A couple of quick swipes with his talented hands left her naked and barely standing on wobbly legs. Tyler swung her into his muscled arms then gently lowered her to the waiting bed. She grumbled when the soft expensive sheets chilled her heated flesh, but soon settled into a happy cocoon when the blanket was pulled over her shoulders.
"Be right back, Lexie." A soft kiss pressed against her lips. "Then we are going to talk, baby."
"Mmm," she mumbled back, not in the least bit worried about his unspoken threat. The man was a teddy bear underneath all that bravado. Well, a teddy bear hung like a horse.
The absurd thought made her snort with suppressed laughter until sleep swept up and pulled her under.
Chapter Five
Jagger stared down at the woman sleeping in his arms and wondered why the hell he wasn't running for the door. Dagger's text woke him up a few hours ago and not knowing how to respond, he simply tossed the phone down. The damn bastard wanted details to ensure his teammate didn’t need extraction.
He reminded himself to land a couple of punches on Trip’s way too pretty face. His partner in crime must have spilled the beans as soon as he saw the rest of the team.
A quick glance back at the phone assured him it was still on. Though he would have loved to shut the damn thing off and retreat into a world built for two, Jagger knew a call could come in any minute, sending him back into action. Most days, he loved the thrill of the unknown, never knowing where he'd end up or even how the team would get there.
The older he got, the less glamorous and adventurous the mission's grew. Maybe his mom was right, and it really was time to think of his future. Oh, he'd always be a Navy man, but sneaking into places under the cover of night where one mistake could cost him his life lost appeal after a while.
Or maybe Lexa had woken the desire for hearth and home in him. Long locks of silky sable hair trailed across his chest while soft breaths tickled the sensitive skin of his neck. Could he really be thinking of a tomorrow with this woman? The girl he'd thought of as a pseudo sister most of his life? There sure as hell had been nothing fraternal about stuffing her full of his cock last night and three more times before he left her to sleep.
They'd never had the talk he'd insisted upon, but Lexa looked so sweet and tired Jagger chose to let her sleep since he caused her to lose so much of it. Part of him wanted to apologize, but the idiot alpha male in him wanted to pound his chest and preen in pride. His woman was exhausted because he'd made her so.
Now, as sunlight spilled through the small crack in the curtains, Jagger wondered how he could convince the love of his life to give him—give them—a shot. He knew most marriages within the Teams didn't make it. Mostly due to the women being blinded to the realities of real life with a SEAL. Lexa wasn't like that. She knew and understood him in a way most females never would.
He shouldn’t know that, not after spending so little time with her, but every moment they spend together combined with her understanding looks led to a rock solid conviction in his gut. Lexa saw past his SEALs label into the man he was beyond his military service. Granted, he’d be a SEAL until the day he died, but Jagger sure as fuck didn’t want a woman with him just because she liked the idea of fucking a military man with his kind of training.
This woman, his woman, saw Tyler the man first and Jagger the solider second. He’d found exactly what he’d never known he’d been searching for. And now he was terrified of losing her. He may not have recognized her at first, but his gut told him exactly who she was to him and what she’d mean to his future.
"If you think any harder you're brains going to explode and leak out your ears." Her husky low morning voice caused his half-hard shaft to rapidly rise. Jagger desperately wanted to shake some sense into his damn dick, but doubted a stern talking to would render any different results. More than likely, he'd end up jacking off like a horny hormone-ridden teenager.
Shoving thoughts of his rogue cock into the back of his mind, he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. Damn, she smelled so sweet, a combination of sex, woman, and him. He loved his scent covering her, marking her like a damn knuckle-dragging caveman would, except, in this instance, it was his cock not his knuckles dragging the ground, or so the picture went in his mind.
"You sleep okay?" Jagger managed to clear his through enough to ask.
"Mmmhmm, very good. What about you?" She stretched her rounded curves until the sheet dropped below her rosy full breasts and all the blood drained straight south of his border. The tenting sheet proved his lack of immunity to her voluptuous charms.
"I may be brain dead by the time we leave this room. All my blood seems to head in one direction whenever you're around." As confessions went, he didn't think his sounded too apologetic, but how could he when presented with such eye candy?