Her hands clutched his biceps as she nodded. “I have no doubt.” She stared at his mouth and licked her lips, and Grif would swear on a stack of Bibles in a court full of his peers that he had no idea how he ended up kissing her like his life depended on it. None. But that’s exactly what happened. His hands skimmed up her hot curves, and he heard his own groan escape him as he bent his head to her breasts, which were spilling out the top of her bra.

With a gasp of pleasure, she slid her fingers into his hair, holding him to her.

As if he were going anywhere now. And it wasn’t for her either. Even in his lust-induced haze he knew that. This was for him. He needed to be touched by her, needed to feel something with her. Needed to lose himself for this beat in time.

In her.

He nudged the straps of her bra from her shoulders and kissed her breast, letting his tongue slip under the silk and rasp over a nipple before closing his lips and sucking. Her fingers tightened on his hair. She could make him bald; he didn’t care.

“Pigs orgasm in thirty minute intervals,” she said softly.

His heart squeezed. He was making her nervous. “The real kind or the fake kind?”

She laughed breathlessly. “Pigs can’t fake it, I don’t think.”

“You’re beautiful, Kate.”

She gave him a shaky smile.

“So damn beautiful.” Straightening, he picked her up.

She wrapped her legs around his h*ps as he backed her to the counter and set her on it.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “Are we back to talking?”

“Later,” he murmured, and kissed her again. She let him, melting for him, going soft and pliable in his arms.

“The first contraceptive was crocodile dung,” she whispered. “The Egyptians used it in 2000 BC.”

“You say the sexiest things,” he said, and gently sank his teeth into her earlobe.

She shivered and clutched at him. “You’re the first man to tell me that. Most would rather I not talk during sex.” She grimaced. “And by most, I don’t mean there’ve been lots or anything. There haven’t. Two. There’ve been two.”

He went still as she dropped her head to his shoulder. “I swear I’m trying to shut up,” she said. “But I have one more thing.”

He was still processing the fact that any man would ever ask her not to talk. He loved to hear her talk. And what did she mean there’d only been two . . . Two total? “What?” he asked, still trying to do the math—impossible since all his blood had drained to parts south.

She lifted her head and took his gaze prisoner with her own deep green one. “Do best men carry condoms?” she asked.

“Always.”

Her smile was the sweetest, hottest thing he’d ever seen, and his heart squeezed again. She’d been with only two men, and they’d asked her not to talk during sex. She knew that faking an orgasm burned more calories than a real orgasm . . .

Grif had promised himself to keep his hands off of her because she was vulnerable, but he was beginning to suspect he was the vulnerable one here. Vulnerable to her. Because he wanted to gather her in and make things right, show her that talking during sex could be erotic as hell. Teach her that there was no need to fake anything.

Ever.

Before he could say a word, she cupped his face with her hands and pulled him to her. Instead of kissing his lips, she leaned in and kissed the top edge of the scar on his temple. She followed the length of it with warm little devastating kisses. And she didn’t stop there. She kissed his jaw next, working her way slowly, so slowly it was torture, toward his mouth.

And then skipped it and went to the other side of his face. When she got to his ear, he found himself holding his breath.

Not her. She let a soft sigh escape her, and it sent chills skittering down his spine. Not the kind of chills he got right before he was going to get shot at, either, but the really good kind of chills. “Kate, kiss me.”

“Hmm?”

“Kiss me, dammit.”

She gave him a smile that stopped his heart. “Sorry. I heard you the first time.” She bit her lower lip and admitted, “I just like hearing you say it.”

And then, before he could grasp the fact that she’d just gotten not only the best of him but had also gotten exactly what she’d wanted, she laid one on him, and it was a kiss for the record books. Nothing of the slightly prim-and-proper second-grade teacher was present as she slid her hands back into his hair and pillaged. There was no other word. She nibbled, licked, sucked, and even bit, and by the time they pulled apart to suck in some desperately needed air, his head was spinning.

“How was that?” she asked, looking a little dazed herself, her eyes dilated.

“Good,” he said, “but it’s going to get even better. Kate?”

“Yeah?”

“No fake orgasms for three hundred and fifteen calories. Fuck the calories. We’re going real, all the way.”

She let out a shaky breath and nodded. “Real,” she repeated.

Her demi-bra wasn’t managing to contain her br**sts fully. He could see some nipple, and they were pebbled tight, her br**sts rising and falling with her quickened breath. Her legs were still wrapped around his hips. When they’d been kissing, she’d been rocking into him, and the teeny-tiny lace triangle had shifted a bit and molded to her every soft fold.

Her every soft damn fold.

She was a vision, a goddess to be worshipped, and he traced a line along the top of her bra with the pads of his fingers before unhooking it and letting it fall away. Lowering his head, he brushed a kiss across the full curve of a breast.

“Griffin,” she whispered, a plea. She steadied herself by gripping him tight, and then tighter still when his thumb skimmed across her nipple. He slid her panties down, and she whispered his name again.

“Tell me,” he said.

“More.”

“What?”

“More, Griffin. Please more.”

He smiled. “I heard you. I just like to hear it.” Then he dropped to his knees, because he wanted more, too. He wanted to make her cry out his name.

Instead she splayed a hand between her legs blocking his passage to the homeland. But her fingers, spread over herself, still gave him the most heart-stopping peekaboo hints of what was beneath.

“Twenty-nine percent of Americans have sex on the first date with perfect strangers,” she said. “Do you think this applies?”

“We’re not strangers.”

“No,” she said slowly. “You’re right.”

She was still nervous and anxious to boot. Finally, something he could fix. Leaning in, he kissed one inner thigh and then the other, sucking lightly on her skin until she moaned and spread her legs a little more. He did it again, and she gave him even better access with an appreciative sigh.

“So beautiful,” he whispered against her heated flesh, and trailed his tongue over her fingers, getting his first sweet taste of her. “Let me in. Let me have you.”

She did, gasping as he explored her every dip and curve and fold.

Moaning his name, she again fisted her fingers in his hair, holding him to her as if she were afraid he’d stop.

He didn’t. He took her all the way, loving the way she went wild for him, and when she came, it was with a joyous cry and his name on her lips.

Thirteen

When Kate’s world tilted, she opened her eyes. Griffin had risen to his feet, yanked her against him, and headed out of the kitchen, presumably toward her bedroom.

She was still quivering with little aftershocks, but she wasn’t so far gone as not to realize that she was completely na**d and he was not. It felt a little bit naughty, and she bit his earlobe and then sucked it into her mouth, which made her feel even more naughty.

With a low oath, Griffin stopped right where he was—the living room—and dumped her on the couch, following her down. There’d been a few things on it: a stack of bills, a few magazines, her purse. “Ouch,” she said.

“Lift up,” he said, and then with one swipe of his arm, everything hit the floor.

They were laughing when they kissed this time, which took away exactly none of the urgency. “Griffin?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re overdressed.”

He rose and stripped, each movement easy, economical, efficient.

He absolutely stole her breath.

Then he tore open the condom and rolled it on.

Sexiest thing ever.

He came back over the top of her, and being careful with his weight, he slid one of her legs around his waist.

And then, eyes on hers, he slowly pushed inside her. Both of them went still at the exquisite sensation.

He fisted his hands in her hair. “This,” he said against her mouth, moving within her and rocking her world. “This is what I needed.” His voice was thick and gravelly with desire, and he let out the sexiest male groan of approval she’d ever heard. “You under me, Kate. Me buried deep inside you.”

The words were as arousing as his movements—and his movements, good Lord. Reaching up, she kissed and licked whatever she could reach on him, his shoulder, his chest, his throat. His skin was salty, damp, and the taste of him was better than the most decadent of desserts. She couldn’t stop whispering his name; she just couldn’t.

Rocking into her over and over, he stared into her eyes, his own as hot as liquid steel, and she thought maybe he liked the sound of his name on her tongue.

She did. She loved it, loved this, and she tightened her legs around him, her hands searching for handholds in a crazy, tilting, spinning world.

Then he changed the angle of her h*ps and went even deeper, making her gasp, making him groan again, and from one breath to the next, she went a little wild, her h*ps lifting to meet him, her entire body moving with him as he took her to the very edge and held her there. Crying out, she arched against him, lost in him, completely lost in the sweet, hot pleasure.

He was hers.

Hers . . .

At least in that moment he was, and she wanted to remember this, every single second of it, his lips brushing her ear telling her what he was going to do to her next, the weight of him pressing her into the couch, the look in his eyes as he moved inside her . . . “Yes,” she said, to all of it, and his hands slid back up her body again, tangling in her hair as he proceeded to take her right out of herself with shocking familiarity. And then a few seconds later, he gripped her h*ps and pushed into her hard, shuddering in her arms as he followed her over.

* * *

Grif opened his eyes knowing two things. One, it was the middle of the night, and two, something was off. He sat up, and Kate murmured a protest in her sleep. “Shh,” he said with a light stroke down her back. “Go back to sleep.”

And then he slid out of bed and moved down the hall. He’d walked silently through the entire townhouse and was standing in the living room at the glass sliding door when he heard Kate come up behind him.

“Grif?” she asked groggily.

He turned. She’d flipped on a lamp in her bright-as-hell sunshine yellow bedroom, and the light behind her cast her in silhouette. She wore his shirt, some serious bedhead hair, and a confused look.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

When he didn’t answer, she frowned and stepped forward. “Are you . . . armed?” She stared down at the knife he’d taken from her butcher block in the kitchen. “You are,” she breathed. “You’re armed and . . . na**d.”

Christ. He rubbed a hand over his head. “I heard someone.”

Her eyes went big on his. “Here?”

He pointed to her back door. “There’s muddy footprints on your patio.”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she stepped to his side and looked out the door. “Those are from yesterday. Tommy was over here playing in my garden.”

“Those prints are too big for Tommy.”

“He was wearing my dad’s mud boots.”

“Someone followed you here from the woods yesterday, remember?”

She set a hand on his arm, stroking softly. “I just got spooked. It’s okay, Grif.”

He went still then looked down into her eyes. She thought he was experiencing flashbacks or still adjusting to civilian life. Or hell, maybe she thought he was losing it. “Treading lightly for the crazy person?” he asked quietly.

“No,” she said, and kept touching him. “No,” she repeated more firmly when he just cocked a brow. “But this is Sunshine,” she reminded him.

“The door wasn’t locked.”

“I must have forgotten.”

That’s what Kel had told him when he’d called him a moment ago. It’s Sunshine, Grif, go back to bed.

He was well aware that everyone was thinking he was going over the deep end on this, but he didn’t care. He was not losing his mind. Maybe his heart but not his mind. Purposely unlocking his tense jaw, he clicked the lock and gave Kate a pointed look.

She acknowledged it with a nod. “I’ll keep it locked,” she promised.

He tried to shrug off the adrenaline. He wasn’t at war. He was in Idaho. “Always,” he said firmly.

“Always,” she repeated. “It’s very sweet of you to be worried.”

Sweet. She thought he was f**king sweet.

“Come back to bed now,” she whispered, stroking her hand down his chest.

And now she was humoring him. Perfect.

But then her hand drifted even farther south, and he decided that there was something else he was having a hard time shrugging off.

His need for her.

She was right. Time to go back to bed.

* * *