Page 70 of Forbidden Protector

"Lost everything today." My mouth finds her collarbone while my hands work her shirt open. "Both of us. Same hour."

A laugh gets out of me, rough, disbelieving. She catches it against my jaw and laughs back, and it is the strangest, best sound either of us has made all week.

"We're a couple of unemployed disasters," she says, breath already unsteady, fingers working my belt like she's got somewhere better to be.

"Speak for yourself. I've got a house."

"Congratulations. You're a disaster with equity."

"Careful. Keep flattering me and I'll start believing it."

"Don't let it go to your head, Blackwater. There's not room in there for both egos tonight."

We get each other's shirts off first, buttons losing the fight, and she pushes me back onto the bed like she's done waiting for permission.

She strips my boots off one at a time, impatient, then works my jeans down, and I let her, hands resting on the mattress, watching her decide exactly how she wants this to go.

She kneels between my legs, deliberate, both hands braced on my thighs, and I look down at her and lose whatever I was about to say.

Her mouth is patient and merciless at once. I have led men through worse country than this without losing composure, and I lose it here in about ninety seconds.

She works the tip slow, tongue swirling, sucking and stroking together. My hand finds her hair without asking permission and she lets it stay there.

"Mackenzie." Her name comes out wrecked. "Keep that up and this is over before it starts."

"Maybe I want it over before it starts." She says it around me, and I feel it more than hear it. "Maybe I want round two to be the one that lasts."

She hums like she means it, and I get two fistfuls of her hair and hold on until the edge gets close enough to taste.

"My turn." I get her up off her knees by the arms, and she comes up laughing, breathless. I don't let her land on her feet. I get an arm under her and lift her clean off the floor, and she weighs nothing at all. I lay her back on the bed like the last careful thing I'm capable of tonight.

I start at her mouth, the taste of me still on her lips. Her throat gets the same slow attention, and her breasts, until she's arching up for more of it, and by the time I reach her belly she's caught enough breath to talk.

"God, that mouth. You're going to kill me before we even get to the good part." Her hips are already shifting under me, restless, chasing more before I've given her anything yet.

"This is the good part." I don't stop moving down her body while I say it. "Been wanting to bury my face in your pussy for days."

Then my mouth is on her and she doesn't get another sentence out.

I take my time, like I told her once I would. Two fingers first, working deeper by degrees while my mouth stays on her clit, patient, reading every catch in her breath the way I'd read a wind flag. Long slow strokes of my tongue mixed into the rhythm of my fingers, until she's panting, rocking against my hand.

"Oh god, Holt." Her hand fists in my hair, holding me right where she needs me. "Please, right there, don't stop."

I don't. Her whole body goes rigid and then boneless, legs trembling against my shoulders, my name breaking apart in her mouth.

"You're so ready for me, baby." I mean every word of it. Her cheeks are flushed, her thighs are wet, and I have wanted a great many things in my life and never once wanted one this much.

"I can't wait another second," I tell her, all gravel. "Not one more."

I dig a fistful out of my jeans pocket and drop them on the nightstand, a loose pile of foil.

"How many is that?"

"Ten. Give or take."

She goes still, then laughs, loud and disbelieving.

"I plan ahead."