Uncharted by Adriana Anders

Chapter 30

Leo had tried just about everything within reason. She’d smoked some things and drunk her fair share. Her thirst for speed made her face incomparable danger—on her bike, in the air, on missions with her teammates by her side. She’d shot at people, taken enemy fire, performed daredevil feats that most wouldn’t consider.

Yet somehow, this was the biggest risk of her life.

Not because she’d put her body in peril, but something else. Something she’d never realized hung in the balance. Leo had desires, like everyone. Bodily needs. A thirst for life. Opinions. She sought thrills and experiences. But usually that was it. Emotions weren’t involved in any of it. And her heart had certainly never been part of the equation before. This new reality scared the hell out of her.

“Where?” Elias asked, the question blasting through the tight, dark space.

“Where what?”

“Where do you want me to kiss you?”

Ooohhh.He was handing that first belly kiss right back to her. Her skin prickled at the possibilities.

Then she got to thinking… Where had she meant when she’d asked for a kiss? On the lips, obviously. But then the question opened things up until—oh hell, the options seemed endless.

That was the thing with this man—he was one big surprise. Unexpected. Abrupt. Unknown. The world was bigger when he was around.

“Where were you thinking?” she breathed, not flirtatious but curious. Dying to know. Out of nowhere, scenarios blasted to life—every inch of her skin screamed to be touched.

One big hand left her back, scattering goose bumps in its wake, and slowly, methodically dragged a fiery path down her spine to the curve of her ass, around to her hip, where it clenched for a split second before moving on. He shifted away just enough to run his fingers between them and down, to stroke the curly hair at her mound.

A startled oh left her mouth, more air than voice, and his hand responded as if they weren’t two beings but separate parts of a whole—two ends of a taut cord. He dipped a single finger between her legs with the slightest, quickest of touches, barely skimming her lips, though it set her off like a tuning fork, its echo shimmering in the dark night.

By the time she caught her breath, his hand had left her soft center to travel up over the round rise of her belly, sinking into her bellybutton—just a swirl—then to her rib cage, where it took in the rise and fall of her breathing. Not breathing, gasps. She was panting and moaning, and when his callused skin reached the underside of her breast—the soft part that had never had this many nerve endings—she grunted. Like an animal.

He cupped her there, held her, as if this spot, this body, this exhausted shell were somehow precious.

She wasn’t precious or fragile, not the way this massive hand made her feel in this tight, warm space. She was tough, hard as nails, fast, furious, and ready to face anything.

It didn’t make sense when his fingers drew a sob from her lips. And they hadn’t even reached her nipple yet, so she couldn’t blame it on hormones or lust or the magic of that hypersensitive place. It was the spot between her breasts that he’d claimed now—a place no one ever noticed during sex. A place that had no nerve endings as far as she knew. And yet, his sandpaper hands showed her otherwise.

I’ll kiss you here,they said. And here. The promise grazed her nipple, drawing a whimper, the sound like nothing she’d uttered before, and then coasted up, up to her collarbone, which he learned as if he’d been meaning to for a while.

A while, she almost laughed at that idea. As if they’d known each other for longer than the time it had taken to get here.

But then that thought deserted her, flew away like a balloon in the air when he cupped her chin, his hand so large it cradled her jaw and her ear and made her feel tiny before his beard brushed her face, and then his mouth did the same, and she was gone.

Drawn into this kiss as quickly as the others, scorched by his intent, consumed by his want—and hers, if she was honest. She’d never wanted a person like this, never craved these sweet, tiny touches.

And he’d barely touched her, barely moved, just brushed those dry lips to hers, giving her the time to move, to take over like she usually did.

But she didn’t. Why would she when giving herself to this man’s slow, tender mastery was every bit as dangerous as jumping off this cliff?

Without consummating the damn kiss, he pulled back, making her grasp at his shoulders like someone dying of thirst, scrabbling for purchase, power, a drop of control. Then he was back. Just his nose, skimming hers, pulling in her scent as surely as she was his, lips following in its path, up, to kiss her eye, then back down, with the slow, calm patience of a man who’d lived alone for a decade. A man with no expectations.

But she wasn’t like that. She craved million-mile-an-hour winds, sought adrenaline like a drug, and jumped from airplanes, all while wishing for more, more, more. Nothing had ever been enough.

He backed up, forcing a muted scream from her throat until his hand wrapped around it, loose but secure, and—oh no, oh no, this was it, what she’d needed all these years. Her sex went heavy, flooded with warmth and wetness, and she wanted to scream at him to move.

This glacier-slow control was the steady bass to her wild treble. It should have been discordant, but it only grounded her, kept her in her body when she’d always sped her way to completion.

“Slow down, Leo. Let me do this my way,” he rumbled, like something older than the earth’s crust.

When she shivered this time, it wasn’t from the cold or even from stimulation, but with recognition. This…him…together. The primitive rightness of this man’s touch was like hydrogen and oxygen coming together to make water. More than the sum of their parts.

***

In this world, there was nothing as soft as Leo Eddowes, nothing half as sweet. The most fearless woman he’d ever met, who faced her own death with humor, whose spine was strong as diamonds, while her brain was just as sharp, had somehow opened up, giving him her soft, tender core.

And he was in absolute awe.

With reverence, he took her mouth, her heat, this emotion filling the air between them and gave her everything he had.

Though, really it wasn’t much. Rough hands, tired muscles, bones that felt worn down to nothing.

With chapped lips, he explored her soft cheek, the straight line of her jaw, the tender skin beneath her ear. The noises she made were incredible. Low and sexy, breathless with wanting.

Wanting him.

And fuck if he wasn’t hard enough to plow through the damn bedrock beneath them.

“Do it, Elias. Kiss me for God’s sake.”

Her words surprised a laugh from him, along with something else—something not quite so bright and sweet. Something feral and animalistic. A bestial desire to make her do things his way.

He threw a leg over hers—startled to realize in an offhand way that Bo had left their nest a while ago—and pinned Leo to the hard ground.

“No,” he whispered right into her ear.

When she tried to move her hands only to find her wrists trapped, her surprise was palpable, vibrating through his chest as surely as her long, thready moan. She reached with her hips, her breasts, tried to bite him with that mouth, and for a few, drawn-out seconds, he could do nothing but shut his eyes and breathe. That or he’d embarrass himself all over her belly.

Which was probably the way this would end anyway, given how long it had been. And how badly he wanted her.

Once he’d gotten as much control as he could on the situation, he let his hungry inner beast take over, let his blood thicken and his pulse slow.

With the speed of lava easing from the earth, her wrists tight in one of his fists, he lowered himself back on top of her, let her feel his heavy erection, and then rose when she tried to kiss him again.

He could get addicted to this power—the power of a strong woman wanting him, showing him, and fighting him just enough to prove it.

“More,” she demanded. “Come on, Elias. Let me feel you… Give me a…”

She opened her legs wide and his body reacted like he’d been electrocuted.

He was the one who grunted this time, the sound punctuated with a quiet “damn” when he encountered all that wetness. The very real possibility of slipping inside her made him go very, very still.

Not because he didn’t want it, but because he needed it so bad.

If he didn’t kiss her again, didn’t get his fill of her taste, then he’d do something irrevocable.

He bent, put his mouth to hers, and lost his ever-loving mind.