Unforgiven by Anne Calhoun Page B

to everything that might cause him to fail. This included all images and thoughts of sex.” His tongue slid into the valley between her breasts, then gently under the scalloped edge of black lace. “For example, ‘this Marine’ didn’t look at porn.”
    The distancing effect heightened the sense of untouchability she found so desperately desirable. “No porn?” she said.
    “We’re not supposed to have it in Muslim countries, but we did,” he said, dark amusement in his voice as he shifted over her. “‘This Marine’ didn’t think about breasts or nipples, either,” he said as he released the front catch, then brushed the fabric off to the sides. He gently squeezed the firm flesh, pursed his lips and blew a soft stream of air over her nipple. Her sex clenched as sensation wicked through her body. “Or about the way your nipples darken as you get aroused.”
    “You didn’t,” she said unsteadily.
    “No. Stay in the moment. Cleaning my rifle, packing for a mission, listening to a briefing, standing watch, running, lifting weights. Never let your mind drift.”
    “You’re very disciplined.” It would have been easy to mistake his fidelity for a lack of sex drive. In fact, it was the opposite. Adam was an intensely sexual man, and just as intensely disciplined.
    A smile she felt as much as saw, then he caught one nipple between his teeth, laved it with his tongue, then pressed it gently between his fingers while he turned his attention to the other nipple. She slid her hand into his hair, her attention divided between the way the lengthening buzz cut flattened under her palm and the hard biceps flexing under her other hand. A particularly firm pinch sent heat streaking along her nerves, and she arched and whimpered.
    “‘This Marine’ didn’t think about sounds. Breathing.”
    One warm hand skated down her breastbone to her abdomen, and indeed, anticipating the move lower made her breath catch. Everything he didn’t think about became the object of her attention, her taut nipples, her shallowing breath, and his responses. The heat and strength of his body, pressed against hers. The way his voice deepened, the words running together as his erection pulsed against her thigh. He gently stroked her flat abdomen with his fingertips, leaving her sensitized nipples to throb in the dark, warm air.
    “Or buttons, or zippers,” he continued as he unfastened her jeans, stroked the swell of her hip above the waistband, then slid his hand inside to work them partway down. “No thinking about curves, either.” He paused, his gaze roaming her disheveled state, then traced a fingertip from her lowest rib along the flare of her hip, to the point where her jeans were stuck, along with the elastic of her panties. He tugged her jeans down her legs and off, leaving her bare to his gaze.
    “I didn’t think about having you naked and spread for me,” he said.
    He was looking in her eyes as he spread her legs, and for a moment Marissa’s heart stopped. Something dangerous and edgy flashed there, and the half smile that quirked the corner of his mouth shaved only the thinnest layer off the palpable tension.
    He’d thought about it. About her. And whoever
this Marine
was, the only man in the room was Adam.
    Still positioned between her legs, he sat back on his heels and pulled his shirt over his head. She sat up, drawn to the finely honed muscles of his shoulders and chest, but he pushed her back to the bed. “I definitely didn’t think about touch,” he said.
    He eased down, the breadth of his shoulders widening her thighs. One hand curved under her leg and over her hip to stroke the soft curls at the top of her mound. With the other he urged her legs to open more. “This was off-limits,” he said. He stroked her folds with his index finger, opened them, but avoided her clit. “The soft, delicate skin, the scent. How vulnerable you are right now.”
    He’d thought about that, too, about how each step in the dance