Eden fished her key card out of her purse.
The elevator dinged open. “It’s this way,” she said,
turning left down the hallway, leading the way. The crazy thought flitted through his head that right now, he’d follow her to Hell and back. She was a frantic need inside him. All the more reason to retreat…all the more reason he couldn’t.
“Seems nice enough,” Mitch said, glancing around the hallway, noting the layout and the exit.
“It is. I stay in a lot of hotels and this is one of the nicer ones I’ve seen. It doesn’t have that funky smell some of them do.”
“You travel a lot?”
“Enough that I’m always glad to get back home.” She slid the card into the door and the green light lit up. Pushing open the door, she quipped, “Here it is. Home sweet home, at least for the next few days.”
He automatically scanned the room.
To the right, the suite offered a full-size refrigerator, microwave, dishwasher and as much counter space as someone with limited culinary capabilities might require. To the left sat a dining table with two chairs. The rest of the room offered a desk, a sleeper sofa, a television and a fireplace angled into one wall. The bedroom lay through a doorway to the right of the fireplace.
Mitch hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside, closed the door, clicked the dead bolt into place and turned to face Eden. “We’ll take this as slow…or as fast…as you want to take it.”
“We might want to slow it down a bit.” For all that she’d been forward and bold, she looked a little unsure
of herself. Obviously, she didn’t do this type of thing often, if ever. He might not be good at flirting but he knew all about being a leader. So he took charge.
He crossed the room, turned a corner lamp on low, walked back over and killed the overhead.
He held out his hand. “Come here.”
She put her hand in his and he led her to the sofa in the main room. He sat down, pulling her down beside him. “Where were we?”
Her smile rocked his world as she leaned into him. “Something must’ve distracted you, Lieutenant Colonel.” She trailed kisses up the side of his neck, nipping at the tip of his ear. “You were conducting a reconnaissance mission.”
“Then let me get back on task.”
E
DEN DIDN’T EVEN TRY TO STIFLE
her moan as she tugged his shirt free of the waist of his jeans.
Finally.
She kneaded the muscles rippling along his back. His skin was warm and supple until she encountered a ridge of scar tissue. A warrior’s mark. Later. She’d ask later where he earned that.
He nibbled his way along the ridge of her collarbone and up the sensitive line of her neck. Oh. My. God.
“That feels…so…good.”
He laughed softly, his breath warm against her highly-charged skin. “Does it? Does it feel as good as this?”
Like a magician casting a spell over her, he trailed a matching set of kisses up the other side of her neck. Yes…
“Hmm. That might even feel better.”
“Really? Then what about this?” He scraped his teeth over the back of her neck and sensation shot straight to her core followed by a rush of wetness.
She gasped. “Oh…yes….”
“Put your arms around my neck,” he said.
She did. Though blindly following orders went against everything she believed in, she had a feeling this would be to her benefit.
In one smooth motion he stood, scooping her up in his arms. “Do you mind if we move to the bed? There’s a whole lot more room there.”
“Be my guest.”
She felt his belly muscles clench against her hip. She’d thought she couldn’t be any more turned on. But when he took her in his arms, she realized she could. She was.
He crossed the room, carrying her as if she weighed no more than a sack of groceries—which God and her bathroom scales knew she did. He deposited her on the bed, kneeling.
“Take off your shirt,” she said. He wasn’t the only one who could issue orders.
He complied in short order, pulling his shirt up, over and off his torso. There was certainly no doubt he was Special Forces, not that there ever had been.
“Oh…”
He was…in short order…ripped. Shoulders, arms, chest, belly—all muscle and taut dark skin with hair scattered over his chest and down the ridged plane of his belly. A man in prime condition. Her Mercury.
An arrogant smile curved his mouth. He had every right to be arrogant. He obviously worked damn hard to be in that shape. Any man who passed the rigorous training he had, and maintained that training on a
regular basis should be proud of what he had. Which was why he could pick her up and carry her across the room as if her 150 pounds was of no consequence.
“And I thought you were beautiful before…” she said.
He shook his head, as if she constantly confounded him. “Men aren’t beautiful.”
Eden hooked her finger in the edge of his jeans and tugged him toward her. “Honey, that is all a matter of perspective.”
He lowered himself to lie beside her and brushed his hand over her forehead, along the curve and hollow of her cheekbone. His touch, sensuous, reverent had her shivering inside. “
You
are beautiful. I wasn’t quite sure what hit me this morning and then I looked down and…” He outlined her lips with this finger. “I’m supposed to be prepared for anything. I wasn’t, however, prepared for a woman with midnight-blue eyes, an irresistible mouth, gorgeous legs and sexy red heels.”
“Soldier, you know exactly what to say,” she said, exploring the texture of his skin with her hand, testing the springiness of his chest hair with her fingers.
“I’ve wanted to do this all day.” He pushed her back against the mattress and licked her bottom lip. It was quite possibly one of the most erotic things she’d ever had done to her. “And this…” He brushed his mouth over hers in a butterfly kiss, stealing her breath. All thought vanished. Only the sensation of his lips, his
breath, his scent, his body heat remained. Then he caught her lower lip in between his teeth and nipped at it. A gentle, insistent tugging. Her nipples hardened even further against her bra as if each nibble, each caress was wired through to the very core of her.
“If—” he took another lick along her lip “I do anything—” he scraped his teeth against the sensitive flesh he’d just licked “—you don’t like, tell me.”
“So far, you’ve got a one-hundred percent approval rating.”
And she figured if he liked doing that to her, chances were he’d like it done to him. She pushed him to his back—which he allowed because she obviously couldn’t push him anywhere he didn’t want to go. Good thing they both wanted to go to the same place.
“Baby…”
“Hmm?” she murmured, plying her tongue along his gorgeously chiseled lip. And then she couldn’t resist. She teased the tip of her tongue along the faint cleft in his chin. She wasn’t quite sure why that was so sexy, but it was. The faint scrape of whiskers, the slight taste of salt against the tip of her tongue.
“Take your shirt off,” he said, in a husky tone. “Please,” he tacked on.
And there was something very arousing about that
please
. She was certain Lieutenant Colonel Mitch Dugan didn’t ask for things. He ordered and expected his directive to be carried out. But she knew with a certainty that he didn’t
ask
. If she hadn’t been thoroughly
enchanted with him already, his
please
would have sealed the deal. He could get pretty much anything out of her with that entreaty. Well, he could pretty much get anything out of her anyway, but…
“Since you said please,” she said with a teasing smile.
“Is that all it takes?” He raised his arms, pillowing his head on his hands.
Eden swallowed hard. Trip another trigger for her. That thatch of dark hair in his armpits, the swell and bulge of bicep and tricep…Dear God, she was in imminent danger of just melting into a puddle of desire right beside him. Discovering his dry sense of humor had been a nice surprise today. It was an even nicer surprise to have it turn up in the bedroom.
Is that all it takes?
“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” She edged her shirt up her waist, then suffered an attack of cold feet. He was rock-solid and ripped. He was sculpted and perfect. She wasn’t. She was rounded and the ugly truth was she looked a whole lot better with her clothes on than without, considering that she had a midriff roll going and her thighs could be a whole lot tighter.
His hiss of indrawn breath broke the room’s silence. It wasn’t a horrified gasp. It was the sound of a man who liked what he saw. Obviously he appreciated curves and softness. All her insecurities vanished beneath the appreciation glittering in his green eyes.
So she continued—slowly, deliberately edging her shirt up, her skin sensitized to the slide of material over her, past her shoulders and over her head. Cool air settled on her skin, making her even more aroused, if that was possible.
“Red—” his voice rasped and it had the same effect on her as his calloused fingers against her skin “—is a good color on you. I should’ve known this morning when I saw those shoes. Are your panties red, too?”
From the bulge in the front of his jeans, he liked the color. A lot.
She edged off of the bed and slipped off the flats she’d worn earlier, then slowly slid the zipper of her jeans down.
She worked the jeans over her hips with a little more wiggle than was necessary but he seemed to enjoy the show. Then she stepped out of her pants and into the red heels she’d tossed over by the dresser earlier.
Eden strolled over to the side of the bed. “A matching set.”
He unfolded his hands from beneath his head and reached for her. “Come here. Please.”
H
E COULDN’T THINK
. H
E COULD
barely breathe. It was as if everything in him, about him, was focused on her. It had been this way all day long, from the very moment she’d bounced off of him and onto her lovely ass in that hallway. How he could want her, feel this
way about a woman he’d just met less than eighteen hours earlier was…confounding. But then again, everything about her was confounding.
“You wanted me here. I’m here.”
He wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her onto the bed next to him. “No. I wanted you here.” Her skin was warm, soft silk beneath his hands. “And if—no, when—everything else comes off, please keep the red heels on.”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be—an order, a request, a desperate man’s plea.”
“You don’t look desperate to me. Take off your pants, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“That sounded suspiciously like a direct order.”
“It’s whatever you want it to be.”
He stood and unbuttoned his jeans. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Not really.” She settled back on her elbows, half sitting, half reclining, her eyelids lowering to a sexy half-mast, watching him. Waiting. “Take your time.”
He slowly slid his zipper down. She’d given him a show, so he’d return the favor. He knew, without being arrogant, that he was in good shape. And he knew from the look in her eyes that she appreciated what good shape he was in. He couldn’t quite manage the hip wiggle she did, and he had to admit he felt moderately ridiculous even thinking about giving it a try. “I’m a soldier, not a stripper.”
From her vantage point on the bed, Eden grinned. “I think you might have a second career in your future.”
“I think not.” Nevertheless he turned his back to her and gave it a shot. He imagined being inside her and instead of an in-out thrust, he’d grind against her.
Behind him, the sharp hiss of her indrawn breath filled the room’s silence. “Oh, my,” she said.
He pivoted on one foot, turning to face her in his briefs. Her eyes skimmed over his chest, down his belly, to his erection. Her eyes widened. “Oh. My.”
He hooked his thumbs in the elastic waistband and paused, giving her the opportunity to tell him to slow down. Instead a smile that could only be considered an invitation to keep going blossomed over her face and lit her eyes.
He slid his underwear down, stepped out of them, and straightened. “Don’t move,” she ordered, a rich, husky note in her voice. “I’m taking a mental picture of you.” Her gaze slid over him as if she was studying his contours and planes. It was the next best thing to feeling her fingers against his skin. His penis lengthened, hardened even more at the heat in her eyes.
“Are you through looking?”
“No. But I’m a multitasker. I’d like to taste and touch at the same time.”
He braced one knee on the bed and paused before joining her on the mattress. He traced his index finger along the delicate blue vein running along the top of her foot, past the indention of her ankle to the curve of
her calf. Beneath his fingertip, she shivered and his entire body tightened in response.
She reached for him at the same time he lowered himself beside her, flesh against flesh except for the scraps of her panties and bra. As much as he wanted her, he wanted all of her. It wouldn’t be enough to thrust between her thighs and be done. He wanted to know the soft skin behind her knees, the taste of the indent of her back. He wanted to explore and capture and know her sparkle, her joy.
So he set about doing just that.
E
VERYTHING CAME DOWN TO HER
, to him. Eden gave herself over to the feel of his hands on her shoulders, her belly, her thighs. The texture of his skin against hers. The hair of his chest, the heaviness of his erection against her hip, his mouth teasing, taunting, nuzzling, nibbling down her neck, her chest. She sucked in a heated breath when he slid her bra straps over and down her shoulders.
She arched her back, offering herself to him. His breath was warm against the tops of her breasts. The ache inside her intensified to a steady thrum. She wanted his hands and beautiful mouth on her. She wanted this man so like the god in her garden to feast on her, to make her a part of him.
Mitch lowered his head until his mouth hovered just above her nipple and she ached for the feel of him against her flesh. He teased his tongue against her tip
and sure, swift heat coursed from her breast to her core, intensifying the moisture gathered between her thighs.
He laved, nipped and suckled one breast and then the other. Eden wrapped her leg around his bare hip and buttocks, pulling him closer until his penis nudged against her wet satin panties. Her hips lifted, bringing her mound into exquisite contact with his erection.
Skin on skin, the ripple of muscles beneath her hands mesmerized her as she stroked and kneaded his back. And then, suddenly, her bra was gone and he was tearing open and donning a condom. Her heart pounded and her breath came in sharp, quick gasps. She reached up and pulled his mouth back down to hers, bring his hard hair-roughened chest into contact with her breasts.
He raised his head and broke their kiss long enough to ask, “Panties on and pushed aside or off?”
“On and pushed aside.”
She gasped into his mouth as he slowly nudged into her, filling her with male heat, stretching her. He set up a slow, steady rhythm and with each thrust she climbed a little further, until she felt herself beginning to shatter inside. Amazingly, he pushed her to climb a little higher, to hold on a little tighter. And when she finally came, it was the most incredible sexual experience she’d ever had.