something older, something eternal.
His body convulsed, every muscle locking in fierce, primal release as unbearable pleasure surged through his dick, detonating in his balls, racing up his spine and exploding through every nerve ending. His lungs seized, heat ripping through him until he was gasping. The sensation was unlike anything he had ever known, tearing a raw shout from his throat. His pulse roared in his ears, blood hammering through his veins as if the world itself moved inside him, with him.
His hands clamped on her hips, holding her to him as if he could anchor her inside his very body. He spilled into her, the ache for her oddly filled even as it built higher, deeper, fiercer. Never enough. God, it would never be enough. His shortcake lived in him now, in blood and bone, in sex and sin, in heart and soul. He poured everything he was into her, and still the hungergrew, not just for her body but for every raw, hidden piece of himself she had dragged into the light.
In that shattering moment, he knew. No woman before her had ever reached him like this, stripped him bare, touched the marrow of who he was. She was his reckoning and his release, his punishment and his grace. The only one who had ever made him believe he was more than the muscle, more than the uniform, more than the endless weight he carried. Emily had claimed what no one else had even seen, his soul, and God help him, he didn’t want it back.
With all that spiraling and crashing through him, he couldn’t deny what she had said. He had to be enough, just as he was. For her. For his team. For his brother. Wasn’t she showing him the way? Hadn’t she given him the tools? Christ, had she just saved his life, not his body, but his spirit, his mind, his heart?
Em…Emily… He had never known the sensation of being so lost and so found at the same time.
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His surrender tookhim by surprise, and generated more heat, more texture than all the ways he had tried to remain in control.
Her rhythm grew wild, her body hammering down on his cock with relentless force, her cries mingling with the roar of the falls. His hands clamped to her hips, not to stop her, he couldn’t stop her, but to hang on as she rode him to pieces.
“Christ, Em,” he groaned, his voice breaking, his body straining. “You’re gonna kill me.”
But she only kissed him harder, grinding down, milking him, taking everything. Her hair whipped against his face, wet and silken, her mouth feverish on his as she worked him with a merciless rhythm that made his dick pulse deep inside her.
The pressure coiled hard and savage, pleasure building like the weight of the waterfall itself, pounding, unstoppable, driving him down, down, down until there was no air, no ground, no escape. Just Emily, surrounding him, breaking him, remaking him.
“Emily…” His voice cracked, desperate, hushed. His eyes locked on hers, and he saw it then, her wild joy, her fierce love, her utter possession. Fuck, he wanted it. Needed it.
“I’m dying for you,” he gasped, every muscle shaking. “Dying…don’t let me go. I need your life, your energy, all that pixie magic.”
Then it hit, detonated, tore him apart. His climax erupted, violent and unstoppable, his cock jerking, spilling deep inside her as his whole body bowed beneath her. His face twisted, broken wide open, a muffled, aching sound tearing from his chest as he gave her everything, pleasure, trust, surrender.
The SEAL, the protector, the ironclad warrior, gone. Just a man, helpless under the woman who had claimed him, who had undone him, who had made him fall.
Christian Beckett had never fallen so hard in his life.
When the last tremors left her body, she slumped bonelessly against him, her head tucked under his chin, her breath warm and even. Brawler held her close, unwilling to release her even as exhaustion stole through his veins. She sighed once, a soft sound of surrender, and slipped into sleep.
He stayed still, memorizing the weight of her, the scent of her, the way she seemed to have remade him in the space of a single night. Then, with care, he shifted, lifted her into his arms, and carried her across the cavern. The moss was damp, the air cool, but he found their tent and folded down with her in his arms. Once they were supine, he reached for the light blanket and covered them. His arm snaked around her waist, careful of the bruises, her goddamned hero brand, gathering her against his body. For once, he didn’t fight the need to keep her close. He let it take him under, sleeping with her curled against him, the rhythm of her breaths syncing with his own.
She burrowed into him, and the skin-to-skin contact made him groan softly, shiver with all that sweetness against him.
He woke on his back, the cave dim with early light, her small body sprawled across him like she owned every inch of his real estate. One thigh was tucked high between his legs, pressing intosensitive territory that had his cock twitching before his brain caught up. An arm was draped across his ribs, her hand splayed possessively against his side. Her fiery hair was everywhere, across his throat, tickling his nose, sliding over his chest like strands of silk and flame.
She breathed evenly, but even in sleep she was chaos, taking up all the space, tangling them together in ways that made it impossible. He lifted a hand, tracing the curve of her arm, the fine skin soft against his callused fingertips. She was warm, impossibly warm, pressed against him in all the ways that drove him crazy, breast to chest, thigh to groin, her breath damp against his skin.
Every nerve in his body was alive with her, and it was sensory overload in the best possible way. He wanted to laugh at how thoroughly she’d conquered him without even knowing it. Instead he just lay there, memorizing the weight and heat of her, the steady rhythm of her breath.
His missions weren’t normally this…crazy. But then again, none of them had ever started with a pint-sized redhead zooming out of the jungle and into his arms like she belonged there.
Ops lately had tangled with women, Nora, Cameron, Astraea, Maddie, Sadie, and Quinn. His brothers had gotten caught up in them, lives woven together with the kind of intensity that couldn’t be shrugged off when the mission ended. But those had beentheirproblems. Theircomplications. Not his.
Emily was different.
