Page 103 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

She let her fingers wander.

Across the solid breadth of his chest. Through the rough hair that tapered to a fine line down the center of his stomach where muscle tightened at the lightest pass of her fingertips.

Mmm.

She looked up. Hudson was watching her. His expression gave nothing away, but the muscles beneath her palm had gone taut.

She ran gentle fingertips across the scar below his collarbone—the pale ridge she’d found earlier. Her fingertips moved to the one along his ribs, a neat zigzag beneath her touch.

A body built to survive. And the evidence of how often it had been asked to.

She traced the zigzag, and his breath hitched. So quietly she might have missed it. She rose and pulled his mouth back to hers.

The kiss was slow. Deep. His hand lingered at her waist, moved over her ribs to the curve of her hip. She kissed him deeper and ran her hands down his chest again. She kissed the corner of his mouth, his throat, her lips pressing into the hollow where his pulse beat wild and graceless beneath his skin. She lingered there, loving the kick of it against her tongue.

His hand came to the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair, and the small, involuntary pressure of his grip sent heat curling through her.

Lower.

His collarbone. The sharp ridge of it beneath her lips. The scar below, the one she’d already learned with her fingertips. She found it again with her mouth and pressed a kiss to its center.

Hudson stilled beneath her, every muscle held tight with the effort of not moving.

Sarah lifted her head. She wanted more. The tiny betrayals of a body that had spent years following orders and, under her hands, was beginning to forget how.

Her mouth traced the line of his ribs as her hand moved lower. Across the ridged hardness of his stomach, muscle contracting beneath her palm, down to where his boxers sat low on his hips.

She trailed one fingertip along his waistband, a graze, barely there, then slid her fingers under to where his muscles quivered under her touch.

His groan was low and rough, pulled from somewhere so deep inside him it rumbled against her lips. His hips lifted into her hand, his hands fisting in the sheets.

She kept her hand where it was, loving the hardness of him.

God.

Hudson’s eyes met hers.

His lips parted.

Oh.

There he was.

The fierce warmth spreading through her wasn’t only desire. He was letting her see what nobody else did.

He caught hold of her wrist and pressed his thumb to her pulse point as though he needed to feel the beat of her beneath his skin. Then he released her, pushed his boxers down and kicked them free.

He reached across her toward the nightstand, his weight shifting over her. The quiet rasp of a zipper and a rustle from inside his bag, the small foil square caught between his fingers as he settled back.

He held it between them, his eyes on hers.

Sarah took the packet from his fingers without looking away and tore the foil. She rolled the condom down the length of him. His sharp inhale. The flex of his stomach. His eyes closed for one brief second before finding hers again.

His hand gripped her hip, five points of heat against her skin.

She planted a kiss on his throat. “Come here.”

He hooked his fingers inside the waist of her underwear, his knuckles brushing her hip as he drew the navy lace down her legs and tossed it aside. Cool air touched her skin for barely a second before his warmth replaced it.