Laura Kaye - Hard As It Gets

“Becca,” he growled. A warning.

The need to have him inundated her. She couldn’t deny it. Didn’t want to. Her mouth came down on his nipple.

The groan that ripped out of his throat shot right between her legs and filled her with an empty ache that begged for relief.

Hands tight on her upper arms, he shoved them apart but didn’t let go. Mouth open, breathing hard, muscles rigid everywhere, he glared down at her with a lethal look that did absolutely nothing to deter her lust.

He ripped off his gloves and threw them to the floor, blazing eyes never leaving hers. And then he was on her.

Hands in her hair, he tilted her head back and devoured her in a kiss. Hot. Hard. Commanding. Her lips fell open on a gasping moan and his tongue slipped between, stroking against her own. He tasted of mint and man and sinful promise, and Becca couldn’t get enough.

The room spinning around her, she grasped at his shoulders—and groaned at the gloves. “Off, off,” she rasped around the edges of the kiss.

Nick pulled back, his face a dark mask of desire. He removed her gloves in about two seconds and tugged her into his chest, holding her tighter than before, kissing her more deeply.

Becca’s hands were immediately in heaven, caressing and grasping at the bunched muscles of his chest, his shoulders, his back. He was hard everywhere, and the strong, aroused feel of him curled heat low in her stomach.

One hand holding her head, his other hand slid down her body and cupped her breast. She moaned as he massaged her through the layers of her clothing, his thumb stroking over and over against the hard nub of her nipple. Her hands found his hair, soft and thick, and grasped and tugged at it as he tormented her with his mouth and fingers.

His hips rocked against her belly, and Becca gasped and shifted against him. Groaning, he dropped the hand from her hair to her ass and urged them more tightly together. Wetness created a maddening need for friction between her legs. God, this was crazy, but she wanted him like she’d never wanted another man. She dragged her fingertips over his chest, slipped her hand between their bodies, and grasped his cock through the denim. Oh, he was a delicious handful. She couldn’t wait—

“Stop.” He pulled back and grasped her wrists.

“Why?” she asked, missing his heat against her.

Chest heaving, he rolled his tongue over his bottom lip, like he was tasting her there. “Because you’re upset and vulnerable. And I shouldn’t take advantage. I won’t.”

“It’s hardly taking advantage if I want it.” And she did. She just wanted to lose herself in his body, his intensity, his strength, for a long while.

His fingers dug into her wrists, just shy of painful. “It’s not a good idea.”

Her gaze dropped to the bulge filling out the left front of his jeans. Jesus, if he straightened himself out, she had a sneaking suspicion the rise of the denim might not cover the whole of him. Her mouth watered. “Looks like a pretty good idea to me.”

“Damnit, woman.” The percussive blast of his curse drew her gaze back to his face. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

“Why? If I don’t want you to—”

“Because I want to make you hold onto that bag while I bury myself in you so hard and so deep you don’t know your own name. But then tomorrow, in the light of day, when your brother’s still missing and we’re still trying to figure out the mystery of who broke into your house, getting fucked by a stranger in a warehouse will be just one more thing you have to deal with. And I won’t do that to you.”

The words absolutely stole her breath. She tugged out of his grip. His words dragged Charlie back to the center of her thoughts, where he should’ve been all along. Guilt sloshed over her arousal and pricked at the backs of her eyes.

“Fine.” She scooped her gloves off the floor and crossed the room to return them to their shelf, then made for the door. “What’s the code to your apartment?”

“Becca,” he called, a note of regret in his voice.

She lifted her gaze to him, and his face was all shadows and hard angles. Harsh, but beautiful. “No, I should thank you. You’re right. The code?”

He braced his hands on his lean hips. “Zero-five-zero-one-two. But Becca—”

“I enjoyed the boxing, Nick. You’re a good teacher.” She pulled open the door and decided to just leave it all out on the floor. With everything he was doing for her, he deserved the truth from her. One last time, she looked his way. “But you should know. You fought beside my father. And you’re helping me when you don’t have to. You don’t feel like a stranger to me.”

Without waiting for his reaction, she stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her.

“Way to fucking go, Rixey.” He blew out a long breath, eyes still glued to the door through which Becca had just departed. “No matter which way you have to march, it’s always uphill. Shit.” He stalked across the room and slammed his gloves down on a shelf.

He thought about going after her but quickly dismissed the idea, because he wasn’t sure he could resist finishing what they’d started.

Watching her punch that bag, her eyes blue diamonds of concentration, her curves moving and flexing under that thin T-shirt, small grunts of exertion spilling from her open lips. It had been about as much as he’d been able to bear. Then, when he’d realized she’d been crying, that she’d literally been beating the emotions out of herself, a surge of protective possessiveness had run through him so swift and potent all he’d known was the need to get her in his arms.

And then she’d kissed him. Licked him. Sucked on his skin.

All those urges he’d had while she’d boxed had grown darker, needier, irresistible. Between his injuries and the ginormous mindfuck he’d been grappling with since his discharge, it had been more than a year since his body had last known the tight pleasure of a woman. And she’d stirred up a freight train of lust he hadn’t been able to hold back.

Jesus, her taste, her heat, the feel of her lush curves in his hands. Sweet fucking perfection.

When her hand had fallen on his cock, the touch had jolted a measure of awareness into his brain. He hadn’t been kidding about what he wanted to do to her. Even now, the mental image of her hanging onto the heavy bag while he took her kept him hard and aching.

But there were too many reasons to shut that shit down before things went balls to the wall, not the least of which was the fact that her father had torn apart his life, killed six of his closest friends, and turned him into a man he barely recognized anymore. A jagged hole of guilt and loss opened up in the center of his chest. Why hadn’t he seen Merritt’s lies sooner? Seen them for what they were? He shook his head and rubbed against the squeezing ache under his sternum. Given who she was, he should stay away from anything physical. Besides, with all the ways he’d failed—himself and his men—he didn’t deserve the comfort of her warmth and light anyway.

Not to mention the fact that after what had been done to the team, he hated lies. And the NDA meant he couldn’t tell Becca the truth. Another good reason to keep his dick in line. He scrubbed his hands roughly over his face.

With a last look around the gym he’d slowly but surely assembled since his return to the real world, Rixey killed the lights, crossed to his place, and made his way to the back of the quiet, still loft to his office. No sense going through the façade of lying down to sleep. The land of nod wasn’t on his current radar, not with how cranked his body was.

He fell heavily into his desk chair and pulled his drawing into his lap. Following from Jeremy’s rough sketch, the half fireman, half soldier tattoo was nearly done, though that didn’t mean he understood why he kept letting his brother talk him into doing this. Part of it was that art had always been the one thing he and Jer had in common. Well, that and video games. That was about where it ended. Only a year separated them, but Rixey had been sports, and his brother had been books. Rixey had been parties and drinking and hell-raising of the usual teenage variety, and Jeremy had been quiet around everyone but his small circle of Goth and punk friends.

But there was more to it, and Rixey knew it. He continued to do these tats and apprentice toward a license he didn’t really want and had no intention of using in the long term because he was fucking floating through life. No purpose. No plan. No mission.

For a dozen years, all he’d worried about was completing the mission and getting everyone home safe. In Afghanistan, his team had done counterinsurgency work, counternarcotics work, which had often been the same thing, and local police force training. It had been challenging, dangerous, and sometimes frustratingly thankless work, but it had given him the sense of purpose in life he’d been lacking as a younger man.

Now? Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up the fastest. He chucked the pad to the desk.

The Army had given him more than just a purpose. It had made him part of something much bigger than himself, placed him in the middle of a brotherhood who understood him implicitly. Nearly a year later, he still mourned the loss of the six good men gunned down in the ambush. Eric Zane, Carlos Escobal, Jake Harlow, Walker Axton, Marcus Rimes, Colin Kemmerer. Their memory was a weight on his shoulders he was privileged to carry. But in not doing more with his life, he wasn’t doing enough to honor their memory. His survival should’ve meant something, shouldn’t it?

You do have a mission, shithead. Keep Becca safe. Find her brother. Get whoever is harassing them to back the fuck off. Maybe that’s why you’re still here.

Fair enough. It was a worthy mission. And if it filled the void for a few days, all the better.

A kind of peace settled over his shoulders—well, as close as he freaking got to anything in the same zip code as peace. And it was enough. Really, it had to be, didn’t it? With a last glance at his soldier-fireman, Rixey pushed up from the chair and made for his bed.

What was on the other side of his soldier identity? Someday soon, he’d have to figure out the fubar of his career and find his own next mission. Wasn’t anybody going to drop that shit in his lap. But, damn, oh stupid thirty in the mothereffing morning was too early to put his brain cells to work on that particular conundrum.

Not even bothering to shed his jeans, Rixey sprawled facedown on the bed, wincing as his jacked-up back reminded him it no longer appreciated that position. He flopped to his side, tugged the sheet up over his hips, and punched the pillow.

Jesus, he was tired.

Knock, knock, knock.

He whipped his head up, alertness crashing through the haze of sleep. Light shone into the room. No way was it morning already. No. Fucking. Way. Felt like he’d fallen asleep about thirty-six seconds ago.

“Building better be on fire,” he groused.

Jeremy leaned into the room, looking a helluva lot more awake and together than Rixey felt. “Becca needs to be to work in forty-five minutes. Her car’s not here?”

Shit. No, it wasn’t. He’d wanted to clear it for any kind of tracking devices before she drove it again. “Okay. Gimme ten.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking her.”

“No,” he said. “I got it.” The door clicked shut behind Jeremy. Rixey pushed out of bed, his back raising hell and his cock hard as steel, and his brain went right to the events of the previous night. Kissing, touching, groping. Sonofabitch. Hopefully, they’d make some major headway on figuring out Becca and Charlie’s situations today. The sooner she was back at her own place and out of his life, the better for both of them.

In the meantime, he’d keep his hands and his dick to himself. It shouldn’t be that fucking hard.

“SORRY I DIDN’T think to ask about your schedule last night,” Nick said in a gravelly voice as he entered the kitchen and went right to the coffeepot. He poured a cup and turned to her, his butt leaning against the counter.

Becca swallowed a bite of cereal. Oh, man, he was as beautiful in the light of day as he was in the shadows of night. He’d clearly showered, and the dampness made his hair darker. His gray T-shirt clung to his skin, wet spots showing through here and there like he hadn’t dried all the way. The gun holster emphasized the bulk of his shoulders.