Never Surrender Read Online Free Page A

outward, cupping her hips, pulling her more tightly against him. Now, he groaned. He had to have the control and wait. But her sleek, wet body sliding against his was undoing him.
    Bay eased from his mouth, stepped back and picked up a bar of soap. “My turn...” She lathered the soap between her hands and skimmed her fingers across his scalp. Next, came his hard, weathered face. Gabe rested his hands lightly on her hips, and he closed his eyes. There was such trust between them as Bay gently began to remove the dirt and sweat encrusted in his short, gleaming hair. The dirt dissolved, and she lathered more soap, tracing his deeply lined brow. A brow of a man who thought a lot, said little, but had a mind like a steel trap. Her fingertips moved lightly across his straight, black brows and feathered across his closed eyelids. She felt his hands grip her hips a little more firmly, and she smiled, wanting to give him equal pleasure.
    Gabe gratefully absorbed her healer hands as they washed his face, neck, arms and chest. Every touch was building a fire within him, stoking his need for her until he wasn’t sure he could last beneath her tender foray. As her soapy fingers glided toward his narrow hips, he drew in a sharp breath, clenching his teeth. Her fingers wrapped gently around him, and his entire body locked up on him. Gripping Bay, he hauled her against him. He drowned in her wide blue eyes that were filled with love for him. Her lips were parted, and she licked her lower lip. It was damned near his undoing.
    “Just a little longer,” she pleaded huskily. “You want to be clean, don’t you?”
    He sucked in a ragged breath of air, feeling her clean him slowly, thoroughly. Gabe thought he was going to lose it. Her hands skimmed his hard thighs, sliding down to his knotted calves and finally, his large feet. Every stroking touch of her fingers was healing. At every scar, Bay stopped, kissed it gently and then moved on. Gabe didn’t know whether to cry or scream. No woman had ever loved him with her hands like Bay did.
    The first day Gabe had met Bay, he’d noticed her long narrow hands. Her fingers were tapered and beautiful, nails blunt cut. He remembered thinking how much he’d wanted to feel her touch on him. And when he learned she was a medic, it had made even more sense to him. Healing hands. Loving hands. Compassionate hands that knew...they just knew...and Bay knew he needed this...needed her touch like this. But by every name in his book of life, Gabe couldn’t stop loving her for who she simply was: a very kind, sensitive and caring woman. Who loved him.
    What the hell had he done to deserve Bay? Gabe hadn’t led a stellar life. It had been ugly and dysfunctional throughout his childhood. He knew abuse. He knew a man’s fist, his belt lashing his flesh until it welted and bruised. He’d never known the tender touch, the loving touch that she now shared with him alone.
    Bay watched all the tension drain out of Gabe’s face, out of his hard body. The sexual tension that replaced it was as it should be. She washed herself as he stood beneath the streams of water, soap sloughing off him, his flesh clean and glistening. Gabe looked at her beneath hooded, burning eyes, not making a move toward her. Simply watching her.
    The dark desire was evident in his eyes. And he loved her. She gave him an impish look as she approached him, placing her hands lightly on his powerful shoulders. Leaning up, she whispered in his ear, “I’m ready to swim with the sharks, Frogman....”
    Her smile dazzled his senses as she eased away to see his reaction. “You’re mine,” he rasped, and he began a slow, sensuous path, starting with her mouth.
    Bay leaned into him, the water nestling in nooks and crannies between them, liquid flowing heatedly down her body as he took possession of her mouth. At the same time, he brought her hard against him. His other hand moved toward her breast, cupping it, moving his thumb languidly