“No one knows who you are. They may suspect, but I promise you, no one will strike out at the Taites because of that suspicion.”
Her hand gripped his wrist, desperation beginning to grow inside her, clawing at her until she wondered why she hadn’t run, why she hadn’t escaped the moment she had known she was being watched again.
“I’m terrified, Jordan,” she finally admitted painfully. “I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t want anyone else to die because of me. I’ve already lost too much.”
The men she had worked with during their contract to the Elite Ops were her friends. She was friends with the wives, she had gotten to know their children through pictures and knew their hopes and dreams. She was closer to them, and to Jordan, than she had ever been to anyone else in her life. Even her mother.
And Jordan. Her hand tightened on his wrist as his thumb caressed her lips, sending flares of exquisite sensation washing through her.
In the midst of rising panic, those sensations had the ability to still the storm raging inside her. Fear retreated beneath the warmth that sparked to a flame and hunger turned to a raging need in a split second.
“I don’t know if I can survive…”
“Shhh.” His fingers covered her lips. “We’re going to fix this, Tehya. All of it. When it’s over, you’ll never have to hide again. I swear it.”
She knew what he was doing, though. His fingers were holding back the words she knew he didn’t want to hear.
He wanted her. She could see it in his face. He wanted her body, her touch, but he didn’t want the heart she had given him years before.
This was all she had, and, she promised herself, she would make it be enough.
She shook her head slowly as his fingers slid from her lips, along her jaw, down her neck to her shoulder. Like a whisper of heat, the subtle touch of flames.
“Touch me.” If he didn’t touch her, if he didn’t distract her, then how was she supposed to hold back the emotions?
No, she wasn’t holding back the emotions. If he didn’t want her to whisper them, then he had to give her another way to express them.
Through her pleasure.
Her head fell back against his arm slowly as she felt his free hand lift the skirt of her dress, his palm cupping the side of her ankle before sliding heatedly to her knee.
Callused and experienced, his fingertips slid to the back of her knee, caressing in tiny circles, causing her leg to tighten as heat pierced her womb.
“Touch you how?” he whispered, sensual promise tightening his voice.
Her eyes opened, her stomach clenched in rising need at the pure, sexual hunger on his face, in his eyes.
Reaching down, her fingers curled around his wrist as she lifted his hand and brought it to her breast.
“They ache,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
And they did. Her nipples were on fire as the need for his touch, the heated dampness of his mouth surrounding them, began to tear through her.
“They ache, love?” he asked, his arm shifting behind her back to lower the zipper of her dress.
The bodice loosened, slid slowly over the swollen, tight curves of her breasts and revealed the painfully hard buds of her nipples.
The wash of air over the sensitive peaks sent a shudder racing through her. Anticipation surged, heated and spiked with sexual adrenaline.
“How pretty.” The rough pad of a finger slid over the ultra-sensitive tip, causing her body to jolt in response as pleasure became a hunger so intense it bordered on agony.
“Don’t tease,” she breathed out roughly, her lashes heavy. “I want your mouth on them. Please, Jordan. I want to feel your tongue.”
She would be shocked at the explicit demand later, when she had the ability to think. Thinking right now was pushed aside in favor of feeling, experiencing. Burning.
Watching, her breath caught as his tongue licked over his lips, dampening them as his head lowered, lips parting.
The first heated lick of his tongue against the berry-ripe flesh had her nails biting into his arm as she shook her head, fighting against the loss of control, against the weakness flooding her limbs.