Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(39)
Glancing up, she raised an eyebrow in question. It was the facial equivalent of Really? At a time like this?
He frowned. It caused his delicious dimple to deepen, and her silly womb contracted like he’d stroked a finger into her center. She sighed as she realized there was no going back to the woman she’d been before she knew what it was like to be pleasured by Carlos. To have his lips on her lips. To feel his tongue teasing her tongue. To hear him demanding things that both thrilled and titillated her. To know that he—
“It’s the adrenaline,” he whispered.
“Huh?”
“Why I’m still hard,” he explained. “Adrenaline does that to a man’s body. Not that I’m not still terribly excited to have you snuggled tight like this, belleza.” To prove his point, he pulled her closer, rubbing himself against her hip. She could feel the heat of him through his cargo pants. It was enough to make her light-headed. “And as soon as we get out of this godforsaken jungle, I plan to show you exactly—”
He stopped when the elephant made one final attempt to find them with its trunk. Then the sound of snapping twigs and crackling leaves told them the bull had finally decided to move on.
He gently set her aside and peeked around the tree. But the elephant was now firmly planted at the very back of her mind. Because screaming at the front of her brain were Carlos’s words… As soon as we get out of this godforsaken jungle, I plan to show you exactly…
What?
She suspected she knew. He planned to show her exactly what they’d missed out on with the arrival of the elephant.
I have to tell him… Sorry, Dad, but it’s time to come clean.
“Carlos, I need to t—”
“We’re clear.” He turned to her, his dark eyes twinkling, his tan face creased in a wide smile that made his white teeth gleam, even in the shade of the canopy. “You were right!” He chuckled before bending to plant a smacking kiss on her lips. “He got bored and wandered off, eh?” He raked a big hand back through his mop of thick, black hair.
She now knew what it was to feel that hair between her fingers, so warm and sleek and alive. And although that last kiss was swift and platonic, try telling that to her lips. The silly things prickled like they’d been stung by a whole hive of bees.
Do it. Do it, now!
“There’s something that I need to t—”
“By my estimation, there are at least a dozen or so miles between us and the Thai border. Without my gear, and given the rough terrain, it’ll be one hell of a hike.” His eyes narrowed as he glanced at his big black watch, then at treetops overhead, and around at the dense, wet undergrowth. It was obvious by the two vertical creases pinching his eyebrows together that he was busy working through the ins and outs of their trip. “If we make sure to stay hydrated and keep up a steady clip, we might just make it by nightfall. Which would be my preference since the jungle is no place to navigate in the dark. And while there is something romantic about the idea of spending the night with you huddled in a slapdash lean-to”—he winked at her—“believe me when I say, the reality is far from sexy. Besides, staying in the jungle might make it difficult for our extraction team to get to us, and it just might give the militants time to catch up.”
The militants…
How could she have forgotten about them?
Um, probably something to do with Carlos’s kisses. Yep, so those things were hot enough to burn a girl’s brain down to ashes. And she was totally going to claim that as her excuse. Because…you know…militants! Not generally something one filed away under the category of No Big Deal.
“Sorry.” He shook his head. “What were you about to say?”
She swallowed and squared her shoulders, briefly closing her eyes in order to bolster her courage. Frickin’ sticks…here goes…
When she pried open her lids, she did her best to steadily hold his gaze. “There’s something we need to talk about,” she started, then stopped when his face became an instant mask of inscrutability. The change was so sudden, she frowned, tilting her head.
“You regretting what we just did together?” he asked, a muscle ticking in his jaw, the heat in his black eyes having iced over in under a second.
God, yes! Because if he knew what she’d done eight years ago, he would never deign to touch her, let alone kiss and caress her and whisper hot, demanding words in her ear until he made her come. On the other hand, she couldn’t bring herself to lament having allowed herself that one glorious, all-too-brief moment in his arms. Because it would undoubtedly be the only one she ever experienced.
“No,” she told him. “That was…” She swallowed, shaking her head, having no words to describe what it had meant to her. She tried another tack. “I’ll relive that in my dreams a million times over. You were… It was…” Again words failed her, so she simply shrugged, her expression begging him to understand.
That inscrutable mask of his dissolved into a grin. “Sí.” He nodded. “My sentiments exactly.”
And it would be so easy to take a couple of steps forward, go up on tiptoe, reclaim his mouth, and forget about coming clean. “Carlos,” she began, “what I meant to say is how incredibly sorry I am that—”
“Abby,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “Stop apologizing for having to take a leak, sí? When a girl’s got to go, a girl’s got to go. Besides, what’s done is done. And if we have any hope of making it out of this jungle alive, we need to focus on what’s in front of us, like that Thai border, instead of what’s behind us.”