SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (21 page)

“We had to look harmless,” she said, forcing the words past the huge knot in her throat. “It was necessary.”

“So is this.” Dane pulled her up on her tiptoes—and then he crushed his mouth down on hers.

‡

I
vy moaned as
her mouth opened and Dane’s tongue invaded. Her arms went around his neck and her body arched into his before she realized what she was doing.

But kissing Dane was the best kind of insanity. She’d forgotten how good it was, how the slide of his tongue against hers made her limbs weak and her skin hot. She knew she should push him away, but she was like a woman dying of thirst and Dane was the first drink of water she’d had in ages.

His hands slid down her body, over the fabric of her dress, and then he cupped her ass and brought her in tightly against his groin. He was hard. So big and hard.

Dane turned their bodies then, walked her backward until she hit the plank wall of a building. Then he grasped her thigh, his hand gliding beneath the slit in her dress, and pulled her leg up and around his hip.

Ivy didn’t stop him. She didn’t want to stop him.

“Ivy, fuck, you feel so good,” Dane groaned against her mouth.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned. “Please don’t stop.”

Her nipples were hard points and her skin burned. It was as if someone had held a candle flame too close. She was hot almost to the point of pain, but not quite. Hot and itchy and achy. Parts of her that had been dormant too long flared to life.

Dane’s fingers strayed over her hip, down the curve of her ass, and then between her legs. Right over the tiny thong she’d worn beneath her dress. Ivy gasped as he stroked his fingers back and forth over the hot dampness of her panties.

“You’re so wet,” he groaned. “I need to be in here, Ivy. I need to fill you with my cock and take you hard.”

“
Yes
.”

That was all the encouragement he needed. Dane grasped her thong and tugged it down even while she reached for his belt with trembling fingers. Somehow she got the belt undone, and then Dane unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans before shoving her dress up and cupping her ass in both of his broad hands.

Ivy put her legs around his waist, her mouth crushing down on his, her heart pounding hard and strong as his cock slid against the wet seam of her sex. This was every hot fantasy she’d ever had, every bittersweet memory of the months she’d spent with Dane.

But she couldn’t stop. It was almost as if she needed one last time with him to get him out of her system. As if the way they’d parted over four years ago needed an epilogue to complete it.

Warning bells echoed in her head, but her body told her brain to get lost. Thoughts weren’t welcome at this particular party.

The head of his cock slipped between the slick lips of her pussy. Ivy moaned deep in her throat, and Dane flexed his hips and pushed deeper still, holding her hard against the wall as he entered her fully.

She was caught between Dane and an uneven surface that pressed into her back almost uncomfortably.

She didn’t care.

Dane held her ass and started to move, his thrusts hard and sure. Their mouths fused together, and their breaths came out in pants and grunts.

Ivy put her hands on his jaw, held him while she kissed him with all the passion and pain she’d been holding in for so long. This was bliss. Heaven. Everything she’d ever wanted when they’d been together.

Everything she’d missed since they’d divorced.

Dane’s fingers dug into her ass. Ivy tightened her legs around him, shifting her hips so that her clit rode against the base of his cock. Fire streaked through her body, into her blood and bones, twisting and turning in her belly, tightening everything around the physical connection between her and Dane.

She tore her mouth from his as the pleasure spiraled out of control like the turning of a spring. Everything grew impossibly tight as he fucked her harder. It was too fast, too intense—and there was no stopping it.

The stubble of his jaw scraped against her as he put his mouth to her ear and nibbled on her earlobe. “You’re amazing, Ivy. So hot and beautiful. Missed you. Missed this.”

“Yes… Dane, Dane—oh, damn.”

She plunged over the edge with a sharp cry as her body splintered apart on wave after wave of body-tingling pleasure. Dane captured her mouth to smother the sounds she made, but she honestly didn’t care who heard her right this second. She was beyond caring.

Dane’s breath came faster as he pumped into her—and then he pulled away at the last second, spilling himself on the ground with a groan.

Their breathing was harsh in the stillness of the alley. Slowly, Ivy’s senses came back to her—and embarrassment was key among them, as she’d known it would be. She looked around the alley with wild eyes, worried someone was watching them, but no one was there.

Dane set her down, the warmth of his body leaving hers as he stepped back and fixed his jeans. When he looked up at her, it was with shuttered eyes. Her heart twisted to see such naked regret on his face.

“I’m sorry.”

Ivy swallowed. She pushed away from the wall and straightened her dress. Her legs were weak and her body still tingled from the incredible orgasm. She hadn’t come like that in a very long time, and a part of her didn’t regret it at all.

But anger kindled in her belly, a slow blaze that warmed her from the inside out.

“Don’t apologize,” she snapped. “It makes me feel like I forced you into something against your will.”

He blinked. “That’s an odd way to feel if I’m the one apologizing, isn’t it?”

“No, not when you say you’re sorry like someone made you do the worst thing imaginable. Fucking your ex-wife… what is the world coming to?”

“That’s not what I meant.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I meant that I’m sorry for pushing you, for not being able to control myself—and for not protecting you in all the ways I’m supposed to protect you.”

Ivy had to think about that for a second. She got the part where he felt responsible for her safety—and then she sucked in a deep breath and huffed it out again when she understood the other part. “I’m still on the pill. It’s fine.”

He nodded, but he stood there like a kid who’d been caught in the cookie jar. He looked… chastened. And maybe a little angry.

Ivy couldn’t look at him another moment. She spun on her heel and started up the alley. Tears blurred her vision, but she dashed them away and kept going.

Dane caught her arm and forced her to stop.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t walk away like it was nothing.”

She spun and glared at him. “I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t nothing. But it wasn’t anything either. It can’t be.”

He snorted. “Because if we know anything, it’s how to take good sex and fuck it up beyond repair.”

Her heart ached. “Is that all it was between us?”

He lifted his head and looked into the distance. His jaw was tight. “You know better than that. You meant the world to me, Ivy. I thought I meant the world to you.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You did.” The words came out as a whisper, but he heard them.

He shook his head. “No, it’s too late for that, babe. If it had been true, you wouldn’t have let me go.”

“How was I supposed to stop you, Dane?” she cried. “I’d given you everything, and it wasn’t enough.
I
wasn’t enough.”

‡

S
he stood there
with a world of pain in her eyes, and Dane felt like something was breaking inside him. He didn’t know what it was, but it hurt, which was surprising considering he’d thought his days of hurting over this woman were finished.

Apparently he’d been wrong. She still had the ability to gut him with her words—and he still had no idea how to fix it.

He wanted to say more. He searched his head for the words, but nothing would come. He knew from experience that there was no way to fix this. It wasn’t as simple as a few words, a new understanding. It was complex and had deep roots that he’d never been able to dislodge.

“It’s late. We should get a taxi,” he said.

Ivy didn’t look at him, and his heart kicked with fresh pain.
Tell her she was enough for you, idiot.

But he couldn’t seem to do it. The words would sound hollow and she would know it. No matter how much he meant them, she wouldn’t believe.

Dane flagged a taxi on the main street and helped Ivy inside. Rather than shut the door and go around, he made her scoot over. He wasn’t taking any chances with leaving her alone and walking around to the other side, even though no one had followed them from the dock. He’d already fucked up enough tonight, and he had to get his head back in the game.

The ride to the resort didn’t take long. They didn’t speak along the way. Ivy turned her head and looked out the window, shutting him out. Dane clenched his hand into a fist and rhythmically thumped his leg.

This whole evening was a clusterfuck. What had he been thinking anyway? Taking her like that in an alley where anyone could stumble upon them? Where they could have been caught unaware by an assailant?

He hadn’t done the best job of protecting her then, had he?

All he’d meant to do was kiss her, but he should have known it wouldn’t end there. It couldn’t. When he and Ivy touched, the world faded. It had always been that way. He’d have thought he knew better by now, but in truth he was still pretty stunned that all he had to do was touch her and he lost his head.

He’d thought he had it under control in the bar. He’d touched and teased because he could, because he’d wanted to make her acknowledge there was still heat between them. He’d told her they were like a fireworks factory, but he’d known the whole time that he had control of the matches.

Huh, some control. He’d gotten just as burned as she had. And he’d forgotten everything while he’d done it—her safety, the mission, his career.

He paid the driver and they got out at the resort’s main building. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, but there were still people at the open-air bar. Dane put his hand on the small of Ivy’s back and steered her down the path toward their bungalow. He didn’t miss the way she flinched when his fingertips grazed her.

He scanned their surroundings, but nothing was out of place. When they reached the bungalow, he went in first and did his check, then retrieved her from the porch. She looked annoyed, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he’d made her stand outside or because of everything that had happened in the alley.

He didn’t know how to fix that, but he knew he couldn’t keep avoiding it.

He stood with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets and watched her. She set her purse down and finally looked up at him.

Her green eyes drew him in like always. He’d never been so affected by a woman in his life as he had Ivy.

“Say something, Ivy.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what to say to you anymore.”

“Did you ever regret what happened between us and wish it had been different?”

He thought she might not answer, but then she tipped her chin up. “All the time. I threw myself into work, hoping it would ease the ache of your being gone. And it did, after a time.”

He blew out a breath. “Did you really think I wanted to join the SEALs because you weren’t enough for me? That I was trying to get away from you?”

Her head bowed as she fiddled with the neckline of her dress, straightening it even though it didn’t need to be. “I was prepared for you to join the Navy. You’d told me that was your plan. And yes, that terrified me because my father was in the Navy and he got addicted to being at sea. But the SEALs…”

She closed her eyes for a moment. When she looked at him again, her eyes glittered. It took him a moment to realize those were tears.

“I knew I would lose you to the adrenaline rush of being a SEAL. I wasn’t wrong.”

“That’s not how it happened,” he growled in frustration. “You gave me an ultimatum.”

“And you chose the SEALs over me.”

He swore. Explosively. “Do you really think ultimatums are how relationships work, Ivy? Or should work? What if I’d said it was me or the DEA? What then?”