Unforgiven Read Online Free

no now.
    He stepped closer. At the movement she turned to lean against the countertop, a slight, challenging lift to her eyebrow. Another step and he braced both hands on either side of her hips, bringing their gazes level.
    “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be,” he rasped.
    Seconds ticked past as the voices just outside the kitchen filtered into his consciousness . . . an earnest discussion about the supper menu . . . then he kissed Marissa Brooks.
    The voices faded away. She tasted like whiskey, or maybe he did, but the slow slide of her tongue against his mixed with the bite of the whiskey and sent heat coursing along his nerves to pool in his balls. His cock thickened, straining urgently against the zipper of his cargo pants.
    Her hands braced against his ribs and pushed. “You think we can just pick up exactly where we left off,” she said, still husky but now unsteady.
    “Pick up and keep going,” he said bluntly. Not very romantic, but this wasn’t about romance. This was just old embers, coaxed back to life by a fifteen-month deployment, fueled by alcohol. Nothing more.
    Still looking up at him, she bit her lower lip, ran her tongue over the sore spot, as if tasting them together, considering the implications with a caution she’d never shown when they were eighteen. Then she lifted her hand to his nape, fingers toying with the bristly edges of his buzzed hair, then tightening to bring his mouth back to hers.
    A nuclear chain reaction of chemistry exploded between them, and suddenly all he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears. The soft, pleading noise she made vibrated under his hand, splayed against her exposed throat. He stepped into her body, felt the taut muscles of her belly tighten, then relax, against the pressure.
    The first sign of yielding shot through him, and he gripped her ass, pulling her against him, working her skirt up enough to get his knee between hers. But her hands flattened against his chest and pushed, breaking the kiss. “We can’t do this here,” she whispered. “We’re in the kitchen. Your ex-fiancée is in the next room!”
    He hauled open the door to the pantry, gripped her upper arm and dragged her inside, then closed the door, plunging them into blackness. The only light in the tiny, windowless space slipped under the door, and in a moment his eyes adjusted to see mostly empty shelves lining three walls.
    “This is the pantry,” she said, amusement clear in her voice. “The door to my apartment is the next one.”
    He knew that. It took more than three shots in ten minutes to disorient a US Marine. He found her by feel, hands outstretched, skimming the rough shelving until he encountered warm, bare skin. The hollow of her throat, then with both hands he followed the tendon in her neck to her pulse, then to the line of her jaw. He cupped her jaw and aligned his body with hers as he bent his head and kissed her. The inability to see heightened everything, the scent of her hair, the soft, wet sounds their mouths made as the kiss deepened into ravishing. Her breasts against his chest, her hands slowly fisting in his shirt. So slowly he couldn’t tell if she was distracted or savoring sensations, she tugged his shirt free from his pants, and then her hands were on the bare skin of his waist. One hand slid around to the base of his spine, and her thumb stroked over his vertebrae, the motion exactly copying what she’d done during their first kiss. The difference was that before, her hand remained outside of his jeans.
    Now her fingers flattened at the top of his ass. He growled low in his throat, and found the ties holding up her halter top. A quick jerk, then he dragged his hand down her breastbone. The fabric dropped to her waist, baring her breasts to his hands, then his mouth. She quivered when he used the edge of his teeth on her nipple, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Even in the dark he could see white teeth set into her lush, red lower