Deploy, Part One (Rawlings #1)(18)

When she heard him open his bag, she was sure the storm, which she heard building, had broken the moment. He’d found the will to do what she was too weak to do, shut this heartache down before it became any more tragic.

Seconds later she heard him move in the dark, his jeans rustled, and then his hands cupped the back of her knees, spreading them. At the same second she felt his kiss land at the base of her belly, his hands slid up grasping her panties and pulling them down with one swift motion.

Her body was like a live wire. The utter darkness of the room, the lack of one sense, was causing her to notice every touch all the more intensely.

She yelled out when his tongue lowered and flicked across the rosebud of nerves nestled in the blazing heat of her.

Her hips bucked up but his grip held her in place as he kissed her, once, twice more. Justice couldn’t describe what her body was going through, all she knew was everything inside felt like it was building toward one point and she didn’t know what it was, all she could do was whisper his name, begging him to stop, and to never stop at the same time.

When his kiss moved to her navel the rush didn’t stop building—if anything the ravenous hunger deep inside her grew. Right as his kiss landed at the base of her ribs, then slid up and all but inhaled her taut nipple, his fingertips slipped between her folds, gliding up and down and provoking any edge of control she could dare to have. Then the rush came, and saying his name was all she could manage to do for a few precious seconds as her body trembled with ecstasy.

All at once she was alight with even more hunger. Her hands rushed over him as she leaned up so she could reach him. Right when she grasped the hard length of him she felt the cold slick plastic of his condom and her heart skipped a beat when she realized how real this was.

“Careful,” he whispered, moving her hand then spreading her knees even further apart.

Justice drew in a deep breath when she felt the crown of him at her entrance. In the next beat she was certain he had sliced her body in half. His thrust was sharp, quick, and deep.

Against her neck he let out a growl across a sharp breath. “What the hell, Justice?” he said in a strained breath.

“One second,” she panted as she blocked out the pain and her brain strained to pull her back into reality. He was inside. They were one. He was now immortalized in her memory.

It was killing him to stay still, but he lifted his head then his fingertips moved across the side her face. In the darkness his gaze was searching wildly over her, trying to understand how this girl was untouched before this moment. It didn’t calculate, especially with the way she moved under his touch, how vocal she had been—how claiming her touch was.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” he asked, on a breath, having no choice but to move. Under the tips of his fingers he felt her wince, and because she did it was killing him. His mind could not deal with hurting her in any way.

“What?” she panted.

“I’m your first,” he bit out.

“You’re all my firsts,” she said, growing brave and moving her hands down his back as she lifted her hips. Her lips stole a kiss before she spoke more. “You’d be the only one I’d never regret.”

Slowly he rocked into her. Her words made him tremble and he had no idea why. His hand moved down her side, then up again and across her chest. When she started to move against him it was all he could do to stay tender. In an effort to do so, he pulled her against him then rolled to his back, only managing to barely slip out.

His hands gripped her hips and slid her down on him. They both cried out across a panting breath, but in a beat she was moving again with him and the feel of her hips in his hands, the wave of her body was more than enough for him to find his release. He eased upright as he felt it coming and claimed her kiss. Feeling her hunger, tasting her sweetness, moving his lips with hers like they were made only for each other caused his heart to thunder and dizzying sensation that seemed to sweep him into another world with her.

Seconds later, he lifted her from him but he never let her go. He pulled her against him, and skin-to-skin, as the wind whistled through the vents and the thunder roared—and the pressure in the air built—he swayed her, holding her as tightly as if they were in the eye of the storm. For all he knew, they were.

It was the same for him...she’d be he only girl he’d never regret holding. The only one who knew this side of him.





Six


The power was never coming back on, not that Declan cared one way or the other. He held Justice tighter as it sounding like the earth was crumbling all around them, not because of the storm outside, but the one inside. He didn’t know how to feel, really feel, so when he did he certainly didn’t know how to react to it.

Declan knew what she gave him was precious and could never be undone. The knowledge just made everything else all the heavier. Even if he weren’t leaving, the two of them together would be hard.

He didn’t want her to leave his sight, but she insisted. She took a flashlight and her clothes and vanished up the hall, toward the showers. Declan had dressed, packed the bag up again, thrown away a few towels, and threw the others in the pile to be washed. And now he was pacing in the hall under the red glow of the emergency lights, only halfway listening to the radio, the damage that was being reported, the waning warnings.

He’d propped the double doors to the hall open and watched like a predator in the darkness. He’d heard the water cut off forever ago, but still stayed away. His mind was cruel. Declan imagined her breathlessly crying, regretting every second with him. And then he told himself it that was true—it was best.