Ricochet by Cherry Adair Page B

want that woman back, Grayson. But she’s gone. My anger and hurt built up and built up with nowhere to go. I didn’t expect to ever see you again. I sure as hell didn’t expect it to be here. Now.” Her throat moved as she swallowed, her reddened eyes, holding his, were dark and liquid with emotion. “I’d barely recovered. I don’t want to see you and rehash, re-feel that ever again.”
    “We have a second chance.”
    Putting cool fingers over his lips she shook her head. “Too late for second chances. But physically I still want what my brain tells me is bad for me. So I want you to kiss me, Gray. So I know my memory is playing tricks on me, so that I know that nothing could be that electrifying, that magical. Kiss me like you kissed me on my seventeenth birthday. As if you’d die if you didn’t…”
    He’d kissed her earlier, but he sensed she was looking for some sort of closure. He’d die if he didn’t give her what she was asking for, and change her mind, right now. He felt a familiar stirring as he wrapped his arms around her, tugging her softness close.
    He wanted to strip her naked, and take her right there on the bench. Jesus. He’d lost his fucking mind. Since when did he allow himself to experience any emotions? Or think about anything other than the op? He made do with limiting himself to caressing her back through her shirt. He traced the rapid pulse at the base her throat with gentle lips. She smelled of smoke and flowers, and he tasted the sweat on her still damp skin. His dick, constrained behind the equivalent of a sports cup, leapt in anticipation as he bit her earlobe and reveled in her full body shudder.
    Hannah splayed her palms on his chest, kneading her fingers like a cat, as he gently scored the tendons of her neck with his teeth, then stroked his lips up, over her jaw to her mouth.
    “This is just to purge those memories,” her breath snagged as he stroked his tongue around her ear lobe. “You get that, right?”
    “After this it’ll be just a distant memory,” he assured her, loving her shudder as he breathed against the damp trail he’d made up the side of her throat. He was going to make sure they made new ones.
    “Good.”
    “Perfect.” Tempting as it was to linger, take his time, draw out the anticipation- It had been way too fucking long. That kiss earlier had been merely an appetizer. This couldn’t be a full meal either, there were far too many eyes around, and interruption was inevitable.
    Gray wanted her tongue in his mouth. Now. Her breath hitched as he parted her lips with a languid sweep of his tongue. Slick. Hot. Eager.
    He took his time, savoring instead of devouring, letting his tongue slide along hers. Teasing. Tasting. Sucking.
    Hannah boldly matched him stroke for stroke, until they were both breathing harshly. Through the thin cotton of her shirt he felt her heat as he used his palm in the small of her back to hold her tightly against him.
    She blew his mind. Rocked his world. Always had. Always would.
    “ETA ten minutes,” Salinas said discreetly in his ear, through the comm, bringing Grayson back to reality with a thud.
    Reluctantly he withdrew his mouth from Hannah’s. Her eyes were dark, her mouth damp. His groin ached, and his heart felt buoyant. Holding her gaze, he responded. “Copy that.”
    Breathing rough, color high, she leaned away from him, scanning his face. “It’s dizzying how quickly you can turn on and off like that. It’s your Super Power, isn’t it? The ability to disengage and turn off your emotions?”
    “It’s the first time my work and personal life have collided. There’s a reason most T-FLAC operatives have no personal lives. This job is all consuming. But it killed me that you believed- Jesus, Hannah, I hoped you knew me.” It killed him that she’d believed the worst of him, despite knowing each other for most of their lives.
    Hannah turned her head to look at him, her hair snagging in his bristly unshaven jaw.