His mouth came down on hers, his tongue tasting her deeply, drawing in her sweet honey flavor. There was a desperation to his kiss, a need to get to that familiar place where there was only pleasure and escape. Blake skimmed a path up her slender waist, over her high, full breasts, and she rewarded him with a sexy half moan, half pant, that thickened his cock and set his blood on fire. Burning up, urgently wanting to be inside her, Blake shoved off the bed, shackled her legs and dragged her to the edge.

Wasting no time, giving her no chance to argue or challenge him, he undressed her. The sooner she was naked, the sooner he could feel pleasure and escape, not pain and the other things she stirred inside him that he refused to name. And still, with every touch, with every brush of their eyes, more than sex stirred in the air, in his body. In his chest.

He undressed, and disposed of his gun on the nightstand, and while it could protect them from enemies, he wasn’t sure who would protect him from Kara. She’d seduced him into every emotion he’d never wanted to feel again and he was desperate to gain back the control she’d stolen. His knees hit the mattress and he lay down, pulling her to her side, her back to his front, his body cradling hers. He didn’t want to look into her eyes, determined to make this just sex, two people surviving a small piece of hell. He nipped her ear. “Are you ready for me?” he asked, sliding fingers in the wet heat of her sex that told him her arousal matched his.

She made a soft sound of pleasure, and then challenged him. “I’m ready, Blake. The question is, are you?”

His cock thickened with her response, and he pressed against her, inside the tightness of her sex, his hand flattening on her stomach, angling her body as he buried himself deep inside her. “Do I feel ready?”

“Just know this,” she whispered, arching into him. “Wherever you’re trying to escape to, Blake, I’m here. I’m with you.”

He stilled with her words, their content shaking him to the core. Blake buried his head in her neck. She was with him. He wanted her with him. He shouldn’t. He couldn’t. He did. He was falling for this woman, and he could almost feel her carving away at his anger and pain, could almost feel the raw, aching parts of himself being exposed. Could almost imagine Alvarez using those weaknesses to slaughter him, and everyone he cared about, including Kara. “You’re going to get us both killed.”

“I’m going to keep you alive.”