The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(50)

He’d gotten past it.

Looking down at her now, he recognized a kindred spirit. There had been layers beneath her comments earlier. She’d gone through more shit than just growing up in Elysia. He didn’t miss the two years unaccounted for between her leaving Clear Springs and enrolling in the FBI academy. She’d done what it took to survive. She didn’t have to tell him details for him to know that.

What would it do to him if the military came calling? To walk off the plane into the dry desert heat and know that he was going to a place where an enemy could take the form of anyone, no matter how inconspicuous?

What lengths would he go to escape that reality, even if only for a few hours?

I can’t deny her this.

I can’t deny either one of us.

“I want more from you than just sex.”

Her smile was more than a little bittersweet. “Sex is the only thing on the table.”

For now.

He might not know everything there was to know about Eden Collins, but he knew enough. He wasn’t willing to pass that up without exploring what might lie between them, but he understood her enough to know that if he said that aloud, she’d be gone before he finished his sentence.

Zach kissed her again, drawing her against him, offering the distraction she craved. Reality would be there in a few hours. Right now there was only her and him and how good she felt in his arms.

“Come on.” He led the way out onto the back porch, closing the door between them and the dogs. The night had cooled to just this side of warm, the crisp fall air not doing a damn thing to clear his head. Eden was more intoxicating than the best alcohol, and he wasn’t about to let go of her.

She looked around, raising her eyebrows in question, but he didn’t give her a chance to comment, pulling her down to straddle him on the porch swing he’d installed against the back of the house. Eden glanced over her shoulder to where the woods were shadowed in encroaching darkness. “Anyone could be watching.”

“They’d have a hell of a hike to get out here, and the dogs would bark if they sensed anyone.” He coasted his hands up her sides and back down again. “The fresh air makes it easier to think.”

She laughed softly. “Thinking is not high on my list.” Eden leaned down and captured his mouth, and he wasted no time lacing his fingers through her hair and holding her in place while he explored her thoroughly. If he’d hoped the change of venue would calm his need for her, he was so wrong it wasn’t even funny. She was fire in his blood, a temptation he couldn’t afford, but he didn’t care.

Time lost meaning. There was only her body against his, his tongue stroking hers, his hands on her body. Every time he touched her, she made a desperate little sound that drove him wild.

He couldn’t stop.

He didn’t want to.

Zach pulled her shirt off and dropped it on the bench next to him, and then sat back and just looked at her. Her tattoos traced down her chest, framing her breasts without encroaching on them, and then descended down her ribs to tease her hip bones. He traced a line, a phoenix in the midst of a flame. “You have a lot of ink.”

“Call it compulsion. I couldn’t . . .” She shuddered. “Let’s not talk about this.”

He heard what she didn’t say—she couldn’t stand the thought of the only ink on her body being from Elysia.

He kissed her sternum, and then first one collarbone and then the other. “You’re beautiful.”

“And you talk too much.” She pulled his shirt off, lightly dragging her nails across his chest. The sensation made his cock jump, and from the look in her eyes, she felt it. Eden stopped just north of his jeans. “You’re not going to do the noble thing and try to put a stop to this, are you?”

“You say stop, we stop.”

Once again, the smile she gave him was so bittersweet it made his chest ache. “You are the real thing, Sheriff Owens, white knight extraordinaire.”

He didn’t argue with her, because what was the point? There was nothing wrong with wanting to take care of his people—to take care of her. Eden might not see it that way, but then it was obvious she’d been taking care of herself for her entire life.

She leaned down, her lips brushing his ear. “I’m about to take advantage of you, Zach. So stop thinking so hard and just enjoy it.”

“Hard to do otherwise when you put it like that.” He huffed out a laugh, the sound dying in his throat when she slithered down between his thighs and went for the button of his jeans. “Eden—”

She already had the button undone and his cock free before he could figure out how to finish the sentence. The sight of her on her knees before him, gripping his length with one hand, a wicked amusement in her eyes . . . it flat out did it for him.

And when she took him into her mouth, sucking hard, he was pretty damn sure he’d died and gone to heaven.

Eden was the kind of woman who took no prisoners in life, and apparently that mind-set transferred to sex as well, because she didn’t bother teasing him. She stroked him with one hand while working him with her mouth, using her tongue and lips to drive him to the edge in record time. “Eden.”

“I like the way you say my name.” She licked the underside of his cock, flicking him with her tongue. “Do it again.”

It struck him that he might be on the far side of out of control, but she was fully aware. That won’t do. He hooked the back of her neck and towed her up his body, taking her mouth even as he started on her jeans. Getting them off was impossible, but he settled for pushing them far enough down her hips that he could dip his hand into her panties. She was soaking wet, and she moaned as he slid a finger into her, using the palm of his hand to rub her clit with each stroke.