Off Base

Beck strode toward the alley, unable to ignore how poorly lit and deserted it was. Anger and worry trickled through the permanent heat she’d inflicted on him. “I don’t like this. I don’t like you here.” She tugged on his ear with her teeth and his stride faltered. Distracting me. It’s working. For now. He stomped up the staircase, groaning at the way she slid up and down his bulging fly with each step. “While we’re on the subject of things I don’t like, Ke

Her mouth landed on his just as they reached the door. Sweet Lord above. If he’d thought Ke

Ke

“Nah, darlin’. Just you.” He took the single key she offered, turning it in the lock. “You make everything I do feel right. That has nothing to do with experience.” Walking them into the darkened apartment, he kissed her collarbone. “Thinking maybe that’s all to do with Ke

Her legs dropped from around his waist. She turned before he could see her expression, but he knew he’d said too much. Shown his hand too early. When the light came on, there was a line of tension in her shoulders. No. He wouldn’t let her shut him out after they’d come this far. Hadn’t she said he made her ache, too? When she’d taken off her bra, he’d never been more turned on in his life. Would it work in reverse? Figuring he had nothing—except everything—to lose, Beck started unbuttoning his dress shirt. When he’d nearly reached the bottom, Ke

Right before Beck let his shirt drop, he remembered the wound in his side and lifted a hand to hide it. Jesus, if this girl could make him forget the painful shrapnel wound, she could do anything. But he’d never willingly shown it to anyone, and he didn’t want her pity. He wanted her to need him. Needed her lust. Her touch. Anything but pity.

Ke

“I did. Of course I did.” He ran a thumb over her top lip, relieved to see her eyelids flutter. “I wouldn’t send men into a situation where I wouldn’t go myself.”

She traced the edge of his wound with her finger. “You’re a good man, Beck Collier. Some woman is going to snatch you up one day and never let go.”

Something akin to denial speared his chest and spiked his temper. He tipped her chin up and stooped down to bring their faces close. “Don’t talk about me with some other woman when I came here to be inside your body, Ke

A beat passed in the living room where Beck thought he’d gone too far. Showed too early the secret, primitive part of himself he’d worked to suppress. Let more honesty slip out than was acceptable. It all vanished into the racing river of his pulse when she smiled, slow and sensual. “You know, I thought you were all sugar when we met.” She let her tattered shirt slide to the floor, palmed her breasts in a way that nearly brought him to his knees. “But you’re just a little bad underneath the sweet exterior, aren’t you?” She swayed toward him, right into his space. He thought she might kiss him, but she nudged him backward instead, sending him down into a deep-bottomed leather arm chair. “Why don’t we find out exactly how deep the bad goes, Major?”

* * *

Out of self-preservation, Ke

When only her short black skirt remained, she used Beck’s shoulders for balance. She placed her knees on opposite arms of the chair, leaving her center exposed for his perusal, shielded only by a sheer red pair of panties. Beck cursed under his breath, the muscles of his chest and abdomen shifting powerfully, making her even bolder. She took a moment to tease the hem of her skirt before sliding the material over her hips, baring the wispy red thong that barely covered her center. “You want to touch me where I ache, Beck?” She nudged aside the red strip with two fingers, whimpering as they made contact with her sensitive clitoris. Her eyes tried to close at the flood of pleasure when she circled her nub once and pressed down, but she kept them open. On Beck. “Right here, sweetheart?”

“Yes. Christ, yes.”

She slid her hands up to cup her breasts and squeezed, thigh muscles tightening at the delicious quickening in her belly. “I’m all yours.”

Beck shot forward, latching his mouth to her clit, sucking her panties and flesh into his mouth on a thunderous growl. Ke

He pulled back by the barest of inches, his rapid puffs of breath feathering over her flesh. “D-do you like this?”

“Yeskeepgoing.”

“Thank God. Tastes so good.”

Beck made contact again and Ke