His memory had lied to him, because her scent hadn’t been this arousing in his need-soaked dreams. And there had been a lot of those. The real thing? Erotic, sensual, unbelievable.
He laid her carefully on his bed and crawled up the length of her to begin what would be the first of many passes over her body with his lips. She shuddered as he trailed openmouthed kisses along the valley between her breasts.
Hands to her thighs, he shoved the fabric of the little flirty dress she wore, gathering the skirt with his thumbs until he hit her underwear. Nice. Damp. She was going to kill him.
“I need to see you,” he said hoarsely and hooked her panties to draw them off.
Her gaze burned through the air as she watched him, thickening his erection until he could hardly stand how much he needed her. But he had to taste her first, to show her how much he’d missed her in the few short days since they’d parted in Freeport. Show her how so very gorgeous she was and how she’d touched him deep inside with her bravery.
Her thighs parted for him so fluidly, baring her secrets. The first lick exploded on his tongue as she quivered. Groaning, he swiped his tongue against her slit again as she flooded him with her arousal, and it was so flipping hot that he nearly came in his pants.
That would be yet another first. But he had a feeling the firsts might never be exhausted between them, because he definitely wasn’t done giving them to her. He stroked the flat of his tongue over her center. Again. Faster. She cried out, her back arching, and squirmed against his mouth until his tongue was so deep he could taste heaven.
And then she came, squeezing her thighs against his cheeks, and he chaffed his scraggly whiskers hard against her flesh the way she liked but wouldn’t actually say the words. He didn’t care. Nonverbal communication worked for him all day long.
“Kiss me,” she commanded softly, and hell if that wasn’t the sexiest thing ever.
He did, sharing her own taste with her, and she moaned in pleasure, which drove so much lust through his veins he couldn’t wait. Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t do anything but strip her out of that dress and lose his own clothes in what was most likely a gold-medal performance for undressing while simultaneously rolling on a condom.
“Lilah,” he murmured as he slid into place against her body, poised to claim her in a very-much-needed round two. “I’m glad you got on that plane.”
“Me too.” She gasped as he buried himself in her slick passage, widening her thighs to take him deeper, and it was glorious.
This was another first. Making love to a woman he wanted to keep around. Somehow. There was no protocol or regulation for this, for what had happened on that island with her. But it was something he desperately wanted to figure out.
Together, they moved in tandem, and he sucked in a breath at the perfection of how she felt. Her eyes never drifted from his, never broke their locked gazes, and the connection between them grew, twining with the pleasure until it was hard to separate one from the other.
“I have to tell you something really important,” he murmured. Another first. He’d never said this to another woman in his life, but he wanted to honor the bone-deep intuition that she was someone he could trust with the truth. “My name is Theodore.”
One month later
Since she could live anywhere, Lilah moved into Fitz’s apartment in Coronado, and instantly it became theirs simply by virtue of the fact that she was there. He liked that. He did not like the fact that he constantly dreaded the next deployment, but she had a strict policy of two orgasms a night each in anticipation of going without, so it was pretty much a win-win for him. Especially when she gleefully set about figuring out new ways to get him to that second one.
And then he slept all night long tangled in her arms. Best sleep of his life.
Her photographs of the men and women on base made enough rounds that some bigwigs got ahold of them and gave her a long-term gig as a photographer for the navy’s promotional recruiting campaigns. Everyone stayed dressed. That part was nonnegotiable.
He’d finally gotten his mitts on the full-frontal photograph, and holy crap. His girl had talent in the make-a-guy-look-like-a-porn-star category. He should totally burn that, plus her camera, and probably his eyes too, but she loved the picture and kept it in a secret place that she wouldn’t tell him about. Except he knew it was in her lingerie drawer because he’d looked for it. He wasn’t about to let his mom find it by accident the next time she visited.
Which he hoped would be soon. There might be a reason to invite her, plus his dad and about fifty of Fitz and Lilah’s closest friends, to visit, assuming she accepted the ring he’d had burning a hole in his pocket for nearly a week now.