Page 64 of Bulletproof

“You should never doubt me. I don’t deserve that,” he muttered as he sat down beside me.

The absence had screwed with my mind. I had no one to blame but myself.

“Do I?”

Did he deserve me doubting him?

“No,” I answered truthfully.

“We’re fine, J. Everything’s fine.”

And it was. I’d just needed reassuring, and that probably made me weak, but that also made me kind of human.

“Could you please stop looking at me, all heartbroken, and come here already?”

Moving fast, I stood, pulled off my T-shirt, then my pajama bottoms, and kicked them both away before scrambling, naked, into his lap. His hands were on my hips, yanking me forward. When I pressed my hardened shaft against his stomach, he groaned, deep and sexy.

“Sam,” I said, my voice cracking, “I missed you so bad.”

His hands framed my face, and I could see in his eyes the love, the joy that touching my skin gave him, the wonder of looking at me.

“Talk to me.”

“I … I’m so sorry. What I did in that club wasn’t right. I just⁠—”

“Oh, no,” I soothed him, leaning forward, tasting him, deepening the kiss after the first one. “Sam …” I rubbed my tongue over his, wriggled in his lap, and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I wanted that. I wanted you. I still do. Let’s go to bed. I wanna be under you, have you deep inside. I need … I’m gonna come, just thinking about it.”

He rose easily to his feet, my weight of no concern at all, holding me with one arm, then the other, dropping his leather motorcycle jacket on the couch, kicking off his boots, letting them stay wherever they fell, and walked me down the hall toward our bedroom.

He pinned me to the bed under him, and his weight on me made me shiver.

“Miss me?”

“You have no idea,” I whispered, my hands digging into his back, feeling the hard muscles, loving the heat of him, the strength.

“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful.”

I loved to hear the hitch in his breath when he was feeling his words as he spoke them.

“And I’m an idiot.”

I kissed his eyes and didn’t contradict him.

“No argument?” He chuckled deeply.

“Sam,” I said, wiggling under him, “take off your clothes.”

“Wait,” he ordered, looking down at my face. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

“For what?”

“This was stupid.”

“What was?”

“Being away from you,” he said as he kissed my forehead. “I thought I needed to do this to secure my spot with the marshals, and I didn’t, and I just … I will never ever leave you again. It doesn’t work for either one of us.”

“But your career and⁠—”