Page 64 of Echoes in the Storm
He can stay. “Thirty, as of two months ago.”
“Huh.” His eyebrows shoot up. “Although, seeing how your mum’s aged, I should have known you’d be older than you appear.” He grins. “Your turn. What about me, smartarse?”
I twist my lips to the side. “Hmm …” He has lines around his eyes, and his skin is tanned, as though he sees a lot of sun. But how much of that came from serving overseas in a dry and arid climate? “Mid-thirties?”
He slams a hand to his chest, hissing air in between his teeth. “She slays me.”
“You dork,” I say on a laugh. “Tell me then.”
“Close. Thirty-two.”
“What’s the big deal?” I tease. “Not as though I said you were forty or anything.”
“Would it matter if I was?” He cocks an eyebrow, walking his fingers from my bellybutton up between my breasts to tap me on the chin.
“No. Not at all.” I smirk. “You’d make a sexy sugar daddy, I reckon.”
The chuckle that rumbles from deep in his chest warms me. It’s the most natural, most beautiful sound.
“I don’t know how I feel about you calling me ‘daddy’, babe. Not really my thing.”
“Oh yeah?” I wriggle my shoulders back into the hood of the car, making my tits pop. “What is?”
His gaze drops to my chest.Bingo.“That’s an intimate conversation you’ve started, Cam.”
I run my hands up his chest, squeezing the muscles in his shoulders. “I do believe we were relatively intimate last night, Duke, so surely it doesn’t matter.”
His lips tilt up in that grin I fell so hard for the first day we met, as he looks at me with hooded eyes. “I guess not.”
“Then tell me,” I dare him. “What’s your thing, soldier?”
“The connection.” His palm skates a lazy path around my neck. “Getting lost in the moment, in the person.”
Damn, it’s hot out here.
“Doesn’t matter how the act is done,” he tells me in a low, husky tone. “As long as I forget where I am, time, everything—that’swhat makes sex good.”
Why the fuck did I start this conversation out in the open?Holy shit.I swallow, fighting as my throat sticks. The way he looks at me right now, as though he could devour me …damn.
“Did you?” I murmur. “Last night?”
“Feel that connection?” he asks as he dips his head to leave hot kisses on my neck.
I arch my back, my eyes closed as he palms my side. “Yeah.”
Duke’s thumb slides along the ridge of my underwire, slow, precise,torturous.“What do you think, Cam?”
“Yes,” I barely manage to breathe out. “Yes, you did.” His bottom lip drags a line from the base of my throat to the point of my chin. “Wedid.”
“Damn straight.” He takes my mouth with his, a hungry, dominant kiss that tells me I’m all his.If only it was enough to make him stay.
“As much as I’d love to repeat last night,” he murmurs, “I’ve got more respect for you than to do it out here.”
I sigh in frustration as he pushes himself off me, lying to the side.
“We should get back before those dark clouds turn nasty,” he says, jerking his chin at the now grey and formidable sky. “Get you ready for your show.”
Have a cold shower, more like.“Yeah. We should.”