Page 66 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

She had known it was coming, but when he delivered the order, the response that fired inside her body took her by surprise. It was hard, a fiery wave of intense heat that rushed through her erogenous zones and cascaded through her womb with white-hot intensity.

"I don't think so." Amusement fired inside her along with the arousal though. "I'm not an outlet for all that adrenaline, Ian. At least not yet. We need to talk."

Talking was the last thing he needed to do. Ian let his gaze rove over her body. The white slacks and cream-colored top were smudged with dirt. Her hair was tangled around her face in sexy disarray and reminded him of the feel of it beneath his hands, the warm rough silky sensation that his palms seemed to itch for.

"I don't want to talk, Kira." He advanced on her instead. Perhaps he shouldn't have ordered her to get undressed. Each time he had taken her, other than that first time, he had been quick and rough. He hadn't taken the time to enjoy the feel of her flesh that morning or the night before. Not really.

He hadn't tasted her. Hadn't listened to her scream in pleasure as she came apart in his arms. That was criminal, he decided. Not giving her the full range of pleasure that she needed. Each caress, each lick and kiss, designed to drive her higher.

"Ian," she protested as he stopped in front of her, the dark ring of blue around her gray eyes darkening as the centers became stormy. "There are things we need to discuss."

"Such as?" He ran his fingers beneath the thin strap of her shirt, feeling the pure silk texture and deciding her hair and her skin were softer.

"Such as Diego." Regret flashed in her eyes.

"Diego is the last thing we need to discuss," he told her, pushing back the bleak anger that threatened to build inside him again. The pain. He didn't understand the pain any more than he understood the hunger and need converging inside him for Kira.

He ran his fingers beneath the strap of her blouse until he came to the rounded scoop of the neckline. Heat flowed from her flesh to his fingers, mesmerizing him with the impact it had on his senses.

He had never experienced anything like Kira before and he wondered if the effect she had on him was weakness or strength?

"You can't hide from it forever," she whispered, her voice strained.

Strained because she was breathing harder, her breasts rising and falling sharply, drawing his gaze to the presence of the tight, hard nipples beneath the silk.

"I'm not trying to hide anything, Kira. I just want to pleasure you. Pleasure both of us."

There was a well of emotion brewing inside him. Ian could feel it. He couldn't make sense of it, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He had forced himself to push back his emotions as a boy. Forced himself not to want or to need, until Kira. Damn her, she made him want and need things he was certain would never be a part of his life.

Hope. Warmth. Real passion. And that real passion was his weakness. The honest, burning flame of desire in her eyes and the strength he glimpsed within her held him as nothing else ever had.

"I wanted you out of this," he told her, his hands falling to the hem of the shirt, gripping it and lifting it. "I wanted you safe. So safe. So that when this was over I could find you and finish what we started in Atlanta."

Her arms lifted, allowing him to draw the blouse from her only to drop it on the floor a second later. Her breasts lifted to him with her hard breaths, her nipples hard and peaked, a light sheen of perspiration beginning to shimmer on her lightly tanned flesh as she stood proudly before him. No hesitancy, no coy shyness or attempts to deny what they both knew was waiting to explode between them.

His cock was so damned hard at this point that it throbbed like an open wound.

"Since when did I seem the type that needs to hide?" Her hands moved to his chest, her fingers working on the buttons of his shirt. "When we met in Russia perhaps?"

His lips quirked at the thought of her Russian persona.

"Not in Russia." His hands framed her face, lips lowering to hers as hunger beat at his brain in a steady rhythm.

"Albania?" she whispered against his lips, her hands pushing the edges of his shirt apart to touch the hard, hair-spattered muscles of his chest.

"Never in Albania." She had been a rebel, a competent warrior when she'd had to be one.

"Then why would I need protecting now?" she asked, pushing at his shoulders until he dropped his hands from her face and allowed her to shove the shirt away from his arms.

Her hands smoothed over the powerful biceps, nails digging in as she curled them into the thickest area and clenched.

"You don't need protecting." Admitting that wasn't easy. "What do you need?"

He watched the shadows that flickered in her eyes, regret and sorrow.

"I need you." Her hands moved to the band of his slacks, parted his belt, then the metal clasp that held it secure, before her fingers lowered the zipper. "Give me what I need, Ian. And, maybe, what you need too?"

God yes, it was what he needed. Needed to the point that he wondered if his soul would fracture without it. Without her. Months of living a lie, sleeping it, eating it, drinking it, fucking breathing it every second of the day, had been eating away at him like acid.

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