Midnight Man (Midnight #1)(40)

A good soldier visualized, running what he wanted to do through his head until he could see and feel the moves, until the moves were second nature, running a successful future battle through his mind so many times that by the time the real thing rolled around, the op went down smooth as ice.

John was damned good at visualizing, at projecting himself forward in time to an op, going over the details again and again. It wasn’t something he could turn off, just like he couldn't turn off his ability to prepare for future danger or countering danger when he met it.

Right now he was visualizing like crazy. Visualizing doing all the things to her he hadn’t had time to do the other night because he’d been nearly half-crazy with lust. Not that he wasn’t in the same state right now. There had to be some point in the future in which he was going to be able to make love to Suzanne Barron instead of fucking her blind. When he'd had her enough times to assuage this burning hunger, when he’d come inside her often enough that he could savor the feel of her instead of craving it…then maybe he’d settle down some.

Maybe.

But he’d already been too rough the other night and that was without post-fight adrenaline raging through his system. Now he suspected he’d hurt her. Enter her too quickly, thrust too hard, Jesus maybe even bite her.

That thought made him back down a little.

Some women liked rough sex. John knew that for a fact and he’d had his share of them. Women who bit and scratched, who didn’t mind being sore afterwards. Who got off on barely controlled violence.

That wasn’t Suzanne. She’d been shocked the other night at the roughness, though maybe she’d been shocked at her reaction, too. And what a reaction. He remembered every ripple of her sheath contracting sharply around him. Her excited pants, the dilated pupils.

No, he might have made her come, explosively even, but rough sex wasn’t her thing.

And right now he wasn’t capable of anything but rough sex.

He wasn’t the only one coming down off an adrenaline high. She’d shown clear signs of it with the desperate, frantic apologies and the crying. She didn’t have the right equipment for a hard-on, but tears bled out stress, too.

He looked down at her in his arms, a tear still drying on that high perfect cheekbone, crystal over purest white marble.

Jesus but the woman was gorgeous. She’d been enticing when they’d met, and he’d been blown away by the sleekly beautiful confident woman—successful, completely together—across the desk. But the woman in his arms, now—bedraggled, without makeup, eyes swollen with tears—that woman was a heartbreaker. He wanted her, every way there was.

He rose with her in his arms and curved down to put her in the bed. She barely stirred when he tucked her in and he stood for a long moment, watching her sleep. Feeling things shifting inside him, things he had no words for. The only thing he remotely recognized amongst the thousand emotions rolling inside himself was lust. He had a steel hard-on and he headed, relieved, for the bathroom because at least he knew what to do about that.

He had no frigging clue what to do about his heart but he knew exactly what to do about his dick.

Luckily he kept spare clothes up here in his mountain hideaway. He’d bought the place his second week in Portland. Just a shack with a big, insulated cellar, which was the main reason he’d got it.

He’d decorated it in exactly one extremely painful and clueless hour at the closest Wal-Mart, choosing the first pieces of furniture he’d come across, not knowing what the hell he was doing, and having three beers afterwards to calm his nerves.

He stripped, leaving his clothes with their funk of the sweat of battle on the floor and got under the shower. The water was only luke-warm but that was okay. He should have a cold shower, actually, but he was suffering enough as it was.

Here he was, naked and raring to go, Suzanne Barron was in his bed not ten feet from here and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. If that wasn’t torture, he didn’t know what was.

He dropped his hand to his groin, and remembered.

She had a little chocolate beauty spot right next to her ear. He’d licked it as he was taking her. Then he’d licked her ear and she moaned and it had been as if he’d had another gear and she’d kicked it. He’d almost doubled the speed of his strokes before the moan had finished its echo.

His heart pounded and his hand worked as he remembered every inch of her, the taste of her nipples, her tongue against his, the soft ash-brown pubic hair covering her mound. He’d done her so hard that if she shaved there as some women did, his trousers would have abraded the skin.

His fist was working hard and fast now, pumping, as he remembered her tightness, how her breath had exploded in a little puff with each thrust, how somehow halfway through she’d managed to open her legs even wider for him, how he’d clutched her perfect ass, trying to pull her closer to him, even as he was pounding into her so hard it was a miracle the wall held.

She’d screamed, her voice muffled by his coat, as she came. As John remembered in exquisite detail how he’d fucked her through her climax before exploding himself, he could feel the prickles in the backs of his legs, rising up through his spine. His dick swelled and he leaned one-handedly against the wall, weak-kneed and breathless, as he came in one long endless spurt.

He stayed under the shower for a long time, leaning against his hand, head bowed under the now-cold water thinking—I’m in deep shit.