She thought of how safe she felt with him, and of how unsafe she would feel tomorrow … next week … without him. And nodded. “Teach me.” Teach me to kill if I need to. She glanced past her shoulder as he gently pried the gun away. “I’m a photographer, I should have good aim,” she said.

His brows rose—his smile so utterly charming, she felt it tickle the bottom of her feet. He set the gun aside. “A photographer.”

She shifted on his lap and stroked his hard face with her fingertips, smiling in return. “And why is that amusing, may I ask?”

Her thumb stroked the plump flesh of his bottom lip first, and when his smile faded, she leaned in and kissed him. Kissed him as though that firm, ardent mouth were hers. He clamped a hand on her nape and held her to him, making the kiss longer, drawing it out more. “It’s not,” he rasped. “Amusing. It’s perfect. You always had an eye for spotting beauty in things.”

An eye for him, she was sure, and goodness, her camera would love him. Would capture the strength in his jawline, the striking black of his eyebrows and lashes. She swung more fully to face him and leisurely traced the scars at his ribs. Even those seemed beautiful, poignant somehow, sleek and pale against his sun-kissed skin. “Ever been shot?”

One large hand heavily petted the top of her head, his fingers leisurely untangling her hair. “Not yet.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You sound like you expect to be.”

He smiled a slow, languorous smile, one that said It’s my job.

“And this?” She fingered the longer scar, felt him stir against her at her caress.

Both his hands delved into her hair, fingers stroking her scalp. “Unfortunate encounter when I patrolled. Stab wounds, five of them, punctured a lung, it was hell.”

A string of goose bumps rushed down the length of her arms. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “I wanted it.”

Her eyes widened in outrage. “You wanted it?”

“I was fucked up.”

Touched by his frankness, she ran two fingertips across that mobile mouth as he spoke, her eyes becoming heavy. “Talk to me.” She filled her hands with his taut jaw and leaned closer, inhaled the mist of his breath. “Your voice.” I want to take it in me, wrap it around my body, I want to … to hear.

He was quiet at first, no sound audible in the room but the rustle of the sheets as their bodies adjusted. They snuggled deeper under the covers, her body sliding down the length of his until they touched head to toe.

Then he spoke, his voice a velvet wave, rolling thick and dense across her nerves, sending a melting sensation down her legs. “The first time I saw you, it had been raining. I’d just been admitted and was coming out of the principal’s office, and you were rushing down the hall, trying not to be late.”