Claiming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT: Caribbean Nights Book 1) by Kat Cantrell Page B

blues, and in the moonlight they’d darkened. Or maybe that was due to the heavy, thick blanket of awareness that had descended the moment he’d drawn her against his side.
    She felt it too. There was no point in pretending he didn’t notice the way her nipples had peaked under her bikini top. The hard tips poked out, begging for his mouth, and if they didn’t get this show on the road, her breasts would get their wish.
    “Walk with me,” he said instead of voicing some kind of line designed to get his screaming body some relief.
    In tandem, they waded out into the surf, and his chest tightened when he realized she wasn’t even hesitating. She followed him without a peep, letting him guide her, and he had a feeling that as long as he didn’t let go, she’d stay right where she was.
    “You’re doing great,” he murmured as the water level rose. Ankles. Calves. Knees. His knees, anyway. The water was up to midthigh on her. “Keep going. Nothing behind you but the shore.”
    She gave him the side-eye, never taking her gaze off the waves as they rolled toward them relentlessly. “You know I couldn’t have done this without you, right?”
    So much gratefulness colored her voice that it raised a lump in his throat. Yeah, he got that this was important to her. Why else would he be torturing himself so thoroughly?
    All at once, she squealed and jumped. Right into his embrace. The soft valleys of her body aligned with his, and sweet, blessed mother of God, her stomach cradled his erection, setting it on fire with friction.
    His arms closed around her involuntarily, and holy hell, it was exactly where he wanted her. “What’s wrong?”
    “I… stepped on something.” Her heaving torso shoved into his and there was no denying that her pulse was elevated, but his brain was having a hard time sorting out the sensation of her peaked nipples teasing his bare skin well enough to respond.
    “Crab,” he finally croaked. “It won’t hurt you.”
    But I might.
    His neck muscles ached with the strain it took to not lean forward and dive into a hot, wet kiss. That wasn’t the part that would hurt. The hurt came later, when she’d want to connect intimately through their hearts and minds as they simultaneously connected via the flesh. She’d want to share hopes and dreams and learn who he was at his core. Because a woman like Emma didn’t offer up her body to someone she didn’t care to know.
    “Can we go deeper?” she rasped, her voice scraping the low end of the register, but whether it was from fear of the ocean or arousal at his touch, he couldn’t tell.
    Maybe both, and he wanted to find out in the worst way. Again, the paradox… it was killing him.
    “Absolutely.”
    His own voice rumbled in his chest as their gazes locked, and neither of them bothered to pretend they were still talking about the water. Or solely the water. This push-pull of attraction so closely mirrored the tide it made a perfect sort of sense that when he finally gave in to the lure of Emma, it would happen while they were both surrounded by the sea.
    The roar of the surf held its own kind of seduction, and he didn’t need a lame line after all to communicate what was on his mind. She lifted her lips at the same moment his descended and when they met, she hurled him headlong into a metaphorical undertow so fast he could hardly maintain his balance.
    Hungrily, she kissed him, openmouthed, and it was just as hot and wet as he’d envisioned. A groan ripped through his chest as he hauled her closer, binding her flesh against his hard body, grinding his erection into her soft stomach, seeking relief for the fire she’d started earlier.
    Then she licked her way into his mouth, her sweet tongue tasting him enthusiastically, and it was like pouring lighter fluid on embers.
    His body erupted in a lava-like thick wave of heat. More . He shifted her in his arms and granted her wish, driving deeper into her mouth, and letting her drag him deeper into