Now was not the time, however. She had made that clear.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured as he resettled on top of her.
Her legs accommodated his larger body, stretching wide to give him a place, and he loved the way she penetrated her mouth with her fingers, probing the interior like in her mind, she was playing out how it would feel to have his cock buried deep in her body.
“So are you,” she said. “Beautiful.”
“Really?” He winked at her. “You can tell me more if you want.”
Her laugh was the best sound in all the world. “Fishing for compliments?”
“A male wants to know he pleases his female.”
As she got serious, he wanted to kick himself. But then she whispered, “I wouldn’t mind being yours, you know. If the world were different. If… we were different.”
He studied her face, memorizing, for the hundredth time, what the curve of her cheek was like, and the arch of her brows, and the lashes around her deep-set hazel eyes.
“I’m going to make you mine tonight,” he told her. “And then we’ll see about tomorrow.”
It was the best he could do. And as she just closed her eyes and nodded, he knew she was equally aware that there would be very few tomorrows for them.
Better make the dark hours count, then.
And what do you know, his erection was right where it needed to be—almost. As he rolled his hips, he reached down between their bodies, grabbed his shaft, and stroked himself on her core. In response, she moaned and arched once again. Her arousal scented the air even more thickly with that perfume that got into his brain and altered his chrome-dome’s chemistry, yet even as his blood pounded through his veins, he wasn’t worried about hurting her. He would never—
Balz jerked his head up and looked over his shoulder.
“What is it?” she asked.
As his instincts prickled, he lifted himself away from her, got to his feet, and yanked the duvet across his female.
“What do you hear?” she said while he grabbed the towel and wrapped it around his hips.
From out of the corner of his eye, he watched her stretch out to a little table, open a drawer, and palm a nine millimeter.
Balz looked around the room. The two windows across from the door out into the hall both had privacy curtains drawn. Closet was in the corner with louvers closed. Bathroom was open and dark.
Shit, why hadn’t he brought that duffle in with him?
Because guns weren’t romantic, that was why.
“You got an extra gun?” he asked as he looked at that open doorway.
“Right here.”
There was the sound of the drawer opening for a second time and then a rustling of sheets. When the butt of something cool and heavy hit his palm, he closed his grip on it. There was no reason to look down and see what kind of weapon it was. He didn’t care as long as it pumped out bullets.
“Safety’s off,” she said. “Fully loaded.”
More rustling now, like she was putting her boxers back on.
Double-palming the gun, he pointed it straight out in front of his chest, at the darkened stairwell.
“Stay here,” he said under his breath.
“Not a damn chance.”
“You’re a distraction,” he snapped as he started to walk forward.
“No, I’m another highly trained asset.”
He glanced over his shoulder. She had her back to him and was covering the windows, to make sure that he was defended.
Okay, that was hot. And she was right, she was goddamned useful.
They moved together toward the doorway, and he didn’t have to ask to know that she was also making sure the bathroom was going to have no surprises for him.
He hated that they’d been interrupted. But he wasn’t surprised. Just his fucking luck. He’d had four months of uninterrupted hell with that demon in his sleep—and only what felt like four minutes with the human he wanted like nothing else he’d ever come across. In all his years of sex—in his years of thieving, too—there’d been no female or object more precious than the one…
…who at this very moment was making sure he didn’t get a bullet through the back of his head.
Tiny waists and big tits were all fine and good. But sexy to him was so much more than that. And what do you know, Erika Saunders ticked all his boxes. If they lived through whatever the fuck this was? He was going to swallow the orgasms he gave her like they were wine and fill her up between her legs until he was dry as bone.
But first? Living through this next threat.